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The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
Mindset Matters - Episode #205 - The Power of Pause: How to Respond Instead of React
00:29:49
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- [00:00]
Stephanie Hanlon
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Patrick
Welcome to this episode of the Everyday Millionaire Mindset Matters podcast, where I'm joined by my wife, Olympic mental performance coach Stephanie Hanlon. Francie. In these episodes, Stephanie and I have a conversation about the different aspects of what we refer to as mindset matters because we believe that for those who are awake, we are living in and through the most impactful time in history. Your view of the world is the filter for how you will experience the evolution and changing dynamics of it. Our intention is to provide you with ideas, nutritious food for thought, and some tools that you can use to help you in being your greatest self and living your best life. Listen in. Enjoy. Okay, so part of clearing the mental clutter is also gaining the awareness of, for example, see, seeing where we're not accepting the outcomes that result from the choices that we've made. Now, that's just one part of it. I'm going to read a quote and I want you to think about. This is from Viktor Frankl. You know, between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom. So let me lead into with a metaphor, and this one is referred to as the archer. You know, an archer cannot control the wind, but what they can do is control the draw of their boat, the steadiness of their breath. And when they release the arrow, so they can control all of that. The reactive archer blames the wind and shoots in frustration. A responsive archer courageously adjusts steadies and then releases with intention. Here's the thing. In this example, life brings the wind. We bring the draw. Our responsibility, our response. Ability.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Ability to respond.
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Patrick
Our ability to respond is to steady, to adjust and release with courage and clarity. Welcome to the everyday Millionaire Mindset Matters podcast. Stephanie.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Hey, hon.
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Patrick
So this is really, you know, when we think about mindset and all the things that we've talked about over the past few years, we start to think about, well, how do we be the best version of ourselves? How do we elevate? How do we grow to be more, do more, have more, achieve more, whatever. More, more, more is. But there is a fundamental, which is, what does it take? What is the mindset, the mental state, the mind shui to deal with the world as it's unfolding. We shine a light on how much this world's changed over the past five years, even the four years that we've been talking about and doing the show actually, and talking about mindset. But really, how do we deal with the day to Day. How do we deal with the divisiveness, the polarization, the politics, the headlines, the challenges within our families, within our relationships, within our peers, our businesses? Because it's changed. We've talked about it. So I set that all up. Going. It is our response ability. There are things we can't control. We cannot control the wind and we cannot control the social division, but we can control our response, our response ability. Okay, that's a big, long kind of opening. I'll let you take it. Where do you want to go with it?
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Stephanie Hanlon
Well, I hear what you're saying, but I think also being the best version of ourselves doesn't always be about more. It doesn't have to be. Be more big more. Bigger, more this, more that. It could just be about finding our center and living our truth in the sense of, you know, our ability to respond to what is. And the paradox of. Yes, wanting to have a great life, wanting to have a great relationship, wanting to make sure that we can take care of our families and look after the things that we need to look after. That's truly what the responsibility is. Especially right now when we're being told that, you know, we can have certain things and we're in. In order to have groceries, we have to have a digital id and then we have to have this and we have to have that. But that's.
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Patrick
Slow down, slow down. That hasn't been. That's. That's a UK thing.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Honey, don't step over that, cowboy. Is that. You know what if it's happening, it's holographic. Right. So I think what we need to pay attention to, to your point is what we can control.
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Patrick
Yeah.
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Stephanie Hanlon
How we respond. But not be naive and not just say, I'm going to just shoot that arrow. You know that archers shooting the arrow.
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Patrick
See where it lands.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Right. But not pay attention and not measure the wind. I mean, we worked with biathletes back in the day and when they would zero in, for example, and they would be down on the ground and snow and all the things that would happen. Because biathlon, of course, is cross country skiing and shooting. Right. With rifles. So they would have to zero in. It's called zeroing in on the target. And bring everything right back to center in order for them to fire on the target. Right. And what's really interesting is if they miss the target. You know what it's called?
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Patrick
A miss? I don't know.
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Stephanie Hanlon
No, no, no. It's called cine.
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Patrick
Oh, interesting.
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Stephanie Hanlon
That's where the word sin came from. It means Miss the target. So when I was learning about biathlon and archery and they would miss the target, they would say, well, I was sinning. I'm like, you're not sinning. And they go. And then I put it together and I went, oh, that's where it came from. The word sin means to miss the target.
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Patrick
Cool.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Isn't that bizarre?
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Patrick
I know, awesome.
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Stephanie Hanlon
I'm a little bit out there because I have a little bit of jet lag, but. So I'm having coffee.
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Patrick
Okay. I want to continue this conversation around a couple of things that given what's happening in the world and missing the target, we won't go down the sitting path. But there is one thing that it takes and that is courage. And you know, some notes that I made in a newsletter that I'm putting out there for the every for everyday success, the lift newsletter. Okay, so the courage before action, when what most people think is that they have the courage to take action, they maybe picture themselves charging into battle, starting a business, saying yes to the unknown, having a courageous conversation. But real courage often comes earlier. It's the pause before the action. It's the courage to stop and to ask ourselves harder questions. The breath, okay, is this who I want to be? Is this where I want to be? Is this the life I want to live? So it's before we charge into something, before we react, we stop and have the courage to just back up, back off, to shut up, to own whatever has come our way, examine the choices we made. How did we get there? Because the first thing is mostly reactions are lash out, blame. It's not my fault, they did this to me. But when we stop, that's part of your response ability. It's the ability to respond. So think about it. Think about the choices you made that maybe got this outcome right. That takes some courage because it's way easier. Because our egos want to be right all the time. So it's automatically going, I'm a victim here.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Right?
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Patrick
Life is happening to me.
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Stephanie Hanlon
I know. You know what's really funny is that whether it's whatever decision we're making, whether it's in business or sports or athletics or just in life, is that our ability to respond to a moment in time where we can just breathe, take a pause and go, you know, take a beat before you react to something. And I think that takes a lot of self awareness, but it also takes some to your point. It takes courage. But the self awareness piece is when do we as humans move past our ego?
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Patrick
Well, I think that so Were you asking that question or were you going to lead into something else?
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Stephanie Hanlon
I want to ask you that question.
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Patrick
I think first off, you have to have the awareness of what your ego is to you and how it impacts you. We know at its base layer is the need for the ego to be right. So it's going to quantify, qualify. It's going to call on old history, future images that you've got in your mind. It's going to justify its rightness. So that's one part of the ego that we know is pretty consistent with everybody. It has a strong need to be right.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Right. Which means we have to go into defense and defense of self. Right. So, for example, if. If somebody says to you that you know you're wrong or you have a different opinion or whatever, and we go into defense mode first, instead of taking a beat, taking a pause, having the courage to go, ah, let me just. Wait a minute, let me just let that land. You're really good at that. Actually, you know, you're. You've gotten really good at just pausing.
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Patrick
I have. Because it just takes me that long to think through things. I'm not that smart.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Well, because you're not as smart as me.
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Patrick
I'm not that smart. But there's a couple things around that we can unpack around this. Again, what we're talking about is the mindset to deal with what the world is throwing at us these days. And short of living in this total echo chamber of not paying attention to what's going on in the world, there's a lot going on in this world that is really messing people up. And not just economically, but I mean, when we consider some of the seeming. What's starting to happen is government overreach. The fact that we've got government that is talking about how they might control us better, how they might manage things that we don't necessarily believe in or agree with, how they're going to take that and move it forward. That's where we're now out of control. It comes to a place where many are saying, well, there was a time when I voted in the government and they worked for me, they worked for us as the voters. That seems to be totally off the table these days.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Well, it is going global. Right. Like it's globalization. Yeah, yeah. Is different than nationalization. Like, we've lost our, I think, in the last little while and I don't know, was this happening before 2020 and we just didn't notice?
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Patrick
Maybe slower? No, but it's just way more open and of course, when you've got platforms, whether it be TikTok or X, you know, social media, YouTube, I mean, there's so much more access to good information. Some of it's bullshit, no doubt about it, but that's your response ability. So as we kind of unpack that, that's really what it's about right now. Because there's a lot of things that can drive some fear, some anger, some angst, anxiety, uncertainty. So it's our ability to kind of step back from that, not buy into it. There's a fundamental, I don't know who's. If it's a quote or a study, but you know, somewhere along the lines there's a basic thing that says if you're easily offended, you are easily manipulated. And the reason that is is because reactivity is a loss of power. Reaction says, they did this to me, I had no choice but to react. The response is far different. So our response says, I felt what I felt, I got pissed off, I noticed my anger, I went ahead anyways. I chose mindfully, thoughtfully, intentionally, my next step. Now, that's not to say your next step is the right step, but are you consciously choosing it, which then goes into the next evolution of saying, okay, am I making this from a very emotional place? Not always bad, by the way. Sometimes emotion is what you need, you know, but it's the ability to have and the training or awareness to have that responsibility and break it down, you know, the ability to respond. So it's not about denying the emotion, it's about owning the space. Go back to Victor Frankl quote, owning the space between what happens. Oops. Between what happens and what happens and what you do with it. Right? That's that space, that awareness. And can you do that? Or do you. Does your ego justify your re. Uncontrolled reactivity?
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Stephanie Hanlon
That's a really good point. I think about, you know, all the people that I've talked to recently or even in the last three or four years that are so dug into their belief systems that they don't even finish listening to someone before they come up with a response. Like they're already thinking about what it is that they're going to respond before they hear the entire sentence or the entire case or thesis to what somebody's bringing forward that might challenge their belief system. So, you know, to your point, I mean, that space or that pause and that breath becomes really important. And I've already learned that in the last couple of years, weeks actually, with what's going on in our life is That I don't need to respond. We don't need to respond right away. What if we just allow what's happening and to come at us and we don't put up the shield or we don't react or push back right away. We just let it land and go, oh, okay, well let's let that land. And what I've discovered over, you know, I mean, I feel like I'm a little bit late to the party. But when you let something land, there's also something that comes out of that. There's a response that happens or there's something that shows up that gives you more information. Right.
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Patrick
Well this is, you know, we've all been at least told the lesson. We probably broke the rule. Rule number one, never send an email when you're angry. Now we've probably. I haven't sent one of those for a very long time, many, many years, but I've certainly received a couple. And you know, it's interesting that you can see the emotion, you can read the emotion, the reactivity, the lack of thinking around it. And as we're talking about this, you know, there's the term, you know, being a Karen or I think for men it's Chad or something along that line.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Oh, sorry about Chad and Karen. But yeah, that's the meme.
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Patrick
But what's interesting about that is they can come across, you know, in their undressing or dressing down somebody, I guess is more the term. You know, they're dressing some and they, they seem so, they could seem so intelligent, although out of control. You start to realize that with all of what they've learned and what they now believe, the way in which they deliver it, the reasons for which they deliver it are far deeper than that. And it's all driven by emotion. So there is no space that they give themselves to really think about what they're doing. They're just self righteous. That's an emotionally driven, ego driven way of being reactive. Now I'm not a psychologist, but that's how I interpret that. Any thoughts on that?
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Stephanie Hanlon
Yeah. Well, think about when I've gotten emails that have. I can tell that have been written from emotion or I get a phone call that people are completely unhinged in what they're feeling and, and not that you want to deny what they're feeling, but to know that they're only coming from the surface level of how they're reacting to a situation. Not looking at two sides or looking at, you know, my mom always said like there's three sides to Every story, you know, there's your side, my side and the truth, you know, but if we can't listen to each side, we can't actually get to the truth, which is generally, I, I guess somewhat neutral. When you can get to the truth with somebody and move through an issue or move through something because you're coming from that space of non reactivity, then solutions can be found. But right now I'm finding, because the division and the polarity is being driven and supported and it's in all the media and everything is, you know, you have to be right or you have to be left or you have to be right or wrong, is that we're being kind of almost influenced to react to what it is that we're feeling. And our feelings are not real, our feelings are just feedback. Right.
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Patrick
But this is the thing about it, it's about elevating. The best version of yourself is also about your ability to deal and your response ability. So it is about elevating to say, how do I want to be seen, how do I want to be heard, how do I want to show up in this particular. Because back to your point, whether it's algorithms or like attracts like in terms of people, it's gotta be challenging for many who've got jobs where they don't align with the values of the corporation or the team that they're working with because they maybe have, I don't know, political divisiveness or just beliefs in general, but they have to work. I know that there's people that work within the DEI environment, the extreme DEI environment that some corporations seem to have adopted. And they're in it, they're having to deal with it in real time because that's their job. Totally don't align with it to the degree that it's sometimes pushed. So how do we deal with all that? You know, and that is know thyself, be true to thyself. Understand the first phase of that is, yeah, you may need to seek other employment to get yourself out of that environment. But more importantly, what are the tools that you can put into play to kind of go through the challenges? And a lot of that is our owning the space between the event, whatever that might be, that triggers noticing your triggers and not responding until you're really clear on what it might be. And by the way. And it might be just turning around and walking away and not responding.
- [18:48]
Stephanie Hanlon
Yeah, I think that's the hardest part is, you know, in certain situations, you know, when something is maybe not going your way, one of the Hardest thing is to not respond. You know, I've been advised on a couple of different scenarios with situations to not respond, to, not engage. And how hard is that? When you think about defending yourself or defending what you believe will be true and all the things that we, you know, are taught to believe and how do we, you know, fight for what's right and all that stuff. And then to be advised to not speak.
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Patrick
But let's unpack something. What you just said about the fight. So you talked about the fight. But it's not to say that you turn the other cheek and walk away. It's not to say that what you're seeing unfold isn't worth the fight. It is. Are you taking and are you being responsible? Your responsibility? So in other words, the art of war, it's not about not fighting. It's about being strategically in or thinking through things. Strategically. And seeing, you know, and biding your time, coming back, waiting for things to come back around. There's also a part there where it's the fight for being right or the fight to be right. You could be right and it could be totally like what's unfolding in your world may be uncalled for. It's probably not fair. It could be something that feels like it's happening to you. Let's just say it is. That's not the point. It's not the point that it's to let it pass, to let it go. It's to know I'm just going to bide my time. I'm going to wait until I've got clear thoughts. I'll come back around to this when it's appropriate. And when I'm in a better state of mind or emotion.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Yeah. And when I'm in a better state of mind or emotion also might allow the other person or the other party to get some clarity and to maybe pause and breathe and maybe look at things differently or not. Right. But I think you're. You're right. Like that. That breath or that pause allows, I think, both sides of a situation or an argument or a division, divisiveness or, you know, a Thanksgiving dinner when people are getting fired up about, you know, believing in their, you know, their belief systems. And I think, you know what this also brings me to, a thought process is what if our belief systems are all bullshit?
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Patrick
Our B.S.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Our B.S. our belief systems. What if they're all B.S. like, truly B.S. because as we rattle our, you know, our own cage, or we. We look at our values and the things that we kind of Lock in or not lock in. But it's funny, you know, I had a call with a client tonight, and one of the biggest breakthroughs they had in this particular part of the season is that they stopped believing in the things they believed in because it wasn't serving them anymore and it wasn't moving them forward towards their goals. So they actually had to shift from what they believed to be true, which kept them in a certain level 5 to 12 in the world. But in order to move up, they had to actually shift what they believed, which was so interesting.
- [22:10]
Patrick
Okay, so that's so interesting. Those are called meta values, and you and I are going to talk about that in the next episode. And so it's so funny you bring that up. So I've done some recent research on meta values, and. And we talk about meta values and core values. What you just described is the understanding is that these two things can, in meta values can exist at the same time. Yeah. They coexist. So different topic, but it's funny that you brought that up.
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Stephanie Hanlon
I'm amazing.
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Patrick
You are amazing. You are amazing. Okay, so what are we leaving our listener with today? Ultimately, it's first to have the awareness of that space. Your response ability. So your ability to respond in a responsible, thoughtful, mindful way, as opposed to a emotionally driven, reactive way. Because there's a lot coming at us. And also cleaning up the filters. You know, look at what's showing up in your feed. I mean, it pretty much tells you what you're thinking, because it doesn't matter. You're clicking on this, you're watching that, you're doing this, you're reading that it all. I mean, everything's there, right?
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Stephanie Hanlon
And the algorithm just says, here's more of that.
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Patrick
It doesn't matter whether it's your TikTok, your Instagram, your Twitter, your LinkedIn, it's feeding you what you want to hear. That's ultimately it, and that's what's happening. And as much as you live in that swim lane, you're in that echo chamber of your own belief systems. It's hard work getting outside of it. I think you said a friend of yours had a Created a. What was a co. Personal? No, they cloned themselves with a whole different name and attitude.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Oh, yeah, it was so funny.
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Patrick
They're, like, living. What do they call, parallel lives. So over here, they're really far left. Over here, they're really far right.
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Stephanie Hanlon
Two completely different Personas. Profiles on Twitter. Yeah. And what's really cool is they both got approved or whatever. And what he does is he plays both sides and notices what comes in. And they're completely different.
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Patrick
Yes. So the avatars, whatever your avatar is, whatever Persona that you wear, who you are on a. You know, over years now because they. I mean, if he can run two Personas, he's an IT guy. Because that's really. I've only. I tried it once a long time ago. It's just not worth the work. Anyways, that's an interesting thing that we have to be aware of is we think it's all this unique stuff coming to us and it's not. It's just playing to us. I have to go way out of my way to read guys that I just totally disagree with. I think they're full of shit. I think they gaslight. But I read their stuff, I watch their stuff. It's still. It's just to say, you know something. No, I'm just checking in here. No, I still don't. I don't align. I don't agree. I still think you're an idiot. You know, whatever story I might be telling myself, but it's coming and I might be wrong. That's the other thing is I also in the I might unders. I understand that I might be wrong. I might find evidence that, you know, goes, huh, you know, I've been thinking these things all along and that's not really what it is now. The whole game, of course, is to be right more than you are wrong. But it's first and foremost having that awareness, knowing that you're not a victim. Shit isn't happening to you. Right. You're making choices own the results of those choices. That's part of it. That's just part of it. And these are all things of how do we cope with a divided, divisive, messy world that's getting messier, it seems like. And on a global macro scale, anybody who's paying attention, you don't see it in mainstream media a little bit, but I mean the chances of us going and being involved at some level of war, I mean Canada I don't think will directly but will be affected, will be drawn it into in some way shape or form. So where were we going with all of this was to say that part of mindset, part of the mind shui way is understanding and being aware of whatever's going on in the world. Our job is to pay attention to that space between whatever happens happens and our response to whatever happened and to.
- [26:50]
Stephanie Hanlon
Notice our emotional reaction. And I think that's the biggest thing Going on right now is what are you reacting to? Like, what are you being drawn into reacting? Like the algorithms or the news are going to draw your emotions and notice what your emotion is being drawn to. Are you being reactive to what's happened? Are you emotionally drawn in? Like, I think about the whole Charlie Kirk thing in the last little while I'm watching this division between left and right, like people are fired up and divided and it's like, okay, well, like why? Why? And I think that's the big question is, okay, so notice what you're reacting and then ask why? Does it really matter with my day to day life, does it affect my job? Does it affect my family? Does it affect my value system? And if not, why are you being pulled into something that has nothing to do with you?
- [27:47]
Patrick
So it's interesting. Okay, so I'm going to use this as a total example and then we'll shut it down. But here's the story. We had a renovation when we were still living in Edmonton. We had a renovation on the house and the guy who did the renovation, we were looking at this particular counter finish around the stove and I go, no, there's this gap here. And he goes, okay. He says, patrick, I'll tell you what, I see what you see and I'll tell you what I'm going to do. If you will live with it for three weeks, and if in three weeks it's still giving you the same reaction and you still see it the way you see it right now, I will come back and I will put in the correction, no charge. And quite honestly, three weeks later, I couldn't even really remember what the hell exactly the issue was, right? But in the moment, in the moment it was like a disaster. Who the hell does this kind of renovation anyway? So we digress. So that's how it is. Sometimes it's up to us to take response ability and really pay attention to what's coming at us, what matters and how we respond to it. That's all I got. Stephanie. Thank you.
- [29:08]
Stephanie Hanlon
Thank you, hon. Take a pause, take a pause. That was fun.
- [29:13]
Patrick
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends as it is my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any clients, comments, suggestions or questions you'd like answered, please email me@ceoraincanada.com that's ceor eincanada.com I look forward to hearing from you and until next time Patrick goes.