Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - DO IT FOR YOU | Powerful Motivational Speech About Life

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” - Leo Tolstoy This episode ponders the question, "What is truly keeping me from living the life I most want to live?"

There's a quote attributed to Seneca that states no man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity, for he is not permitted to prove himself. Meaning it's in pursuing the difficult thing that we obtain meaning, recognition that we prove ourselves, but prove ourselves to whom. This is the same Seneca who famously stated that we suffer more an imaginative, imagination than we do in reality, that he is most powerful who has power over himself. And that's one of the beautiful things about stoicism. It makes us ask a very simple, but often overlooked question, who's really the adversary here? Who's the opposition we're dealing

with as we fight our battles? What is it that must be transformed? Is it the outside world? or the way our eyes view the outside world. What's really holding us back? The circumstances? Or our own personal thoughts about the circumstances? And I think this is where we misunderstand the challenges before us. I want to delve into this power of perspective to explain that we are the gatekeepers

between ourselves and our ideal lives. And very often we do a good job of ensuring that gate stays closed. We sabotage our own goals, our own dreams, our own happiness, while simultaneously pointing the finger at a million externalities. See, when we look at the difficulties of life, and there's no doubt that life can be a very difficult thing, it's easy to look at the world as this binary playing field. me versus the world.

And in fact, we often visualize the world as the enemy pushing back against us, as if its motives were counter to ours. So many of these narratives, these stories, they actually say nothing about the outside world. And when we look deeper, it becomes apparent that they actually say a whole lot more about us. It's the one viewing that gets to decipher what the circumstance means. And so all narratives are reflections of the observers. Jim Rohn used to tell a story about two brothers who had an alcoholic father.

He'd come home drunk, he'd abuse his sons. They had a terrible childhood. And as they each grew up and had families of their own, their paths. kind of diverged, right? One became abusive, and the other was kind and loving and caring. And when confronted, the now abusive brother stated, well, look, how can you blame me? Don't you see how I was raised? But the kind, loving, and caring brother stated, of course I'm like this. I could never put my family through what I went through as a child. Same circumstances, different lenses, interpretations, which means different real world result.

And the idea here is to emphasize how one of the most important abilities a human being possesses is the ability to interpret the world around him. I think of us as subjects navigating a world of objects, as though the things around us don't have meaning until we place meaning upon them. that's what humans do create narratives out of objects and that often overlooked

seemingly insignificant ability places a lot of power in our hands very rarely is it what we see it's what we think and what we do about what we see you ever hang out with people that just tend to be

happy, upbeat, positive energy. I have a very good friend like that where his first inclination is always to find the positive. In moments where I've sort of trained myself to pause, take a second, sift through the emotion, uncover the value in a tough situation, refocus, and take a strategic step forward. I look over at him and he's already arrived there. He's been there for three minutes, right? Eliminated the negativity. It's his first. first instinct. He's the metaphorical kid hopping around in puddles, whistling at the top of his lungs, while everyone else is hiding out from the rain, or at least trying to find the courage to run out onto the street with. Then there are people who seem to always find the negative. It doesn't really

matter what this situation is. Happiness is fleeting, only to reveal the negativity that never seems to go away, right? The kind of person that if they won the lottery, their first thought might be, oh no, but what if I lose it all? Both examples are people projecting themselves onto the world around them. The same way that smoke covers and consumes an entire room. It's not the room that's the culprit. Here's another example from Jim Rone, since we're on a Jim Rone Kick. He's making a similar point, and this is all from a collection of speeches. He has on Audible comparing humans to oranges, which is probably not a comparison you've made. made recently, but he said there's consistency to an orange and that it can be filled with one thing.

When you squeeze an orange, orange juice is coming out. Period. It will never be apple juice or grapefood juice. It will only emit what it has inside, which is orange juice. And while here's the connection, When life pressures us, challenges us, or metaphorically squeezes us, we only emit the emotions that are contained and available, that are alive and well within us. If there is no jealousy contained in our thinking, we're not going to project jealousy out into the world. If there is no hatred within us, we will not project hatred onto others. Why is that powerful? It's powerful. Because again, it's one of the most important things you can do.

Certainly one of the most important things I've learned to do is take that finger pointing blame at the outside world, slowly turn it around and point it back at myself. And ask, what thoughts, what emotions, what ideas am I letting live inside my head that's altering the narrative, the story I'm telling about myself and the world that I live in. And while one might think, well, that's uncomfortable, that's unfair, a little extreme, why should I point at myself? It's not my fault. I would challenge you, at least for the sake of the next few minutes,

to see such a change as empowering, as your advantage. As the bridge from where you are to where you want to be, see, if you always, have feelings of, let's say, jealousy around a particular person, that feeling in your stomach like, oh, they have it all, they're ahead. They live how I want to live. They're this and that, and I kind of hate them for it. You're naively giving the external world the power. You're saying, I feel the way I do because of that out there.

Some cosmic injustice, you are powerless because you're neglecting your personal agency as a factor. But when you turn that finger around and say, I only feel this way because I'm allowing myself to, then you can ask the question. So many never think to ask. Why? Why do I feel this way? Which lights a path to how can I fix it? See, the key to a better life is realizing you don't have to be in the passenger seat.

pointing at and blaming the driver, complaining about the road being taken, no, you can get into the driver's seat. You can take the wheel, you can take control, inherit responsibility. And there's more at stake, there's greater vulnerability. But the upside is unfathomable. And I find myself thinking all the time, man, people are blaming the wrong things. They're shifting blame to the wrong adversaries. The real villain here is not the driver or the road or the weather. The real villain is the voice in your head pleading with you not to take the wheel.

Pleading with you to ride shotgun and complain as the world passes you by. And of course it makes sense to qualify that with the inevitability that there are some things placed upon us that are just bigger than us that we can't control. And you can make a list however long you want to, natural disasters, decisions, and actions of others, health problems. We don't often get to choose the landscape. So as the Stoics would say, understand that. Understand what you can't control and what you can.

Because the beauty is that you can control how you navigate that landscape, and that is power. That is what makes the difference. See the two brothers, I mentioned a few moments earlier, same landscape. Different navigational tactics. Different view of what it all meant. One took the wheel and one did not. So that's Seneca quote. That states, no man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity, for he is not permitted to prove himself. Well, it's perfectly clear, as far as I'm concerned, the question is not whether or not to face adversity. I think we all understand that. What I hope we take from today

is a better understanding of what the true adversity is. A better understanding of the fact that But in front of us, there is always an answer, a key to every lock. Some people just don't think to look. They're so busy peering around every corner for external enemies and scapegoats that they don't give themselves permission to succeed. Maybe unfortunate, but it's true. You can hit the bullseye over and over again. But if it's the wrong target, it won't do much for you. You might as well have missed by 50 feet.

that is what we overlook. You can't always fix the outside world. You can't change the unchangeable, but you can always change yourself. You can always fix you. As Tolstoy said, everyone wants to change the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

You're capable of being both your greatest adversary and ally. So choose wisely. Because the world around you will do nothing more. more than respond accordingly to your decision.