How are you doing? I hope you're good. It's Tuesday, but not just any Tuesday, my friend. It's Take Action Tuesday here on the sweet spot. And I'm sure glad you dropped by to listen to me because I was expecting you. I look forward to talking to you. And I want to talk to you today because we are in the middle of a we're in the middle of a fantastic series here. We're in the middle of something called built for this. You, my friend, are built for this. Whatever you're going through, whatever life is throwing at you, whatever challenge you're facing, the message this week, brothers and sisters, is this. And go a little deeper today. Yesterday, if you recall, we talked about stress as a signal, not a verdict, not as a sign that you're failing, but as a message that something important is asking for your attention. We yesterday on Making Moves Monday reframed how we interpret this thing we call stress or anxiety. Today, Take Action Tuesday, is about what happens after, after you receive the message, after the stress message is received. Because here's what a lot of thoughtful, reflective, spiritually grounded people do and get stuck. They pray. Don't get me wrong. Nothing wrong with it. They meditate. Nothing wrong with it. They visualize. Nothing wrong with it. But you know what they do? Nothing after that. They pray, they meditate, they visualize, they wait. And all of these things have value. Don't get me wrong. I do all of them. Every last one of them. But here's the thing, beautiful soul. If nothing moves after that, nothing actually changes. That's the way it works. And that's why this line from Johann Wolfgang von Goether in Faust. Remember that author? This line he had in Faust was so cool. Knowing is not enough. We must apply. Willing is not enough. We must do. Gerther isn't dismissing reflection here. He's not. He's not. He's pointing out something basic about how we humans are built. Listen, insight is important. Praying and meditating and visualizing and and reflecting, important. Insight prepares us. But you know what completes the loop in the human experience? In my experience? Action. Insight prepares us, but it is action that completes the loop. Without movement, energy stays suspended. Without movement, tension builds. That's right. With no movement, your energy is just gonna suspend itself and the tension is just gonna build, and that's where we get anxiety. And the ancient wisdom, of course, doesn't play games. The ancient wisdom is straightforward, it's blunt, especially in the message Bible. Okay? In James 2, verse 17, it says it like this Faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead. That's awfully blunt. That's really blunt. You mean to tell me, God, that if I have all the faith in the world and I don't do anything and I take no actions, it's not helpful? The verse is kind of crazy, right? It's kind of like, what do you talk about are you talking about? I mean, we speak, we care so much about faith. But I believe the verse is misunderstood, right? It's not criticizing faith. Not at all. It's explaining how faith works in real life. Prayer, meditation, and trust are meant to orient you. It's meant to steady you. And it's meant to clarify what matters. Obviously, we need prayer, we need meditation, we need trust, we need the visualizations. Yes, we have to get oriented, steady, and clarified. But there comes a moment when you've got to get off your uh um Gluteus Maximus. Hey, I'm a doctor, I can say that. There comes a moment when you've got to move your feet, beautiful soul. Think about a mother for a second, a mom. A mom doesn't wait to be 100% sure her child needs something before she acts. She hears a tone in the child's voice, a cry. She notices a look, she senses a shift in how he or she is moving. And that mother moves, that mother takes action instinctively, responsively, not always perfectly, but lovingly. Uh, she is ahead of the game and she's reading the signals, she's understanding, and she knows when to take action and she takes it. That is embodied wisdom. That is Take Action Tuesday in your mom. Thanks, Ma. Appreciate you. Yeah, you know, our nervous systems work the same way. You don't always need total certainty. That's a big problem for a lot of folks, myself sometimes included. We feel that we must have total certainty in order to get things done. You don't need total certainty. What you need is to be responsive to take action, and this is where people stall. They keep praying for clarity, when clarity only comes after they've taken an action. They keep visualizing change without making a single adjustment after that. They wait for fear to disappear before moving. When fear usually fades because they take the movement. Your body tells this story clearly. Your arms, your legs, your lungs, your heart, you were not built to just sit and hope. I hope I'm not pissing somebody off there, but it's true. You just weren't built for that. You were designed to respond. Stillness has a place, but motion is how change enters the world. Yeah, it's actions. Nothing happens until something moves. I think Einstein said that. Think of a ship, okay? Think of a ship in the harbor. The harbor is safe, a necessary place for the ship to be, a place to refuel, a place to prepare. But ships aren't built to stay there forever. If they never sail, they never fulfill their purpose. You and I are the same way on some levels. Our reflection prepares us, but it is only our actions that fulfill us. We've got to set sail. And you know, look, when you sail, you're on the seas, and that means the storms can come, the waters can rise, things might not work on the ship, you might have to get the ship adjusted. It's it can be rough out there, you know, but that's how it is in life, and that's how you get from point A to point B. The reflection will prepare you, the action will fulfill you, and you can be in the harbor, but you've got to sail. And this shows up across every walk of life. A business leader doesn't wait for perfect certainty before making decisions. They gather what they can, they consult wisely, and they move. A great athlete doesn't wait to feel fearless before competing. Training teaches the body how to move with the nerves present. If you're a performing artist, and I know some really cool ones, they don't wait for the anxiety to disappear before stepping on stage. Rehearsal exists so the body can carry the moment when the mind is loud and going nuts. A police officer is trained to act under pressure, not impulsively, but decisively, the good ones anyway, right? So, yeah, preparation exists precisely because waiting too long can make things worse. If you're a student and you're listening to this, you have been preparing early by your studying, mastering the material. It's not the same thing as taking the test. But you have to prepare and you have to eventually go from being in your little room, studying, and highlighting things to taking the test and trusting yourself that there's only two kinds of answers on a test: those you know and those you can figure out. So let's go. Life keeps asking the same question in different forms, my friend. What will you do with what you're feeling? Huh. What will you do with what you're feeling? That's the subconscious question that's being asked, whether you're aware of it or not. I worked with a wrestler one time who froze before big matches, and that's why I was seeing him, right? His stress was convincing him that something was wrong. So instead of talking him out of the fear, what we did was we gave him something to do, a drill. We gave him a movement cue. And the reason we did that rather than just get into talking and talking and talking is that that was the issue. He was already in all this self-talk and convincing himself that everything is gonna go wrong, and it was like no movement was the issue. Not taking action was the issue. The moment his body moved, his breathing changed, his focus returned, and the stress didn't disappear, but it had a direction. He had something to do. So that's why you might even see a tennis player stringing the racket, or or or you might see athletes or performers in certain rituals because they've got to dissipate that energy. Because stress, my friend, is energy, and energy needs somewhere to go. Michael Jackson captured this truth in my one of my favorite songs, Man in the Mirror. And that line that he starts off, man, I'm gonna make a change for once in my life. It's gonna feel real good. It's gonna make a difference, gonna make it right. Anyway, I'm not gonna go on with the lines. What I'm trying to tell you is I'm going to make a change for once in my life, is the line. That line still hits because it doesn't wait for the world to change. It's not saying when the world shifts, I'll shift. It's make I'm making the change. It places the responsibility and power in the next action that I'm gonna take. And that's what you're built for. So here's the heart of what I'm saying today on Take Action Tuesday, beautiful souls. You're not built for a life without challenge. That's not happening, okay? You're not built for a life that requires that you solve everything right here and right now. That's not what this is about. You're built for a life that requires a response that helps you adapt and handle what's in front of you. Your experiences, your setbacks, your recoveries, your training, all of it has shaped you. Remember yesterday I said you've been through some stuff. You've handled some dragons and some demons and some, you've fought some lions, some tigers and bears. Okay, maybe they weren't really actual lions or tigers, you know what I'm saying. You've you've you've faced things and you've handled it, you've been through it. And all of it has shaped you. Even the moments that felt like delays were actually not just delays. They were preparing you, they were working your patience, your perseverance. You're stronger than you know. You're stronger than you know, you're more than you know. So here's your take action Tuesday move. When stress shows up today, don't ask, how do I make this disappear? That's the wrong question. I want you to ask, what's one small step I can take right now based on the signals I'm getting? One email that I need to send, one conversation, one walk, one deep breath, one rep, one boundary, one thing, one decision I can make, one change, one different thought. How can I think about this differently? Anything, prayer can definitely guide you. Don't get me wrong on that. Use it. Meditation can definitely center you, absolutely use it. Visualization absolutely can inspire you, and breathing can absolutely reset your nervous system. But my friend, movement ultimately is what brings change into real life. What are you gonna do? So if you're listening, it means you're paying attention to your life. You care, and that's fantastic, you're trying, amazing. That alone tells me you're built for this season, you're built for this stress, you're built for this anxiety, you're built for this challenge, you're built to handle this relationship, you're built to deal with this person, this issue, this problem. You're built for it. Not because this is easy, but because you're willing to engage, you're not afraid, you're not backing down. Take a breath. Yes, trust what's already in you, my friend. Trust the instincts that have carried you this far. And if you need help, reaching out, like we said yesterday, is not weakness, it's wisdom. That's how you do it. You get help, you make a call, you contact that individual, and you form a bond. And together, stronger together. I work in sports, we we really, unless of course you're in a uh individual sport, uh I work in team sports as well, and it's all about bonding, stronger together, stronger together. So, alright, my friends, it's Take Action Tuesday. I want you to leave the harbor today, even if it's just a little, and get sailing. This is Dr. Derek Sweet. Thank you so much for listening to The Sweet Spot. Thank you for engaging here on Take Action Tuesday. If this episode spoke to you, please subscribe. There's no charge, there's no hidden fee. There's if you take the action of subscribing, it'll be just good. You'll just get them automatically. And if you know someone who could really benefit from a Take Action Tuesday message, send it over to them. And you please stay amazing. So tomorrow is Win It All Wednesday, and yeah, we're gonna build around pressure and perception with the same level of integration and humanity that we're dealing with right now. We're really bringing it together, and I look forward to seeing you on Win It All Wednesday tomorrow. Come join me.