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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is that you are in charge of you.

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Speaker 1: Emotions like fear are interesting, but do not ultimately need

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Speaker 1: to direct your actions. So I recently signed three of

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Speaker 1: my kids up for rock climbing classes. My five year old,

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Speaker 1: in particular, climbs all over everything at home, so I

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Speaker 1: was imagining that he would enjoy it, and he did.

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Speaker 1: He climbed to the top of the gym wall again

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Speaker 1: and again, which is quite a big height for a

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Speaker 1: little person. Afterwards, I noted how fearless he seemed. That's

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Speaker 1: when he told me that he was afraid of being

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Speaker 1: up so high. But he said he was in charge

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Speaker 1: of himself and he could still climb even if he

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Speaker 1: was afraid. I absolutely love this, and I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: where he got this language, but what a great philosophy

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Speaker 1: for life. We feel all kinds of emotions about things.

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Speaker 1: Fear is a big one, of course, but there are

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Speaker 1: others anger, irritation, sadness. We are emotional creatures, and it's

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Speaker 1: pretty clear that our feelings drive the car. Much of

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Speaker 1: the time. We feel them in our bodies, with our

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Speaker 1: hearts racing our palms getting clammy. But we aren't just

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Speaker 1: our feelings, and in the course of millions of years

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Speaker 1: of cognitive evolution, we have developed the ability to step

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Speaker 1: outside that core emotional reaction and examine it for what

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Speaker 1: it is. In my son's case, the wall was high,

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Speaker 1: but getting to the top also looked like a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun. He realized that the choice was not to

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Speaker 1: stay at the bottom scared, or go to the top

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Speaker 1: feeling fearless. The ladder was impossible. He had a choice

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Speaker 1: to stay near the bottom feeling scared, or go to

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Speaker 1: the top feeling scared, so he chose to climb. I

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Speaker 1: am trying to remember this. I am an anxious flyer,

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Speaker 1: and I wish I would have gotten over this, but unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: despite my many hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles,

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Speaker 1: I haven't. But there are so many wonderful places in

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Speaker 1: this world that it is hard to get to without flying.

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Speaker 1: The choice is not to stay on the ground or

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Speaker 1: fly fearless. It's to not go anywhere or to fly scared.

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Speaker 1: So I just tried to breathe deeply, get absorbed in

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Speaker 1: a book or a podcast, and realized that no flight

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Speaker 1: lasts forever. Eventually I will get where I'm going. Maybe

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Speaker 1: there's something you are feeling strong emotions about, for instance,

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Speaker 1: something you are particularly afraid of, if there's a good

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Speaker 1: reason to be afraid, that is one thing. I am

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Speaker 1: not advocating recklessness, no need to climb into the lion cage,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes we're afraid of things that have some pretty

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Speaker 1: cool payoffs. Flying gets us places. Public speaking lets us

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Speaker 1: share ideas with big groups of people. Talking to someone

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Speaker 1: new lets us build a relationship that would not be

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Speaker 1: there otherwise. It's helpful to realize that fear is interesting,

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Speaker 1: but need not be the sole reason for a decision.

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Speaker 1: We don't need an absence of fear to do things.

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Speaker 1: We can just do them scared. We are in charge

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Speaker 1: of ourselves. Recognizing that opens up a world of possibility.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

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Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

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Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at before Breakfast pod

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Speaker 1: that's b E the number four. Then Breakfast p O

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Speaker 1: D You can also shoot me an email at before

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Speaker 1: Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com that Before

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Speaker 1: Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,

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Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is

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Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you list into your favorite shows. H