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just to know, tell me more about your vision.

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My vision, okay.

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My vision really in a nutshell,

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I've been in business for like 30 plus years, Wallace, yeah?

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So it's a long time to be in business for,

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so I would like to think that I've got a little bit

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of wisdom that I can share and offer

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from 30 years of business, right?

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But I think my vision's actually shifted quite substantially

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and I think that's probably the same

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for most of the listeners here.

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Is it, you know what I mean?

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Like your vision shifts,

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like when your priorities change

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and just life changes, right?

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So for me, my vision has actually shifted recently.

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One of the things that I specialize in is I help founders

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to effectively scale up and exit

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from their business operations within 12 to 24 months.

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So one of the things that I'm super passionate about,

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one thing that I've been doing for the last seven years

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is I've been living the free life.

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What does that mean in a nutshell, right?

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So there's no point in me preaching about something

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if I've never lived it before, right?

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That would be, that would me being a hypocrite, right?

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So for the last seven years, I've been a,

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you wanna call it a digital nomad

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if you wanna call it that, right?

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So I've had the opportunity where I basically

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had the opportunity to be able to set up my business.

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Now I can work wherever I want in the world.

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I could be sitting on a beach in Hawaii

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with my pina colada and making money on my laptop.

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So, but for most people, right?

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They have this ideology or this perception reality of,

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shit, I would love to do that.

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I would love to achieve that, right?

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But for some particular reason, right?

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Whatever their thought process of,

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their ideology of what success looks like

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and why they actually, you know,

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started a business in the first place is so, you know,

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kind of out of place of what they currently do

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on a day to day.

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So what I do is I show them a different way, right?

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Love that.

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So for the last seven years,

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I've been living in Scandinavia.

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I've been living in the Mediterranean.

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I've just got back from the UK.

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So obviously I have a British accent, as you can imagine.

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And most people turn around and say,

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why are you, did you ever come back here?

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That's a very good question.

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But you know, I've got kids as well.

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So I've got four kids, two older, two younger ones.

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So it was kind of like, you know, like a personal element,

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but going back to your question around vision.

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So one thing that I know that many people don't know is,

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and I don't know if you can relate to this,

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but do you know of any businesses,

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now say they're an accountancy practice

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or they're an attorney and they've been in business,

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they've got like 35 years of experience, right?

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They're so good at what they do.

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Like they're like a well-oiled machine.

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Yeah. All right.

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But the big challenge is they'll get to their 50s or 60s

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and I'll ask them the question.

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I'll be like, so tell me,

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what's your exit strategy looking like?

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And they're like, pause, right?

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So interestingly enough,

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so less than 48% of people in this world

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have some sort of plan, right?

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It might be in their head or whatever it might be,

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but less than 18% of people that are in business

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actually exit from their business.

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Wow.

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So my vision is to improve those statistics

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quite significantly, right?

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Yeah.

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And I'll tell you the reason why.

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So if I'm running an accountancy practice,

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I'm an attorney, whatever it is,

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and I've been in business that long, right?

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I'm obviously shit hot at what I do, right?

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But the big challenge, okay, is I'll ask them,

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I'm like, so what are you gonna do when you retire

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or do whatever it is?

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They're like, I just gonna wind my business down.

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I'm like, what?

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You're just gonna wind your business?

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What about your clients?

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Oh, you know, they'll find someone.

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I'm like, dude, what is the matter with you?

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Like, why don't you see your business as an asset?

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Like you can actually be making some money

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off your business and you're telling me

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you just wanna wind it down.

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I pity you.

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I literally use that word, I pity you.

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Because they have this ideology.

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They've, you know, this is interesting, right?

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Because they're so good at what they do.

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They're super passionate about what they do.

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They live on the day-to-day basis.

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They live in the operations, right?

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All the time.

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And the big challenge is that they then don't spend

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enough time working on the business.

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They've been working in it for so many years.

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And so they've, it's like kind of,

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you've heard this analogy before.

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You cannot pull a horse to water and make it drink, right?

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You've heard that, right?

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Yeah.

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Exactly the same scenario, yeah?

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So that's my vision, my friend.

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I love that, I love that vision.

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And it's such a unique vision in itself

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because you've had that experience

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of running your own businesses

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and you've now got this freedom,

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this digital nomad life.

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And I love the energy and passion that you carry.

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I wanna recognize that,

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because as you speak,

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even through the screen across the pond,

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I can feel how passionate you are about this vision

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of helping business owners, executives,

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make that exit, have that exit strategy.

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And that's so huge.

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And I would like to ask the question,

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the follow up here is,

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do you ever approach any of these business owners

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that maybe it's not that they're wanting

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to dwindle down their business,

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but maybe they've become so in love with the business

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that it's hard for them to let it go.

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And kind of what have you,

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you've been, have you seen that in your experience

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with the work that you do?

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And how have you navigated that?

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That's a really good question.

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I would probably say that, yes, absolutely.

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I can probably have daily conversations

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with people like that.

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And listen, it is a mindset more than anything else, right?

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There's a lot of psychology that goes on, right?

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Think about this, right?

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You start up a business many moons ago, right?

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You've put your blood, sweat and tears into it, right?

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It's your baby.

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That's what it is. It's your baby.

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And so there's this kind of like,

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there is a number of things that go in for your mind.

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Number one, you have this kind of fear of letting go.

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And that's a big fear that tends to come up, right?

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But there's also this kind of like,

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should we say, not just fear of letting go,

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but there's this kind of like, you know,

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because I built this, I'm so proud of it.

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I don't want someone to take control of it, right?

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So there's this sense of like loss of ownership,

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loss of control, right? You got it, right?

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So you've got this loss of ownership,

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this loss of control, but it's also the fear,

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the fear of if I make myself redundant from my business,

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whether it be to exit, whatever it is,

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what the am I gonna do?

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It's so good, yeah.

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Right? So here's the thing, like,

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one of my questions is like,

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so I get a lot of people that come to me,

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they're like, hey, so I'm thinking about

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exiting the business or whatever,

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they're like, great, tell me about your succession plan.

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They're like, what, what do you mean?

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I just wanna, I just want the money.

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I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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It's bigger than that, right?

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Anyone can sell a business to make money.

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But I know that deep down,

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it's not about necessarily about money.

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Come on.

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So some of the leaders that I work with, right?

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A lot of founders, right?

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I get them to understand not just the vision

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that they wanna create,

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but also the impact that they want to leave

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and the legacy more than anything else.

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So it goes back to what is the impact I wanna create

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and what's the legacy that I wanna leave, right?

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So they may have this, I don't know,

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they may have this visualization of,

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I wanna do more philanthropy work.

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I might wanna go into helping more young entrepreneurs

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start their own business or whatever it might be, yeah.

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I want them to better get a better understanding

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of, okay, you've exit in your business.

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You've made yourself redundant.

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Now, what the hell are you gonna do now?

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Yeah.

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So there is this fear of kind of,

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so when you've been in business for a long time,

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there's this kind of fear of,

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you know, retirement is,

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it's kind of seen as a bit of a negative thing, right?

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When we think of retirement,

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I don't know what,

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when you think of the word retirement,

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what does that mean to you?

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You know, you're thinking about the idea of success.

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So I'm curious, what is success for you?

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Success for me is,

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I've kind of given you a little bit of a take on it already,

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but for me, because I've been in business,

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I'm not driven by money.

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I couldn't give a shit about money, right?

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My version of success is being able to create a legacy, right?

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So good.

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I want people to remember me for the right reasons, okay?

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To help people with their exit,

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to help them to live a much happier, healthier,

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more purposeful led life, right?

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That's kind of, that is what I would see what success is.

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But success to me is also around the impact that I make

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and the lives that I change, the value that I give, right?

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And value is very subjective, right?

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It is.

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But ultimately, if I'm also a big fan of excellence, right?

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So you might have heard that, right?

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So my background is in elite athletics, right?

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I used to study and train with Olympic athletes, okay?

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So I was kind of like wired into

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already kind of like training my mindset

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of what excellence was.

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I already had a taste of what excellence was.

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Does that make sense?

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Yeah, totally makes sense.

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And so every morning, every day,

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is always making sure that if it's all about the 1%, right?

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So what does that mean in layman's terms?

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Every day, making sure that your,

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and you would have heard this

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from a very well-known author called Darren Hardy

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called The Compound Effect, right?

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Oh yeah, oh yeah, I think back here on my book show.

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You've got a great book, right?

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Yeah, great book.

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And it's so true.

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So if you improve your personal growth,

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your learning, right?

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Whatever it is, okay?

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But I'm a big thing on personal growth and learning.

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Now, if you were to watch a YouTube video,

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listen to a podcast, read a book, right?

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And you did that religiously,

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every day, your knowledge is gonna go up by 1%.

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That's right.

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Yep.

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So it's kind of like this version of personal growth

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and learning, and you're gonna be able to do that.

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So it's kind of like this version of personal excellence,

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being the best version of yourself,

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but moving the needle every single day.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions

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as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is gonna get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision

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and a vision for yourself.