Living with Purpose as a Student, with Jim Loehr

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so uh so I I define full engagement as

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the intentional it's intentional the

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intentional investment of your full and

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best energy right here right now and

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that is a skill and it's very hard to do

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but we get better with practice and

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we've looked at there's physical energy

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when you're out of physical energy you

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cannot be fully engaged when you are all

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caught up in anger and frustration and

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cynical and sarcastic and so forth that

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compromises your ability to be fully

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engaged if you're focused on multiple

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you can't multitask you got to be right

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here right now in your moment this

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moment in time you can feel my energy

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coming to you and then I can feel

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intensity like there is an intensity in

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the energy that's coming because I can

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sense you care about it and I'm you're

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giving it right here right now that is

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what we've built the whole program

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around that notion of how fully engaged

1:11

are you in

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life and who and what is getting that

1:16

full engagement of anyone and is that

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full engagement aligned fully aligned

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with your deepest values and sense of

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purpose that's the secret that alignment

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and understanding this is a skill set

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that we're teaching youngsters very

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early in life to try to develop and hone

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this because that's how they become

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great investors in life with their

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greatest sense of purpose and with this

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ability to invest full engagement that's

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the secret to me if there's a secret to

1:46

life that's it it's the secret to living

1:49

a big life and and as we've talked about

1:52

before purpose is a central

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self-organizing life aim so purpose kind

1:57

of tells you where to put your energy in

1:59

a way right right and Exactly exactly

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yeah um I I want to shift a little bit

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to students um both high school and

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maybe even younger students but also

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college students i'm a professor at a

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university at the University of Michigan

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and I've been teaching for 25 years and

2:19

quite honestly I've never seen students

2:22

as nervous as anxious as depressed as I

2:25

have over the last few years and in fact

2:29

over the last 10 years research has

2:32

shown that suicidal ideation among

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students thinking about ending your life

2:36

within the last 12 months have you

2:39

thought about doing that has doubled

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over the last 10 years uh severe

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depression as measured through a

2:46

standardized test the PHQ9 has doubled

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over the last 10 years among college

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students and yet purpose has declined

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among college students a significant

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interest in fact saying it's extremely

3:00

important to make a lot of money has

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increased a lot and let and yet

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happiness has not increased at all in

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fact it's declined what's going on with

3:12

college so it's a really it's it's very

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troubling and it's very real i think

3:17

your experience at the University of

3:19

Michigan is the experience that almost

3:20

everyone's having uh across the country

3:23

maybe worldwide so there are a couple

3:25

things to consider one is you have to

3:29

have a deep sense of purpose or what you

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get is emptiness it's like if you don't

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have

3:34

hope there's nothing to fill that void

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it's hopelessness is

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depression and so the first thing you

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have to have is a purpose but you also

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can have the wrong purpose your purpose

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has to be the right purpose so I spent a

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lot of time with a lot of athletes and

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they they were

3:52

chasing fame money and some of these

3:56

athletes achieved such extraordinary

3:59

success number one in the world and what

4:02

what came with it was

4:05

unbelievable money all the money they

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could never spend it in their lifetime

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um unbelievable fame

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and every title all the titles they ever

4:15

dreamed of having and you know all the

4:18

privileges adulation adulation

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and they are in many ways are became

4:25

almost as bankrupt emotionally and

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mentally and spiritually as a lot of the

4:29

kids today it was completely they began

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to question

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what is this all about this is it this

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is what life is about and it was because

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it's preoccupation with themselves this

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is the danger you can have a purpose but

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if it's the wrong purpose it could it

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can lead you just as powerfully in a

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direction that will lead to almost as

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detrimental as having no purpose so

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we're playing with fire here too when we

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help people find purpose thinking about

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understanding what kind of purpose we

5:00

should build is an incredibly important

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thing it's a huge factor yeah i talk a

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fair amount about Friedrich Nietzsche who

5:07

who used in the beginning of thus spoke

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Zarathustra this wonderful metaphor that

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begins with a camel and the camel says

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"Load everything on my back load all the

5:16

sorrows of the world the pain but also

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the joy and the love in other words

5:20

educate me." and then the camel

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transforms into a lion the lion goes out

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into the wilderness and finds a dragon

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where on every scale are the words "Thou

5:30

shalt." The lion slays the dragon and

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then metamorphosizes one last time into

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a child and the whole idea is that you

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need to become a lion but you start by

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being a camel and I find that my college

5:46

students need to be camels i want them

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to take a gap year and learn about the

5:51

real world not just go to Paris or

5:53

London but literally like go to

5:55

subsaharan Africa or they need to really

5:57

find something that they have to work

5:59

really hard at and understand what

6:01

discipline and hard work and and

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appreciate all the wonderful things that

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they now have that they didn't really

6:08

earn but now they're having to really

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understand what it takes to get those

6:12

things then they can become a lion and

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then they can go ahead but I often feel

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that people jump into trying to be a

6:19

lion too early they're not educated and

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that leads to terrorism it leads to all

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sorts of horrible things where people

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actually do have incredible purposes but

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in the complete wrong direction for

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humanity that's why it's so careful it's

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so so terrible you have to really look

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at where this purpose is going to take

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you so I spent a lot of my life a lot of

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my career a lot of my energy working

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with coaches um coaches in sport and

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working with young players in sport

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young young

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people and

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uh you know so they start out and the

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parents want them to they have a dream

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they want to become number one in the

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world and they want to they want to play

7:06

golf whatever it is uh they want to

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become a professional athlete in soccer

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or hockey or they want a college

7:15

scholarship or whatever and when you

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look at the odds of that actually

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happening they're almost non-existent

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they're almost zero a few make it but at

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some point the you know maybe they

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started at the age of four or five at

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some point this young boy or girl begins

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to realize this isn't going to happen

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uhhuh but the parents are still out

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there pushing them and they're inside

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they're going "I've seen that a lot oh

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they're still pushing them or

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going,"Well you're not trying hard

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enough you got to give more you got to

7:45

work hard we're going to take you to

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another academy you need better coaches

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you need better this you know your uh

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you know your gymnastics coach is not

7:54

good enough." And on and on and on and

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the youngster inside begins to realize

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this wasn't my thing in the first place

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and this is not what I want but now I'm

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going to disappoint my parents now I'm

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going to disappoint the parents i've

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been given all these wonderful things

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and it's been great and then I have a

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conversation with them and I say "Okay

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so this is not your thing now you're

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doing it to please other

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people um you're going to have to find

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So I I usually get to this place which

8:23

is really an interesting place they say

8:25

'What if the reason you went into this

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sport and you suffered all the losses

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all the

8:32

injuries to become a more disciplined

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you know competitor and all the stuff

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that you've been through you've you've

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virtually not known anything else other

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than this sport what if all this was was

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to help you grow up and become a

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stronger more fully functioning

8:49

person what if that was the gift wow

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they

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go I say 'Are you capable of more now as

8:58

a human being than you were when you

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started yeah maybe this golf this tennis

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this hockey this maybe that was the gift

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forget what your parents want let's if

9:07

you're going to stay in this let's grow

9:09

up that's a thou shalt dragon your

9:11

parents yes take the resume your parents

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wrote for you when you were five and

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tear it up now now you're in this every

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day is a day to get stronger

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being able to be more resilient to

9:24

manage mistakes better to be kinder to

9:26

be a better person to be more

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character-driven and every day we're

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going to I'm going to we're going to

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make a journal where you're going to

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grade yourself on that and if you become

9:36

one in the world fantastic but that's

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not your purpose that's a secondary

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tertiary it's way down the chart right

9:43

now you're just going to grow up so that

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one day you might get your kids involved

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but not to become number one in the

9:49

world to grow up and become a better

9:52

person and the whole thing changes

9:54

almost on a dime and so I work with a

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lot of coaches and you walk out let's

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say tennis coaches and they're out there

10:00

feeding

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balls and they're mindless and they're

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going oh my god and I go if all you're

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out there doing is you really want to

10:10

create champions and you got all these

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kids out here none of them are going to

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make it you're a failure but what if

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your role in their life was to help them

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become better more fully functional

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human beings and that you model all

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these things that you would like for

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them to become fully engaged 100% effort

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disciplined kind re resilient in life

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and that's what your purpose is here and

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that every day you have a chance to

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interface with them and to help them

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grow as human beings and at the end of

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your life how are you going to feel

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about that as opposed to how many

10:47

champions did I produce one is empty and

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one is filled with life and every day

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you train so that you can have full

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engagement with every one of your

10:57

students and then come home and be fully

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engaged with your family and all of a

11:02

sudden everything makes sense and that's

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how I end up getting with a lot of those

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people can parents do this as well you

11:10

do the same thing with parents and let's

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think about a purposeful family could a

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could parents instill that type of So

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when I'm working with parents I say

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"Listen let's just forget this business

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of being you know getting a college

11:22

scholarship if it happens or going

11:24

playing the world stage and all this

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let's just figure out i want you to I

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want you to reflect on this question

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your son or daughter is chasing

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something they're

11:37

chasing golf tennis some sport soccer

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hockey field

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hockey do you like who they are becoming

11:47

as a person as a consequence of the

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chase that's the only thing that matters

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you were not to be a coach you were not

11:56

to be anything but the mother or the

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father because that can never be

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replaced and your job is to make sure

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that they're becoming a better more

12:06

character-driven human being because of

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their exposure better able to handle the

12:10

forces of life or get them out it's a

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boondoggle and I say it really strong

12:18

and I said if you think this is about

12:20

winning getting the money back that you

12:23

invested in this black hole of uh hoping

12:26

that someday they're going to give you a

12:27

bunch of money and buy you homes and

12:29

cars because they're stars forget it

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it's not going to happen the only way

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you justify the investment is that they

12:36

become a better human being and you made

12:38

all the sacrifices and getting them to

12:40

and from practices giving up all your

12:42

summer vacations and everything for one

12:44

reason not to get them to win more but

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to become a better human being better

12:49

equipped to deal with life as they get

12:50

older and it changes their behavior

12:53

because they have a different purpose so

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we need a purpose but we need the right

12:57

purpose and when you get those two right

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things change almost immediately