TRANSCRIPTION 🔗
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Welcome to Transformative Living Radio, where we explore the power of intentional change for personal growth and fulfillment.
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I'm Andre Flax, your host and certified life and leadership coach.
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There's a story about an actor who took on a role that asked everything of him.
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He played a man who was bitter, suspicious, always waiting for someone to betray him.
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Now, for months, the actor lived inside that character.
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He rehearsed the way the man walked, slightly hunched, like he was bracing for a hit.
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He rehearsed the way the man talked, clipped and guarded.
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He rehearsed the way he looked at people, always a half-second of suspicion before he trusted anything they said.
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The actor was brilliant at the role.
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He received standing ovations and raving reviews.
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But here's the part that stuck with me.
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When the show finally closed, the actor went home, and the character came with him.
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His wife noticed it first.
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He was short with her.
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He second-guessed his friends.
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He'd walk into a room and scanned it like somebody was about to hurt him.
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You see, the performance was over, but the rehearsal wasn't.
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The actor practiced the man so many times that his body, his voice, and his mind didn't know how to stop beating him.
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Now here's why I'm telling you this story.
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Most of us aren't actors, but every single one of us is rehearsing a role every single day.
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And the question isn't whether you're rehearsing, the question is, who are you rehearsing to become?
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Today's episode is one I've been carrying in my heart for a while.
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Because it touches on something I see in almost every coaching conversation I have.
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It's called the identity you keep rehearsing.
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And here's the core message I want you to sit with for a second.
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You see, you don't become your future self simply because you want a different life.
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You become that person by repeatedly thinking, speaking, and acting from a new identity.
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Wanting is beautiful.
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Wanting is where it starts.
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But wanting alone doesn't change who you are.
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Rehearsal does.
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So in the next half hour, here's where we're going.
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First, we'll talk about how your imagination is always rehearsing something even when you don't realize it.
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Then we'll name four unconscious rehearsals I see people practice every day.
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I'm sure you'll find or recognize at least one.
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After that, we'll talk about how identity is actually built.
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And then, the part I'm most excited about, I'll give you a simple seven-day practice called the identity rehearsal.
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You can start tonight.
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So grab a pen and a pad, and if you're ready, let's begin.
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Hello and welcome to another empowering episode of Transformative Living Radio.
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I'm Andre Flax, your host and certified life and leadership coach.
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Let me start with something that might sound obvious, but I don't think we take it really seriously enough.
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And that is this your imagination never takes a day off.
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When you're lying in the bed at night, it's working.
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When you're driving to work, it's working.
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When you're in the shower, when you're scrolling on your phone, when you're sitting in a meeting pretending to take notes, your mind is running scenes.
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Now, some of those scenes are memories, some are predictions, and a whole lot of them are rehearsals.
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Think about the last time you had a hard conversation come up.
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Maybe you needed to ask your boss for a raise, or maybe you had to tell a friend something they didn't want to hear.
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What did you do in the days leading up to it?
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Well, if you're like most people, you ran that conversation in your head over and over.
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You said your part, you imagined their reaction, you imagine your comeback.
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You even imagine the conversation going sideways.
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And by the time the real conversation came around, you had already lived it maybe 10, 20, or 30 times.
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That's rehearsal.
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Athletes have understood this for a long time, and the best of them don't just practice with their bodies, they practice with their minds.
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A sprinter sees the start, feels to push off the block, and hears the crowd.
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A three-point shooter pictures the ball leaving their fingertips and dropping through the net.
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Coaches and researchers have talked for decades about how mental rehearsal helps prepare the brain and the body for real performance.
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Why does that work?
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Well, because your mind treats a vivid imagined experience as practice.
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It builds those neural pathways.
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It says, Oh, this is how we're doing things.
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This is who we are.
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Now, here's the uncomfortable truth, and I say this with so much love.
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If mental rehearsal can train an athlete to win, it can also train you to lose.
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You see, your imagination doesn't check whether the scene you're running is helpful.
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It just practices.
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It'll rehearse your comeback story just as faithful as your breakdown story.
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It'll rehearse your future self or your past self with the exact same dedication.
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The question is, which one have you been giving it to rehearse?
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Now, over the years, I've noticed that most of the unhelpful rehearsals people run fall into four categories.
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Now, as I walk through each one, just notice without judging yourself which one feels familiar.
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Rehearsal one is anticipating rejection.
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This is the person who already hears no before they even ask the question.
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I remember working with a woman who had a business idea that she sat on for three years.
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Every time she thought to pitch the idea to a potential partner, she'd picture the meeting, and in her head, the scene was always the same.
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She'd start talking, she'd see the other person glance at their watch, she see the polite smile, she'd hear, this is interesting, but and here was the most difficult part.
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She never actually pitched it.
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Not once.
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You see, she'd been rejected a hundred times, and every one of those rejections happened in her imagination.
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When I asked her, How many times have you rehearsed that no?
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She laughed and said to me, Honestly, probably every week for three years.
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Now that's over 350 rehearsals of being turned down.
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Now, of course, she couldn't feel ready.
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She had already been trained for rejection.
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Now the second one is replaying failure.
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This isn't about the future, it's about the past.
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It's the mind that keeps going back to the moment it went wrong and pressing play.
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It's the presentation where you went blank, the relationship that ended, the business that didn't make it, or it's the thing you said that you wish you could take back.
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Now don't get me wrong, reflecting on the past can be healthy.
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We can learn from it.
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But there's a difference between reviewing a moment and reliving it.
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Reviewing asks, what can I learn?
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Reliving just keeps hitting replay.
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And every replay deepens the groove.
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You see, every time you replay the failure, you're not just remembering who you were, you're practicing being that person again.
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You're rehearsing an old identity and calling it being realistic.
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Now the third one is sneaky, it's expecting disappointment.
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This is the person who says, quote, I just don't want to get my hopes up.
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Now I have to be honest, I used to say this one a lot because it felt safe, it felt mature.
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I thought if I didn't expect much, I couldn't be let down, right?
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But here's what I eventually realized expecting disappointment doesn't protect you from pain.
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It just makes you pay for pain in advance, and sometimes pay again if it actually happens.
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Even worse, it quietly shapes how you show up.
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When you expect something to fall apart, you don't give yourself fully.
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You hold back a little.
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And when it doesn't work out, your mind says, See, I knew it.
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Now that's not prediction, that's a rehearsal that became performance.
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Now the fourth one is preparing for problems that haven't happened.
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You see, planning is good.
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Wisdom always looks ahead.
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But there's a difference between planning and bracing.
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Planning says, here's what I'll do if this comes up.
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Bracing says, I'm going to live in the tension of this possibility every single day until either it happens or it doesn't.
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I remember coaching a man who ran a very successful team.
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He was a great leader.
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But every Sunday night he lie awake running through every way the week could go wrong.
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The client who might cancel, the employee who might quit, the numbers that might get.
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By Monday morning, he had already lived through five crises that never came.
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He told me, I thought by being prepared would make me a great leader.
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--> 00:10:37.669
I asked him, What does that make you feel like?
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He was quiet for a second, and then he said, Tired, and kind of like I'm always waiting to lose.
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And that's the cost.
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You see, when you rehearse problems that haven't happened yet, you're rehearsing a version of yourself who's always under threat.
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And that version of yourself shows up in your meetings, in your marriage, and at your dinner table.
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So let's review again the four mental rehearsals anticipating rejection, replaying failure, expecting disappointment, and preparing for problems that haven't happened.
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Now, if you saw yourself in one of those or all four, there's no shame.
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I've been there.
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But I want you to hear me.
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It doesn't mean that something is wrong with you.
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It means that your imagination is working.
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It's powerful.
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It's been faithfully rehearsing whatever you've been handing it.
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And that's the good news.
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Because if it can rehearse those scenes, it can rehearse new ones now.
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When we come back, I want to talk about how change really happens.
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We'll be right back.
00:11:48.309 --> 00:11:51.909
Are you ready to take your life and your career to the next level?
00:11:52.229 --> 00:11:59.189
Andre Flax is a John Maxwell leadership certified coach who is committed to helping you turn your dreams into reality.
00:11:59.429 --> 00:12:07.029
With proven effective self-development principles, Andre will help you put a plan in place that grows you steadily toward your goal.
00:12:07.349 --> 00:12:14.469
Contact Andre for a complimentary coaching session by emailing him at Andre at Transformative LivingRadio.com.
00:12:19.990 --> 00:12:20.949
Welcome back.
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So let's talk about how change really happens.
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Now, a lot of us try to change our lives by changing our goals.
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We say things like, This year I'm going to get healthy, or this year I'm going to start that business, or this year I'm going to be more confident.
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Now, those are great goals, but here's what I've learned after years of walking alongside of people.
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Goals don't change you, identity changes you and your goals follow.
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Think about it this way: two people are offered a cigarette.
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One says, No thanks, I'm trying to quit.
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The other says, No thanks, I don't smoke.
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Same answer, completely different identity.
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The first person is still a smoker who's resisting.
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The second has become someone new.
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So how do you become someone new?
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Not by wanting it harder, by rehearsing it.
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And that rehearsal happens in three places.
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First, it happens in what you think, the scenes you let your imagination play.
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When you catch yourself running the old movie, the rejection, the failure, the disappointment, you have a choice.
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You can let it play or you can gently change the channel.
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Not by pretending, not by forcing positivity, but by asking a question.
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What would my future self be picturing right now?
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If your future self is confident, what do you see when you imagine walking in a new environment?
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If your future self is a calm, grounded leader, what does he picture on Sunday night?
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Second, it happens in what you say to yourself and out loud.
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You see, your words are rehearsal lines.
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When you say I'm just not good with money, you're practicing that script.
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When you say I always mess things up, you're running lines for a role you don't even want.
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Now I'm not asking you to lie to yourself.
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If you're not great with money today, I'm not going to ask you to say, I'm a financial genius.
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That won't stick.
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Your mind will argue with you.
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But you can say I'm becoming someone who handles money with wisdom.
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You can also say I'm learning to trust myself in hard conversations.
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Those words are true and they point forward.
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They're lines from a new script.
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And the third, the one that seals it.
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It happens in what you do.
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You see, every action is a vote for the kind of person you believe you are.
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Now you don't need a landslide.
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You just need to keep casting votes.
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Do you remember the woman I told you about with the business pitch?
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When she finally decided to shift, we didn't start with a big meeting.
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We started with one simple action.
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She sent a two-line email to one person asking for 15 minutes of feedback.
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That's it.
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And do you know what she
told me afterwards?
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She said, quote, the email wasn't the big idea.
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The big idea was that for the first time in three years, I did something that my future self would have done.
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And that's the whole thing.
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You don't wait to feel like the new person before you act like them.
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You act like them and the feelings catch up.
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Well, how does change actually happen?
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You think it, you speak it, you do it over and over again.
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That's how a new identity gets built.
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Not in one breakthrough moment, and those are wonderful, but in a thousand small rehearsals that slowly become who you are.
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Just like the actor we talked about in the beginning, he didn't become the bitter man in one night.
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He became him through repetition.
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And the same principle that pulled him into the character he didn't want can pull you into the life you do.
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Now, when we come back, I want to get into the seven-day identity rehearsal.
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We'll be right back.
00:16:22.069 --> 00:16:23.269
Hello, listeners.
00:16:23.429 --> 00:16:26.549
Are you ready to create the life you've always dreamed of?
00:16:26.789 --> 00:16:34.789
Well, I'm offering a free coaching session to help you break through the barriers holding you back and start making real progress towards your goals.
00:16:35.029 --> 00:16:44.149
Whether you're seeking clarity, motivation, or a fresh perspective, this session will give you the tools and insights you need to take the next step.
00:16:44.389 --> 00:16:49.750
To sign up for your complimentary coaching session, click the link in this episode's show notes.
00:16:49.990 --> 00:16:52.870
The greatest investment you can make is in yourself.
00:16:53.029 --> 00:16:54.309
Let's make it together.
00:16:54.549 --> 00:16:57.269
Sign up today to start your journey to success.
00:16:57.429 --> 00:16:59.189
You'll be glad that you did.
00:17:01.509 --> 00:17:04.710
Are you ready to take your life and career to the next level?
00:17:05.029 --> 00:17:11.750
Andre Flax is a Maxwell Leadership Certified Coach who is committed to helping you turn your dreams into a reality.
00:17:11.990 --> 00:17:19.509
With proven effective self-development principles, Andre will help you put a plan in place that grows you steadily toward your goal.
00:17:19.829 --> 00:17:25.910
Email Andre to schedule your complimentary session at Andre at Transformative LivingRadio.com.
00:17:35.190 --> 00:17:36.230
Welcome back.
00:17:36.549 --> 00:17:38.390
So let's make this practical.
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I don't want you to leave this episode inspired but stuck.
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I want you to
leave it with something you can do tonight.
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I call it the seven-day identity rehearsal.
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And it's simple on purpose.
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Each day you do three things one statement, one mental scene, and one aligned action.
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It takes about ten minutes, and here's how it works.
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Step zero, name the role.
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Before day one, take five minutes and answer one question.
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Who am I becoming?
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Not what do I want, but who am I becoming?
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Write it as a person and not a goal.
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So instead of writing, I want to grow my business, you might write, I'm becoming someone who shares my ideas boldly.
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Instead of I want to be less anxious at work, you might write, I'm becoming a calm, clear leader who trusts himself.
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That's your role.
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That's who you'll be rehearsing for the next seven days.
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Step one, every morning, write one statement from that new identity.
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Make it true enough to believe, but bold enough to stretch you.
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Start with I am becoming or I am someone who.
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Let me give you an example.
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I am someone who speaks up when I have something valuable to say.
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Now, in practicing it, you want to say it loud.
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That's right.
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Say it out loud.
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It might feel a little silly at first, that's okay.
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Actors feel silly at the first read-through, too.
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Let's move on to step number two, which is creating one mental scene.
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Take two or three minutes, close your eyes, and run one short scene from your day played by your future self.
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Pick something that's actually on your calendar.
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Maybe a meeting, a conversation, a workout, or picking up the kids.
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Now see it the way the new you would handle it.
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What does your posture look like?
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What tone of voice do you use?
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How do you respond when something unexpected happens?
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Make it specific, make it ordinary.
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You're imagining being you upgraded.
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Now, this is the exact opposite of those four unconscious rehearsals.
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Instead of bracing for rejection, you're rehearsing how you show up.
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Instead of replaying failure, you're pre-playing growth.
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Finally, step number three is to take one small action today that your future self would take.
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Now, small is the point.
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Send the email, ask the question in the meeting, go for that 10-minute walk, put$50 into savings, say no to one thing that's draining you.
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And then, and please don't skip this, at the end of the day, write one sentence.
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Today I act like the person I'm becoming when I am finish the sentence.
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That sentence is your evidence, and evidence is what convinces your mind that this new identity is real.
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Now you're probably wondering what the seven days might look like.
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So let me paint the week for you.
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Days one and two will probably feel awkward, and that's normal.
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You're learning new lines.
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Days three and four, you're likely to notice that the old rehearsals are trying to sneak back in.
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And that's your cue.
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It's not your cue to beat yourself up, but to notice and gently turn your scene.
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Days five and six, something starts to shift.
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The statement feels less foreign, the actions feel more natural.
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On day seven, read back through all seven evidence sentences and ask yourself, does this sound like someone who's wanting a new life or someone who's already living it?
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Now, just a quick note because this will happen.
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If you miss a day, you haven't failed.
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Just pick it back up.
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Actors miss lines in rehearsals all the time.
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That's why it's called rehearsal.
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Remember, you're not performing perfection, you're practicing identity.
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So let's bring this full circle back to the actor.
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The actor rehearsed a role so many times that it followed him home.
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Now that story can feel like a warning and it is, but it's also a promise.
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Because if repetition can pull a person into a character they never meant to become, then repetition can also carry you into a person you were always meant to be.
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You see, your imagination is going to rehearse something today.
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It's going to rehearse something tonight when your head hits the pillow.
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And it's going to rehearse something tomorrow morning before you even have your coffee.
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But here's the thing: you get to decide what it works on.
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So here's the question I want to leave you with.
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Write it down.
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Put it on a sticky note.
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Stick it on your mirror.
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What identity am I strengthening through what I repeatedly rehearse?
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Not what you want, not what you hope for.
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What are you practicing?
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And if the honest answer isn't one that you choose, that's okay.
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Tonight is a perfectly good night to start a new rehearsal.
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So start the seven-day identity rehearsal.
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One statement, one mental state, one aligned act.
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Every day for seven days.
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Well, that's our show for today.
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We hope that you found this episode both insightful and inspiring.
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Join us each week for practical tips, actionable insights, and inspiring stories to help you transform your life.
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We hope you can join us.
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We'll see you soon.
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To experience a free coaching session with Andre Flax, click the link in the show notes or contact him at Andre at Transformative Living Radio.com.
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