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So in case you don't watch the 
whole video, I'm just going to 

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tell you the gist of it right 
now. 

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Entrepreneurs at a certain point
of growth end up coming up 

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against what we call a scaling 
blocker. 

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This is some kind of impediment 
to their businesses growth that 

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is really, really hard. 
And because it's so hard, 

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they're no longer in that 
blissful state of business 

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building that got them into the 
game. 

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And so the tendency is to go and
explore and find some other new 

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business to chase a shiny object
that you feel will get you back 

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into flow state. 
The key thing is to decrease the

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level in your existing business 
to persist through the scaling 

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blocker until you busted through
it, and then to trust that once 

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you do, you will re enter flow 
again on the other side. 

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And in this video, I'm going to 
give you the full, far more 

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detailed breakdown on exactly 
how to navigate these dynamics. 

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Hey, I'm Rian Dars, founder and 
CEO of flowstate.com. 

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We've trained everyone from 
Audi, Accenture in the US Air 

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Force to use neuroscience based 
principles to access flow states

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at will. 
An architect that I know had 

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spent years building his firm. 
For a while his business gave 

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him reliable access to flow 
state, that optimal state of 

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consciousness where humans feel 
and perform at their best. 

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He was designing interesting 
projects. 

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He was closing deals. 
He was growing steadily. 

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And then something shifted. 
His sales process broke down 

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once the business hit a certain 
level of maturity. 

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Negotiations that used to take 
days now dragged on for weeks. 

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He ended up discounting every 
contract and eroding his margin 

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just to be able to close these 
deals. 

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What used to energize him now? 
Like pushing a damn boulder 

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uphill. 
So he decided to run. 

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He didn't call it running, of 
course. 

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He called it diversifying 
because his solution was to 

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start a construction company. 
Friends had told him the sales 

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process was easier. 
New industry, fresh start, and 

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no broken, painfully long, slow 
sales process to fix. 

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However, this was a fatal error.
You see, this architect, it was 

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up against something called a 
scaling blocker, which is a 

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seemingly insurmountable 
business challenge, one that 

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feels so overwhelming to the 
founder that they view it as 

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more or less impossible to 
overcome. 

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When you're up against a scaling
blocker like this, your brain 

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constantly calculates. 
Should I keep doing what's hard?

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Or should I maybe just try 
something different that, at 

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least from this vantage points, 
looks easier? 

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Imagine for a moment, building a
house. 

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You lay the foundation and 
everything feels smooth at 

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first. 
Then, once you start framing, a 

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problem appears. 
Maybe the load calculations were

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off. 
Progress slows, so you're 

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banning the project and you 
start building a whole new 

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house. 
This time, the framing is fast. 

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You feel smart for having 
switched until you get to the 

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plumbing. 
Suddenly nothing lines up. 

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Pipes need to be rerouted. 
The build gets bogged down 

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again. 
So you start another house 

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build. 
This one flies until electrical.

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You're back in the same position
on the 3rd house build. 

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Every one of these house builds,
just like every business build, 

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eventually hits resistance. 
Now, there's a reason why it's 

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so common for entrepreneurs to 
disperse focus when they're up 

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against a scaling blocker like 
this, because you get pushed out

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of the flow channel. 
Years of research showed that 

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flow state is one of the most 
critical states for 

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entrepreneurs. 
That immersive feeling of being 

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completely absorbed in the task 
at hand, where hours fly by in 

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what feels like moments in flow 
state. 

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DARPA has done research showing 
that skill acquisition speed can

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increase up to 500%. 
When you're in flow, you're 

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locked in and it feels amazing. 
However, flow requires specific 

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conditions which scaling 
blockers mess with Challenge on 

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the vertical axis and skill on 
the horizontal axis. 

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The flow channel sits right in 
the middle, just hard enough to 

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demand your full attention, but 
not so hard that you're 

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drowning. 
The godfather of flow research, 

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Mihai Chik Semihi, mapped this 
in his book Good Business. 

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As you build, there are these 
periods where the challenge 

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exceeds your skill level. 
You get pushed out of the flow 

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channel up into anxiety, which 
is what's happening when you hit

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up against the scaling blocker. 
The pattern is normal. 

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It's part of building anything 
significant flow. 

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Flow is supposed to follow the 
stairway like fashion where 

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we're in flow and then a 
challenge emerges that's greater

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than our current skill level and
we hit this flow plateau. 

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We're out of flow. 
The problem here, of course, is 

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that we can't build anything 
meaningful if we disperse our 

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focus as soon as we're popped 
out of the flow channel when we 

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hit a scaling blocker. 
So how do you avoid dispersing 

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your focus when you're up 
against the scaling blocker so 

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you can bust through to the next
level of growth and then drop 

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back into the flow channel? 
Before I run through the 

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protocol I had to do this. 
I put together a complete 

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guidebook covering everything in
this video for free. 

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The down the link is below. 
So step one is to pinpoint your 

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scaling blocker. 
If you're finding yourself 

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wanting to disperse focus from 
your current business, start by 

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defining exactly what the issue 
is. 

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Maybe you think the company 
needs a massive technical 

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overhaul. 
Maybe you think the market isn't

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good enough. 
The architect that I mentioned 

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had a sales process that needed 
a radical overhaul. 

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That was his scaling Blogger. 
Pinpoint the constraint or the 

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scaling blocker. 
Clearly write it down in one 

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sentence. 
Closing that gap is now your top

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priority. 
Step 2 is to eliminate all of 

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the dispersion. 
Rather than running, cut all 

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these escape routes and go all 
in on solving the scaling 

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blocker. 
The architect that I worked with

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should have cut the construction
company idea and then narrowed 

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his diameter of focus as tightly
as possible onto fixing his 

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sales process. 
So make a list of everything 

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you're currently working on. 
Then eliminator pause everything

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except maintenance activities 
and solving the scaling blocker 

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at hand. 
Your full capacity needs to 

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focus on busting through this 
challenge now. 

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Step 3 is to spend the first 3 
hours of your day on the scaling

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blocker. 
This one is simple. 

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It's about sequencing time based
on prioritization, with 

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attacking the scaling blocker as
your number one priority. 

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The architect should have been 
spending three hours every 

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morning before anything else, 
nailing that sales process, 

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learning about sales, testing 
new approaches, actually doing 

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the work to close the skill gap.
Block the first 3 hours of your 

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day for this before anything 
else can intrude. 

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No meetings, no e-mail, no 
maintenance work, ideally no 

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phone or Slack. 
Just focus effort on the one 

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thing that will unblock your 
businesses growth and Step 4 is 

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to close the skill gap because 
part of those three hours that 

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you spend in the morning working
on your scaling blocker should 

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be related to acquiring skill 
that relates to the scaling 

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blocker. 
If your sales process is broken,

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you probably want to study sales
engineering. 

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If you need to raise capital and
that's your blocker, you 

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probably want to learn some 
financial modelling. 

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Make upscaling a key part of 
your job until your skill level 

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rises to meet the challenge that
the scaling blocker is posing. 

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This brings the difficulty back 
down so the work becomes 

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manageable again. 
As a result, going to position 

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yourself back down, down into 
the flow channel where things 

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feel great again. 
So here's how this protocol 

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works neurochemically. 
By pausing everything and 

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aggressively upscaling, you're 
doing two things to your brain 

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chemistry. 
First, you're reducing the 

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noise, lowering the 
norepinephrine loads, your 

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prefrontal cortex can come back 
online. 

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Second is you gain confidence. 
You trigger the release of 

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dopamine for successful 
prediction. 

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Every time you learn a piece of 
the puzzle, your brain gets a 

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hit of reward. 
This pushes the chemical balance

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back toward flow. 
You're manually adjusting the 

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chemical levers in your brain to
turn threat back into the kind 

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of challenge that gives rise to 
flow. 

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Now Step 5, which is a big one, 
is to persist until you 

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breakthrough the scaling 
blocker. 

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You'll want to psychologically 
prepare for this one. 

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Breaking through a scaling 
blocker can take a really long 

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time. 
It can take 3 months, or six 

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months, or even 18 months. 
The flow plateau will function 

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as a filter. 
It will filter out everyone who 

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doesn't have the grit and 
persistence required to push 

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through, which is exactly why 
there's so much room for gain on

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the other side. 
As Mihitic Semihi 

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conceptualized, it is about 
walking the stairway to flow 

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over the long term. 
As all of these months go by and

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you stay singularly focused on 
the scaling blocker, you will 

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feel that itch to disperse your 
focus. 

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Your brain will manufacture 
compelling reasons to start 

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something new. 
This is your nervous system 

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trying to escape high challenge,
low reward environments. 

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Recognize it for that. 
Then persist anyway. 

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The work that felt impossible 
will start to feel manageable 

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and bam, you're back in a flow 
state with a bigger and Better 

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Business. 
If you want the complete system 

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for accessing flow and demand, 
I've built a 30 day protocol 

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specifically for entrepreneurs. 
It's free, the links in the 

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description if you want to learn
more protocols for accessing 

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Flow at will, click the video on
screen and you'll get a full 

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breakdown on how.
