WEBVTT
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Hello and welcome to Underdogs, Bootstrappers, and Game Changers.
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This is for those of you that are starting with nothing and using business to change their stars.
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Motivating people who disrupted industry standards.
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This is the real side of business.
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This isn't Shark Tank.
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My aim with this podcast is to take away some of the imaginary roadblocks that are out there.
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I want to help more underdogs because underdogs are truly who changed the world.
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This is part of our Content for Good initiative.
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All the proceeds from the monetization of this podcast will go to charitable causes.
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It's for the person that wants it.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of Underdogs, Bootstrappers, Game Changers.
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And I have my dear friend Whitney with me here today.
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How are you doing, Whitney?
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I'm doing great.
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How are you?
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Good.
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You know, so I want to interrupt my own podcast for a second.
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Okay.
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And give the way I actually think about how I divulge good friends like you and how I'm going to bring them on as guests.
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Because I happen to know you're an amazing person.
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I happen to know we have amazing conversations, but I also have to remember the questions I want to ask as my person are different from what the audience might need today.
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And so I really, you know, I've read your book, you know, I really like hard think about my target audience and like what I'm going to do to help them today.
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And, you know, like what I think about my target audience, I think about one person in the world that is sitting at home listening to this, watching this, right?
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And like, what am I going to do today to help them with a messaging for their life?
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Right?
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I love it.
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Yeah.
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And I deep think this to the point that I know their name, I know what they eat, I know what they watch on TV, you know, it's like, and that person then, I think of their story.
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I actually added this into ChatGPT, and I said, give me a story on this person background, you know?
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Oh, right.
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And I kid you not, like it almost made me cry.
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And so every time I'm sitting in the seat, I think about that person and how I'm going to impact their life today, and therefore using you as one of my tools to help them impact their life.
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And so I have a special episode for you folks today.
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Grit, above all else, I think is the key indicator of anything, right?
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Sure.
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And everybody I have on my podcast has grit to some extent, you know, and Whitney has an overwhelming amount of grit, and you'll hear that story today.
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Um, just a drop and a reason to stick around.
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Three time Miss Olympia, did it broken?
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Yes, a few times.
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A few times.
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A few times broken, yes.
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And there's so many times in our life, and I'm gonna evolve a lot of this into fitness because that's your background today.
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Absolutely.
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There's so many times in our life that like fitness correlates perfectly as an analogy for me to so many other things in life.
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Agreed.
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So the first thing I'm gonna ask you today um is gonna be pretty personal.
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Okay.
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When we walk when we go into a gym and we see people across the gym, the most fit people are usually that way because of some psychology deep down.
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Sure.
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Absolutely.
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Often that's trauma.
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Right?
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I can speak to my own.
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You know, there's a lot of anger flowing in me.
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There's a lot of regret, there's a lot of um desire to save the world.
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I see awful things on social media that make me angry.
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And I get that out as an outlet of the gym.
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You know, self-esteem issues from when you're younger, all that sort of stuff.
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So tell me, like your original fitness path, what was the trauma that sparked it?
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Gosh, um, you know, I do have to say I feel lucky that I haven't experienced some of the level of trauma that a lot of my friends and athletes that I'm very close with have experienced to get them to this elite level.
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But everyone has their own version.
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Yeah.
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For me growing up, I had two older brothers who I adored.
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I came from a great family.
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We were always competitive.
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Everything was a competition.
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And being a young sister and just not able to run and compete at their level, it constantly made me feel a little less than.
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And that just drove me to be next level in everything I did, to the point where I became a perfectionist.
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I did have an eating disorder that was pretty uh dramatic and had a big impact in my life, where trying to combat and overcome that, I wanted to prove that I didn't have to be a perfectionist.
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So then it got into this level of my life where I never wanted to be challenged, where I could be positioned in a way where someone identified me as I could not achieve something.
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And so anytime, whether it was work, um, like professionally in my career or athletic or, you know, even being a mom, if someone said you can't, it was like it just lit something in me that I couldn't manage myself.
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And for me as an athlete, that's what drove me to be the champion I was, which is great in a way, but there are downfalls of it.
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And it that is a form of perfectionism, of proving people wrong.
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And so that's for me, that was where so much of what I achieved in life came from of proving people wrong, um, putting in the work when no one was watching, and then just showing myself and everyone, I told you so.
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I knew I could do it, you doubted me.
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Fuck off.
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I agree, but like I wouldn't have anything in life if it wasn't for that mentality myself.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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Personally, in my saga, so to speak, it took me a while before, at first, when people tell you you can't do something, at least for me, yeah, I believe them.
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Right.
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And it took a switch mentally somehow.
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And I'd love to give people that switch.
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I don't know what that was.
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And I finally had a little belief in myself.
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And then that allowed me, and in some of it was the gym too.
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I reach back to that often.
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It's like you have little wins in the gym, you give yourself a little confidence, and then you feel like you can take on that next thing.
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Totally, yes.
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Yeah.
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Did you ever have that moment where it's like you wanted you almost could believe them for a second that you couldn't?
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Oh, for sure.
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For sure.
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I mean, you for me, I would have those dark moments of doubt when maybe things weren't going right, or I had expectations of how this day or this week or this month or even the competition was gonna go, and it did not go that way.
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Yeah.
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And then I started thinking, am I full of shit?
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Like, am I trying so hard to prove something that I'm actually not?
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And it was in those moments that you do.
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I mean, it's this, you can take yourself down this dark cycle in this pit, but thankfully it's like there's a new day, right?
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And um, the art of distraction for me is huge.
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And so I realized when I started letting my mind go into this trap, I'm the only person who can control if I get out of it.
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Yeah.
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So the art of distraction for me, whether it was two o'clock in the morning and I'm sitting in bed and just spinning my mind out of control, I would get up and I would do anything, something.
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Um, you know, whether it's reading a magazine, reading a book, watching a TV show, scrolling Instagram.
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I needed an art of distraction to get my brain to think about something else besides all these things I'm not, the doubt, the fear, the rejection, whatever it was, so that I could just get myself to kind of flip my mindset, flip my attitude and get back on the yes, you can, yes, you can, and just telling myself, don't be X, be Z, and just go all in.
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But you know, that's the reality of it.
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I'm never this straight arrow.
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It's hills and valleys, it's a roller coaster.
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So I would define that as a derailment of thought, right?
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So if you're going down these negative paths, then you try to pattern interrupt in some way, and you're saying you use pattern interrupt as like, I'm gonna throw on Instagram for a minute, or I'm gonna have you know, and actually that leads to an interesting point.
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Do you have a bank box that is like any moment that is like you can pull up a couple clips or something like that that really hit you home that like when you need it?
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I do.
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So um I have folders in Instagram that I go to, whether it's motivation, whether it's funny memes, whether it's I'm a huge dog lover, um, puppies.
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Yeah.
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So something to either make me laugh, make me grateful, make me humble, yeah, um, make me enjoy the simple things like puppies.
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So I have that.
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I also have um folders on my iPhone, like the camera roll of my boys.
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My boys are my biggest inspiration.
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And whenever, you know, I'm just kind of in this pit or having this pity party, you know, it's like, yeah, stop it.
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Like you are so lucky to have so many things in your life that people would, in a heartbeat, change places.
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I have two amazing boys.
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Sure.
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I have an amazing life, I have a great home, I have a car, like all these simple things, right, that we kind of take for granted.
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Yeah.
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And it allows me to go, God, quit, quit being a little baby.
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And no matter what level we're on, you know, it's like I grew up really poor and I didn't have much at a lot of different points.
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And then you're like, poor me, I don't have a lot of things, you know?
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Yeah, right.
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Yeah.
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And then uh these days, it's like I remember feeling a little really silly last year, or like, you know, we have those big storms, they just hay boobs.
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Oh, totally, yeah.
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You have a huge skylight up here in this building, and um all of a sudden the hayboob just grabs the skylight, like God-reaching hand, and rips it off the building, right?
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And then like I'm sitting down in the office, I'm already having a rough day.
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And then all of a sudden, it's like a brand new roof that I put on the other building.
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I start getting, and I'm like thinking about, okay, what am I gonna do in the middle of this hurricane to fix that, right?
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And while I'm thinking about that, I'm sitting in the seat, I'm stewing about a bunch of other things, and the roof starts leaking on my head, you know?
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And then I'm like thinking about this, like as I'm driving to the gym the next morning, I'm feeling bad for myself.
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Like, oh, really?
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You're feeling bad that you're like expensive property and a roof that you have money to fix and the physical capability to fix it as well.
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You're driving your fancy truck to the gym to work out in your first world plate, and you're gonna feel bad about yourself.
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Yeah.
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You're like, oh, my own business.
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I have to fit.
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Yeah.
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It's you know, and the thing is, it goes back to gratitude always.
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Yeah.
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And just kind of repositioning yourself to understand what's important, uh, acknowledge accomplishments, big or small.
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Yeah.
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And then really just kind of center yourself.
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Get I call it getting back to neutral, where you can go, okay.
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That that's what I really want people to see is like I'm around a really lot of successful, interesting people, you know, and we all do this to ourselves.
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You know, it's like no matter where you get in life, there is that poor me for a second.
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I don't care who you are.
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Yeah, and it's like you can't allow yourself that you especially do it when you're like first starting, it's like, oh, people are better, they have more, you know, all these things.
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And that's a mentality that you really need to break.
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That's why I bring up the some of these silly stories about like your progression in life.
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You're still gonna feel that way at any point, the way you're feeling right now.
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You know, it's like, but then you're gonna realize how silly you are for feeling it.
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And right, I actually want people to feel silly a little bit sooner, too, because you can do something about it.
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For sure.
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And you've got to learn how do you manage that.
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Yeah.
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So it's gonna happen.
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You can't avoid it.
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What you can control is how you manage it.
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And that's really where the true character of a person is shown.
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There's my favorite book is Man's Search for Meaning, and I'm gonna paraphrase it awfully here, but it's like basically like when life gives you circumstances, it's not what happens to you, it's how you act in those actions of what happened to you, right?
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Totally.
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It's like here's a guy from a Nazi concentration camp and he's thinking this way, you know, as a psychologist.
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I can't help that this happened to me.
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All I can control is how I act now, right?
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Right, for sure.
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And you can't help that.
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Um, I want to circle back a little bit and I want to talk about thriving and burning.
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Um do you burn through anger or do you burn through positive energy to stay motivated?
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I would definitely say positive energy.
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How do you do that?
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Um, I can't do that.
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I don't, you know, that's a great question.
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I don't know.
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I I think because I've seen so many people be angry, I've seen their life just implode because they can't understand the goodness they have, they don't understand the blessings, they're so focused on what they don't have that it's this negative energy.
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And I saw that in my college, excuse me, college and early 20s, that I just thought these people are wasting their life.
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So, you know, and again, this is during a period too where I was in eating disorder rehab, yeah, really in-depth some therapy.
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And I'm sure that had a lot to do with it, where I felt fortunate to be alive, I felt fortunate to have a future ahead and didn't care what it looked like because I got to now trail, um, blaze my own trail.
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Yeah.
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And so I just kind of made this self-conviction that I never want to be that.
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I didn't know really what I wanted to be and just um do, but I know I didn't want to be this example of negativity.
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And so you ask anyone around me, they're like, you are always so bubbly and you're always so positive.
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How are you always so happy?
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There's always something to be happy about.
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There's also always something to be sad about or angry about.
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It never served me to stay in that place for too long.
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So it's a way to change my outlook.
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If I'm in a bad mood or angry, things just always get worse.
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This I know about myself.
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So you have to change it.
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I'm just wondering, you know, it's like people tell me that I'm constantly happy, you know, to ask what I'm on, you know, on and that sort of stuff.
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Um, but I'm actually a really angry person.
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You know, are you really?
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But I burn it productively.
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And so, like, my question is more towards you're an animal in the gym.
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You have to be to accomplish, like, I go in there, the reason I can be kind of an animal in the gym is because I'm working through all the things that bug me in life.
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Sure.
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Right?
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And I'll amp myself up a little bit.
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Like I was telling you the story about the guy that abused the wolf, you know, earlier.
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You know, it's like I'm a big animal lover.
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That amps me up.
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I go to the gym and I want to hurt those weights, right?
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Right.
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You know, it's like I want to like hit that heavy bag.
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I've broken, I've broken probably 20 heavy bags at LA Fitness.
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No, yeah, and it's like that's the result of like getting my anger out, I think, positively.
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Sure, absolutely.
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I can't imagine going in and be like, life is so good today.
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I love everybody.
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How am I gonna kill this weight?
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You gotta describe how you use the positive energy to still kill a weight to me.
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Well, um my mindset to use that example, you know, when I'm training for Olympia for the several years, I mean, I was back to back seven to eight competitions a year around the country and then prepping for the Olympia.
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I'm a single mom, I'm running multiple businesses.
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Life is crazy.
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Yep.
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But I always was so happy that like I'm doing some pretty cool shit.
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Yeah.
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And how fortunate am I?
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Now, if you look at me on paper, I should have never been a pro athlete.
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I should have never, ever stepped on the Olympia stage, much less ever win it.
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Yeah.
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So I think the fact that I was unlike anyone else, I was older than almost everyone I was competing with.
00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:26.879
Yeah.
00:15:27.120 --> 00:15:33.440
And the fact that I could do it, I always went to this motto, you don't have to, you get to.
00:15:33.759 --> 00:15:34.080
Yeah.
00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:46.720
And so for me, you know, I would go in super sore and I've got three hours, which is a good chunk of time that I get to get my workout in, routine practice, skills training, you name it, as I'm prepping.
00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:50.159
And the fact that I'm like, wow, I have three hours today.
00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:51.440
This is amazing.
00:15:51.759 --> 00:16:00.879
I will tell you, never did I not get interrupted constantly in those three hours or get a call from my boys and they forgot their bag for practice.
00:16:01.039 --> 00:16:03.519
I mean, you name it, work-related stuff.
00:16:03.840 --> 00:16:07.759
But I was so excited to just go and just achieve.
00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:12.240
And I think for me, my my days were booked from 3 to 4 a.m.