The One About “I Would Do Anything”

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Have you ever had a big project or a big goal or a big ambition, and you’ve told yourself I will do anything to make this happen? The reality is you wouldn’t, and that’s a problem, but not necessarily for the reasons that you’re thinking. That’s what we’re gonna explore in this episode of the Keith Lee Will Normal radio show.

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Hello. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It’s great to

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have you here. Thank

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you for joining me for a solo episode where we’re gonna explore why it’s a problem when you tell yourself you would do anything

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to achieve your goal. We’re gonna explore why that is a problem and

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what you can do about it. Before we dive in, please do remember, give us a like, a comment, a share, and subscribe. It all helps to, to spread the spread the word of the of the show and to get it into the hands of more people. So let’s take a look. I am sure there have been times where you’ve had a project, you’ve had a goal, you’ve had an ambition, whatever, whatever, and there are great things to have. And I’m sure there would have been a time where you have said, I will do anything to make this happen. I will do whatever it takes. This is so important to me.

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I will do whatever it takes.

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I will do anything to achieve this. You’ve probably said that. Right? Or, if you haven’t, you’ve known people who’ve said that. Yeah? Problem is, you wouldn’t, and that’s a problem, but not for the reasons you’re thinking. I’m gonna explain it. What do I mean by you wouldn’t do anything? Well, okay. Imagine there is something and that you would do anything to make it happen. Okay?

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Would you commit murder if that was the only way to achieve your goal? Would you commit murder? Would you be prepared to do that?

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Clearly, the answer is no.

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At least, it’s it’s funny. I hope the answer is no. No. You wouldn’t you wouldn’t commit murder in order to achieve what you were seeking to achieve. Right? If you wanted to be the the the best

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in whatever field, you wouldn’t murder the person who was ahead of you in order that you become the best. You wouldn’t do that. Right? So, already, we can see that when you say, I would do anything to achieve this, the reality is you wouldn’t. Now, obviously, no is an extreme thing. So, yeah,

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it goes without saying, I would do anything. Obviously, I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t commit murder. Right? I would do anything for this goal, but I won’t do that.

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There’s something. There is a serious point here. Obviously, you’re not gonna commit murder. But you said you would do anything, and here’s something you would do, so clearly, when you say I would do anything, you are, in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, lying. And worst of

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all, you are lying to yourself. You’re lying to the most important person, I. E. Yourself. You’ve started off this project with a lie. I would do anything. No. You wouldn’t.

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No. Obviously, you’re not meant

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to commit murder, but what else wouldn’t you do? Okay. Okay. I get it, Keith. Right. I would do anything except break the law. Obviously, I’m not gonna break the law, but I will do anything else.

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You see, obviously, you wouldn’t break the law. There are various, sometimes arcane laws out there, which which you break every day without thinking. I would do anything except break the law.

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Sometimes that’s what’s needed. Imagine if, Rosa Parks had decided she wasn’t gonna break the law. Imagine the impact or imagine the difference, the,

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the whole, civil rights movement in America would, would have, faced if, Rosa Parks hadn’t opened the law. No. No.

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No. You can’t sort of hide behind these basic basic weasel words. You’ve got to get really clear, and you’ve gotta get really specific. I would do almost anything.

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These are the limits. Now what are the limits? What are

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the limits? And I bet you don’t know the limits of what you would do. Yeah. Well, that doesn’t matter. I mean, obviously, there are gonna be things way across the line that I’m not gonna do. Why do I have to even mention that I’m not doing those? Yeah. It’s not the things across the

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line that’s important. The important thing is where the line is, and what are the things before that line? What are the things between where you are now and before the line? The things which you wouldn’t necessarily be thinking about. Unless you know where the line is, how do you know what you can and can’t do? That’s where it becomes a little bit more murky, a little bit more interesting. Because when we delve into this, we can sometimes uncover some, some hidden gems. So the first thing for us to do is to list all the things we wouldn’t do.

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Oh, no. Wait a minute, Keith. Hey. I know this.

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I know this. You should

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never think about the things you don’t wanna think about. It’s always express it positively. Don’t think about the things you don’t want to think about because you’ll end up thinking about them. And you you’ve said before, don’t

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go in into an interview thinking, oh, I hope I don’t mess this up.

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I hope I don’t mess this up. I hope I don’t mess this up because

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you’re messing up. You must never think about negatives. The world is not black and white. The world is not black and white. It is more nuanced than that. Yeah. Don’t focus on the negatives when you’re attempting to create, create something. It’s a great a great guiding principle.

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There are times when it’s necessary to be aware of those negatives so that

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you can see the the the positive things that you would do. So what I’d like you to do, next time you’re you’re facing a a big project, big challenge, big goal, whatever, Clear about all the things you wouldn’t do, and don’t hide behind weasel words like, oh, I wouldn’t do anything immoral. I wouldn’t do anything illegal

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because that is again, you’re simply hiding away. You’re hiding away from what you would do, which is the problem, and we’ll see this more and more as

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we go through this this episode. So first of all, get clear on what are the

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things you wouldn’t do. Obviously, there’s gonna

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be some biggies. I wouldn’t break the law.

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I wouldn’t invest. I wouldn’t steal. I wouldn’t cheat. I wouldn’t lie. Wouldn’t lie? Are we talking outright blatantly? Are we talking about what is euphemistically sometimes known as white lies, which are sometimes very helpful things? If a friend comes to

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you wearing an outfit, which they clearly absolutely love and it means a lot to them and you think it looks hideous,

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and they

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say, oh, what do you I love this. What do you think?

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Are you gonna say, that looks absolutely hideous, or are you gonna

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basically tell of what they’re what they wanna hear? You know what?

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Yeah. I could see you really like that. Really suits you. Yeah.

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It’s a lie. You don’t think it looks good. You think it looks hideous, but you you don’t wanna be cruel for no reason. You don’t wanna say, oh, that looks absolutely hideous when you know they’ve set their house on it.

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You know they absolutely love it. Why would why would you take that from them? Sometimes you will indulge in white lies because they’re they’re harmless, and they help lubricate the, social connections. So get clear. I would never lie. Does that include the little white lies?

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Does that include, all those sorts of get clear. And I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t. What I’m saying is get really clear on where

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where you draw the line. And, again, don’t hide behind. I wouldn’t break the law.

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Yeah. No. You’re just you’re avoiding taking responsibility for saying what you wouldn’t

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do. Get clear on what you wouldn’t do.

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Get really clear on what you wouldn’t do. You’re gonna start with the great big things way up here, but you’re gonna get smaller and smaller and smaller things. It’s gonna come closer

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and closer and closer to where the line is. Let’s get really clear on all the things you wouldn’t do. Be aware of all the things you wouldn’t do. Not so that you end up doing them, because that’s not how it works. But get clear on

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them so you know the boundaries. These are these are nonnegotiable. These are things I will not do. And the reason we’re doing this

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is, to quote show well, to not quite quote, but to bastardize a Sherlock Holmes quote, when you rule out all the things you wouldn’t do, whatever is left, no matter how ridiculous, these things you will do, the thing you need to do. Because we rule out all the things we won’t do. That then helps us to get a clearer insight into the things that we would do. So make a note of all the things

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you wouldn’t do. Get them all out, all the things

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that you wouldn’t do. Now there is

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a shorthand on this. To start off with, you’re gonna have loads and loads of things that you would not do under any circumstances for anything ever. They can be your default nonnegotiations. These, I will never do. So the next time you do this for your next project and go, I will not do anything

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on me. I will never cheat. And for this

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project, I will also not do these things. Because sometimes that we think that you wouldn’t do for this project, but you would do for for another project. And it it’s not necessarily big things. It it might be

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I would not delay my holiday plans for this project, but for that project, which is a chance of a lifetime and which has a potentially massive payoff, you

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know what? I would be prepared to, postpone my holiday plans for that project. Again, get clear on what you would and wouldn’t do, and it may vary from project to project, from goal to goal.

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Once you got down all the things you won’t do, see how close it gets to to where you are. Then what are

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all the things that you would do? What are all the things that you would do? What are all the things you have done? All the things you are doing? Make a note of all of those. Once you got all of those out, now we get to the important law. You see, sometimes you just think you gotta do

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a lot of work before you get to the important work. You gotta clear the ground, create the foundations before you can build a structure. Right? So we clear out the grounds of what we won’t do. We laid down in

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the foundations of all the things we know we would do, we are

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doing. Once you got all that done, then it’s time to take stock and take a look. So what are things which others might do or which could be done, but which do not appear in either of my 2 categories.

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What are things which could be done but don’t appear on my I will not do list and don’t appear

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on my I would do list? And there will be things there will be a lot of things.

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Start making a note of all the things that could be done, but which don’t appear in either of your lists because this is where all of what I’ve been talking about up to now in this episode. This is where all of this has been building us to, leading us to this, Identifying these things. Because when you look at these things,

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they’re things that you maybe never have never thought of doing.

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It may maybe things that never have occurred to you. Not gone through this.

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The only annoying thing is, as scary as some

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of them are, as difficult as some of them are, as as esoteric as some

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of them are. In there,

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are some of the things that you do need to do in order to achieve what you want to achieve.

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Because the very fact that you’re going through all of this means you haven’t achieved the goal that you want to achieve, which means just doing the things that you are doing isn’t enough to achieve the goal. There’s gotta be something else. What else do you need? And often we get so focused on, oh, I need to

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do these things and just keep doing these same things over and over and over and over and over again, which gets us some traction to start with,

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but doesn’t get us in doesn’t get us further. It just keeps us where we were. Because there are some things that you do need to do, but you kind of either haven’t thought about them or you’ve not wanted to think about them, which is

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where it gets really curious.

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Now okay. I hear what you’re saying.

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Yeah. But Keith, sometimes you just need to keep doing what you’re doing, and you just need to allow time.

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Okay. Have you got allow sufficient time for this

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to work? Have you got that on your list

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of things to do, list of things that you would do, list of things that you are doing? I’m willing to bet you you haven’t. If you had,

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you wouldn’t be needing to do this because you’d be on track. Get clear about all the things that could be done. Once you’ve made once you’ve noticed noted all

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of those out, go through them all, which ones would work, which ones wouldn’t work. But more importantly,

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now that I’m aware of each

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of these things, which ones am I prepared to start doing? And what is stopping me from starting doing them right now?

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Some of them you’ll take a look at look at and you

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go, you know, I never thought of that. Let’s do it, and you

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will dive into it enthusiastically. Some of them you’ll look at and go, well, that could never work. Pause. Kids go, why? Why why do I think that couldn’t work? It may be perfectly valid that it really couldn’t work, or it might be you’re just telling yourself it couldn’t work because deep down inside you don’t want to do it. At which point, get curious, really curious. Why don’t I want to do this? What is it about this that stops me from wanting to do it? Is it because I’m scared? What’s the fear? What’s holding me back there? Is it because I just don’t know how to do it? Well, that’s a bit of a lazy cop out because even if you don’t know how to do it, you know how to find out how to do it. You know who to ask. You know what to research.

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You you on the Internet, you’ve got access to some pretty much the sum total of human knowledge at your fingertips. You can find it out. What’s stopping you from finding it out?

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Get really clear about these. It could be

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a question of resource, time or money or or any other resource, in which case, yes, perhaps it’s not one for you, or perhaps with a bit of juggling, you might be

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able to create or discover the resources you need to make it happen.

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And then look at the ones where you go, oh, yeah. That would work, but

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I don’t want to do it because it’s scary or whatever. Those could

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be the really interesting ones. Figure out why you don’t want to do those, and then figure out what would it take If if doing that were to succeed, what would it take for you to do that?

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I’ll give you an example. I was working with a client a few years back, and in order for them in order for them to grow what they were doing, grow their business, get more awareness, we wanted to create awareness around a particular thing. In order to create more awareness of that, They were doing all all sorts of things. They were doing doing blogs, they were they were doing they’re guesting on podcasts, all all of these sorts of things.

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He said so I asked them, okay. Would you would you do anything?

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Asked them the very questions that we go through. Would you do anything? Yes. Of course. So you’d commit murder. Well, of course, I wouldn’t do that, you idiot. Okay. So you wouldn’t do anything. What are the things you would and wouldn’t do? We kind of went through all of this.

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They came up with some stuff. And I asked them, I asked them

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a question. Okay. Would you given the opportunity right now, if you walk on stage, a stage in front of 10,000 people and tell them all about this, and

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they kinda like, wow. Do you see them coming a bit pale?

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No. Why not? You wanna raise awareness. What’s better way of raising awareness than to stand in front of 10,000 people live, tell them about it. We explored all the various things that were that

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I think for them, that was not an option.

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Although they did agree that if I was able to do that,

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scary as it is, yes, it would help with my aim of raising awareness. We worked through all the things that were holding them

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back in that, and we came up with an action plan. Now they didn’t go

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on to stand in front of 10,000 people in one go, but they have stood on many stages since then. Something they hadn’t done before, they stood on many stages since then. Okay. Not 10,000 people in one go, but well over 10,000 people in total over the over the times they’ve been doing over the years. It really has to help increase awareness of who they are and what they’re doing. And they it is something that had never occurred to them because it’s always been out there, always been scared, always, you know, I can never do that. But once they realize, you know what, if I just keep doing what I’m if I always do what I’ve always done, I’ll always get what I’ve always got. I want something different, I need to do something different.

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That’s scary. But broke it down to smaller steps, starting smaller, smaller stages, shorter times, all these things. Gradually built it up, built

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it up, built it up, and they were able to they were able to start achieving what they really wanted to achieve. And that’s the point with all all we’ve gone through for the past 20 minutes or so, is to get you to that point where you go, okay, those are the things

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I ain’t gonna do.

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Non negotiable. Here’s all the

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things I’m doing, but you got me this far. I need to

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do something different. Here are the things which are

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in the pile, which are the ones which scary

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as they might be, as unknown as they might be, as hard as

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they might be, could actually work.

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Why am I not doing them?

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What do I

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need to do to be able to do this thing which will make a big difference? You said at the start, you would do anything. Right?

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Here’s something. Why are you not doing it? Do it. And you don’t necessarily have to go out and do that thing straight away just like my client didn’t go straight onto a stage in front of 10,000 people, but they broke it down.

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So, okay. Well, I can’t do that, but what I could do,

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I could do small talks. That could build them up. I could get guest on other people’s. I could start creating my and build it up, build it up, build it up. Something they hadn’t thought about because they’d be terrified, so they kind of it it wasn’t a, I’ll do anything, but I

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won’t go on stage. It was just, like, yeah,

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I will do anything. But the

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mind’s blocking out all those things which are a bit scary for us, so we pretend they don’t exist. Therefore, no.

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I won’t do anything. Just don’t look don’t look over there. I won’t do anything.

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That’s what I want to

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leave you with today. If you’re telling yourself,

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I will do anything, stop because you’re lying to yourself. You’re actually hiding away from the things you really do need to do or which really would work. Instead,

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pick up some of the things you wouldn’t do. Yeah. Acknowledge that there are things you won’t do, get them all out, note down all the things you are doing, and then look at what’s in the gap.

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Some of the things in that gap will be over the line in the wouldn’t do territory, and that’s fine. Some of them will be this side of that line, but very much in the scares of living data out of me. I really don’t wanna do it, but

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I guess I kinda have to. What’s stopping me from doing it? What do I need? What do I need to be able to do that thing? Remember, you weren’t telling yourself you’d do anything. Right? This is the thing. Do it. What do you need to be able to do it? But you would not be aware of that

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thing had you not gone through this whole process, and that’s the key part.

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When we clear our mind, clear the ground, get rid of all

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the things you wouldn’t do, get them out there so there’s nothing else to hide behind.

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That’s when you start to uncover the really cool cool stuff. That’s what I wanted to share with you today.

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I hope you’re gonna take action. I hope you’re gonna do this. Now you’ll remember next time you’re telling yourself, I would do anything. No. I wouldn’t. And let’s get curious about what exactly what I would and wouldn’t do. And from there, find the things which have been hiding behind the, oh, I would

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hiding behind the, the implicit assumptions. Get really explicit about it. Get really clear about it. Talking of, getting really clear, please do leave

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a like, a comment, a share, and subscribe. Subscribe on your favorite platform. Leave a comment, a review on your favorite platform. Share it

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with your friends. I’ll catch you in another episode very soon. Till then, take care. Look after yourself. Bye for now.