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Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, I am Dramos and this is the Street

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Speaker 1: Stoic Podcast, bringing your daily dose of timeless stoic philosophy

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Speaker 1: remix for the hip hop generation. Now, with that in mind,

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Speaker 1: let's get things started with your daily shot of inspiration.

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Speaker 1: Now today we are going to be focusing on the

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Speaker 1: stoic idea of diminishing your ego, right and particularly shedding

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Speaker 1: old parts of yourself and losing yourself as a means

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Speaker 1: to become the better version of yourself.

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Speaker 2: Right. And a quote that.

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Speaker 1: Sums this up perfectly is from Rizza, right Wu Tang Clan,

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Speaker 1: Rizza legendary and this quote that I found from him,

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Speaker 1: I just felt like it spoke so much to all

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Speaker 1: that I wanted to talk about in today's show. The

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Speaker 1: quote is, lose yourself to improve yourself. Only when we

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Speaker 1: shed all self definition do we find who we really are.

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Speaker 1: And he's saying some really deep stuff in just two

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Speaker 1: sentences here, right, Because I think it's the idea of

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Speaker 1: shedding parts of ourselves to get to the core of

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Speaker 1: what truly.

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Speaker 2: Makes us happy. And I think it's speaking to.

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Speaker 1: The sort of idea that we have this self definition

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Speaker 1: right as he puts it, right, we have this idea

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Speaker 1: of ourselves, of our identity that we've created, that has

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Speaker 1: been created through the experiences we've had in life, through

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Speaker 1: the people we've met that sort of make up this

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Speaker 1: idea of who we are. And again, oftentimes that idea

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Speaker 1: is sort of shrouded and surrounded by our ego and

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Speaker 1: us trying to protect that idea.

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Speaker 2: It allows our ego to.

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Speaker 1: Come out to play right, and this leads us to

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Speaker 1: all someone who's not a stoic, but just one of

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Speaker 1: the greatest philosophers that has ever lived that has had

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Speaker 1: a huge impact on my life, Alan Watts, and his

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Speaker 1: quote is if the ego were to disappear, or rather

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Speaker 1: to be seen as a useful fiction, there would no

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Speaker 1: longer be the duality of subject and object, experiencer and experience.

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Speaker 1: There would simply be a continuous, self moving stream of

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Speaker 1: experiencing without the sense either of an active subject who

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Speaker 1: controls it or a passive subject who suffers it. The

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Speaker 1: thinker would be no more than the series of thoughts,

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Speaker 1: and the feeler no more than the feelings.

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Speaker 2: And he's saying a lot here.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to kind of try to decode it and

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Speaker 1: break it down, but I think for starters, it's talking

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Speaker 1: about all the things we're supposed to be doing right

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Speaker 1: or should be doing, and these are all figments of

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Speaker 1: our imagination, you know. And if we can get beyond

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Speaker 1: those thoughts and those feelings of trying to do what's

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Speaker 1: right or what's expected of us, or what we expect

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Speaker 1: from ourselves, if we get beyond just that, that's when

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Speaker 1: you begin to really experience life how you truly want it.

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Speaker 1: That's when you have the ultimate presence day to day

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Speaker 1: and are literally just experiencing life in the purest form,

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Speaker 1: right based upon the identity you've assigned yourself. You're literally

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Speaker 1: just making decisions in the moment and experiencing true present joy, right.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's all that we're kind of talking

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Speaker 1: about in that quote from the Riza and from Alan Watts,

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Speaker 1: you know, and for me, I relate to this on

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Speaker 1: a number of levels, and I think maybe this example

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Speaker 1: will kind of break it down in a bit of

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Speaker 1: a more realistic fashion. Like, you know, recently, I had

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Speaker 1: a weekend where I was off and this is the

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Speaker 1: first time I haven't you know, been like djaying somewhere

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Speaker 1: on a Saturday and really just had a day to

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Speaker 1: myself had the full Saturday and myself Saturday night and

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Speaker 1: had the ability to just do whatever the hell I

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Speaker 1: wanted to do, right, and I just dedicated it to

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Speaker 1: enjoying my own company. But at first, there was sort

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Speaker 1: of the conversation happening internally, like you know, oh, it's

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Speaker 1: Saturday night. I'm a single dude. I should be out

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Speaker 1: there hanging out with a bunch of my friends at

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Speaker 1: the bars or going to do something, or filling the

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Speaker 1: time with some sort of activity, right, something that is

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Speaker 1: interesting and exciting for myself. Right, And I kind of

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Speaker 1: pushed against those narratives that I sort of had in

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Speaker 1: my head, right, and dedicated myself again to really just

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Speaker 1: spending that time by myself, Like I made a fire

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Speaker 1: and my fire pit by myself.

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Speaker 2: I grilled, I sat, I read, and really just like

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Speaker 2: relaxed alone.

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Speaker 1: And there was a part of me that sort of

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Speaker 1: had the inclination of like, okay, the sort of image

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Speaker 1: of myself that maybe the world would expect or if

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Speaker 1: somebody was to ask me, you know, how was your weekend?

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Speaker 2: You do anything exciting?

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Speaker 1: And I was just like, nah, I just sat at home,

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Speaker 1: Like a part of me might feel like a user

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Speaker 1: because I didn't have anything cool to report to that person, right.

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Speaker 2: But that's ego right there, right, that's not the real

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Speaker 2: version of me.

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Speaker 1: The real version of me in that moment wanted nothing

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Speaker 1: more than to just have that alone time with himself

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Speaker 1: to you know, explore and journal and read and eat

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Speaker 1: good food and just enjoy the quiet of the home

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Speaker 1: that I have built, right. And I think oftentimes we

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Speaker 1: get so caught up and again doing what we're supposed

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Speaker 1: to be doing and doing things for other people because

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Speaker 1: a friend hit us up and they don't want to

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Speaker 1: go out alone, or a last minute gig has come

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Speaker 1: up and I feel bad turning it down because I'm

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Speaker 1: putting the club in a bad position, right. And all

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Speaker 1: of those things are me living for other people or

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Speaker 1: for the appearance of, you know, wanting to give off

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Speaker 1: some sort of notion of myself. And I think that's

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about, wanting to shed the idea that

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Speaker 1: we have to be performing all the time and getting

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Speaker 1: to the core of who we are, what we want,

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Speaker 1: and what actually makes us happy, regardless of what the

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Speaker 1: optics of it are going to look like from the

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Speaker 1: outside looking in it. So now we've heard from from Rizzo,

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Speaker 1: we have heard from one of the great philosophers, Alan Watts,

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Speaker 1: you've heard from myself. Now let's talk about how you

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Speaker 1: can make it you a mantra for today. But first

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Speaker 1: le's take a quick break and then we'll be right back.

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Speaker 1: All right, So today we're focusing all around the idea

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Speaker 1: of diminishing your ego and really specifically like getting down

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Speaker 1: to yourself in the truest, most raw form. We've heard

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Speaker 1: from Rizzo, we've heard from the philosopher Alan Watts, myself,

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Speaker 1: and now let's talk about how you can make it

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Speaker 1: your mantra for today. And I think at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day, it really starts with having that quiet

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Speaker 1: sort of calm, right and taking yourself out of the

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Speaker 1: noise of the world. You have to understand that we're

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Speaker 1: all to a deg I think, performing throughout our everyday lives.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: We're all we're having small talk, we are getting dressed

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Speaker 1: to go out into the world and look presentable.

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Speaker 2: At work, we're speaking with our work voice, right.

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Speaker 1: We are being the fun friend who is always energetic

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Speaker 1: and the life of the party, right, And all of

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Speaker 1: that is our ego at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: and our ego not wanting to let other people down,

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Speaker 1: our ego wanting to maintain some sort of status at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, and then our ego making

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Speaker 1: decisions that don't actually serve us but just serve the.

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Speaker 2: Outside perception of us at the end of the day. Right,

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Speaker 2: you have to.

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Speaker 1: Really shed the idea of your identity and who you

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Speaker 1: think you are and all the things you should be

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Speaker 1: doing and force yourself to have those moments where you

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Speaker 1: literally are having no expectation of anything or putting any

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Speaker 1: expectation on yourself other than just living in the very

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Speaker 1: moment and taking it moment by moment. Right, So to

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Speaker 1: recap all we've been talking about around this idea of

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Speaker 1: diminishing your ego, Riza talking about how you have to

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Speaker 1: lose yourself in order to improve yourself, right, and then

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Speaker 1: also you know, Alan Watts talking about the idea of

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Speaker 1: us being able to sort of shed our ego and

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Speaker 1: shed the narrative that goes on in our minds about

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Speaker 1: what we're supposed to be doing, what we're you know,

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Speaker 1: supposed to be looking like, experiencing what our days supposed

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Speaker 1: to look like, shedding these sort of fictitious ideas of

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Speaker 1: what's supposed to be and literally just getting into a

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Speaker 1: mode of being present and experiencing life for what it is.

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Speaker 1: And even you know me talking about, you know, kind

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Speaker 1: of my quiet weekends, as silly of an example as

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Speaker 1: that is, you know, the old version of me would

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Speaker 1: have wanted to go out because I would have been

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Speaker 1: scared that I was missing out on something right, like

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Speaker 1: me being able to push past those parts of myself

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Speaker 1: and the ego that exists within all of that, and

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Speaker 1: truly getting down to just wanting to have a present

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Speaker 1: moment to.

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Speaker 2: Myself and do what actually would make me happy in

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Speaker 2: that very moment right now.

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Speaker 1: With that said, thank you so much for checking out

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Speaker 1: the Street Stoke Podcast.

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Speaker 2: Do your best to apply these.

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Speaker 1: Concepts that we've discussed into your everyday life, and I

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Speaker 1: will catch you next time. The Street Stoke Podcast is

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Speaker 1: a production of Iheart's Michael Dura Podcast Network