Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - FIND YOURSELF AGAIN || Best Motivational Speeches of 2022 (So Far)

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Every new day is another chance to change your life...

You can be your greatest fan and also your biggest critic. In fact, not only is it healthy, it's necessary. To be there for yourself, celebrate that commitment to show up, but also to hold yourself accountable for growth. Because to be great is to know there's more in you, to understand that there's greatness waiting to be extracted from the miracle that is you. Here are two words. I want to take a look at both of them.

Consistency and adaptation. Consistency first. Why? Because consistency gets you in the door. It's the cost of admission. Consistency is you showing up for yourself. Day in and day out. Creating mastery and competence through repetition.

manufacturing a data set that will be used to guide your journey, taking a once stagnant idea, and putting it into motion. Consistency is doing what you promised yourself you'd do when you said you'd do it. Why? Because that's who you are. You create goals and then conquer those goals. When your head hits the pillow at night, you may be tired, you may have struggled, you may have swung and missed, you may be wondering how things unfolded the way they did, but you showed up. So celebrate that, celebrate yourself, be your biggest fan. Because the world can't take your will to step forward and cannot seize your consistency,

not without your permission. So other than part one, let's call consistency the commitment to show up for you. Now the second piece, Consistency's older brother, adaptation. See that consistency, like we just talked about it, will get you in the door. It signs you up for the game, but it guarantees nothing. See where consistency puts that pen in your hand, paper in front of you, patch you on the back where consistency gives you a chance to write your story. One's level of success or achievement relies on their ability to adapt.

To do the thing that's so hard for people to do, look in the mirror and ask, how can Can I be better? I've been consistent for 30 days, sure. Here's what's right, here's what's wrong, now it's time to adjust, to be critical, to understand that expecting more of the self does not in any way diminish the task at hand. It gives you room to expand into that next version of yourself in a way that simply showing up Without a willingness to adapt, you get Einstein's definition of insanity, right, doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. You get day after day of wondering why this square peg won't just save us all the trouble and go into the round hole.

Without a willingness to adapt, we move for the sake of moving and we work for the sake of working. but if we could find it within ourselves to look at the data that's been acquired day after day and use it to help guide ourselves to that North Star, we'll find strength. To seek out the delta between where we are and where we want to be, that is power. But it calls for more than just showing up.

It calls for looking around. It calls for observing. and then adapting. So yeah, your greatest fan and your greatest critic. Be there for you, but don't let yourself get away with good enough. Showing up is critical. It's powerful, but it's just the beginning.

If your eyes stay open, if you're willing to both love yourself and improve yourself simultaneously, all the world becomes available to you. There are no mountains you can't climb or oceans you can't cross. And sure, the world will do what the world does. It will place challenges before you. But rather than those challenges being the reason you can't,

rather than accepting those challenges as a permanent reality, they become nothing more than the next puzzle to be solved, the next little adaptathing, that's required of you. You show up, you self-assess, you adjust, and carry right on towards that horizon again and again. So when you find yourself frustrated or up against that wall, remember you are building your ideal reality.

Proud of yourself for showing up, for being consistent. Because as dire as it might seem, you overcame a lot to get here. But also know that the challenge at hand is not an indictment of you or your goals. It's your chance to review the game plan and adjust. Your opportunity to do what so many fail to do, not shrink from the world, but adapt yourself to it. Grow because of it. Today is your opportunity to take what the world gives you and build something new. We have a desire to define that which is often undefinable.

When it comes to life and its highly coveted outcomes, assessing the things that we want, we use probability to solidify things that are entirely fluid. For example, you often hear about the odds of becoming a professional football player, the odds of becoming a CEO of going to Harvard, making six or seven figures, numbers that often paint a picture of why you can't. When you hear only one and however many millions of people accomplish something, the intent is to show you that you're more likely to fall into the millions bucket than the one bucket. To show just how rare or difficult or out of the ordinary achieving that thing would be.

Almost like they're being compared to a lottery, a random number generator, luck, a pursuit in which you have zero control. I think of a huge glass jar, right? One red marble, three million green marbles, and it's like you close your eyes and you better pull out that red one. Otherwise, you won't become the Oscar-winning actor that you dream of being. And the problem with looking at life that way

is that it overshadows the most important element of success, understanding just how much control you have. The one in however many hundreds or thousands or millions wasn't born that red marble in a jar full of three million green ones. No, he or she just did things differently, lived differently. They didn't relinquish control. They took control, and that's the difference. That's what matters.

The lottery is sitting back and hoping your numbers pull. In real life, you create your own probability every day, every minute, that goes towards working towards a goal. That means you get closer. Why would you take a snapshot of the present moment in time and use that to define the likelihood that you'll live out your dreams someday down the road? It doesn't tell you anything.

It's the steps along the way that make your vision a reality. Using the same metaphor, every step, every decision to push forward, every time you dig deep and find a little advantage, you're replacing one of those green marbles with the red one. Maybe you can't quantify that numerically. Maybe you can't see the progress, but it's there.

In fact, numbers should never scare you because they're an indicator that the vast majority of people aren't prepared to go all the way, aren't willing to do what it takes, and that you, by simply not stopping, by thinking that you can, by giving more than the person next to you,

have a tremendous advantage over the rest of the world. When you hear only a small number of people make it or graduate or get accepted or win, your thought process shouldn't be, oh no. It should be perfect. This is my opportunity. Of course the number of elite people in any arena is going to be small. Think of what it takes to get there. Think of the sacrifice needed to make it happen. The costs that must be paid. The only odds that warrant attention are the odds that you will continue forward and you should know that they are 100%. Because when you trust yourself to find a way, when you focus on how to make it happen, you have an advantage. The world around you. They focus on why things can't happen. They see what can go wrong. They harp on the fact that it's not easy.

Remaining fixated on why you can, on finding a way, means you most likely will. The terms difficult or demanding or even unlikely. They have nothing to do with you crossing that finish line. If you are 100% convinced, you are going to do just that. Words like difficult, they just imply that There's going to be plenty of opportunities to quit and turn around along the way, a temptation that must and will be ignored. They mean that you will be tested, that you will have to ask yourself potentially numerous times if this means something to you, if it's truly worth it.

And if the answer is yes, then the numbers, the probability, the odds, they are not an adversary, they are an ally. Peter Drucker has said that what gets measured gets improved. And this insight's been incredibly valuable to me over the years I want to explain why. Until you measure something, you're operating in somewhat of a black box. You're essentially guessing aiming at targets you can't see, which ultimately means you're leaving life up to chance. But once you begin to gauge your progress in a specified area, you now have information to work with.

You have an increased sense of awareness. and the ability to focus, which, as I've said before, and believe wholeheartedly, what you focus on becomes your reality. So here's a quick example that I think adequately paints a picture here of what I'm talking about. Way back when I first started my business, I was chatting with a friend about wanting to grow my YouTube subscribers.

Add value to as many people as I possibly could with my work. back then it was all YouTube. That was the crux of my business. And so the first question he asked, he goes, just out of curiosity, how many subscribers join the channel daily? And I realized in that moment, you know, I don't know. I knew the total amount.

Like, I kept tabs on that, but not the sort of daily fluctuation, how much grew on Monday versus Friday, you know, that type of thing. And this guy, he had a tracker. He's very big on that. Basically, a sheet with the most important things that he's trying to change in his life and every day when he would wake up he'd record a

quick measurement in each of those categories. My first thought was, eh, you know, that's a little over the top, it's a little extra. But hey, one of my favorite mantras is that you are your own experiment and I was happy to try something new that, you know, could have a positive impact. And so I did. I started recording daily the net subscribers that join the your world within community and what I found was incredible. They say it's the simple things that make the greatest difference in our lives and this would certainly be no exception, right? First and foremost, just seeing that number every day kept growth at the forefront of my mind. It kept me aware and excited and thinking through that lens as if I were on a journey or mission to outperform the

me of yesterday. If on some random day you grow 30% more than you usually do, it's only normal to see that and ask, well, why can't this happen every day? Why can't this be my reality? And next, and probably more obvious, it armed me with the tools to tactically improve my performance. Those daily metrics helped me find critical answers, arrive at important conclusions. You know, what days of the week and weeks of the year have the greatest impact? What trends lead to increased viewership? my daily average subscriber count is X. I wonder what it would take to bring it to Y.

And so basically, instead of just showing up every day with my fingers crossed and hoping I'd hit it out of the park, I had a more informed approach. It's like taking a blindfold off. And all of this prompted by writing one little number down in the morning. The more I did this, the more it became obvious that it should be implemented in other aspects of my life. If this is important to me, if I say with conviction, this is an area I want to improve, how can I afford to not know the extent of its growth? And now I do track the handful of things I'm most invested in growing because those will be most impacted by my giving them

attention. There's a saying that what you water grows. Well, your focus and your attention is what will water the seed, what will give it life. If you're looking to lose weight, but you never look at the scale, you're hurting yourself. You might say, well, I don't want to be all about the numbers. It's a lifestyle change, and I certainly agree the point is not to track every single step you make. Just to realize how often we operate blindly.

It's to show you that with 100% certainty, your increased awareness and attention dedicated to any pursuit will make you more effective and bringing about your desired result. Knowing your daily progress keeps you in the game. It keeps you excited and also arms you with the tools to make the necessary changes. See, we are brilliant creatures capable of incredible things,

but it's critical that we position ourselves so that we can win the game. It's critical that we not only look but see. To be simplified, to condense life down to only what's important, and to monitor those things that are important to you, will give you a tremendous advantage. And again, this is basic stuff. But we skip the basic stuff.

Because we think the big changes come from complexity. They don't. They come from choosing a target, and working to get closer and closer to its bullseye. Like Greg McCune says in Essentialism, growth often has nothing to do with the acquisition of more. Sometimes it's about eliminating the things we don't need and focusing on that which we do.

Now I'm suggesting we take it one step further and measure our growth as we take those means, meaningful things into the great unknown. Life can be challenging. That's no secret. So why not arm ourselves with every advantage available to us? Why not keep yourself excited and invested and knowledgeable? Often we look around at what we don't have and think,

man, I could never have what they have. I could never do what he or she does. The reality is, they identified what matters and brought it to life one small step at a time. And guess what? You can do the same. It's not a miracle you need, it's awareness. So here's to keeping your eyes open, to not only looking but seeing, and in doing so getting results from the opportunity

we otherwise would walk right by. Sometimes it's not about the odds. It's not about things being perfectly aligned for you. Sometimes it's about making something out of nothing. It's about simply finding a way, or as the saying goes, using what you have where you are. I want to share something with you that I've found pretty valuable. So the World Cup is on, and I really enjoy watching soccer,

or football, depending on where you're from and what you call it. you call it. And caught a handful of games over the Thanksgiving holiday. And one of those games was Argentina against Saudi Arabia. And for those who maybe don't watch or follow international soccer, Argentina is a powerhouse, right? Ranked third in the world coming into the tournament. Their team has some of the best players in the world. They're just incredible to watch. The Saudis, on the other hand, not so much. Right? They're. are certainly not known for their soccer. So it's kind of a David and Goliath-esque story.

So what's the significance here? Well, let me share some stats. Argentina possessed the ball 69% of the time. Saudi Arabia, only 31%, as expected. Argentina took 15 shots. Saudi Arabia, only three. Again, as expected. Argentina dominated with possession and had more attempts.

Saudi Arabia, however, won the game two to one. Shocker, right? Outmatched, outclassed, out everything, except outscored. Which happens to be the only thing that matters in a soccer game, obviously. They had far fewer opportunities, but what they did do is capitalize on them, made the most of them. Now, those two teams that could play a hundred times, it wouldn't be outrageous to predict Argentina winning 95 of those matches. But this is my point. That 5% can be carved out, can be willed into existence.

What it comes down to is what you do with what you have, what you make of those few and far between opportunities that arise. Because here's the deal, there will be times when we feel simply outmatched by life. As though the universe is out-shooting us, in control, bending and shaping us to its will. And maybe at that particular point in time, that's exactly what's happening. To use the previous metaphor, maybe at that moment we are not the Argentina. We are relegated to a lesser equipped adversary. My message to you is that there is enough there to hold off the Goliath,

pressing and pushing. My message to you is that there is enough to be outshot, but not outscored. That when we must dig deep, we are capable of unearthing a strength, a will, an ability. I'm not talking about making it through uninsured. Now I'm talking about making it through period when it seems as though we couldn't, when we had to crawl through hell to reinvent ourselves or rewrite the story. There's power in knowing that despite the seeming struggle and despair, that a way exists. In fact, a friend of mine often says to me, there is a friend of mine often says to me, there is a always a way to arrive at your ideal outcome. You just have to figure out how to connect the dots.

In other words, that outcome you're looking for, it already exists. The question is, how do you get from point A to B, to C, to ultimately your destination? It's not a matter of whether it's possible. It's a matter of arranging the pieces at your disposal to create that bridge. And the reason I love this World Cup metaphor, It's because that all or nothing mindset in the past has been an adversary for me. Those who've been listening to me for a while have heard me talk about it. It's like things aren't perfect, fine, I'll wait until they are. Oh, I'm injured and can't work out.

Okay, then who cares what I eat, what I do? I'll wait until things are back till I'm healthy, until they're how I want them to be. But no, to win, sometimes you have to find a way when the odds are in favor of the resistance. Sometimes you have to step up when life is out shooting you 16 shots to three. Sometimes you have to be better than you thought you could ever be. It's easy to maintain momentum when you're healthy, right? But maintaining momentum when you're not at your best, that's something different altogether. Coming out on top when you're the underdog, digging deep and finding a way to win,

when the easy thing to do would be to submit to life. That's special. And guess what? It's always there. It's always available. Admiral McRaven, in one of my favorite speeches ever written, he says, if you want to change the world, you must learn to be your very best in your darkest moments.

It's beautifully said. It makes perfect sense it seems reasonable. until we are knee-deep in those moments. It's easy to forget when we feel intimidated by a task that seems bigger than us. It's easy to forget looking up at an obstacle or situation that seems to be statistically favored by life. It's easy to forget when walking away feels like the more pragmatic option. But that's why, regardless of the hilltile, a climb you must remember.

When you are outmatched or seemingly outclassed amidst the battles of life, there is a way to come out on top, emerge victorious. Your job is to find it. And the opportunities may be few and far between, but what will you do with them when they present themselves? How will you make the most of the resources that you use? do have. Because sure, life is largely determined by the small stuff, the predictable things, what we do day in and day out. But the pivotal moments, the times that shape our existence,

they come down to finding a way when there appears to be nothing to cling to. You are down but never out, lost but never gone, as long as there is a heart beating in your chest. As long as there is blood pumping through your veins, there is a way. I challenge you to find it. Freedom lies in being bold. Robert Frost. Something caught my eye on Twitter not too long ago. It was a headline referencing the boldness of wolves in the wild.

So I clicked it to delve a little deeper and it took me to an article by Emma Maris. And here's the summary at like a 10,000-foot view. Okay, basically there's a parasite called T. Gondi that infects animals and then causes those infected animals to act bold, perhaps even reckless in some situations. And the article states why and goes into some great detail, but for now I'm going to jump right to a specific point. Because there's a part where the article mentions how two wildlife, ecologist Meyer and Cassidy studied wolves at Yellowstone for 27 years. And upon studying them, they find something very interesting. After taking blood samples from 229 wolves, they found that wolves infected with that

T. Gondi parasite that again makes them act bolder, were 11 times more likely than uninfected wolves to leave their birth family and start a new pack. The infected wolves were also 46 times more likely to become pack leaders, which Maristates are often the only wolves that breed. And so this appears to portray a direct link from boldness to increased social status and possibly even reproduction rates. With that boldness comes risk, sure, but with risk comes reward upside. Now, obviously, the day-to-day actions of wolves at Yellowstone is not an apples-to-apples comparison with human beings functioning in society.

But personally, I can't help but feel the value contained in the case study. In fact, it was my thinking about it while falling asleep that prompted me to find the article again and share it. For the simple reason that I know there are places in my life that I can, can be bolder. I know there are places in my life where I can dial up that risk factor in exchange for results that supersede what I have now. You don't get more without giving more. And I know there are places I can give more. In fact, I'm pretty confident there are places every single one of us can give more. See, here's the thing. Being bold means drastically different things to different people. And it's in this truth that the magic is found. Boldness for one person might be completely

different from someone else. It might be more travel. For another, it might be taking on a project at work. For another, it might be leaving a detrimental situation. For someone else, you know, going through a low point or deeply challenging time, it might be simply getting out of bed. We are all operating on different planes at any given time. My bold today, won't be a little bit of won't be my bold next week. That's just the way life works. But here's what I do know. We can all find within ourselves that courage to be bold in whatever arena we are in.

And every once in a while someone will say to me, yeah, but Eddie, can't you just be happy where you are? Why does it always have to be the next thing or bigger or better or more? To which my response is, look, of course we should be grateful for what we have. have. Of course, we should appreciate the gifts and the beauty that surrounds us day in, day out, because it's there and it's infinite. But, and you knew there was a but. Human beings are purpose driven. Our happiness is often derived from our progress. Our journey is the destination. And we often find when we look around that we have given pieces of ourselves away, sometimes without thinking about it.

Perhaps we become stagnant with areas of ourselves that can be elevated, that are destined to evolve. I love looking back at those courageous moments in my life. They mean everything to me. You know, I like to say it's the small things repeated day in and day out that make us who we are. The vast majority of the time, I believe that to be true, but those pivotal moments, those opportunities that our consistency creates for us, well, boldness in those instances changes everything. Walking onto a stage when you've never spoken before, when your body is physically

rebelling and you don't want to walk on a stage is everything. Calling U-Haul, packing up and leaving a situation that's no longer in your body. your best interest is painful, it's instantaneous, but is ultimately everything. Making an investment that you believe in. Deciding to hire someone with incredible vision and talent, being vulnerable enough to share your thoughts with the world, these things are risky, they are bold, but in your world, they are everything. And so the obvious connection here is our desire to lead in a world seemingly void of

adequate leadership. It's setting an example. It's not settling for the ground floor when the sky is the limit. Yes, on all counts. But it's also leading yourself. At times, we forget just how important that is that you need to lead yourself to something meaningful. Significant change does not come along without your initiating it.

No doors open if you don't knock. The world will only give you what you ask of it. And I'm here to remind you that asking more of the world, yes, it's hard, it's uncomfortable. It requires you to be more today than you were yesterday. But you are capable of that. You are bold enough to be that. Robert Frost says freedom lies in being bold. I believe that's because in your courage lives the infinite.

upside so powerful that one simply cannot grasp it while standing still. So go. Go find those areas of life, your life, where you know you're holding back, where you know when your soul you have more to give, and breathe life into them. Knowing that sure, in being bold, missing the mark is a possibility. but in never leaving it's a certainty. If you never go, you will never arrive.

So find the courage to ask more of yourself because more there is. Sometimes the moment has a way of appearing bigger than it really is. A facade. Let me explain. There was this kid when I was in first grade. Let's just call him Mike. And what Mike would do

was follow us all around the classroom and outside at recess would constantly look for reasons to quote unquote tell the teacher on you right dude was an absolute menace I'm 35 and I still remember Mike my buddies and I would be you know playing basketball outside you know maybe just learn some awesome four-letter words

would love to give him a test run but no not if Mike was around. Mike would go right to the teacher and see, we feared Mike because we feared being in trouble. Now as time passes, yeah, you look back and realize how absolutely ridiculous that is.

I want to shake younger me and say, who cares about Mike? Go live your life, he doesn't matter. But the reality is at the time he did matter. He mattered a lot because he was the personification of what was most scary to us in the moment. Right?

As a child, avoiding being in trouble or time out or whatever it was, seemed to be a big deal. And here's what I think. I think every chapter of life has a mic. Not in the literal sense. But in the sense that there's something we fear, something that consumes our time and attention, something that's been inflated to a state,

far greater than it really should have been. It has an impact disproportionate to reality. Because as real as it seems in the moment, a few years down the road, we'll do the usual, you know, shake our head and laugh about the seemingly obvious lack of perspective during that chapter. Hindsight being 2020 will be shocked we couldn't see what we eventually came to see. But that's what growth is. It's a good thing.

We want to evolve. No one wants to be the same in 10 years. see life the same way in 10 years. But it's also an opportunity to obtain some perspective. To understand that our current fears aren't all we've built them up to be, we just can't

see it yet. Unfortunately, the dust has to settle before the picture makes sense. Just like right now, we can't judge the world around us, the same way historians will be able to with clarity. That's why I often referenced

Brony Ware's top five regrets of the dying, because it's a list of things people in their final stages of life look back on and say, yeah, that was dumb. It's people who have already walked the path pointing out the metaphorical mics they've encountered along the way, because here's the deal, the root of our stagnation, the root of our frustration, our despair comes down to fear in some capacity. Right? When you dig deep, it's a fear of leaving or staying, a fear of criticism, fear of unknowns, fear of letting down the people we do know. Our demons are manufactured. They're comprised of fear, fear that, sure, we'll eventually laugh and shrug off.

But owe the power in being able to fast forward that sequence. To understand that life is too short to be held down by chains of our lives. own making, right? How about laughing in the face of what intimidates you now? Not five years from now, but now. How about looking around and asking yourself what obstacles in your life are Mike-esque? How about breaking our constraints down into what they've always been manageable tasks? Simply waiting for us to change the narrative. If you aren't pursuing that which is meaningful, It's most likely because somewhere deep down fear is holding you back. And that fear is holding you back because let's face it, you've let it in.

See, the moment is beautiful. It's powerful. It has everything you need, but it's not bigger than you. It never will be bigger than you. So let's not wait for some arbitrary. temporary time in the future to arrive at that conclusion. Don't stay down in the ashes. Use the pieces to build new things.

Don't dwell on what hurts. Use the lessons to chart a course to happier days. Don't fixate on what's missing. There's an endless supply of what's not there. Instead, rejoice over and capitalize on what remains. Don't take misfortune personally. Remember that life is neutral. It's you who has to decide whether to shrink in its shadow or grow because of it.

Don't compare yourself to people around you. We only see highlight reels. We only see the best of our neighbor. but they have their demons, their problems, their struggles too. Instead, compare yourself to who you were yesterday. That's the only worthwhile benchmark. Don't exhaust time wishing you had someone else's gifts or natural abilities. Sure, they have theirs, but you have yours too.

Explore and go all in on your unique superpowers, because that's exactly what they are should you choose to bring them to life. Don't let the gravity of the moment keep you down. You might feel lost or defeated, but it's not always about feeling good. Sometimes it's whether or not we can move forward when we don't. So step into that unknown, knowing sure you might not be at your best, but that lives are often defined during us. our imperfect moments. Don't waste energy on hope. The future is a construct, an idea that you

have no control over, and that will make you its slave if you allow it to. See the value of right now. Right now you have the power to change, adapt, evolve, to make things happen. Right now is all you'll ever have to control. Build, tear down, retreat, advance, follow or lead, everything is a choice. Life provides the components to go up or down, left, or right. It's a perpetual fork in the road. Endless opportunities. But you are the architect. You decide what they become. The difficulty we face, in life is not personal. If you remember this, you disarm every adversary, obstacle, every complication you'll ever face. So, quick story.

Recently, I was renewing a lease for my apartment. Something that usually is pretty simple, right? Only this time, things were not simple. Confusion, chaos, misunderstanding. after misunderstanding, I received emails and letters saying, you need to provide these documents in order to renew. You need to have X, Y, Z information submitted to his ASAP. And I'm sitting here thinking, guys, you have all this info.

I've lived here a year, same guy, let's put two and two together. And after a while, I started to get truly annoyed, eventually to the point of taking it personally. So I stopped what I was doing and go down to the front office thinking I'm going to go scorched earth here. I really wanted to emphasize how absurd and ridiculous all this was. I opened the door and just kind of stop in my tracks. First thing I see is a crowded room filled with tenants asking for things, making requests, looking for info. And the people that work there were so patient and kind running around doing their absolute.

absolute best to make everyone happy and get everything done. And almost immediately, I realized, Eddie, you made this about you. This is not in any way about you. Basically, I created this fallacy that because things weren't working the way I wanted them to, then there must have been some universal resistance, right? There's an idea I heard a while back that very rarely steers me wrong. It's that two things can simultaneously be true at once. So in this case, is there opportunity for these guys to tighten up a bit?

Bring more clarity to their operations and best practices? Yeah, certainly true. But on the other hand, was building this up as a them versus me match in my head dumb and counterproductive. Yes, also true. The world will always provide adversity, right? That's not news to anyone. It's just what the world does. That adversity will take a thousand different shapes and appear an infinite number of ways.

But here's the deal, life is neutral. Things just happen. They aren't good or bad. They just exist in the ether. We as storytellers decide to put a charge into things. We decide whether it's happening to us or for us. We choose. And that's the takeaway here.

There's power in remembering not to take things personally in any aspect of life. Because when we do, we actually lose our grip on reality. We become emotional and not rational. And this is visible everywhere. Take rejection, for example, something we all deal with. It's not personal. The person on the other end is thinking about themselves. They're locked in on their own incentives.

They're not thinking about. about you and however you feel about this, it's just the truth. So assess the situation, sure, maybe find some areas where you can improve and carry on. Being mistreated, again, not about you. As the saying goes, hurt people, hurt people. Same goes for criticism and hate online. Something that a lot of people truly fear. It will almost always be true that people who are most always true that people who are most

more accomplished than you or further along in their career trajectory won't waste time bringing you down in the comments section. No, it's people saying things hoping that their comments will get approval and attention so they can feel validated. Their actions are being carried out for, ready for this, themselves. And to misdiagnose or take it as a shot to the heart, well, that's crucial. Creating a battle scenario that doesn't need to exist. It's not them versus you.

It's them versus them. You're just in the crossfire. Now, does this perspective or point to not take things personally mean that we abdicate personal responsibility? Does it mean we say, well, it's not me. It's the world. So not my problem? No, of course not. Right?

This perspective gives you the power to do the right things and the necessary. things because you understand that the problems you face are not a giant indictment of you as a person. Getting angry creates a scenario where, you know, you reallocate your energy from doing what's best for you to instead being mad at him or her or this group or that circumstance or the world in general. You know, bad things happen. And by the way, they happen to everyone. Everyone gets rejected at some point. Everyone gets let down by people close to them at some point. Everyone loses their way at some point. Everyone has their expectations fall short. Everyone has pushback. It's not just you. It's the world doing what the world does. And there's eight billion of us running around

operating in our best interest, trying to navigate a big, crazy world that's often incredibly difficult to understand. So with this perspective, going forward, you know, my lesson from a few weeks ago, what would I have done differently during all that chaos with the apartment? A handful of things. First of all, remind myself that in the grand scheme of things, it's trivial. It's just not that important. Two, understand incentives. These folks aren't trying to make things hard for me. They're trying to do their jobs well so they can live their best lives, which brought their attention. to other things, it happens. And three, when you're calm,

you can actually solve the problems at hand. When you don't stack your problems up to look like adversaries working against you, when you instead see them as merely a challenge or puzzle to be solved, life starts to look a lot different. It just feels different to walk around as though life is on your side,

as though hardship is nothing more than the water necessary for the seed to grow, as though all those challenges you face are opportunities being presented to you. Because I'm not sure you can simultaneously fight and solve. I think one of our most important decisions is to select one. You can make the rejection, an opponent,

the criticism, arrival, you can make the difference, you can make the disorder your nemesis. Or you can realize that all of it falls squarely into the box that is like. Pieces to be taken out one by one so that you can construct the ideal. Life comes down to the advantages that exist all around us, the choices we make. To live freely with the wind at our backs or confined by the walls we build around ourselves.

And sure, your current obstacles might be because of decisions you've made, maybe even decisions you wish you could take back. But the current moment right now in this second is neutral. It does not hold a grudge or have an agenda. Now, right now is simply right now. In the same way that 2 plus 2 is 4. 4 is not good or bad. It doesn't want you to win or lose. It's just 4.

Same goes for the crossroads before you. And that puts the onus entirely on you to decide what you will make it all mean. Will you slow things down to find clarity? Will you open your eyes to see the value? Because look, there will always be a delta between reality and the stories we tell ourselves about reality. That's just how human beings work. It's how we've managed to survive for millennia. So understand that and gift yourself the narratives that bring you closer to the place you want to be.

The road before you will be challenging. Not because its pushback is personal, but because amidst the resistance, you'll find the components you need to live your very best life. The thing about time is that it comes in. and goes. Tomorrow will make today a distant memory, and as quick as you were here, you'll be gone. What's in front of you is an opportunity to make right now something you'll never forget. You have the ability to write history, to create a story that will live with you forever. Think back to all the days leading up to today, all the training, the hours of preparation, the pain you've felt,

They have brought you to this moment. They are the armor that you wear. Right now is about execution. It's about taking all those hours and turning them into the best version of yourself. Today is about being better than you ever dreamed you could be. These are the moments you live for. Are the insecurities, the doubt, the disbelief, this is this. This day is yours.

Look your opponents in the eye. They cannot give what you can. You have built this opportunity piece by piece. You have created an unstoppable force, and it's finally time to reveal that to the world. Let people doubt you. They'll see with time. Let the obstacles stand. You will run right through them.

Let everything in this universe tell you know you have already told yourself yes. The hardest thing in this world to stop is someone who knows they've won before the game has started. This is your everything, embracing. Make it so that you never forget today. You are the God of your world, and in your world, you write the strength. There is no tired. You left that in the wait room years ago. There is no unsure.

Pushing yourself to exhaustion every day took care of that. There is only when. When do you rise up? There comes a point when you've just given too much. Your sacrifices too great to accept anything but the very best. best. Everything else is noise. This is your day. It will not disappear with time. It will live on.

You have earned today. Go make sure the world knows. There's a point for everybody where, you know, life tells you directly or indirectly that it's time to level up, right? And I think that's a good thing. You know, life is a staircase where, you know, the climb to that next step is uncomfortable. But then you get there and things sort of normalize. And you know in your soul, it's time to take that next step, right? Step up again. And that step is going to be just as uncomfortable as the one before. It's going to be different.

It's going to be bigger. You'll have evolved. But change is always uncomfortable. And that's just the way it works. And I want to share with you something that a friend of mine, Evan, told me. And it helped me see that process differently. He was talking to me specifically in terms of being in front of a camera, which will make sense when you hear the metaphor. But I think it's applicable to, you know, everything.

Any situation, you know, I was talking about that need, that feeling, that want to take the next step. step and a very basic question, you know, what do you want to do? And I wasn't exactly sure how I saw things evolving, right? And so the metaphor was, well, you've been Mickey Mouse for so long that you've been sort of neglecting the Walt Disney side of things. And maybe that's intentional. Maybe that's how it should be. Maybe someone else should be Walt Disney. Maybe you should be Walt Disney and Mickey less. Like however you want to, you know, you can you can bend that and reshape it a million ways. But the idea was, you know, when you are so focused on being in front of a camera, telling your story, writing, creating, sometimes you lose sight of where

the ship is going. And I just thought that was such a powerful metaphor. If it makes you think, and I've spent weeks thinking about it, it's the right message. It's what you need to hear. And I've been talking to people who are, you know, doing things that have nothing to do with speaking or, you know, content creation, anything like that. And when they talk about their situation, it's funny, I find myself relaying the same message because it's like, you know, you are so in the weeds of your day-to-day doing things that, you know, are important, but they're smaller details. They're more technical things. They're more day-to-day operational things that you don't know where that metaphorical ship is sailing.

And it's because you haven't been able to step back and really think about it. You know, really assess where you're going and why and why it matters to you. And so one of the answers that I've found, well, it's a two-part answer. It's finding a way, and this is not rocket science, but it's sort of step one, to take the smaller things and get them off of your plate. but the other thing is to make intentional time to just think, to really reflect on life and where you're going and understand, like really try to deeply understand where you are now,

where you want to be, and how you can bridge that. You know, that's a powerful thing to be able to comprehend. And it's very easy. When I talk about this, the thing that drives me crazy is it feels so obvious and feels so intuitive. I could have spent another two years neglecting that. You just get so caught up doing what you do in the day to day, right? Falling behind, catching up, you know, managing the pieces, moving the widgets around,

trying to stay afloat, that you don't have time to ask a big picture question. And so that's what this is all about. It's are you so busy being? Mickey Mouse in your life, that the Walt Disney side of things is being neglected. Need some love. Need some vision and some understanding. And if that's the case, beautiful. Because now you're thinking about it. Now the wheels are in motion. And, you know, you can, you can point that ship where you need it to go. Today belongs to the architect. He sees towers before they pears. Before they pears. Hearse the sky and opportunity before it transforms into the extraordinary.

He knows that what he wants most cannot be given. It must be sculpted. So he builds. He builds because those skylines don't raise themselves from the earth. The extraordinary does not appear on its own. They are dreamed into existence by the architects. of reality, the ones who seek not to take from the world, but to contribute to it. Today is the beginning of something new, something better, something worth remembering.

And it's existed long before the present moment waiting for your vision, your courage, your persistence to bring it to life. How many times we fail to reach into the realm of what we know and get more of ourselves. It's okay to struggle, to be wrong, to have to rebuild a thousand times, but the great tragedy is closing our eyes and walking by life's opportunity. Everything you need to rebuild the life you dream of is around you. every move. If only you'd reach for it, see it before your eyes to become the architect of change. Nothing is impossible when you are the one setting the rules, when your hand draws

the guidelines. You are not at the mercy of the world. You are creating it. This is yours. there will never be a moment like it again, so don't run from it or hope life gives you what you want. Take the pieces in front of you and construct your masterpiece. Found a quote the other day. The time heals nothing unless you move along with it. I thought, well, that makes perfect sense. You can't pursue a new reality, a new world, unless you can detach and depart. from the current one.

But that's in theory. And my question was, is it the destination or the path that holds us back? Because in my experience, the greatest struggle in life, it isn't what to do, it's knowing how to do it. How do we get there?

We know we need to get back up. But how? How do we initiate a spark and create momentum? and take that world of black and white and add color. Because those times of gray, when life seems to lose its purpose, we find ourselves simply existing and not living,

that's when we need answers. And I guess this quote, it jumped out at me because it prompted an equally important question, which is, now what? And I started thinking a few years back, 2017, probably the most difficult year of my life. It was void of, you know, any of that beautiful nuance, the, the uplifting moments that we like to remember when we look back. For me, it was, you know, essentially an ended relationship, was relocating away from family and friends,

was having a few dollars in my bank account, everything I own in a trailer, and starting over. And when I'll never forget about that experience, You know, in totality, was that I saw it colorless, bland, dark. Essentially, the road ahead had lost that glimmer that it once had. See, I used to get so much joy in telling stories. But life had kicked me around so hard that I, at least for the moment, forgot the point. Like, what was my reason? And I knew, like I said, what I had to do,

But I couldn't wrap my arms around the how. How do you get the train moving again? And then I got this email, right? I'm going to paint a picture for you. New apartment, trash, there's stuff everywhere, suitcases open. I hadn't shaved in two weeks. I'm exhausted, couldn't sleep, sitting there frustrated with my laptop.

And the email is basically someone looking to create a documentary, asking if they could stay with me for three days and create a film about always maintaining discipline and living a productive life, and I just erupted into laughter, right? I don't think Seinfeld could have written something more ironic. It was just, it made no sense. But it caused me to reflect, right? I obviously declined the video.

Just wouldn't have felt right or accurate in that moment. But I started to think, how was there such a gap between the old me and who I was sitting on that bed? Is this the new me? And if it's not, why have I allowed this imposter to stand? day so long, I've always said a life changes one decision away. A light switch away, just reach out and find it. And when you're going through times like this, it's funny, life has a way of doing its best to conceal the beauty. It's like it becomes this black in white painting and it stays that way. It stays that way until you put color into it. One brush stroke at a time.

Because life is intimidating when you see everything you're not. When the blank canvas feels like emptiness and not opportunity. But life doesn't require of you the whole picture. Masterpieces, they aren't made overnight. They're not instantaneous. They are a product of trust, of faith. Not in the canvas or the brush, but in the artist. Through his eyes, he's capable of transforming his experience.

experience into art, his misfortune into meaning. Victor Franklin uses the metaphor of a movie, each day being its own scene, where often they don't even come together until the very last act. Trust that. Believe that. But man, start painting. In the very next morning, like everyone before it, I would. I woke up to a yellow beam of light, making its way through a crack in the blinds, painting the wall of an otherwise dimly lit room. But this time I saw it. This time I didn't close the blinds, I opened my eyes. And sometimes that alone is the little hinge that swings a big door, a door that I walked through. And I saw the green of the palm trees, the beauty, the simplicity, and thought, how a lot of the wall.

Lucky am I to be where I am when I am. I saw a blue sky, a miracle in its own right that's not confined to story or narrative, and well, maybe I'm not either. The white of the sidewalk leading me to wherever I choose to go next. The red of my running shoes hitting the pavement, the gold of the sun bouncing off the buildings, the black of a cup of warm coffee as I soak in the day. and the teal chandelier that hangs over the horizon as the same sun that started it all retreats after a hard day's work.

See, you have everything you need, and life is not always perfect, but it is always what you make it. How things are, it's not how they should be your need to be, but how you've allowed them to be. And most importantly, black and white, It does not describe reality so much as it describes what's not there. What's missing from reality and my hope is to never conform to that sketch or outline that masquerades as truth, but to see beyond it.

To find the strength, the courage, the self-belief to pick up the brush and live life in color. I think a substantial amount of life comes down to self-trust, to believing in yourself. But here's the thing, it's not blind belief. It's not toxic positivity where you close your eyes, cross your finger, shut the world off, and just assume things will work out because you're entitled to a great result. No, what I'm referring to is an active and deliberate trusting of yourself to learn, to make the necessary adjustments, and to keep moving forward. When we have faith in our ability to step forward and improve simultaneously, there is no defeat. When you know you won't stop until you land where you want to land, then limitations become a choice.

success in any capacity is a you thing, not an outside thing. And this popped into my head a few days ago during, of all things, a game of axe throwing. So, quick story from last weekend, a friend of mine and I, after a day of working on the podcast, went down to Fort Lauderdale to this axe throwing place, which is, it's random, but it's a great time, simple concept. There's this giant target and you take turns throwing little axes at the target, basically darts, right? If you think along those lines. And there were eight of us in the group.

They divide you into two teams of four and you play various games until the end. The end, there's this final session where it's every person for themselves. It's like a free-for-all. Each person gets three rounds to throw out. axes at the target and whoever has the best score wins. So think of the target just in a traditional way, right? The bull's eye or the little point in the middle is worth five. Then the next smallest circle outside of that is four.

Then three, then two, and then the biggest circle along the edge is worth one. Right? So whatever you hit with the axe, that's the point you get. Except they put these two little blue dots. on the top third of the circle. And they say if you can hit one of these blue dots, you get 10 points. So high risk, but certainly high reward.

And my friend and I, super competitive, right? He looks at me, starts telling me how he's already got this in the bag, and I'm like, all right, we'll see. And it's been arguable, but I probably had been the more consistent of both of us up to that point in the night. Nothing fancy, just straight away aiming at the middle, aiming for those bullseyes and fours,

not even attempting to go for those hard-to-reach blue dots, no need straight up the middle. And here's why this is important. We step out to take our first shots of the finale here. My friend goes first, immediately hits one of those little blue dots. Boom, already, I'm down 10 points. So what do I do? I completely leave my strategy.

And I started thinking, no, I'm behind, I can't let this happen. I spent my next nine shots, and the only nine shots I had, right, trying to hit those blue dots and missing every time, just get killed, right? He won handedly. And then I realized when the scores were read out at the end, that if I just ignored everything my buddy had done and stayed true to my game, aimed for the center of the board, average 3.5. or four points of throw, I would have won, and by a substantial margin. But I let the outside world impact my strategy. I started chasing those long-shot blue dots when I knew they were a distraction. Now, I'm sure the last thing you expected to hear today was the recap of an axe-throwing contest.

But if you bear with me, there's value here, right? So let's step beyond the axe throwing. Let's take it up a level. Let's talk about when you know what's best for you. You know where you want to be in what's working, but you're pulled out of your lane because of what someone else says or does. You hear him or her over there accomplish something great. You look in the mirror and go, man, I haven't accomplished anything like that.

Maybe I need to change what I'm doing. my approach, maybe I'm wrong. See, and the beauty of that little game was that it reminded me that there will always be outside circumstances trying to redirect my course. But we have to trust in ourselves that we are doing what's best. We have to know our own game and our own strengths.

Now, don't conflate this with the stubbornness. It's not about never adjusting. No, we need to adjust. but adjust when it's best for you, not simply because other people are taking a different approach. It's hard to stay consistent with the world pushing other options consistently, right? People finding success in various ways, taking other paths, talking about their incredible strategies and how great X, Y, and Z is.

But it's all noise. You have to trust you. And again, not blind faith, but an understanding. understanding of who you are and a willingness to continue to grow with every step forward. There has to be some element of understanding that, sure, things will get challenging, life will push back. But that doesn't mean you are wrong or in over your head. It's a compounding of little actions and trust in yourself. If you can do that, the world remains yours.

It's day by day, or in my example, throw by throw, knowing your bull's eye and aiming steady up the middle. We all know how hard it is to see results before they exist. The mind tries to find every example out there depicting why you're wrong, why the finish line is too far away. Life is constantly creating off-ramps, saying, hey, if you don't want it that bad, or you're unsure of yourself, here's a way out. Come with me.

It's constantly sowing seeds of doubt, which is why we must dig deep for that strength. Life is a game of you versus you. If those around you win, good for them. And if they lose, well, hey, wish them well, hey, wish them well on the next go-around. But none of it has any bearing on who you are and the race. race you're running. Are you going to show up for you? Are you going to be your biggest fan when it takes every single part of you to keep going? Don't let the loudest voices in the room dissuay you from what you know to be right. Don't let the blue dots hinder your direct line

to the bull's eye. Block out that noise, block out the distractions and do what is required of you. Win your race because that's the only finish line of value. Walk your path because that will bring you where you need to be. And when you question the pursuit, remember what you've overcome all the steps that brought you to right now and how, yeah, maybe they weren't flashy or over the top, but they were consistent. They've given life to the present moment. What you do is to What you do is overcome. Just don't lose your bullseye. Mark Twain said the two most important days of your life

are the day you were born and the day you find out why. The first gets you into the show and the second asks what will you do with your time here? What will you make of this sunrise? sunrise. Because we only get so many. And I think there's immense value in understanding that each and every one of us are here to lead this place better than we found it. To stand up when we could be sitting down, step out, and make something of the chaotic and often hard to understand world around us. When you realize the miracle that is your existence, when you understand the almost impossible odds of you being here, thinking, feeling, breathing in the air around you, you begin to see the value of today.

Because it's not an obligation, it's a currency, the most precious of commodities. Today is your time to step into that new version of yourself, to see something more so that you can begin the process of creating something more. Because the truth is life will always be what you decide it is. If you walk up to your window, look through the blind and decide what you see is the finale, the final script, that's exactly what it will be. But if you see right now as a beautiful beginning, the initiation of the ride of a lifetime, a transport to the next version of you and the next and the next, then you are signing up for a world without limit. A world where you can feel what it's like to be tested and endure. To be lost but finds your way.

to build something meaningful out of the seemingly meaningless, that's why you're here. That's what it means to truly live. Today is your day. Your chance, don't let it slip away from you, don't be fooled into thinking it's less than it really is. It is your ticket to infinity. A journey that starts when you decide it does. When you look out at that vast unknown and say, I'm not going to settle for anything less than a life of adventure.

I want the challenges, the turbulence, the losses, and the battles. They will bring me to a place I could never have arrived at otherwise. You get from life what you give. So give it all. Leave no path unwalked, no stone unturned. Today is the most important day of your life Because it will connect the you of yesterday to the limitless you of every day that comes next. You can allow yourself to be distracted.

Or, as Robin Sharma suggests, you can do incredible things. But you can't do both. You can stay where the safety and security is. or you can risk what you have in pursuit of your dreams, but you can't do both. You can remain the character depicted in yesterday's story, or you can take those lessons, experiences, and craft a new story. But you cannot do both. Life is a game of trade-offs.

where any decision to go in one direction is a simultaneous decision to not go in another. A commitment to X is necessarily a rejection of Y, at least in that moment. Making this question all the more important, what is your North Star? I ask, because everything you do is bringing you closer to or holding you back from capturing it. One of my lifelines over the years has been clinging to the quote or idea that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, consistently trying to arrive there. Why? Because when things get complex in my life, I don't know what I'm choosing.

Clutter means I've lost sight of what's necessary versus what's trivial. I become unclear on those critical tradeoffs I'm making. And we've all experienced this, right? the simplest questions are always the hardest to arrive at. We can talk in circles about the details, but how often are we honest with ourselves about the why? I remember job interviews in college going on and on about the books I read, the papers that written, current events,

but then falling flat on my face when asked, so who's Eddie Pinero? A dude doing an interview? Like, what do you want for me? My brain had never gone there. Or even less formal. I'll never forget a friend of mine a few years back, asked me what my perfect day was, just casually as we're driving. I said, I don't know, Tom, I've never really thought about that.

He goes, then how are you ever supposed to have a perfect day if you don't know? And how simple? Simple and simultaneously incredible. Who wants a life without perfect days, right? Like, what is all this for? The world is infinite. and you can be ruled by its variability and its complexity. You can run around adhering to all its rules,

hoping you're doing the right thing, whatever that is. Or you can identify, carve out, and rule over your own little piece of it, your own kingdom. You can choose you. If you take the time to uncover who you are, what lights you up. And then, as Emerson advocates, hits your wagon to that star.

The best investment of our time is to truly understand and decide what we should be saying yes to. Because if we don't know what matters, then nothing does. Here's a famous dialogue from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Alice, would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the cat. Well, I don't much care where. said Alice. Then it doesn't matter which way you go, said the cat. Well, so long as I get somewhere, Alice added as an explanation. Oh, you're sure to do that, said the cat. If only you walk long enough.

Beautiful passage. If you don't care where you go, any road will take you there. And see, it's not wrong to not know. It doesn't make you back. or mean life is a waste of time. It just means you're taking a large portion of control, which is one of your superpowers, and tossing it up into the ether.

It means you are bowing to hope. And I know that no one here wants to live every day merely clinging to hope. This is not a we'll see how it goes, channel or podcast, right? This is about the little changes that take life from a six out of ten to a nine or a ten out of ten. It's about using what's around us to maximize the miracle we are living and breathing every day. Again, life is complex. So for you to take the time and simplify to remove what's unnecessary, what an advantage.

Yeah, I could do this or that. I could go here or there. But guess what? I've spent the time thinking, asking myself the tough questions, and now I can be more deliberate in choosing my path so that I arrive at a correct destination, a destination that belongs to me, that means something to me, that lights me up and excites me.

That's living. And of course, this isn't a one-time light-balled moment, a permanent move. No, as we grow, we change. What we want shifts. Hey, sometimes the current path even reveals itself to be the wrong path. It's happened to me plenty. But when you're consistently in tune with what matters to you, who you are,

you can make the adjustments. You can be deliberate. No more shooting targets in the dark because life is too short. Our days numbered, are arrows finite. Live life like each day. means something because each day is transporting you to your something let's use the pieces around us to build our own skylines etch our own stories into the sands of time if a decision to do one thing is a simultaneous decision to not do something else

make sure to have that North Star in scope so that you don't amidst that chaos of life unknowingly turn your back on. Ask yourself who you are. And be as patient as possible working for that answer. Because as far as I can tell, that information is the key that unlocks infinite possibility. It's knowledge that opens the door to life on your terms. Remove the lifelines. Eliminate plans B, C, and D. Let the curtains close and the lights dim. See, the beginning of something new requires the ending of something current. So make life propel you into Chapter 2.

Let the door slam and lock behind you throw away the key. With the boats burned and turning back off the table, we have to make it work. We have to figure it out. Well, how, we might ask, with only these pieces, with only this circumstance, with only these resources. Well, it's funny how when walking away is no longer a possibility, so many other possibilities are born.

When we're stuck between the wall and our demons, We roll up our sleeves and do that which we have been, let's face it, running from. We fight. We become proactive. We take initiative. It was always there. We just never had to. So if you can't do it on your own, make life make you.

Because the bottom line is there are new horizons that await your arrival. They are always there. But they require you to make the trip, to look out over the vastness of what's before you and convince yourself that what's ahead can become your new normal. And oh, how I wish we weren't biologically preconditioned to preserve, to stay safe, to stay the same. How I wish we weren't constantly being pulled to stay right where we are. Our minds, they love it here. with the rest of the world, the change, the hope, the progress, all on the other side of that window. All outside, all foreign to us.

You don't need any of that, it'll tell you. Or maybe, after you conjure up a little courage, it might compromise. It might say, fine, it's worth a try. Put one foot out the door, but don't forget, you can always come back to me. You can always retreat. It's warm here. safe here, it's predictable here. The mind wants you to know

that when things get tough, mediocrity, and comfort are always right behind you, ready to embrace you with open arms. And it's for this reason that those boats must be burned, that the door must be locked, and that chapter must be closed. The journey before you, it's going to be burned. difficult. There's no question about that. Anything of value brings difficulty. And when faced with

the adversity, the only way to defeat it is to know there is only one way, one option available to you. And that one option is forward. It's through. There is no backwards or compromise. There is no safety. Not if you want from life, that which is extraordinary. Not if you want the things we covet dream of, whether they're interpersonal, financial, career-oriented, health-related, maybe you just know in your soul that right now ain't it? Any move to something better will present to you its obstacles. And my advice, if it's what you really want, is to have decided before you started that there is no other way. There's no negotiating with yourself. Because if you allow that door to be cracked, life will kick it open.

So point the compass north and dismiss any notion that what's comfortable is more important than what's meaningful. When you're cold, nothing is more appealing than that warmth. But warmth is deception, a short-term ploy for you to forget what really matters. An illusion. See cold subsides, but victory is forever. Knowing that you pushed forward when most wouldn't is forever. Transforming potential into strength when your knees shook is forever. So burn the boat.

For no other reason that there is no way forward so long as there remains a way back. Make life make you win. And where most would look around and see evidence of defeat, you'll find again and again in the same quote unquote evidence the tools to build ladders to new beginnings and bridges to new worlds, there's a saying that I love that most of life's successful people were too ignorant of the odds to know their accomplishments were considered at one point impossible.

And I love it because it highlights that there was never a fallback option, a concern for the statistics. There was no worry or exhausted energy on what if. Rather, it was constant building and adjusting. Finding ways over, through, and around the walls that inevitably stand before us. There was no way home. So they pushed forward. into their greatness. And so can you, whatever shape, form, or color greatness looks like in your eyes,

whatever mountaintop appeals to you, if you want it, if you're willing to decide before you go that you will one day stand amongst the clouds peering out at that world you deemed wasn't against you, but for you, anything is possible. possible. Of all life's lessons. It's my relationship with what it means to suffer that's transformed my reality. Something that's learned, not unlike one's ability to read or write, an understanding

that unlocks the door to fulfillment. Nietzsche says, to live is to suffer, to survive, is to find meaning in the suffering. Dostoevsky says pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth. Helen Keller says, although the world is full of suffering, it's also full of the overcoming of it. Our problem is not that we suffer. Our problem is that we don't know how to perceive it when it inevitably arrives. We're taught that it's synonymous with a giant street sign saying wrong way.

We're taught that the perfect life is free of its grasp. It's why when suffering does arrive, we're so inclined to run from it. I reference my experience as a D1 Rower often, not because I stood out or even really because of my love for the sport. I reference it because it is the point in my life when I learned to suffer. when I learned what I could put my body through, my mind through, and see that like all things, discomfort simply ends, and life is different on the other side.

That's why I talk about waking up to go to the gym in the morning when it's still dark in the middle of winter, the practices that made me throw up, having three exams, two papers, but thinking about a 2K test. Because part of me couldn't believe I was doing it, because up until that point in my life, I would have simply said no. That's why I reference the three of us walk-ons that were their senior year

out of this 60-plus that showed up freshman year. We built a relationship with suffering. You understand what opens up to you when you agree to, for a moment in time, walk through those flames of hell. It's not a trick or a complex formula. It's just taking yourself to place as much. Most haven't learned to go.

Not because they can't, but because they haven't learned. When you know you can push yourself, far beyond what you thought possible, not only survive, but come back renewed, re-energized, a different understanding of the world. It's hard to see anything as too much or outside the realm of possibility. In my personal life, I can make difficult decisions. In my professional life, I can sit down and write when I don't want to. I feel like I can't. I can take on projects that scare me. That take me so far outside my comfort zone, my ceilings have no choice but to become floors.

You elevate yourself with ECHES. Gustav Lanzone says there is no art without commitment and suffering. That is not a demon to be avoided. It's truly the beginning of everything. Jocko, he says, discipline equals freedom. What is discipline? If not one's ability to accept and harness suffering? teach yourself not to step back but forward into it, into the chaos, into the disarray.

That's where our lives are assembled. It's where we are made. And so my message is where you would once say no, dare to say yes. Even if it's a footstep, a moment, one toe in the water, teach yourself that the very discomfort you've been running away from, that most run away from will be the reason your life transforms. Change isn't a miracle. It's a decision. We are, in some ways, helpless to what occurs around us. There are things that are beyond our control.

But the gift we possess, our power, if you will, is the ability to determine what we let in, how we internalize the externalities. we are responsible for being the gatekeepers of our minds, protectors of our worlds. There's a little saying that I aim to live by. It's incredibly simple. Basically, the idea is,

if something is not a net positive on your life, start working to eliminate it. If there's a person that is draining, creating more negative than positive, then they don't deserve to be in your world. stop letting them in. If there's some place you're going that doesn't align with what you value,

start working to eliminate that destination from your day to day. Stop letting it in. If you find yourself constantly thinking about worst case scenarios, it's always, well, what if this goes wrong or that goes wrong? If you find yourself missing the opportunity

and instead spotlighting the problem, start working to identify and isolate those thoughts so that they can be eliminated. Stop letting that stuff in. The great part about having so much control over our lives and our perspectives is that we get to choose what gets our time and attention. The tough part, though, and it is tough, is that it means we also have to ask ourselves questions that perhaps we don't want to ask. honest with ourselves. Like truly honest and the reality is sometimes it hurts to do that.

To ask how am I contributing to this pain, this struggle? What am I letting in that needs to be kept outside the gate from now on? And what we often find is that the answers are there. The opportunity is there, sometimes even in plain view. But our attention is often diverted from it and instead allocated to the things that don't even serve us or align with who we are. We've habitualized finding the problems and not the solutions.

I can list examples of this over the course of my life all day, right? Epiphanies where I realized I needed to defend the thoughts that enter my mind and better cultivate a world where I can succeed, where I can be happy. Money, for example, to switch from seeing it as a scarce resource, something that everyone's fighting over, how to outmaneuver the guy to the right of me,

how to get my hands on this elusive object. Nope, block that mentality at the gate and let in instead the idea that money is merely an exchange of value. How can I be more valuable to more people, where value goes, wealth follows. Or as I've talked about before, the injuries I deal with so frequently, right? Keeping the poor me, or I can't deal with this, or whining, I'm willing to put in the work, why won't life let me succeed?

Keep all that outside the gate and let in, here is an opportunity to get better in other areas. I can't lift. Maybe I'll take a month or two to crush cardio, to eat better, to build mental acute. find a way. Or maybe it's that person who made their way into my life that over time became a net negative, that we've gotten to the point where our coexistence takes away more than it adds. They no longer belong inside the gate in my world, right? Only let in people who do make your life better.

And we have control over all of this. It's about accountability. It's about personally understanding the authority you have over what comes in and what stays out. Very few things in life are just because. Things exist in our day to day because we have somewhere along the line allowed them to be there. So take some time to see yourself as the gatekeeper of your world. Audit what you're letting in and what you're keeping out. To do so will set you.

you up for a life on your terms. A life that's not wasted or even merely endured, but one that's lived to the fullest. In John Maxwell's book, The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, he talks about momentum and how the saying, if you can't take the heat, then get out of the kitchen, doesn't quite get it right, advocating that it should instead be if you can't create the heat, then get out of the kitchen. And being that we are all leaders in our own lives,

I think he hits on something that none of us should overlook, the power of momentum, of not waiting but creating, reminding ourselves that we are not spectators, sitting in the stands and simply reacting to or complaining about the events taking place below. No, we have the ability to change the things we do not like and create the ones that don't yet exist when we know they should. Too much of the time we react to that metaphorical heat in the kitchen, as John alludes to.

Forgetting that we can dial it up or down. We're not only characters that have been created, created, we are ourselves creators. And I talk a lot about mental shifts that have changed my life, and there are plenty. But perhaps the most important was the realization that I can do something about the things I don't like. And I know that sounds simple, probably even obvious. But I look back at various stages of my life and am blown away by the amount of things I tolerated for years. in years simply because I gave it no thought.

There were so many questions that I never asked, so many opportunities I never explored, until I realized, hey, you can stop accepting those things you don't want. It's amazing the power of a simple list that was created. Two columns. Left side, all the things that bothered me. that I wasn't happy with, or that I knew should be there that had been lacking. And then on the right column, what I'm going to do about it, every single item.

Each one, what's the step I'm going to take? And I just poured my heart onto that paper, and it's like you look down and feel like you have finally moved into the driver's seat. There's something incredible about knowing that you have taken control, something satisfying, knowing that you're not just accepting what falls out of the sky and lands in your hands, especially since we seem to have this proclivity to box ourselves in. Human beings are amazing in their ability to adapt. But the danger is when we adapt to and normalize a reality that falls short of what matters to us. The danger is in forgetting that nothing happens without momentum and momentum.

is self-made. One of my favorite stories is about a man walking through the circus. And he sees these enormous elephants, each with one end of a rope tied around one of their legs, and the other end of that rope connected to a chair. The man, as he's walking by, he's curious, asked one of the trainers, Hey, isn't that dangerous?

Couldn't the elephant easily break free and get away if he wanted? And the trainer says, no. No. See, we started doing this when they were baby elephants. And when they were babies, they couldn't physically break free. They weren't strong enough. And so over the years, as they grew and became bigger, stronger, it never dawned on them that by simply pulling on that rope or walking away, they could break free. These chains might as well be invisible. And that's what they were. mental. The rope wasn't keeping the elephants to the chair. The elephants were keeping the elephants to the chair. And there's something there in that message for all of us. For some of us in this

particular moment, maybe it's big picture. For others, maybe we're at a season of life where it's simply creating momentum in some type of smaller capacity. And I travel through these ups and downs personally all the time. I think that's a healthy thing. It's a sign that you're looking for that growth. You're checking the world around you for those imaginary ropes. Recently I went through a period where I just felt too long had gone by without something significant happening. I needed to create momentum. And so I asked, well, who was I reaching out to? How was I pushing myself? What was I doing that scared me? What was I doing that was growing? How could I take things up a level? All these little levers of opportunity are all around us, but we have to know to look for them,

to see them and pull. And it's truly an incredible thing. You do that, and you start to feel the movement underneath you, the momentum, the excitement, because you're trying new things, you're taking new risks, talking to new people. And that's the moment. And that's the moment. And that's, how that snowball grows. We have to realize that we are mighty big elephants perpetually tied to these comically small chairs. We have to create that heat in the kitchen because we're not only capable, we are ready. We are equipped to move forward. See, the moment is never going to be perfect.

The momentum will never come to be on its own. Those things wait. They wait for you to stop watching life go by and click start on the stop watch. Yeah, time has always ticked away, but it will never mean as much as it's about to now. Tick talk whispers the opportunity. Signifying that in order to evolve, we must decide we are bold enough to go where we have not yet gone and strong enough to leave some things behind. To choose to accept some discomfort in its impermanence instead of a regret that is forever. And that's a trade that demands we look into the future and find value in the unseen.

It's a move that says the seconds ticking by mean too much to disson. dishonor them by not making the most of what's around you. And those answers are always there. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about, right? We make decisions without even realizing we're making them. To accept the current moment as fate is to choose what you're given over what is possible, over everything that's out there available for you. It's never too late to pull on that rope around your foot.

To be who you, as the saying goes, might have been. Know that in your world, nothing consistently shows up or exists without your stamp of approval. That will always be true. Nothing carries on without you allowing it to do so. And that understanding will be the difference between the ground level and the exponential heights you are capable of reach. The creation, the email, the phone call, the ride, the book, the period of time, the step out, the door, any and all of life's seemingly unremarkable characteristics.

Within them is your ticket to greatness. Just know that you have to be the one that winds the clock. You are the sun around which everything else revolve, revolves the architect that makes something of value from them. There will always be momentum where you decide there should be momentum. So pick your head up, open the door, and step out into the world of potential that await. I want to start with a story about cliff jumping with my friends, maybe four years ago now. We flew into Las Vegas.

Spent some time in Vegas, and then we hit, like, national parks in Utah, and then Arizona went all the way up, the coast. When we were in Lake Tahoe at the very end, there was this spot to cliff jump. This really, really high peak, and, you know, it's notorious, and it was just like a scary thing. And I remember walking up, there were three of us,

and two other people were there. It's like you have to hike up to it. It's kind of in the woods a little bit. One of my buddies walked up and, you know, we thought he was going to jump right off. And he stood there and he looked down. And he looked down for, I don't know how long, a while. You know, ultimately jumped.

As far as I knew, I wasn't afraid of stuff like that, right? So I walk out and I look over the edge. And I could not bring myself to jump. Physically, I couldn't do it. Rationally, I couldn't speak myself or talk myself into it. There was no more rationality going on. It was just I was frozen in fear. And I just remember sitting there and looking down.

And, you know, people would come up and ask about it. And they'd be like, you know, can I jump? And I'm like, go ahead. Right. Like it almost got to the point where it was hurting my pride. And I still couldn't jump. And I just stood there, and I stood there, and I stood there. You know, I forget how long it took.

I don't really know, and time was probably felt insane in that moment, but eventually I did, and it was incredible, right? It was a forever long drop in just the adrenaline and the excitement, and you realize for a second, that type of thing, that's peak living, and there's more of that out there in the world, and all of a sudden you want to catch that. and obtain it and you realize what you had been missing. You know, and then my friend came up after me.

He stood there for just as long too, right? It's just a very weird thing and it's hard to explain. There are so many situations that are this peak in our life, this cliff that we know we need to jump up. we need to jump from. We know the other side is better or we suspect, but we can't bring ourselves to do it. And this all came from a quote I found from John Green, one of my favorite authors. In his book Paper Towns, it says, it is so hard to leave until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamn thing in the world. And that's right on the money. Right. Be.

being on the edge of that cliff, it is terror, sheer terror. It is so hard to make that jump. And then you do, and it's like life opens up. And it's the same thing in this case, right? It's so hard to leave until you do. It's terrifying to uproot, to change, to go somewhere you don't know. But once you do, life opens up. It's incredible.

The other side is beautiful. and it's waiting for you. All of this is coming to a single point, a rule that I used to guide my decision making. And the rule is simple. If you are not content where you are, that is your reason to jump. Because on that cliff,

rationality dissolves. The future is unknown, and it's scary. And how are you going to logically talk yourself into a scary unknown when you're at that point? You can't. It doesn't make sense. And I think that's why so many of us are scared to make that jump. And we ultimately turn back and we concede and go, okay, I'll just stick with what I have. This isn't great, but it is what it is.

I can't bring myself to make that jump. We're all there at some point. I've been there. I've been there with speaking big, big, clear. cliff for me when I first started. Ultimately jumped and put me on a trajectory that changed my life, right? Same thing with making videos. Same thing with my first client. Like all these things, they're terrifying. And in the moment, you can't logically speak through them. So you just have to go. And it's like, well, how do you logically, you don't? You just go. Because if the present,

here's the rule, the present is not making you content. Go. Jump. right never forget that the path the the future is is comprised of a trillion paths and you can bend them and shape them and remake them and sometimes it won't work sometimes it'll you know blow up in your face but again you're still presented with an opportunity to adjust and remake and bend and re-approach and continue forward right the only way to lose is to stay on that cliff for the rest of your life And so if you needed some type of rationality, if you needed some type of reason, I'm hoping that maybe I can give that to you today. If you are not content where you are, jump. Because somewhere along the way, you'll figure it out.

Every time I've jumped, it's changed my life for the better. Maybe not immediately, but ultimately. And as I say, that's what life's all about. So, hey, I hope you got something from this podcast. If you did, please subscribe, rate review. Helps me get it out to the world. And, guys, I appreciate that. And I will catch you tomorrow.

Yesterday, I drove out a little bit into North Carolina, parked the car, found a path, and went on a long hike to take in some scenery, think about life holistically, kind of contemplate where I'd go from here and why it matters. Which is always funny to think about, right? The idea of having to carve out time amidst our frantic and often chaotic journey to get somewhere. To, well, define where somewhere is.

But I think about that a lot. Our days consist of so much running around that I can easily forget what even my calculated decisions add up to. Why? It's a simple enough question. Perhaps one I could ask more. Why? What's with this whole get comfortable with discomfort thing? Why do I place so much emphasis on the quote-unquote path less traveled?

Which is a term that one of my buddies was recently given me a hard time about using in all my speeches, right? It must mean something to me. It's got me here. But it's here better than over there. After all, it's not out of the realm of possibility that I'm the one who's missing the mark. And it's okay to examine that possibility. In fact, that's why I'm here. And I bounced this around in my head as I made my way up the trail

and noticed as I looked around, everything just felt perfect. Have you ever had one of those moments where it just seems surreal? The morning was incredible. I loved the sound of the earth under my feet as I took each step, the chirping of the birds in the early morning, the sun making its way through the trees. And I thought, it's amazing that you can live 20 minutes from this feeling and just never experience it.

I guess proof that a decision did not go, to do nothing, is still very much a decision. And in this case, would have been the less desirable one. I'm glad I went. My phone was in my backpack, and for the first time in a while, I didn't even think about it. My mind was stimulated. My senses were taking in something new, something different,

something not my studio or laptop or social media analytics pages. In fact, all that stuff felt kind of charged. trivial now that I was removed from it. And I wondered, why don't I do this more? I thought popped into my head earlier that morning. I thought, hey, that's a cool idea. I just had to get through that initial pushback, the hesitancy of, well, what's the point? What's the desired outcome of a hike? And after all, this little jaunt is just going to distract you from your work and your progress. But at that moment, I think you have to just shut out reason for a second. You have to remind yourself that there's value, period. Otherwise, we open the door for rationalizing. We talk

ourselves out of some of life's beautiful secrets. Sometimes you have to just go. And as I made my way down this trail further and further, I started to feel better. I felt reassured. Like I had something that I otherwise wouldn't have had, something that's my own. And maybe that is it. maybe that alone is the reason for everything. To collect those incredible things, large and small, that we might not have had. After all, isn't life just an accumulation of memories, of experiences that are spread out like a choose-your-ending children's book?

And with so much control over the outcome, I think that matter deserves my attention in order to acquire the good stuff, whether it's in a different location or a country, context or time in my life, I still learn again and again that to get that we have to leave some things behind. And that's the essence of life. You usually get out what you put in.

And I think about that a lot. I think about the forks in the road I've come across, those same ones, the life-altering decisions. I guess it's only human, you know, walking away from that promising career that I spent my whole life building towards. Every once in a while, sure, I miss the security. Leaving this city and the people that made my life what it was, it still haunts me from time to time,

trading permanence and structure, for the freedom to condense my life's work into a laptop, take it anywhere in the world, and empowerment can be lonely, right? And I guess I can't help that in the midst of those situations, the easy decision always feels like the wrong one. I've just been pulled by the upside. I gravitate towards this grandiose version,

of what life could be on the mark that I hope to make. And to me, the scariest thing has always been not having the courage to see more, to explore, the phrase, what if has always been my adversary, the monster in the closet, and it's a costly one to slay. But life is both suffering and infinite beauty. And it's like you have to choose where you're going to endure pain and why that matters, so that you can climb the mountain

that means everything to you, that makes life worth it. In other words, meaningful discomfort now or painful regret later. And I strongly believe that life is about pursuing something meaningful. And even the triviality of a hike wants to remind me of this truth. I could be at home playing guitar, watching Netflix, relaxing. I mean, that would have been easier. But there's only one way to catch that sun. rise over the trees. And that way is not Netflix. All those beautiful views, they require an output of energy to reach them.

They come with fear of something going wrong and in doubt that perhaps the turn you made wasn't the best one and that's okay. But I believe that happiness to be truly fulfilled requires trade-offs. And with each step, it becomes easier and easier to understand. For the gym rat, it's the discipline and the belief, knowing that muscles break down so that they can be built up. For the relationship to flourish, it's overcoming disagreements, accommodating the needs of that person that you love, so that they can be the last thing you see before you fall asleep. For the free spirit, it's walking away from what you know in pursuit of something that excites and invigorates, even if you're not entirely sure what it means.

It's about enduring one so that you can collect the other. Now, what you choose to endure and what you choose to collect is up to you, but that's what makes life such a beautiful ride. A roller coaster taking you through lows to reach highs into darkness to see how life changing the light is when it pushes its way through. Little decisions that become the collage that explodes off the paper when you step back and look. That's what you get back when you make a point to see me. more. That's why my love affair with the trivial and the mundane lights my path. It's not just a little thing.

It's a microcosm of my everything. It's my saying yes to the opportunity that we work so hard to ignore in an effort to avoid inconvenience. But a life worth living is not always convenient. You could even argue at times, it should be inconvenient. Because the higher the climb, the more we give of ourselves, the more precious the world looks from the top down. And the challenging times, that things will be sacrificed and leave behind, they're not so much a part of the picture as the paint on your pallet. That in breaking down, you can now recreate using your own ideals, metrics, and guidelines, a world that you now have the ability to transform.

That's why life, to me, is nothing more than color, decisions, nothing more than paint, steps, nothing more than brush strokes and life. Well, life is nothing and everything, which as the morning breeze reminds me, is a decision that is entirely my own. The thing about storms is that they all have one thing in common, they pass. And once gone, they leave you as a person different than who you were before you stepped in. you found yourself consumed by its adverse conditions. They are disruptors, breaking down and shaking up, but not for the sake of chaos itself.

No, storms break us down so that we can build again, so that we can find within ourselves the power and the strength that simply remain tucked away during those. sunny days. And so walking up to the storm, what you'll immediately notice is a break from the normal. The every day. An obvious detachment from the standards by which you had been living. But don't be fooled into thinking those dark clouds and heavy winds have nothing of value for you. Don't be tricked into thinking the rain will consume all the good in life. Because at the end of the day, it's that very rain that washes away the excess and leaves the meaningful. We don't grow despite the storms.

We grow because of the storms. So compose yourself and embrace what's around you. Amidst the storm, you might realize that you don't want some of the things you thought you did. You might realize that life contains variable. that make it incredibly unpredictable. And when old plans meet new variables, sometimes we learn that the path we were walking down requires adjustment.

It needs change. Not because we were wrong. The dream was wrong, where the path was wrong, but because life is an experiment. Experiments are meant to test hypotheses and support exploration. Without the storm, sure, everything seemed fine.

Everything was flawless, but in the thick of it, when the variables, the multiplicity of factors present themselves, it often paints a picture for us that we previously weren't able to see. That's okay. Ideal, even. It's life. So when amidst the storm and presented this new information, this new portrait pivot, grow with your understanding and newly acquired knowledge. There's no point in remaining tied to the ideas, the people and the places that once served you,

but have since run their course. Growth is perspective and awareness, and as the storm shakes your foundation, it also hands you a clarity that those blue skies simply could not. So adjust. adapt and move further into the person you are destined to become. You can't learn that on a sunny day.

No, that's what storms are for. And amidst the storm, you might find yourself scared, nervous, unsure. You might even look back and wonder what life would have been like had you not stepped in. Perhaps you're angry with yourself

for not navigating around the inclement weather. Maybe you'll find yourself asking, how did I let myself end up in such a situation when there were visual indicators and weather forecasts? People warned me about moments like this, yet here I am. You might find that the drop in temperature is uncomfortable. The rain, difficult, the wind, annoying.

But here's what they don't tell you. There's something innately powerful about proving to yourself that you can move forward despite those things. That when you're scared and step forward anyway, when you're lost but maintain your poise and trust in the process, when you're down but cling to hope to that light at the end of the tunnel, you emerge with a different understanding of who you are. You end up stronger because you've allowed yourself to become stronger. And you don't get that on the sunny days. No, that's what storms are for.

And amidst the storm, you might feel like the sacrifice required in life is more than you want to endure. Maybe even more than you can endure. After all, it's during our trying times that we're forced to make some of our most difficult to see. We might be forced to let go of some things that had been staples in our lives. That in order to say hello to some things, we must necessarily say goodbye to others. And this hurts. Especially while it's happening, it hurts.

But what you're really doing is learning to identify what matters and mitigate the things that don't support that journey. Sometimes storms teach us that growth is not about acquisition and obtaining more, and they show us instead that we've been carrying too much, that we become accustomed to surrounding ourselves with things that no longer elevate or inspire or push us, and the best way to evolve is to move forward with less. So when you see parts of yourself fade away or dissolve, you're going to hold your head up because when you get to the other side you just might see that cutting away those things was more liberating than anything you could find or

pick up along the way and we're not taught this lesson on those sunny days no that's what storms are for and amidst the storm it's quite possible that you'll feel lonely from time to time maybe misunderstood But perhaps like the whole world has everything figured out. They're moving single file through the correct door while you wander around aimlessly. That's not true. No one has all the answers and everyone has their storms. The question has always been, as far as I'm concerned, what will you make of yours?

Because we're always presented with the decision to let our adversity define us, or to find something of value in it, the opportunity hidden in plain view. You're never alone in your pain or your distress. Those things are an inevitability tied to the miracle that is life. But what you are is powerful, powerful enough to learn in your solitude and bring that understanding back out to the world. Powerful enough to let the lessons guide you to something beautiful. Powerful enough to find the meaning underneath the turbulence.

We often confuse our times of greatest transformation with setbacks. We often forget that the darkness cannot withstand a single flicker of light, and we can be that light when we trust ourselves. It's a lesson that can't be taught on sunny days. No, that's what storms are for. And that storm, that very thing you want with all your heart to avoid, it's not antithetical to your happiness or your prosperity. No, ultimately, it's how you create those things.

The trials and tribulations help us look at life from different angles. They remind us what we are capable of. Show us we can do so much more than we thought that we have in many cases been accepting a reality that is not our own. That is just the beginning. And so whether you were on the outside looking in or at this very moment in the heart of chaos,

remember this is making you who you need to be. And sure, it never feels good in the moment. It's never exciting. when it's happening. But there will be a point when you look around and see a world unlike the one you stepped away from. One in which you are stronger, bolder, wiser. One in which you have greater clarity and understanding a better sense of who should be with you and where you are going.

It's not despite but because of the storm that you'll rise from the ashes. and from the quote unquote misfortune to find yourself and your way. 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 a lot of

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 to you. 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 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 faster, 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. 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? 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, I 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 when 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 paths simplified or got easier, but because the traveler trusted himself to walk down it.

Could it be that the answers to our most challenging questions are so small that they're brushed off as insignificant, that in pursuing that bulldozer we think is necessary to knock the door down, we refuse again, and again. the key that would simply open it. Why is our first instinct to think our next action needs to be as big or as glamorous as that intended result? Again and again, my default has been to look for some brilliant,

monumental insight or some secret answer that would unroll like a scroll containing a treasure map. But again and again I learn and I relearned. and I relearn that what I need, what is required, is so reasonable. It's so accessible that it almost feels like the universe has a sense of humor, right? It's sitting back and chuckling while we run around

with keys in our pockets looking for a sledgehammer to break the door down. This is kind of a funny story. So last year, I had my first year old within live event and Evan Carmichael was one of the speakers and after the event we were talking about YouTube, right? He says, why don't you swing by? We'll look at your channel.

We'll see if I can offer any suggestions or pointers. And I gladly accepted the offer. And so I showed up later in the evening. He's got his laptop open. He's running all these tests, right? There's graphs and there's charts and comparison tables. And my first question is, obviously, what are you doing? And he says, I'm testing my YouTube titles and thumbnails.

And I'm thinking, interesting. Here's the guy who makes so much content. He's got 378 million views, right? Why are you exhausting time and energy on this? So I asked him, Evan, does it really matter? I mean, if your thumbnail pictures orange or yellow, or if there's a face on the left or right side, or if it's capitalized or not, right?

If it's good, people will show up and they'll watch it. Isn't that what matters? Well, it turns out I was wrong. In fact, I couldn't be more wrong. And when you're talking about a channel with millions of impressions, making a small change in color could mean your videos are clicked 1% more, which means thousands, if not millions, more views. Which means it's shared more, seen more, which means the channel grows.

And that's not from him going back and recreating and reinventing the wheel. No, it's using the key he has in his pocket right now. And that's the reason I found this so incredible. Because until that moment, I'd always approach the platform with a sledgehammer, right, using our metaphor. I had this idea that, you know, I truly found to be an epiphany and changed the way I think about things. So I'd get really excited. I'd make a video about it. I'd release it out to the world.

And maybe it wouldn't do so well. You know, people wouldn't watch that particular video. It would just kind of sit there. And my thought was always, all right, hey, it worked for me. Must on a hit for everyone else. That's life. On to the next one. Never did I think for a second that, hey, you don't need to recreate the wheel.

You're looking for a bulldozer when you need a key. You need to slightly adjust the titling or make the thumbnail more appealing, right? And the idea is these little tweaks are sometimes all that's required. You know, we think we got to reach out and find some answer or readjust every aspect of what we're doing. And it's like, no, it's a little thing. And it's right in front of you. And it's very manageable. And it's very realistic.

And believe me, especially for people that aren't content creators. And there's a lot of you listening to this right now. I get how trivial it seems. But isn't that the point? And sure enough, within the next few months, I changed some thumbnail pictures around and two videos that were just sitting there. I got hundreds of thousands of more views. And I, you know, as I tend to do, look at the bigger picture.

Well, how many times in life are you trying to find this monumental answer? And it's like, no, tweak here, adjustment here, change the way you are measuring some success, and it changes your tactics. Think about productivity, right? I've been in the same boat, I want to be more productive. So how? Well, maybe if I get better at scheduling, I'll get scheduling tools, maybe some time management apps, I know I'll do a daily checklist, that'll do it, that's what I need.

But in reality, the commonality when I have productive days is they all consist of me waking up, not stressed, having time to think, reflect, plan, and moving on. It flows into every other aspect in my day. It doesn't require me to buy some $1,000 productivity course. Big result often requires small, manageable action. And again, the point here is that change can feel overwhelming, because I think the default mechanism is to assume the next step needs to be as big as that desired result. It's like, oh, I want to climb that mountain, so I have to figure out a way to jump that high.

No, that's not true. You have to take small steps many times. And where we should be looking for consistency or something within our grasp or looking for some small self-contained miracle. You know, everything feels bigger than it is. It's an interesting part about growing up. You realize everything's not as big and intimidating and shiny and sparkly as it appears to be. We have the tools right now in real time.

In fact, they're very ordinary, very unimpressive, and that's with goals just like people. You know, I grew up seeing pictures of my grandfather. who was an admiral in the Navy talking to American presidents and heads of state, and I'd ask them, you know, how was that? What was that like? And he'd always say, look, they'd put their pants on one leg at a time just like I do, just like you do. I think in a lot of ways, you know, we need to take the glamour and the mystique away from the things we want and the people we aspire to be like, right? Big goals are an accumulation of little steps.

And quote-unquote, successful people are ordinary human beings who have the courage to take those steps. Not for attention or likes or follows, but because they cared and they respected the process enough to stick it out. And so can I, and so can you. You have everything you need. Whether you're talking about creating on YouTube or putting yourself in position to conquer the day, learning or emulating those you admire,

nothing is otherworldly for you. Sure, you'll have your strengths and your weaknesses because we all do, but there's no magic you need to find or acquire. No bulldozer or a sledgehammer needed to lessen the gap between real and ideal. Just the understanding that the key in your pocket, the one you already have, will get you through the door. It's not a commitment to perfection. It's a commitment to remind yourself that every time you're stuck or overwhelmed or lost,

that perhaps you're looking for miracles in the clouds when the solution is simple at your feet. It's not the mountain, it's one rock, it's not the forest, it's one tree, it's not the journey, it's one step. And as time goes by, you'll find yourself moving beyond that previous reality, beyond those looking for the home run or otherworldly answers, and beyond the narrative that you don't have what it takes because you do and you always did.

You simply had to commit to walking, that how can I be happy all the time it's a question I get probably more than any other right and every time I read that question I pause for a second and can't help but think that it's somewhat misguided happy all the time how can I eliminate everything and I guess the thinking is you know it's it's folks that know the channel and watch my videos right so they they hear the perspective in the positivity and the messages, and they want that to be a constant reality. And I get that. But the part that I think is overlooked is that those breakthroughs, right, those lessons learned,

they come from stories that were carved out from hardship, right, from some of my most difficult times. It's not that happy isn't the goal, it is. But at the macro level, it requires micro adjustments, right. periods of difficulty. You know, we're human. We have emotions. We have highs, but you bet we have lows and there's good, but there's all so bad. And I don't believe that happy all the time is the target. The targets everything that comes your way, the good and the bad, making something out of it, a net positive, finding happiness in places where perhaps we didn't see it the first time. Right? Thinking big picture, thinking macro, our overall

contentment with life. See, that's the beautiful component that we're prone to overlook. And so I thought for some clarity, what I do is start from, you know, day one when I started this journey, this entrepreneurial, you know, process. And I'd go through some of my messaging, some of the videos that I've released along the way and talk about why, how I got to that point, how I got to that lesson learned, and why maybe happy all the time is mislems. The first video I ever released, it's called Ode to Excellence. And essentially it's about, it's a promise to myself to never quit, to never give up, to never back down, no matter how difficult things get. And I wrote that after my first true entrepreneurial project.

I was on my own for the first time and loved music, right? Music's always been sort of the backbone of my creativity. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to do it. you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna put everything aside I'd saved up some money I'm like I'm gonna record an album an acoustic gobble and that's what I did and I blocked off the world and for three months I wrote songs and recorded them and edited them and mixed them and mastered them um put them all on CDs I sent the CDs to radio stations clubs bars all around Boston I thought it was gonna you know be this life-changing thing and it was but not in the way that I thought the CD got no traction right family friends bought it were very

supportive but you know that's really where it ends and it was the first time in my life truly I'd given everything for something and gotten no response it was the first time I realized that effort does not always equal a result but here's why it was the best thing that ever happened to me one I realized that maybe it's not that good which looking back now is what you'd expect doing something for the first time it's like do you you have to hone your craft. You have to write 2,000 songs. You have to put in so much more time

to be at a level where you want to be. You can't just think that it happens overnight. And that was a very important thing for me to understand. The second is I realized that I was at the bottom of a very big mountain looking up. You know, this is a process. And it's going to take persistence. It's going to take patience.

And it was stressful, right? Particularly because I didn't have that safety net that I once had, I wanted to retreat back to the simplicity of what I had, the sort of the reassurance of a job. You know, I wasn't sure that the cost, the uncertainty of the moment was worth it. It was stressful. But that situation helped define me, right? It wasn't perpetual happiness that taught me this lesson. It was one of my toughest times. From that failure came my resilience, came my owed to excellence. I wrote a speech called Perspective.

And this is, you know, months down the road. I saw my first kind of glimmer of light. I've been, you know, doing the music thing and also creating a brand on YouTube and sharing my thoughts, telling stories. And I finally saw a little bit of success. I wrote a speech called Running in the Rain and it was getting traction.

It was doing well. It was being shared, creating buzz. I was getting speaking inquiries, all these things. And I'm like, all right, well, here we go, right? Let's go. A little bit of momentum. And I woke up one morning and I got this email from YouTube and it was like, we had to remove the video from your channel because you broke community guidelines. And apparently I put some keywords on the bottom of the description to help it get traffic,

running, inspiration, things that would help it sort of move to the top of the pile when someone searched for it. And I remember being so angry about the situation. I felt so sorry for myself. It was like momentum, attention, they're so hard to capture. I'm finally getting it in now this, right? And my views are declining and everything's going backwards. And you just feel like I was delusional.

I felt like the world was ending. But that prompted me to look at the big picture, right? To realize that, look, there's nothing you can do except re-upload the video, start over and keep my head up. Think about it. Life is going to throw things at me that are much more difficult than this. Right, there's going to be difficulty and loss and problem, even tragedy. And if I fold over a video being taken down, I don't really have a shot, right?

So from that tough time, I gain perspective. I learned to toughen up. I started to understand that it's not what happens to you because everyone has difficulty in their life, but it's how you deal with it. That's what brings happiness at a macro level. I wrote a speech called Dancing with No Music. You know, I remember the situation, exactly. I was sitting at my desk,

kind of brainstorming a new project I was going to work on, and my phone buzzed. Pick it up, and I had a text message from, you know, a friend at the time, and he accidentally sent a text message to me, kind of poking fun at me and my work. me and my work and what I was doing was meant to be about me to someone else and he accidentally sent it to me directly. And I remember sitting there thinking like, dude, are you kidding me? Like, these are the people that are supposed to have your back. They're supposed to be, you know,

picking you up, encouraging you when you're, you know, going through these difficult times. And so in that moment, you know, I felt more alone than I had in a while. It wasn't a great feeling. But it prompted thought. Thought prompts perspective and I began to realize, you know, look, it's not his fault. Right. People don't see, you know, the world as it can be. Right. They don't understand your vision. They see now. Not your idea, not your potential. They see now. And if you want to bring that to fruition, you have to separate the negativity. Separate the people that that do that and think like that and say those things and live life like it's already there. Like it's guaranteed. And so from that difficult moment, I learned that I need to dance with no music. Believe in myself. See it before it's there. Act like I already hear

the melody and I'm moving towards it. That's the only way to push through that cloud of chaos into the result that you want, that you so desperately want. I wrote a speech called The Last Train Home. At this point, I've been working hard to build your world within for, I don't know, maybe a year at this point. One of my greatest struggles was that I continued to feel the pressure to adhere to standards that I didn't personally believe in. Right?

I was restricted by benchmarks that they weren't integral to my journey. And so before working for myself, it was trying to impress my boss and, you know, the idea of promotions and goal sheets. Then it became, you know, comparing my style to those around me, to people that have found success in some capacity. And I even remember, you know, running at 2 p.m. and feeling guilty because all those people doing quote unquote the right thing, they're working in an office. Like they don't have the luxury of running downtown. And like, that was my mindset. And so I fell into the temptation of viewing precedent or like previous success stories as not just a tool, but as the singular way to reach the summit.

And so I was continually zinging and zagging. You know, here's the shortcut or here's the method. Here's the strategy. I need to incorporate this and this and this. And every time I diverted from what felt true to me, I stumbled. Every time I left my path for someone else's, I became lost in the way. this cloud of confusion. And it took, you know, that reoccurring experience for me to finally understand. You know, it was from those times of disarray that I began to see the significance of patience.

That it's okay. It's okay to take my own train. Even if it's the last one to leave the station, don't panic, don't do something you don't feel is true or right. Believe it. that your train is there, it's waiting, and you will catch it. That's a very difficult thing to do. It's not a happy experience. But it evolves into this freedom, right? This flexibility and ultimately this satisfaction with life that wouldn't be there if you didn't seek it out,

if you weren't patient enough to find it. I wrote a speech called Remember Why You Started. hands down one of the toughest transitions of my life. And I was in a situation that on the surface wasn't bad. In fact, you could say it's good. I was surrounded by beautiful people, beautiful relationships, in a good place that I liked. But I was coming to the realization more and more

that the situation wasn't conducive to me creating what I felt like I wanted to create. I'd sort of lost track. I've lost that fire, that energy that I had when I first began. And that's due to concessions, to small compromises that I was making along the way that add up. And you sort of slowly lose yourself a little bit at a time. And when you make that realization, it's like, well, you have a decision to make. You know, are you okay 30, 40 years from now with sacrificing the thing you wanted to be?

because something else was more important or other things, you know, took priority. And I don't think either one is right or wrong. It's the question that you have to answer. And I made that decision. And I packed up, put my stuff in a trailer, and I left. And I remember as, you know, my world faded away in my rear view thinking, like, this is the hardest thing I've ever done. I didn't believe for the first 200 miles I was actually going to go through with it.

I really didn't. And eventually, you know, I arrived at a new place and I made it my home and dedicated myself fully again to what I believed and to what I felt right, truly in my heart in doing. And I felt that energy, that fire sort of reemerge. And you know, right? You know, you wake up and it just feels good. You have this passion that's there. that you want every day, that you want to maintain, that you want to drive you.

And I knew it was the right decision, but that wasn't born out of happiness, that wasn't born out of the easy thing. It was very, very difficult to get there. It was almost a battle, right? You have to fight to reprioritize. And so this comes up a lot when I hear that question. How can I be happy all the time?

And it's like, well, you know, you can do the easy thing that's easier in the short term, but then will you be happy in the long term? You know, it's sort of a catch-20. Hatch 22, it's a prioritization. It's understanding what makes you feel alive. What makes you feel truly good, authentic. And that's not a question of short-term, consistent, non-stop happiness. It's a question of long-term fulfillment. Sometimes we have to do the difficult things to create what we want long-term, big picture. And lastly, I'll talk about Ode to Excellence Part 3,

which obviously it's been years since part 1. and a lot's changed. The goal posts have shifted. The context is new, but the idea is pretty similar. It's a promise to myself to move into uncharted water, whether that's because it feels right, I'm called to do it, or sometimes just for the sake of sheer curiosity, it's that idea that sometimes what awaits around the corner

can change your life. That unknown can be exactly what you need and you don't know unless you move there. And the difference in context is that now I'm settled. Right now, I'm substantially more comfortable than I was when this whole thing began for me. And the danger in that is nothing screaming at you constantly to continue to grow and evolve and develop. It's real easy to fall into routine and just kind of keep going the way you've always gone. And I remember sitting right outside talking to a good friend of mine on the phone.

And we were talking, you know, strategy, talking about growing our brands and just kind of the different worlds that we're involved in. And he asked, you know, Eddie, why, you know, have you stopped doing the music thing? I think there's something there. And, you know, music's obviously been a big part of what I do. It kicked off my creative journey, as I mentioned earlier with that album. It's been sort of, you know, intertwined into this process. You know, I write a lot of background tunes. I wrote the background music you're listening to right now.

I haven't completely left it, but I've pivoted. And when he asked why it's been sort of in the background, I couldn't give a complete answer. I didn't really know. But as I began to think about it, the answer really rose to the surface. And it became so fixated on one dimension of what I was doing that I started to look at it through a lens of scarcity and ignoring the infinite possibility out there. I mean, really, in relation to what's possible, my accomplishment, are a grain of sand on the beach.

It's very minimal. But that's not how you look at things when you really get lost in the weeds. I didn't want to hurt my credibility. I didn't want to lose what I've built. I didn't want to sabotage a quote-unquote winning formula. But guess what? That's not what life's about.

That's not what my brand or message is about. That's not what got me here, right? Exploring creativity is what got me here. It means everything. And that was such an eye-opening thing. was such a beautiful reminder that, head, you're limiting yourself. You're not evolving fully.

There's a treasure chest around the corner and you're too worried about losing your shiny penny. It was from this predicament, right, being honest with myself. That courage and that determination grew. In fact, the struggle ended up exponentially increasing my overall happiness because it reemphasized the creative flexibility necessary to do what I think's right. The third Ode to Excellence is a promise to

keep that flame lit. And see, these are just a handful of little stories. They're little epiphanies. But I can say wholeheartedly that they shaped me. Not because every day of the journey, I was constantly smiling. But it was the specific times that I wasn't that made me stronger. I'm happier now. My life is better now because of these situations. And that's what I want to emphasize, right? Happy all the time isn't the goal. It can't be the goal. Living a life you're proud of and turning the bumps along the way, the inevitable roadblocks along the way into momentum, that's going to give you long-term happiness. That's going to make you feel better about every moment. It's such a gift to be here. We're so

lucky. Let's move away from the idea that there are people out there that never have a bad day. Nothing's ever wrong in their life because that's not only untrue, but it dilutes the opportunity in front of you. It makes you feel like you're losing when bad things happen when in fact those are the tools to win, to live every day to the fullest. Right? The reality is sometimes it is the Hallmark card thing, right? Hands out, sun on your face, smiling, humming your favorite song, life is good. Sometimes it's picking up those little pieces when things feel like they're falling apart around you. But know that regardless, right, either one or anywhere in between, there is positive there. There is power at your feet. Just find it, hold it, and by all

means, keep moving full.