Freedom Friday: You Are More Than What You Do!

Transcript

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Hello everybody and welcome once again to the Unlearned Podcast.

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I am your host, ruth Abigail, aka RA, and this is once again Freedom Friday, where me and or me and a friend of mine come and share something we've unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free.

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So I'm really surprised I haven't talked about this yet, because this is actually this was a game changer for me and I hope this makes sense to people.

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I'm going to try to frame it in the best way.

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I know how, but and maybe I've talked about it on one before, but I really can't remember so, if I have, we're going to do it again, because this was really this was so impactful for me, one of the things that I have.

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So, for all my ambitious people right, if you consider yourself to be a go-getter, someone who's driven, somebody who really values the contribution that they can make out in the world, that kind of thing, I think I'm talking to you because I'd be talking to me Like that's kind of the way I've approached particularly my professional life and all that stuff.

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So I've approached particularly my professional life and all that stuff.

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So you know, those that know me know that I just got married last year those that don't you know.

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I just got married last year and before then most of my life right had been as a single person just me, no kids, and I really just I ran.

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I ran in my professional world and I did.

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I think I did what I did.

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I did the best of my ability.

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I took on every opportunity I could, especially in my early twenties, and I was doing a million different things, going in a million different directions.

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Some of that was really healthy because it helped me to carve out some of the things that I.

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That was really healthy because it helped me to carve out some of the things that I didn't need to do.

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It helped me to hone in and really get better at things that I knew I was called to do, and so it was a lot of learning.

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And then, as I got a little older and a little bit more seasoned in the profession I'm in, then I started taking on just more responsibility, like opportunities with higher, more influential responsibilities, right, and so all that equates to time and energy.

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And so when I got married, it was a pretty, it was a, it was a shift right, it was a shift, and it was a shift into a whole different way of seeing who the person I was.

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I was definitely one of those people, and maybe you are too.

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If somebody asked you, what do you?

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If somebody asked you, tell me about yourself, what's the first thing you would say?

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For me, the first thing I would say was what I did for work.

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I think that's most people.

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I think there's some statistics out there, that kind of share a little bit like when that's people.

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How people define themselves is through their work, through what they do, and so one of the one of the things that I learned pretty early on, and that was kind of a difficult thing for me to come to grips with, is that when people asked me one of two questions, I was stumped.

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The first one tell me about yourself, because I can never get past what I did.

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And then the second one was what do you like to do for fun?

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Those stumped me.

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I couldn't really answer it outside of again work, and there was a point in my life where those that my answers to those questions started to bother me, but I didn't really know how to go about it.

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So there was another part of of kind of the world that I'm in where we talk about purpose a lot.

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We talk about purpose and you know callings and you know what.

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Why am I here on this earth?

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That is a question that lingers in the back of, I think, of everyone's mind.

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In in in kind of my generation.

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It has really blown up in the public square.

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We talk about purpose right In a very different way than I think our parents' generation did.

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We are pursuing purpose.

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We want to do what we're called to do.

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We don't just want to be working a job forever and just to get a paycheck and live a normal life.

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We want to have meaning in our work and in our life and all this stuff Like that's.

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That's the conversation.

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And so I've done so many exercises where I've I've had to really kind of create like purpose statements or personal mission statements or calling statements or whatever statements, or personal mission statements or calling statements or whatever right.

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Whether it was for work, whether it's for program I was doing, whether it was for a retreat, whatever it was right.

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We had to come up with these things and I think I've probably written.

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I've probably written gosh, five, six over, you know, over the course of of, I would say, about 10 years, and so I've, but I've never really felt connected to any of them.

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Being honest, right, I don't know if you've felt that way, but it's like you write stuff down and then you kind of forget about it.

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I couldn't even tell you what they said because it didn't really do anything for me and one of the reasons is because they were all.

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It was always connected to what I did and I realized that right, so I've always kind of I've never been totally, I've never just known this for a fact.

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But I think I can be honest and say it's always been a concern for me in the back of my mind that I couldn't really, I never could answer the question what is my purpose on this earth?

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What am I really here for?

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And let me say this outside of the idea of I'm a Christian, I'm a Jesus follower, all those things, there is a particular purpose for Jesus followers that the Bible mandates Got it.

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I'm clear on that.

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I'm not talking about that and that's about the only thing.

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It's like okay, but why is?

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Why is Ruth Abigail specifically here on this earth?

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And I never can answer the question.

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It's always bothered me.

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I never really.

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It was never.

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It's never been so much to the forefront, to where it was like always on my mind all the time, but it has bothered me, right?

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Okay, so fast forward to like a couple a few months ago.

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So I'm in this program, um, and it's a leadership development program called uh, devos, uh, leadership, oh, that's not good, hold on, let me get it.

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It's called the DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative.

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There it is Okay.

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So now that I'm saying this, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but anyway.

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So we have to read a book called First Things First.

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It is by Stephen Covey, who also wrote the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and he's written tons of other books right, that's how I was first introduced to him was that book?

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And so we had to read this book.

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And the concept of the book is very much about how do you order your life in such a way to where you pay more attention to the principles of life and not just to your traditional way of managing your time, right?

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How do you, essentially, as very highly active driven people, how do you get the life that you really have desired forever?

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How do you really live that kind of life?

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And he, he, his, one of his ways of doing that is like we have to.

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We have to be principle driven, and there are just some things about life that are true and so, and how do we order our life around principles?

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So part of the book is gearing towards understanding what your personal mission is.

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There's a moment in the book where it kind of takes you through some.

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I highly recommend this book, by the way.

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It is a great, great book.

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If you really pay attention to it and you allow it to really teach you some stuff, I think it could probably shift the way you think about life and about yourself.

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So there's a part in the book, matter of fact hold on, I'm going to, I'm going to get it.

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So here's the book, right, if you're just listening to it, you can't see it, but if you're on YouTube, you see it.

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First things first.

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So there's a part in the book where it talks about really defining your roles, right?

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So it defines the roles.

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So it has you to list out the different roles in your life and then it has you to list out, kind of the goals that you might have for those roles.

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And so first thing that helps you to do when you start to see yourself as a role, start to see the way that you approach things as a role and not your whole person.

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So I have a role as an executive director.

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It's not who I am, right.

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I have a role as a wife, as a bonus mom, I have a role as a friend.

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I play all these different roles.

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None of them fully define me.

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That's the first thing.

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It's really helpful when you list it out like that, because you see, I am actually made up me as a person.

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I'm made up of all these different things.

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And then it says okay, now let's attach a goal to each one of those roles.

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I'd never attached a goal in my role as a friend.

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I've never even thought about that.

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The only goals I would ever set because that's all we're taught to set right Is things that work.

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You're not really encouraged to do anything beyond that.

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So to really look and see, all right, what goals do I want to set?

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And it forces you to think about, in those roles, who are the people that I'm impacting with those roles, and then how do I want them to be affected when I actually am at my best at these roles?

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So now your life is connected not just to what you do, to the people you're around and it really puts you in the mind frame to think about, really, what do I want?

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And this is really what got me.

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This is not a question that I'd never heard before, but after going through this process, I've never thought about it in this way.

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It asks okay, at your 80th birthday, what do you want?

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Said about you.

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And when I've been asked that question before, totally honest, most of the time it had to do with work.

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It had to do with what I was, you know what the impact that I might've had, or the things I was, I was able to accomplish or whatever.

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And I always knew that wasn't enough, but I didn't really have another answer.

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But after going through this exercise of saying, okay, who, what are the roles, who are the people that are impacted by those roles and how do I want them to be impacted, then I could answer the question, what do I want?

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Said at my 80th birthday party.

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Now, it really doesn't matter.

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Who else is there other than the people that the roles that I have in my life have touched, and I don't care if the role that I've been able to play out has impacted particular people.

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Right, my role as a wife impacts my husband this way.

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My role as a wife impacts my husband this way.

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My role as a mom impacts my children this way.

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My role as a leader impacts the people that I'm called to serve in this way.

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Right, my role as a friend impacts my friends this way.

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And what is it that I want to?

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What is it that I hope they say about me?

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It takes away all the noise about the rest of the world and the people that might be following you on social media or the people that you work with or whatever.

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It takes all that away and you focus in on who are the people that my roles really impact and what would they say.

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And now, now I can build a mission and a personal mission statement around that.

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I can build a personal mission statement not just around what I do, but around the person that I am.

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Who is it that I want them to see me as?

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Because I was this person in their life.

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And man, when I tell you that was a powerful moment for me, because for the first time, I crafted a mission statement that actually I connected with.

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I've done this many times.

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I crafted a real purpose that I can say this is who I am.

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It had nothing to do with what I did and everything to do with who I am, because, quite frankly, the mission statement is could be my mission whether I was a painter, whether I was a fashion designer which I'll never be, which, uh whether I was a chef, or whether I'm doing what I'm doing today.

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That speaks to who I am, not what I do.

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So I want to challenge you, um, I want to challenge you to really think about the totality of who you are.

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I'm telling you you can get this book.

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First Things First, and this is the part of the book that really impacted me.

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It's a great book all the way around, but really going through that process of saying, okay, what are the roles I have in my life, who are the people that are impacted by those roles?

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How do I want to impact them?

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And then, when I'm old and when I've been doing this life over decades, what do I hope they say about me?

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And let that begin to drive your day to day.

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Professionalism and your work will be about that.

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But that's the stuff that matters, because you're not always going to have the job you have, you're not always going to have the career you have.

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You have no idea how that's going to change.

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You won't always have the money you have.

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You won't always not have the money.

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You won't always not have money.

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Okay, you, those things are fluid.

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That changes Eventually.

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You're going to not be working at all because you just going to be tired.

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You're going to retire.

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You're going to not be working at all because you're just going to be tired.

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You're going to retire.

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You're going to stop.

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So finding what life means beyond what you do every day, how it connects to the most important people in your life and how it connects to the different roles that you play, is so vitally important.

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I wish I'd have figured.

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I wish I'd have read this book in my twenties.

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I'm grateful that I have it now.

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It has shifted the way I think about who I am and has really helped me to enjoy the roles that when I'm in them, I enjoy it and I don't just see myself as one thing.

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I'm many things and it all is met and it all comes together to be the human that I get to be on this earth, and that's the same thing for you.

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So I hope that's helpful.

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I've unlearned a lot in that.

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The biggest thing is hey, man.

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You're more than what you do.

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You're more than what you do.

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You are more than what you do.

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You are a person.

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You are a whole individual who is going to do a lot of stuff in life, but you strive to be the person that you want to be, no matter what you do.

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And as simple as that sounds in the culture we live in today, that's a not an easy concept to walk into this world with, and I challenge you to really sit with that for yourself so that you can really enjoy the totality and the fullness of the life that God's given you.

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All right, that's all we got until next week.

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Let's keep unlearning together so that we can experience more freedom, peace.

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Thank you once again for listening to the unlearned podcast.

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We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode.

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Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think.

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We're looking forward to the next time, when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom.

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See you then.

Freedom Friday: You Are More Than What You Do!

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