We are complex. We have an

ego, we have a self, and

we have these complex minds that we barely understand. I mean,

it's pretty amazing how

we can shift to a different state if we're

triggered. And there's a. There's a reason for that. Our

psyche. Our psyche. It's like the voice

inside of your head is one way of thinking about it. It's

that. It's that thing that chimes up inside. I mean, the word

psychological comes from the psyche. So

there's. There's an ego and then there's a self.

And your ego's job is to protect you,

is to keep you safe. It chimes in and tells you it's

going to go bad, it's going to go wrong. Then your true self, it

is. It's what encompasses. It's the whole of you. And

it's actually going to have a primary motion

of love and it's going to want to reach out and want to help. So

people that I've worked with in coaching and myself included, and my

friends and everybody, everybody has a part of themselves that's. That's an ego,

right? And in this context today, we're going to talk about it as a

protector. It's protecting you from getting hurt again. We're going

to break that down in the show today. So I'm going to give you three

ways you can actually get out of your ego. Get out of the protector, calm

the voice there, and actually act out of yourself. And so as

leaders, we want to act from this confident place, from a place of

ourself, not out of ego. Ego protects us. It keeps people

at a distance. It's fearful. The protector, that is

the ego. I'm going to call it the protector from now on. I mean, its

primary motto is never again. Never again. I'm not going to get hurt like that

again. I'm not going to get betrayed like that again. I'm not going to get

taken advantage of that like. Like that again. I'm going to orient my life in

a way where I'm never going to get hurt again, and then it costs you

dearly. So we're going to talk about this protector and

how it's running your life today. In fact, in many ways, it's probably

ruining parts of your life and you don't know it.

You're going to get three decisions you can make to actually

start getting distance from the protector, to recognize

it and not let it actually damage your life any longer. And I'm going to

talk to you like I always do in simple concepts that are easily

applied and that you could teach to somebody else quickly. And

they're going to be able to understand them as well.

So. Welcome to the Decide youe Legacy podcast. I'm your host,

Adam Gragg. I'm a coach and a family therapist, and

I founded Decide youe Legacy in 2012. And what

we do is we help leaders and

their teams address the issues they're avoiding

so they can take productive action and make progress. From my

point of view, everyone is a leader. And from

my point of view, everybody has a protective

part of themselves that is impacting their leadership,

impacting their connection with other people, keeping them closed

and fearful. And we can change that today

to have more hope, to have more peace of mind, to live in a way

where we can actually build relationships, build connections with

other people. So when two egos are

interacting, there's competition, there's

one upping. People are

looking with judgment on the other person. I'm

not good enough or I'm better than them. They should appreciate me or

I'm entitled to something. And this mentality we

know is the protector. And so what I'm talking about today comes out

of internal family systems, which is a therapeutic

modality to help people who have dealt with trauma. Because

the protector is formed during traumatic events in our

lives when we've been hurt. So that really makes sense because if you. It is

a part of our psyche that says, I'm not going to let that happen again,

and so I'm going to do whatever I can to not get hurt again. And

then it becomes dysfunctional because it starts to read situations as

being dangerous that it needs to protect you from because it reminds

your part of that part of your psyche reminds you of what hurt you in

the past. So you're automatically triggered and

we're not even actually aware of it when it actually happens.

We're usually not even aware when that's our protector is coming

out. Because it's deceptive. It can come out

as insecurity. It can come out as anger. It can come out

as deceptive communication, can come out as passive

aggressive behavior. It can come out as passive

behavior. It can come out as violence

inflicting harm on somebody else. It can come out and justifying it

and rationalizing it because we don't want to get hurt again, so we're going to

inflict violence on somebody else. The protective part of ourselves is

drawn to drama. It's drawn to drama because in

drama it can stay safe and it feels needed.

So if I Feel needed and I'm utilized, then I feel okay with myself.

I feel like I'm doing my job. And so it is, is drawn. And you

can see this in people's lives. People who, who live with,

with a lot of self protection, they tend to be,

and they would, they would classify it as victims of drama, but I would say

they enter drama, they invite fights with people.

And I can do that myself. I mean, recently I invited a fight because my

protector. And I'm going to share personal illustrations today.

So you're not going to want to miss this today because I'm going to share

some stuff that, how the protective part of me has

derailed my life even just in the last week. So I,

my, my daughter Emerson graduated from high school last year and

I felt some disappointment that my mom and dad and

my, and some of my family didn't

come. So her, she had some aunts and uncle, aunt and uncle that

came in and aunt and uncle that didn't come. And I felt disappointed by that

because, because it was, it was hard. I was really wanting to celebrate that. And

I, I feel like to me it's one of those things you just make it

work. You kind of like schedule around it. You know, this is going to happen.

You've probably known for 10 years that she's going to graduate. You know, like

you've known it for a long time and you know, figure it out because it's

really important to somebody else. Like their wedding, I mean, wedding is super important too,

but I mean, you don't, you have less time to plan. You do have time

to plan for graduation. So I was disappointed my mom and dad didn't come

and I hadn't vented that I hadn't really expressed it. I didn't want to

make them feel guilty, but actually I really did is what I've realized. So

my mom and I were talking on the way home from work and I, she

asked me what I was doing and I said, well, I'm buying

tickets to go out to Bella's graduation. Bella's my niece in New

Orleans. And if I was more self aware in

the moment, I knew that was going to trigger my mom. And you can say,

well, you know, you didn't say anything bad, you didn't say anything rude. You just

told her what you really literally were doing. I wasn't lying about that, but I

knew through wisdom that that was going to trigger my mom. And I

should have stayed away from it because I really truly knew that I was inviting

a fight when I Shared that. And a few days later, it

didn't turn out well. It turned out really bad actually, because it

triggered my mom's protector. And when you have two protectors

interacting with each other, it doesn't really go well. Same thing as two egos.

And so she was operating out of a place

that wasn't great. I was operating out of a place that wasn't great.

And it just derailed. And I knew after

I had processed it, really for probably 24 hours, I knew I had done wrong.

I knew. I in my heart, I knew that it was the wrong

thing to even bring it up. And I didn't have to even share it. She

could have asked me when what are you doing? And I could have said, well,

I'm going home to make dinner and relax and go running. Which I was

as well. But I wanted to dig the knife in because that was

my protector saying, you know, dig the knife into your mom so

she doesn't hurt you again so you're not hurt again. And then

three days later, I apologized to my mom. She

had done some things as a reaction to my protector that were very hurtful,

but I had to own the fact that I started

the fight and I initiated the fight and it

happened because of my listening to

my own fear and I need to take responsibility for that. And I

did. And she thanked me and I told her I was coming out to visit

for Easter, which I am. And it actually ended up

being a good interaction, which another point is, apology

is one of the biggest and best ways to build relationships. I mean,

if you legitimately own and apologize, people, people start trusting you.

It's one of the hardest things to do in a relationship too. Why? That's

another podcast episode. So the three decisions you can make to

start, because the protector is running your life

and you don't know it, three decisions you can make to start knowing it and

to start really not letting it have the power in your life because you're

giving the power away to your self protection and it's hurting

you greatly. So first decision is to become

aware. And by becoming aware, you're going to have

a feeling in your body when that self defense is

rising up inside of you. Some people feel it in their chest, some people

feel it in their shoulders, some people feel it in their mouth, some people feel

it in their feet. And there's an amazing

way that we can step back from our own lives and analyze what

we're thinking and analyze what we're feeling and be able to draw light to it.

So that it no longer has that kind of power over us. And

I feel, and I know in fact that that is

often for me the first thing that I can recognize. Like

because I get tense in my heart, I feel it in my heart when I'm

being self protective. I'm not relaxed, I'm tense, I'm not open.

And my mind and my thinking is all going towards self

protection. How can I not get hurt? And how can I interact in a way

where it's going to keep people in a way where I can try to control

them and it's not positive. And so

if you feel it in your wherever you feel it, that's a great place to

start. And then you can say, hey, that's my protector.

That's your signal. My protector is showing up. Even something small

like bringing up a

easy topic like where do we go to dinner? Where do you want to go

to dinner? I mean there's little things that can remind us of our past

that trigger our protector. And

when I feel it in myself, that's when I get controlling

and that's when I get even passive aggressive. That's when I get

passive because it's in that moment that

I'm starting to act in a way that is not my true

self. Now your true self is the creative

aspects of your life. It's your unique

giftings and talents it's utilizing. Like in the

parable of the talents in

Matthew, I believe, I'm not sure how many gospels, but anyway, you're probably familiar

with it. Well, you know, people are given and it's a metaphor for

more than just money. It's a metaphor for the giftings that God's given you to

help other to resources, what you can utilize. So if you're

treasuring your talents, then of course you're going to use them for

the benefit of others. And if you're self protective, you're going to hide them. Like

there were three people in that parable, One of them invested his. He was given

five talents. He invested them and he made five more. One of them had

three talents. He invested them, he took a risk with them, he risked losing

them honestly. And then he gained three more. And then one hit it in the

ground where it couldn't be lost, where it couldn't be taken. And then the

master came who gave him the money and called the one who invested the

one who had dug a hole and put the 1 talent in the hole. What

I mean, he said, you, you're a wicked and lazy servant. You're Lazy, you know,

and he gave that one talent after it was dug up to the guy that

had 10. Pretty amazing like. And there's so much

depth to that right there. And the

protector is keeping us from using our talents. And that's why I'm saying it's robbing

us. Now. How does it actually form? Well,

one great question to actually ask clients or friends or whatever is like, what's your

earliest memory? Because a lot of people have earliest memories around age 4

or 5. And sometimes when they've had significant trauma as a

child, been exposed to significant trauma, they can have earlier memories that are

actually very clear. I've had clients in 27 years as a

therapist, share stories from age three

and even from age two in some situations.

Now there's real evidence that you have age 5

to 7. Those are very formative times in a child's life

that they start interpreting the world through how the world

is functioning at age 5 to 7. That parts of their

psyche, including the protector, is formed at that point.

But it can also have very strong roots in other traumatic events in your life.

So for me, I can think of my protector getting very, very strong,

much stronger than it had been in years and years at age 41. And I

had significant trauma happen at age 41. So that was when I

realized that my marriage was falling apart. So

it's fascinating because even at times

I've thought, huh, okay, so it's

almost like that part of me is

still 41 years old, that protector is still functioning like it was functioning when

I was 41, to help me survive a traumatic situation. So

it's still helping me now. You

have. There's just strong roots to ptsd, man. Strong roots to how

we function based on the traumatic situations we've had. And then

it is again causing you damage when you don't recognize it

in the moment. Because other people do recognize it. Often they will.

And your close friends, your monkeys, they'll see you're functioning in a

self protective fashion and help you to see potentially that

it's something you can step back from and just recognize. So that's my first

challenge to clients as and as they're starting to try

and recognize how self protection is impacting their life, impacting

their leadership, impacting how they interact with those they supervise and their clients,

how they're acting in a guarded way and they start to just notice it and

then they can respond differently. Because if you're in a professional

interaction and somebody is accusatory or they're saying, hey, you

didn't fulfill your contract and I want to default or whatever on the car or

hey, you know, you're not following through and they're trying to blame you. And if

your protector chimes in then you're going to interact in a way

that is actually in the drama. You're stepping into the drama

rather than being distant from it, observing it, getting clarity,

being calm, asking calm questions, engaging and

building a relationship. And people that live from their protector,

often they're highly, highly triggering. I mean they can

be highly accusatory because that again,

if they're acting in that way, living from a point of

self protection is safer than them having honest, open

conversations with people. It's safer because those

honest, open relationships that they had in their past,

some of them have betrayed them and hurt them deeply.

And so it reminds them if I let my guard down, then I'm going to,

you're going to get hurt again. So again, the motto

of the protector is never again. And

the motto of the true self is love

is how can I love, how can I live, how can I live life? How

can I love, how can I reach out? It's all the same thing. I mean,

how can I have adventure in my life? That's its motto. It looks for that,

it looks for that. So, and it goes and engages in things that

are going to help it unleash itself. And it's all

healthy. I mean the self is not selfish. It's not the same thing. I mean

all the self, true self stuff does, is healthy. That's why really

people who have done things that they really regret that are in

prison or are in really tough

situations, they can still, they still do have a self. It's like they're

two different people. There are times their self comes out and I see like

there's times when somebody that might be a murderer and is in prison

and interacting in a very loving, compassionate way towards other people. Not

a self protective, self advanced and take advantage narcissistic

fashion, they're actually reaching out to people. I mean there's kindness in prison.

I've never lived there, but I mean I know that. I've heard stories, I mean

you've heard stories too. You know people that impact other people

in that setting, in whatever setting it's actually. And there's kindness in the front

lines of war. There's kindness that can happen in the most

desperate situations where people help other others

because they're getting outside of the selfishness, outside of their own ego

and they're actually reaching out to other people. So if you found this

podcast helpful so far, and I got two more decisions you can make to

recognize the protector and to get out of it is

you can hit the link to subscribe to Shatterproof Yourself Light.

And these are seven small steps to build your confidence.

I walk you through stuff and it's content I've developed over the last 20 years.

It's gonna, it has a worksheet and a video and you can go through

it quickly. It's about 40 minutes long or so

and you're gonna find it really helpful. You gotta complete the worksheet as you

go and it's gonna give you space from the protector as well,

along with helping you build healthy relationships and recognize how

to, how to build a high

level of self, build yourself the self concept

to really build that up. It's gonna help you to see how to and

clarify how to clarify a vision for your future in a really powerful manner

as well. So you wanna hit the link and check out Shatterproof Yourself Light. So

the second decision to put your

protector at bay is to talk kindly to it. Now this

sounds really strange because. What, talk to myself? Well,

yeah, I mean, this is a big deal. And how do we do that? Well,

journaling can be talking to yourself. You're writing thoughts to yourself

that are contradictory or in opposition of

thoughts that you're having. You're telling yourself the truth.

And you can talk kindly by thanking that protector that

formed in your life that to keep you safe, never again, I'm never going to

get hurt again. And be kind to it saying, you know, thank you,

you served a role in the past, but it's

just not functioning well now with you leading the ship.

So I don't want your help in this situation, protector. I can

handle this. And you're kind to that part of yourself.

It'll amaze you because the reason it'll amaze you is because it'll

respond as you tell it the truth. Your psyche

responds to things when you tell it the truth and when you let it know

that you're going to lead, that yourself is going to lead because it

wants to be led, it doesn't want to have to lead. It's like an

employee that has a boss that's not willing to make decisions.

Well, the employee feels really insecure and it feels like it has to

protect himself or herself. They have to protect themselves because the boss

isn't looking out for the company and, and looking out for the financial future of

the company and the boss isn't moving the business towards a Vision and the

boss isn't making the hard decision. So it's going to have to start doing it

for, for itself. And eventually it'll probably be looking for a new job because

he, it knows that employee knows that I

can't be in a business long term that doesn't have somebody leading.

I can't do it. So we, we need leaders

and we have to lead ourselves to be that kind of leader for our protector.

So you talk kindly and instead of fighting it, you want to acknowledge it

and say, okay, I hear you. So for me, I mean, romance can

trigger my protector and I can be really negative at times

and make up stuff because instead of getting hurt,

I will just demonize somebody. I'll make them out to be bad

or out to get me. And I don't feel like I'm doing that

as much. I feel like I'm seeing a lot clearer in that area. And it's

pretty exciting actually because, you know, I, I went through a really

difficult divorce, but then I've had other people

who weren't trustworthy, who I let my guard down with and

luckily didn't get too deep in it, but didn't

I? Because that's the whole thing is like you, you can have this strong

protector and you can even choose at times to

totally not listen to it when it's trying to help

protect you in situations that are, are dangerous,

but you're not, you're not willing to see it. So it's a little

bit confusing. But what I would say in those situations where

in one in particular where I did, did let my guard down after the divorce

and got, and got hurt some, I mean, let my

guard down and then realized it wasn't a

trustworthy situation. A situation where I should have had trust is I

wasn't listening to myself because myself was telling me be careful.

Myself was telling me some things don't add up, myself was telling me,

you know, this person's not recognizing your strengths and wanting to

utilize them. They're, they're interested in themselves. So myself was

getting drawn into their protector, who was, who I was

interacting with and I wasn't being myself. So

yeah, it sounds confusing, but you start talking to your protector,

thanking it, it's not broken, it's just overdoing it.

It's just overdoing it based on the trauma in the past. And when I

journal this out, I step into leadership

instead of reaction, I step into

gratitude for what the protector has done because it did get me

through a very tough situation in many situations. In my life.

It just doesn't need to do that now.

Pretty powerful and exciting. And by the way, just a little side

note is that we call some of this

psychologically disassociation. So

multiple personality disorder is a term that was used

a long time ago. It's not utilized as much because

in psychological settings we just don't give credence to that outside of just

a disassociative tendency. So people can disassociate

so much from a part of their life that they may act in a way

that's so different than how they normally act. And

an example would be that a person with a really large protector,

they may act in that in situations

where they're triggered, they may act very different than when they're around

one of their friends who they have a lot of trust in.

And so they act out of their self in that setting. They open up, they're

calm. And their friend, as they describe this other

situation where they're acting in a self protective

fashion, doesn't see the same person interacting with them. It's very

incongruent. And so we have multiple parts to

our psyche in including multiple protectors. You can have

a protector in maybe business settings because you've been

hurt and burned in business settings, but maybe not so much

around your wife because you have a lot of history and trust with your

wife or protector that rises up with your parents because you've been

hurt in that relationship, but not so much with

some of your friends because you've learned to calm your central

nervous system in those relationships. So pretty powerful

stuff. So the third decision though, and this is the one that I get most

excited about, is you can start in order to

calm the protector. You can start showing up as your true

self. And your true

self loves people. Your true self wants to be open

and wants to trust because it takes trust in order to love

people. Your true self does things that you know

you've been avoiding because it loves. It's willing to do things

like sacrifice, like being

convenienced. It's willing to and even excited about

showing up for its friends. And it's even excited about showing

up for itself and getting those workouts in and having

those hard conversations and doing the journaling and doing the reading and doing whatever it

takes to unleash itself

because it's worth it. I'll say to myself, sometimes, like,

I show up not to prove my value, but because I already know

it. That's what the self actually does. That's what it means to show up. I

Show up and I lead. Not to prove I'm worthy, not to prove that I

can perform, not to prove that I am likable, not to prove that I

am smart. I show up because

I want to add value. And I know I do, I know I do. I

know I have value. And I can bring that to the situation. So it

takes action to show up as your true self. It takes having the

conversation, it takes engaging the risky

endeavor. It takes not playing it safe, it takes having

the cold shower. Just kidding about that one. But maybe it does

take that because you're showing up for yourself and that does calm your central nervous

system down. And this is where gratitude comes in.

Because you're by willful action, choosing to

have gratitude is choosing to focus your attention

on the good in your life and what can happen that's good in the

future. And it is a willful action, it is a powerful action.

And gratitude reminds you that you have so much

and that you can be a steward of the many blessings that you have been

given and all these talents that are uniquely yours,

regardless of the mistakes that you've made. God's grace

continues to give you opportunity and continues to give you talents

to utilize. You can step up and show up for

yourself. And when you show up for yourself, I mean you are showing up

for other people because you're showing up by

being your true self. And this comes out in really

creative ways. When somebody, and in

ifs what we call this sometimes one way of I like to understand it is

you have these parts of your psyche that are called

exiles. And an exile is a part

of you that does good and that is

impactful. But it's been exiled on a desert

desert island because the protector won't let it come out. Those exiles

threaten the protector. So

loving other people can be an exile. This part of you, this part of your

psyche that's creative can be exiled. This part of your

psyche that is really has

a great sense of humor has been exiled and it doesn't come out.

And you letting it out might shock people around you because they're not used to

seeing that part. They're used to seeing the protector. They're not used to seeing your

exiles. So by showing up for yourself, you're engaging

these exiled parts of yourself. So you may have a passion for

reading Shakespeare and memorizing poetry,

yet you've exiled it because you've lived out of the self protection

function of your psyche. Or maybe you have a desire to draw

and you've done it before and you really Have a great passion for it or

music or animals.

Maybe you've exiled the dog lover part of yourself because you had a

dog that died, and you love that dog so much, you don't.

Your protector says, no, never again. Never again.

And so even looking at pictures of dogs can trigger you. Looking

and being in a house with people that have dogs can potentially trigger you

because it triggers your protector. But that's when you can speak kindly to

your protector and say, like, hey, you know, it was really hard to lose Max.

You know, I lost my dog. He was 16, in June, almost a year ago.

And it was really hard to lose Max. Max. And those memories are never

going away. This is me talking to my protector. And you

have a lot of love to give. And at the right of time, right time,

buying a dog could be an awesome, awesome thing for you.

That's the protector, which is super cool.

You're talking to your protector. That's not your protector talking. That's yourself talking to

your protector. And then maybe over time, you start opening up to having

another dog, which could be super fun, because dogs are cool,

and I love dogs, and I miss Max. But, you know, and

I feel like I'm open to getting a new dog. But I do feel like,

too, though I'll say things and it can't be my protector. Like, it's so hard

to travel with a dog. And I had some friends

find a dog, stray dog, and thought it would be a great fit. And I

told them, just not, not yet. I didn't say never again. I said, just not

yet. Not yet. So do that drill. You know, you.

You start to incorporate something in your life that you know is exiled

is pushed away. That's a part of your true self, and you start to engage

in it. Maybe it's learning a musical instrument. I know for me, I have

felt like I've exiled certain fun parts of

myself, my sense of humor at times. And I won't even necessarily show

that when I'm around other people that have really strong protective functions.

But I don't really hold back like I used to. I know I'm working

on the protector, chiming in in romantic

relationships and just letting my true self come out,

like, just being myself, having. Having

fun and letting go, which is really exciting.

So there's amazing stuff that can happen

as you talk to your protective function, and you build your legacy by

connecting to your true self. In these moments where the protector chimes

in, you say kindly, hey, you know, I'm okay. I

can handle this. I can the protector doesn't want

change. You can speak kindly and say change is good in this situation. This is

really good. This is really good. And you start thinking about

how gratitude in your life and you start focusing on gratitude,

knowing how much it can help you stop living in fear and start living from

your true self, because it will. So today,

today you're going to feel your protector show

up. And you may even feel it right now because it's

triggered listening to this podcast. When it does, I want

you to pause. I want you just to notice how you're feeling. And

according to Michael Singer, who wrote the Untethered Soul and

Richard Schwartz wrote the book which I'll reference both of these books that I'm

talking about. Richard Schwartz wrote no Bad Parts, which

is he's a creator of internal family systems. Took him like three decades to create

it. He wrote no Bad Parts book on recovering from trauma

and living a full life. And then Michael Singer wrote the

Untethered Soul. And Michael Singer has this thing where you

notice that self protective part of you raise up and,

and when you're, when you're there and it's raising up like you're

in your car and you just notice how you feel and you notice it's chiming

in. Well, just remember, you know, you're sitting on a planet

moving thousands of miles through the, through our solar system

and speck of dust, you know, in this giant solar system

and it's in control. And so many things are just

perfect because we're the perfect distance from the sun

to sustain human life. We have perfection

all around us and it puts things in perspective when you

recognize that and the protector will calm down because you're just

being aware that it's chiming in. So you notice it, you talk kindly to it.

And then you show up for yourself. You notice it, you talk

kindly, you show up for yourself. So, and even ask yourself, if I wasn't trying

to protect myself right now, how would I show up? That can give you some

insight as well. So in closing, I want to share one last situation I

had. I've been planning my graduation with my daughter

and not my graduation, my going to my niece's graduation with

Emerson. And Emerson gets out of school and she's trying

to arrange her schedule so that she can go to the graduation out there with

me from Wichita. But she's driving back and I'd like for her to

come back and make sure she can go. And she had said she could

go and she was going to fly from Boston and now she's going to drive

back to Wichita from Boston and have to fly from here. And she doesn't think

the graduation party is on Saturday and she's not going to get back in

town. She. Until, I guess until

Friday. No, Saturday or Sunday. And so I responded to her and

just. I. My protector was chiming in and was kind of like, hey,

we got to go to the graduation. You know, you got to come home, figure

out what you're going to do to go home. And. And then I stepped back

from it and I felt like I was operating out of my true self. And

I just said, emerson, whatever works for you. You know, if we can go

on Sunday, we could, I mean, potentially

even go on Monday. I didn't say that in the text. I just said, whatever

works for you. We can just go to the graduation ceremony. That'll be really special

to be there. And then we can stay a few days afterwards and hang out

in New Orleans. Be great. But I didn't listen to my protector, and I feel

like it's. The conversation's going much better because when you listen to your protector

and you act on it, there's no limit to how far down you can go

out of fear and protective behavior in.

It triggers protective behavior in other people. I didn't trigger it in

Emerson in that interaction. So I'm really, I'm happy about that because I didn't listen

to it and I needed my friends to help me with that. And I mean,

I did it without my friends telling me what to do. I didn't even actually

process that with friends until after I had actually made the decision to just let

go. But I did think of what a friend of mine says, Ben, he says,

you know, be flexible, like water, whatever that means. Like be like

water. You know, don't be, don't be rigid. So

what insight have you gained today and what action are you as leaders going to

commit to taking? Because this way of functioning impacts

your leadership, self protection impacts your leadership, and people see it in

you. So decide to apply something today.

Whatever you commit to and you actually do

has the biggest impact. So 20% of change is by taking new

actions. 80%. I'm sorry, 80% of change is by taking a

new action, doing something different. What are you Gonna apply today?

20% of making changes is insight. You gained insight today, but it means

really very little unless you take some action. And that action, I challenge you, if

you don't do anything, is just start noticing that protective part part of

you. And another action is to subscribe and leave a

rating and review for the Decide youe Legacy podcast that helps it grow

organically and share it with a friend. Like share this

specific episode with a friend. If you've listened to this and gotten to this point,

there's something in here that resonated with you and just share it with somebody like,

hey, this was helpful. I really think you could benefit from this.

Don't. Don't dig it in. But like, hey, this was insightful. So

to decide means by definition that you're eliminating other

options and you're choosing one path. Your legacy is the impact

that your life has on others. There's no positive change until you

decide to change. Decide today, because your legacy

does depend on it. I'm going to close today the way I always do.

Live your life today the way you want to be

remembered 10 years after you're gone. You decide your legacy.

Nobody else. I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time.

It.