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Alright, so today I wanted to talk about this concept that you get what you focus on. And yeah, that's something that I've been struggling with. Because I truly
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believe that the more you focus on something, the more that that stuff is going to come to you. You know, it's like, I believe in all this kind of shit like
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energy and all this stuff. And like, if you focus on something, I believe you're like telling the universe or whatever the order of all this shit is, the
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more you focus on, say, like negative shit, the more I believe you're sort of drawing that stuff to you. I don't have any examples on why I believe
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that I just, I just believe that I mean, well, I guess I kind of do. I mean, I think I've, I've talked about this before, I have some bullet points, I'll see if
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I can stay on track. But I'm already getting a little derailed. But I do believe this. To a certain extent, I think I've talked about this before.
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But I'll cover it again, this was like, back when I first started my company, in 2002, I was doing motion graphics, and I did zero advertising. So
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everything was all word of mouth. So I, my whole thing was like, I'll get a job working for No, I mean, not get a job, oh, my, somebody will hire my
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company to do a project. And the idea was, like, I'm going to do such a good job and be you know, so on top of everything, that they'll tell other people about
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it. So it was mainly word of mouth advertising. So with that, in mind, when there was downtime, I, there was no real proactive shit that I would do,
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you know, like outreach or anything, I didn't do any of that stuff at all. And so when there was downtime, I would just believe something's gonna come.
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And, you know, just not the best, I wouldn't do that. Now. That's not how I do it. That's not how I run my current business. But um, but one thing
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that I would do is is so like, when there was downtime, I would kind of rest a little bit. And then I would start getting stressed out and start thinking
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like, Well, I gotta get some work, like, how am I going to get some work? And so what I would do is, I would be like, well, if I just start doing work
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that I don't know where I got this from, but I would, I would think like, if I just start doing work, even though I don't have like paid work, I'm just
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gonna work on shit, then I'm telling the universe that I'm ready for work, and then something will come in. And it always something always came in.
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And, you know, I can't sit here and tell you that that's because of the putting that order out into the universe. I can't prove that. But it seemed to work. I
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mean, like I said, I don't know if it worked or not, I just know that work came in. And so I went into it with that belief. So I'm already derailed. So let's just
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get back to the bullet points. So the way I wanted to approach this is, I was on a call with Ed my let, last week, I think, and he was talking about the
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reticular activating system, it's a part of your brain, it's a, it's a network of neurons that filter shit out. So I'm not a neuroscientist, obviously. But
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I do have a little bit of understanding, well, I have learned some things about this. And I'll explain sort of how I understand it, I don't know if
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it's exactly spot on or not. So do your own research, if you want. But my understanding of this is, when you focus on something, this part of your
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brain, kind of, it's almost like it receives an order that this is something that you want to focus on. So it's going to sort of filter things out in the
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world around you. So it's kind of like, you know, like if you're in a crowded place, and somebody yells your name, even if even if they even if the
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volume isn't necessarily louder than everything else, it's it kind of cuts through, I believe it's the reticular activating system that sort of filters
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everything out, you know, for that kind of thing, or I think they've talked about it. Not me, I've heard about this before, where, you know, like, if a
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mother loses their kid or something, they'll be able to identify their kids voice over all the chatter all around them, you know, and it's like, because
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it's filtering out all of the shit that's not important. And really kind of focusing in on the things that are and this happens all the time where, you
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know, Jesse and l go to a coffee shop, and I have pretty bad hearing, I'm completely deaf in my left ear. And my right ear seems fine, but like, you know,
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that's half of my shit. And, and I always hear when they call her name, like when the food's ready, you know, like, even if it's super loud in there, and
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sometimes I'll hear it and she won't and she has perfectly good hearing. So I have a feeling that that's part of it. But another example All that I could
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give you on stuff that you've probably had happen is, you know, when you want to buy something like a car or something like that, then all of
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a sudden you're seeing that car all over the place. This happened to me in the 90s, I was talking about buying a new car. And a buddy of mine was like,
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oh, you should get one of those. And he pointed to a Chevy Impala. And this was in the mid 90s. So the Chevy Impala had not been around for a long time. And
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then 9495 and 96, they they released sort of a limited edition of the Chevy Impala for those three years. And I had never noticed this car, like on
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the road at all. And when he pointed it out, he's like, Oh, these, those things are awesome, you should get one, a 96. And then all of a sudden, I started
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seeing it everywhere, a car that I had never noticed. All of a sudden, I felt like I was just surrounded by these things everywhere I went, and I ended
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up buying one. So that's sort of my understanding of how that works. And then I want to kind of get into how you can use that to your advantage, and then how
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I believe you can sort of sabotage yourself with the same, the same concept. So this is something I've been focusing on a lot. Well, I've been trying to
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correct by sort of mindset on things, because my brain has a real tendency to go to like, impending doom mode, I guess you could call it. So like, for
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example, like with my business, like I'm always stressed out about it, like, I'll have a really good day, and then I won't be stressed out. And then
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another day, where sales are down lower than, than normal. And my brain just starts going into this, like, everything's going to shit kind of mode. And
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what's concerning to me is, I believe that, while I've, like I said, I believe in all this energy and all this sort of shit. So I kind of have this
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belief that if I focus a lot on, you know, everything's gonna go to shit, I feel like I'm kind of like putting an order out into the universe and saying, like,
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yeah, I want everything to go to shit. That's why I'm focused on this all the time. But then at the same time, it's also like, if I'm focusing on that, then my
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reticular activating system is going to be on the lookout for that kind of shit. You know, like, well, I don't even know how that would work. I mean, how
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is it going to bring more of that in? And I don't know, maybe, you know, honestly, maybe maybe it does. Because I feel like on those days, where, where
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I'm especially stressed out, like, today's one of those days, I'll be honest, I'm like, really stressed out. I'm not like liking what I'm seeing on the
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last the numbers for the last three days. But that's not even something that most people, you're not even supposed to do that. I don't know if you're
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supposed to do that. But most business people I talk to you, they don't like really look at things on a day to day, it's like on a weekly or monthly or
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BI BI monthly basis, because you're you're averaging you know, it's like business like shits gonna go up, it's gonna go down. And if you're constantly
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looking at it, hour by our, you know, it's gonna fucking stress you out. If the numbers are low, you know, so today, it's just one of those days, I just keep
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looking at it. I'm like, Ah, man is so fucked up, you know, it's, you know, unhealthy. And it's, it's, it's counterproductive. So my whole belief that like, if I
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focus on that too much, then I'm going to bring more of that. And I find like those days, I'm not nearly as productive on the days that I'm, I'm thinking positive.
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So I don't know, maybe that is a kind of thing where you're sort of like looking for things. So maybe, like, today, I was dealing with a lot of like,
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procrastination. You know, like, even recording this podcast, I have it on my list to do it. But I've been procrastinating. And I wonder if it's like, because I'm
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too focused on the negative stuff. So I'm like, drawing in all these reasons to not do the shit that I need to do. And on days where everything's firing,
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and I'm feeling good, and I'm feeling positive and all that stuff. It's hard for me to stop doing the shit that I need to do, you know, so I wonder if
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that is part of it. And so shifting over to what I believe is the importance of having a more positive mindset is like, and you start focusing on all
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the things that are good, and things that you want, you know, the good things that you want to happen, I believe that your your brain is going to filter out all
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of the bad shit and not filter it out. But it'll it'll be more on the lookout for the good shit for opportunities. You know, it'll spark ideas that you know,
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I would imagine some of my best ideas for the business that move the business forward happen when I'm on a positive day. Now Not so much when I'm on the negative
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day, I'm fairly certain of that, although I can't really come up with any specific examples, but Well, I guess I can, I mean, I know, just recently, I had an
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idea to do this, like slap tag template thing on our website. So I knew graffiti writers from experience, a lot of them like, a very simple slap tag, when we
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first started printing stickers, I made all these like really creative templates, you know, and they had like imagery, and the text was all kind of
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interesting and a design standpoint, and, and then we put that out into the market. And I was, it was my first go at printing stickers for graffiti
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writers. And we started getting orders, but like, nobody was using the templates, they were all like, Oh, can you just can you just make a font, like just
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make put my name and my crew as a font nails, the most of them didn't even care what the hell font it was, I just wanted it to be a simple thing that I just
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put up that had their name on it. And so our sticker printing evolved way past, like, what we were doing before I was printing them by hand, and all of this
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kind of stuff. And I sort of just put that whole experience in the back in the back of my mind. And I hadn't thought about it. And then just recently, and
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I'm assuming it was on a good day where where I was, I was focused, and I was, I was thinking positive on moving the business forward, I had this
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idea to sort of bring that back. But bring back what I initially saw that people wanted. I mean, this was a long time ago, but I was, you know, I pay attention.
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So when I'm out on the street, and I'm looking around, most of the stickers that I see are these simple things. So anyway, long story short, this is a good
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day, where I'm like thinking productively, and I'm thinking positively on moving the business forward. And that's when I have an idea to bring
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that whole template thing back, but do it in a way, that's very simple. They just go to the website, you know, you order the quantity, there's one size, I'm
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like, this is the best size for slabs, like just made it real simple. type in what you want. Pick a font that are on the website there. And, and we'll
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make it for you. And so I brought that to the team. And everybody was like, Yeah, that sounds cool. The other thing that was cool about it is we
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have these older printers that print them perfectly fine, but they're just a slightly different system, I won't get into too much detail than what
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our current printers are doing for the bulk of our sticker printing business. So it was a perfect thing that all came together for utilizing these
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printers and also printing stickers that speak directly to the graffiti culture, which is something that I'm really interested in doing. So long
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story short, we've been selling quite a lot of these. And over the over the month, I think we've done over 100 orders or something. And that was just an
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idea that just sort of popped in my head. During the day where I was probably thinking positive. I don't remember exactly where my head was during that day. But
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I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that I wasn't sitting here fucking with a negative mindset. And then all of a sudden, this great idea popped
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into my head. So So I believe if you can, if you can keep your your mind focused on positive shit, then your mind your conscious if you keep your
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conscious mind, so you're the one that's like, having all of these negative thoughts or positive thoughts. And so if I'm thinking like, moving the
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company forward, and I'm thinking positive, and I'm believing in my my goals, and I'm believing in that, that the things that I believe that
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machine's going to do in the future, those ideas that are going to move the company forward are going to come during those times, and I don't believe
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that they're going to come during the times where I'm in this impending doom kind of mode. You know, I've been actively trying to remind myself
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of this because I believe this to be true. And you know, I want to accomplish all these goals and I want to get to, you know, a certain level in this
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business, I want to get my my physical health into a certain level. And I believe that keeping your mind focused on the positive is what's going to kind
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of allow your mind or your reticular activating system to kind of filter out that negative shit and find those opportunities for you. You know,
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like I said, I also believe in all the universe shit and like the law of attraction and I believe in all that kind of stuff, too. So I was I was on a
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drive with Jesse today. We went out to the desert, we took the dogs and just kind of wanted to get away from all the noise and just you know, and so I had this
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clarity as we're driving because I was kind of feeling this now. negative mindset. And I was like, you know, I'm not kind of realize that like, there was
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practices that I used to do that I stopped doing, and that I need to, I need to start doing those again. There's three of them. So number one, I used to practice
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gratitude a lot more and, and I got this idea from Marcus Aurelius Anderson, he talks about being grateful for the hardship. So that was the kind
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of gratitude practice that I would have, I would go outside in the morning and get some sun first thing in the morning, and I haven't been doing that
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lately. And when I would go out there, the first thing I would do is I would start thinking about things that I were that were stressful. And I would
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genuinely kind of, I don't know if the word is, right, but I would kind of make myself feel gratitude for those things. And it wasn't even faking. Like, I
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guess at first, I was kind of like forcing it, but then I would feel gratitude, because I knew that, you know, the hard shit is what strengthens you,
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like, you don't go to the gym and just lift a bunch of light weights and then get all strong, you know, that's not how it works, you have to go through
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hardship, in order to build that strength. So if you're going through stuff that's mentally difficult, that's, that's how you're going to strengthen your
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mindset and build mental toughness and grit and all that kind of shit. And so I would, I would do that I would, I would have that gratitude practice, I
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don't do that anymore. And I need to, I need to do that. Again. Another thing I used to do is I would write my goals down, and it was very
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repetitive, you know, I would get up in the morning. And I would pretty much write the same goals for memory. And I think those things reinforced in my
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mind, you know, this is where I'm going, this is where I want to get to all of these things that I want to accomplish and shit like that. And I know, when
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I was doing those, the company was growing faster. Like, I remember, when I first started doing that, I think it was around 2020, I started writing
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my goals down. And it was a practice I got from the 10x rule book. And I really do believe that the act of writing things down like that, you know, and
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not just reading them, but actually writing them, you know, it just really committed them to memory. And it kind of forced me at least in the moment to think
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about those things. And and remember where I'm going and remember where I'm trying to get to. Then the third thing that I need to do, again, that I
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haven't been doing is actually take some time to visualize. And so I was doing this thing where also in the morning, I would
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I would sit down for like 20 minutes, and just it was a meditation. But it wasn't, I have a couple of different meditations, I like to do and
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one of them is to completely try, you know, to try to quiet my mind, I'll sit there and focus on my breathing. And every time my mind starts wandering,
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I'll bring my attention back to my breath. But the other one is, I would sit there for 20 minutes, and I would visualize where I'm trying to get the
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company to go. And I probably have talked about this before, but like I have this big vision of the facility, the main headquarters for a machine. And
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when we accomplish that, that'll be sort of the indicator of level of, of success that I'm trying to get this company to, or that I'm going to get this
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company to. And so this practice, what I would do is I would sit there, and I would spend the whole 20 minutes, just kind of moving around this, this
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facility. And a lot of times, when I would start this visualization practice, I would actually visualize myself in the morning getting ready. And I
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would see myself in the physical shape that I wanted to be in, you know, I would see that, you know, Jesse's there, and we're still super happy together. And
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then I would get my car and I would drive to the facility and I would see all that stuff I could see, you know, like I'm wearing brand new pair of chucks
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as I'm driving down the street, you know, like little shit like that. When I would get to the, to the place, I would see the parking lot, I would grab my
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bag, I would feel the weight of the bag on my shoulder. This is the level of detail that they say that you need to be visualizing in in order to,
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quote manifest the shit that you want. And just as a side note, I believe and what I believe in and I also have read it that it's not about just manifesting
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shit, you have to do a lot of work in order to get it there. So back to it. I would get to the spot. I would see myself getting out of the car, you
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know, putting my bag on feel the weight of the bag, closing the door and see in my car, you know, and it's the same fucking car the 96 Impala, but it's in
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better condition. You know it's more fixed up. But that's the only car I like I don't even want Like, even if I was like a billionaire, I don't know, if I
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would, I don't know, I just liked that car, I don't really care about I don't know me, I like the Bronco, let's just back to the shit, I won't go through
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the whole thing, but I just want you to get an idea of the level of detail that I've heard is what you need to do. And also what I would do. So I would go
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in and I would greet the people there and I would see the people, there are certain people on my team that I would go and meet with and all these kinds of
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things, you know, I'd go all around the whole place and the place is so big that I would, at one point, I would go out to the warehouse and, and talk to the
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warehouse people and the head of the shipping and receiving, you know, stuff and all that kind of thing. And then in the back of the warehouse, there's like this
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little golf cart, and I would get in that. And I'd go drive around the grounds, you know what I mean? Like, I would just really, very, very detailed
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visualization. And I can see all as I'm talking about this, I can see the whole place. Like it's like, I remember having this conversation with cub because
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the place is very similar. It's it's gotten bigger since 2020. But in my mind, I remember telling Cobb about this stuff. And man, I lost my train of
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thought, oh, he would say, you know, that shit already exists. It's just, we're just not in that time. You know, we're not in the, we're not in that point
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in time. It's already there. It's just in the future, you know, you know, he, I missed that duty he was he believed the shit more than I did, you know.
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So anyway, so the other key component that I've heard about, and I believe this to be true, is while you're visualizing all of this shit, you have to kind
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of feel what it would feel like to have it, you know, so like, if you've ever, like, you know, bought a new car or something like that, what did that feel
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like when you first sat on it and drove it and realized, like, oh, man, I, I got this thing or, you know, apply that to anything that you started thinking that
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you want. And then when you got it like that feeling. And so I understand that that's a key component of visualization, and kind of like manifesting these
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things in your life. And so, all of this stuff, so like, if you put all those things into practice, and especially the visualization stuff, it could be
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this like, big universal thing, you know, like, you're manifesting, and you're, you're putting this order out into the universe, and you're, the
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universe is going to open these sorts of doors for you. And it's up to you to do the work to walk through those doors, like all of that kind of shit that that's
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all possible, I don't know. But then there's also the possibility that practicing these kinds of things, when you think about it, if your
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reticular activating system filters out shit, that's irrelevant, and it really focuses on the things that you want. So like, go back to the
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idea of like, you wanted to buy a red fucking Mustang or something like that. And then all of a sudden, you see, like, red Mustangs all over the place,
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like, that's your reticular activating system, showing you the shit that you want. So if you're, if you're thinking about these big goals, and these big
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things that you want to accomplish in your life, I believe that that particular x debating system is going to do the same shit. It's just a much,
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much more complex thing. Like, I'm focusing on this huge. I don't even know how big it is, like 100 square feet, it has a graph yard it has, it has like
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little Airbnbs for fucking flying in artists from all over the world graph writers to do art shows in this big ass gallery, like it's this big
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thing, like, what is my reticular activating system going to show me is it going to show me these huge buildings? It does, because I always notice
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these big buildings. And I'm like, that's, that's about the size of the building that I I picture, you know, but I also believe it's also going to, it's
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also going to filter out shit like opportunities and little steps along the way, but I just need to pay attention to them. So anything you want in your
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life, it's going to start with a thought anyway, so why not put some of these things into practice. And it's possible that your brain will kind of put
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things to work that, you know, we don't I don't even I don't even know how people even know what the fuck the reticular activating system is or how they
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figure this shit out. But but we've all experienced these kinds of things that I'm talking about. So I believe it to be true. So anything you want in
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your life, you know, you're going to start with a thought so why not focus on keeping your thoughts positive, so make sure to make sure that you bring more
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positive shit into your life.
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All right I appreciate each and every one of you guys who are supporting the cause and continue to spread the love and yeah stay up