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Speaker 1: Good air team. It's Harps. I hope you're terrific. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to another installment of life. As many of you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure my main job. I do lots of different things,

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Speaker 1: but I guess what I've done the most of consistently

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Speaker 1: over the last twenty years, but I've start I've been

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Speaker 1: speaking for thirty years before that, a lot of exercise

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Speaker 1: physiology and training people. But in terms of my job,

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Speaker 1: the last twenty years, I've been speaking to teams and

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Speaker 1: organizations and companies here in Australia overseas in lots of

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Speaker 1: different capacities, sporting clubs, not for profits, government, Victoria, police,

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Speaker 1: big organizations, little organizations, mostly in the three dimensional face

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Speaker 1: to face realm. More recently a lot of online stuff.

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Speaker 1: And I'm in the of doing some gigs right now

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Speaker 1: at the moment, and so I've been doing that for

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Speaker 1: a long time. But I did my first paid speaking

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Speaker 1: gig when I was twenty six, which was thirty three

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Speaker 1: years ago. I got paid one hundred dollars. It was

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Speaker 1: for a bunch of blokes at a timberyard. I spoke

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Speaker 1: for about I can't remember if it was thirty or

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Speaker 1: forty minutes. Probably forty odd minutes. I spoke to them

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Speaker 1: in what was their smoko room. They're kind of their

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Speaker 1: lunch room. I can't even remember how many guys, maybe twenty.

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Speaker 1: And I remember preparing for that talk for weeks because

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Speaker 1: the guy who owned the business was a personal training

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Speaker 1: client of mine, and I used to talk to him

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Speaker 1: about all the stuff I talk about, you know, health

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Speaker 1: and fitness and getting in shape and bitter nutrition. Bit

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Speaker 1: of mindset, very fun until back in the day. Of course,

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Speaker 1: pretty rudimentary, but nonetheless, he thought there was value in it.

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Speaker 1: And he said, you know, the stuff that you talk

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Speaker 1: to me about, could you come in and talk to

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Speaker 1: my dudes, my guys about that. Could you talk to

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Speaker 1: my team about physical health and a bit about nutrition,

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Speaker 1: a bit about looking after themselves. Like I said, pretty rudimentary,

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Speaker 1: fundamental stuff back then, but nonetheless, and I was excited

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Speaker 1: because I'd done a little bit of speaking in front

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Speaker 1: of groups not paid. I kind of enjoyed it, and

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Speaker 1: you know, I thought, maybe, imagine if I could do

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Speaker 1: this as a living or part of my living. Imagine

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Speaker 1: if part of my income could be standing in front

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Speaker 1: of people talking to about the shit that I love,

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Speaker 1: the shit that I'm passionate about. So I rocked up.

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Speaker 1: I did my gig. I stumbled and started a few times.

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Speaker 1: Ah and I I after two weeks of prep and

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Speaker 1: copious amounts of planning and note writing, I think I came.

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Speaker 1: We came up with like a one page dot point

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Speaker 1: with a million dot points on it of what I

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Speaker 1: was going to talk to them about. Well, of course

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Speaker 1: I started, and then I forgot about my dot points.

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Speaker 1: And then I looked at my dot points and I

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Speaker 1: couldn't fucking remember what I'd spoken about and not spoken about.

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Speaker 1: And I've forgot the story that I was going to

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Speaker 1: tell to highlight that particular points. And I thought I

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Speaker 1: would try and be a bit amusing and funny. That

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Speaker 1: didn't work. Bottom line is I spoke for whatever it

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Speaker 1: was thirty or forty minutes, and I wasn't very good.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't very good at all. I would give me

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Speaker 1: for where I was at then in terms of skill

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Speaker 1: and knowledge and competence, maybe I'd give me a three

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Speaker 1: or four out of ten. But now with what I

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Speaker 1: know and my skill level now in competence and understanding,

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Speaker 1: now I would give me a one. I did not

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Speaker 1: do a great job at all. There were no questions,

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Speaker 1: there was no interaction. Nobody wanted to know anything. Nobody

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Speaker 1: spoke to me when I finished, as soon as I said,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'll be here if anyone's got a question,

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Speaker 1: And everybody got up and fucking run out of the room,

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Speaker 1: run out of the room. And that happened not long later,

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Speaker 1: doing a fitness industry thing, talking to some would be

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Speaker 1: personal trainers, or perhaps it was jim instructors in those days,

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Speaker 1: but anyway, I did a similar thing, but this time

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Speaker 1: I spoke for two hours, talking about strength training and

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Speaker 1: writing programs and all that kind of stuff. Same thing happened.

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Speaker 1: This was within a few months of each other, and

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Speaker 1: I finished, Everyone left the room. No one asked a question.

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Speaker 1: A young lady came up to me, and I thought

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Speaker 1: I was on a winner because she had a question.

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Speaker 1: So she must have been a bit interested. And she

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Speaker 1: did have a question, but unfortunately for me, the question

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Speaker 1: was will you be here teaching next week? The answer

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Speaker 1: was yes, I will be. The look on her face

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Speaker 1: was one of disappointment, and she promptly left the room

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Speaker 1: and she did not come the following Why didn't she come?

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Speaker 1: Of course, she didn't want to fucking hear me, I

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Speaker 1: was no good, so failing embarrassment, not being good, not

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Speaker 1: having a high level of skill or competence, That's where

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Speaker 1: I've always started. I've done most of my learning through

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Speaker 1: trial and error. Yes I've done academic learning, and yes

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Speaker 1: I've sat in classrooms and set exams, and yes I'm

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Speaker 1: doing a PhD right now. But in terms of in

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Speaker 1: terms of my ability to do what I do, in

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Speaker 1: terms of my ability to run a business, to solve problems,

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Speaker 1: to negotiate different things that I need to, To be

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Speaker 1: able to stand in front of an audience and build

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Speaker 1: rapport and connection and tell a story and be funny

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Speaker 1: and share thoughts and ideas in a way that's broadly

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Speaker 1: relevant and relatable. That is something that has happened through

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Speaker 1: trial and error. That is something that's happened through falling

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Speaker 1: down and getting up. That's something that's happened through me

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Speaker 1: being comfortable with not being good. The starting point for

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Speaker 1: everything that I'm now, I guess you would say good

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Speaker 1: at or somewhat competent at, or skilled at, or paid for.

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Speaker 1: The starting point for me was incompetence, ignorance, lack of knowledge,

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Speaker 1: lack of skill, and inability to be able to perform

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Speaker 1: at a high level at that thing.

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Speaker 2: That is where I started. I started as the white belt.

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Speaker 2: I started as the white belt, and I metaphorically got

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Speaker 2: strangled and kicked and choked and punched, and I did

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Speaker 2: not do a good job. But I came back and

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Speaker 2: I kept training, and I kept showing up, and I

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Speaker 2: kept doing the work, and I kept asking questions, and

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Speaker 2: I kept learning through my failure. I kept learning through

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Speaker 2: my mediocrity. I kept learning through my poor results. And

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Speaker 2: many of you know that this podcast Life is, in

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Speaker 2: fact my fifth podcast. My fourth is the U Project.

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Speaker 2: And you also know some of you that I did

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Speaker 2: three podcasts before the U Project that didn't work.

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Speaker 1: They failed. I made no money in fast, In fact,

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Speaker 1: I lost money, and that was over two years. And

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Speaker 1: then when I started the U Project, it took at

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Speaker 1: least another two years of almost daily shows daily now

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Speaker 1: but almost daily shows back then, so four years of

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Speaker 1: podcasting in total before I made a dollar. So I

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Speaker 1: was losing money for four years. I was losing money

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Speaker 1: for what added up to around eight hundred episodes of

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Speaker 1: The U Project and my other shows before I had

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Speaker 1: something that was commercially viable. Before I could say well,

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Speaker 1: this is working now, it wasn't. It was working in

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Speaker 1: that we were producing shows and some people were listening.

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Speaker 1: But depending on watch a metric for successes, it's conceivable

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Speaker 1: that we could say I failed for eight hundred episodes.

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Speaker 1: I don't think I failed for eight hundred episodes because

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Speaker 1: I learned and I grew and I evolved and I

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Speaker 1: developed inside understanding, awareness, skill competence, and I got better

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Speaker 1: and I learned how to interview people better and listen better,

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Speaker 1: and produce better and know where to go and where

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Speaker 1: not to go in a podcast. It was all learning,

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Speaker 1: It was all development, It was all skill acquisition. But

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Speaker 1: on a level I was losing money, making no dough

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Speaker 1: and failing. But that is why the title of this

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Speaker 1: episode is the successful failure, because while I was failing

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Speaker 1: in a sense, I was getting closer to success because

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Speaker 1: I was simply doing what's required to build the right

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Speaker 1: muscles to become a successful podcast. I was building the

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Speaker 1: right muscles when I was younger, although I was falling

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Speaker 1: down and getting up and failing and fucking up. When

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Speaker 1: I opened my first personal training center, the first one Australia,

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Speaker 1: at twenty six, I made a million mistakes. I failed

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Speaker 1: in inverted commas many times because I didn't know what

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Speaker 1: I was doing. But I couldn't get good at the

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Speaker 1: thing that I wouldn't do, So I had to do

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Speaker 1: the things I wasn't good at in order to learn,

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Speaker 1: in order to develop, in order to understand, and in

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Speaker 1: order to be able to get good over the long term.

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Speaker 1: This aversion that so many of us have to not failing,

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Speaker 1: to not looking silly, to not being embarrassed, to not

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Speaker 1: being able to cope with anything other than a positive outcome,

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Speaker 1: is actually a massive self limitation. I want to do

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Speaker 1: the things that make me better, and if that is

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Speaker 1: periodically failing, falling, looking silly, I'm completely up for that.

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Speaker 1: I want to go where I grow. I want to

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Speaker 1: be in the room where I'm the dumbest. I want

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Speaker 1: to be in the room where I'm the least skilled.

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Speaker 1: I want to be in the room where I'm the

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Speaker 1: least successful because I want to surround myself with a culture,

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Speaker 1: with a mindset, and with people that are better than me,

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Speaker 1: so that I'll get dragged up. That's how I learn

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Speaker 1: when I'm constantly mixing with people that I have more skill, knowledge,

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Speaker 1: and understanding in a particular area than all I'm doing

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Speaker 1: is making myself look good and stroking my ego. I

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Speaker 1: want to be. I want to be the perpetual student,

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Speaker 1: and of course there'll be times when I'm standing in

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Speaker 1: front of an audience to teach. I'm not talking about

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Speaker 1: that so much. I'm just talking about putting myself. I'm

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Speaker 1: talking to you about putting yourself in the middle of

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Speaker 1: a situation, an environment, a culture, a process that you

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Speaker 1: are going to grow in, and it will feel like failure,

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Speaker 1: but really, over the long term, it's part of becoming successful.

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Speaker 1: Seeing tomorrow