Daily Motivations - Believe Bigger

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Powerful Motivational Speech is an empowering and confidence-building motivational speech created and edited by Daily Motivations. This powerful motivational speech compilation is a reminder that self-belief is the starting point of every breakthrough. Doubt delays progress, but belief activates it. When you trust your ability and commit to the work, momentum builds, and possibilities expand. This is your moment to back yourself.Instagram - @daily_motivationsorgFacebook- @daily_motivationsorg

When everything's falling apart and everything's going to shit, all you have to do is say to yourself, man, this is going to be a great story one day. We'll make this simple. Okay. Your future is more defined by those days that you want to quit and you push forward than it is when everything is hunky dory and everything is just easy. Having the message be clearer, having a vision clear, my vision's clearer. And you have to, you have to take time to find a vision. Like I know I see where I want to go. I see what I want to do.

Okay, I see that. I see that. You know, so now that I see where I want to go, okay, what I got to do, what message do I have to convey, what world do I have to paint to even get there. You're either going to spend your life watching other people do the things you want to do. And then you're going to end up on your deathbed and go, wow, I really blew it. I didn't push myself through all of those fears and those excuses when I could have. I really regret how I spent the time that I had.

Think about it like this. What I do today will create an impact tomorrow. Well, tomorrow will be a new today. And then what I do that next day influences the next day and the next day. This is why it's super important for us to be persistent and be consistent. This is the only way you're ever going to build your life. This is the only way you're ever going to create it the way you want. It's showing up every single day,

regardless of what it may look like on the outside. No scene ever grows without consistently watering it. Water your seats. Are areas in this life where you are like a passive driver. You're sitting at the backseat. Somebody is driving. And yeah, you can enjoy the view. But in this case, when you want to make that fire grow,

you need to become the driver. You must be the one directing the thoughts, directing the actions, directing the energy. Anything you put your mind to, if you tell yourself that, I'm telling you, look yourself in the mirror,

tell yourself who you are, and tell yourself who you're going to be, and then go be that. And move like that. and walk like that and talk like that. All the experts are agreed that in each of us, there are deep reservoirs of ability, even genius, that we habitually fail to use.

Why? We know that most people desire by nature to succeed. But what is success? What is this word that has become so famous in the world? What does it mean? Most people don't know what success is all about. And since they don't know what it's about, they really don't know where to look for it.

Success is really nothing more than the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. This means that any person who knows what he's doing and where he's going is a success. Any person with a goal toward which he's working is a successful person. The problem with most people is that they're playing the world's most unly-wording game. And the name of the game is follow the follower, a goal. A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder. He doesn't know where he's going. He then belongs to that 95% that he's living day by day,

month after month, like a starfish of an amoeba. He needs to know where he's going. Back in the early days of navigation, sailors used to see a strange sight in the Antarctic. They see a giant iceberg towering high out of the sea, and it would be moving against the wind. The wind would be born this way. The great iceboat would be moving light into the teeth of the wind.

And this, of course, frightened the sailors, whose ships were powered by the wind, until it was discovered that, of course, Only a fraction of the great berg was visible that its huge ponderous roots were caught in the great currents of the ocean. And it was being worn purposefully along his way regardless of the winds of the tides on the surface. Well, this is what a man needs. He needs his roots deep in the great mainstream of his own choosing. And then he'll move along his way, regardless of the winds on the surface of his life for short-term expediency.

And he'll get to where he's going. I think you've got to stop waiting for someone to come along and root for you. You've got to do that for yourself. And if you get lucky, you'll find a few people who really believe in you. But if your plan relies on luck to succeed, it's not a plan. It's a bet. And if you're going to bet, you might as well bet on you, not that. You would rather find purpose than a job or career.

Purpose disciplines. Purpose is an essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill. Whatever you choose for a career path, remember the struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose. It says adopt the mindset. I'm not stuck. I'm being shaped.

You are not stuck. You are being shaped. So often we go through seasons and we feel stuck. We feel like we're not moving. you feel like we're not growing. No. Remember, every season is serving a greater purpose. And those seasons where you may feel stuck, understand,

no, you're just being shaped. You're being shaped in order to step into the new season that is for you. But in order to get there, you have to be shaped in the right way. So what may feel like being stuck in the moment is really you just being shaped for alignment and authenticity so that you could step into that next season. Right. But embrace those seasons where you've got to be shaped. Embrace those seasons where you have to be pulled and pushed in order to be moved internally so that you can step into what is for you externally.

Embrace those seasons because they're serving a purpose and they are so incredibly vital. Those are really the seasons that develop your character, develop your resilience, develop your strength, develop you internally into the person that can step into the things that are for you. Becoming closer to your vision, becoming the person that you strive to be, does not demand perfection, but rather the persistent and pure desire for better and for good. It's easy for us to get hyper-fixated on not making a mistake or not making a wrong turn. When we start to over-analyze and paralyze ourselves with fear or doubt, it makes us hesitant in the way we pursue action.

And hesitancy is not good. These mistakes, these failures, these wrong turns ultimately do not matter. The only thing that is demanded of you in order to make the changes that you want to make is the pure and persistent desire to be better and to be good. And this paired with time, anything can be. If you can get a mental image of the person you would most like to become. Begin now to act as that person would act in everything you do. Gradually, imperceptibly, you will actually become that person.

It goes back to what the great German poet and philosopher Gertr once said. Before you can do something, you must first be something. Before you can do what you would most like to do, you was first become the person who could do it. A woman cooking dinner has only to act like a great chef to turn out a better meal. The student who begins to act like a top student will begin to get better grades. You can even look much better by simply acting like the person you would most like to look like and be like.

The secret is to get and hold fast in your mind the mental, image of the person you would most like to be. Then in every situation, you act and talk as you feel that person would. You make the kind of decisions you think that person would. This is the way to constantly grow into a better, more effective person. Yes, I know you're tired. I know you're tired of making and breaking promises with yourself over and over and over. It's a cycle. You make a promise. You break the promise. You make the promise. You break the promise. In this new year, you're making so many promises. But in the back of your mind, in the back of your heart, in the depths of your heart, you're like, I'm going to break this promise.

It's time to not do that. It's called discipline. It's called set to play and run it. Set it and run it. It has nothing to do with how you feel. You set the play, feelings aside, run the play. There's a quote by Carl Jung that says, in all chaos, there is a cosmos. And in all disorder, there is a secret order.

Us as humans are experiencing this chaos and this disorder on a daily basis at a very personal level, not only externally, but internally. And what this quote is saying is that maybe it's for a reason. And I think it's very hard for us to grasp that all this pain and all this disorder and all this unknown could potentially maybe be for a reason, be a part of a harmony that we can't hear. And when you really get to the root of it, you're left with the choice. Do I want to live a hopeless life? Or do I want to live a hope-filled life? And I choose to believe the latter. I choose faith. I choose hope.

I choose to look chaos and disorder in the eye and say, you know what? Maybe you're doing me a favor. Maybe you're just a lesson that I really need to learn and grasp to take my next step forward. Things aren't falling apart. They're falling into place. There are many ways to get the things that we want for ourselves in our lives. But basically, it all begins with how we choose to think. As you think, so shall you be.

Seven little words that I think are perhaps the most important things that we can learn and master in our lives. This old proverb notion that I become what I think about all day long. And once you know that what you think about is what expands, you start getting real careful about what you think about. You don't allow your thoughts to be on anything that you don't want or that you wouldn't want to have manifest or show up for you in your life. It's the only life we've got. And remember to think. Imagination is everything. And we can become what we can imagine.

If you find yourself getting depressed and down at the mouth as we all get once in a lot, while you might want to remember this quotation by Dean Bricks. He said, do your work. Not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishing's sake, that little more which is worth all the rest. And if you suffer as you must, and if you doubt as you must, do your work. Put your heart into it and the sky will clear. And then out of your very doubt and suffering will be born the supreme joy of life. Believe it or not, in an age where we've come to nearly deify leisure time, we've almost lost sight of the fact that virtually all our satisfactions, rewards, will come not from our leisure, but from our work. And don't forget the strangest secret.

We become what we think about. I feel like too often we allow our present moment to be defined by the past in terms of everything that happens. I think in a lot of ways, if we don't change the way we think about our current circumstance or don't change the way we think about our lives, then it's not going to change. We keep on repeating the same thoughts and the same experiences via our thoughts. And in that way, we're experiencing the same reality. I feel like regardless of how new each day is and regardless of how new every circumstance is, in terms of life continuing to move forward.

As long as our mind remains stagnant in some type of previous state, nothing is actually going to change. And that's why I feel like it's important to instill some type of belief in yourself when it comes to your future. If you believe that you can, why haven't you tried? And if you don't believe in yourself, then there's no point in trying at all. I think it's important to sort of instill some type of action based on the faith that we have in ourselves. Like if you truly think you can do something. something and it's your responsibility to go out and do it. And I feel like even if you don't, it's your responsibility to truly figure out. I feel like a lot of us try to answer our own

questions without actually going out there and finding a solution. You can't go to the future holding on to the biology of your past. Decide what thoughts you can bring to your future. Write them down. Thoughts like, I can't. It's too hard. I'll never change. I'll start tomorrow. What's wrong with me. It's someone else's fault. Decide on what behaviors or actions or unconscious habits you have to change. How do you talk? Do you complain? Do you blame? Do you make excuses? Do you feel sorry for yourself? Just become so conscious of those behaviors that you'll never go unconscious again. And lastly, you have to decide what emotions no longer belong in your future. That means if you want to be wealthy, you can't take lack. If you want to be healthy, you can't take insecurity or fear.

You've got to begin to condition your body to a new mind. If you do this every single day, your personality creates your personal reality and your personality is made up of how you think, how you act, and how you feel. Change any one of those things and you change your life. But what if it truly works out better than you ever imagined? Think about it for a second. yet. How many of the wonderful things that have happened to you in your life were perfectly planned? How many did you see coming? How many happened in accordance to your timeline? Showed up when you most expected it? Some of them? Any of them? Probably not the majority of them. So with that being said, I know that you've tried a thousand times before. But what if this next

go opens the door that you've been waiting for? Or better yet? What if this next go opens the door that's better than you ever expected? Remember, it's your responsibility to keep moving, keep learning, keep trying, keep trusting in the process, and it may just be better than you ever imagined. Real confidence slowly takes the place of the part you've been praying. Now, your life will not be transformed overnight. There'll be no sudden miracles, perhaps, but steadily, day by day, you'll grow into the image you hold in your mind. If you doubt this, try it for 30 days and watch what happens. You've got nothing to lose.

the time is going to pass anyway. Why not put it to work? Becoming the person you most want to become. It's the trick of the experts in every fear. Life rewards action, not intelligence. Life rewards action, not intelligence. And one of the dangers is smart people that the smarter you are, the better your excuses. The more accomplished you are in talking yourself out of taking action, in proving to yourself that every action that you could take is too small, too meaningless and not worth it. And George Leonard, who brought jiu-jitsu from Japan to the US, one of the things he said is absolutely you cannot do everything, but you can do one thing and another and another.

And that's the way you make massive progress in life by doing one thing and another and another. The matter that you show up and try and act week after week, month after month, year after year, with a little bit of intelligence, you start to get better and better and better. You start to become more articulate. And it's so easy to talk yourself out of action, but it's so important to remember that life rewards action, not intelligence, not smarts in your brain, but action into the world. every day you get to make a choice you can choose to continue with the way things are

with what you've always done and to complain about how unfair life can be or you can choose to let go of what has been holding you back focus on what is in your control and seek the path of growth it is the choice between feeling beaten by events outside of your control or settling for a life below what you know you're capable of

and saying to yourself that enough is enough, that you will not be this person any longer, that you will say goodbye to the ordinary in order to taste the extraordinary. That from today, right now even, you are committed to being someone better. Some of us go through pain and it becomes our tombstone. Some of us go through pain and it's a scar. And we live a life for rewards. I'm just going to say, again, 2025, do me a favor.

Check you. You're in the ballot box. You look at all these options, doctor, lawyer, who teach your weapon, whatever you see, president, mayor, governor, do me in favor. Before you check any of that, check you. Before you check anything, check you, and go look to yourself in the mirror and go, yo, I'm my lottery ticket. I'm my ticket out of the neighborhood or, you know, I'm the broken curse.

Like, whatever you want to call yourself. But the day I stopped saying, my mom, my dad, this person, the police, the time, the day I stopped doing that, the day I said, You embrace the lonely path if the path that you're on feels lonely It should assure you that you're headed in the right direction because a lot of people simply are not willing To withstand the struggle that comes with the path of success So if you're feeling lonely right now That means that you are willing to do the things that nobody else does

You know everybody preaches that they have this big dream or aspiration or a grand vision for their future but nobody's willing to bear the struggle that comes with it but you are which tells you where you're headed my friend who are headed straight for everything that you've ever wanted this is how it's supposed to feel you knew it was going to be difficult so let's not act surprise now everything is going just as expected so what do we do now success is the only revenge as you expand they shrink into irrelevance as you expand they shrink into irrelevance as a you get louder, no one can hear them. You don't beat them. You cast a shadow so big,

no one can see them to begin with. When people copy, they copy the wrong stuff because they don't know why it worked to begin with. And when it breaks, they don't know how to fix it because they didn't build it. So don't sweat it. Copycats will always be behind. I'd rather go too far, but not far enough. The only reward that you get from taking it easy is the fact that in the moment it's easier. But if you want results and then you basically just catch yourself slacking off and don't do anything about it, then it kind of sounds like you don't really want those results. If I've learned anything from life, it's that sometimes the darkest times can bring us to the most brightest places. I've learned that the toughest lessons can teach us the most important lessons, that the most painful struggles can grant us the most necessary growth. Said in times like these, it helps to recall there have always been times like this.

these. The last one, continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection. It is not everyone's job to make sure that you feel good. It is not everyone's

job to solve your problems. It's not everyone's job to make sure you're happy. That's on you. Only you. Understand that you are where you're at because of the decisions you made and the actions you took.

And if you manage to convince yourself that it's everyone else's fault that you're miserable, not only is your entire life a lie, but you will be stuck in that misery forever. If you really want to free yourself from mental slavery, if you really want to escape the prison cell, if you really want to make your life better, blame yourself. Because in order to fix your own life, you have to believe that you're the one that hit up in the first place. And if you possess the power to screw up your entire life, you also possess the power to fix it the longest journey you will make are the inches from

your head to your heart never an easy journey but the most important you will make is that you find the courage to build a life around what matters most to you there are pivotal moments in our lives that have the power to push us into an entirely new and exciting story from which there is no return what if that moment for you is So you're at rock bottom. Good. You feel like you've completely lost control. Like the world is caving in on you and there's not a thing you can do about it. Like no matter what you try to do to remedy this dreadful state of existence, it only gets darker. Good. Accept it. Stop running. There is a mountain whose peak is so tall it is hidden behind the clouds. I want you to look up at it.

embrace the shadow that it is casted on you all this time understand that this mountain is no foreign entity it is you you are the mountain and today you stop cowering from your own potential and there's a difference between feeling sad and being sad feeling angry and being angry you can feel angry all you want you can feel sad all you want but don't do sad shit don't do angry and i think that's what strength is you can cry you can be sad you can do all those

things, but doing what you're supposed to do despite that, that's mental toughness. I'm going to do what is right, even though I feel this way. If you can master that, you can master anything. You carry heaviness. I'm stuck. By now, I really thought I would have left my mark, you know, found my purpose. Instead of, I've wasted so much time. Wasted. No, time has been your silent sculptor, shaping you in ways you cannot yet see. You know, it's funny, man. A lot of you young guys think it's a choice to be great. Bro, it ain't no choice.

It's an obligation. You owe this to yourself, bro. You owe it to all the people that believe in you that have sacrificed for your success. It's ain't our choice, bro. The day you were born, you signed a contract. You right by others. You're right by yourself.

You write my God. And watch the joy that fills your heart. I believe in you, bro. And so do all these other people. It's time for you to believe in you. You owe it to yourself. Big Doc. But what's your self? Snow's coming down a bit this morning.

Weather says feels like 14. The ears hurt. The hands burn. I do three minutes in the ice bath before every morning run. And I don't want to be out here. The thing is, though, if I allow the fluctuation of my environment to dictate the likelihood of the beast showing up, my life would be up to circumstance.

And that is a pitiful existence. All anyone really wants is a little bit of certainty, but almost nobody is willing to offer that to themselves. This world is going to do everything to keep you from showing up. Go find a way every single time. Life will be very different. I tell people you get rewarded in public for what you practice in private. You look at somebody like Steph Curry, and you see this guy, you know, shoot the ball from almost half court, jumping on the side of his thing and he turns it. He doesn't even look. It turns around and just

waves because he knows it's in already and his swish and the crowd goes crazy. And people look for that and go, he's unbelievable. He's unbelievable. He's the greatest three-point shooter in history. There's no one like him. But what they don't pay attention to is that isn't like a little gift. Right. He shoots 500 shots every single day, never less than that, seven days a week. For more than 15 years, this 15-year professional career. He's been doing it since before he was college his dad really trained him so think of that 3,500 shots a week 168,000 shots in a year 2.5 2 million shots in his 15 year no NBA career so he could make 3,600 shots not even one-tenth of 1% what I have discovered is this a strategy is

like a freeway it allows us to get to where we want to go as quickly as possible So many times on the freeway, we take exits. And every time I take an exit, I lose my way. Every time I take an exit, I now am further away from my dream than what I probably was when I started. You have to understand that it's the pathway. It's the step-by-step process that allows us to get to the dream. So many times we look at the top of the mountain and forget the fact that it's the first step. your dream requires thousands of steps in the right direction.

You have to train yourself to become someone who is resilient, who has fortitude, who has grit, who could persevere, who could pay attention to their boss voice, not their bitch voice, and can execute against the things that they know are going to move them where they want to go even when they don't feel like it. And if you can do that, it will become, quote, quote easier you will perceive it to be easier it will not be easier you will be stronger this is your one shot at life it really is and however you spend your time is up to you nobody is going to tell you what to do so if there is something that you have

always wanted to do but you're not doing it because you're afraid you're afraid of failing and this is your chance to actually just do it anyways to face that fear head on because if you do that then you can work towards something in this one life that you have and actually maybe get there you know you might not get there but at least you tried and that's the thing right we have the ability to try we have the ability to actually try and possibly succeed but the thing is if you really give it your all and you really try your best nine times out of 10 you're going to succeed because you never gave up you worked on it every single day you really gave yourself the ability and the chance to actually

achieve that dream of yours and because you did you did you did achieve it all you know imagine a life where you actually achieved it all instead of scrolling on social media a day imagine a life where you're working on your dreams every day and one day you actually get there. Like imagine how amazing I would feel and like take that feeling and use that as that motivation, that drive to push you forward. And every day is going to be tough. It's not going to be easy. But the more you work on it, the more consistent you are working towards that dream, you're going to get there eventually. It's going to take time, yes, but you're going to get there eventually because you never gave up. So the question you have to ask yourself is, who am I, where am I going? What do

I want to accomplish? Three major areas of goals that you have to think about. The first is your personal and your family goals. These are the reasons why you're alive. What do you want to accomplish for yourself and for your family? Write them down. Define them clearly. The second set of goals that you have to ask is your business, your career, your financial, your material goals. What is it that you want to accomplish in the external world? Where do you want to make your contribution? The third type of goals you have to ask about are your self-development goals. And in my estimation, your ability and your willingness and your tenaciousness in developing yourself is the key to accomplishing everything else. You know that dream in you that seems out of touch and crazy?

Yeah, that one. What if that dream was actually put in you for a reason? Do not buy into the fear that everyone around you calls logic. The dreams that truly make a difference. are rarely logical. Be fearless in the pursuit that sets your soul on fire. The proper comparison group for you is you yesterday. First of all, you're their only control group that's appropriate to you because you have a certain set of talents and possibilities and limitations and tragedies

that are truly unique to you. Shouldn't it just happen? Well, it doesn't. Basically, life is this way. What you put into it is what you get out of it. People want their life to be free of struggle and conflict. They want a smooth path in front of them. Where you face adversity or things aren't going quite well, you have to reassess who you are. You have to reassess your opinions. You have to say, maybe I'm not doing this the right way. Maybe my patterns of responding in the past aren't working out. Maybe there's something wrong with me.

How can I learn from this moment? How can I get past this particular obstacle? If you never have failure, if you never have conflict, you are never going to develop yourself in life. Even though you are scared, can you still go through with the task? Even though it's risky and you don't know what's on the other side, can you still stay focused, stay locked in, keep working, and keep pushing forward? the person that people want to follow.

That was the number one way you measure somebody that's hungry? Very simple. Their sense of urgency. That's simple. Let me explain to you why. So people say, you have no idea of hungry I am. Really?

Yeah. What'd you do about it today? Oh, not today, but tomorrow I'm going to, I'm like, you ain't hungry, man. You just think you're hungry. You are not hungry. Think like the person you intend to become. ask yourself, how would the person I'd like to be do the things I'm about to do?

Everybody in here wants to get to the next level. Very simple, you can make two lists, and I can tell you if you're going to get to the next level or not. Make a list of what you want to do to get to the next level. And on the other side of the list, what are you willing to do to get to the next level? And if that list doesn't match, you are so far away from winning, you have no chance. You do not have time to fuck around. You don't have time to play games, to be in everybody's face, to not be focused on your goals. Every single day counts.

You didn't do nothing yesterday and you didn't do nothing today. Every single day that you don't do nothing, bro, is a day wasted. It's a day that you could have got better. You've developed a false belief system in yourself of what you need to know to take action. And so successful people are willing to do. is step into the unknown and the unprepared more than people who are unsuccessful. So procrastination is really saying, I got to know a little more more. I got to prepare a little bit more more.

I got to get a little bit more ready, a little bit more ready, a little bit more ready. And you keep raising the readiness quota to a point where you never take action. And so you've got to get to this point where you're like, I'm going to get into the room, I'm going to start to write that paper, I'm going to start the book, I'm going to get into that, and I'll figure it out when I get there. And most people that are successful have this internal belief system that I don't need to know everything to take action. I just need to know enough to get in the room and I'll figure it out from there. No one has ever, ever achieved anything if they haven't faced failures, if they haven't had disappointments.

To achieve anything in life, you have to be prepared to take on the odds. Face disappointment. You only lose when you give up. If you do not give up, you will win from the most incredible positions. The fight is in the mind. It's not physical. It's in the mind. What are the things that you fear that's been keeping you from living your dream,

that's been keeping you from doing some things that you would like to do? Let's think about those things. We're taught to believe that control is the key to a good life. That if you can just plan everything perfectly, prepare for every outcome, and hold on tightly enough, You can avoid the chaos, the pain, the uncertainty. Control feels safe. It feels powerful.

It feels like the only way to keep your world from falling apart. But here's the paradox. The tighter you hold on, the less control you actually have. The more you try to force life to fit into your expectations, the more it slips through your fingers. Because life isn't meant to be controlled. It's meant to be lived. And sometimes, the only way to truly gain control is to let go.

Letting go doesn't mean giving up. It doesn't mean apathy or passivity. It means surrendering to the flow of life, trusting the process, and understanding that you don't have to micromanage every detail to create something beautiful. Control feels comforting, doesn't it? Like if you can just hold onto the reins tightly enough, nothing bad will happen. But the truth is, control is an illusion. illusion. You can't control the weather, the economy, other people, or the random twists and

turns of life. What you can control is how you respond, your attitude, your effort, your choices. That's where your power lies, not in trying to control everything around you, but in mastering what's within you. When you stop chasing the illusion of control, you free yourself from the anxiety of trying to predict the unpredictable. You stop wasting energy on things you can't change and start focusing on the things you can. So much of our desire for control comes from fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure.

Fear of things going wrong. We play the what if game in our minds. What if I fail? What if they leave? What if it all falls apart? But here's the thing. Worrying about the what ifs doesn't change the outcome. It doesn't prepare you for the few.

It just robs you of the present. Letting go means acknowledging that the future is uncertain, and that's okay. Because no matter what happens, you have the strength to face it. Trust yourself enough to know that you can handle whatever comes your way. Let go of the need to have all the answers and focus on what's in front of you right now. Think of life like a river. You can fight the current, exhausting yourself. exhausting yourself as you try to swim upstream, or you can surrender to the flow.

Surrender doesn't mean you're powerless. It means you're choosing to work with the current instead of against it. When you surrender, you open yourself up to possibilities you might not have seen before. You allow life to surprise you, to show you paths you never would have chosen on your own. And in that surrender, you find freedom. Some of the most incredible moments in life happen, not because you forced them, but because you allowed them. You let go of your expectations, your plans, your need to control, and made space for something greater to unfold. Letting go isn't weakness, it's strength.

It takes courage to release your grip, to step into the unknown, to trust that even if you don't have control, you still have power. power to adapt, power to learn, power to rise, no matter what life throws at you. When you let go, you stop trying to control the uncontrollable and start focusing on what truly matters. You become more resilient, more flexible, more capable of navigating life's challenges. Identify what you can't control. Take a moment to think about the things. you're trying to control right now. How many of them are actually within your power? Let go of the things that aren't. Release the weight of trying to fix what isn't yours to fix. Focus on your response. You can't control the storm, but you can control how you weather it.

Shift your focus from what's happening around you to how you're showing up in the midst of it. Trust the process. Trust that life has a way of working out, even when it doesn't go according to your plan. Some of your greatest growth will come from the moments when you had to let go of what you thought should happen and embrace what actually did. Practice presence. Control often comes from living in the future, worrying about what might happen. Letting go means bringing your focus back to the present. What can you do right now? What beauty can you find in this moment? Find freedom. in surrender. When you stop fighting against life, you find peace. You stop wasting energy on things

you can't change and start using that energy to grow, to create, to live. When you let go, you don't lose control. You gain clarity. You gain the ability to see life for what it is, not for what you want it to be. You gain the freedom to adapt, to grow, to move forward without being weighed down by the need to micromanage every detail. Letting go doesn't mean you stop trying. It means you stop clinging. You stop forcing. You stop living in fear of what might happen and start living in gratitude for what is.

The paradox of control is this. The more you let go, the more power you gain. Not power over life, the power within yourself. To thrive no matter what life brings. So loosen your grip, surrender to the flow, and trust that even in the uncertainty, even in the chaos, you are exactly where you're meant to be. Let go and watch your life expand. And it seems to me if we want to build a bridge to a rational world that the better part of humanity can cross, we have to deal with this fact. Now, most of us do our best not to think about death.

But there's always part of our minds that knows this can't go on forever. Part of us always knows that we're just a doctor's visit away or a phone call away from being starkly reminded with the fact of our own mortality, or of those closest to us. Now, I'm sure many of you in this room have experienced this in some form. You must know how uncanny it is to suddenly be thrown out of the normal course of your life and just be given the full-time job of not dying or caring for someone who is.

But the one thing people tend to realize at moments like this is that they wasted a lot of time when life was normal. It's not just what they did with their time. It's not just that they spend too much time working or compulsively checking email. It's that they cared about the wrong things. they regret what they cared about.

Their attention was bound up in petty concerns. The year after year, when life was normal. And this is a paradox, of course, because we all know this epiphany is coming. Don't you know this is coming? Don't you know that there's going to come a day when you'll be sick or someone close to you will die? and you'll look back on the kinds of things that captured your attention, and you'll think, what was I doing?

You know this, and yet if you're like most people, you will spend most of your time in life, tacitly presuming you'll live forever. He's like watching a bad movie for the fourth time, or bickering with your spouse. These things only make sense in light of eternity. Because even if you live to be 100, they're just not that many days in life. So what is the point of life?

Is anything sacred? Did such a question even make sense? And I think these questions do make sense, and there are answers to them. But the answers are not a matter of getting more information. The answer is a change in attitude. there are ways of experiencing life as sacred without believing anything and certainly without believing anything on insufficient evidence

there are ways to really live in the present moment what's the alternative it is always now however much you feel you may need to plan for the future to anticipate it to mitigate risks the reality of your life is now this may sound trite but it's the truth

it's not quite true as a matter of physics in fact there is no now that encompasses the entire universe you can't talk about an event being simultaneously occurring here and one at the same moment occurring in Andromeda the truth is now is not even

well defined as a matter of neurology because we know that inputs to the brain come at different moments and that consciousness is built upon layers of inputs whose timings have to be different our conscious awareness of the present moment is, in some relevant sense, already a memory. But as a matter of conscious experience, the reality of your life is always now. And I think this is a liberating truth about the nature of the human mind.

In fact, I think there's probably nothing more important to understand about your mind than that, if you want to be happy in this world. The past is a memory. It's a thought arising in the present. the future is merely anticipated. It is another thought arising now. What we truly have is this moment and this. And we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth,

repudiating it, fleeing it, overlooking it. And the horror is that we succeed. We manage to never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we're continually hoping to become happy in the future. And the future never arrives. Even when we think we're in the present moment, we're in very subtle ways, always looking over its shoulder

anticipating what's coming next. We're always solving a problem. And it's possible to simply drop your problem, if only for a moment, and enjoy whatever is true of your life in the present. So we have a very limited view of what's going on. We're subjectively unaware of most of what our minds are doing. And yet when we think about what matters,

what matters is consciousness and its contents. That consciousness is everything. Our experience of the world, the experience of those we care about is a matter of consciousness and its contents. So whatever the origins of consciousness, consciousness. The most important question for us is how can we truly be fulfilled in life? How can we create lives that are truly worth living given that these lives come to an end? We're all in the business of seeking fulfillment and relief from suffering.

This is not to say that we want mere pleasure or the easiest possible life. much of what we want in life, much of what we want to experience entails struggle, and many of us learn to enjoy the struggle itself in some measure. Any athlete knows that there's certain kinds of pain that are actually pleasurable. If the burn of lifting weights

was actually the symptom of a disease, it would be intolerable. But because it's happening in the context of a strenuous exercise and progress there, most people learn to enjoy it. So the conceptual lens through which we view, even very intense sensation,

largely determines how we feel about it. And this is one of the many ways in which our thinking about experience changes the character of experience. So the frame we put around the present moment is important and largely determines our experience of it. and how we think about death changes depending on whether we're thinking about dying ourselves or about losing the people we love.

But whichever side of the coin we take here, death is really an ever-present reality for us. And it is so whether we're thinking about it or not, it's always announcing itself in the background on the news. in the stories we hear about the lives of others, in our concerns about our own health, in the attention we pay when crossing the street. If you observe yourself closely,

you'll see that you spend a fair amount of energy each day trying not to die, and has long been noted by philosophers and contemplatives and poets. Death makes a mockery of almost air. everything else we spend our lives doing. But contemplating the brevity of life brings some perspective to how we use our attention. It's not so much what we pay attention to. It's the quality of attention. It's how we feel while doing it.