Be Your 7 Year Old Self – Day 2 #MayorOfTruro

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So, it's day two of being Mayor of Truro in Cornwall in the UK. And what a crazy few days

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it is. I woke up Monday morning and I had that feeling in my belly where I'd ate something dodgy

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a few days before. And I just felt like, I've got to go into the public meeting tonight and I've

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got to talk in front of everybody. And it just terrified me. And

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it's that wonderful, uncomfortable feeling that you can so just pull back and not do it, or

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you can step forward and do it,

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and everything was okay. I messed up my speech several times. Everybody noticed. Nobody cared.

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I

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had a big belly. Nobody noticed. Or even if they did, they don't care. And I was on the radio

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yesterday, and I probably said something, you know I probably messed up the works Nobody really cares.

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What people care about is just stepping up and stepping forward and doing what we can from where we are.

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And I want to talk about that on today's podcast. So I'm Steven Webb, and I'm the current mayor of

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Truro, which I still think is absolutely crazy, but what a wonderful opportunity. And this is stillness in the storms,

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and I help people suffer a little less, especially when times are difficult. And there's two things that

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I really want to discuss today, and that is, you know, we're all the same. And in my last podcast,

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I talked about how can we love everybody, and how can I love everybody? And I talked about that the

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fact that everybody is the same as me and I'm the same as everybody else. We are all struggling to,

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you know, just better our lives in some way. And I've just had a wonderful conversation with a guy from

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the Bbc, and we were talking about stoicism and all that, and it reminded me of a quote from Carl

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young that says, even the rotten potato sprouts towards the sun. I just think that's a

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wonderful quote, because do you know what? If your life has or somebody's life has steered you towards using alcohol

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or drugs or sex or something else to avoid life, or just Netflix of an evening or just that

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takeaway of an evening, all we're doing is just trying to improve our lives. Every single one of those people,

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whether it is alcohol, whether it's takeaway, whether it's Netflix it's just trying to improve their lives in that

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moment. So it means we're all the same. And I just think when you approach other people like that,

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we stop judging them, because we realise when we judge them, we judge ourselves. And I think that's so important

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when we judge them, we're really judging ourselves. There's something in ourselves that we haven't seen

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that's subconscious that we're not aware of. And we judge them because we fear that

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side of ourselves, whether

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it's even subconsciously. And the other thing I just thinking about this morning and, and I signed off an

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email uh it's mayor of truer Steven meritor And I wrote

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next to it, how crazy is that with or how awesome is that With a question mark.

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And I thought, well that's like what a seven-year-old would do. And I thought how brilliant. And

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for years I've been denying the seven-year-old that just wants to play games, have fun, relax, see

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the world in a way that every day is new and amazing, you know, you know that seven-year-old that sees

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something for the first time or sees a new film and they come out and they talk about it with

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such enthusiasm or they met a new friend at play school or okay, a seven-year-old doesn't go play school but

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you know, I mean they met a new friend at school and it's like brand new to them, like as

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if it's the first time this has happened. But of course to them it has. And that's what it feels

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like to me. It's like I'm looking at this and going, wow, how awesome and amazing is this? This today

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is like this is the first time I've had day two of this. And this afternoon I'm going out to

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meet some of my fellow councillors that work on the neighborhood planning team to have a look at how we

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can set up the settlement boundary. I don't know how to do it, I've really no clue. I've just got

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the passion of protecting our fields and the countryside from

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development and all that kind of thing. So we're meeting some of the experts and we're meeting some of the

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other councillors that are all passionate about this.

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I'm meeting a couple other people today that I'm going to be introduced to. I'm just so excited, like, I'm

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like um I don't know, how can you explain it? I'm like a school kid that is going on a

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um a school trip. Instead of doing homework and all that, they're doing something new. And I

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think we need to approach life a bit more from this seven-year-old self that's locked up inside of you.

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So what's your seven-year-old self crying out for? It's crying out for fun, it's crying out for love

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and attention and playing and seeing the world and experiences. So what does an older version

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of that seven year old do? Well, it does all those same things, but with an element of wisdom and

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experience.

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So it still wants to climb the rock face, it still wants to go and play, but it's about hooking

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on the safety net because, or safety line because, you know, you might say something wrong or you might

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um fall down or something like that. So it often stops us and we, we don't do it or we

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cannot do that. And like I said at the beginning of the podcast, we have that, that stomach feeling that

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I felt sick and I felt awful. I barely eaten anything all day Monday leading up to the mayor making

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ceremony which is available. I'll put a link to it underneath this podcast in the podcast notes. You can see

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that speech online

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leading up to it, I could barely eat anything. I think I had toast for tea and

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I didn't eat both bits because I just literally couldn't face it. And I was barely drinking anything. You know,

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I have a leg bag and I go pee in a leg bag and I didn't want it to fill

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up because I didn't want to. What happens if I like um need to empty it during the ceremony tonight

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and things like that. So I was freaking out, but I stepped in anyway because it's okay to freak out.

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It's not okay to to back out. And freaking out is just saying be aware. And

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that's what the older version of the seven-year-old needs to do. Do all the fun things, get out your comfort

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zone, you know, be brave, you know, climb up that thing. But do it with a little bit of skillful

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wisdom from experience. But don't let that fear stop you. I

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think that's the message of today's podcast and it's relatively shorter um because I really need to head out in

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a minute and I'm. If it's okay with you, I'm going to do shorter podcast I'm going to do shorter

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daily updates and things like that. I'm just going to do a lot more of them because this is going

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to be an

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incredible year

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and I want you along with it

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god I'm gonna I'm emotional now because I'm so honored and I just, it's just incredible for me. I want

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it to be incredible for truer too if I can. I have no idea how to make that happen. But

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let's do it. You know, the town, I love the town. The other councillors love every single one of them.

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And, you know, that's why we're there. That's why we do the public service. That's why we put ourselves out

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there for scrutiny and accountability, which is absolutely right. We should be scrutinized and we

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should be held accountable. You know, I've promised things that I want to do this year. Hold me accountable. At

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the end of the year, look up and go, hey, you didn't deliver or you did deliver, you know. And

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during the year, make sure that you ask me those questions, how are you doing? And I'm when I say

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I'm fine, say no, I'm asking, how is your mayor your year going? Are you achieving the goals you think?

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Ask me those questions, please keep me Keep me on track, keep my feet on the ground and make

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sure we deliver as a council for Truro. That's what we're all there for. So yeah, I didn't mean to

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make this podcast about that. Just remember, just look at your seven-year-old self What is that seven-year-old self wanting

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and what are you denying? Start seeing the world through the seven-year-old eyes the seven-year-old heart the

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seven-year-old that loves everybody, that just wants to play, that just wants to enjoy life, that just

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wants as aspirations and goals and dreams and hopes, you know, Let that seven year old come alive

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with the wisdom of experience and then you'll do all right then you Then you may start loving life

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again in the same way I do. Take care guys. This is Steven Webb Stillness in the Storms podcast and

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please subscribe. Hit the subscribe whether it's on itunes or Spotify or it's available everywhere and leave a review.

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That would be amazing because it helps to go up the ranks and it helps, it get helps me to

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get my message out and that message today. Embrace the seven-year-old self I

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love you guys. Have an awesome day. Take care.