171: Ideas to Implement - My NEW Favorite Focus Hack for Increased Productivity (and a Few Other Tools!)

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Welcome back.
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I am so glad you're here.
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Each week, I want to create a follow-up episode that is short, sweet and all about the action steps from this week's longer podcast.
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So every week, the goal is to distill an episode down into a couple of bullet points that I want you to be able to act on immediately to make a big impact in your business, and I want to take what we've learned in the bigger episode and just do the dang thing.
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I am your host of the Efficient Advisor, libby Grayhwee, and I started from scratch a 100% referral-only planning practice that I grew to seven figures as a solo advisor, all while working just three days a week and taking off 14 weeks a year so that I could be a super present mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter and, frankly, a travel obsessed human.
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And I am here just to walk alongside you and to show you how to do exactly the same and to help you take immediate action on the most important strategies for scaling, organizing and creating less stress and overwhelm in your business.
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We are about to transform your practice together, so move over exhaustion and out of the way.
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Advisor ADD.
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It is time to take that one right next step to build a business and a life that you love.
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So I talked to you guys all the time about just doing something messy and always being able to come back and make it fancy later.
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And you know, just just do the thing, even if it's not perfect.
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In this episode is the perfect example of that.
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I am having a small addition added to my house, and the Framers showed up a week and a half early, which you know is awesome, and also had days scheduled for video recordings for our group coaching program, for extra content and podcasts.
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And here they are drilling and hammering and making so much noise and you know I kind of freaked out and was like, okay, what do I do?
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Do I reschedule all of this?
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Like, how am I gonna do that?
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That's gonna, and I was like you know what?
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This is the perfect time to just do it messy and put it out there and kind of lead by example, if you will.
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So, anywho, if you hear banging and hammers and all the things in the background, I'm hoping that my podcast mic is of high enough quality that it's gonna drown out all of that background noise, but if not, just my apologies ahead of time.
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So this week's episode was all about a couple very tactical productivity hacks that I had for you A very different episode from what I would typically do.
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However, if I can find a way to increase my focus and increase my efficiency, of course I'm gonna share it, even if it feels kind of silly.
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And there has been a new, you know kind of part of my routine that I have built in here over the last several of months.
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That has just been a complete, an utter game changer for me, and I know I kind of I always say like I hate that term game changer, but then I use it all the time because when something does totally change the game, it is what it is.
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But this is literally giving me no joke and extra 90 minutes a day of like pure focus time, and I shared in the longer episode that I am taking these brilliant gummies.
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Right, they're gummies that are they're not drugs.
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I'm gonna say that at least five times.
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They are not drugs, not drugs at all.
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There's no CBD, no nothing.
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They're just all kinds of really good brain lubricating, amazing supplements for your brain, and it sounds really woo-woo and it sounds kind of like just total garbage, and they have worked amazing for me I sleep better, I wake up with no groggyness, which in and of itself is worth like the 40, 45 bucks a month that they are.
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I am getting that extra 90 minutes a day of like hardcore work done and the ability to finish projects that I'm starting Like I've never been able to do before in my entire life.
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So for me, 45 bucks a month.
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At first it was like ooh, that's kind of a lot.
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But, man, when you value your time at $500 plus an hour to get an extra $750 a day of productivity out of, it, is worth every friggin' penny.
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So I would imagine that in a month I'm getting somewhere between 40 and 50 extra hours of like projects, things, attention, focus.
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It's an absolute, massive difference for me and I shared in the long episode that I've had a few friends who don't struggle with focus.
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Okay, that's the caveat.
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If focus is not a struggle for you, if you are the type of person that can sit down and just crank out a to-do list for hours and hours and not get distracted and not look at shiny objects and not try to think of everything that you could do besides the things on your to-do list, they might not work for you.
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So I have a couple of super enneagram three friends do not struggle with focus that we're like, oh my gosh, like seeing a massive difference in me and taking them and being like, yeah, I'm sleeping better and I know they're really good for my brain and all, but I'm not seeing the like total life altering benefits that you're seeing, libby.
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So I say that with you know, I just wanna put that caveat out there.
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And they are.
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You know, when I was laughing when I was recording the episode, I'm like I know I sound like I'm getting paid.
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I'm not getting paid to talk about these gummies.
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I started taking them and I'm like holy crap, these are unbelievable.
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I didn't intend on sharing them with anybody.
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I am a nerd.
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So I was taking notes and like testing all of these different ways of taking them.
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So I take four gummies a day, two in the morning, two in the afternoon.
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So I am double dosing and it's unbelievable.
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So I buy two packs a month, but you know I started off with just one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
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I tried two in the morning.
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I tried it with coffee without coffee, with a Coke Zero without a Coke.
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I mean I tried literally all of the things.
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I tried not taking any in the morning and just taking them in the afternoon.
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And for me, I have found that two in the morning, two in the afternoon is the absolute best formula.
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I mean, I've literally tried everything and I was just happened to be sharing it with my group coaching program and everyone was like what are these gummies?
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Tell me more about the gummies.
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And I was like you know, this is actually something that's really helping me, so perhaps I should share it.
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So I am not getting compensated.
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However, if you use the link that I provide you, I do get points to buy more gummies, like, and that's the only thing I can do with them.
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So the only compensation that I get from sharing this is more gummies and to me, like, hello, that's totally worth it.
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So I have the link and the instructions are little I don't wanna say challenging to find, but you have to follow the instructions.
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I have them in the show notes and I'm also gonna put them out on the resources page of the website with, like how to find them.
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Like you know, you click shop and then you click this and then you type in the.
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You know that kind of a thing.
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But they are awesome.
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They have a money back guarantee.
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So if you try them and they don't like have the same effect on you that they've had on me, you get your money back, don't you worry.
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It's a subscription.
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Well, you can buy them standalone, but it's like substantially more, it's like 30% more just to buy them a one time thing.
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So, just like Amazon, subscribe and save, just sign up and then you can cancel anytime.
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So I put them in as a subscription, get them for the 40, 45 bucks or whatever they are and then cancel it if you don't like it.
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But I'm hopeful that if you're like me and you struggle with focus attention you maybe just have advisor ADD, which is just the nature of the business pulling us in five million different directions that hopefully this will help you be able to kind of buckle down and get more stuff done.
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So I go into much, much deeper detail in the longer format episode.
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The other kind of hack I wanted to share and again these are all like tangible, touchable kind of things is my best self journal.
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So I have been using the best self journal for five million years and I'm a journal freak.
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I love day planners.
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I have an entire day planner graveyard of no joke, I mean, I have every day planner that I've ever used in the last like maybe decade, and I know this is so weird, but I go back and flip through them because it reminds me of the different challenges that I had inside of my advisory practice and it helps me come up with content and ways that I solved those problems and kind of takes me back to what I was thinking, feeling, going through while I was running my advisory business.
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Anywho, I tried other planners, even when I found the best self journal and I fell in love with it.
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I tried other things since and I'm back to the best self journal and in the episode I kind of shared how I use it.
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But it's not about the journal at all, so I should have probably not even led with that just now.
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It's really more about how do you block your time and how do you manage your day.
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So my biggest trick takeaway of using the journal is I go through and I block out first all of my standing appointments, so coaching that I have, group coaching, podcast interviews, anything that's scheduled.
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Then I go through and look at what are my most important tasks and I actually guesstimate how long it'll take me to do them and I block those in so that at the beginning of the day I've got the whole day organized and what I'll be working on and when, and that also dramatically helps with the ADD Like there's no, oh, what do I feel like doing right now?
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How do I feel like approaching that?
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It's literally just this is next and I have 15 minutes to get it done.
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And that whole Parkinson's Law like you give, yeah, a project will take as much time as you give it.
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When you have it booked in for 15 minutes, you get it done in 15 minutes.
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At least that's how my brain works and it's worked really, really well for me.
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The other thing I use my best self journal for is really identifying the three most important things that I need to get done that day, and then I shared in the episode.
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I do two small wins, first in the morning, like two tasks that are super easy.
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I can knock them off my to-do list.
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I don't eat the frog first anymore.
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I found that that did not work for me.
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I try to eat the frog third.
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So I try to get two tasks done in the morning that are just quick wins and I can cross off the to-do list, get my dopamine hit and then move on my merry way into the bigger projects.
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So go back and listen to the long episode I shared just a little bit about the kind of the psychology around that and how that's worked for me.
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The third thing that we talked about for a focus hack was using a task management tool in addition to your CRM for your personal stuff.
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So I use ClickUp for my business.
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I use it for all of my professional tasks, but I also started using it in recent maybe in the last, I don't know 18 months for personal tasks as well.
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So things that I wanna remind myself of that are in the future.
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So let's, for example, let's say you have small kids and you're like, okay, the community pool starts booking swim lessons in May and they get gobbled up like crazy fast.
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So in April I'm gonna get on the website and I wanna check what day registration is for those pool you know for the pool swim lessons, so you can set tasks for in the future.
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So, as you think of them now, that's just a way for you to create tasks to remind yourself later and it will email you and you can set due dates.
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You can say, hey, here's when I wanna start working on that task.
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Here's when it's due by, so that you're not just like, oh my gosh, quarterly taxes are due and I haven't even done my P&L and I have no idea how much I'm supposed to pay.
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You can set the task for a couple weeks in advance, make sure you're giving yourself adequate time to do all of your accounting and then you know then, okay, quarterly taxes are due or whatever.
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So this is all the things.
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So turning on my sprinklers, having the guy come, blow out the lines in the fall, like scheduling all of that in my calendar, and say, okay, I need to call the guy to schedule the thing, I need to call the gal to do the something, something I need to remember that I wanna do this for my kids, or yada, yada, yada.
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So all these dates and deadlines that are swirling around in your head, for me, getting them out on to ClickUp has made a massive difference.
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Clickup is totally free.
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There's all kinds of like cool options that you can pay for.
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I don't use any of them for my business.
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Even I really just I really just use it for everything.
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It's awesome.
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So it's free and I don't need to use any of the fancy-pancy stuff that exists out there to run a business and my personal life.
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So check out ClickUp if you're looking for some sort of way to just manage, and there's all the kinds of YouTube videos on how to use it to make it super simple.
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Like, don't overcomplicate it.
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It's very, very, very easy and I love it.
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So, anyways, that's what I've got for you guys.
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As far as focused hacks Now, if you wanna go back to episode number 16, I've got eight productivity hacks that are very time management related, that are really really helpful.
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Still use every single one of them, but had a few of these more like tactical, hands-on kind of things that I wanted to share with you guys this week.
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And also, before I jump off here, I just wanna remind you that we have an opportunity to hang out.
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I would love to invite you to Tempe, arizona, september 26th and 27th of this year.
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I know that feels so far away, but start planning now.
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There are early bird pricing available for the Retirement Tax Services Summit and I am going to be delivering a keynote there on how to integrate or how to create really awesome client experience processes around tax planning, and we're gonna do some sort of like little extra for my listeners.
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We're gonna have a room available and I don't know if we're gonna do like free speed coaching or just like hangouts or some sort of opportunity for me to interact with you guys one-on-one or in a small group setting or something kind of fun Don't know the details yet still kind of fleshing that out and finding out what you guys would be most interested in.
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So any who I'd love for you to join me and plan on coming for the content that's gonna be delivered over those two days from my friend, steven Jarvis.
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Just phenomenal speaker lineup, phenomenal topics.
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The program last year was really well rated and everyone that I know a lot of advisors that I work with went to it and just love, love, love, love, loved it.
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So I am excited to be part of it this year and I'd love to hang out with you in person and I've got the link for that and all of the other goodies that I mentioned the gummies, the best self journal that I use, the ClickUp task management tool and, of course, the Retirement Tax Services Summit, early bird registration.
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I mean you guys, it's less than it's like $850 or something like that.
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So it's one of the cheapest conferences that I know of and you know wherever you are in the country.
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Getting to Arizona usually isn't too terribly difficult, so would love to see you guys there If you have any questions.
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You know where I hang out in the Efficient Advisor community over on Facebook.
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We've got about 2,100 advisors in there that just love sharing ideas, templates, feedback.
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It's a pretty self-sustaining group.
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People ask questions and all kinds of people pitch and answers and share resources.
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It's just a really cool place.
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The other place that I hang out and answer direct messages is over on LinkedIn.
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Thank you guys so much and I hope you have an amazing rest of your week.
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I'll see you guys next time.