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Hello, and thank you for tuning in to A Sharp
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Outlook on.
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K4HD Radio and Talk4TV. I am Angela Sharp, your host.
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Our armchair discussions with industry experts will give you the steps, tools,
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and information to be successful in business.
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And to prepare you to be your best self.
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Hello, I'm Angela Sharp, and welcome to A Sharp Outlook.
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And today we want to talk about....
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How do you go from tragedy to triumph?
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And in this episode, we're going to be sitting down
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with Nick Anderson, the driving force behind One Accord. While
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many know Nick as a top-tier business consultant, his journey
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began long before the boardrooms and strategies. And we're going
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to dive deep into Nick's early life, explaining how he
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navigated his the devastating loss of his father as a child.
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And Nick is the CEO of One Accord, a consulting
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firm helping small and mid-sized businesses business owners build stronger,
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more valuable companies. At one accord, he leads the firm's
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advisory work in strategy planning, leadership development, and enterprise value creation,
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guiding owners through growth, succession, and exit. Before entering consulting,
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Anderson spent 25 years in banking leadership. He holds a
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master's degree in nonprofit leadership from Seattle University in 2018,
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was named the Puget Sound Business Journal Under 40 List 2017,
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and is an alumnus of 2015 of Seattle Civic Leadership Program,
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Leadership Tomorrow. And so we are really happy to have
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Nick on our show today. and discussing how he became
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so successful in his business after going through a very
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tragic moment of his life. The show is going to be,
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you know, how that profound experience can become the foundation
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for the empathy, leadership style, and unwavering commitment to helping
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others succeed. And right now, We need voices to help
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others succeed who are struggling. We want you to listen
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to this podcast, share it with others, and let them
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know that there is a way of being able to
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find one's purpose. I want to invite Nick to join
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us right now. Welcome, Nick. Good to have you.
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Thanks for having me.
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Great.
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What I want to do is, because you have achieved
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a lot, I'm jealous.
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I wanted to be on the 40 list, but that's okay.
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I want to go back to the beginning of your
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life and what was the environment like at home when
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you were a child and how did that The things
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that occurred shape your life, initial understanding of what it
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meant to be a man and a leader. Tell us
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your story.
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Oh, wow.
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Those are some big questions. Thanks for asking them. So
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home for me was a modest living arrangement. I think mom, dad,
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and I, my biological father We shared 780 square feet
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in what was kind of a World War II era
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military housing that had then been, you know.
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In the years since became a neighborhood. But it was home.
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I remember only because I had a photograph of this
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that my grandfather, who's a woodworker, constructed for me an
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airplane And if you can imagine, it was probably four
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feet long and three feet wide. They hung it by
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ropes from a tree, and I would sit on it
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like a swing. My grandfather was a World War II
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Marine fighter pilot. But that was in the backyard. There
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were trees in the backyard, and there was this swing
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in the backyard, and that sounds like lovely Americana.
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I also remember my mother and my father arguing.
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More than anything, if I think about their relationship, that's
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what I remember was fights. And my dad left when
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I was four. And I used that language intentionally. What
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was actually the truth was that my mother invited him
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to leave, told him to leave. At four years old,
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three years old too, of course, I wouldn't understand why.
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Right.
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Didn't understand what fights meant like that.
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Didn't understand his mental condition. And I have said that
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my biological father was both mentally ill and chemically dependent.
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I had this thought just the other day. The first
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time I saw touched, smelled marijuana. I think I was
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eight years old from dad's sock drawer. Cause I was
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in there snooping around in a place where I probably
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shouldn't have been. So at four years old, uh, I
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remember dad leaving and the way that the home was constructed,
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there was a, there was a street and we walked
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downstairs to the front door and I remember him walking
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up the stairs and not understanding why daddy was leaving.
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Yes.
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Um, you know, the story goes on, but that's, those
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are some points of the origin story. And, and so,
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you know, mom raised me mom, uh, very strong woman
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in her own lived experience.
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Uh, didn't have it easy.
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She lived in a number of, places in and around
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the Seattle area, many homes, many, um, many father, many men, uh, in,
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in her life.
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My grandmother was married five times.
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Um, and so here, here we were just, just mom
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and me when I was four.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, as you're looking back at your childhood, what are
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some of the earliest lessons about work and character that
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might have stuck with you before everything changed?
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Yeah, mom was an entrepreneur. She and my aunt.
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Founded and operated a hair salon in what is known
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as the Northgate area.
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Northgate Mall used to be a thing.
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And they had Trendsetter Styling Salon across the street from
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the mall for a number of years.
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And they ran a successful business.
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And I recall that Thursday nights were mom's night to
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close the salon. So she would work late. And I
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would stay with my grandmother on Thursdays after school. And
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mom would pick me up at 9. That was one
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of the first.
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Indications or, you know, signals that I had of what it,
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what it takes to be an entrepreneur, what it takes
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to be responsible for the business is you've got to
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be there when nobody else will.
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And I spent a number of days in.
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That salon when there wasn't a babysitter, when there wasn't
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somewhere for me to go. And it was fun for
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about 10 minutes and then boring for the rest of
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the day. I'll tell you what, there's not much to do.
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or a seven year old boy in a, in a
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hair salon.
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Right.
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Once, once you start playing with the chemicals and get told, no,
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don't touch those, then, then what do you do?
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah, definitely. But you did learn, you did see the
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fact that sometimes work is hard, but you have to
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maintain that fortitude to keep going and In spite of
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the fact that it's long hours and it's a lot
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of invested time, but if that's your dream.
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Later in life, so not the early years, but maybe
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the adolescent years, when I endeavored to get a job,
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my first job, mom told me something that stuck. She said,
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if you want to work full-time, you got to work
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full-time at getting a full-time job. So if you want
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40 hours a week worth of work, you better be
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working 40 hours a week to get the job. and
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you know that that's a nearly impossible task like how
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does how does one go about attempting to get work
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for eight hours a day but she was right i
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put in that level of effort and bring that all
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the way forward today If I want my firm, if
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I want One Accord to have growth and if I
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want all of my team to be fully employed and
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growing and adding jobs, well, I bet to be working
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more than 40 hours a week to find new clients
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and grow the business.
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So that's a lesson that's carried forward for decades.
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Yes, yes, absolutely. And it's kind of a lesson.
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That I think... So when you don't understand how much
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commitment is needed to achieve those dreams, you have to
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put the time in. If you're wanting to receive something back,
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you invest, and you invest in your time, your skills,
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your knowledge, your abilities, just to be able to be
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a recipient of what's going to happen from your dedication.
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I know that many of us face adversity. I think
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about my life, you know, facing adversity. Well, one of
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the things is you experience a profound loss at your
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young age with the passing of your father. How did
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that moment shape your view of the world as a
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young person?
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In every way imaginable. That's that's how.
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The some of the lessons that that i could say
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if i label them as such and here again i'm
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you know i'm 47 mike ended his life in suicide
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when i was 10 so i've had 37 years to
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look back and process and make sense of this yeah
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some time ago maybe 10 years ago i was going
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through some boxes of memorabilia from from that era of
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my life things that my mother had saved one of
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them was a journal that i was writing in in
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sixth grade and i wrote to myself that my friends
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were asking me the question how do you how do
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you do it how how do you some version of
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you know how are you doing this right now how
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are you showing up they don't understand mm-hmm The words
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that I put to the answer came to me later
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in life from a friend, Harlan Barkas, and he would
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say that the only way out is through.
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The only way out is through.
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Right.
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I would have said back then, I don't have a choice.
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One of the things that I know about myself today that.
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Showed up in that experience is I'm a visionary.
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I can imagine a future that that is better than
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the present.
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That also makes me an optimist. And I would say
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that in.
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Every case I've ever, every human being I've ever met,
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it is true that a person's greatest strength is also
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their greatest weakness.
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So I can over-index on optimism.
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But if I just bring those ideas together, in the
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midst of tragedy, I could see a better life, I
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was optimistic about it and I knew then without having
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the words for it that the only way out is through.
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I would have said I don't have a choice. At
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the same time, I was deeply ashamed. Ashamed that I
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wasn't good enough for my father to choose to stay alive.
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I never thought about That way that a child takes
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on that kind of emotion that they feel that they
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have something to do with their parent making that decision.
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It's difficult.
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Children do it. Adults do it. From my observation, it's
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a part of the human condition. When a couple divorces.
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Children personalize it.
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When there's fighting, those around us personalize it. I've heard
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it said, too, that we are all just extras in
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the movie of someone else's life.
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So in the moment where my.
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Father was the star of his show, he was maybe
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a supporting actor in the movie of my life.
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So, of course, it's all about me.
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Of course, the reason he made the decision that he
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did had something to do with me.
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That's how we are wired.
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So that notion of not being good enough for my father,
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that shame of believing that, That manifested in a way
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that was, well, I will always be good enough. I
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will always be the best. I will always be someone
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worthy of love or choice. That was a psychological, that
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was a mental decision with the emotional belief that I
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wasn't good enough.
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And so there was conflict there. And when there's conflict between.
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The mental and emotional, I would often just describe that to.
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Insecurity.
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So I wanted to be a way. I didn't feel
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that I was, so I was insecure. Caused me to
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do some things that you might label as acting out,
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but also caused me to show up in ways that
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looked really good. So I'm competitive and, because people like
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winners and I like to be liked. But I'm also
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a people pleaser because I want to be liked and
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I don't want people to leave or abandon me. There
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are several elements of my persona that I can attribute
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right back to that 10-year-old boy trying to make sense
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of an impossible question.
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Which is why?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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You know, a lot of people feel stuck, especially these days.
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And they're stuck by their past. They're stuck by negative experiences.
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They're stuck by things that have happened with their parents,