Daily Motivations - I AM What I CHOOSE to Become

Episode Date: July 19, 2025

"I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become." - Carl Jung Speaker: Eddie Pinero Don’t forget to RATE, SHARE, and FOLLOW for more Instagram - @daily_motivationsorg Facebook- @daily_motivationsorg Kindly support us Support Us

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Sometimes success is merely hanging on when others would let go. Not doing anything spectacular or out of the ordinary, not leaping a mile or jumping over a mountain, but simply carrying on. Thomas Edison has a famous quote that's really stuck with me over the years. She says, many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Right? How close they were to the finish line when they turned their back and said it wasn't worth it. It's really an interesting thing to grasp. Success is seeing what others can't. It's believing when others don't. It's taking the abstract, those visions, those pictures in your head,

the make-believe, and finding the courage to make them real. Bring them to life. It's this constantly evolving process, and it grows a little bit every single day. Sometimes we feel that progress, we feel the momentum, we do something big and it's exciting.

And sometimes the progress feels small. And then there are times when we get knocked down and we don't see it at all. We feel like because we weren't validated that we lost. That we failed, that it wasn't enough. We forget that's part of the process, that progress is a journey. And it goes when you go, and it stops when you stop. Just like that famous Dalai Lama quote, right? The only way to fail is to quit. Period.

No one ever stops because they can't. They stop because they decide to. They stop because they see that huge mountain and they think that's impossible. They forget it's only made of little rocks. They stop because they get so disheartened by the distance of the finish line that they forget it only takes a collection of little steps to get there. You don't have to leap the entire distance. You know I've been there. This is me speaking from experience. It took me years to figure it out. And even now life is rapidly

evolving I've poured my heart into things that let's be honest no one cared about I've invested in opportunities that fell apart right in front of me and each time it felt like the end of the world I've been lost I've been unsure gotten up after things didn't go as planned and it felt like a loser. I had to look myself in the mirror and pick myself back up off the floor. But there's one thing that I kept doing

that I never thought twice about. And that's continuing on. Whether life lifted me up or it beat me down, my plan for tomorrow was always the same. Get up and try again. Keep going. And as I sat down this morning with my pen and a piece of paper, I thought,

what's the one thing I would want to be told if I started out again? What's the one thing that people need to hear most? And it's to simply keep going keep taking steps because one day the world will start to make sense and you'll look around and you will be thankful for one thing. That when most would have stopped, you didn't. When the world said no, you said yes. There is nothing so powerful as a soul that refuses to back down. See, persistence is not an important thing or an essential thing.

It's everything. So live as to see. Not what can be lost, but what will be gained. Find that light in darkness, even if it's a flicker, even if it's a spark. See, every loss makes you a little tougher, and every instant of sadness uncovers something beautiful. Every moment of fear teaches you to be a little braver.

Every broken heart opens the door to a new connection. Instead of doubting yourself, feeling inadequate in life's darkest moments, know that you need what you are going through. You are uncovering the little victories hidden in plain view so when the world feels like too much and your patience is thin, be stronger than that voice in your head begging you to think small. Stand on every experience, the good and the bad.

Let it elevate you to a beautiful tomorrow. Decisions, decisions. Isn't that what it ultimately comes down to? Is it a dead end or a new beginning? An obligation or an opportunity? Because today can be whatever you want it to be. Whatever you decide it is. And when you lay your head on the pillow at night, that's what makes all the difference. Imagine for a second being on a beach, dragging your foot and creating an indented pathway

in the sand. And when you finish taking a bucket of water and pouring it into that very same channel you just sculpted. The water is gonna follow the path that you laid out. It will flow within the confines of the channel that you just made. And the way I see it, life is just like that water. It flows within the boundaries placed before it.

And how you decide to see the world creates that channel that contains the water. It's the driving force behind everything in your life, guiding every single thing that comes through. Have you ever thought about how small the details are that sway our perception of reality? How different people interpret the exact same event in different ways? Why do some people rise when criticized and others crumble? Why do some see fear and hardship when others see opportunity?

Why do some aspire to build and others to tear down? See, everyone has the same clay. People just decide to sculpt to mold it differently. Your external world is a reflection of the internal decisions you make, decisions that dictate everything. Decisions that take what the world throws your way and transforms them according to your viewpoint.

Life runs right through your moat every day. That channel in the sand that you created, that you direct, you control how events unfold because you decide how they will be handled and harnessed. You choose the map that will take you to your final destination. So decide what you want and let it transform your perspective. Own it. Become it. Accept nothing less. 1.5 percent. That number is all that separates the DNA of a human being and a chimpanzee.

Which means that, relatively speaking, 1.5 percent is the difference between a rocket ship and a pile of bananas. 1.5 extra minutes a day for an entire year is 547.5 minutes and those minutes accumulated could end up being the difference between pass or fail, yes or no, average or great. When we look at change at getting what we want we tend to visualize it on a pedestal. It's huge, it's mysterious, it's complex, but I'll tell you what, it's the smallest of adjustments. Seeking out and capturing that little 1.5%, living in the space that we're so inclined to just see right past, that's where I find

my advantage. We are surrounded by a million little opportunities every day that we walk by. Waking up a few minutes earlier, reading a few pages, doing an extra lap or rep, tiny things. They won't give you what you want right away, but little by little, small advantages become big advantages, consistent action becomes habits, and we are, as Aristotle says, what we repeatedly do. Don't look for the moon, look for the staircase that will take you there. 1.5 may be small, but 1.5 every yesterday is only as powerful as we allow it to be. Yesterday is an idea, a story, a movie that started and ended.

Now, it's quite possible that story or that ending is disappointing or it hurts to look back on. Perhaps a reminder of something that wasn't ideal, something you want to break away from. So the question is, why do we give that old story power? Why do we relive it, create this self-inflicted wound? See the past undoubtedly played a critical role. It brought you to where you are now. It, in many ways, shaped your worldview,

constitutes your beliefs. It was the very road to this moment, and there's value in that. But imagine this scenario. Imagine stepping into your car, turning the keys, and thinking to yourself that you can in this very moment only drive down the roads you drove on yesterday. Only associate with the street signs you know, the places you've already gone. Your reality now is determined by what you've already done.

So adjust and get used to it. You would say that's outrageous, right? Yesterday's path has nothing to do with where I'm going now. Just like a boat's wake trailing off behind it has nothing to do with where it's going next. The person holding the wheel controls that. We are saturated with freedom. There is so much opportunity and possibility and potential in front of us that we fail to see because we can't stop thinking about that fictitious story we call yesterday. We confuse the path we took then for the one we need now, the wake from the steering wheel,

what is in that story about what was. The gateway to change is unshackling ourselves from those imaginary monsters. And more often than not, the answer isn't in finding some solution, it's in cutting ties with those things that no longer serve us. Then we see the world as it truly is. Then we see the magic laid out before us.

And I get that it's easier said than done. Leaving a part of us behind hurts. Looking in the mirror and being vulnerable enough to say I can be more than this, it's not easy. But it's possible and everything starts with how we see ourselves. And when we remain captives to the past, everything about who we think ourselves to be is outdated.

We're neglecting one of our superpowers, the perpetual ability to restart. One of the most important conversations I've ever had was on this topic. Seemed trivial at the time, but I was having lunch with a friend. And we're talking and I mentioned to her that I was full. And she goes, well then why are you still eating? And I'm like, cause I paid for it, right? I wanted to get my money's worth. And she says in a very pragmatic way,

Eddie, just cause you paid for it doesn't mean you need to eat it, right? It's a sunk cost, why don't you move on? And the whole thing seems silly, right? It's like, yeah, if you're not hungry, don't eat. Move on. But in the grand scheme of things, how many of us keep on consuming that which doesn't serve us? How many of us stay too long when we should be letting go?

We let the path behind us dictate the one before us. See, there's a tendency to overvalue what we know, to feel so invested in how things are, even when we're not happy or it's not healthy, that we'll take the pain of now over the potential for something greater. And that's precisely why the potential for something greater. And that's precisely why the unknown is so terrifying.

It's not concrete. It's a world unsettled. And man, do we hate being unsettled. But what we fail to realize is that every time we close our eyes, take a breath, and work up the courage to step into that unknown, to leave yesterday behind us, life gives us new pieces. It resets the stage. It provides new tools to build something incredible, something more ideal, more conducive to our goals,

our hopes, and our dreams. And the thought is, well, but what if things become worse than they are right now? What if I move forward and I find myself more confused, more lost? What if things are more chaotic? And that may, for a moment, be true. But what we do is we adjust.

We learn things we never knew. We see things through a lens that we never could. Touch things that we never thought existed. It wasn't in staying, but in leaving that we rediscovered who we were meant to be. That we allowed our truest selves to flourish in worst case scenario. Contrary to popular belief, it's not that the world ends. No, the worst case scenario, should you find the courage to move forward, is that you end up right back where you started a little more confident a little bolder and better

Prepared to live this life like you never had All that's needed is for you to convince yourself that there is more You just need to taste the fruit step into the sunlight. That's the difference between reality and the story in your head. Reality is that this world has for you everything you need to change to grow explore build a life that means something it has the support structures and the resources for you to pull yourself back up every time you fall. To say, okay, that hurt, but now let's try a different angle. There is undoubtedly what you need. And the question is never whether the X on that treasure map exists.

Trust me, it's there. The question is whether you can pause that story in your head. The tales of a dark, mean, and scary world trying to hold you down. Pause the idea that you're nothing more than the you of yesterday. You're nothing more than how people knew you to be. Pause the idea that you're nothing without that job title or that relationship. Pause the idea that you need him or her or them in your life. Every day you wake up, you are a blank canvas.

Who cares about yesterday? What do you want to paint now? When you walk out your front door, where do you want to go now? Step outside that circle of familiarity. See how artificial and in some cases ridiculous these boundaries are that we place around ourselves. Life is an invitation not a set of requirements and when you free yourself of that not only will you feel like someone new, not only will you experience life as it was meant to be experienced, but you'll see that this

world will conform to your new definition. This world wants to support you. It wants to lift you up and yeah it may be challenging and strenuous, it may force you to work harder and be braver than you've ever been, but it is at the end of the day, your ally. You just have to see your future self before it materializes, when no one else gets it. So move on from all that does not serve you. Break away from the old rules, regulations, and guidelines. Maybe you exhausted time and energy into creating this reality. Maybe it feels like a

Monumental piece of your identity. Maybe right now is the only security you have fine But my hope is that you can respect it and walk away See it as the sunken cost that it is just because you paid to get there Doesn't mean you need to keep paying to make wrong decisions. Just because it took your time doesn't mean it's entitled to keep stealing your time. Just because it's part of your identity now doesn't mean it must be tomorrow. Just because it creates security doesn't mean it's right. Jails and steel bars are also incredibly secure. Know today we are breaking free, leaving the past in the past and setting our sights on

the horizon. Today is the end of yesterday and the beginning of the rest of your life. One of life's challenges is that its greatest gifts are often disguised. They rattle the current moment, shake up our perceptions, redirect the path. We were so confidently marching down. By the way, they never tell us, hey, this is for your own good, right? You'll come out stronger. You'll be better prepared to take life head on. If we didn't provide you with this shakeup, you'd ultimately live your life as a fraction of what you're capable of. No that message is emitted in the moment. We're left to think that our world is ending.

And I've always believed that the most challenging part of our down times, right, when we go through that suffering, the struggle, when we go through hell, it's not the situation itself, it's our thinking that this is forever. Our inability to see past the darkness. And remember that all of this is temporary. It's a process. A series of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, and guess what?

Without the valleys, there are no peaks. There are no mountain tops. Sometimes that's hard to grasp. And how can pain and suffering be the seeds to our joy? How can exposure to uncertainty become the confidence that things will work out? How can loss manifest into the acquisition of the best things that life has to offer? How? Well, because the very experiences we're inclined to avoid are the ones that define us. Like a sculptor creating an image

from stone carving away as we progress through life. I've learned that it's a price worth paying. I'm willing to spend hours, months, even years working alone on something I believe in. I'm willing to be vulnerable, have people I don't know and even some I do criticize my vision. I'm willing to give up the comfort of security of the present moment. Even heartbreak, relationships, there are risks that we take. And when they don't work out or they fall apart, it's a discomfort that ultimately makes you stronger and better equipped for the next one. All of these things hurt. But they bring the upside that isn't a reality when you avoid pain. See, I get that emotionally you're beaten down. I understand you feel lost. I get how hard things can be, but they're not reasons to give up hope. They're

reminders of how good things can be when you reach down deep and look beyond the present moment. Maybe you can't see it now, but this will lift you up. Our thoughts about the situation during these times, they are always worse than the situation itself, right? Find solace in that. In the fact that there's always a solution, that nothing is forever, that you will come out of this thing better than before you walked into it.

Life is a game of mental chess, maneuvering around the forevers, the cants, the failures, they don't mean anything until you decide to grant them power over you. What if I went as far as to say the greatest gift you've ever been given is that you're standing, breathing, taking in this very moment with infinite possibility ahead of you and whether you choose to see it or not it's there. It's waiting. Why not lift your head up even slightly and take in what lies beyond the immediate. It'll never cease to amaze me how nothing has done more in my life in pushing me forward than the very things I once called setbacks. What you've

lost, it will propel you. What's gone is reacquirable. What you seek is waiting. What feels hopeless has solutions. What seems too big to conquer can be broken down into pieces. We have choices here. Do we focus on what we don't have and the missteps or bask in the endless opportunity waiting outside the front door? Both exist. Both grapple for our attention. It's up to you to adjust your sails. To dance with hope when you might have been overcome with despair. My friends, life is good and all that it requires is you to agree to accept it.

To not run from what hurts or live a life that's risk averse but to step out, experience it fully and know that you can and will adjust to whatever comes your way because every day you are stronger Smarter and better equipped to rise beyond yesterday's fictitious limits If error is making its way into your lungs if your heart is pumping blood through your veins If your eyes are taking in the beauty around you, you have every reason to hope. Because what waits ahead is far greater than anything you've left behind.