Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - DISCIPLINE YOUR THOUGHTS | Best Motivational Speech | Morning Motivation

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Every obstacle is an opportunity...

It's not about what happens to you. No one escapes adversity. No one lives free of discomfort or misfortune or struggle. No, it will always be about what you do with what happens to you. In other words, it's not the event, it's the response. Not the obstacle, but the ability to navigate around it. not the wave, but the ability to ride its momentum to something greater. It is not what happens to you.

It is what you do about what happens. The famous Roman emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, you have power over your mind, not outside events. realize this and you will find strength. And I think this realization comes down to the fact that there is always a way, buried underneath it all, something powerful to leverage. But getting to the value calls for a rewiring. A change in the questions that we ask. Not how could this happen to me.

But how can I be better to be better to? tomorrow than I am now because of what happened to me. Not can I still be that person or accomplish what I set out to, but I am that person. Now how will I adjust my path so that I get there? We're operating within a world of value, limitless opportunity. The difficulty simply pushes us to that value, expedites the process. It forces us to open our eyes and see that the world works for us.

So you take, for example, the fear of starting something new. That fear, it doesn't have to be an end point or a red light indicator. Fear doesn't mean you're not qualified or prepared or equipped. It simply lets you know that you have finally acquired the courage to step out of the safety of the only world you knew and into the turbulence of growth. On to the path of something better, and where it's easy to move away from that feeling, to turn your back on the chaos and retreat to something simpler, maybe something more predictable or contained.

What if you viewed the fear as the price that we all have to pay to pull the curtain back on the best things life has to offer. Changing the question from, will I be afraid, to instead, this is important, this is meaningful. Therefore, it's inevitable that I will experience fear, but what will I do about it? How will I conduct myself amidst the fear? Will I continue forward? Those are the questions that contain the value, right? I can't keep the water from rising or the walls from caving in.

No, that's an inevitability where I'm going. The worthwhile road always has its adversity. But will I use that water to learn to swim? The walls to climb, to adapt, and scale, what will I make of this? That's the question that becomes the difference. And sure, you could stay away. You could choose not to take the path that presents the danger and the turbulence. You could attempt to contain the world around you by simply refusing to experience it.

But then, of course, you become presented with the question, why intentionally refuse to cash in a winning lottery ticket? Why diminish your gift in such a way? If it's not what you look at, it's what you see. Why see the world as an adversary? Why see yourself as less than you are? The saying goes, when you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. You'll never exceed the person you've decided yourself to be.

And yes, the world can feel intimidating. It's unknown. You in many ways can't control the characteristics that make life what it is, but you can always control you. Just like you can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails. You can't control the tides, but you can predict and plan and execute accordingly. You control you, and that is where the power is. And of course there's going to be times where that's hard to see.

and it's not your first instinct to find the value. Take, for an example, a change, a loss, the end of a relationship, the point where people tend to feel their lowest. It hurts to have something and lose it. To have what you were once so sure about challenged, what you once believed in called into question. But this doesn't have to be a referendum on you as a human being. Right? Sure, you made your mistakes.

But you have the opportunity to dwell on them or to acknowledge them and ask the question, I know what I know now, how can I be better than I've ever been in my life? How can I position myself to get more of the good and less of the bad, same idea, different context? When those walls feel like they're crumbling down, you have to have to be more. to know there is more on the other side, just beyond what the eye can see. And this isn't just an idea I play around with in my head, I make a concentrated effort to think this every time something goes wrong. When my first reaction is emotional, my first emotion is anger or frustration.

It's like take a breath, compose yourself, and start looking for the value. Because here's the truth, the world is not going to end today. There's going to be a time down the road when I look over my shoulder and right now is a distant memory. What will I have done with it? And it's the times that might have broken you that contain the greatest transformation. I like to say the greatest tragedies or the hardest times made me who I am today. The losses taught me that I had everything I needed.

The failures showed me what I'm capable. of enduring. The times I was let down taught me to depersonalize the shortcomings of others, but to simultaneously hedge against them. The times I was lost showed me we only discover or meet our potential when we leave the little day-to-day realities that we create. Why? Because we are in control. Not of the external, but the internal, and that ends up being a bridge. a bridge to a reality that means something. So when you find yourself at the base of a mountain looking up, understand that there are two ways to perceive the climb.

You can see it as the gravity pushing down on you as earth standing in your way. Or as an opportunity to ascend to a version of yourself that previously not only didn't exist but wasn't available. This is your opportunity. The same opportunity that the vast majority of the world would disregard or misinterpret that most would feel fear of and be dissuaded by. Most would live in the stories about who they aren't

and what they aren't capable of, but not you. You didn't place that mountain before you, But you sure can't extract the value from it. All you have to do is decide that you're capable and that the meaning and the value and the freedom of tomorrow means more than the discomfort of today. If you allow that for yourself, you will become truly unstoppable.

Not because the path simplified or got easier, but because the traveler trusted himself. self to walk down it.