June 23, 2026

Loosen the Grip — Why Rigid Entrepreneurs Have to Learn to Enjoy Life

Show Notes
Transcript

Some of the most disciplined business owners alive are quietly miserable, and they can't figure out why. They built everything on control, structure, and routine, and it worked. But somewhere along the way the grip got too tight, and now that same control is squeezing the life out of the business and out of them. In this episode of Optimized Entrepreneur, Jeremy Hanson talks directly to the rigid builder, the owner running on white knuckles, and makes the case that the release valve for all that suppressed anxiety isn't another system. It's spontaneity. It's joy. It's learning, maybe for the first time in years, how to actually enjoy the life you worked so hard to build. Jeremy breaks down why rigidity feels like safety, how suppressed anxiety hides in the body and then leaks into both your work and your family, and what fear is really driving the grip, whether it's the belief that everything falls apart the moment you let go, or the deeper fear that you're only worth what you produce. He grounds it in the research: the finding that psychological flexibility is one of the most fundamental ingredients of mental health while rigidity is where a lot of suffering grows, the nearly three decades of data showing perfectionism climbing and the most dangerous kind, feeling the world demands perfection from you, being the most tightly linked to anxiety and depression, and the Stanford research showing that experiences of awe pull you into the present, make you feel like you have more time, and raise life satisfaction. Then he gets practical for people who think in systems. Why the most disciplined among us need spontaneity the most, why play is how the nervous system discharges stress, and a starter plan a rigid mind can actually follow: schedule one purposeless hour a week, use the one-yes-a-day rule, break one small self-imposed rule a week, take an awe walk with the phone in your pocket, and learn to tell the difference between a no that protects you from real danger and a no that's just the grip talking. He closes with a picture of the man on the other side of the grip, same skills, same drive, hands open instead of clenched, and a challenge to put the list down and enjoy the life you've already earned. This one is for founders, service-business owners, and any driven entrepreneur whose strength has quietly become a cage. For more like this, subscribe to the Built Different newsletter and find everything at optimized1.com. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code JEREMY at https://www.oneskin.co/JEREMY #oneskinpod rigid business owner, control and anxiety, entrepreneur anxiety, suppressed anxiety, work life balance for entrepreneurs, perfectionism and anxiety, psychological flexibility, letting go of control, spontaneity, enjoy life, burnout, entrepreneur burnout, delegation, micromanaging, present with family, fatherhood and business, mindset, awe and wellbeing, play and stress, novelty, overwhelmed entrepreneur, Jeremy Hanson, Optimized Entrepreneur, optimized1.com, Built Different newsletter, small business owner mental health, discipline versus joy, loosen the grip, recovery and rest, service business owner, OneSkin, OS-01 peptide, skin longevity, skincare for men, senescent cells Optimized Entrepreneur is a deep-dive mindset show for builders, owners, and operators who want more than just tactics. Hosted by Jeremy Hanson, a twenty-five-plus-year entrepreneur, syndicated broadcaster, and professional voice actor, each episode goes after the inner game of building a business and a life worth living, identity, discipline, fear, family, and the daily decisions that separate a driven life from a trapped one. No fluff and no recycled motivation, just direct, hard-won conviction. Learn more at optimized1.com and subscribe to the Built Different newsletter. Q: Who is this episode for? A: Disciplined, rigid, control-oriented business owners who built success on structure and routine but feel a constant low hum of anxiety, a short fuse at home, and the sense that if they let go for a second everything falls apart. Q: What is the main argument? A: That the rigid grip which built the business is now the thing causing the anxiety, and the way to relieve it is not another system but spontaneity, play, and joy, deliberately reintroducing small unplanned moments of life back into an over-scheduled existence. Q: Why does suppressed anxiety matter for entrepreneurs? A: Because control hides anxiety rather than resolving it. The pressure moves into the body and leaks into work, showing up as an inability to delegate, rest, or make calm decisions, and into family life, where loved ones get a distracted manager instead of a present person. Q: What does the research say? A: Reviews of the science position psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of mental health, with rigidity tied to anxiety and depression. Perfectionism, especially the feeling that others demand perfection from you, has risen for decades and is strongly linked to anxiety and depression. And experiences of awe pull people into the present, make them feel time-rich, and raise life satisfaction. Q: How can a rigid person actually become more spontaneous? A: Use structure to get free. Schedule one purposeless hour a week, say yes to one small thing a day you would normally decline, break one small self-imposed rule each week, take an awe walk without the phone, and pause to ask whether a no is protecting you from real danger or is just the grip talking. Q: What if the anxiety is severe? A: Jeremy notes that if the anxiety is heavier than new habits can touch and runs your days no matter what you try, there is no shame in talking to a trained professional. Loosening the grip and seeking real support work together. Q: What does Jeremy say the goal is? A: To remember that the point of building a good life was to live one, not just manage one, and to enjoy the life you already worked hard to earn before the good years pass. Optimized Entrepreneur episode on rigid business owners and anxiety. Jeremy Hanson on why rigid entrepreneurs need spontaneity. The grip that built the business is now causing the anxiety. Suppressed anxiety hides in the body and leaks into work and family. Psychological flexibility is fundamental to mental health; rigidity is not. Perfectionism is rising and is linked to anxiety and depression. Awe brings you into the present and makes you feel time-rich. The most disciplined people need spontaneity the most. Schedule one purposeless hour a week to loosen the grip. You cannot grind your way out of a problem grinding created. Discipline built the business; joy keeps you alive inside it. You did not build all this just to white-knuckle through it. optimized1.com and the Built Different newsletter.

A Fuzzy Life Entertainent Production

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Welcome to optimized entrepreneur. Learn to loosen up. There's a

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certain kind of business owner I want to talk about today.

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Maybe it's you, you know, maybe you run a tight ship.

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Everything has a system, everything has a process. You wake

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up the same time every morning, you attack to day

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in the same order. You know your numbers cold, you

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know you're scheduled by heart, and you do not like surprises.

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You've got the spreadsheet, the routine, the plan, and then

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you've got a backup plan for the plan. On paper,

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you look like the most disciplined person in the room.

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And maybe but that discipline built everything you have. The

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structure is real, the control is real, the results are real.

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I'm not here to take a single ance of that

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away from you. But somewhere along this road, your grip

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got too tight. The same hands that built business are

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now squeezing the life out of it. And the truth

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is it's also getting squeezed out of you. Underneath all

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that structure, there's something that you don't talk about. It's

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that low hum constantly of anxiety that never fully shuts off.

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It's a tightness in your chest on a Sunday night,

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before the week even starts. It's the short fusee you've

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developed with the people that you love the most. A

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voice in the back of your head says, if you

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let go of the controls for even a second, the

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whole thing will come crashing down. So you grip harder

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and harder and harder. And then the harder you grip,

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the worse it gets. You tell yourself, it's just the

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price of success us and listen here. It isn't. It's

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the price of doing success the wrong way. Welcome to

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optimized Entrepreneur. I'm Jeremy Hanson, and today we're talking about

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the one thing that finally loosens the grip. And it's

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not another system. It's not another productivity hack. It's not

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waking up an hour earlier or color coding your calendar.

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It's the opposite of everything that you've trained yourself to believe.

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It's spontaneity. It's joy. It's learning, maybe for the first

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time in years, how to actually enjoy the life that

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you've worked so hard to build. Let's get into it. Well,

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tell me, I'm demise the rid of my dad. They

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gotta sign up for free optivide one dot com. I'm

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mind yourself your business and your life O demisona dot com.

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Now the grip that feels like safety. Hey, let's just

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start this out and be completely honest about why you

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have that firm grip and control on everything. Well, the

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truth is it works, or let me rephrase that, at

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least it used to, you know, when you were building,

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because at that point, when you're building, control is survival.

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You couldn't affordhim, as you couldn't take a day off.

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You couldn't afford to trust the wrong person, or take

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the wrong risk, or miss the one detail that blows

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up the whole thing. So you became rigid, and you

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did it on purpose. You built routines like carpenters built walls.

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You turned yourself into a machine that produces no matter what.

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Sick doesn't matter, tired doesn't matter, Scared, just pushed through

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and it pays off. The rigidity got you here, So

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your brain learned a lesson deep down in the place

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where you don't even argue with it anymore. And the

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lesson is simply control equal safety. Letting go equals danger.

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And that belief, well, it's quietly ruining your entire life

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because it's a trap. The very thing that build the

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business is now the thing keeping you a prisoner inside

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of it, because control it's almost like a drug. The

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more you take it, the more you use it, the

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more you lean on it, the more you need it,

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and the more that you need it, the smaller your

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life gets. You stop saying yes to anything that you

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didn't plan, You stop doing anything that doesn't have a purpose.

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You just stop having fun because fun in your mind

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and your brain feels irresponsible. A whole afternoon with nothing

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to show for it, that feels like a sin. So

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you start filling it up. All your time, every gap,

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every empty hour gets something stapled to it. And slowly

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in your life life, when you didn't really even decide to,

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you trade a whole life for a tightly manage one.

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You see, you're not really living anymore. You're administrating your

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own life. You've become the most organized, unhappy person that

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you know. And it's scary because from the outside looking in,

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it looks like you're winning. People start admiring your discipline.

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They have no idea what it costs you on the inside,

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in your life, they have no idea. You see, the

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anxiety doesn't disappear, It just hides. Nobody tells you this

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when you're in the beginning process, when you become that

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rigid person, all the control that you have doesn't actually

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make that anxiety, that feeling even go away. It just

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hides it. It masks it really good, so you think

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that you've handled it. You think, because everything's organized, well,

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then I'm fine. The calendar is clean, the numbers are good,

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so what's the problem. The problem is suppressed. Anxiety doesn't vanish,

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It just goes underground. It moves into your body. It

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shows up as a clenched jaw, and you don't even

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notice it until your jaw starts hurting aching. You don't

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notice the shallow breathing, You don't notice the shoulders being up,

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going around your ears. You don't even notice anymore at

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the three am wake up, you know, the one where

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you wake up in your eyes snap open and your

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mind is already running spreadsheets or the job the next day,

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whatever it is, whatever you didn't ask it to run

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that it's running the exhaustion that you feel when you

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get a full night's sleep, and it still doesn't fix it.

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The way your stomach drops when the phone rings with

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a number that you don't know you built a perfect

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system to manage your business, and you've never attempted to

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build the one to manage yourself. So the pressure just

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keeps building behind the wall, deep down in that spot

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we're talking about, and inevitably, the pressure, because it's constant,

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find the crack. It always does. It leaks out sideways,

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and it starts leaking out into your work and into

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your family, and into your health. It starts leaking out

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into the version that the people closest to you actually

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have to live with every single day. There's some really

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cruel irony in this. You see, the control was supposed

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to keep you calm. Instead you became a pressure cooker.

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You made a pressure cooker and then you bolted the

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top shut. So you're not managing anxiety. You're literally storing

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it and your body, your mind, your emotions. The people

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closest to you, the things that you love in your life,

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all of them are paying interest on it every day.

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So where does it go? Where does the leaking sideways?

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Where does that come from? You got to show what

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you're really afraid of. So let's talk about this thing

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that's underneath of it all. You see the grip, the squeezing,

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it's not really about the business. You see, the grip

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is fear, and if you go all all the way

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down you usually find one of two fears that are

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running the show. The first one is, well, if I

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let go, it falls apart. You truly believe, deep down

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the only reason that this thing hasn't collapsed is because

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you're personally holding every piece of it in place. So

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anything else feels dangerous. Delegation feels dangerous. A day off,

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it's like leaving the gatewide open with sheep in there

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and the wolves are coming. And then the second fear, well,

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now I would say it cuts deeper. If I'm not

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producing something, then who am I? So you've tied your

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entire worth to your output. You are valuable because of

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what you do, what you provide, what you perform. So

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the second that you stop that, even for an afternoon,

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that little thing in the back of your brain starts whispering, Oh,

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you're being lazy, you're falling behind. You are simply not enough.

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And spontaneity and joy and rest play, all of that

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gets blocked by that thing whispering in the back of

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your head. You see, because to an entrepreneur who believes

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he's only worth what he produces. Doing something just for

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joy it feels like stealing from yourself. Please listen to this,

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Listen to this, underline this in your brain. That whisper

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that you're hearing in the back of your head is

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lying to you. Okay, You're not a machine, you see.

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You are not this thing that's only valuable when it's running. See,

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you are a human. You're a person. You're a mother,

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a father, a husband, a friend, a parent. You are

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a whole human being who existed before the business and

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will exist after it. The business is just something that

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you do. It's not the sum of who you are.

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And until you start to separate those things, you will

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never let go of the grip. You think you're letting

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go of yourself. You're not. You're finally starting to get

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yourself back at that point. But you think that you're

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letting go of yourself, and it shows up. It shows

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up at work. Where does this varied anxiety actually exist? Well,

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the first place that it exists is in your business itself,

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the very thing that you're trying to protect. Why, well,

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you can't delegate, not really. You hand off a task

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and then you hover over it because nobody does it

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quite like you do. So you take it back and

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you redo it, and then you complain about the person

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that was doing it because they're not doing it the

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right way. And now you're doing the job of five

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different people. And somehow you've mistaken that for leadership. You see,

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it's not leadership. It's fear wearing a work ethic as

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a costume. You simply can't rest, you see, the rest

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just feels like risk. If you slow down, the anxiety

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in the back of your head just gets louder and louder,

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so you stay busy to keep it quiet. You've confused

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motion with progress. Your body and your mind and your

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soul is exhausted, but you just can't stop, because stopping

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is when the feelings start to catch up to you

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with that anxiety spilling out. You can't make a calm

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decision because it's hard to be calm when everything feels urgent,

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because urgency is the ocean that you're swimming in every

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single day. A small problem and a real emergency, they

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get the exact same response, and it's panic. And the

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reason that it's panic is because your system has maxed out.

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It's been maxed out, and when a genuine crisis finally

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hits you. You don't have anything left in the tank

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to handle it because you've been running on fumes for years,

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and it's going to cost you, probably costs you the

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most money. You won't even notice it. There is no

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invoice for it. When you get like that and anxiety takes

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over and your grip is so strong, you lose creativity.

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People that build rigid businesses, their minds start not innovating

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because it's rigid, it's under control. You can't think outside

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of the box at all. Creativity. If you're going to

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be creative, you need a little bit of slack in

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your life. You need a little bit of space in

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your mind. Your mind needs a place to wander and

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to play and to make unexpected connections between things that

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obviously don't go together. That's where new service strategies, that's

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where new products come from, new angles, the new way

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to beat your competition. And you squeezed every ounce of

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slack out of your day so you don't have time

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to even think about it. Your mind never gets to wander,

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and if it's not wandering, it's not finding anything new.

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So the business that needs you to be sharp and

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visionary and adaptable. The business gets a tired riddle entrepreneur. Instead,

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you know, you're working harder than anyone you know, and

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you're slowly becoming the single biggest bottleneck in your own company.

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The thing you're gripping so hard to protect is being

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choked by the grip itself. And then, more dangerously, it

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shows up at home. The one place you should never

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allow this to happen is there. Your family doesn't get

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the man who or woman who actually built this dream.

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You know, your family what they get in turn, they

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get the manager. You know. You come home, but you're

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not really there, sitting at the dinner table having supper,

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but your mind is somewhere at a job site, solving

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a problem that nobody at the table can even see.

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Your kids ask you a question, and you're just you're

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an autopilot. You're already halfway into what you're going to

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do tomorrow. Half the time, you don't even remember what

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they said. Your spouse has been disconnected, so they don't

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even bring things up. And it's because you're always carrying

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too much. So what do they do? They learn at home?

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They learn and they start managing you because you're managing

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everything else. So they start managing you, They start reading

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you and your mood before they decide what's okay and

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what's not and what's safe to say to you. That's

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not a marriage. That seems more like a hostage negotiation.

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You become someone that they tiptoe around. You don't want

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to walk on eggshells. The short fuse and the heavy

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sigh and the I'm busy now, right now, come on,

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I've got too much going on. And when you think

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back about it, yet, well, you're doing this for them,

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right And that's the story that you tell yourself every

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single day. I'm doing this, I'm grinding for my family.

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Things get hard at the end of the week. Okay,

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put in your head, why are you doing this? I'm

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doing this for my family. Every hour is for them.

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But the thing is, your family didn't ask for you

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to disappear. They didn't ask for a bigger house and

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nicer cars to see you as a ghost not living

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in it. You see, they ask for you. They want

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a version of you that still has the laughs and

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the dreams, and you know the communication that they had before,

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the version of you that simply goofs off that gues

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to a bike ride debts. Yes, we can go get

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ice cream that spontaneity on Saturday with no plan at all.

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But you're going to do something. It's going to be fun.

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You see. The kids don't care. They're not going to

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remember the quarter where you hit your numbers. They will

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never know and won't care. They're not going to brag

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to their friends about the profit margin that somehow you

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pulled off. They're going to remember whether you were there,

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whether you were a fun parent, whether you were present

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and talking to them, or if you were just physically

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in the building. You know, kids, The thing is, I've

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got a large family, and time goes by so fast.

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Where you really start noticing it is when you start

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noticing what you're doing with your life. The grip the

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show that I'm talking about. Your kids grow up while

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you're busy. The four year old who wants to play

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becomes the fourteen year old who just stops asking. You

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see that window, There's a limited window of time in

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your life to do that stuff, and that window slam shut.

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The saddest sentence that I hear from entrepreneurs who finally

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wake up as always some version of this same thing.

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I was so busy building a life for them that

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I forgot to live one with them. Please don't let

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that be your sentence, your sentiment, the way that you feel,

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because there's still time to change it. But it's not

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an unlimited amount. Now we've spent this whole conversation talking

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about how driven guys neglect themselves. So let me stay

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right here for a second, because there's another way that

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we do it. We completely ignore our own skin. You

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work outside, or you run yourself into the ground for years,

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and one day you catch your reflection and there's a tired,

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weathered guy looking back that you don't even recognize. Now,

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I'm gonna be honest. I used to think skincare was

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all hype, and a lot of it is. You get

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sold on needing ten different products and super fancy packaging,

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and most of it doesn't actually do nothing. That's exactly

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why One Skin stood out to me. It's not hype,

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it's real science. One Skin was founded by longevity research

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scientists who asked a pretty simple question, if visible skin

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aging is driven by damage sensient cells, what if you

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could actually sow that process down instead of just covering

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it up. That research led to their proprietary peptide os one.

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It's the first ingredient proven to switch off those damaged

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senticent cells slowing skin aging directly at the source. So

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every time I use it, I'm giving my skin a

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clear signal to repair damaged cells, support collagen, and strengthen

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my skin barrier. What caught my attention was that this

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came out of real research from actual scientists, not some

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marketing department. And what I love about it is how

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simple it is. I don't need a ten step routine.

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It fits right into what I already do. What I've

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00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:54.759
noticed is that my skin just feels better. It's less

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tight and less dry and smoother instead of feeling like

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sandpaper after a long day a spraying sh outside. And

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the surprise was that I actually kept using it. Most

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stuff like this, I'll be honest with you, ends up

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in a drawer. This didn't. And here's the thing gets

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backed up. One skin has four peer reviewed clinical studies

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were recently featured in Bloomberg as a leader in skin longevity.

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00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:29.000
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skin with a code Jeremy. That's one skin dot co

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skin dot Co Forward slash Jeremy. That's fifteen percent off

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one skin dot co with code Jeremy. And after you purchase,

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they'll ask you where you heard about it. Please support

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our show and tell them that we sent you. That's

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one skin dot co Forward slash Jeremy. Now let's get

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back into it. The science of white knuckles. I want

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to step out of the emotion for a second and

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show you that it's not me just preaching some nonsense. Okay,

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the research backs every single bit of it. Psychologists have

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a name for the opposite of rigidity. They call it

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psychological flexibility. It's the ability to adapt and to shift gears,

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to read what a moment actually requires and respond to that.

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Instead of forcing your one thing routine onto everything no

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matter what it is, and in a major review of

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the research, scientists made the case that this flexibility is

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one of the most fundamental ingredients of mental health. That

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there is how I want you to flip that around, rigidity, inflexibility,

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the white knuckle grip. You see, that's the soil where

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a lot of psychological suffering actually grows. When researchers study

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anxiety and depression, and when they do it up close,

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one of the patterns they keep finding is exactly this.

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The stuck mind. A person running the same rigid script

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over and over, no matter what the situation in front

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of them actually calls for, sounds like anyone you know.

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Then there's perfectionism. Researchers tracked it across nearly three decades

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tens of thousands of people and found that perfectionism has

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been climbing steadily generation after generation after generation, and the

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kind that's risen the most is probably the most dangerous

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of them all. It's the feeling that the world is

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demanding perfection from you. That's what everyone is watching, and

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anything less than flawless means that somehow you fail. That

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specific flavor is one of the most tightly linked to

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anxiety and depression. Now tell me that's not the entrepreneur,

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the owner who feels like everyone is counting on them

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to be perfect, the customers, the employees, the family, the bank,

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the guy who said he'd never make it. See that

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pressure you wear like a badge of honor. The science says, well,

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it's a risk factor. So when I tell you that

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rigid grip is hurting you, I'm not being soft and

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I'm not guessing. I'm describing a pattern that's been documented

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over and over and over. But there is other news

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in that same research. It actually points straight at the

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way out. More flexibility, more adaptability, more room to breathe

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and bend instead of standing stiff until you snap. And

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you see that starts with something that's almost embarrassingly simple.

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The release valve for this are you writ a drum

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roll spontaneity, what actually listens it? I'm gonna say it again, spontaneity.

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I already know what just happened in your head To

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the person we're talking about, to that rigid person, that

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person just say, did he say chaos? Because it does

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00:28:11.799 --> 00:28:17.359
sound reckless, It sounds irresponsible, like throwing away the very

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thing that made you successful. So maybe you needed to

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find in the right way. Maybe the definition is wrong,

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so you keep getting stuck. You see, Spontaneity is not

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blowing up your business. It's not quitting or gambling with

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the savings or abandoning your responsibilities. I would absolutely never

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00:28:38.960 --> 00:28:41.480
tell you to do that, and you'd never listen if

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I did. Spontaneity is simply this doing something that you

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00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:52.400
didn't plan for for no reason other than it's damn

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good to be alive. You see. It's the unplanned detour

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on the way home. It's the yes you'd normally say

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no out of pure reflex. It's the afternoon you walk

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away from the desk because the weather is perfect and

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you just decide, you know what today this wants This

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work can wait till tomorrow. It's small and that's the

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secret that nobody talks about, and nobody tells you. You

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don't need to book a month in Italy to fix this.

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You need to reintroduce tiny and little bit of the

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unscripted moments of joy back into your life that you've

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scheduled it all out. Of the most disciplined people are

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the ones who need spontaneity the most. Here's the thing,

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You've already proven that you have control. You know what. Congratulations,

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that's awesome. That was never a question. See, you are

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in zero danger of becoming a flake who lets everything

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else fall apart. That's not your risk, that will absolutely

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never be your risk. Your risk is quite the opposite.

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Your risk is squeezing so hard that you crush every

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drop of joy and life out of this one and

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only thing that you get called life. So for you,

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spontaneity isn't indulgence. It's literally medicine. It's the relief valve

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on the pressure tank that's been climbing in the red

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for years. A disciplined man who learns to play doesn't

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become weak, He becomes whole. He becomes the person you're

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not going to fix burnout with more discipline. You cannot

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Loosen the Grip — Why Rigid Entrepreneurs Have to Learn to Enjoy Life

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