Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE | 1 Hour Of Motivation To Start Your Day

Episode Date: April 15, 2023

Time waits for no one. Look, the earth will continue to spin, the sun to set, clocks to tick. There are no perfect moments, only moments, waiting to be interpreted by those passing through them. And as a raindrop in this thunderstorm, an actor in this play, the only rational question in my mind is if time will not wait, why should. should I. If time will continue its steady march, why let it leave me behind? I'm in my mid-30s, and here's what I've already seen. I've already seen songs I grew up with, referred to as classic rock. I've seen some of my childhood sports heroes struggle to throw a first pitch before a baseball game. I've seen a substantial portion of my social interaction become digitized,

I've seen once forever people in my life fade away and become memories. I've audibly laughed at the ridiculousness of things that at one point I was sure were important. I've redefined the meaning of the word home in my life more times than I can count. In fact, the way I see the world and the way I see myself operating, and it continues to change. As the saying goes, the only constant in our lives is that things change, evolve. Why does this matter so much to me? Well, because when I look back, the single thing that would consistently keep me from truly pushing that pedal to the floor to truly capturing all life has to offer was a fear, a very specific

fear, the fear of losing what I had at that moment. I was scared to death of loss, as we all tend to be to varying extent. In fact, we're biologically wired to respect the fear of loss to a greater extent than the prospect of acquisition. There's humor in all this, though, a deeply rooted irony. It emerges when we discover that we lose everything. It all goes. The song that's playing ends for each and every one of us. And is this a sad thing? No.

No more than the credits to your favorite movie rolling after the final scene. It was the show, the experience that meant the world. It's a beautiful thing if you let it manifest in all its beauty. If you move along with it, immerse yourself in its brilliance. My point is that the only way to lose is to wait. It's to not realize that you're starring in your own cinematic masterpiece, and those credits will at some point roll. It's to sit in a chair on the side of the gym while the rest of the room dances.

Life is finite, and the power is not in a flawless existence. It's an understanding. to our core, that there is nothing to lose. That the window is small, that we should carry out the human equivalent of a fireworks show. We should be obnoxiously bold, absurdly courageous.

We should go, live, try, experiment, explore, build, create. And yeah, sometimes you'll fail. and sometimes you'll fail spectacularly, but sometimes you'll triumph. And along the way, the mistakes, they become wisdom. They become courage. Both of which are integral to any meaningful grand finale. And as I make my way around the sun for the 36th time, the priority is to remember that the,

These rides are not forever. They are precious. And that I have the strength to live accordingly. Fearlessly, courageously. My hope is that you find it within yourself to do the same. To pull back the curtains and see now that failure was never the adversary, no, not even close. The adversary is an unwillingness to make the most of your moments. The adversary is freezing amidst the constant hammering away of ticking clocks.

The adversary is the prospect of removing failures mask years down the road, only to stare directly into the eyes of regret. These outcomes constitute your greatest adversary. So for the sake of all that is meaningful, go push into the questions and the risk and the curiosity that makes life worth living. After all, it is not about failure. It's about time. So imagine you're sitting down, having something to eat, thinking, relaxing, reading,

whatever you're doing. If someone walks up to the table across from you, pulls out the chair, sits down, kind of leans back, puts one leg over the other, casually tells you, you know, you probably don't have what it takes to do anything significant in your life. What would you say? It would be outrageous, right? That's a ridiculous scenario. Well, let's say that the next day you get up, you go to walk, run, work out, and he shows

up again. Starts running next to you. casually reminding you that the odds of you changing, doing anything for the better or slim to none, that this is kind of a waste of time for you. You brush it off, you go to work, and guess who? He passes by your desk, leaves a little note saying, you know, that your bosses, your higher-ups,

they're cut from a different cloth. They just see things in a way you can't. You'd probably tell that person to take a long walk off a short pier, right? Or at the very least, you'd understand how absolutely insane the situation is. People can't just walk up and talk to you like that. But now imagine that same person as you, living rent-free in your head. And here's the catch.

You invited him in. You allowed the negativity and the doubt to live there. See, every time I think about that self-talk, I can't help but wonder in a world of obstacles to navigate and challenges to tackle. Why is it acceptable for your biggest obstacle? to be you. Why should you allow or be okay with that? And I'm not saying everything's perfect all the time. Every thought's pure bliss that I am posing this question. If you don't believe in yourself,

how do you expect anyone else to? If you're not your biggest ally, if you don't respect the person staring back at you in the mirror, how do you expect the world to? Why is our inclination to tense up and refute the negativity from others, but sit back and accept the same nonsense in our own heads. If those words don't support what you're trying to build, I don't care who they're from, where they come from, why they're there, they don't deserve your time. And it's a simple awareness that they are not truth,

but merely your fears and your insecurities trying to stop you from becoming who you might be. My biggest leaps in life, they didn't come from physical milestones or benchmarks. They came from mental shifts, convincing myself, believing myself, trusting in myself. When the road is untravelled, when the story is untold, the positive and the negative are both make-believe. They are both fairy tales, their options, their theories, and guess what? You get to choose which option, which one will be yours. My favorite quote is, you are always stronger than you think you are.

Not so much because it reiterates how high the bar is, but because it reminds me how low we often set it for ourselves when we're not paying attention. How loud that negative voice can be. You know, when I was unemployed, I was writing, I was running out of money, my life changed because I stopped seeing myself as some lost, jobless mess. And I started seeing myself as one of the greats with a hell of a row. road to travel. See, people always follow through on who they believe themselves to be. I refuse to hear that you might fail and the not good enough and I buckled up for the road ahead. And when

you believe you can change and know that the road to your goals will be rocky, it will be uncomfortable, but worth it, you are taking that hostile voice and making him or her a spectator, not a decider of fate. And yeah, you will lose. You can't win all the time. And you will feel stuck but life's not always smooth sailing and sure you'll be mad at yourself but not every decision is a home run but these situations are the byproduct of a journey and here is my point self-belief is being able to differentiate your situation and pointless negative talk about the situation it's about remembering that you are the gatekeeper of your own mind when you believe in you it placed your

faith, your strength and your determination in the driver's seat, it makes everything else trivial, meaningless. It makes it an option that you are simply not going to choose. What if I fall, the man asks, looking nervously 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 life 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 thank 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. 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 incredible. 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 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. 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 the 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. 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 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 act. 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 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. Somewhere along the way, we all come face to face with the gatekeeper, watcher of the road ahead, protector of the path before us, he is your defining moment.

The reason you either go home or push forward, he's where your story ends or begins. And see, I've met him before many times this gatekeeper, guardian of all that's worth possessing, acquiring, and conquering. I've witnessed the pain he inflicts, the doubt he manufactures, the obstacles he creates. And what's interesting about the things in life worth having is that they're never easy to obtain. The universe has this way of making sure you really want those things you say you want. Because a lot of people talk and they wish and they project. But what they fail to see is that it's not until the wheels hit the road that the truth materializes. There is a cost for everything.

You don't get day without night. or courage without fear or bliss, without pain. The road to every kingdom travels through hostile territory, and the harder you pull that arrow back, the more power it contains as it leaps forward. Resistance in life, it's not a detriment. It is a simple triage process, in which only those willing to endure the cost of excellence

are able to access its boundaries. You can have all the world if you give all of yourself. The question is, when the gatekeeper approaches in its decision time, what's your move? We are a product of the pain we endure, the sacrifices we make, the struggles we overcome. Let's not complicate that which is simple. It's not the universe, but your mind. that it needs convincing. Because once that floodgate opens, water is walkable, walls are climable.

Once you empower yourself, the status quo is left powerless with no option but to watch you bend life to your will. It's not during the easy time. But the midst of your journey, the heart of your race, when you most want to pack your bags and call it a day, that that gets. Gatekeeper stands before you, hand extended, whispering that you want it, but maybe not that bad. And it's in that exact moment that you dig deep. Look him in the eyes and show that there was never a doubt.

Only belief. And no matter what awaits, you'll endure, you'll break through. Because gatekeeper or not, that's who you are. It's been almost two years since I first read it, and still the main idea from the book, The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi, deeply resonates with me. The idea that being happy

is essentially dependent upon the courage to be disliked. And at first, it might not seem like the two, you know, whatever be related. Happiness and being disliked. An odd pair. Maybe even seemingly counterintuitive. And so you realize that happiness comes from such a personal, authentic place that allowing the expectations of others to chart your course means that you'd probably never arrive there.

You have to do what's best for you. And doing what's best for you is going to create a divide somewhere. Why? Because everything creates a divide. Everything is subjective. I knew I wanted to dive into this topic, but wasn't sure the best way to do it. So the other morning, I was trying to think of like an objective truth, something that no one could disagree with.

It was sitting on my balcony and pointed up towards this guy. I thought, let's start there. Simple as it gets. Hard to refute that, right? I am pointing up. And I remembered we're floating on a globe, a giant sphere. There is no up. Up is perspective.

Everything is perspective. What's the difference between one and two? Some might say it's one. But technically there's infinity between one and two. You can have infinite decimals. 1.999.9 goes on forever, right? Point being there's subjectivity when we drill down into even the seemingly obvious truth.

Now, the value here is not to go running around, arguing with everyone that there's infinity between one and two. There are certain aspects of society that we must adhere to, otherwise we couldn't function together. But it's simply to show that you following the path you believe is right for you cannot be rightfully assessed by someone else. It's to place trust in your internal personal judgment. And when people don't understand your infinity, that doesn't mean it's wrong.

And by the way, I don't have blinders on to the fact that it's hard to do. In many ways, it goes right up against our lizard brain biological wiring. We're fitting in equates to survival, and ostracization becomes a death sentence. But we are, fortunately, beyond that. It's in our interest now. And in fact, I think the courage to be disliked is a critical lifelong business. journey. I'm better at this than I was 10 years ago, no question, but do I still have a ways to go absolutely? There are still things I'm working on every day to let go of. I remember reading in

Jefferson's biography about how it was so hard for him to be demonized in the press all the time that it almost dissuaded him from jumping back into politics before his presidential run. And being attacked is a hard thing. But ultimately, he led his beliefs and personal events. values drive him, his ambition in a lot of ways, and came to see the scrutiny as a cost, decided it was worth the price. Or like I use this all the time, take one of the biggest pop stars of our day, say Justin Bieber. You look at what people are saying about him in the comments of his video. A lot of it's wonderful, some of it's great, sure, but some of it's awful.

That's just the price of anyone putting themselves out there. And again, you think of an inverse scenario. Imagine if he didn't. Imagine if he limited himself or didn't dive fully into what he does because he knew some folks out there would have some bad things to say. Now, we are, for the most part, neither famous politicians nor pop stars. But our worlds contain the same elements at different scale. There are things we're all scared to do or say

because of how it will be received. There are parts of ourselves that we repress because we don't know what the feedback will be. We're all scared to fail in some capacity because of how it will look or what others will say about it, which is why being disliked is courageous. As Aristotle has said,

the only way to avoid criticism is to do nothing, to say nothing and be nothing. The opposite of being fully, truly yourself is becoming the manifestation of that quote. It's never pushing yourself, never seeing what you're capable of, never exploring or executing on your dreams, your ambitions. Now, this is speculation, but if I were a gambling man, I'd place everything I own on the idea that when we're old,

looking back on our lives, We'll spend less time thinking about who criticized us or disagreed with us than how we spent our days and who we shared them with. Did we live in a way that made us happy that was meaningful? Because on a sphere, everyone believes they are pointing up. But in actuality, none of us are. We're all merely navigating the subjective universe behind our eyes. So why not truly exactly?

Why not capture the magic out there before the hourglass runs out of sand? It's hard, sometimes it hurts, it takes all we have, it requires courage. But I think we'll all come to find that the decision to live fully in our authenticity, regardless of whether others agreed, disagreed, or were indifferent, was the best decision that we ever made. Quite some time has gone by since the last letter I wrote to my younger self. A few years, actually. And I think we're due,

because older me continues to learn to both enjoy and be humbled by life, to experience hello's and endure goodbyes, to win and to lose, to acquire and to cut away, the world is a maze of complexity to navigate. And maybe we should start right there. Because look, kid, there are some fundamental ideas about life

that you just have wrong. There is no door that you walk through where you suddenly go from not understanding to finally having all the answers. Part of growing up is realizing how little human beings know about anything. And that's okay. What you'll understand is it's not a reason to run, it's a source of courage to draw from. Oh, but adults are wise, you might think.

No, adults are just children with mortgages. You'll learn that, and as we all become renters, even that's changing, right? Oh, but him over there, or her. her, wait, them, they have it all figured out. No, they just walk with conviction into their individual unknowns. That's all. Oh, but there has to be some certainty. We have to know some things for sure, you might think.

Well, certainly we do, or at least we think we do, but you have to understand, 150 years ago, science said bleeding someone out would cure them of their illness. Right? Our pursuit of truth is crucial, but it's a work in progress. Life is a work in progress. You are a work in progress. So what am I talking about? Why does this matter?

Because I don't want you to think that you are ill-prepared to venture further into your potential. I don't want you to think that other people have what you don't, that you're not enough. The world around you is chaos. It's a mess. It's clay. Some people use it to build and create and shape the reality, and others, well, others don't. The kicker here is that nothing is built if you don't first give yourself permission. To take the unknowns and make something with them.

Once you understand that there is no secret code that must be figured out, you free yourself to explore and capture the end. essence of being alive. Again, life is messy. So go flail around, wander, go get lost. Who cares? You see what I'm saying? You can watch from afar succumbing to the illusion that the world is some meticulously constructed orchestra where everything's playing in unison. Or you can dive in and make your own music, dance to your own melodies, because there is no perfect. There are people who stand still and people who pick up the pieces as they go. Next, and very closely related, younger me, give yourself a chance.

Try things. No, more things. bigger things, terrifying things. You see those posters of people you have hung up on your wall? They're not of a different world. They're people like you. But they decided along the way that they would try, that they would step out a line, break some rules,

push life, and see how hard life pushed back. Younger me on my college essay, I referenced one of my favorite quotes. I attributed it to Mark Twain. Turns out it wasn't even by him, but life goes on, right? It said 20 years from now, you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowline. Sail away from the safe harbor.

Catch the trade winds in your sales. Explore, dream, discover. It's a beautiful quote. And here's what I gather from it. The biggest mistakes I've made over the course of my lifetime ended up being my greatest teachers, leading me to something new, to where I most needed to be. I mean, a lot of my mistakes are even funny stories, right, that I joke about with buddies over a beer.

The vast majority of things you're worried about, they either won't happen or they're reversible. But what gets you, younger me, what truly hurts, is wishing you have the courage to apply to that thing that you instead let the deadline slip away, or talk to that person you walked right by, or audition, or train, or travel, or follow your intuition, your heart to someplace new. Those are the things we tend to carry around. The second you learned that not going is far scarier than stepping out into the unknown, you'll possess a perspective that's incredibly valuable.

It will change your life. And lastly, this one's kind of hard to articulate, but let me tell you, it continues to resurface. Here it is. If your intuition is telling you something, listen. trust it. If something feels wrong, let it go. If it feels like it's where you need to be, you're being pulled in that direction.

Explore, move towards it. When you know in 30 seconds that someone isn't a good person, don't give them your time. When something doesn't align with your goals or objectives, don't feel bad walking away. When something excites you, trust that feeling. This is all intuition, and I've come to find that initial response.

to be more and more valuable. What that feeling is telling you matters. Don't turn your back on that. Now, of course, there's a line we have to walk, or an element of pragmatism we have to hold on to. Sometimes, when we're particularly upset, it makes sense to let the emotion subside and allow rationality to enter.

But this is more about being aware of who you are and what you want, right? don't talk yourself out of what you know you want and into what you know you don't. Life gives clues. It's not always 4D chess. Sometimes it can be simple. What's needed is right there. But you have to look around. You have to listen and trust yourself and no one will ever know you better than you. But if you tune yourself out, then how much? How can you have a shot at living a meaningful life? One on your own terms, be impossible. So younger me, trust yourself beyond what anyone else tells you is best or most beneficial.

Again, those are answers only you know. So listen to you. One of my favorite messages is that you are your own experiment. as we move forward into the haze of the unknown, we understand that at times we'll fall. At times, we'll see our plans disintegrate right in front of us. But this is, when we step back and really examine not a cause for alarm, but a chance to celebrate. Celebrate because the world's pushing back at you implies that you are moving forward. And that is strength.

As the saying goes in the broken places, the light shines through. Younger Me, promise me you won't be scared of breaking. That you won't fear leaving the harbor. Because nothing out there is bigger than you, or too much for you to handle or navigate. The funny thing is, Younger Me, that your journey is reliant on you giving yourself, permission to go, to see, to explore. All that starts with you greenlighting your own adventure.

But remember what I'm telling you. There is no rubric for life, it's trial and error. Remember that if you don't give yourself a chance, you simply watch the opportunity slip by. And remember that you are the only one who knows what's best for you. So trust that intuition. The world will be whatever you choose to make it. And my hope is that you realize you are strong enough.

You're bold enough. You're capable enough to make it whatever that might be. So younger me, go pave your path. Go blaze your trail. and remember along the way as you navigate the ups and downs, highs and lows, remember to look up and enjoy the ride. 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 in 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, that often overlook 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 world? 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. But 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, right?

He's been there for three minutes, right? Eliminated the negativity, it's his 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. entire room. It's not the room that's the culprit. Here's another example from Jim Rohn, 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 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 grape food 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 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. unfortunate but it's true you can hit the bull's eye over and over again but if it's the wrong target it won't do much for you might as well have missed by 50 feet and I think 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 is Tolstoy said everyone wants to change the world but no one thinks of change He's 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 than respond accordingly to your decision.