WEBVTT
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This program is designed to provide general information with regards
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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
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legal counseling, professional service, or any advice.
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You should seek the services.
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Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
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At the end of the day, it's not about what
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you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
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you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
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who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
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Denzel Welshon, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
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to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you
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to see.
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Paul Welcome to the show.
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Thank you, doctor Doug. I appreciate being here.
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Well, I'm looking forward to this. You know, I had
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a chance to listen to your ted X talk and
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it was really fascinating and you obviously went into some
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interesting topics. But what I'd love for you to do
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is share with the audience kind of your background and
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I know that will bring up the whole story to
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a little degree, and then we'll get into that maybe
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a little bit further. But if you could do that,
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I know you do a lot of different things, and
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if you could share with the audience what was your
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journey that brought you to this point, I think that
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would be interesting.
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Absolutely well. For thirty years, I was a practicing federal
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trial attorney in the city of Chicago, practicing labor and
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employment law. I took a detour. I became a convicted felon,
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spent five and a half years in a federal prison,
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got out, and because I could no longer practice law,
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I decided I was going to take my life experiences,
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including the concept of surviving, of failure and recovering, and
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turning it into a coaching platform. I've been an executive
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coach since two thousand and one. I now have a
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national coaching practice. My largest client's billion dollar privately held company.
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That's my trajectory. In about thirty seconds, it covers seventy years.
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Okay, So as you work with these large companies, what's
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your main focus with them or is it kind of
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in general? I know when I was working with very
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small companies as a consultant. I was finding that I'm
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really focusing on the organizational aspects of it and kind
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of going through a whole process of marketing and all
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of that type of thing. What's your focus with those companies?
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Well, I bill myself as the NOBS workplace performance coach.
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I work with the executive suite, and it's all about
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improving leadership of the leaders. I actually my tagline is
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challenging the best to become better, and I work exclusively
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in taking those leadership skill sets and making them much better.
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That's it in a nutshell. I wish it was more complicated,
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but it's not. I take my experience plus the experience
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of being a coach now for thirty years, and I
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turned that into some valuable actionable input.
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Okay, And you know what I find fascinating as I
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worked with individuals, and like I say, not to the
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degree that you do by any stretch of the imagination,
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but while I was doing that, what I found was
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there so often that whatever skills you were teaching business
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wise were literally skills that they needed in their own lives.
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Because each one of us really needs to be a
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leader in our own life. Is that not true?
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Oh? Absolutely? The concept of trying to By the way,
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this is a new concept. I absolutely agree with you.
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But leadership prior to the pandemic, especially was compartmentalized. You
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left your personal life at home. Leaders did not like
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the concept of sharing. They didn't want to be vulnerable,
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they didn't want to be authentic. They felt that that
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made them look weak and ineffective. The pandemic changed that
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people stopped being willing to accept this division of your
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one thing outside of work and you're another thing at work.
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You're not. You're a holistic person. You bring that bagage
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wherever it may be to the workplace, but you also
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take it home with you. So yeah, you're actually you're
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spot on with us. My context of coaching is about
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their life, not just about their work.
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Okay. And you know, I listened to your ted X talk,
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as I mentioned, and and you talk about the fact
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that everybody needs a fool in their life. And we're
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going to get into that, Okay, but that's going to
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be maybe near the end of what we're going to
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talk about today, because one of the things I want
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to talk to you about, because you had mentioned them,
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is these blind spots that we have and briggers that
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activate them. I in fact, I found a quote that
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I found interesting and I want to share it with
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you with the audience because I think it's pertinent to
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what we're going to talk about. Is from Carljng and
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what he says is, until you make the unconscious conscious,
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it will direct your life and you will call it
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fate and yeah, spot on. And what I find is
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that so often we don't realize that our literal experience
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in life is a result of that unconscious subconscious, those
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those triggers, those blind spots as you refer to them.
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And so I'm going to ask you a very transparent question.
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You were You were an attorney in Chicago. By the way,
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I grew up in Chicago, so I love Chicago. But
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you were an attorney in Chicago you ended up going
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to prison.
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Why? Ego?
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Ego?
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Yes, and let me tell you that ego was my
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blind spot. I think it is the blind spot for many.
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And yes, my ego led me to believe that I
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was tell you I was, I was the smartest guy
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in the room. There was never any room that I
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was in that I didn't truly believe that I was
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extraordinarily successful as an attorney and a smart guy, but
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stupid when it comes to relationships. And because of that
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ego and the desire to belong. I came from a
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broken home and I strived to find stability in my life,
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but I also needed acceptance. I always felt like I
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was an outcast. I was a loaner. I did not
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join groups, and the clientele that I represented was morally reprehensible. However,
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I was fascinated by them, and they really wanted me
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to join their group, because having a smart lawyer to
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defend you when you commit a crime is a plus.
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And I wanted that group. I wanted to belong and
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they gave me the opportunity. But there's initiation fee to
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belong to any group, and that initiation fee was obviously
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to commit those morally reprehensible tasks, the things that you did,
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and I did that with I did that willfully. I
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don't I make no bumps about it. I absolutely deserve
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to go to prison. However, so those two blind spots
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for me, the ego and the need to belong, allowed
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me to be triggered by the way people recognize your
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blind spots even though you don't.
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And then if they're not good. They'll take advantage of them.
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Absolutely, they'll manipulate you by pressing triggering those blind spots.
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Okay, So one of the things that I've observed in
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myself as well as others, and as we've talked on
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these podcasts for years now about this topic, is fascinating
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that we literally create our life, We literally create our experiences,
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and oftentimes we don't realize initially at least that those
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experiences are a result of those limiting beliefs that we
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have a subconscious type of things. Oftentimes it's not even conscious.
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Oftentimes it's actually built in our DNA, and we don't
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realize that the epigenetics of that is causing us to
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do certain things. But my question for you, and you
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had mentioned a little bit of it, but let's let's
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do a deep dive, because I think for the audience
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it would be really fascinating for them to understand what
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you discovered in a deep way about your previous life
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as a child and your subconscious imprints, and you call
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them blind spots that triggered you to do the things
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that you did that ultimately now you are very sorry
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that you did, and obviously you have changed your life
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but what were those things talked about needing to be accepted?
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Were there others that you wanted to be a part
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of a group? What was it that actually literally caused
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you to make those decisions and at the time feel
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like it was okay.
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Well, first, just you're correct about these mind spots are
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with us from birth. They they're there. We don't see them,
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but we also can't get rid of them. It does
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not matter how hard we try, they continue to exist.
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It is our ability to recognize them and exert control.
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So at the time, because first overconfident, very successful, ego
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driven one and more, by the way, trial trial lawyers
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are adrenaline junkies. You know you're not a trial lawyer
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if you don't enjoy the high and I did. My
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problem was between trials when I wasn't actually in front
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of the jury and in court in front of the
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jumb engaged in that verbal combat with a worthy opponent.
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I was bored. I didn't like that, and I saw it.
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I sought out adrenaline inducing opportunities. And by the way,
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this group that I speak of, my client base, offered
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me that they offered me acceptance, They offered me the
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adrenaline high. They offered me the ego stroking that I craved.
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I needed to be told that I was good. I
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needed to be told I was exceptional. This came from again,
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I go back to my childhood. A broken home leaves
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that indelible impact on you. You never feel like you're
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completely first, You feel like you may have caused it.
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You don't know why adults do what they do as
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a kid, so you make those assumptions. And I assumed
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that it was something that I did. I never found
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that out, obviously because it wasn't true. But it didn't
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mean I didn't believe it. I did believe it. And
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because of that, I was always offering from imposter syndrome.
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Even though I would tell you I was the smartest
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guy in the room, I was never sure that that
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level of doubt continues to permeate every action that I took.
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So I craved that. I craved all of the stuff
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that I got from people who realized my blind spots
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and decided to take advantage of them.
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Well, and you know that's true, and unfortunately you know
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whether it's people. And like I said, I grew up
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in Chicago, so I get what you're talking about. But
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you know, people that are not necessarily good will obviously
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identify those type of things and take advantage of those.
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There are others that will take advantage of situations that
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will empower them. For instance, when you get into abuse,
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whether it's physical or mental or emotional, whatever that happens
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to be. So often people find themselves continually in those
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same relationships because they've never been able to figure out
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internally and subconsciously what they were, what was really going on,
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what was causing that type of thing. Now I want
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to disagree with you on one thing, and okay, and
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it may be worth thinking the same thing, and there
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is no disagreement. But my belief system, and as I've
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studied it, what I find is that there literally is
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a way to change neural pathways. So do we ever
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totally overcome those imprints and get them wipe from a memory.
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Absolutely not. But I believe that as we consciously, with
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a mindset and emotional intelligence, start to observe what's going
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on and literally allow ourselves to recognize reframe those because
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as you say, it's really perception from childhood all the time,
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or at least a lot of the time, and be
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able to change the neural pathways to where you don't
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totally eliminate the neural pathways, but you've moved to the side,
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to the point that if you were really in a
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conscious situation, when those emotions start to come up, you
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immediately moved them to the side because you're now more
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conscious and you've created a stronger nearrow pathway. What are
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your thoughts.
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No, first, I don't disagree with you at all. I
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think that for most of us it is extraordinarily difficult
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for us to do that on our own. That's why
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we'll talk about the concept of the pool. That's my crunching.
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But let me tell you that the seminal event that
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allowed me the opportunity to do exactly what you say
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was going to prison. If I had not gone to
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prison first, I wouldn't have survived. I would have been
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dead long ago. That experience forced me to understand these
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blind spots, and with the help of a support system,
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I did exactly what you said. I started to change
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the way I looked at my life and how I behaved,
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but only under that amount of direct It took me
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going to prison. And let me tell you how wrong
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we embedded these are I stood in front of a
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judge who was getting ready to sentence me to seven
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years of incarceration and two things. First, I had practiced
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in front of this judge, and the judge said, as
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he prepared the sentence me, you're one of the few
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people that I wish I could give more time to,
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but he couldn't under the sentencing guidelines. And he offered
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me an opportunity. He said, I'm going to reduce your