Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - From 0 to 500k YouTube Subscribers: 5 Lessons I Wish I Knew When I Started | Motivational Speech

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." - Nietzsche

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My favorite quote, those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those. who could not hear the music. Well, being that we've hit this milestone, 500,000 subscribers, I want to do a few things. Firstly, I wanted to take a second and thank you all for being a part of this journey. When I say it's been my inspiration and my reason for writing and speaking

and creating these videos, it's an understatement. I love that I've been able to relate to you and in many ways feel like we've been on this journey together. So thank you for being there and watching and listening and sending your messages and commenting. And it just means the world. And so from the bottom of my heart, thank you. The second thing I wanted to do is, in reference to Nisha's dancing, before the music plays, kind of look back and unpack five things that I learned along the way.

with the hope that, you know, again, you don't have to be a podcast or a YouTuber. Like, whatever your journey is, regardless of context or overlaps, and there are things we can learn from each other. So I wanted to dive into five of my, let's say, biggest lessons learned, things that I would have gone up to a younger me, you know, put my arm around him and said, hey, there's a lot coming your way and knowing this will be helpful. So that said, let's get right into it. Five things that I learned on my way to 500,000 YouTube subscribers.

So lesson number one is it's okay to not know. That is the thing that created the most resistance for me, right? Because up until that point, I had always been very confident in where I was going, which 99% of the time is where I was supposed to go, but it's still, I had a destination in mind. So the breaking point here, the pivot was sitting down and creating these little pieces of media

simply for the sake of creating them. Right? So I'm spending hours and hours every day, writing and editing and producing, and if someone were to say, what's this going to be in five years? How much are you making? What is it you do?

Those are all very, very, basic questions and very challenging questions to say, I'm not sure, right? It sucks mentally to even go back to that because it's just the agony it caused me in my mid-20s, it was substantial, right? And so what I learned was life is not about knowing. It's okay to have an idea, step out, and learn and pivot, and regroup and pivot. You know, that's not only half the fun, but that's like, from that exploration comes that which is meaningful. And so, yes, I would tell younger me, but I would also tell anyone else starting an adventure or a journey or following some type of passion or interest.

It's okay that it inevitably feels dumb because we are very outcome-oriented, right? That makes sense. You exhaust energy, you expect validation. It's counterintuitive to think, I'm doing this because I love it. I'm doing this because it's meaningful, and it will become something. Hey, what's it going to be? I don't know, but something, right? And so there is a confidence and essentially a courage required to be able to do something like that.

And we all have it and we all can tap into it. We just have to let go of the expectation, that life is perfectly laid out, that it's a checklist, that it's right or wrong, that there is a specific path. No, it is in the doing, carving out something meaningful for yourself. So that's lesson one. Lesson number two is love it. And I say love it because taking something that doesn't exist and making it exist is challenging, right? It's difficult and it requires sacrifice and not necessarily sacrificed in a poor me type way, but just pragmatically speaking.

Saying yes to one thing requires saying no to a lot of other things. And sometimes saying no to those things is challenging. Sometimes continuing forward is challenging. And that's why being immersed in truly loving what you do matters. Because when most people will look around and go, look, this is not worth it for me anymore. The price is not worth it. It would be for you. And I could give, when I say infinite examples, you know, just the very nature of content creation, which, you know, is a huge part of what I do.

It's like sometimes you feel like you have the idea or the message or the piece of content or art that's going to change the world and it's just a swing and a miss. And I remember the first couple years, it was easy to be devastated by those. Again, the same thinking. I put in time, I put in energy, I put in money, where's the result? It's not there. But if you love it and you learn to depersonalize it, you put yourself in a position to win, right? And when you go to those checkpoints that I mentioned a second ago where most people go, okay, fine, it's just not for me. It's too much.

And you don't ask, is it too much, but instead you ask, well, how do I figure this out? Right. How do I get to the next piece? Your world becomes a puzzle. You're solving something meaningful. And that is fun. That's how, you know, you actually create impact. The difference between people that go the extra mile or innovate or come up with something that hasn't been done a certain way before,

they're not the people that are checking boxes on a list because they have to. They're the people that are so excited about what they're doing, that they're scratching and clawing and recreating. That in itself is a process. So could you go down a road out of obligation, checking boxes, and being there just to say you were there? Sure, you could. You could show up every day for the rest of your life and do that.

But would you be able to manufacture that excellence that comes from truly being excited about something, right, that invigorates your soul so that you are innovating and making something that wasn't there. If you're carrying that curiosity with you, it's night and day. And it took me a while to find that. There's no question. And believe me, I looked. I looked and I looked, and I looked, and I got a little closer and a little closer and a little closer. I referenced the J.R. Token quote a lot. Not all who wander are lost. Because that period of wandering for me, finding that thing I really loved was everything. I wanted to commit to something. Doing the other things that I was doing just felt wrong because I knew I was there to be there.

I was there for some external reasons. But being able to search and find that thing where, yes, I'm adding value and yeah, I love doing it. You know, that changed my life. And I think we all have that. We all are capable of that. We just have to look. So that's lesson number two. Find, or I should say take the time to find the thing you love

and commit to going all in. Because, yes, there are highs and the highs are very high, and there are lows, and the lows are very low. But at the end of the day, it's worth it. Lesson number three is add value. And I know that might seem super intuitive. But I'll tell you what, it's very easy to become the center of your own universe. And especially when you love doing something, it's meaningful to you, right?

We get lost in the weeds and we lose that North Star. We forget the people that we're trying to help and serve. Because if you were doing something you love, but it's not adding value to anyone else, that's fine. It's a hobby, and we all need hobbies. But this is not about, you know, you know how I went from no hobby to a hobby it's about zero to 500,000 subscribers it's about growing a channel creating a brand and a business a lot of

you watching aren't on YouTube but you're building something and something that I know ideally you want to use to make the world a better place and so it's incredibly valuable to keep that at the forefront of your mind right this is admittedly old mannish of me but when I see a lot of of reverse engineering out online and social networks, people talking about how to make X million dollars, how to get X followers on this particular social platform. It's fine. I get it. Those things aren't bad, but a million followers, without even thinking about the value you were going to add to them, it's an empty Amazon truck. There's no cargo in the back. You're not delivering anything

to the world. We need to remember that. Every time I've found myself somewhere that I'm like, what am I doing here? This is not what I should be. It's because I left that North Star. And so this is my friendly reminder to you. Yes, do what you love because it'll excite you and innovate you and you'll be great at it. But find that intersection of what you love and what adds value. There's a really cool, I guess it's a metaphor that I think about often using Star Wars. So those of you who are Star Wars fans, you'll understand. Basically, Luke Skywalker, who's the star of the show, and Yoda, who's like the little wise old guy. So we get into trouble when we think of ourselves as Luke Skywalker, as the hero, the star of the show.

It's like, no, the audience is Luke Skywalker. Our job is to be Yoda. Our job is to take Luke by the hand and help him defeat the Death Star and complete his hero's journey. Whatever your audience's hero's journey is, whatever your niche is, you are that guide. And that really helped me keep front and center. If you want to build something meaningful, hey, bright idea. Don't lose the meaning, right?

understand what your audience wants, it needs. And again, I know it's intuitive, but for some reason to me, it's the intuitive things that slip under the cracks. And when you lose them, that's when you have the instability and the big problems occur. So yeah, value makes the world go round. Let's keep that in mind. Let's keep it as the North Star. Lesson number four, surround yourself with people who help you think bigger, who dream. who lift you up. And as far as I'm concerned, the reason's very simple. We have a tendency without knowing,

which is half the battle, to put parameters around ourselves, to create limiting beliefs. We have our little version of normal and we latch on to it. And so to have people in your life that will sit down with you and say, hey, there's opportunity here,

hey, why are you only doing X, Y, and Z? There's more in you. You're better. that's everything, that awareness, right? Or even in comparison, seeing them do something or talk about their plans and goals, at the very least it makes you think, well, why not me? So much of life is predicated on us giving ourselves permission,

seeing something as possible. And yeah, there's a ton of value from podcasts and videos and books and media, but it's different than the context or the, the value you get from someone that understands you and the context and the journey you're on. Right. And so I can give you a few examples. I was recently sitting down with someone kind of breaking down your world within's business model,

some plans I have, you know, for the next year, right, some avenues that I plan on taking, but very theoretical, right? And, you know, he looks at it and he goes, one, two, three, three different multi-million dollar businesses. If you don't make that happen, you're an idiot. And a friend of mine is tough love, we kind of give that back and forth, but the message was noted, right?

It's like, whoa, yeah, there's no excuse with the resources that are here to not complete A, B, and C. Like that's gotta happen now. And so my target shifted. From theoretical, maybe down the road to, nope, this needs to happen yesterday, arrange things to make it happen.

You can see how that perspective just sort of helps you evolve the way you're looking at the problem. I can go back a couple years ago's similar situation, talking about YouTube to a different friend. You had a big day for subscribers. A lot of tough love here. We like, yeah, we take a beating, but talking about a big day that I had on the channel,

and he goes, that's it. I'm like, what do you mean, that's it? It's the best day I've ever had. But then the light bulb goes off, and it's like, yeah, but, It's not good enough, right? Like, I'm capable of creating more impact and adding more value and helping more people. And it's almost like he helped me break through that ceiling. If you think of any progression as a staircase, which is a helpful visualization to me,

it's like you break through, you climb that step and then you're sitting on the next step. Well, that next step becomes normal. You're acclimated. Right. So you need to break through and sort of manufacture chaos again. Find yourself worthy of the next climb. And people around you that will push you and constantly remind you, hey, you're doing that thing humans do. You've settled. You've created a normal. Let's break it in half. That's powerful stuff. So lesson number four, surround yourself with people who help you think bigger. Lesson number five is there's not just one way. So one of my favorite sayings, two things can be true at once. Often find that to be the reality, right? So we live in the best time human beings could ever live, the information age.

Anything we need to know is that our fingertips, we have access to infinite knowledge. You want to know how LeBron James dribbles a basketball, how Bezos built Amazon. You want to know, I don't know, Angelina Jolie's acting techniques and what makes her great and how that differentiates her from other actresses and actors. Great, it's all there. And there's value there. I'd never advocate for ignorance. But it's also half the story because what we leave out is our authenticity and how we are going to take our unique skill set and leverage it. I promise you, you will never be successful.

mimicking someone else step by step, replicating everything they do. No, it's taking that information, extracting it, and marrying it to you and your authenticity. And hey, this is another thing from experience, right? Starting out, especially depending on your season of life, like, when I started your world within, it was the season of building, of learning. My brain was not saying, don't worry, Eddie, your authenticity is going to shine through. No, it's saying, we need to make this happen. How do other people do this, right? How did X, Y, or Z get where they are? What do they do every day? What's their approach? What's their strategy? Again, great to know, but it's easy to find yourself wandering a path that is not your own. And when you do, you lose your contentment, you lose your

excitement. You lose everything that's good. Because when you're not you, life is a shell of itself. You need to maintain and hold on to that. Right. So take, for example, someone who's in shape. I want to be in shape. So I'm going to look at them and I'm going to see their workout routines and I'm going to see what they're eating, their sleep patterns, their lifestyle. And that's great. And I'll be better than I was learning from them and mimicking that. But do you ever take into account like the type of shape? Like what if they're a bodybuilder? I'm an endurance athlete. That means our workouts will be very different. It means what we eat will be very different. It means lifestyle will be very different. It's great to learn from all these

different avenues and characters. But you have to ask yourself, where am I going? What's my goal? And, you know, don't let what has been done get in the way of what can be done. And so that is my lesson number five. There's not just one way. A lot of information out there. Grab it, understand it, and then make it yours. And lastly, I'll leave you with this little thought that I cling to keeping my back pocket and take it out from time to time, particularly when things get a little chaotic. My good friend Stephen Selly would say to me, Eddie, we are meat suits on a rock, floating through space, nothing matters. Right. And, you know, at the end of the day, Steve is not too far off. Right. We are so lucky to be here playing. this game in a situation where we can look around and ask, how can I add value in a meaningful way?

What can I build? What do I love so that I can delve further into my curiosity? You know, we put so much pressure on ourselves. And, you know, the two things can be true at once, right? It's beautiful, right, to step into life and try and create something meaningful out of it. but also understand that it's not a test, it's a game, and we should enjoy it, we should live it. Not exaggerating, there have been many points along the way where I had to remind myself, you know, no one's putting pressure on you, you're putting it on you,

and you're lucky to have the problems that you have. So that said, I'm going to wrap things up. I'm incredibly grateful, not just for the problem. you listening now but for nine almost 10 years of support and just hanging out and being on this ride with me love you all and excited about the next 10 take care