Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - DON'T LOSE FOCUS | Best Motivational Speeches Compilation

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

"Focus and simplicity...once you get there, you can move mountains" - Steve Jobs

Why chase down the difficult things? It's certainly not being productive for the sake of being productive. It's not for the flex or the trophies. It's because meaning in life is directly tied to conquering the unconquerable. Harnessing the outside world. It's about seeing what we can become when we put ourselves in position to grow. The adventure of a lifetime that awaits anyone who chooses to accept. That's why.

But it's not a one-and-done affair. That's the thing. Life has a way of filtering out the timid and the unsure to identify those that really want it. As though it sees us sign that dotted line and asks, is that so? Let me remove that comfort and predictability. See if then it still sounds good. Let me place the value on the other side of the pain. See if you're still enthusiastic about the pursuit.

In fact, let me burn the map. Dim the lights, add some obstacles along the way, see how giddy you are about all this now. And see the difference between those who make change and those who dream about change. Comes down to one simple thing. How do you view the obstacles? Are they a problem?

Are they an anomaly? A red flag? Because if they are, you've lost before you started. But the ones who see adversity as simply the expectation, the water that grows the seed, the wheel that turns the car, the switch that lights up the room, well for them it's a little different.

They have armed themselves with adaptability. See, life is not smooth sailing with aberrations in the form of rough waters. No, it is a non-stop influx of trials and tribulations. You can't be mentally prepared to evolve if your expectation and your hope is always for calm. No, flip that on its head.

The expectation is turbulence. Calm is a rare gift, and as it turns out, you were built to endure. So when the waters are rough and the many turn back, you, you push forward. Because this is not the world saying no. It's certainly not a referendum on you. It's the cost of admission. a chance for you to prove yet again that where you place your focus to emerge victorious. If only the world could see, could understand that the challenge isn't the problem, it's the answer.

If only everyone knew what you know, that the great tragedy isn't falling down, it's avoiding discomfort in order to preserve what mediocrity. Why do you want this? Because you know it's an option. It's there. You know that if you move forward when you're fearful, push harder when it hurts, find something in yourself when there appears to be nothing left, the game of life becomes one of unending reward, beauty, and prosperity. For those few, it's simply knowing that you can.

can have the world if you just give yourself permission to take it. If life is truly what we make it, and what we make it depends on the answers we find along the way, then one might be left to wonder as they make their way through the world, the ups, downs, the highs and the lows. Am I asking the right questions? Like not how many steps are left, but how do I make this step count? And maybe it's not about what's over my shoulder,

but the road untravelled. Perhaps the question isn't the whys, but the why not. Not how do I get around the obstacle, but how do I push through? Not how do I avoid the obstacle? How do I avoid the unknown, but how do I make it mine? See, there is a one-to-one correlation between the questions you ask and the answers you get. Every competitor knows, asking can I get there?

And asking how quickly can I get there will put you in far different places when the day ends. It's been said that it's not what's in front of you, but what you see. It's not the materials but what you build with them. It's not what happens, but what you do about what happens. So when the road is long, when you want to stop, when the mere idea of carrying forward seems like a burden, here's to those who have no interest in asking why, because they're too busy chasing down.

Why not? 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, calm and 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 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, you know, 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, right? 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 hearing Ryan Holiday differentiating between passion and 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 cocoon. We have to fight them. We have to earn our 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. 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 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. Point what's uncomfortable. Everything just sort of hurts. Almost hovering over me as I attempt to move forward into the desert. The problem seems to be some combination of the present in the future.

Because sure, each step it tests my core, my knees, my ankles, my back, but worse than that, worse than the physical pain is the fear of what this discomfort will become. Because if I'm suffering now, imagine, imagine five, 10 or 20 miles from now, I can go 15 seconds. Anyone can go 15 seconds. But what if it becomes more than I can bear? See, nothing scarier than the road ahead. It may just be what does me in. Tolerable now, but will it always be? Right, right foot, bruised, or maybe, maybe worse, I don't know, but lean left, adjust. Yeah, just like this, that alleviates the problem. At least for now, it alleviates the problem. I can move forward.

I think it's the downhill. The downhill puts pressure on the knee, shoots pain towards the shin, so we'll slow down. Slow here. We'll catch him on the uphill. That's where we'll make our move. Slow down, fast up.

Equals less pain equals manageable. That's progression. This is 100% doable. Not rocket science. Rearranging of pieces. Pain in the stomach. Has anyone ever died from an upset stomach? Probably. Well, you probably not. You're not stuck, you're just scared.

See, running while feeling nauseous, never put someone on the front page of the New York Times. What types of stories are you writing for yourself? No victim. Stop casting yourself as a victim. This is small. This is nothing. This is trivial. Peace. Find a rhythm. You're overthinking again. This is not complex. There's nothing to be discovered here. This is the easiest thing in the world.

One foot in front of the other again and again guess how much thought that requires You guessed it bud zero your foot matters not your knees are of no relevance why are you creating Monsters? Oh the Sun it's the Sun you're hot well you can cry or get to the destination with a tan stop Rationalizing go don't create reasons to stop it's like well it's like they don't exist Most accomplishments, most pursuits require a positive narrative and uplifting storyline. This seems different. This requires nothing, not a thing I have right now. And, well, it looks like we can always handle right now, can't we?

The wind isn't resistance. It's cooling me off and the sun is not a barrier, it's lighting a path. The discomfort is not an enemy, it's a passenger, and we're all going one way forward. Do not think about the road. Go ahead. Count seconds, count steps, count breaths, preoccupy the mind because the reality is at some point I will get where I'm going. That is fact. And the only way to lose is to manufacture future monsters and bow down to them before I arrive. I can always defeat the now. My feet write the story, they hold the pen, and once I arrive, only then will I enjoy the end. See, that wasn't so bad.

Greatness is a decision. Failure is a decision. Winning, losing, mediocrity, these are decisions that we make. None of them can exist in your life without a green light given by you. They require your approval. Now this isn't to say outside circumstances don't play a part. Right, of course they do. But they're merely pieces.

It's up to you to look at what's in front of you, the good and the bad, and put it all together to tell the story that you want to tell. See, failure is a decision because it's a stopping point. Failure doesn't mean that you stumbled or made a mistake or had to pick your pride up off the floor. No, failure means that you stopped. You decided that for one reason or another, moving forward simply isn't worth it.

That the tough moments outweigh the great ones, and so you decided to settle. But the reality is, everyone deals with hardship. The differentiator is that some people decide to let it consume them and keep them down, while others decide that the unfortunate events will be nothing more than speed bumps on their way to greatness. It doesn't matter what stands before them

because they've already chosen excellence. They've chosen to take the negative and turn it into the necessary ingredients to move forward. And that's one of the greatest decisions that one can make simply to move on, to find a way. Because if you're willing to persist, there will be no end points.

Only new opportunities. I took yesterday's failure, and I forged it into iron and steel. As it burned, it took on its new shape through the flames. An enemy became an ally. And there it was. My creation.

Designed to tear through the very elements from which it was conceived. I reached into the fire. I took yesterday's failure and strapped it to my arms. I took lifelong insufficiency and placed it over my chest. Doubt became my shield, fear my sword. I had been re-created, re-imagined. And with the past singled out and excommunicated, there was only me, me, the journey,

and this armor that strengthened my pursuit with every waking moment. Once fear was removed, hesitation followed quickly behind. Action is what remained, and its influence was overwhelming. I realized that the only way to weaken my current state was to bow down to this mountain towering over me to retreat because with the simple act of moving forward

I had become empowered. With every step I was redefined, I was something more. Life became not a window to peer out of, but an incredible sprint with no end or finish. I became obsessed with trying to capture and soak up everything I could. I wanted to trip, to stumble, to fall my way to more. I wanted to fail my way to greatness. My only fear was slowing down.

It was missing out. And as my armor grew stronger, my legs moved faster. There simply wasn't enough time to breathe it all in. See, it's incredibly simple. When I faced my demons, it's not just that I became free of them. They lifted me up. I'd been running away from the very pieces that I needed most. This armor is a million mistakes.

It's a million tragedies. It's letdowns and lessons. But because of them, my world is limitless. There is nothing that I can't get through. I've been there. I'm battle tested. and anything that stands before me will become the armor on my back as I walk over it and carry on. Some build, others tear down.

Some take risks. Others critique the risk takers. Some pursue the infinite. Others settle for a life of limitation. Some make change. Others complain that things are no longer. longer the same. Some help people grow, others think that your loss is their gain.

Some learn from misfortune, others become held down by it. Some turn fear and opportunity, others avoid the unknown. Some never stop learning, others think they have all the answers. Some do others talk. Some give others take, some live, others wish. Some see an opportunity, others see an obligation. Some work toward the possibility of excellence, others run from the possibility of defeat. Some fall and get back up, others stay where they are so that they never have to worry

about leaving their feet. Some embrace the elements, others take shelter, some search, seek and discover, others wait to be told. Some perform, others watch. Some persist, others stop. Some make the most of every single day. And others watch those very same days go by. So which one are you?

What will you create with the pieces? presented to you. Not tomorrow or the next day but right now and every second moving forward. Will you build or tear down? Take the easy road or the road less travel. When all is said and done and you've come to the end of your story, what will it say?