Embrace Your Inner Weirdo: Why Authenticity Creates Opportunity, Impact & Income
What if the very thing you've been trying to hide is actually your greatest advantage?
In this inspiring conversation, speaker, entrepreneur, and self-proclaimed "Mr. Weirdo," Rasheed Hooda shares why embracing your uniqueness may be the key to greater happiness, deeper fulfillment, and unexpected success. From walking the entire length of Route 66 to creating income through generosity, curiosity, and authentic self-expression, Rasheed reveals how life's biggest breakthroughs often come when we stop trying to fit in and start honoring our own divine design.
Together, we explore why chasing money can keep you stuck, how your greatest struggles can become your most powerful message, and why the world needs more people willing to follow the road less traveled.
If you've ever felt too different, too unconventional, or too weird to succeed, this conversation may completely change the way you see yourself—and your potential.
In This Episode:
✨ Why being weird isn't the problem—believing it's a problem is
✨ How authenticity creates opportunity
✨ The surprising lessons from walking Route 66
✨ Why money follows purpose rather than pursuit
✨ How your story can become your legacy
✨ Rasheed's philosophy: "Your Mess + Age = Your Message"
✨ The connection between curiosity, generosity, and abundance
✨ Why success may be more inevitable than you think
Tune in and discover why embracing your inner weirdo might be the most profitable—and liberating—decision you'll ever make.
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Transcript
You World Order
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Everybody tells you to fit in, polish your brand, and fix what's wrong with you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: People creating the biggest breakthroughs, the strongest businesses, and the deepest impact all have one thing in common. They stop treating their weirdness like a liability. One conversation completely changed the way I was thinking about success, because it revealed why chasing money keeps you stuck.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Why your biggest struggles might actually be your greatest asset, and why the thing you've been trying to hide could be the exact thing you're meant to build your life around. By the end of this interview, you'll see why embracing your inner weirdo might be the most profitable decision you make.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Hi, and welcome to the UWorld Order Showcase Podcast, where we feature life, health, transformational coaches, and spiritual entrepreneurs stepping up to be the change they seek in the world. I'm your host, Jill Hart, the Coach's alchemist, on a mission to empower coaches and entrepreneurs
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to amplify their voice, monetize their mission, and get visible. If you're ready to start attracting premium clients without chasing algorithms, hunting people down like a banshee on a mission, head on over to thecoachesalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's the first step to building a business where your clients seek you out, rather than you having to hunt them down. Today, we are chatting with Rasheed Huda. Rashida is a speaker, coach, entrepreneur, and self-described Mr. Weirdo, who helps people transform their perceived flaws into their greatest strength. Through his work, Rashid teaches
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Authenticity creates opportunity that
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Money follows purpose rather than pursuit, and that challenges you've overcome often become the message you're uniquely qualified to share with the world.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And he creates animals out of balloons, and we had to make sure we share that. We'll come to the show, Rashid.
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::Rasheed Uncle: 2.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, let me ask you the big question.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The most significant thing, in your opinion, as individuals we can do to make an impact on how the world is going.
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::Rasheed Uncle: embrace your inner weirdo. And what I mean by that is…
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::Rasheed Uncle: I call it your divine design. We're divinely designed to be unique.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And when you honor that,
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::Rasheed Uncle: You're honoring your divinity, your purpose, your…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Reason for being. So… and I term it internally in those four words, embrace your inner weirdo.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that. Everybody's weird.
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::Rasheed Uncle: My son, my son says, if you're not weird, there's something wrong with you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Exactly!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Probably pretty boring.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's got a lot of problems.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, you often say being weird is not the problem. Your belief that being weird is a problem is the problem. So, what was the moment in your own life when you realized that distinction?
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::Rasheed Uncle: Well… as you mentioned earlier, I've been calling myself Mr. Weirdo for 30-plus years, and
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::Rasheed Uncle: I'll give you a quick recap on how that came about. In 1984, I went to a summer camp, and it was in Cleveland. I was living in Chicago. It was a community camp where
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::Rasheed Uncle: Campers came from all over the country, and so did the counselors.
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::Rasheed Uncle: On the way home, I was on the plane with another counselor, and we didn't really have time to get to know each other over the 3-week period, because we were so busy running the camp.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So we were having a conversation, and somewhere in that conversation, I'd say something to the effect that I'm kind of weird like that.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And, A few months later, I got a birthday card from her.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And it had a caricature of a group of green people, one on one side, and one on a purple guy on the right-hand side. And the card said, if a being fails to keep pace with his contemporaries, it's because he hears a different drummer.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I opened the card, and inside it said either that, or he's a weirdo.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And so that's where Mr. Weirdo's, roots are.
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::Rasheed Uncle: 10 years later, I was opening a… Network marketing.
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::Rasheed Uncle: presentation, network marketing opportunity presentation, and I was asked to write an introduction
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::Rasheed Uncle: Which I did, and the hostess…
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::Rasheed Uncle: read it and refused to read it in front of the audience when I insisted that she read it the way I wrote it.
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::Rasheed Uncle: she read it, constantly apologizing to the audience that I was making her read it.
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::Rasheed Uncle: In the introduction… the introduction said, our first speaker today is a man of many unusual characteristics.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Unusual may not be the right word. Weird is more like it.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Not only is he weird, he takes pride in the fact that he is weird.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Now, if that's not weird, I don't know what weird is.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So please help me welcome one and only Mr. Weirdo, aka Rashiduda.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And that was the first time I actually used the words Mr. Weirdo in public.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I've always used it.
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::Rasheed Uncle: with full spelling, M-I-S-T-E-R-W-I-R-D-L, as one word.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, if you put MR weirdo, Google won't know. It's about… you're looking for B, if you…
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::Rasheed Uncle: If you put the actual Mr. Weirdo Spelled out as one word.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Then you'll find me there.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that. I love that you're normalizing weird. Oh, yeah. It used to be, like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: God, if you're weird, your life was over. Yeah.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I… I remember a few years ago, my wife and I were having
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::Rasheed Uncle: an argument of some sort, I don't even remember what it was, and she went, you're weird. I said, thank you.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, yeah, I've, I've always, you know, Considered myself weird.
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::Rasheed Uncle: No.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And… and you've done some unusual things. I… I…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, we'll just call him weird. Walking Route 66 is kinda weird.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Share that with us.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Well… Route 66 in IGO way back when, when I first came to the United States in 1974,
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::Rasheed Uncle: I went to college in Oklahoma.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I had two brothers that lived in Chicago.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, every spring break, winter break, summer vacation.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I would go from Oklahoma to Chicago.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And back then, the most affordable way to do that was Greyhound.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And… so on… from Chicago… from Oklahoma to Chicago, the Greyhound went on Route 66.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And so…
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::Rasheed Uncle: I had that affinity for Route 66. I was new in the country, and I was just seeing all these things about Route 66.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Moved forward a few years,
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::Rasheed Uncle: I was looking to do a… photo book.
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::Rasheed Uncle: on Route 66. Photography is one of my passions. I have,
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::Rasheed Uncle: done wonderful, things with photography, but that's another, story in itself. So I was looking to do a photo… as a photo book on Route 66.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And as I did the research, I realized that the photography that I do Is not the same as
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::Rasheed Uncle: what is considered a commercial-grade, commercial type of photography. Now, I did weird photography. I, you know, I would think…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Of course!
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::Rasheed Uncle: You know, I take pictures of whatever calls me.
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::Rasheed Uncle: But as I was doing the research.
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::Rasheed Uncle: This was 10 years ago, 10, 11 years ago, and Google was just testing with, voice…
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::Rasheed Uncle: prompts.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, I was on my phone doing research about Route 66 in this
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::Rasheed Uncle: Message pops up on my phone.
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::Rasheed Uncle: It says, go ahead and use your voice.
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::Rasheed Uncle: to ask Google how long the Wall of China is.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I'm like, Wall of China? What do you mean? I said, okay, so Google told me, well, how long is the Wall of China? And the results comes forward.
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::Rasheed Uncle: the Wall of China was built during the Ming Dynasty. It's 5,503 miles long, and blah blah.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And what caught my attention was there was a guy walking on top of the Great Wall of China.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So I said, hey, Google, has anybody ever traversed the entire distance of Wall of China on foot?
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::Rasheed Uncle: And as it turned out, 5 people started. Yes, no shall have walked the entire length of the Great Wall of China.
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::Rasheed Uncle: That's my phone function.
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::Rasheed Uncle: dis… disturbing.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: People's listening.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah, so I'm gonna put it on quiet mode.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Sorry about that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Great, yeah.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I have a song.
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::Rasheed Uncle: One person finished, and it took him 15 months.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I was a math major in college, so I did some quick calculation.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And it turns out 12 miles a day.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I was like, I can do that!
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::Rasheed Uncle: That would be like walking in the park for 6 hours.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I'll still have 18 hours to do whatever else I wanted to do.
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::Rasheed Uncle: in my day.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So that's where the idea… that crazy idea popped in my head, and so I did a little…
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::Rasheed Uncle: more research, and I found out that about every 12 to 15 miles.
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::Rasheed Uncle: there was a small town on Route 66.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So I figured I'll just go from one town to the next.
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::Rasheed Uncle: 12, 13 miles a day, and so…
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::Rasheed Uncle: It's roughly about 2,500 miles, so I figured, damn, it'll take me 200, 210 days, 7 months. I can, you know, I can do that.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So that was… that was the plan. The more I researched, the more I realized that
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::Rasheed Uncle: I would be smart to start in summer from Chicago and end up in California during wintertime, because
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::Rasheed Uncle: Arizona Harry Day.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Arizona's really hot.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Arizona is hard. Mojave Desert is 175 miles that Route 66 goes through.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And there was no way I was gonna do that in the summer.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Oh, no.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And by the time I got to Mojave Desert, I had built up enough stamina and enough strength
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::Rasheed Uncle: To where I crossed that 175-mile desert in 6 days.
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::Rasheed Uncle: 30… you know, 30… some days, that… I think the longest was 37 miles in one day.
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::Rasheed Uncle: That's right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: really impressive.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So… Yeah, so that's, that's the story behind how it came about.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So did you stay in hotels? Did you…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Oh.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: somebody coming in a vehicle with you? How did all of that look?
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::Rasheed Uncle: Now, it was just a… just a crazy idea, just to do it on my own. I did it solo.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And, my plan was simply walk 12 miles, it'll take me
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::Rasheed Uncle: at most, about 6 hours. That's what I figured. I was, at that time.
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::Rasheed Uncle: walking on a regular basis 2-3 hours a day at a pace of 3 miles an hour. So I knew I could do that in 4 hours, but I kind of figured, well, you know, I'll walk a couple hours, take a couple hours break, and then walk a couple more hours. So…
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::Rasheed Uncle: The plan was to start
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::Rasheed Uncle: from where I am, go to the next town, 12 to 15 miles. Once I get there, I'll find a place, like a city park or a, you know, campground or something.
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::Rasheed Uncle: to spend the night, and then rinse and repeat. That was the plan.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Didn't always work out. There was a lot of surprise.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Along the way, and that was one thing, when I started doing this, I kind of surrendered myself.
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::Rasheed Uncle: to God. I said, look, I'm doing this.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I'm trusting you that you'll see me through this.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, you know, Surprise me.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And then just, as a second thought, I said, oh, and make them pleasant and delightful.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Good, good call.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, surprise and delight became my theme for the walk.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And, boy, did I have enough surprises and delights along the way.
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::Rasheed Uncle: There were plenty of them.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And the most interesting part of this was… I was doing this…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Because… I'm made out of fire.
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::Rasheed Uncle: to make it easy for me to communicate with the people, because I knew people were gonna ask me, what am I doing, why am I doing it, all of that good stuff. So, I printed out a flyer that said, why are you doing this?
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::Rasheed Uncle: Because I want to, because I want to prove to myself and to the world that you're never too old to do what you want to do.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And then I had a couple of, links, to my Patreon page and Facebook,
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::Rasheed Uncle: connection, and… my PayPal link for anybody who wanted to be generous enough and contribute to my walk.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, that's, you know, that was the flyer that I would hand out to people.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, that was, how I communicated, and a lot of time, you know, people would look at it, and,
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::Rasheed Uncle: My plan was, basically, to… Do some balloons along the way.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And hopefully earn some income, doing that.
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::Rasheed Uncle: But rely mostly on this generosity of people contributing. I had a Patreon page, which was bringing in some money, so the whole idea was to have this
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::Rasheed Uncle: trip as a self-supporting, self-sustaining type of an adventure to end.
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::Rasheed Uncle: That's what it turned out to be, and…
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::Rasheed Uncle: The way the money came surprised me many times.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's interesting how that works.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: When you're just, like, letting go and just having the experience, and letting the experience happen and not have to drive it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: all the time, I… so often I run into people that are just like, it's gotta look like this, or it wasn't successful. And I was like, but…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It doesn't have to anything.
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::Rasheed Uncle: You're right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I think the whole point of being weird and embracing your own weirdness is that you can just have the experience. You don't have to label it, and it doesn't have to look any particular way.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah, I tell people I got paid for being myself.
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::Rasheed Uncle: For the 6 months.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I, you know, that was literally the case. I had people…
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::Rasheed Uncle: I remember this one young man pulled up in a car.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And ask me if they can talk to me for a few minutes.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I said, sure, you know, so we sat down on the side of the road on a…
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::Rasheed Uncle: ledge, and just had a conversation. He was,
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::Rasheed Uncle: Probably in his 20s. I was 62 at the time.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And… he was… At that time, he was…
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::Rasheed Uncle: farm-sitting his relatives who had taken a summer vacation. So, he was just, you know, enjoying being on a farm, doing farm-type things. And, so we had a good, good conversation, probably about an hour or so, just out of nowhere.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And then, as he left, he said, you know, I was just curious to talk to you, because you, you know, you were walking, I wanted to know what you're doing, but you've inspired me to…
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::Rasheed Uncle: followed… what I want to do, rather than going the traditional way.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And he shook my hand and slipped.
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::Rasheed Uncle: The big bill in my hand.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, yeah, it's, that was, you know… and then, two miles down the road.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I saw a car coming from the opposite side, and a lady came out with a camera in her hand. Apparently, somebody else had seen me, went over to the next town.
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::Rasheed Uncle: knew the newspaper people, told him about this weird guy walking down the road, and so the news reporter came in and did a story. I had several stories that were done in newspapers.
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::Rasheed Uncle: in different towns. So, yeah, it was in the interesting, huh?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I think this ties back to your whole idea that your mess is your message, and that your weirdness, the thing that makes you unique, is also what can bring you the most joy in your life, but also, it's a source of revenue.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to support you, if you allow it, because your story, it's… it didn't just end when you were re…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: reached the end of your destination, when you reached the ocean in California, you weren't done.
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::Rasheed Uncle: No.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's… it's still part of who you are and your legacy, and it still can, and probably does, continue to bring you
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Revenue, and it helps people, it inspires people to get out and do the things that
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They might dream of, or they might wonder if it's possible.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Didn't I really do this? I drove a truck for a year, like a big truck.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because I always wanted to be a truck driver, which is, like, the silliest thing ever to most people. But it was the first time I ever passed my driver's license test.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: like, actually passed it. I've had driver's licenses, but I'd never passed the driving part of the test, and I'd taken it, you know, several times. Weirdly, I ended up with a license, and I always drove legally, but…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I just, like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: worst trouble with the people telling me where to go when I'm driving. I was really nervous. And so, I passed
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: My first driving test in a… in an 18-wheeler.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I was so excited, I called my dad.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I did it, I did it!
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::Rasheed Uncle: I'm so sorry.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm 36, and I finally passed my driver's test.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But… It's just that…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You can do whatever you want to do. It doesn't have to be your whole life.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But it becomes a story in your life that, you know, it… our lives are just collections of stories. They're experiences that we have, and we can share them with other people and inspire other people to, you know, break out of the cell that they've been
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Forced into by the you should, and you have to, and all the bills, and… you know, life… life can entangle us if we let it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Or it can just allow us to enjoy it.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Funny, you should say that life is a… string of stories, Because, back in 2014, I…
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::Rasheed Uncle: had an idea, you know, I'll…
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::Rasheed Uncle: I have ideas all the time. Every now and then, I will act on one. And I had this idea that if I wrote 500 words a day.
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::Rasheed Uncle: for 30 days, That's 15,000 words. That could make… make a… Decent, small-sized book.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And, so I did that.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I wrote, you know.
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::Rasheed Uncle: stories from my life, whatever came to mind, you know. Some days, I didn't have any idea what I was gonna write about, and I'm just sitting there at Whataburger having breakfast, and
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::Rasheed Uncle: I remember this song came up, the song is, I think it's called Garden Party.
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::Rasheed Uncle: by Rick… Rick, somebody, I don't even know. But it's… the line that caught my attention was, you can't please everybody, so you gotta please yourself.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And so I wrote a story.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Basically, wrote about that thought.
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::Rasheed Uncle: 500 words.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And… So I compiled 30 stories in 30 days.
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::Rasheed Uncle: All handwritten, longhand. And then a friend of mine was kind enough
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::Rasheed Uncle: to take my chicken scratch and type it into Google Doc.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And then… so I had a Google document with those 30 stories in it, and that sat on my computer for probably a year and a half.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And then one day, I posted on Facebook saying, you know, I've got these stories, and if I can get somebody to kind of make a head and tail out of it, put it, you know.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Create some kind of semblance I would turn it into a book.
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::Rasheed Uncle: and one of my Facebook friends that I… that was actually a… Freelance writer.
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::Rasheed Uncle: said, send it to me, and let me see what I can do.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, he, basically took those 30 stories and rearranged them
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::Rasheed Uncle: In a way that it flows one from the next.
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::Rasheed Uncle: There was only one… Story that he actually edited.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And made it stronger than what I had written.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Everything else, he left it as it was, but it flows, and
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::Rasheed Uncle: I compiled it in a book. First, I did an e-book version of it on Kindle.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And then, a year later, I put it,
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::Rasheed Uncle: you know, a hard copy, so I have a paperback in a Kindle version.
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::Rasheed Uncle: The book is called, Life, colon.
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::Rasheed Uncle: It's a trip.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And…
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::Rasheed Uncle: The current subtitle, as it sits right now, is A Brief Manual on Happiness, Success, and Entrepreneurship.
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::Rasheed Uncle: But I am in the process of… Relaunching it.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And hopefully, July 4th, I'll get it out. I'm redoing the front cover.
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::Rasheed Uncle: The back cover has some testimonials, but those testimonials
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::Rasheed Uncle: Are also inside the boat, so…
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::Rasheed Uncle: It was, like, just feeling… but since then.
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::Rasheed Uncle: there have been some use, Amazon…
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::Rasheed Uncle: reviews, so I took those, and that's gonna go on the back page. I've got a new front page.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And, I've changed the subtitle to… Life, it's a trip.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Embrace your inner weirdo, your secret to success and happiness.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I like that.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Kind of, you know, bringing all on the same…
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::Rasheed Uncle: platform of embrace you in a weirdo. I am also in the process of rebranding my YouTube channel, probably for the umpteenth time.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And it's… it's now called Embracing Your Weirdo.
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::Rasheed Uncle: As well.
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::Rasheed Uncle: You know, my school community is called Embrace Rad a weirdo.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And if I'm not mistaken, I think my medium…
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::Rasheed Uncle: was all about embracing in a weirdo. I don't know if I had it, but I was known as Mr. Weirdo on Medium as well.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, in, and this was 70 years ago. I did 400 stories in one year.
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::Rasheed Uncle: That's crazy, I don't know how I did it, but, you know, I was just…
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::Rasheed Uncle: I do stuff like that all the time. I would have an idea, I'll follow it. When I get bored with it, I'll go on to something else.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Consistency for things like that, when you break them down to how long does it really take you to write 500 words, which…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: 500 words sounds like a lot, but it's really a Skinny table.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yes. Three pages in a composition book.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, it's not… it's not a lot. No. And you… you were a blogger for a long time, so you're familiar with the, you know, 600-word minimum.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: At least 3 paragraphs.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Make them short!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Break them up.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah, well, that's how my book is. They're kind of like blog posts, small sentences, small paragraphs.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, very readable and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: consumable. People love that kind of stuff.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's… we have so much available to us with Kindle and KDP, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: YouTube and Substack now that, you know, you can take all of that stuff and make it an audiobook, which becomes a podcast. And…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There's different things that you can do along with it to monetize it, and it just, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: so many options out there, so many ways to just be you!
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::Rasheed Uncle: Don't give me any more ideas.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You don't sound like a man who needs them.
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::Rasheed Uncle: That's what I'm saying, don't give me anymore.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: At the beginning of our conversation, we talked about how the thing people try hardest to hide might actually be their greatest advantage. After everything we've discussed, what do you hope listeners do differently the next time they catch themselves thinking, I'm too weird for this to work?
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::Rasheed Uncle: You're not too weird, the idea may seem weird, but that's what is going to make it work.
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::Rasheed Uncle: is because it's different. Nobody's done it before, or nobody's done it that way.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I think it was, derek,
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::Rasheed Uncle: can't remember her last name, the first female Indy driver winner.
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::Rasheed Uncle: But she said it… It's the people who are weird enough to think they can change the world.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Are the ones who do.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, yeah, if you think it's too weird, Paulo, you know, embrace him.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Follow your inner weirdo. I have a saying,
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::Rasheed Uncle: I have actually a list of sayings that I call Rashidisms, and one of them says, your mess
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::Rasheed Uncle: plus age, equals… your message.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So… All the messes that you have, Made in your life?
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::Rasheed Uncle: were not really Messes.
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::Rasheed Uncle: they were… these seeds… That have now grown into something that you can share with the world.
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::Rasheed Uncle: the fruits, they're there.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: world.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yep.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The world is starving for… for leadership, but not, like, tell-you-what-to-do sort of leadership. Inspiration.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: inspired leadership.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you know, Tesla and Einstein and all these people that really
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Oh, who's the guy that's in the wheelchair that…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Stephen Hawkins?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: talking… yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: These people are not what we would consider, like, Normal, whatever normal is.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: a difference in the way the world is going, or how people think about things, which is really how the world changes. When we can change the way we think about things, and become more curious rather than serious.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Greet?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You could do so much. The world could be way different than it is right now.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah, it's, it's, you know, here's the, the whole thing.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Each one of us is par…
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::Rasheed Uncle: of the entire world right now. If you're just looking at the planet,
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::Rasheed Uncle: And because of the fact that everything is interconnected, and you can't deny that, you know, everything is interconnected in some way or the other.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I remember doing a speech at, one time.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Where… I started out with saying.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Something to the effect that
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::Rasheed Uncle: The fact that you're here right now, Has changed the world.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Because if you weren't here, The audience that I'm speaking to would be a different audience.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And if you're not… weren't here.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Then you would be somewhere else, interacting with somebody else.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Consciously or unconsciously. So their world is different, my world is different, your world is different.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And the entire world, as a result, which, you know, we're just part of it, is different.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So… as individuals, We have the power… To change the world.
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::Rasheed Uncle: By changing ourselves, you know, going back to what Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world.
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::Rasheed Uncle: When you do that, then the world becomes what you want it to be.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It really does, in ways that will surprise and delight you.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Oh, yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Experience.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Absolutely, you know, synchronicities, or nature's way of…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Connecting the dots before you know.
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::Rasheed Uncle: The dots were always there.
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::Rasheed Uncle: You didn't know how to connect them, but the Infinite Intelligence did.
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::Rasheed Uncle: and, you know, one other thing that I… another speech, I'm a member of Toastmasters, and as a Toastmaster, we have,
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::Rasheed Uncle: every year we have contests, speaking contests, and one of the contest features that I was able to move several levels up
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::Rasheed Uncle: I called it, success is inevitable.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And the whole idea, and I started out that speech
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::Rasheed Uncle: With the statement that whether you look at it from a spiritual perspective or a scientific point of view.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Everything that the human beings needed to survive and to thrive.
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::Rasheed Uncle: was already present on the planet Earth, Before we showed up here.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So that's how the universe works.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Success is inevitable, because whatever you need is there before You're there, you know?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The universe rises up to meet you, you just gotta take that step.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Oh, it's…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: income.
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::Rasheed Uncle: It has done everything that needs to be done way ahead of time. It's just, you know…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Depending on which fork you take, like the old…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Robert Frost's poem goes, the road less traveled.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Makes all the difference, you know?
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::Rasheed Uncle: Whatever decision, yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Whereas Yogi Berra says, when you get to the fork in the road, take it.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah, exactly.
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::Rasheed Uncle: That's another weirdo.
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::Rasheed Uncle: My pleasure.
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::Rasheed Uncle: My favorite weirdo is Einstein, Albert Einstein, he's my hero.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
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::Rasheed Uncle: One time… one time, he was coming out of the… somewhere, and the photographers were…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Hawking, and this one guy goes, Professor, give us the pose, and he stuck his tongue out at me.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And that picture is on the, on the… it's there.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's everywhere.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yep.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah. So, how can people find you?
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::Rasheed Uncle: The best way is to, go to school.
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::Rasheed Uncle: School.com, that's where I am spending a lot of my time, that's where I'll be focusing on spending… spending most of my time, that's where I will be
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::Rasheed Uncle: Helping people who are ready To change their lives.
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::Rasheed Uncle: to assist them.
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::Rasheed Uncle: in shortening the learning curve. That's what I want to do. I tell people my superpower is paradigm shift.
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::Rasheed Uncle: It's helping people see things differently, because, you know, you just make a slight twist of thinking.
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::Rasheed Uncle: It just changes the whole principle.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So… That's… that's what I, love to do. That's what… I am seeing myself as…
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::Rasheed Uncle: being myself, earning income, you know, you mentioned, my balloon animals. I've, I've…
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::Rasheed Uncle: done balloon animal for 18 years. I'm still doing it. I'm on… last 2 years, I've been trying to get out of it, and I'm in the process of creating a bridge income
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::Rasheed Uncle: Which, by the way, the balloons came into existence as a bridge income.
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::Rasheed Uncle: after I launched my business, I fired my boss 2 years earlier.
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::Rasheed Uncle: But that… it's gonna get too long. But, I tell people I give away balloons, and people give away money.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, I'm using that same philosophy of, I'm giving away my experience and my knowledge and my, acquired wisdoms.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I know there will be people who would be giving away money in return.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Because one of my Rashidisms is the universe pays the highest ROI.
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::Rasheed Uncle: The money may not come directly from…
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::Rasheed Uncle: where you think it should come from, but it comes manyfold from different places. The least expected places.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That is so true. Again, it's, like, the… just allowing yourself to have the experience, and be generous, and be curious, and let it unfold the way it's going to unfold. And you'll find things happening to you that just, like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And revenue, not necessarily money, but revenue comes in lots of different ways, and not always the way that you think it should show up.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And, yeah, money is nothing more than a tool of exchange.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, it's a currency, it's not…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah.
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::Rasheed Uncle: It's a tool.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
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::Rasheed Uncle: It's… it's not the goal, it's not the purpose.
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::Rasheed Uncle: It's, you know… you know, I use the example of hanging a picture on the wall. You need a nail and a hammer.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Your purpose is not to go… Collect nails and hammer.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Your purpose is to hang a picture.
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::Rasheed Uncle: You don't even have to own
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::Rasheed Uncle: a hammer and a nail. You can borrow one.
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::Rasheed Uncle: You might find a nail on the road and use a,
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::Rasheed Uncle: Book, hardcover book, to drive the nail in, you know.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So…
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::Rasheed Uncle: You don't even really need the tools, the usual tools, and money just being one of the tools that you have.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Oh.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Can I share one quick story, on… on my Route 66 walks, when you were talking about… when we were talking about,
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::Rasheed Uncle: getting the bundant, and then the generosity and all that. Many years ago, I had heard a speech
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::Rasheed Uncle: In which the guy related a story.
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::Rasheed Uncle: of somebody who's trying to remodel a Catholic school, and they were doing a fundraiser.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And so they invited the community leaders, for, lunch.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And there was one gentleman that came in.
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::Rasheed Uncle: approached the priest and said, Father.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I know this is what this is about, but I can't stay.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And hands him an envelope and leaves.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So the priest, when he had the opportunity to talk to the group.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Tells him, you know, mentions the fact, and he opens the envelope, and there was a check for $100,000 in there.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Wow.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Now, I heard this story about 35, 40 years ago, so that was a lot of money paid back then.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And somebody at the table commented that, well, he's got plenty, so he can give.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And the priest said, Does he give because he has, or does he have because he gives?
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::Rasheed Uncle: And that stayed with me as a food for thought. And then it was validated during my walk, 166. I was in Lincoln, Illinois.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And, I was at an IGA food store, waiting in line at the deli.
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::Rasheed Uncle: To, get something to eat.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Now, when I traveled on Route 66, I was, carrying all my…
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::Rasheed Uncle: belongings that I needed for the… for the trip in a baby stroller with big wheels.
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::Rasheed Uncle: It was easier to push the stroller than to carry a backpack.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Oh, yeah, for sure.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So, I was there waiting in line, and this gentleman walks up to me and goes, that's a nice outfit you got there. Are you traveling?
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::Rasheed Uncle: I said, yes, sir.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I handed him my,
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::Rasheed Uncle: flyer to help him understand what I was doing, and he reads it, and he goes, how old are you? Because it said, I wanted to prove that you're never too old. He says, how old are you?
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::Rasheed Uncle: I said, 62? I don't know, I was very proud of it.
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::Rasheed Uncle: He's just a baby.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I'm 92.
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::Rasheed Uncle: I said, you don't look 92.
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::Rasheed Uncle: He says, I don't act it either.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And then he made a joke that I don't think would be very appropriate to share here, but it was a silly joke, and we laughed about it.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Before I went to get the food at IGA, I had stopped at the newspaper office to see if anybody wanted to do a story on me.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And it turned out that they were having a county fair, and all the reporters were at the fair, nobody was in town. So…
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::Rasheed Uncle: as I was talking to this gentleman, He said.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Oh, today is my lucky day, and he reaches for his wallet.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I'm thinking, oh, he's a reporter, he's gonna do a story, he's gonna give me his business card.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And he opens his, wallet instance.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Can you use some money?
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::Rasheed Uncle: I said, sure, I can always use some extra money.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So he hands me a $20 bill.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I said, well, thank you, God bless you.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And what he said really stayed with me.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And he said it's very infamous… infant… Empathetically, you said, He. Just.
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::Rasheed Uncle: did.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So he saw… it validated what I had heard years ago. Does he have because he gives, or does he give because he has?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That is so beautiful.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So… Yeah, and then the real surprise came when the 92-year-old gentleman asked me for my email address.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And I was like, 92-year-old guy knows what an email is.
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::Rasheed Uncle: But as it turned out, he had a radio show
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::Rasheed Uncle: that he did, and he wanted to talk to his co-host before making a commitment. And so every Wednesday morning, I was on his radio show while I was walking along Route 66.
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::Rasheed Uncle: His producer will call me, And then we'll have a 10-15 minute conversation?
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::Rasheed Uncle: And,
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::Rasheed Uncle: It's on… it's on YouTube, because they used to do their radio show and broadcast it on YouTube.
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::Rasheed Uncle: He passed away… Is it last year, or the year before?
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::Rasheed Uncle: He was 101.
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::Rasheed Uncle: But he did something… Weird.
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::Rasheed Uncle: He was 17 years old when he…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Graduated high school, and he started…
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::Rasheed Uncle: He went to community college there in town.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And,
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::Rasheed Uncle: World War I broke out, World War II broke out, so he enlisted in the Air Force and served
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::Rasheed Uncle: Served in the war, and then, you know, just was… Very successful throughout the life.
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::Rasheed Uncle: At 90-some years old, He kind of felt like that's one thing that he never finished.
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::Rasheed Uncle: So he goes back to the same college where he had gone 80 years earlier.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And finishes his associate's degree.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And gets his associate's degree at the age of, I think, 97 or 98, something like that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It was so cool. I just, like…
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::Rasheed Uncle: Yeah. You don't stop.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Stop livin' till you give up.
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::Rasheed Uncle: That's right, do you know,
463
::Rasheed Uncle: there is a gentleman on YouTube that you need to interview. His name is Mike Baer. He has a YouTube channel called
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::Rasheed Uncle: Old me living better.
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::Rasheed Uncle: And he has a motto that he puts on his mugs and stickers, and he says, if you ain't dead, you ain't done.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That is for sure.
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::Rasheed Uncle: You need to talk to him, definitely.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I definitely will. Thank you so much for joining us today, Rashid. This has been a great conversation.
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::Rasheed Uncle: Well, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You can learn more about Rashid and pursuing your childhood dreams and embracing your inner weirdo over in his school community called Yes You Can, which is yes-u-can-4362, and we'll make sure we put those links in the show notes below. Thank you for tuning in with us today. If you're ready to amplify your voice, monetize your mission, and start attracting premium clients, your next
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: step is simple.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Schedule your…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: free client acquisition audit over at thecoachesalchemist.com. Join us for our next episode as we share what others are doing to raise the global frequency. And remember, change begins with you. You have all the power to change the world. Start today and get visible.
