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Hello and welcome. 
I'm glad that you're here and I 

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hope you're doing well. 
If you like this podcast, if it 

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has helped you in any way, could
you do me a favor and leave a 

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rating or a review? 
Whether you listen to it in 

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Spotify or in Apple Podcasts, 
when you leave a rating or a 

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review, it really helps. 
And I know sometimes it can be 

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easy to forget or to not even 
think to do that. 

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So I wanted to invite you to do 
so if you haven't already. 

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So we're moving into the end of 
the year 2024. 

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We're down to the final weeks 
and I am feeling reflective. 

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I've been working through my own
year in review process. 

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The Year Compass is the tool 
that I've been using. 

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It's been really helpful. 
I talked about that more last 

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week in last week's episode and 
I'll put another link to the 

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tool in the show notes. 
It's free, it's simple, and I 

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find it to be really helpful for
guiding me through my own 

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reflection through different 
parts of my year. 

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And I'm getting ready to start 
the second part of the year 

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Compass, which is about setting 
intentions and vision for the 

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year ahead. 
I think this is one of the 

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things that is hard to do as an 
adult because when we're kids, 

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we have so much, you know, we 
often have so much structure set

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around us, especially around our
formal education. 

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And so there can be a very 
natural sense of cadence and 

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progression and goals and moving
forward and moving on and 

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growing. 
And when we get into the adult 

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world, sometimes it can be 
harder to feel connected to 

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that. 
It can be harder to know when is

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it time to move on or what is 
the thing that I have learned. 

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You know what, what did test me 
this year and what did I learn 

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and what capacities have I 
gained? 

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How have I grown as a person? 
What relationships have been 

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important to me? 
And so, you know, I think 

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sometimes when we don't have 
that sense of connection to a 

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bigger vision or a sense of 
where we want to go, it can 

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sometimes feel very disorienting
and the sense of like, am I 

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using my life right? 
Am I doing the thing I want to 

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do? 
You know, if I'm feeling 

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restless or like I want to do 
something else, is that because 

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it's time to move on? 
Or is that just because I, you 

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know, I sort of have gone into a
numbing routine and I've stopped

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seeing the magic and the 
mundane? 

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And I think too, our appetite 
for change and growth and our 

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the way that we Orient and 
organize our lives can also 

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change over time depending on 
what's happening in your world. 

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If you have kids, that can 
really shape the flow of your 

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day and you know, your sense of 
time in the world. 

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And if you don't, then it can be
something else, whether it's 

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something related to your work 
or your community or something 

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else that feels important to 
you. 

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But taking the time at the end 
of the year to do this for 

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yourself personally, as well as 
thinking about, you know, what 

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role does your profession play 
in your life? 

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Like what's your relationship to
your career, to your profession,

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to being a leader, to managing 
people? 

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I think you know, as a manager, 
it can be easy to be focused on 

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others, especially when you're a
very heart centered, service 

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oriented manager. 
And it can be easy to put 

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yourself last and to kind of 
neglect to consider for 

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yourself, like what's important 
to you beyond this specific 

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role. 
I think when we're able to tend 

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to that part of ourselves, it 
allows us to show up in our role

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as leader and manager in a more 
grounded way because we have 

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this understanding of my time 
here is temporary. 

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And so while I'm here, here's 
what I would like to do. 

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Here's how I would like to 
affect the people that I work 

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with. 
Here is how I would like to 

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advance the mission or the the 
intention or purpose of this 

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organization. 
When we have that sense of, you 

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know, whatever we're going 
through, this is temporary. 

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Whether it's something wonderful
and joyful or whether it's 

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something deeply challenging and
very frustrating. 

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Our time here together is always
temporary. 

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And sometimes it's simply 
because you know, you maybe 

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you're looking at retirement 
around the corner, or maybe 

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you're realizing that you only 
want to be in this role or this 

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organization for a certain 
amount of time. 

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Or maybe it's the 
acknowledgement that the people 

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on your team are not going to be
with you together all at the 

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same time. 
Maybe you have a sense that 

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there's someone on your team who
is actively looking or wants to 

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move on to something else. 
So that sense of while I am 

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here, how do I want to use my 
time both in your specific role,

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but also when you think about 
your life more broadly. 

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And so from this place of 
feeling really reflective coming

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into the end of the year, I 
wanted to share with you a 

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passage from this book that I 
really like. 

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It's called Upstream, and it is 
a book of essays by Mary Oliver.

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And you might know her. 
She's also a poet, and a lot of 

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her poems get circulated 
throughout, you know, the course

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of the year. 
So you might be acquainted with 

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some of her poems. 
But Mary Oliver was a poet. 

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She has since passed away. 
And she also wrote essays. 

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And in this book upstream, it's 
a collection of essays. 

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And there's this one passage 
that I wanted to read to you. 

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If you have the book that, you 
know, if you could actually pick

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it up, I will tell you. 
This starts on page 19. 

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And here's what Mary writes. 
You must not ever stop being 

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whimsical, and you must not ever
give anyone else the 

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responsibility for your life. 
I don't mean it's easy or 

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assured. 
There are the stubborn stumps of

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shame, grief that remains 
unsolvable after all the years, 

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a bag of stones that goes with 
one wherever one goes, and 

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however the hour may call for 
dancing and for light feet. 

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But there is also the summoning 
world, the admirable energies of

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the world, better than anger, 
better than bitterness, and 

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because more interesting, more 
alleviating. 

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And there is the thing that one 
does, the needle. 

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One plies the work, and within 
that work a chance to take 

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thoughts that are hot and 
formless and to place them 

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slowly and with meticulous 
effort into some shapely heat 

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retaining form even as the gods 
or nature or the soundless 

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wheels of time have made forms 
all across the soft curved 

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universe. 
That is to say, having chosen to

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claim my life, I have made for 
myself out of work and love. 

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A handsome life. 
Isn't that wonderful? 

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I have made for myself out of 
work and love, a handsome life. 

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I so appreciate that reflection 
and the way that she wrote that,

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and the way that it helps me to 
slow down and think about what 

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am I making with my life, what 
am I working on, what am I 

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creating? 
And there's an intimacy in that 

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language too, that idea of the 
needle, that one plies something

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small. 
And I think that it's true that 

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in very small gestures, in very 
small moments, we create 

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something that is actually 
really beautiful and really big 

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and really meaningful beyond 
that which we can see. 

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Every choice we make, every, you
know, way that we choose to 

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engage with and participate with
others in our workplace, in our 

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communities, in our bigger 
world, we're all participating 

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and creating something 
meaningful. 

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And so I know this episode is a 
little different, but I feel 

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like as we're coming into the 
end of the year and as I am 

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feeling this kind of call 
inward, to quiet and to reflect 

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and to begin to Orient towards 
the year to come. 

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That's something I wanted to 
share with you by way of 

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invitation. 
And I hope that you too, find a 

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way to slow down and reflect on 
who you want to be in this 

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moment, with the time that you 
have on the planet, what you'd 

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like to create, how you'd like 
to show up and participate and 

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engage with the humans and the 
work. 

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And, you know, really make use 
of in the most loving way, How 

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do you want to be here as a 
person working with other 

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people, knowing that our time 
together is temporary. 

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So with that said, I hope that 
you have a wonderful week ahead.

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If you are also in the place 
where you're thinking about, I 

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don't know if this might be too 
late into the season, but if 

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you're still thinking about, you
know, performance reviews, if 

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you're thinking about more of 
the technical planning, then 

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definitely go through some of 
the earlier episodes where I 

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talk about more of those 
specific frameworks and tactics.

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But if you can take some time 
this week to just kind of simmer

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in that invitation and see what 
happens when you do. 

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All right, that's what I wanted 
to share with you today. 

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Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you have a great day and 

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I will talk to you next time.