15 Lessons Learned in 2020
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Summary
It would be a waste of a year if we let this go by without taking away lessons that you and I can prepare for so we don t repeat the same mistakes again in the future. I think it's fair to say that 2020 has been a strange year, but what would be if we don't take away lessons from it?
Transcript
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I think it's fair to say 2020 has been very strange, but what a waste of a year it would be
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if we let this year go by without taking away lessons that you and I can prepare for
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so we don't repeat the same mistakes again in the future.
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So today, I'm going to share with you 15 lessons I learned from 2020.
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I think it's fair to say that point number one is pretty much going to set the tone for the other 14 points.
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Because every decade or so, we have a massive crisis.
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In America, every decade, there's a massive crisis.
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2020 pandemic, 2008, 2009 market crash, 2001, 9-11.
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However, you and I never know what the crisis is.
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Because if I were to ask you right now, which one was more surprising, 9-11 or the pandemic?
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You may say, well, pandemic's more like hurricane.
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Because you know how they say, in about five days, the hurricane's going to touch down in Houston and such and such.
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So you have five days to kind of board up the place.
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Out of all the countries in the world, we're under attack.
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The challenge with crisis is they never look alike.
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But the process of going through a crisis is the same.
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So, for instance, if you're married right now, and my wife and I were talking the other
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day, and I was telling a couple of my peers that are married, they were saying, what is
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it like being married and all this other stuff?
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I said, look, in your 20s, you can eat anything you want.
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In your 30s, you're going to have to start watching your diet, because if you don't watch
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Do you know every decade you age, there's a new crisis that you're going to face?
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Now you realize, did you actually get along with your husband and wife?
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Now you're kind of fighting and saying, listen, can you leave the house?
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No matter how much money you make, no matter how rich you become, no matter how strong you
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This leads me to what happens when there is a crisis.
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Is everything about pandemic taking place, if you go back and look at the pandemic taking
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place within your family, friendship, company, industry, whatever you did, I guarantee you
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I guarantee you somebody in your family became a hero.
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Every company, in your company, if you thought about it, there was somebody that calmed your
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You looked at the, you know, a Zoom company did, you're like, why does that guy not seem
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You kind of watch this person and their numbers blew up.
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A crisis is almost always a filtering process to identify new leaders.
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Look how many people became heroes in America during the pandemic.
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You almost need a crisis for us to introduce the next layer of leaders to the world.
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Number three, when the pandemic took place, there was a big debate prior to the pandemic.
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So because people didn't have cash and because we don't teach people to go back to the basic
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fundamentals of saving money, people don't have cash.
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So guess who had to bail out all the people who didn't have cash?
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And the government gets their money, their cash, to bail out other people with cash from
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The government goes and gets the cash to give to other people that don't have cash from
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Think about what I just said right there to you.
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So if you weren't obsessed about saving money and having a lot of liquid cash, the pandemic
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Number four, research in order to come to your own conclusion.
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You can rely so much on New York Times, New York Post, Washington Times, Washington Post,
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Money Magazine, Time Magazine, Forbes, Fortune.
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But at the end of the day, you are the leader of your household.
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You got to go out there and do research for yourself.
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You got to go out there and find that exactly what's taking place.
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You got to go out there and find that exactly what the laws are.
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We are learning so many different things right now that we had no clue about.
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At what point does the president have to concede?
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Things that we never thought about, we started researching.
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So too often, people, when something bad happens to them, they rely on,
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everybody else to tell them what's the right thing to do, rather than them doing the research.
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Moving forward, rely on your own ability to research, not just the pundits that tell you
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You got to go to your own research to find out what's being said out there, what's taking
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Look, one thing we were forced to learn is how to work remotely.
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Most people didn't know how to hold their employees accountable remotely.
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Most people didn't even know how to be held accountable remotely through using Zoom.
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Moving forward, you have to make sure your company knows how to do that, which leads me
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Business models were questioned, meaning door-to-door business models were questioned.
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People didn't want people to come and knock on their doors.
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I don't think people are still going to want people to come and knock on their doors.
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So are you going there sitting down and asking your business partners now that things are
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pretty much slowing down and pandemic is gradually, I know some people say, well, listen, we just
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We're having a biggest day, all this other stuff.
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But people are a little bit more comfortable today with it than they were six months ago.
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Pfizer's coming out with the vaccine, 90% efficacy score.
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You know, we're kind of going through the process that we have right now.
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Now, as we go through it, regardless if the pandemic is gone or not, is your business model
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If it's not, you may want to consider sitting out with your board and auditing your business
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Number seven, don't let emotional people make decisions for your family.
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I saw so many families screwing up decisions because they let the most emotional person in
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Why would you let an emotional person that everything is the end of the world make decisions for your
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You simply sit there and say, Bob, mom, dad, cousin, honey, whatever, babe, I love you.
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But babe, please, we're not making a decision like this.
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But here's what we're going to be doing as a family.
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Too many people gave the keys of their life to an emotional leader.
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Never give the keys of decision-making process to the most emotional person in your family.
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They can make some very bad decisions that could set you back five or ten years.
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Building a business with small margins isn't sustainable if you don't have a ton of cash,
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Going on three and a half percent of margins, how do you expect to sustain?
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We have to bail out the airline industry because they don't have a lot of cash because their margins
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are small, and on three and a half percent of margins, that's a scary industry to be
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So airlines and some industries that are going off of very small margins and they're not
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sitting on a lot of cash, at any point, a bad six-month stretch, you're out of business.
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So some of those smaller margin industries, if you're in it, you may want to kind of plan
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to get out of those industries if it's small margin, or figure out a way to come out
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with a new way of doing business, and not the same way that people have been doing it
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Point number nine, predicting the future is risky business.
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He was a name we never knew prior to the pandemic.
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If you did, you're probably 60 years old, or 55 years old if you know who Fauci was.
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But one minute, Fauci goes up and says, masks don't work.
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Another minute, three months later, he says, everybody should wear a mask.
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Even experts, after research, learn more to give new insight on what needs to be done.
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So don't look at experts as the almighty, oh, they have every single answer.
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Still, go do your own research, even, even, even when that expert has been chosen by the
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Look, I'm not trying to tell you, we just found out the media is as powerful.
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Media has been powerful for a very long time, but they are more powerful today than ever
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Because everybody's was all eyes on the media during the pandemic.
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And that leads me to point number 11, the power of social media and citizen journalism.
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The person that was recording the eight minutes and 46 seconds of George Floyd was a girl
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holding an iPhone, 19-year-old girl holding an iPhone recording while the cop had his knee
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Let me explain to you why it's so powerful today.
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I was watching that documentary, what's it called?
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And you know what's one of the things that I do agree with them on the power of social
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So you've got media power, social media, which takes me to the next one, which is the power
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You know, pre this, pre having a cell phone, back when only rich people had a cell phone,
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I don't know if you remember those Mercedes where they had the car phone and the wire in
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the car phone and then people had cell phones, but it was only rich people.
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When you saw a person with a cell phone, the brick, you were like, oh my gosh, this guy's
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Sometimes you need 30 minutes before you make a decision.
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All this stuff you said to your own brother, to your own sister, to your wife, to your mom,
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If we didn't have this, 30 minutes later, our emotions would have been a little lower.
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Do you understand what I'm saying to you, right?
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So social media, I don't know about the whole social dilemma stuff, the angle they took,
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And the speed of emotional reaction right now is very dangerous.
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The speed of emotional reaction right now is very dangerous because maybe 30 minutes
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more of time you had, maybe you wouldn't have reacted that way.
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What if you didn't say those choice words to the person you did?
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And I think we're starting to realize one video that was shot about George Floyd, which
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I'm telling you it's a form of accountability for cops and all the people out there that
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are thinking about doing any kind of crime activity or anything they shouldn't be doing
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But at the same time, like this, hundreds of thousands of people's emotions go right
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You officially inject that emotion into 180, 150, 200,000 people to do something stupid.
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Number 13, not all conspiracy theories are conspiracies.
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Many conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories, but not all conspiracy theories are conspiracies.
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Some of them actually have some weight behind them.
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There were a lot of conspiracy theories that went viral during the pandemic.
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5G is this and 5G is the, and this virus is really came from Africa.
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Every time I do a video, I don't tell you to believe the video.
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Whatever video we did, go do your own research.
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Whatever interview we did, go do your own research.
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Don't sit there just because you watch one video.
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Go do your own research and find out for yourself on what really is going on.
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One minute we're celebrating Kobe getting an Oscar.
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Next minute, we're celebrating his life because he died of a helicopter accident with his daughter, Gigi.
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I have his jersey right there with his picture and I.
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Yeah, of course it's a great interview with Kobe.
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I mean, we really enjoyed the time we spent together.
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Just so you know, there is no Kobe Bryant, right?
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Man, whoever you're with right now, even things are not going right.
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Man, one day you're going to say, I miss those memories.
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But whoever you are right now, think about some of the people that were in your life 10 years ago you used to have fun with.
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Whether it's good, bad, or ugly, figure out a way to enjoy it.
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Because like this, it can be taken away from us.
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And I think that's a reminder that sometimes even the most busy people like myself, we all need that reminder.
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And I'm not telling you, believe me, I'm telling this to myself just as much as I'm telling it to everybody else.
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This year really made me enjoy my time with my kids more.
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I took my daughter to, we went out to our typical Greek restaurant we go to, and she's sitting right in front of me with her eyes like this.
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And last but not least, don't wait for another crisis to happen for you to map out your next 5, 10, 15 moves.
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Don't wait for the next crisis because it's around the corner.
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We are going to have another massive one happen 10 years from now.
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What are you going to do next if Biden is president?
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What are you going to do next if Trump doesn't lose?
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What are you going to do next if, you know, war breaks out?
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What are you going to do next if we get into trouble with China now afters?
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What are you going to do next if, what are you going to do next?
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You know, you've got to constantly be thinking about your next 5, 10, 15 moves constantly.
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Too many people wait for a life to happen to think about their next 5, 10, 15 moves.
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As a matter of fact, if you, yourself, every single time you were to create a traditional
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or culture in your family and your company, every time something happened, if this became
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Whatever that's going on today, the lessons we all learn about the pandemic in 2020,
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always have your next 5, 10, 15 moves prepared.
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Don't wait for a crisis to happen for you to have your next 5, 10, 15 moves prepared.
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So again, like I said, stranger, and I can probably give you 200 other lessons that you're
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And I'd love to hear from you if you want to comment below and say, Pat, you forgot this
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But if you watch this video and you enjoyed it, I've got another video I want you to watch
00:17:29.760
Eight ways to prepare for the next market crash.
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Because don't think for a moment the market has crashed yet.
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Because Powell from Federal Reserve said he's not raising interest rates above zero until
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If you've not watched that video, click over here to watch that video.