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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 to find your moonshot. A really challenging

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Speaker 1: goal can help you structure your time, stay interested in learning,

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Speaker 1: and develop your capacities, and you just might accomplish it too,

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Speaker 1: which can change your whole life. A reasonable number of

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Speaker 1: companies in recent years have committed to what they call moonshots,

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Speaker 1: ambitious world changing goals. The original moonshot was, of course,

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Speaker 1: the actual moonshot. When President Kennedy famously committed the US

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Speaker 1: to putting a man on the moon and bringing him back,

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Speaker 1: he said that we choose to do things like go

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Speaker 1: to the moon not because they are easy, but because

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Speaker 1: they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize

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Speaker 1: and measure the best of our energies and skills. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: you have seen this in your own life. When you

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Speaker 1: commit to doing something big and challenging, you wind up

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Speaker 1: organizing your time and your energy towards those ends. Often

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Speaker 1: that focus has spill over benefits in all sorts of

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Speaker 1: other areas. You commit to running a marathon, and as

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Speaker 1: part of that, you wind up overhauling your eating you

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Speaker 1: learn to give yourself a bedtime, and you develop some

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Speaker 1: efficiencies at work and at home in order to free

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Speaker 1: up the space you commit to earning your m b a.

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Speaker 1: In night classes during a busy stretch of work and parenting,

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Speaker 1: And in doing so you figure out how to waste

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Speaker 1: less time on all sorts of things, and also how

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Speaker 1: to learn information quickly and present it convincingly, and other

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Speaker 1: such things that help in everything else you do. Now

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Speaker 1: to be sure, there is no reason to do something

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Speaker 1: hard just to do something hard. I have heard tales

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Speaker 1: of certain perfectionist types who, as college students, figured out

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Speaker 1: what the hardest major was at their schools and chose

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Speaker 1: to do that, even if they had little interest in

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Speaker 1: the topic. Some people seek out the manager known for

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Speaker 1: the most brutal hours by figuring if it is hard,

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Speaker 1: it must be the best, which is just not true.

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Speaker 1: There is no virtue in seeking out difficulty just for

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Speaker 1: difficulty's sake. Instead, if there is something you truly want

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Speaker 1: to do and it looks difficult, the difficulty itself should

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Speaker 1: not necessarily steer you away. Instead, think about whether a

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Speaker 1: compelling enough goal might motivate you to do things in

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Speaker 1: your life that seemed almost out of reach before. That's

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Speaker 1: one reason I am reading through all the works of

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Speaker 1: Shakespeare this year. Now that is a pretty big reading goal,

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Speaker 1: but it is also a doable goal with some work.

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Speaker 1: I spend a few minutes every day reading through my

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Speaker 1: schedule of plays and poems. I read commentaries to make

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Speaker 1: sure I understand what I am reading, and well, yes,

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Speaker 1: there are a few moments and Henry the Sixth Part two,

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Speaker 1: or I'm getting bogged down. For the most part, it

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Speaker 1: is good, and I am developing lots of skills as

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Speaker 1: a reader while doing this, skills that I am sure

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Speaker 1: will help me as a writer too. So think about

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Speaker 1: what your personal moon shop might be. Maybe it's running

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Speaker 1: for office, Maybe it's becoming fluent in Arabic. Maybe it

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Speaker 1: is finishing your degree or starting your business. When we

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Speaker 1: commit ourselves to pursuing something that seems really challenging but

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Speaker 1: is not actually impossible, we find that it is indeed possible.

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Speaker 1: We just might get it done, and as we do,

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Speaker 1: we develop habits of discipline, focus, and let's face it,

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Speaker 1: good time management. Anything important takes time to find the time.

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Speaker 1: We have to look at all of our time and

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Speaker 1: how we are spending it, but that is a good thing.

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Speaker 1: We probably have the space to do big stuff. We

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Speaker 1: just have to make wise choices. I would love to

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Speaker 1: hear about your moonshot aspirations and your progress toward them.

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Speaker 1: You can reach me at Laura at Laura vander Kim

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Speaker 1: dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening,

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Speaker 1: and 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 D.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled

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Speaker 1: out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look

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Speaker 1: forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H