Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - 60 Minutes to Transform the Next 60 Years: A Journey to Your Greatest Potential

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

What if, instead of envying others, you became one of them? In this transformative episode, we explore how envy creates walls while action builds bridges. It’s not about two separate worlds—it’s about recognizing the beginning of your own journey. By shifting your focus from what others have to what you can create, you can start building the life you desire today. Drawing inspiration from a powerful Chinese proverb, we’ll uncover the significance of starting now, no matter where you are. The best time to plant the seeds of your future might have been yesterday, but the second best time is today. The question is: what will you do with this moment? Let this episode inspire you to take that first step forward. Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletter Free Ebook: www.eddiepinero.com/ebook  YouTube: www.eddiepinero.com/youtube 

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to who-done-it.

We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Don't envy them. Instead, become one of them. Why is this perhaps one of the most important mantras you'll ever hear? Well, to put it simply, to envy is to build walls. It's to create divides between you and them, between where you are and where you most want to be.

We're not in the business of creating divides. We're in the business of building roads. It's about understanding that you're perceiving, not a tale of two different worlds, you're perceiving the beginning of one journey, your journey. The dedication and time and commitment required to start today to step into something new. There's a Chinese proverb that states, the best time to have planted a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today.

And my friend, you don't have 20 years ago, but you have the now. And the now is everything. Oh, but how much time I've wasted, you might think. Nope. That's wrong. For two reasons. One, first, you're ready to go now for a reason. You're not the same person you were a year ago or two years ago or three years ago.

If it took until today for that journey to start, then so be it. Here you are. You can't compare your timeline to the timelines of others. There's too many variables in life. It'd be impossible to crack or understand. Just go now. Make use of the clarity and inspiration. You just greenlit, perhaps the most important thing you'll ever do.

Don't you dare sit and wait. Second, if you think days past were lived in vain, that they were wasted or filler, I ask that you think again. Because the lessons that will be derived from those experiences, some of you don't even understand yet, will become so valuable in this next chapter that it's mind-blowing. There are no wrong terms.

Those detours were the way, the only way, as you'll see in due time. But too much time has passed. I'm too old. I'm to insert X. No, stop separating. from what you want and move towards what you want. Stop categorizing that or them or that North Star as anything other than possible and step into its orbit.

See, being that we are all storytellers, we are all sculptors, we are all artists in our own way, it's worth understanding that those artists who came before you, well, the sunset never cared how old they were. It didn't ask how many years they'd spent thinking about their dreams instead of chasing them. It never asked, hey, why didn't you start sooner, or begin sooner, or step out the front door sooner?

No, it just was. It was bold and vibrant, daring them to join. And in that moment, staring at the colors, streaking across the sky, they realized something. The sky wasn't asking for perfection. It wasn't asking for years of experience or dedication. It just wanted them to pick up a brush and create, to do, to begin, to step into a world they could rightfully make their own, and so they did. And I'm sure their first strokes were messy, hesitant.

You bet they were self-conscious and doubtful. You bet imposter syndrome knocked at that door. But they were there in the moment realizing that there is no true. too late. The sunset taught them that life isn't about the time we've lost. It's about the beauty that we can create starting now. Always now. And by the way, our minds will always try and fight now. They'll try and rationalize their way out of now, villainize now, come up with a million different reasons. Now is impractical or counterproductive. While it's adversary, tomorrow on the other hand, always seems to sit glowing on its pedestal. Tomorrow is always so safe and inviting.

Easier to accept than now. Far easier. But tomorrow is fool's gold. And you understand this when you realize you've been tricked by tomorrow your whole life. Tomorrow is a fraud. It's a con man. It's a wolf and sheep's clothing. Now is what solves all your concerns. It's It seems to be the answer to almost every predicament we face, every fork in the road. It's like go, act. It's okay that it took until now. Perhaps you'll come to understand

it's even ideal that it took until now. But it's time to start treating now like it's precious, like it really matters because it does. If it's meaningful, step into it, move towards it, allow yourself to become it. Everyone has a different story, a different journey or road that's taking them to today. Fine. But know that the wake of the boat does not drive the boat.

Where you've been is not attached to where you can go. This is your reminder that you can become that version of yourself you most want to be. It's not easy. It will feel at times like the world is pushing back. But this is where purpose is cultivated. The right journey is everything. And its cost of admission was, is, and always will be your very next step. Living is easy.

It's my inability to die that kills me. My hesitance to lock my old. persona up and place it within the ship's cargo hold, watch its sail away to some far off place. Maybe for a minute, maybe forever. But the bird has to be uncaged. It must unlearn its constraints. It must metaphorically die to transcend that which it knew itself to be. I think we all have wings. I think we all have wings. I think I think very few of us put them to use. And isn't that the challenge?

Perhaps we're too busy living. I've always had the ability. Now I've captured the fleeting awareness next. I must obtain the courage. Because the rule, the truth, the beacon of light to be followed is we're always one decision away from a totally different life. If dare I decide to tell you.

take the mask off. It's been so effectively fooling others that I've begun to fool myself. Dare I decide to play new games with new rules to see life with new eyes, perhaps upside down. But when your sight is finally, finally set on infinity, when you're looking at the clouds while lying on your back, who's right, them or you? Who gets the honor of decide? And sometimes I wonder how far we need to walk, to understand that the danger isn't stepping into a new pair of shoes. It's thinking you need to walk the same path down the same street in the same pair of shoes you've had on your entire life.

Strange, peculiar, according to the previous cognitive mappings, but maybe they're crazy, is your oxygen. Maybe crazy is pure. It's desirable. It's been the goal all along. And, well, where I thought I dedicated my life to its pursuit, I see how wrong I was. To think something new could emerge. No, not without the death of the old. Not without that caricature of myself slipping away. Not without that ship taking everything. every last thing. I want roots ripped from the ground. I want new heroes and new villains,

new street signs telling of new roads. New tears from eyes stimulated by that, which I've never seen, the increased rhythm of a new heartbeat, in anticipation of all that lies ahead. New beginnings, maybe for a minute, or maybe forever. I'll let you know once I learn to die.

I'll ever wonder how much of you has materialized? Like if what F. Scott Fitzgerald says is true, and our lives are defined by opportunity, even the ones we miss, then how much remains in the ether? And I don't think it's about playing a game of what if. You know, that would be endless. It would be self-defeating.

No one's perfect. I don't even really think it's about making a right turn instead of a left. Because as long as you're moving and moving with conviction, life ultimately brings you where you need to be. But more, my concern is the steps never brought to people. My ideas unhatch, my opportunities, I either knowingly or unknowingly left on the shelf. Because it didn't seem real enough.

Like a Broadway play, play, between my ears, that as a spectator I knew would end. After all, that's what stories do. How much of ourselves have we cast aside as simply the things we don't say out loud? At first, it's infinite. We've yet to be taught to limit because limits aren't things, their ideas, and ideas must be adopted.

That's why they say some of the life's best things were done by people too ignorant to know they were impossible, too naive of the notion that they couldn't say them out loud, then it's comparison. They have what I want, but it was meant for them and not me. How delusional to think I could have it. How crazy to think that life has yet to be written, and I am an author. My date is with normalcy in the box where I keep those things we don't say out loud.

And then we look around and we see highlight reels. We see awards and vacations and smiles, but we don't stop to think maybe they're just like me. Maybe they're people who struggle and question themselves and doubt the road ahead. No, it must be the past diverse. diverged. They took happiness and I took those things we don't say out loud and then there's everyday life when things don't go as planned when the world presents curveballs and you haven't learned to hit off speed so you feel small and you feel inadequate and ill-equipped and you could reach out but that's not cool that's not right. That's something that you don't say out loud but we keep it in like all in and eventually it becomes the

if onlys and I wish I had it's the quiet envy gazing longingly towards those who just cared less who realize maybe life's not as serious as we make it out to be, who turn thoughts to things, not by burying, but by embodying them. And maybe that's the trick to unlock the gate, keeping your perceived reality from the possibility of a new one. The one you could create, if only you promoted your fleeting thoughts to forward progress. See, dreams can fail to come to fruition in two places, in your head and outside of it.

But at least outside it has a chance. At least outside, you can take the common, normal, everyday background, and make it the backdrop to your movie, where you play a lead role. But it must be accepted and acknowledged, not thought of or even whispered, but screened, so that the details and the trivialities that exist now work for you. That's right, they are now yours. Not because you thought about it, but because you reached out a hand and you took. You asked the world for something.

And in life, it will always be true that you don't get what you do not ask for. So when you find yourself staring up a wall comprised of self-defeating narratives and manufactured limits, be ignorant, be irrational, be the reason your dreams have a chance. And when you look around and you see more and wonder why you don't have it, know that you can. You're allowed to. If you sacrifice, you will, but you must believe you are worthy of it. Not in the back of your head where you keep your locker combo and movie quotes, but in reality, where words bounce off lips. And when you feel like life is treating you unfairly, like they're happier or have it better,

know that life is peaks and valleys, not just for you but for everyone. And how you internalize that and carry on makes the difference. And when you feel lost or stuck, you are not hopeless, but in progress. Being broken down so that you can be reconstructed, stronger, better. Victory is not in hiding those struggles, but accepting them as the difference, as the reason you created the miraculous. Not because you had dreams, but because you said them. I woke up last night and I remembered my debt to you.

Being that I stand by the promises that I make, I jumped out of bed, and I walked over to my desk, I turned on a light, and I began writing. At a minimum to explain myself, but at best case scenario, to provide some reassurance. That every storm ends, that nothing is forever, and that someday, without question, I'll make you proud. See, things haven't been the easiest lately and it's funny. Sometimes things seem so intuitive. Sometimes they make so much sense. And then sometimes it feels like you open up a novel right in the middle and it's in a language you can't read.

You know, life feels more complex than it really is and I feel smaller than I really am, but don't be concerned. I've fought my way through worse. I promise you you'll be satisfied. with the result. And yeah, you might have noticed that sometimes I face the obstacle of juggling two sets of standards. You know, two definitions of success, mine in the world. What I love and what matters to me versus what will increase my status, my standing in society. And honestly, it pulls me in two different directions sometimes.

Makes me think back to years past and that discomfort of experience, you know, I've experienced, you know, standing on an empty foundation. But believing someday something meaningful would stand there. Realizing that when you put your head down and when you block out the noise, you can finally hear the most powerful voice of all your own. That's why you take L's in the short term to acquire meaning in the long term. I've found that courage before. And I'll find it again any second.

now, don't you worry? Sure. You might have seen that every once in a while I forget about life's abundance. I mean, I just do. I know it's true, but it feels sometimes like the world pushes me to forget. You know, I start comparing myself to other people, and I start thinking about what I could lose, what people might say about what could go wrong. And it's like, sure, I know I'm the gatekeeper to my own mind. I understand that. In fact, I cherish the idea. But I guess sometimes doubt catches that gatekeeper napping and slips through. I always catch him eventually, though. I've had doubts before, and really all I did was keep moving by them.

Kind of like that time I went snorkeling in Key Largo, you had to make your way through this jellyfish field to see an underwater statue. My first thought was, this is crazy. But then you move in and you realize they just exist. They don't have control or an agenda. And if you find the courage, they become meaningless. You can float right by them. So don't worry, I'll swim through, and you'll see me on the other end.

And I will catch that view. Not for Facebook or for Instagram. Because in a way, I owe it to myself and I owe it to you. I didn't make these promises to run when things got challenging. I made them because they meant something. And yeah, from the outside in, things are not perfect. I get that. I understand.

But if you just hang tight, if you just remember that I've been there before, I've climbed out, I've come back. In fact, the deeper the valley and the darker the night, The clearer the answer always becomes when I emerge. And it may be a journey, but however long it takes, I've gotten there. And I have to admit, yeah, it feels funny writing a letter to myself, but I need you now more than ever. You've always been my toughest critic, and I appreciate that, but now I need you to be my biggest fan. To remind me that life can be confusing and seemingly contradictory, uncertain, and even chaotic.

But that doesn't mean I'm not right where I need to be, right where we need to be. And if you'll just believe in me, if you'll hop along for this ride, you'll see that as sure as I'm sitting here writing to you now, I will make you proud. A little bit into North Carolina, parked the car, found a path, and went on a long hike to take in some scenery, think about life holistically, kind of contemplate where I'd go from here and why it matters, which is always funny to think about, right? The idea of having to carve out time amidst our frantic and often chaotic journey to get somewhere to, well, define where somewhere is.

But I think about that a lot. Our days consist of so much running around that I can easily forget what even my calculated decisions add up to. Why? It's a simple enough question. Perhaps one I could ask more. Why? What's with this whole get comfortable with discomfort thing? Why do I place so much emphasis on the quote unquote path less traveled?

Which is a term that one of my buddies was recently given me a hard time about using in all my speeches, right? It must mean something to me. It's got me here, but is here better than over there? After all, it's not out of the realm of possibility that I'm the one who's missing the mark. And it's okay to examine that possibility. In fact, that's why I'm here. And I bounced this around in my head as I made my way up the trail and noticed as I looked around, everything just felt perfect.

Have you ever had one of those moments where it just seems surreal? The morning was incredible. I loved the sound of the earth. Under my feet, as I took each step, the chirping of the birds. In the early morning, the sun making its way through the trees. And I thought, it's amazing that you can live 20 minutes from this feeling and just never experience it. I guess proof that a decision did not go to do nothing is still very much a decision. And in this case would have been the less desirable one.

I'm glad I went. My phone was in my backpack. and for the first time in a while, I didn't even think about it. My mind was stimulated. My senses were taking in something new, something different, something not my studio or laptop or social media analytics pages. In fact, all that stuff felt kind of trivial now that I was removed from it. And I wondered, why don't I do this more?

I thought popped into my head earlier that morning. I thought, hey, that's a cool idea. I just had to get through that initial pushback. The hesitancy of, well, what's the point? What's the desired outcome of a hike? And after all, this little jaunt is just going to distract you from your work and your progress. But at that moment, I think you have to just shut out reason for a second. You have to remind yourself that there's value, period.

Otherwise, we open the door for rationalizing. We talk ourselves out of some of life's beautiful secrets. Sometimes you have to just go. And as I made my way down this trail further and further, to feel better, I felt reassured. Like I had something that I otherwise wouldn't have had, something that's my own. And maybe that is it. Maybe that alone is the reason for everything. To collect those incredible things large and small that we might not have had. After all, isn't life just an accumulation of memories, of experiences that are spread out like a

choose-your-ending children's book? And with so much control over the out, outcome, I think that matter deserves my attention in order to acquire the good stuff. Whether it's in a different location or context or time in my life, I still learn again and again that to get that we have to leave some things behind. And that's the essence of life. You usually get out what you put in. And I think about that a lot. I think about the forks in the road I've come across, those same ones, the life-altering decisions. I guess it's only human. You know, walking away from that promising career that I spent my whole life building towards.

Every once in a while, sure, I miss the security. Leaving this city and the people that made my life what it was, it still haunts me from time to time, trading permanence and structure, for the freedom to condense my life's work into a laptop, and take it anywhere in the world, that empowerment can be lonely, right? And I guess I can't help that in the midst of those situations, the easy decision always feels like the wrong one.

I've just been pulled by the upside. I gravitate towards this grandiose version of what life could be on the mark that I hope to make. And to me, the scariest thing has always been not having the courage to see more, to explore. The phrase, what if has always been my adversary, the monster in the closet, and it's a costly one to slay. Right?

But life is both suffering and it. and infinite beauty. And it's like you have to choose where you're going to endure pain and why that matters so that you can climb the mountain that means everything to you. That makes life worth it. In other words, meaningful discomfort now

or painful regret later. And I strongly believe that life is about pursuing something meaningful. And even the triviality of a hike wants to remind me of this truth. I could be at home playing guitar, watching Netflix. Relaxing. I mean, that would have been easier. But there's only one way to catch that sunrise over the trees.

And that way is not Netflix. All those beautiful views, they require an output of energy to reach them. They come with fear of something going wrong. And in doubt that perhaps the turn you made wasn't the best one, and that's okay. But I believe that happiness to be truly fulfilled requires trade-offs. And with each step, it becomes easier and easier to understand. For the gym rat, it's the discipline and the belief, knowing that muscles break down so that they can be built up.

For the relationship to flourish, it's overcoming disagreements, accommodating the needs of that person that you love, so that they can be the last thing you see before you follow. you see before you fall asleep. For the free spirit, it's walking away from what you know in pursuit of something that excites and invigorates, even if you're not entirely sure what it means. It's about enduring one so that you can collect the other. Now, what you choose to endure and what you choose to collect is up to you, but that's what

makes life such a beautiful ride. A roller coaster taking you through lows to reach highs into darkness to see how life changing the light is when it pushes in. its way through. Little decisions that become the collage that explodes off the paper when you step back and look. That's what you get back when you make a point to see more. That's why my love affair with the trivial

and the mundane lights my path. It's not just a little thing. It's a microcosm of my everything. It's my saying yes to the opportunity that we work so hard to ignore in an effort to avoid inconvenience. But a life worth living is not always convenient. You could even argue at times, it should be inconvenient. Because the higher the climb,

the more we give of ourselves, the more precious the world looks from the top down. And the challenging times, the things we sacrifice and leave behind, they're not so much a part of the picture as the paint on your palate. That in breaking down, you can now recreate using your own ideals, metrics, and guidelines, a world that you now have the ability to transform. That's why life to me is nothing more than color, decisions, nothing more than paint, steps, nothing more than brush strokes, and life. Well, life is nothing and everything. Which, as the morning breeze reminds me, is a decision that is entirely my own. Why is it that when we look back on our lives, it's never the easy days or the simplicity.

It's not the calm that changes our reality. or makes us who we are. Don't get me wrong. Common simplicity. They're wonderful, but they're not transformative. And why would they be? Why would we change or seek to obtain more without a reason or incentive?

It's times of struggle, of turbulence. It's when life was hard that we had to rethink who we are. Reshape the way we look at the world. Because without chaos, you don't get calm. Without the storm, you don't get those crazy neon colors and golden rays it leaves as it passes by. In order to triumph in any capacity or any area of life,

there's always a sacrifice that must be made. The adversity is the fire that forges the iron. There's a saying, hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times, good times, Good times create weak men and weak men create hard times. It's a cycle. This is generally used in a sociopolitical sense, and I think in a lot of ways it applies today,

but where I've really found it useful, where I've found value in it is at the personal level. Because what I've noticed is that growth also appears to have a cyclical nature. And when we're in a rough situation or overcoming an obstacle, We have to push, we fight, we grow. Sometimes without even realizing it, we achieve a result. And by default, this transformation that in one way or another makes us something new. But then it becomes easy to level out, right?

And that's the challenge. It creates this period of stagnation. It's like we made the jump and it becomes real easy to stay there. And that's why I have found value in, when life is not providing resistance to manufacture some. Because that's the only way to grow. Progress is happiness. Victor Frankel and Mansearch for meaning,

he says, purpose is to find from struggle. If things are too calm or simple or quiet, life begins to lack meaning, and that's never a spot we want to be. Life is about the pursuit of something. You just have to figure out what that blank will be. You get to decide which mountain to climb. There's a story about a butterfly,

making its way out of a cocoon. It makes a little hole. It starts attempting to push its way out. Someone walks by, they see it struggling, and open the cocoon up to help the butterfly out, thinking that they did this great deed. But in doing so,

that butterfly has now lost its ability to use its wings to fly. Why? Because the strength that was necessary to fly would have been forged when he fought his way out. The butterfly was deprived of the very thing it needed to become something more, and that's the point. It's easy to get lost in the now and seek to eliminate everything that doesn't make the moment more comfortable, to remove that which doesn't make things easier. But whether we're talking about collectively or the complacency in our individual lives,

we have to remember that avoiding discomfort isn't the answer. When your biggest problem is Amazon taking five days to deliver or that your feelings are hurt by someone's comments or opinions on social media, you've lost track of yourself. You may be living in a world lacking the resistance necessary for growth. Maybe it's time to ask what matters. And I remember when I lived in Boston,

I'd walk around listening to podcast downtown. And I'll never forget here in Ryan Holiday differentiating between passion, in purpose. He called passion temporary, a dopamine hit. It's the excitement before the project begins, the beginning of a journey, the honeymoon phase. But passion alone falls short. And it falls short because anything worthwhile is hard. It tests us. It repeatedly presents us with those metaphorical cocoons we have to fight. We have to earn our soul. stripes, grow our wings, and if we stop at passion, there's no reason to battle on.

To take the punches, knowing that they will create for us a tomorrow full of infinite possibility, and that's where we need purpose. That's why it matters. We need something bigger to march towards, a destination that's meaningful. to remind us that those challenging times, they're not a burden. There is no poor me here. They're the fire that sharpens us. That whispers to us, not only the importance of carrying on,

but the power contained within ourselves to do so. This world, it is not stacked against you. It's never the problem, or the obstacle. No, it's the opportunity laid out at your feet. And it's in those very times when we're uncomfortable, when we're unsure, when we don't know where to draw our strength.

That we need to remember it comes within. It's an idea that is brought to life through courage, through understanding, through the trials and tribulations of life that didn't intimidate or hold you back, knowing that life has given you everything you need to blaze your trail. So don't be afraid to let it take you somewhere. There's a saying that some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.

I've always found this interesting, this idea, how the same subject, same situation, or occurrence can be interpreted so differently. It can plant the seeds for such different outcomes. Like Yashimi and Koga mentioned in their book, The Courage to be Disliked, well water is 60 degrees, and it's always 60 degrees. In the summer and the winter, but depending on what time of year, right,

the makeup of the outside world, that 60 degrees feels different. The water didn't change its circumstances did, and our thoughts are no different. It's not the world that writes the story. We do. And every second moment day is merely an interpretation. Does time tick by? Or is it driven into a state of flow? Is it transformed into something more? Was losing an indicator that, hey, maybe you're not good enough? Or is it your motivation to be better than you've ever been? Is your day an allegiance to the present or an invitation to change?

Face down tomorrow. See, the world doesn't get to tell the tale. The world is paper, it's ink, its ideas. The world is everything you need to decide how your story's going to go. How does he see the world? How does she define reality? That's the question. Because you don't need to change the world.

You need to change the way you see it. And you don't need to change who you are. You need to change the imaginary shackles you've placed around your ankles that are limiting the heights you could reach. In fact, the world, as far as I'm concerned, is an accumulation of thoughts, ideas. It's 8 billion individualized movie screens attempting to interact, to coexist together. And when you look at it like that, it's not that your mindset plays a role or it's kind of important. No, it's that it narrates the play. It's the glue that ties everything together.

What you see is what you get. And this isn't a one and done thing. It's an everyday thing. Because there's always going to be occurrences in our lives that challenge us to threaten our understanding of who we are and what we're capable of. There will always be the temptation to make the opportunity into the problem and the hero into the villain. But why forfeit that control? I remember hearing that if you find time to be grateful,

both in the morning and at night it changes your life. Not because the world transforms, but because it reinforces the perspective you need. We are lucky to be here. We're lucky to have challenges that push us forward. Lucky to have ups and downs that bring us closer to the people in our lives. We're lucky that chaos and discomfort open a door for transformation on the other side. And look, I get life isn't perfect.

And not everything can be great all the time. But I do believe that if we can bring ourselves to stop, to breathe, to even focus briefly, we can find value in any situation. What's in front of you, it exists, right? It's the well water. You can't go back in time or remake the obstacle at your feet, but you can always decide how to make that work for you. And that's a superpower. And I use that. I use it when my short-term ideas or videos or projects underperform.

I use it when people let me down. I use it when in the moment I'm either under or overwhelmed. The question, where is the win? In this spot, this situation where most would hang their heads and let the outside world rewrite the story, how can I find a way to hold mine high and maintain my own accountability? Extreme differences in life outcomes are so often prompted by such subtle realization, subtle decisions. Their reason to stop could be your reason to not only carry on, but thrive. And the best news is you don't need approval or authorization.

You don't need the stars to align or doors to open up. You just need to give yourself permission to see the sun amidst the clouds, the hope amidst the doubt. You have to remind yourself that there is always something to cling to. Always a second chance. There is always a win. All you have to do is to see it. Could it be that the answers to our most challenging questions are so small that they're brushed off as insignificant.

Then in pursuing that bulldozer we think is necessary to knock the door down, we refuse again and again the key that would simply open it. Why is our first instinct to think our next action needs to be as big or as glamorous as that intended result? Again and again my default has been to look for some brilliant monumental insight or some secret answer that would unroll like a scroll containing a treasure map But again and again I learn and I relearn that what I need, what is required, is so reasonable. It's so accessible that it almost feels like the universe has a sense of humor, right?

It's sitting back and chuckling while we run around with keys in our pockets looking for a sledgehammer to break the door down. This is kind of a funny story. So last year, I had my first year-world within live event. Evan Carmichael was one of the speakers and after the event we were talking about YouTube right he says why don't you swing by we'll look at your channel we'll see if I can offer any suggestions or pointers and uh you know I gladly accepted the offer and so I showed up later in the evening he's got his laptop open he's running all these tests right there's graphs and there's charts and comparison tables and my first question is obviously what are you doing and he says I'm testing my YouTube idols and thumbnails, and I'm thinking, interesting.

Here's the guy who makes so much content. He's got 378 million views, right? Why are you exhausting time and energy on this? So I asked him, Evan, does it really matter? I mean, if your thumbnail pictures orange or yellow, or if there's a face on the left or right side, or if it's capitalized or not, right? If it's good, people will show up and they'll watch it.

Isn't that what matters? Well, it turns out I was wrong. In fact, I couldn't be more wrong. And when you're talking about a channel with millions of impressions, making a small change in color could mean your videos are clicked 1% more, which means thousands, if not millions, more views, which means it's shared more, seen more, which means the channel grows. And that's not from him going back and recreating and reinventing the wheel. No, it's using the key he has in his pocket right now.

And that's the reason I found this so incredible, because until that moment, I'd always approached the platform with a sledgehammer, right, using our metaphor. I had this idea that, you know, I truly found to be an epiphany and changed the way I think about things, so I'd get really excited, I'd make a video about it, I'd release it out to the world, and maybe it wouldn't do so well. You know, people wouldn't watch that particular video, it would just kind of sit there, and my thought was always, all right, hey, it worked for me, must on a hit for everyone else, That's life, on to the next one.

Never did I think for a second that, hey, you don't need to recreate the wheel. You're looking for a bulldozer when you need a key. You need to slightly adjust the titling or make the thumbnail more appealing, right? And the idea is these little tweaks are sometimes all that's required. You know, we think we got to reach out and find some answer or readjust every aspect of what we're doing. And it's like, no, it's a little thing. and it's right in front of you, and it's very manageable, and it's very realistic.

And believe me, especially for people that aren't content creators, and there's a lot of you listening to this right now. I get how trivial it seems. But isn't that the point? And sure enough, within the next few months, I changed some thumbnail pictures around and two videos that were just sitting there. I got hundreds of thousands of more views,

and as I tend to do, look at the bigger picture. Well, how many times in life are you trying to find this monumental answer? No, tweak here, adjustment here, change the way you are measuring success. Then it changes your tactics. Think about productivity, right? I've been in the same boat. I want to be more productive. So how?

Well, maybe if I get better at scheduling, I'll get scheduling tools, maybe some time management apps. I know I'll do a daily checklist. That'll do it. That's what I need. But in reality, the commonality when I have productive days is they all consist of me waking up, not stressed, having time to think, reflect, plan, and moving on, and it flows into every other aspect in my day. It doesn't require me to buy some $1,000 productivity course.

Big result often requires small, manageable action. And again, the point here is that change can feel overwhelming because I think the default mechanism is to assume the next step needs to be as big as that desired result. It's like, oh, I want to climb that mountain, so I have to figure out a way to jump that high. No, that's not true. You have to take small steps many times. And where we should be looking for consistency or something within our grasp or looking for some small self-contained miracle. You know, everything feels bigger than it is.

It's an interesting part about growing up. You realize everything's not as big and intimidating and shiny and sparkly as it appears to be. We have the tools right now in real time. In fact, they're very ordinary, very unimpressive, and that's with goals. just like people. You know, I grew up seeing pictures of my grandfather, who was an Admiral in the Navy talking to American presidents and heads of state, and I'd ask them, you know, how was that? What was that like? And he'd always say, look, they'd put their pants on one leg at a time, just like I do, just like you do. Right? I think in a lot of ways, you know, we need to take

the glamour and the mystique away from the things we want and the people we aspire to be like, right? Big goals are an accumulation of little steps. And quote unquote, success. people or ordinary human beings who had the courage to take those steps. Not for attention or likes or follows, but because they cared and they respected the process enough to stick it out. And so can I and so can you. You have everything you need. Whether you're talking about creating on YouTube or putting yourself in position to conquer the day, learning or emulating those you admire,

Nothing is otherworldly for you. Sure, you'll have your strengths and your weaknesses, because we all do, but there's no magic you need to find or acquire. No bulldozer or a sledgehammer needed to lessen the gap between real and ideal. Just the understanding that the key in your pocket, the one you already have, will get you through the door. It's not a commitment to perfection, it's a commitment to remind yourself that every time you're stuck or overwhelmed or lost,

that perhaps you're looking for miracles in the clouds when the solution is simple at your feet. It's not the mountain, it's one rock, it's not the forest, it's one tree, it's not the journey, it's one step. And as time goes by, you'll find yourself moving beyond that previous reality. Beyond those looking for the home run or otherworldly answers, and beyond the narrative that you don't have what it takes because you do and you always did, always did. You simply had to commit to walking that... Sometimes when you don't know where you're going, the best thing to do is go there. A wise man once stated that an object at rest stays at rest.

And while his rationale is a little different than mine, I'm gonna borrow from his premise. Right? Because when you moot, even if you don't know where you don't know where you're, you're going, you put yourself on a collision course with something. You put into existence an entity to react to. Some call it destiny, others call it fate. I call it simply initiative. Because if your journey is hypothetical, you have nothing to celebrate nor correct. A sailboat can adjust its sales once.

it leaves the harbor, right? It can learn from and manipulate its surroundings, make sure it arrives at a destination, right? It learns and adapts along the way. But from the harbor, it speculates. It expounds upon a path that might be straighter, might be faster, might be more thought out and tied together than the crazy sailors who took off for the horizon,

but in actuality, it goes nowhere. In the real world, it is static, And I could be wrong, but I'd make the argument 10 out of 10 times that the real world is where we want our results. And my proof? Well, a journey that started with insurance and evolved into music, in songwriting, in audio production, then video production, and creative writing, then a sweet spot that kind of combined everything. A spot that didn't make its way to my inbox with an exact address. A spot that required a lot of food.

that required a lot of failure and lessons learned and disappointment, but man, more than that, so much fun. My proof is sitting down right now in real time, letting my fingers create a bridge from nothing to something of value. By the way, after sitting here staring at a blank screen for hours, it's just starting. Could I be wrong? Could I screw up?

Could I wildly miss the mark? Yes, in fact, it happens more than I'd like to admit. But here's the beauty, even if I am wrong. I now have something to work with. Something has been brought into existence. And well, that means I'm officially further along than I once was. And I've heard over and over again that there is no perfect moment, that you have to just go.

And the idea, I mean, it makes sense. It's impossible not to understand, but it's one of the, those things that until you feel it doesn't mean anything. How can you miss something you've never experienced? Well, to put it in a way that help me understand, you aren't going because what do you have to lose? You're going because everything is to be gained. The answers that you pick up along the way, like a little coins you pick up in Super Mario, right? You have to start collecting pieces of a puzzle that you can then arrange. I truly believe that one of the most important ideas

we need to hold on to moving forward as personal agency, self-belief. And I say that because I feel like I'm watching it slip. There are cases where we literally don't know or understand that it's within our own ability and control to change our lives. No person or group or letter in the mail is going to come along and green light your idea. In fact, you might not even really know what your idea means

or how it will look. And that's not only okay. It's amazing. It's the marble that you get to chisel away at to create something. See, life is not the perfect execution of a plan. Life is the courage to make your way into a world that no one really understands. or knows anything about.

And I'm not talking physics or biology or quantum mechanics. I'm talking about the real life that is emergent from those areas of study. Right? There is no perfect formula for happiness. But it will always be true that immobility or standing still is antithetical to progress. And there is plenty of data that supports the idea. Progress equals happiness. equals happiness. We want to move towards something. So that's what this is about. Here's to not being scared of what we don't know. Because somewhere in the realm of what we don't know exists

what we need most. So yeah, stop waiting for the perfect moment. And yes, begin. But not because it's an ultimatum. Do it because the things that make life fun and intriguing and exciting and ultimately worthwhile they live on the other side of your front door. So life is the sum of the decisions we make. But which decisions? How am I supposed to know? Well maybe a list will help some pros and some cons list one. Finding the courage to do something new, okay?

Cons, it could be a waste of time. Could embarrass myself, could lose money, could get criticized. Pros could be life-changing. Finding the courage to go somewhere new, okay, cons might not like where I go, might not know how to get there. Might regret going. Pros could end up being the best decision I've ever made. Finding the courage to change myself, okay, cons, might not like who I become.

I might try, fail, and feel worse than I did to begin with. It's possible. Pros, well, I might become exactly who I need to be. So looking at this, it essentially comes down to conserving the old or making the new. Maintaining or capturing the upside. But it doesn't quite delineate my problem. Okay, so different angle lists two. Finding the courage to do something new.

If I fail, is it reversible? Yes. I can fail and if I do I'll simply go back to doing that which I had been doing. All right, finding the courage to go somewhere new. If I don't like the destination, is it reversible? Yes. I can change my flights, grab a train, turn the car around, I decide where I go. Finding the courage to change myself.

If I don't like the trajectory, is it reversible? Yes, if I don't like how I'm evolving, I can stop. I can start back at the beginning. Who you are is in your control. Okay, so after two lists, the pros have immense upside and the cons. Well, they have relatively minor downside and they are reversible. Meaning if I try something I've always wanted to try, go somewhere, I've always wanted to go, become the person I've always wanted to be, things could fall apart.

But the damage is more annoying than it is life-altering. It's not forever, it's fixable. On the other side, if I hit that home run, my life changes. My world evolves. What's possible expands. And it's not that I will, it's that I could. And doesn't everything start with could? A seed of possibility?

An idea that plants roots and when merged with courage in action take shape? Of course. But most importantly, this information in front of me tells me something pretty incredible, a story with few words and infinite meaning. The key that unlocks some of the most important doors to be opened. And it's this. Most of our inaction, most of our regret, most of our almost come from cowering amidst possible outcomes that are revoked.

Versible running from potential consequences that we could wipe clean like a dry erase board and try again The downside it pales in comparison to the upside We're running from a slap on the wrist or the momentary anxiety associated with turning down the wrong street Right that's the takeaway here that's where the magic lies not in the possibility that everything could work out but the realization that if it doesn't life moves right along that contrary to the narrative so often making it's home in the back of our minds life has redos you can screw up you can reverse track and start again the only action you can't fix is the one you never take and well I'm looking at this list and I just don't

see any upside in that