OneSharpSword

Remember how good it feels to go through your closet and get rid of old clothes that you’ve been hanging onto for “someday.” You liked them, but they no longer serve you. Just as you would clear out old, expired food from your pantry, you need to do that with old, expired thinking patterns and styles. 

What thoughts might you have to get rid of in order to let new thoughts in?

What is it you truly want to Do, to Have, or to Become?

How might a person who has that think and act? What do they let in? What do they let go of?

What will you let go of in order to let the new way of thinking in?

I don’t shoot photographs on film anymore.

I don’t do martial arts kicks quite as high or as quickly as I used to.

I’ve changed.

My body has changed.

My focus and desires have changed.

It doesn’t mean I don’t value the times that I had those things in my life. It means that I’m not the same person I was and that my experiences have given me a different perspective. In short, my values have changed.

You’ve changed and you can let go of the dreams you once had. You no longer need to drag them along, flogging yourself for what you didn’t do. 

Rather, create new dreams. Live into those, with the age and wisdom you have that’s different from the age and wisdom you had a decade or more ago.  

Listen for the inner voice that guides you, whispering “over here…!”

And if you want to dive into how to access that voice and set a plan for living further into a life of fulfillment, do yourself a favor and check out www.ExponentialSuccessSummit.com 

Andrea T Edwards always knew who she was, even as a teen.

Strong and outspoken, she grew up in Australia and seemed to find a way of fighting for what’s right in the world. Or, perhaps, how to make the world a little more right.

She found herself in tech and in PR and Content Marketing, but that’s not what drives her. On today’s podcast, we dove into Freedom and we discussed social issues in a way I haven’t touched them here before. 

Andrea shared her views on climate change and what we - all of us… each of us - need to do to make a difference for our children and children’s children.  

Here, we explore Uncommon Courage - here we look at how an electric car might seem like a great idea until you realize that you must own it for seven years in order to have a zero basis for the footprint it took to actually create it. That’s one example Andrea T Edwards offered up. 

Find her on all Social at @AndreaTEdwards and at www.AndreaTEdwards.com

Look up her work at www.Uncommon-Courage.com as well 

It’s said that if you put a frog in cool to luke warm water and ever-so-slightly turn up the temperature, the frog won’t notice as it becomes acclimated to the higher temperature. When, at some point, the frog ends up in boiling water, it’s too late.

Kind of gross, I know. 

And we do that to ourselves a bit, don’t we? We tolerate and tolerate and tolerate until we’re buried by something we would have never let into our lives if we were paying attention.

And that’s the bottom line.

What is it you’ve bargained with yourself about that “isn’t that bad” that really needs a major shift from you?

Look at what’s building up that you’ve let build up. That could be food or alcohol that you consume. It could be social media time. It could be the way you’ve let someone at home or at work speak to you.

If it’s not about love, abundance, or support, take another look. And maybe, take another action.

I just got back from a root canal. WooHooo!!! Such exciting news. No, not really. And no one should become an expert patient when it comes to having root canals done. 

Still, practicing anything that isn’t something you look forward to makes it easier and builds expertise. 

I’m an expert dish-doer. I can just get ‘em done. I don’t look forward to it and I also don’t run away from it. I’m an expert cat-box cleaner. I don’t look forward to it. It needs doing, and when it’s done, everyone is happier. Besides dishes and cat boxes, I’m an expert blogger. I’ve been blogging for years; every Wednesday, I produce a blog called Wednesdays With Wayne

(check out www.WaynePernell.com/blog).

Do I look forward to writing? Sometimes yes. Sometimes it’s just inconvenient. And yet, I get it done.

What about you? 

What have you put off that you might become more of an expert at and can get done so much faster and easier now? Your bills? Your taxes? Your sales calls? Your content creation? 

Or maybe it’s that tough conversation at work or at home you’ve been putting off.

Maybe it’s searching for that new job or partner or car or credit line or science article.

Maybe you need to get better at shutting down social media. 

It all takes practice. And when you commit to it, you need to follow through.

Only in following through can you become trustworthy. Trustworthy with yourself and with those you made the promise to. You first. You’ve got to become trustworthy with yourself and not start bargaining about what you said you’d do and the follow through you told yourself you’d have and then when something comes up, you get side-tracked.

That stuff happens to everyone, even the most driven and most successful. The difference is the time spent in the sidetrack. Moments vs. minutes to hours. 

Practice.

Commit.

Prove yourself trustworthy.

That’s how you’ll do the hard stuff till it gets easy!

Paul Glover calls himself a Recovering Scoundrel. He notes that he is a recovering trial attorney who is also a convicted felon. 

He works in leadership and workforce development with an emphasis on legacy building and his story of incarceration parallels the human condition.

Having grown up in three different locations, with a mother who was married seven times and a father who was married four times, his childhood was unstable, to say the least. It’s no wonder that you hear him use the term Commitment multiple times through this interview. 

He says that he doesn’t blame his childhood. In fact, his first admonition to us as his audience is, “It’s your obligation to overcome.”

At a trial lawyer, he was hanging out with union people, some of whom were what he describes as “dubious characters.” He notes that his desire to belong and to get that rush of adrenaline is what kept him coming back for more. The Labor Union Leaders took advantage of his hubris, offering him approval and acceptance. 

He was ultimately convicted for taking kickbacks and bribes as well as threatening federal witnesses. So, yeah… that’s a thing.

Leadership Lessons:

• In prison he saw people coming back after they had gotten out. He realized then that it’s their own behavior, their choices, that keep them locked up. 
• We need to create psychological safety for others to give us feedback about our behavior and the impact it makes.
• We need to look at the character we must develop to earn the life we truly desire.
• Embrace life - enjoy the good, learn from the bad. There will be both.
• Responsibility is a prerequisite for being an adult.

As a Legacy Coach, Paul notes again that psychological safety is essential, that commitment is required, and that change is hard.  Commitment to the process matters. 

Book: Work Quake - changing the way work is done

Contact: www.PaulGloverCoaching.com and on LinkedIn @PaulGloverCoaching

Relationships are tricky. 

Growing through a dysfunctional attachment to and dependence on her sister, Amy was shaken awake when her big sister was killed in a car accident. She recreated the dependence in the relationship with her husband, a relationship that lasted 25 years, though both knew it was “fine” and really not quite right.

She grew into learning about BOUNDARIES. Such a key concept in gaining perspective and creating healthy relationships. 

But what does that mean? As a coach, Amy focuses on helping couples recognize that they don’t have to agree with each other. In fact, each side can have their own beliefs and patterns for engagement. She gives permission for each person to have their own world views. The focus then is, “given that, what do you want your child to experience.”

Amy uses the acronym WTFY, meaning What’s True For You?

Key points:

• Stay in conversation even when it’s tough
• Create safety
• Create trust
• Recognize that as a human, you have feelings and that your feelings are real but don’t necessarily reflect reality. (This is tricky, but needs exploring.)
• Surround yourself with supportive people
• Be mindful about creating the life you want

Learn more about Amy Armstrong and her work at: www.CenterForFamilyResolution.com  

Wait, what?

Yep - it’s this simple: Hope Is NOT A Strategy!

We wish for things.

We hope things will get better. 

And that’s based in a MindState of fear and lack.  What’s your state of mind when you wish or hope for things to work out? You’re basically afraid that they won’t. So you “hope for the best.”

What if you took charge of the EXCELLENCE in your life?

Think about leveling up to Exponential Excellence.

Allow yourself to DESIRE again and take the steps needed to fulfill that desire.

(Hint: Check out https://www.WaynePernell.com/PowerfulPresenceMasterclass)

Decide what’s IN and what’s OUT - what you will and will no longer tolerate.

Who’s responsible for the excellence in your life?

Yep! Now, what’s your next most amazing step towards it?

Go! Action, not hope!

Here’s a man who has been on stage in one of the most famous productions in the world and you’ve probably never noticed him. And that’s the point. No, he’s not some ninja or a camouflaged stage hand. 

Antuan Magic Raimone is a Universal Swing, a dancer that can play the part of any of the dancers in any of the productions across the country. He’s been in In The Heights and he was among the first to join the company of Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in NYC.

Antuan notes, “the key is not to be noticed.”

This might’ve come easily as the youngest of five growing up. He was the first to go to college and knew early on that he wanted to get into dance. The man who was to emerge as “Magic” was in the junior olympics in TaeKwonDo when he was 10 years old. 

Antuan speaks vulnerably about the abuse he endured at multiple points while growing up and how, even as a black belt, he found himself in an abusive situation. 

Now on the path to speaking from the platform as The Soldier of Love, Antuan says that mistakes exist, fear isn’t debilitating, and vulnerability isn’t a weakness.  

He also notes that change only exists when we want it to and then he said something that made me stop and think: Sometimes people don’t have the capacity to put themselves first. 

Start here, he advises - repeat these statements out loud each day:

I Am Love

I Am Loved

Contact Antuan Magic Raimone at www.TheSoldierOfLove.us

Based on my blog which got A LOT of great response, here are some key points to keep in mind as you watch/listen to this episode - 

• It’s not only exhausting, it’s ridiculous to want to be liked by everyone.

• It’s important to be who you are, authentically. Trying to be something you’re not for the sake of trying to fit in is exhausting and delays the emergence of the real you.

• With seven BILLION people on the planet, how many people do you really need to like you or your work? Really?

• When I was writing, having just one person write back to tell me I had made a difference in her life was a true gift. I had, at least, an audience of one. And that was satisfying.

• Not part of this podcast, yet noteworthy, is that when I got my first hater, I celebrated. “Here’s a troll that hasn’t even read my books, but took the time to comment on what F’ing B.S. they were! I must’ve done something to get in this guy’s lane.”  

• People get stuck and they’ll fight to stay there. Let them. They’re not your audience either.

• Choose you. Then, let others choose you. That’s how you get An Audience of Some!