The Impact Entrepreneur

“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.” –Graham Greene

Larry Hagner is the founder of The Dad Edge (formerly The Good Dad Project), a strong community of fathers with a simple but powerful mission: to help dads become the best, strongest, and happiest versions of themselves so that they can guide their kids to the best versions of themselves, too.

However, as a kid, Larry’s greatest fear was being a father. Growing up, he never saw a successful marriage modeled for him – he “always looked at marriage as a step to divorce” – and he didn’t have any positive male role models to speak of.

From that scared kid to the epic father that Larry is today is a huge gap – so I had to ask when the moment was that he opened the door to let the future in.

It all started with focusing on personal development. Larry, like a lot of us, was heavy growing up, and it really affected the way he thought about himself and approached life. However, he was pushed to wake up early, put the work in, and ended up losing 40 pounds over the course of a few months.

“I never felt so good in my life. I hated waking up that early, but we did it and that was the beginning of a whole new world for me and that’s when I started to really love fitness... and that’s when the future really opened up for me.”

You can see how that experience shaped the mission of The Dad Edge, too. It’s not all about relationship counseling or parenting tactics – it’s about becoming the best version of yourself so that you can share that with your children, and for most people, that requires taking action to fill a void in your life.

There’s a movement in The Dad Edge Alliance, of which I am a proud member, to “own your shit,” and that requires leaning into a place where you can be vulnerable and viewing that vulnerability as strength.

We don’t have to be invincible, we don’t have to be perfect, and we don’t have to have all the answers. It’s okay to reach out for help from your partner, or a wonderful community of like-minded people who will support you. Because none of us have this whole life thing all figured out, but together we can do better than any of us can do alone.

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Resources:

• Learn more at TheDadEdge.com
• Join the FB community: The Dad Edge - Real Dads with Purpose
• Listen: The Dad Edge Podcast

• Read: The Dad's Edge: 9 Simple Ways to Have: Unlimited Patience, Improved

• Join The Dad Edge Alliance

• Relationships, and Positive Lasting Memories

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters

Tony Grebmeier is probably best known for building a multi-million dollar business with his childhood friends, ShipOffers, but it is Tony's mission in life is to create a community where entrepreneurs know they can achieve anything they want and find fulfillment, despite their past.

Growing up wasn’t always easy without a present father, and it was the community of friends and mentors – as well as his amazing mother – who taught him that life’s not easy, but you can make it easier.

One of Tony’s earliest mentors, his next-door neighbor Dan, used to tell him, “You can do this – take it easy.” Although he didn’t necessarily understand it at the time, he has come to learn that this is an excellent way to live a fulfilled life.

In our fast-paced world, we can all use a reminder to slow down.

Now a mentor himself, Tony has his own suggestions (not advice) for those that look up to him: “Chase the wins, study the lessons, and never quit.”

I absolutely love this mantra, particularly the idea of studying the lessons you receive in life. Because there are lessons to be learned in both our wins and losses, and we will never achieve our greatest potential without learning from both.

So how do we study? Tony suggests creating “when life works” and “when life doesn’t work” lists, tools he learned from his friend Dr. Sean Stephenson.

You know when your life is working, and when it isn’t, so reflect on those moments. What were you doing? Get at least 10-14 items on each list – now you have the curriculum you need to study.

Then, every day, try to practice one item on your “when life works” list – and note that it all comes back to YOUR behavior, not what other people do to you.

Because when you change your behavior, you change your life.

For more great lessons on how you can change your life and be more fulfilled, get your copy of Tony’s Be Fulfilled Journal.

“I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.” –Vince Lombardi

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Resources:

• Learn more at tonygrebmeier.com
• Connect with Tony: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook
• Listen: BEFULFILLED: The Real Stories Behind Success
• Get you Be Fulfilled Journal: befulfilledjournal.com

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters

Jessica Turner is the author of the brand-new book Stretched Too Thin: How Working Moms Can Lose the Guilt, Work Smarter, and Thrive and the creator of The Mom Creative, a blog “all about creating a life well-crafted, which means different things on different days.”

Jessica’s mother was a great role model, a mentor, and the strongest person Jessica ever met. Stretched Too Thin is dedicated to her, and when you listen to Jessica talk about her strength, it’s no surprise.

She persevered through a difficult childhood, then set out to do something more for her own family. So she worked full-time, but that didn’t stop her from dedicating time and love to her children and husband.

Although everyone isn’t lucky enough to have had such a great role model in their life, Jessica has some sage words of encouragement: “You have the opportunity to be that person to someone else – and what a powerful opportunity that is!

“Every day, we have the opportunity to impact people with the way we speak to them, with the kindness that we show to them, and with having them be seen just as they are.”

Because the most important work that any of us does is the work we do with other people. And even if you weren’t shown that as a kid, you still have the opportunity to invest in other people, every single day.

Are You Stretched Too Thin?

Jessica has a 9-5 job, her entrepreneurial endeavors, and a family. Plus, she has to make time for herself. That’s simply too much to focus on all at the same time.

We too often fall into the fallacy that we have to be everything all the time – but that’s just not possible. We have to create boundaries between the different roles in our lives, and in doing this, we give ourselves the room to be fully present in whatever role we are in at any given moment.

We also have to understand our priorities. We’re all juggling a lot of balls, but some of them are rubber and some of them are glass. If we drop a glass ball, it might crack. And if we continue to drop a glass ball, it will shatter. Your health and your family are glass balls – so when it comes down to it, those have to be your biggest priorities.

And when we view our lives through that lens, it helps us get clarity on where to invest our time. To help you with this, Jessica created a free time tracker that you can download at fringehours.com/tracker. She suggests writing down everything you do for a week so that you can get an objective look at where you are investing your time and then adjust from there.

Because we have to, as the title of Jessica’s book suggests, work smarter to thrive.

“The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.” –Thomas Paine

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Resources:

• Learn more at themomcreative.com
• Stretched Too Thin: How Working Moms Can Lose the Guilt, Work Smarter, and Thrive
• Connect with Jessica: Instagram | Facebook

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters

Shakespeare said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” And our guest, Flynn Cochran, is definitely someone who achieved greatness (although he was born with a great name).

Flynn is a former U.S. Navy SEAL Officer, a former McKinsey & Co. Engagement Manager, and a graduate of Harvard Business School. Today he is the Chief Strategy Officer at Echelon Front, where he shares the exceptional leadership experience and insight he learned from both the SEAL Teams and business world. He had the benefit of experiencing leadership lessons from the likes of Leif Babin and Jocko Willink (a previous guest on the show: Ep. 25 – Navy SEAL & Leadership Expert Jocko Willink: Taking Extreme Ownership), and he saw the power of Extreme Ownership firsthand.

When I look back at Flynn’s impressive resume, I see a throughline of intensity, from football to ROTC to the Navy SEALS to Harvard to Echelon Front. So I wanted to know, what drives this?

In many ways, it goes back to growing up as the sixth of eight kids. Growing up in a large family taught Flynn two huge lessons: you have to do something exceptional to get attention, be it good or bad, and everything is better as a team.

“Individual achievements are just that – individual. They don’t bring up the rest of the team.”

Think of the business world today, where disengagement is rising and, ultimately, costing industry $500B annually. If that had happened in the SEAL Teams, missions would fail and lives would be lost – but they didn’t show up disengaged because they knew what was at stake.

This is an element missing in business today, as well as in our own individual lives; we don’t have a clear idea of what’s at stake, what matters, and why we should take action on it.

Flynn warns us that it certainly isn’t easy to create an organization where everyone believes in a single, unified Why, but what worth doing is ever easy?

Going back to the idea of team unity, as opposed to the pursuit of individual achievement, is a great place to start. Building meaningful relationships with the people around you will allow you to stay more engaged because you care about how your work impacts them, and the same lesson can be applied to your life at home.

Again, everything is better as a team – and all great teams need an exceptional leader.

“Leaders who take the blinders off take their organizations to heights they haven’t seen, and they realize that their influence, their actions, can have a massive impact on where it goes.”

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Resources:

• Learn more at echelonfront.com
• Connect with Flynn: Facebook | Twitter
• Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose... And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along, you’ll start happening too. ... You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win? ... You're off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way!”

In this excerpt from Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, Dr. Seuss reminds us that our thoughts become our actions and our choices shape our destiny – something that our guest Jeff Moreno, Co-Founder & CEO of PWR Lab, learned early in life.

Even as a kid, Jeff had an unusual superpower: the power of observation. He was always watching and learning, and through his observation, Jeff saw that movement is life; the result of curiosity in action.

This ultimately led him to become a Doctor of Physical Therapy, and later a Board Certified Orthopedic Clinical Specialist, dedicating his professional life to understanding athletic development and movement skill acquisition in order to empower individuals with the opportunity and choice to be their best self – a choice that many don’t realize they can make.

In empowering others, Jeff is also passing on the blessing that a high school coach and mentor gave him: the understanding that if you put the time in and just step forward every day, you can get to what you want to do.

But too often, athletes and active individuals run into unnecessary obstacles in the form of avoidable injuries. Jeff tells us that 60% of athlete injuries are not the result of training errors, but due to the reactive nature of our health care system, there’s typically nothing a physical therapist can do about that until the injury happens.

Frustrated with this dynamic, Jeff decided to start playing with PWR!

PWR Lab is a team of data scientists, practitioners, and sports scientists whose purpose is to empower individuals and give them the opportunity to sustainably optimize performance through resilient health. Using their unique system of data collection and visualization, they are able to better address each person as a complex individual, and in turn, proactively keep players and teams moving forward.

Because performance is individual to each person, and it’s not just for the elite – it’s for everybody!

So how can we optimize our performance? Jeff believes it is the byproduct of three distinct things: Preparedness, Wellness, and Resiliency

If you focus on the long game by prioritizing these three things and trusting the process every day, in whatever you’re doing, you will eventually achieve your goal. People who play the short game, on the other hand, will at best experience unsustainable success.

Remember: “You're off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way!”

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Resources:

• Learn more at pwrlab.com
• Connect with Jeff: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
• Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters

Dr. Carrie Rose is a Transformational Learning Expert, Entrepreneur, and Internet Marketing Influencer who was named one of Huffington Post’s Must-Follow Women Entrepreneurs in 2017.

She holds an Ed.D in Educational Leadership from the University of Central Florida, wrote her doctoral dissertation on Professional Development, and is best known for developing the innovative teaching strategies and methodology that are becoming an industry standard for internet marketing and online education.

Dr. Rose offers a unique insight grounded in unparalleled research in how the human brain connects with content – and the necessary marketing processes to engage any audience.

I really wanted to know what made Dr. Rose so fascinated that she became one of the internet’s foremost education experts, and the answer will probably surprise you.

Witnessing a traumatic event at the age of four caused Dr. Rose to develop selective mutism, meaning she didn’t speak for the better part of six years. At the same time, she had dyslexia, and the combination of those two circumstances resulted in her not being able to read when she entered third grade.

One remarkable teacher, Mrs. Taylor, helped Dr. Rose transform from “this shell of a human being to the highest standardized test scorer that school had seen, in one year.”

Wow.

In the process, Dr. Rose learned the powerful impact one human being can have on another, if they care, give it all of their heart, and know the right strategies to use.

Because while the best teaching methodologies are important and effective, it’s the relationships we form that really have the biggest impact. And that doesn’t just mean relationships with others – the relationship with yourself is just as important.

“Love is this resonance, it’s this frequency, and it feels the same leaving as it does coming in.”

If you pay attention, you’ll notice that offering love to a stranger, or even just offering love to yourself, makes you feel the same as having received it from someone else.

So, have you offered your love to anyone today? It could have a profound impact.

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Resources:

• Learn more at drcarrierose.com
• Want to create your own course? Check out of-course.us
• Connect with Dr. Rose: facebook.com/DrCarrieRose
• The Completed Course: The Secret To Creating Lasting Impact, Raving Fans, And Increased Profits With Online Courses by Dr. Carrie Rose
• What Great Teachers Do Differently: 17 Things That Matter Most by Todd Whitaker

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters

Rick Miller joins us to talk about being Chief: an important topic in today’s political environment, the business world, and individual lives.

Rick is an unconventional turnaround specialist and servant leader. He has successfully turned around a Fortune 10, a Fortune 30, a startup, and a non-profit over the past 30 years. But Rick’s high-ranking titles are not what made him a chief – Rick is a chief because he has the ability to bring out the best in others and empower them to be chiefs, in whatever role they’re in.

And Rick has packaged these decades of wisdom in the wonderful book, Be Chief: It’s a Choice, Not a Title.

“Yes, people with titles have power – but people without titles have power, and everyone is at their best when they feel powerful and they make their own choices!”

So how do you convey this to not only individuals, but an entire organization of individuals?

Well, you have to speak to the business in their language: numbers.

And Rick tells us about a startling statistic that 7/10 people, while at work, aren’t contributing their best efforts. Some people say this is an engagement issue or a talent issue – but what it comes down to is that “70% of your human capital is underperforming, by choice!”

And according to Gallup, that lackluster performance results in U.S. companies losing $500 BILLION annually.

So if you want your business to improve, yes, you can develop a new product or sell more. But you’ll have a greater impact if you focus on your people and give them a reason to be enthusiastic about doing their best every day.

Remember: “anyone in your organization affects everyone in your organization.”

If you want to help everyone in an organization make and find meaning in their work, it helps greatly to give them a purpose or a mission that they can align to and get behind. So create value, not just for your customers or shareholders, but for your community and the world.

It’s time to move beyond the “do not harm” phase and enter the “do more good” phase of business.

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Resources:

• Learn more at beingchief.com
• Read: Be Chief: It’s a Choice, Not a Title
• Take Rick’s Power Compass Survey: beingchief.com/compass
• Connect with Rick: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
• Watch: Being Chief - Unlocking your power: Rick Miller at TEDxPSU

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters

Last time Dorcas Cheng-Tozun was on the show, she joined me in sunny California to discuss the ins and outs of supporting an entrepreneurial spouse. Today, things are a bit different: Dorcas is in Nairobi, Kenya, sharing all about the big move and how moving overseas three times over the past decade inspired her book Start, Love, Repeat: How to Stay in Love with Your Entrepreneur in a Crazy Start-up World.

Dorcas is a woman who practices what she preaches. Like Tim Ferriss, she makes herself a guinea pig to test her hypotheses – and now she has an opportunity to test the principles from Start, Love, Repeat in the field.

Because with being an entrepreneurial – or the family member of an entrepreneur – comes distractions.

There’s so much going on and so many moving parts, and things like the work that needs to get done, taking care of your kids, housework, errands, and other activities can pull all of your focus.

But when you spend all of your time focusing on everything else, you can end up losing the touchpoints that a relationship needs in order to stay closely connected. And as that happens, questions and doubts about your relationship can slip into your mind.

So how do you come back from that or prevent yourself from getting to that place?

Critically, it’s important to recognize that “trust can be a choice.” You may not necessarily be feeling it in the moment, but if you choose to act like you do and choose to continue sharing with them, those actions can actually reinforce your bond.

“Your behavior comes first, and then your mind, spirit, and soul can follow.”

If you don’t make the choice to try, it can be devastating to a relationship. Because as it turns out, the number one reason people get divorced isn’t actually infidelity or any big event – it’s because they give up; they feel like the spark is gone and they just stop investing in the relationship.

One of the first steps when we’re talking about maintaining intimacy is the recognition that it’s not going to happen by itself.

So listen empathetically and get to know one another. That’s how you’ll ultimately connect emotionally. Really, it’s impossible to overemphasize just how important that is – because you CAN make a choice to create the conditions that help develop intimacy!

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Resources:

• Learn more at chengtozun.com
• Connect with Dorcas: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
• Start, Love, Repeat: How to Stay in Love with Your Entrepreneur in a Crazy Start-up World

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters

One of the most popular pieces of advice in the entrepreneurial world is to hustle, hustle, hustle – what our guest Christopher Lochhead describes as “one of the dumbest pieces of advice of all time” – to reach a place of financial freedom and then coast.

This paradigm, then, is working hard now for the ultimate goal of not working... but I don’t think that’s really being an entrepreneur. That’s just making money.

And Christopher Lochhead – a retired three-time CMO, the co-author of both Play Bigger and Niche Down, and the host of Legends & Losers – knows a thing or two about being an entrepreneur.

Many of the leading “entrepreneurs” will teach us that success is having the freedom to sit on a beach drinking mai tais all day, but the unfortunate reality is that a lot of people are just trading comfort for aliveness.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Drinking mai tais on a beach can be a lot of fun (although I’d prefer a whiskey) – but there comes a time when doing nothing, or “trolling around in your net worth,” as Christopher describes it, is just boring.

And on a more existential level, that kind of comfort doesn’t come with a purpose or real fulfillment – because “who we are is a direct function of the difference that we make.”

The mistake almost everybody makes is that they get fooled into believing that the pathway to success is fitting in.

When in reality, “it’s the people who are different that make the difference” – and that’s true in entrepreneurship and in life.

Legendary entrepreneurs are known for the niche that they own, not their product or service. That comes later.

Too many entrepreneurs make the mistake of trying to compete with their product or company, so don’t make the same mistake – making the biggest difference comes down to being the most different.

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Resources:

• Learn more at lochhead.com
• Listen to Christopher’s podcast: Legends & Losers
• Connect with Christopher: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Read: Niche Down: How To Become Legendary By Being Different
• Read: Play Bigger: Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters

Cara Miller doesn’t choose when and where to make inquiry about her impact – she’s awake to her purpose every day, and using her coaching skills to help others make better sense of the world, become more useful, and be of greater service.

And when Cara is working with other businesses, she’s sometimes the only person who is, in the moment, aware of the ultimate benefactors of that work. Whether you work at an investment firm or in food service, there is someone being directly impacted by what you do.

The simple fact that you’re using your gift has an impact on others, no matter what your gift is, and being aware of the multiple impacts of your gift can provide you with a great sense of fulfillment and gratitude, regardless of your role.

Too often, we get stuck in the middle, stuck in the minute-by-minute stuff that we’re doing, and we forget the people who are impacting us and the people being impacted by our actions.

So if you ever find yourself getting stuck there, take a moment to pause and recalibrate. Cara suggests holding onto three things, as they are here and now:

1. The me. Can you stay in your physical body? Can you take a look at your sense, your judgements, your conclusions, your thinking?
2. The we. What is going in on the space between you and everyone else? What is happening? What is the dynamic? Can you empathize with the shared experience?
3. The thee. Can you connect and check in with where the spirit is present now? What is the spirit up to? Where is the spirit moving? Where is source? How is it moving here and how can we join that? What is God up to in this?

“I am trying, with everything in me, to hold tight to what’s going on in me right now, what’s going in with us right now, and what’s going on with the spirit right now so that I might join more fully with all of those layers.” And the closer you can do this to the moment the more effective it will be.

Cara shares another important mantra and exercise during this conversation, useful for when you need a reminder that your circumstances don’t define you.

It all starts with a simple question: Are you approaching the world as if it’s happening to you or it’s happening for you?

It can be a lonely and crippling thought that world is happening to you, falling on you, defining you, and limiting you. That line of thinking can also cause you to lose all responsibility and agency toward your actions.

If you can, instead, see that everything happening is creating opportunities for you to become an actor, influencer, and impacting force in the world, your perspective changes – all responsibility comes back to you, you have agency in every move you make, and you have to actively construct the way you move in the world.

And you can use this line of inquiry at any time, in any situation. It’s simple, sure – but powerful.

If you are interested in bringing more of this kind of inquiry into your organization or life, check out what Cara has to offer at inquiryp.com.

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Resources:

• Learn more at inquiryp.com
• Connect with Cara: Facebook | Instagram
• Visioneering: God's Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Personal Vision by Andy Stanley
• In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life by Robert Kegan
• The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues by Patrick Lencioni
• Aspire: Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words by Kevin Hall

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We are brought to you by the Lawton Marketing Group, a full-service advertising and design agency serving companies and entrepreneurs at all levels. They are your one-stop shop for all your website, logo, social media, print, app design and reputable management needs.

Visit LawtonMG.com for more info.

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The Impact Entrepreneur Show is produced by Podcast Masters