Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - BREAK YOUR NEGATIVE THINKING | Best Motivational Speeches | Morning Inspiration

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

“Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.” - William James

You belong here. This was something that was said to the class during yoga the other day. As I've said before, yoga is something I'm really turning to is both a mental and physical approach to a lot of the injuries and imbalances I've been dealing with for a very long time. And part of that, you know, starting something new, was obviously not knowing what you're doing. It's a willingness to play the fool to be this student,

It's signing up to be, you know, at times the worst in the room. And so I hear the instructor say this line, you belong here, and then kind of repeat it again for emphasis. It hit me hard, you know. And I'll never know if this was prompted by me flailing around in the back, trying to do crow pose or she just felt like, you know, it needed to be expressed in the moment. I'm not sure, but what I do know is that it was exactly what I needed to hear.

And in fact, it's what I've needed to hear throughout many stages of my life, which is why I think it hits so hard. Now, I want to unpack it for a second. When I moved to Massachusetts, after spending the vast majority of my childhood in the Los Angeles area, I used to joke around with my friends back in L.A.

I'm like, this is so different that it feels like a culture shock, right? It seems so little of the world. Why do these guys not where Dickies are spiked their hair? Everyone has cargo shorts and new balances. What's happening here, right? You know, but all jokes aside, when you're a freshman in high school, that's a big deal. The differences were many.

And it took a while, you know, but I acclimated. I made friends. I did the thing. But persistently, in the back of my head, I felt like an outsider making my home somewhere that wasn't really mine. Like, I didn't really belong there. Then came college. I went to a small private school where most of the students I knew came from prep schools, and I had somewhat of a more rigorous academic background than I did.

And I decided to be a political science major, basically living in my professor's offices during their hours when they would spend extra time helping me write, showing me how to organize my thoughts and put together analytical papers. It was a long and stressful learning curve. And just like before, I figured it out, did fine academically. But again, never really felt like I belonged there. There were some of the same sentiments with, you know, walking on to the rowing team

where many of the recruits had been doing in all their lives. Same thing in the corporate world. Felt a little out of place. It was a feeling that never prevented me from starting. You know, I'd dive in, I'd figure it out. But there was always this lingering fish out of water field. that I couldn't shake. I'm kind of a tangent, but this is, you know,

one of the funniest moments for me looking back. In my early 20s, I was at an interview at some insurance company in Boston, and the guy interviewing me is sitting on one end of a desk, I'm at the other. He's holding a physical copy of my resume and cover letter, not saying a word, just kind of scanning them up and down. Then he slowly kind of drops them on the desk

and goes, so Eddie, tell me more, about and pauses. Looks back down at my cover letter, back up at me, back down at my cover letter. Then he traces the first line of the cover letter, quoting it as his finger moves across the paper. He goes, tell me more about how, quote, your lifelong dream is to become a data analyst.

And I was like, oh my God, this guy sees right through me, Eddie, what are you doing, man? Like, this ain't it, you know? And I crack myself up every time. my mind goes back there. It's the epitome of square peg round hole, and I would consistently find myself in that position. But, you know, I digress. The point is, me feeling like I'm on the outside looking in has been somewhat of a theme, even in the areas of my life where I was finding success. Like, I couldn't totally be there. Like, find the things that are important to me

and commit to them fully. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't still. exist today. I've worked like a madman for 10 years to build this company and this brand, and certainly I've seen some progress. In this industry, I've gotten to surround myself with some incredible people, and every time I walk into a room with folks that I've looked up to for years, I'm grateful, which is good, but sometimes too grateful, which is my entire powerful. Which is my entire point, right? At some point, you have to transform from looking up to, into being one of, to give yourself permission to belong. And yes, you need to do the work, and yes, confidence is earned. But if you don't give yourself permission to do a thing, not kind of or sort of, but to

fully, with all your heart and soul, be that thing, I think. I think. you'll always be leaving part of yourself on the shelf. It feels like to me a lingering defense mechanism. You can't be great if you're not all in. And part of growth has been reflecting and asking, hey, you say you're all in, but are you? Are you immersed? And that's what I want. I think to some extent that's what we all want, to not just do it, but be it. In a million years, I don't think my yoga teacher would expect it or words prompted a 10-minute rant, starting with my childhood on the West Coast, but man, did that comment create a lightbulb moment for me?

It's set the stage for such a beautiful epiphany. It's like you've been doing the thing for 10 years. You've grown in so many areas, but have you given yourself permission to become what you're seeking? Not kind of, but pour yourself into it. It's who you are, the environment, the people, the variables, the ups, and the downs, all of it is who you are. Just imagine what that freedom would allow.

Go be the thing. More, more, more, fully all you have to give. So yoga class this morning showed up. Now, even though I suck, even though I'm learning, decided, hey, little symbolism here. No more hiding in the back of the room. Step into those knee. on green lights, move towards the front.

You no longer do things, even the little things, to simply scrape by or exist. Do it to be it. If you're going to do anything, do it to be it. You belong here. Help me realize what being it really is. That maybe I'd let my definition slip. Maybe my understanding wasn't wide or all.

all encompassing enough. And yeah, there's a line we need to walk, no question, we must be on the path to acquiring competency in something before we can make it our own. But the beauty of podcasts and audible and books, all our media outlets, it's that other people's growth and understanding can fast track our own. Learn from this experience. Life is too short to always feel like you are on the outside. looking in, it just is.

If you earned a chair at the table, be at the table. If you were let into the room, work the room. If you're spending time and energy doing something, be that thing. Don't deprive yourself of that precious alignment because it's such a beautiful thing when we allow ourselves to feel it and obtain it. But like so many things, it starts with you giving you permission. It starts with a simple, understanding. You may be new, you may be struggling. Unsure. You might have a hell of a mountain to climb,

a journey to travel. You might have extra work to do. You might have to add some things and cut away others. You might have to ask yourself the tough questions and accept the difficult answers. but you do, my friend, belong here. We have so much to let go of. To dismiss. Ideas, narratives. They're not ours. Not in our best interest anyway.

Yet we carry them around. Carry them around like we're perpetually tied. to the lies they espouse, the fiction they propagate. We have to let go. Before we add a single thing, before we adopt another way, it all has to go. I don't remember where I've seen it, but I know I have. Maybe cartoons when I was younger, but I'm imagining that character that is taking off their jacket or shirt, and there's always another one underneath it.

And they're like confused, frantically pulling off shirts and more and more keep emerging. They had no idea how many layers they were carrying around with them. And funny enough, 20 years later, I'd be thinking that we are no different. There are so many layers and so many of them should be gone, should be left, should be confined to the dust bin of history. Those boundaries in your life, who set them? Who said this is as far as you can go? Who put that little fence around your world and ask that you stay obediently confined to its borders?

Who said that what you have is all there is? Who said upside is too dangerous? Who said life is about predictability and routine, so stop asking questions? No one. No one said those things. So hey, there's a start. Empty your pockets of the boundaries that are making life heavy. What about yesterday?

Might as well take off that backpack, tip it upside down and pour out the yesterday. You made mistakes yesterday. Ah, but that's not today. You didn't like certain aspects of who you were yesterday. That's not today either. Your friends, maybe family, maybe others in your life, knew you to be someone. Someone you don't think you are or someone you wish you weren't. Well, more breaking news, that was yesterday.

Did you even realize you're still carrying around who you were yesterday on your back? Your next step has a lot to do with now and very little to do with yesterday. So embrace and wave goodbye to those calendar pages you've already turned. That's the best move for everyone. Oh, and those concessions you make, you didn't think I'd forget those. You can't forget those. Unshackle them from your ankle. Those things you say, eh, you're not ideal, but it's easier to live a lesser life with you

in it than it is to go through the trouble of pushing you away. the people that darken your light, the actions that you know are not you, the time exhausted living for someone else, gone, gone, and gone, it has to go. And look, we all know life is tricky. It's hard to walk away from things so ingrained into our daily lives for so long. But let's play a game. Let's pretend it was. Pretend life was that simple. Things I need to leave behind. A. B and C, well that's definitely simple. Perhaps not easy but simple and now through this simplified lens you have a target aim for something to chip away at you have your block of marble. Now comes the process of chiseling a little bit at a time and that's the goal

because to not carry these things ends up meaning everything space no longer occupied by the wrong things, creates space for the right things. Knocking down what doesn't belong creates a platform to build what does. So onward, we must go, not falling into the trap of pointing at externalities, blaming the world for our confinement. But instead understanding that we have been, perhaps without even realizing it, taking our confinement with us. in our pockets, on our back, trailing behind our every step, a subtle resistance.

And when it goes, we can finally grow. We can become more. So what can you do now to live a life that's more meaningful, that's more true to yourself? Well, you can start by doing less of what weighs you down. There's a saying that just because you've spent a long time making a mistake doesn't mean you need to continue making it. There's an incredible advantage in life for those who can separate past and future.

Who can recognize sunk costs and walk away, walk away from the past, move on to new things. But here's the challenge. Right? Like so many things our instinct is to preserve. It's, yeah, but I've invested so many years. I've spent X amount of dollars and maybe I don't like where I'm at, but look how long it's taken me to get here. Well, here's the reality.

That time is gone. That money is not coming back no matter what you do or what direction you take from here on out. There's no reason to think you have to maintain the same trajectory or hold on to a specific identity or pattern of behavior yesterday isn't the focal point here. The goal is simpler. What matters now and how will you get there now? You've grown, you've evolved, you've changed, and your targets have shifted, so why shouldn't you?

The idea of sunk cost is so important because it's essentially realizing that you're not indebted to the resources you've spent or exhausted. There's no need to be a slave to previous decisions that you've made. No, just chalk it up as an integral step in your learning process, an aspect of growth, and move forward to what matters, to what you care about. If that seems obvious, I challenge you to think about the decisions you've made over the last year, and I guarantee you you've let factors affect your decision-making that are irrelevant to your goals. Because we feel this camaraderie with yesterday, like there's a debt to be paid, but man, life is too short to run in place. If it's not pushing you forward, drop it.

If it's not what you need, forget it. In other words, don't be one of those people that wakes up and makes the same mistake every single day because you've spent a long time making it. See, reality only exists in your head. And that's why it's beautiful. You can unlock the cell door and walk out. Don't lose sight of the greatest gift you have. The new beginning that lives in every second where you can take a turn you've never taken before.

Remove the mask and play a role you've never played. Let that sense of excitement pull you to new things. Let go of what you can't. and pursue what you can. Forget the time spent. Think of now. Where can you invest now? Your surroundings didn't magically arrive.

You chose them. And you can just as easily take that wheel and leave. Simple formula. What is best for you and how do you get there? Not where you feel obligated to be or expected to be or pressure to be. Where do you need to be? Everything else is... Everything else is noise.

Everything else is a rope, keeping your ship on shore, and you are not confined to that harbor for yesterday's destination. You're built to chase the horizon, follow your curiosity into the sunset. You don't make decisions based on yesterday's story. You sculpt it with tomorrow's possibility. What if I fall? The man asks. Looking nervously over the edge.

over the edge. Oh, but my friend, a voice responds back. What if you fly? A little quote heard not too long ago demonstrating our proclivity to maintain, to preserve, to protect, to move away altogether from the risk for fear that we might lose our grip on the status quo. Completely forgetting to think about what light, could become if things worked out. Forgetting that life is a game of trade-offs. And to fixate on never losing what you have means forfeiting the possibility. It is that simple.

To stay is a refusal to go. We need to constantly reinforce the idea, the truth, that what we aren't doing is a decision. And while we place our energy and efforts on minimizing the falling and the failure, someone else is stepping into it. They're capitalizing on it. Falling again and again and again until they can fly. Because the danger is not in falling.

It's in never taking to the sky. It's becoming only a fraction of the person you are capable of becoming with the required sacrifice and courage. It's an understanding that we're not wrong for initially thinking small, playing to not lose, thinking only to protect, protect, protect. That's how human beings arrive out of the factory, right? Stock. And you can think millennia of evolution for that.

You're not weak for being scared. You're not less than for shaking when you stand face to face with the adversity of life. Again, this is what being human is. is. But what we also possess is the ability to understand these default limitations and transform them. To understand being scared of the world around us was incredibly valuable forever ago, right? When we roamed around hunting and gathering, it made sense not to inquire further when there was a shaking in the bushes. It made sense not to rashly run into the cave. It made sense to fear deeply the prospect of being abandoned by your small tribe that was the only

reassurance separating you from the vast unknown lurking in the darkness, the wilderness. But anyone listening to this today must also understand that these biological drivers are outdated. The lions in the bushes are no more. The caves are generally metaphorical and one's quote unquote tribe should be carefully and methodically chosen. Civilization provides that cushion, and what a luxury. So when life pushes back, and it will, and you feel like you're on that ledge,

you will want to turn back. Not because you're weak, but because you've forgotten that the voice in your head screaming in fear can't see the upside. It's blind to the possibility, It only sees downside. It only says, hey, this might bring about discomfort.

There are things out there you don't know, foreign entities, possibly adversaries. Why would you even contemplate taking that leap? And that's where you step in and provide reassurance. Yeah, things could go wrong. But the wrong steps are, one, usually reversible, and two, provide the wisdom that I need. It gives you a chance to inject into the conversation that if things go right, your life changes. That this could be the beginning.

And that we don't live until the excitement about what life can become if things work out is greater than the fear of what life would regress into if they didn't. Without upside, there's no hope. Without hope, there is no purpose. And as Victor Frankel has said, life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose. We're all operating within the same parameters, same playing field. But the difference is we have different soundtracks, interpretations, and narratives playing behind our eyes. He may see the world collapsing and spend the rest of his life mourning what is gone,

While she may see this same devastation and bring herself to wonder, well, what can I build in its place? What can arise from the wreckage? Same circumstance, different storyline, different result. I often cringe when I hear mindset, misinterpreted as this magical thing that becomes reality the second you close your eyes and make a wish. The law of attraction, as far as I'm concerned, is not. not magic. I think this whole song and dance is much simpler than that. We act in accordance to the things we believe. And if you believe you're not good enough, if you believe you're not worthy, if you believe more is out of the question, what incentive do you have to change?

None. It's much easier to default to hating the world when that's your perspective. But when you can find the discipline even for a moment to pause and ask, well, what if things got better? What if my life could be more? That spark has suddenly given you a reason to take another step forward. It's made an argument as to why that discomfort just might be worth it. The magic isn't that you wished for it, and so it was. The magic is that you saw it as a possibility, and in doing so, incentivize yourself to move towards that outcome. It's hard to gravitate towards something that has not yet been built.

It's hard to stand with conviction in defense of a life that hasn't yet materialized. But that, my friends, is the beauty and mystery of life. You don't get what you want until you start living like you already. have it, like you can touch it, taste it, like it's real. So when the journey feels impossible, know that you are on the right track. You're competing against some very formidable adversaries, your very DNA, you're competing against the people around you that don't understand, you're competing against the obstacles that make you question whether that conjured up castle in the air existing only in your head could ever come to fruition.

That is some resistance. But as you step forward into the haze, your single solitary acts of courage will begin to tell a story, to take shape. The once make-believe will become tangible. You'll see the pieces coming together and you'll see yourself as the one capable of of assembling them, an architect of sorts, a designer, one with courage and self-belief, the truth is you will never completely mitigate fear. That will be with you forever. It's par for the course.

You just need to remember that the power of purpose, of meaning, the value of upside and opportunity is greater than that nagging voice of fear. It's not about closing your eyes to who you are or where you've been. There's beauty and all that. It's merely about opening them to all you can become. The saying goes, sometimes success is simply hanging on when others would be letting go. And that's it, holding on. I've spent a lot of time focusing on what I need to do.

worrying about what must happen in order to bridge the gap. But there comes a point where the difference comes down to what you won't do, what I refuse to do, where the true victory will be not in saying yes but in saying no. Simply standing tall when the world demands I bow down, success will be predicated upon where I build. and defend my walls, refusing to be intimidated by the road ahead.

I've actually come face to face with this adversary before. In fact, I meet him almost every day. And not on accident. I hunt him despite his strength. I pursue him, even though he has the potential to harm. I do this again and again. Now certainly sometimes amidst the turbulence, I lose myself. Forget.

Maybe ask myself why. What a strange dotted line to sign, right? Why volunteer to fight this battle? The questions will bounce around in my head momentarily. But ultimately, I remember why. I sign up to face this demon because if I can beat him, I can beat anyone. In fact, if I can learn to consistently show up and prevail here, the rest of the world becomes a lot less intimidating. Little pawns on my chestboard, if I prevail here, I become the type of person who prevails, period.

There's power in that. You seek out the monster to destroy the monster. And in doing so, reminds yourself that destroying monsters is what you do. Life is full of them. In fact, we can't help but come into contact with them as we ascend to greater things. But those moments end up being much bigger than we may have initially expected. It's during these confrontations. that we map out our understanding of the world,

it's here we decide which rules govern our existence. See, when we seek out, confront, and defeat our monsters, two things happen. We show ourselves, one, that we can, and two, that it's who we are. So, you finish the dance with your demons. Conquer them, reach your finish line, take off those running shoes decompress and that's that.

So you think. But life says, no, not so fast. It says just because you're not running or in self-initiated combat with the monsters of your choosing doesn't mean they go away. It doesn't mean life is going to be smooth sailing. No, sorry, this world is tough. It's ups and its downs.

And those who successfully navigate its turbulence must be capable of handling that. And so the question inevitably becomes, are you? Are you capable of handling that? And there might be a world where you're unsure, but in this world, you've seen too much. You've earned your confidence. There was nothing trivial about all those steps you've taken, all those footprints in the sand footsteps on the pavement. You weren't learning to win a race.

You were learning to win at life. You were teaching yourself that context aside, things you don't love will from time to time be dropped in front of you. And when the inclination is to run or retreat, you won't be lured in by fears false promises. Temporary discomforts. Because the world has been dropped in front of you before and you found your way through it. When life feels like it's collapsing in on you, the walls crumbling down. The instinct is to let all the destruction impact yourself work.

to see it as an indictment or referendum on you as a person. But no, you've felt the walls crumbling before, and all you did was run harder. When it hurt, you rose. When you were tired, you found more. Your suffering mile after mile was not an indication that you weren't enough. It was merely an invitation to be better. After all, that's how you defeated those monsters time and time again.

So here's all those monsters we will face in life. The ones we seek out and the ones we don't. The ones we plan for and the unexpected, they're all the same. They all have the same vulnerability, same kryptonite, your mind. And your exposure time and time again to the same. self-induced depths of hell has made you invincible. The world only stops people who know no better, who haven't seen themselves brush up against the demons

who stand guard protecting those coveted finish lines, but you have. And where many bow down and declare their discomfort a catastrophe, you smile to yourself and call it just another Tuesday. Tuesday. It's been said that humans always follow through on who they believe themselves to be. Well, you have made yourself in your mind a slayer of dragons, conqueror of worlds, and that's why those steps matter. That's why all this matters. So next time you go hunting for that overly ambitious adversary of yours, and you find yourself faced at,

face with him, tired, weak, maybe even temporarily unsure, remind yourself why you're here. Remind yourself that each step forward is a proclamation to the world, that it's not about the here and now, it's about life. It's about defining who you are and ripping apart the world's limitations one by one. If you move forward here, you move forward. You move forward anywhere. If you stand tall now, you bow to no one. And when the time comes, life hands you its problems and its obstacles, you'll stack them up

and stand upon them. And so it's into the darkness of night. The chaos of battle you go, because that is... and always will be who you are. There's a saying that what you water is ultimately what grows. That where you place your attention ends up guiding your feelings, your perception, your actions, and your life. Focus becomes identity. And change comes from bringing awareness to what we're focusing on.

I remember when this light ball went off for me. Like so many epiphanies, you know, what happened during a difficult kind of a trying time. It wasn't where I wanted to be. And I remember, you know, sitting down and asking myself, you know, dude, are you on your own team here? Are you helping yourself? Using the metaphor, the question was, am I watering the weeds in my life or the flowers? And by the weeds, I mean, am I allocating energy to thoughts that are detrimental to what I want? Am I keeping myself in places I don't want to be and in relationships that are counterproductive?

Am I thinking about what can go wrong instead of all that can go right? Or am I watering the flowers, the positive, highlighting the possibility, the things I'm appreciative for, the seeds, the potential that can grow a mile high? See, I've always known the value in choosing to see the possibility. But the million dollar question is, how do you remain aware? Because that's the thing about weeds, they're sneaky, they'll take control of your life without letting you know they're doing it. So I'm thinking this through and it dawns on me, this is not complex. This is simple. It's one identifying where you want to be and two, analyzing your actions based on those priorities, right?

That's it. And so for every pillar of my life, health, relationships, career, finances, I made two dots. one for where I am and one for where I want to be. Everything in the middle is life. The ups, the downs, the joys, the sorrow. Everything in between is the path, the line. And it's simple. You start on point A, knowing that you can always get to point B.

That what you want exists. It's there. It's available. And your attention. All of your energy should be allocated to the, thoughts that reinforce that true that's your path that's what you believe that's what's important and it's going to happen anything beyond or outside that line anything that tells you you're not good enough anything that accepts not achieving that priority suggests it won't work out

that is where the weeds live that is wasted space why exhaust that energy right to think you know i'm not good enough to get this promotion how does that help you get to your point B. It doesn't. Eliminate that thought, right? Point B always exists. Just that notion pushes a lot of things to the side. You have to be good enough. You just need improvement. Maybe it's enhanced skills. Maybe it's more effort. Maybe it's changed approach. But tackling these things will water the flowers. It moves you along the path. And progress is happiness. Right? For me, health is a big thing. I run all the time. But I'd like to be more fit. I'd like to be more fit. I'd like to eat healthier, there's room for improvement, and I know it's possible, because that is

my point B. I know that saying I don't have time, or I don't have the right body type, or genes, or trying to convince myself that fast food, just this once will be okay. No, all of that stuff is watering weeds. It exists outside my path. My time should be spent realizing how incredible the human body is, taking care of it, pushing it, being proud of it, taking accountability for it. That's me. I only get one of these things. Even if it's just a little at a time, that's the beauty. Simply existing on a path and revolving around your ideals, your vision, your priorities brings about joy. Negativity, it truly is a learned thing. It's manufactured. All there are in life are circumstances, circumstances that are neither positive nor negative, just pieces. And you decide what to do with them.

Do you focus on the negative? You can. But that won't put you in a position to change your circumstances or bring about happiness. When you decide to see the opportunity, you free yourself from the shackles of fate, because destiny never put you in the situation you did. But guess what? You can take yourself out of it. A field of sunflowers grew one root, one stem, one pedal at a time. The same field that was at one point, nothing more than dirt and weeds.

It was always possible and so is your ideal life. You just need to water the things that matter. One of my favorite quotes is sometimes success is simply hanging on when others would be letting go. The reason is that it reminds me how frequently the advantage is in not stopping. It's in consistency. It's in showing up. When I run particularly long distances, almost like clockwork I can break it down to feeling good at the beginning, usually a little rough stretch in the middle, and then somewhere on the second half,

I catch a second wind or a second blast of energy. The question just becomes when? Will you hang in long enough to capture it? Because you don't know when it might be, where it will show up, you know when you'll find that nice rhythm again that makes the sport so enjoyable to me. And when I say, you know, you can pull an infinite amount of life lessons from running, this is one of them. A depiction of trusting that the road ahead has everything you need to cross your finish line. Even when the short-term chaos is all you can see and feel, even when it's hard to look up and imagine. Right? Because it's easier said than done when you're tired and worn down to continue on, right, when you're in the trenches.

There's an uncertainty to the road ahead, but each footstep is a shot on target. Each step forward is saying, I'm worn down, but I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. And life can present an almost eerily similar narrative, right, whether personally you're at a low point, whether you've been working and working and working and haven't seen the result you're looking for, whether you're uncomfortable and starting to wonder whether this reward is really worth the high price tag. You need to remember that second wind, that second blast of energy, just enough momentum to ease your worry and recalibrate your journey, it's there.

It's waiting. But you know the rules of life. It won't come to you. You must go to it. Through the storm into the night beyond the comforts of home, most sadly don't arrive. Not because they couldn't, but because they ultimately let go. They looked too far down the road at the distance to be traveled and forgot that their only job was to hold on. Through the doubt, the pain, the worry, no miracle, just a willingness to fight each battle as it presented it.

to let time stack up, to let the distance over your shoulder accumulate. See, the thing about stopping is that you never know when that much-needed second wind will arrive. There's a saying that many of life's failures had no clue how close they were to success when they gave up. When they turned around. Now, I'm not suggesting the road will be perfect, or that it won't come with its adversity, mistakes, and lessons. But what we always have control over is the ability to push forward until we finally come face to face with that which we so desperately needed. It's there. I could say it a million times and it wouldn't be enough. The pieces exist. Will you hang in long

enough to collect them. When the road is intimidating, will you hold on? When you run into those moments of self-doubt, will you hold on? When you feel small, navigating the ups and downs of life, will you hold on? Because if the answer is yes, you'll find yourself crossing some finish lines that will blow your mind. You'll get from life that which most can only dream of. And again, not because of the miraculous, but because you knew that the second wind was coming, you knew it would be there for you so long as you kept moving forward. Holding on when most would be letting go. The other day, I went to check out an open mic, and basically people sign up to share their short stories, their poetry, stuff like that.

And I'm sitting there, soaking it all in, enjoying each one as they went up on stage. And eventually this girl makes her way up. The first thing she does is she tells the room, hey, I've never done this before, but I've always wanted to, so here I am. She takes out her phone and begins reading some of her poems. And pretty quickly, two things stuck out to me. One is she was brilliant. It's just so incredibly talented that I'm thinking,

man, if she keeps doing this, she's going to find herself in some crazy places, she's really going to make an impact. That was the first thing. And the second, as I sat there and watched, was that I noticed that her hands were visibly shaking. I was pretty close to this stage. And I could see this happening to the point where

she had to place one on top of the other, right, to keep the hand that was holding her phone from bouncing around while she read. That's how visibly nervous she was. And immediately my mind went down this road, reflecting back on the moments I've had just like that, because, man, I've been there, where you're both determined and terrified at the same time,

but somehow the desire to try outweighs the fear just enough for you to find yourself in that exact situation. Just enough. that you step into a foreign world, still wondering whether you made the right move, you know, every step of the way from the car, the building, onto this stage, until you hit the point where, okay, well, now you can't turn back.

Now you're here, you can't leave. And the thing is, and this is what was so beautiful to me, she was never forced to do this at gunpoint. No one made her step into that, It was self-created. She could have stayed home. She could have closed her journal or the notes app on her phone, and that would have been the end of that. But no, not today.

Today, one yes would lead to another. Would lead to another and another. And despite the nerves, the sweaty palms and shaky hands, she would open a new chapter in the story of her life. proved to herself that she's bolder than she thought she was just a few hours ago. That there's upside when you confront those unknowns in life. And as I sat and watched, I was so incredibly moved, so proud, so impressed. Partly because I know that to many of the people in that room,

it might not have looked like much. You know, it's like, okay, great, round of applause for the new artist or poet. welcome. But I knew the gravity of the moment. I understood how big it truly was. And regardless of what words came out of her mouth or how well they were assembled, that night was not about the performance. No, it was about new beginnings. It was about outstretched wings, opening one's to the learned helplessness and pinpointing the opportunity that was simply waiting for that first step to occur.

And see, that's what I want to emphasize. That's what I believe every single one of us needs to understand, to fully get the biggest moves we make in life. Well, it's easy to convince ourselves that they aren't necessary or worth it. The things that transform us hide themselves. A lot of the time they don't feel urgent. They aren't life or death decisions.

They can be the stages we never step on. The people we never talk to, the chances we never take. Because, well, what happens if we simply stay right where we are? Say thank you, but no thank you to those fleeting opportunities. Nothing. Nothing happens. more of the same and realistically nothing is far less scary than all that other stuff. We don't fear nothingness.

We don't intrinsically fear more of the same. No, we fear stepping onto the stage. We fear vulnerability. We fear messing up, looking stupid, being judged. And yeah, when you do nothing, you get to skip all that. Avoid all that discomfort and that potential pain. But you also miss the feeling of victory. Of closing your eyes at night knowing how badly you wanted to just let that ship sail,

how terrified you were about what could go wrong, but you did it anyway. You get to feel you have earned the rush of stepping into a chaotic world. And even if temporarily you tamed it. That's what life is about. Always remember that we have a natural proclivity to avoid pain, not to pursue the things that make us feel alive. Deep down in our DNA, there exist instructions, instructions to run away from the things that could hurt us, embarrass us.

Our minds will race, our bodies will kick and scream, our hands will shake, that's just the way it goes. And so we prove to ourselves that it's all conquerable, that reality can be relearned. It's a layer of resistance that has to be faced and then dismantled. Why was I so moved that night? Because I got to watch in real time someone dismantling that fear on their way to something incredible. It's courage. Stepping into the arena, not for the people next to you or anything.

anyone else, but for you. Because you know there's more. You know that where you are pales in comparison to where you can be. I'm definitely one to look back from time to time and reflect, and I'll tell you what, I'm incredibly thankful for the hard times that shaped me, the challenges that were forced upon me and made me who I am. But beyond that, and perhaps even more so, that, that's a lot. The times I stepped out on my own accord, terrified, and manufactured change. The times that the fear of staying the same eclipsed the fear of failure. The times I could have stayed home, woken up the next morning and lost nothing, but instead saw what there was to be gained and threw myself into that metaphorical fire so that confidence could be forged.

and new chapters could be written. Let's all remember how out of focus the present moment looks. Remember how inclined we are to look at life through a lens of scarcity. We are trying to avoid, avoid, avoid. But if you can even briefly find the strength to step back and ask, what is there to be gained? You see that not going is the real danger. And those stages that seem arbitrary, that seem like optional, stops along the way,

while they're just as imperative as the air you breathe. They are not some things. They are everything. We all hit a point where we look back on the roads we traveled and see the culmination of footsteps that have come to constitute our lives. And we want that moment to feel full. Like no stone was left unturned, like we put it all on the line. So will you step onto this stage of life?

Stand your ground as the curtain opens, read your poems to a foreign audience. Will you share your voice even though it trembles? Because if you do, you're giving yourself permission to truly live, to feel. Look, we're not here for a long time. This is a very short ride. So why not give as much of yourself to the world for as long as you possibly can? Why not step out knowing that the difference between nothing and everything is what you do with shaky hands?