Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE | Powerful Motivational Speech

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt

Sometimes the most important things we do in our lives are the product of sheer will. Of taking little nothings that surround us and making something out of them. In other words, the greatest opportunities, often the ones we need most, they simply aren't obvious. They're hidden. Hidden behind what looks like difficulty, what appears to be hopelessness. The reason I place so much value on a single step forward when we're overwhelmed or at a low point is because a single step means you're in the game. You're giving yourself a chance to find and obtain those little hidden away pieces

that can't be found when we stand still and dwell on a situation. Mobility is empowerment. And when we move forward only with what we have, we're continuously reminded that what we have is enough. We have the tools, the resources, and the ability. We just have to somehow remind ourselves that with those tools we are capable of building, of creating the incredible. So a quick story about what I believe is the best song ever written. Certainly one of them. And it's a little bit older now, but in 1998, a band called The Goo Goo Dolls released a song called Iris.

And that song changed my life. It was the first album I bought. It introduced me to music. I listened to it probably thousands of times. And even 24 years later, it gives me chills listening to it. And so I wanted to find out a little more about the song. And I came across an interview from Johnny Resnick, who is the frontman and songwriter for the band.

And in this interview, the interviewer is asking Johnny about the song, basic questions, how it came out, how he wrote it, and stuff like that. And there's a few points that I think are amazing. I want to share them with you. First is the state he was in prior to writing the song. He just came out of a divorce, personal life sort of in shambles, coming off of a bad record deal, where the label from his previous album had done what record labels are notorious for, and ended up keeping the vast majority of the revenue.

He had writers' block, you know, just felt down, and it left his home to stay at a hotel in Los Angeles. Bottom line is, it's not a dream scenario by any stretch of the imagination. and then gets a call from his manager about potentially writing a song for the City of Angels soundtrack. And he says he went and sort of auditioned with what he had, which was two lines of a song and a guitar with two broken strings. It was evidently good enough. He gets a nod from the label and starts writing.

And the verses, according to Johnny in the interview, they align perfectly with the movie, It's an angel willing to give up anything, even his immortality, to be human so he could be with this girl. Right. And it's this deep dive into what it is to love someone so much you give up everything for them. And then, and this is the icing on the cake for me, that's when I realized that I wanted to write about this. The interviewer says essentially, okay, Johnny, the verses align with the movie,

but the chorus, this revolutionary, big, beautiful, powerful chorus, it seems to take a left turn. Like, can you explain that to us? What were you thinking? And he just kind of pauses blankly for a second. And I'm thinking, no, don't you dare say what I know you're about to say? And sure enough, he does. He basically shrugs and goes, I don't know, the words just kind of worked.

And, you know, I'm paraphrasing. That's not a direct quote, but that's the idea. You know, one of the deepest, most powerful, beautiful songs I've ever heard is patchwork. Right? Even the song title, he says, was named after a country singer on the cover of a magazine laying next to him, Iris. That's patchwork. It's pieces put together. And then as I thought about it for a minute, it's like, of course it is.

How perfect, how absolutely perfect, the whole thing is an assembly and construction, a metaphor for the human spirit. Conceived when its author was down and out, right, taking L after L, called to present an idea, didn't have some crazy budget or equipment to pitch this song, nope, move forward only with what he had in the moment. And that was enough. Then this song, a beautiful depiction of, you know, the movie's theme combined with elements of real life, his personal situation, what he goes through,

maybe even components that mean nothing other than an ability to encapsulate a feeling or an emotion. Words that allowed him to put a bow on all these little pieces himself and get it out the door. and millions and millions of people listened to that song and were changed by it. Not because of what it meant to Johnny, but because it gave them a chance to take it and fit their own worlds and struggles

into those same lines. It became a vehicle to inspire others to push forward. To find things in themselves they didn't know were there. This has become one of my favorite metaphors for finding the huge, buried deep within yourself. Changing your life, changing your world, changing the world around you, the lives of others. Can truly be, and in fact often is the result of just moving forward with what you have.

Right? Realizing that even when the mountain seems too tall to climb, there is a way. We just require that mental shift. Listen to this question, right? Because I used to ask myself all the time, is this possible? Can this be done? Well, then that becomes the question that I focused on. And everything that occurred around me became evidence that would either support or invalidate that possibility.

The second I came up against an inevitable barrier, I'd think, ah, maybe this is telling me the answer is no. Right? life will always be evidence for or against the questions that you choose to ask, which is why it's so important that you're asking the right questions. Because the second, you change that question to, look, I know this can be done, but how will I do it? You start looking at life as a puzzle that must be solved. That same obstacle that was once interpreted as a stop sign is now merely an indicator that the path exists just perhaps somewhere else. You've extended the pursuit. You've given yourself permission to keep looking. And it's because of these self-created expeditions that we find

more in ourselves. You know, things won't always go perfectly. But when you look at those imperfections through the right lens, you see that this isn't about you. It's about that particular door being locked. All you have to do is believe in yourself enough to move to the next one, to continue knocking until you find a door that opens, until you find that bridge to whatever comes next. And that's why I love that story about Iris. Why I wanted to share it today is crafted during times far from ideal, with resources far from abundant, with words far from perfect or related or self-explanatory, but you end up on the other side with this masterpiece, this song that certainly changed my life indefinitely impacted many others. And it's like we have to realize

when we're sitting on the edge of the bed, you know, maybe it's not divorce or writer's block, but whatever it is holding you back, that's not the end. It's your reason to keep going, to begin again. You don't have to know how things will be, but you do have to know how they won't be. They won't be like this, because you won't let them stay this way. And maybe it's not two written lines in a broken guitar. Maybe it's moving forward when your strength is not at a 10 out of 10. When you don't really have that spark, or you're longing for some resources, some finances, wondering where they'll come from.

But pushing forward one little step at a time until things start making sense. And maybe it's not a combining and restructuring of song lyrics, using your personal experiences to fill the gaps on the paper before you. But it's trusting that your own story will ultimately tell itself if you don't put the pen down, that the heroes will rise, the villains will fall, and the adventure will continue.

Continue on. After all, that's what life is. One giant adventure testing us, pushing us and transforming us when we're at our lows, while reminding us during the good times, why we're lucky to have been gifted that same adversity we once looked at with contempt. Why we're lucky that when everything's made to be broken, as the lyrics suggest, we get to make it something imperfectly beautiful with the pieces.