Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - GREATNESS IS WITHIN YOU - Best Morning Motivational Speeches to Win the Day!

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." - Steve Jobs Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletter Free Ebook: www.eddiepinero.com/ebook  YouTube: www.eddiepinero.com/youtube  In this enlightening episode, Eddie Pinero delves into the transformative power of subtle change and the journey of self-discovery. Key highlights include: Subtle Change, Great Progress: Explore how true progress often comes from changes within ourselves rather than external shifts. Redefining Impossible: Understand why the word "impossible" is the most deceitful and how to overcome this mindset. Failure as an Invitation: Learn to see failure as an opportunity to start anew and grow stronger. Perception Shapes Reality: Discover the profound impact of perception on your reality and how to harness this power. Embrace the Journey: Find reassurance that, in time, everything will make sense as you continue to evolve. Join us to redefine your limits and transform your life through subtle yet powerful shifts. Don't miss this inspiring discussion on embracing change and overcoming obstacles.

Great progress is often the result of subtle change. Of seeing something a little bit differently than you did just a moment before. It's not that the world around you has changed. It's that your thoughts about it have. That you looked hard enough to see the opportunity when Moe simply walked by. See, people live in this place called Re-Eyield. This little plot of land surrounded by a fence that separates them from the imaginary, the impossible, and the make-believe. But what if you took a second to stop, to look out at the unknown?

What if every day you push that fence back little by little, watching what used to be imaginary become your new reality? Soon you'd look around and you would wonder why a boundary ever existed. exist. No word is as deceitful as impossible. Impossible is temporary. It's a falling raindrop. It's a bar that's constantly moving. And as goes your mind, so goes the world around you. When that intersection of real and imaginary blend together, possibilities multiply. Limitations crumble and fall and failure is no longer an end point. It's a invitation to begin again. Two things define your world, your perception of it, and how you act on that perception. Never ask yourself if something can be done. The question is how, how you're going to do it,

how you're going to make yourself believe it can happen. Look, we were never taught to see the opportunity in everything. We were taught to follow orders to accept what is. But it's the unknowns that point us in the direction of what we want most. They are not conventional, but neither were airplanes, spaceships, or driverless cars. Your goal is not to live. It is to live a life without walls. A life where you are the author and your story can be shared with the world. One day, it will all make sense. As one Steve Jobs said during a Stanford Commencement speech, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward.

So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. Your job isn't to know, but to trust that someday you will. It's to have the courage to paint in real time a portrait that will be ever evolving. It's the strength to be wrong. the resolve to rise to your feet time and time again. Because one day it will all make sense. And you'll see. You'll see that the roundabout, often confusing, unpredictable road you walked was the road

you had to take. It made you who you are. And you'll see that all those challenges forced you to become someone that you, at one point in your life never dreamed you could become. You'll see that those people in your life, the ones you clung to, the ones you saw as permanent fixtures in that ever-evolving story, they were merely temporary, supporting characters, there to teach you about yourself and the world before exiting stage left. You'll see that the scariest things weren't

the failures looming around every corner. They were the magic never created for fear of what lurked around those corners. You'll see that dropped into the heart of even the most violent storms, the darkest of nights, you always had enough to get out. Sometimes the steps were too small and the progress too unremarkable to notice, but those clouds at one point or at one point or it, another always ended up behind you. In life, the game itself becomes the instruction manual. To understand, you have to play. To learn, you have to go. Therefore, a life well lived can't be

about having all the answers. You're crafting them with every step you take. It's about trust, It's about belief, not in a defined trail, but in your ability to blaze your own. I encourage you as you navigate the day-to-day unknowns to remember how strong you are. When you're frustrated at the hand you've been dealt, when you're hurt, when you're saddened by something that's transpired, remember that you can handle it, that there's meaning in the best. pain in the chaos, right? Because I know our default isn't to smile and mentally transport to the value that the pain will someday bring, right? I get it. But you have to know that you can, one, make it through the chaos and know that two, there will be a point in your future when you

look over your shoulder and appreciate the turbulence you endured. You'll be grateful because of the beauty, the meaning, and the happiness it ultimately brought to fruition. That's what makes life worth living. You'll be grateful for this struggle because it empowered you to push further into life. It taught you to not only endure, but to find meaning in suffering. To ultimately create something beautiful out of the very thing you wanted to run away from but didn't. See, life is not. all one thing. It's an oscillating wave of circumstances. And you'll see at some point that

every second matter in the sense that it gave you exactly what you needed most when you needed it. So trust that the road will be unpredictable because that's exactly what the road will be. But also trust yourself to be someone who navigates the foreign waters ahead. someone who points the compass straight towards the horizon because regardless of the world around you, that's exactly who you are. 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? But 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, hitch your wagon to that sort. 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. 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 bad. 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 chance 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, are days numbered, our arrows finite. Live life like each day means something.

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 it. 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. It's impossible to know how this story ends. I don't think we're expected to, nor do we need to. But we do need to be willing to light up the 10 feet in front of us. We need to be willing to illuminate the now. It's how little nothings transition into those very meaningful some things. One illuminated piece of the puzzle at a time.

They say that complexity is the enemy of progress. Things seem too big, too far away. When all the world appears dark, we pause. We become crippled by how much we don't know. We hide in the shadows of life's unknown. But I have, and hopefully will, until my final days, hold on to the idea that we have within us enough light, just enough light, to brighten up the path before us.

directly in front of us. It's always been just enough to get through anything. When the world is dark, you can't see the hand in front of your face, it will always be true that you possess the ability to cut through that darkness. To highlight the next stepping stone, there's just enough light to collect the data and information sufficient to make one more logical decision, one more. To take one shaky and uncertain step, it's amazing what they become over time. See, I've spent some time in that metaphorical darkness. I've also been in the light. I've believed,

I've had all the answers and been brutally humbled by life. There have also been times where I bet on myself when the odds were small and emerged victorious, whether up, down high or low, the saving grace was remembering that if I turned the light on, the headlamp initiating from my eyes and projecting out into the world, it would always provide enough for me to do perhaps the most important thing I'm capable of doing, moving forward. There's no skipping in life, no jumping races to arrive at any particular finish line. But there is always enough to carry on. This realization has been interesting to me. Our struggle when it emerges, it's usually not derived from an inability to do the right thing.

It's not like we're missing something. No, our struggle comes from thinking we need more than we do. It's frustration that our goals are so big and so far away and so out of reach. We lose sight of what we can control, blinded by a standard that no human can live up to. can live up to. Stop beating yourself up for not being a god. No mere mortal ever leapt a mountain. Everything is not the goal. One thing is the goal and you are capable of one thing. Everyone is capable of one thing. One little action to initiate momentum and push you further into that unknown. But where? You might wonder, I need to know

know where, to which I say, breathe. Because the wares make themselves known when you're in motion. As you move forward, the wrong destinations prompt you to learn and then self-correct. And the right ones inspire you to push further in their direction. Both valuable, right? The only way to lose is not go. The only way to lose is to say, because I don't have it all figured out, I'll remain right right here.

Like a toddler refusing to put a puzzle together because he can't see the completed mural in each individual piece. The whole point is to put it together. The fun is to put it together, the growth and the value isn't putting it together. And I get it, we want to know, right? Humans want to know.

That's why evolving is hard. We have to be okay with not knowing. And that's what loves life is about, formulating your hypothesis, and then letting the data derive from your progress alter your approach. That data is not gifted to you while you stand stagnant. So the question is, will you sign that dotted line? The one that says, when you can't see the mountaintop, what you will be left with is solely

trust in yourself that you can bring it about. It's easy to say yes. when the sky is blue and the birds are singing. But amidst the storms, when your mind begins to whisper that perhaps it will never end, when it begins to ask you if there was ever even a point, after all, look around, there's nothing but gray. That is when you have to remember the rules of the game.

That's when you have to remind yourself, it's not about knowing, it's about trusting, about creating puzzle pieces, not finishing murals. Anyone can create just one puzzle piece. And then just one more, and just one more. Because yes, it's difficult, as is life. But you'll remember why, as you move into the storm, and watch all those little pieces connect around you.

As you open your eyes, your feet hit the ground, you step out of bed, maybe as you sit and reflect with your coffee at the kitchen table. I want you to do me a favor. This is something that brings me substantial peace of mind, and I'm thinking it could be of value to you as well. I want you to take those things that you consistently think about, right? The ones that have been bothering you or troubling you consistently come up in your mind, the ones that you thought about yesterday and the day before and the day before, you know, the so-called problems, not so positive narrative, stories about why you can't. And instead, think about each one's corresponding ideal, what the perfect situation would look like

if you could turn each quote unquote problem around. The perfect story, the most exciting in there. And then ask, what can you do today to move one step closer to the place you want to be? How can you make those ideals real? And the reason this is valuable is because it reminds us that we are not powerless. Quite the opposite. It shows you how new and exciting and untapped your future is. This is your opportunity to remind yourself that you are not yesterday.

You are not your past, you are not your mistakes. You're not any of those things, even though our minds often trick us into believing it's so. It's kind of like running around the same block over and over again. You become so accustomed to it that you forget you can take a right out of your street and go anywhere you want to go, see anything you want to see. Every morning is a fresh start. An opportunity to connect new dots. And you can point that compass, any direction you choose.

You are shackled to nothing, bound by no one. And admittedly, that can be hard to hear. I remember the first time I had that realization that most of my limits were self-imposed. that I was complaining about the work I did, the places I spent my time and who I was spending it with. It bothered me from the second I opened my eyes in the morning until I closed them at night, until I realized that I had more control than I could even imagine. And that detaching from the past, yeah, it would hurt, it would be scary, sure, I would lose some things. But what a world to gain. What a story ahead.

For some reason, things seem so messy and complex that we overlook our ability to simplify and change them. If it doesn't bring value to your life, you have the power to fix it. And maybe not overnight. But human beings are resourceful, resilient. If you have an outcome in mind and you believe in it, a step in that direction every day will come to mean everything. It's defining. So no, this is not just an ordinary morning. This is the beginning.

This is where you are blessed with the opportunity to move away from the old and towards the ideal. away. Because first and foremost, there always is one. Find a way because you are more than strong enough. Because anything other than a solution or some semblance of progress means you gave in, called it quits, threw in the towel, and giving in is not who you are. Find a way. Because that discomfort today, well, it becomes our greatest source of pride tomorrow. The simple decision to carry on or stick it out now is so much more than it appears to be when under duress. Sure, it's easy to turn around. But everything, everything relies on your moving.

moving forward into that darkness. Find a way. Because while we may think we want safety and need predictability, our souls want adventure. Life's meaning is comprised of the mountains climbed and dragons slayed, so step out and slay your dragons. a way. Because an evolved self has to be earned. Keeping promises to yourself is no small ordeal. Putting your head on the pillow at night, knowing you followed through on who you decided you would be. That's power. It creates a trajectory towards infinite possibility. It points you.

at the stars. Find a way because you must reinforce the fact that the world is clay to be molded, not a checklist. It's a game, not a chore, a gift, not an obligation when you find a way, you become the ruler of your own kingdom. Look, there exists a way a path That's not the question. The question is one of effort. Is there a willingness to move beyond the parameters imposed upon you by others? By the past, by the thoughts that bounce around in your head? Is there a willingness to endure duress in the short term?

Is there a willingness to fall down now, to look dumb, to not always be perfectly packaged or assembled? Are you willing to endure that in exchange for the infinite? I remember hearing the mantra, there is always a way to get to your finish line. It's not can I. It's not, is it possible? No, it's how. How do I get there? The dots exist.

You have to be the one to connect them. You have to build bridges over the oceans of unknowns, the valleys comprised of the unforeseen. Oh, there is a way. Remember that. Remember that it's not the destination that's in question, but one's willingness to knock and knock and knock until the right door opens. Remember that you have everything you need,

that you are armed with all that is required. You were made to connect those very dots before you. You just have to decide what's more important to you. That feeling of reaching the top of the mountain or the feeling of its shade at the bottom. What will you give to be more than you've ever been? Do more than you've ever done. There is always.

Always away. Are you willing to find it? When I was younger, I want to say maybe third grade. I remember reading this poem by Shell Silverstein called Where the Sidewalk Ends. This place where the cement stops and the grass begins. An inflection point of sorts. And I obviously don't remember what we talked about back then, but I certainly remember the book.

And a few weeks ago I happened to be at the airport. I was walking through and I saw a bookstore and a Shell Silverstein book propped up in the front. And I couldn't stop thinking about it. I had that title stuck in my head, playing on loop where the sidewalk ends. Some things just hit you, like that title sounds perfect to me, this larger-than-life, transitionary place. It feels like some sort of graduation.

But graduation from what to what? That's the question. Is it simply checking off the current box before moving on to the next one? Is it the end of a paved, calculated path and the beginning of something a little less defined, a little more free? Is it the place where you step away from what's expected of you and instead do what you are called to do, what you know when your soul is right.

I guess depending on who you are and what you need, it could be any and all of those things. But as I sat 36,000 feet in the air, it kind of dawned on me, not necessarily what Shell Silverstein wanted to take away to be. Fair, right? I mean, it's a famous poem. There's a lot of analysis and writing on this,

but I'm more interested in the question, what do I need personally? Now, with everything going on in my life, what would I want that place to be, where the sidewalk ends? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized it's not a transition. I don't think where the sidewalk ends

is where you step out from one place and arrive in another. But I think what's more applicable in this moment is a perspective shift, almost a lifestyle invitation, to straddle that line where you have one foot on the cement, right, the stable ground,

holding onto that structure we need to maintain healthy lives, to build, to take who we are and effectively share it with the world. And one foot on the grass. Unpaved, no parameters. Where our childlike curiosity runs rampant

and reminds us that life is no standardized test. Right, like if the cement represents the frame, the capsule, that rocket going to the moon, the grass represents the precious cargo it will be taking into orbit, that substance that must be found. And I think the reason my mind goes here is because in my life I've swayed too far in both directions. You know, I've spent entirely too much time on the sidewalk where I've limited myself, my beliefs in my trajectory. I've abandoned what I wanted to do because I was terrified to stray from what I was supposed to do.

I've let routine kill creativity. I've let plans suffocate freedom and exploration. But I've also spent too much time entirely in the grass, beyond the structure, dreaming but aiming for no target, free but not grounded. Perhaps at times having worked so hard to tear down the parameters and the structure in my life that I found myself with no foundation to build upon. Right? And I think the deal is sometimes we need more sidewalk than grass and sometimes

we need more grass than sidewalk. There are times in our lives that call for exploration and there are times in our lives where we put our heads down and build. But the critical thing is we remember that beautiful balance between the structure that's ultimately imperative and the freedom to step beyond it so that we can pull in more life. That when things feel too stiff or constrained, maybe you lean more towards the edge of that unkempt, undefined world. And when you crave structure, when you've been wandering too long, when you want to build a little, when you want to build something with the pieces of life you've been casually collecting along the way, you lean in towards that foundation, towards that which is both known and dependable, and maybe that's

where we leave it. As you navigate each segment of your life, it's knowing that you have your hand on the dial. The dial that will allow you to be your best at that particular moment in time, something no one knows but you. Think of that spot. What are you going through now and how can you best position yourself to handle it? This awareness is a power, it's a strength.

It's not merely passing through that place where the sidewalk ends. But I think it's an opportunity to embody it, to adapt and carry on as each new chapter begins. We are the stories we tell ourselves. I used to tell the maybe someday story until I saw the value contained in the why not today story. I was a main character in the how do I not mess things up story until I pushed my way into the how about capturing life's upside story. I believed wholeheartedly in the what will my friends, acquaintances, people I used to know, think of me's story.

Before I felt the freedom of the you don't live life for them, you live life for you, story. My scarcity story preceded my abundance story. My bowing before the odds story preceded my simply do not stop. story. My you don't deserve them story. Proceeded my, if you're not a net positive on my life, I don't want you around story. My, maybe I can be that impactful. Add that much value, make that much money, have that much fun story. Proceeded my, I'm going to do all those things. Now how do I arrange these pieces to support my mission story. As I've grown and learned and changed, so of the stories that I've told myself. And I can look back and always draw a direct line from the stories I was

telling and the life I was living. We get in life what we allow. And our narratives, our stories happen to be the gatekeepers. If you want to change this situation, change the story, right? If you're telling yourself the world is against you, you'll live like the world is against you. If you're telling yourself the world is conspiring to help you live your best, you'll find the opportunity where you otherwise would.

And you'll find it, not through magic, but because you're looking for it. It's that simple. We don't look for things that go against our narratives. We don't seek things out that we don't believe exist. Those internal stories prompt our action, and our action changes our reality. Since finding this a few weeks ago, it's become one of my favorite ideas. Alan Watts speaking to a classroom of students, he says,

when a flag is flapping in the wind, is it the wind or the flag that moves. Neither. It is the mind that moves. Our minds are moving, they are internalizing, and painting the portrait that becomes our reality. If you don't like the reality you're seeing, guess what? It's not the world. It's how you're viewing the world. It's what you're doing about your world. And I understand how hard it can get, how we all awesome. between periods of struggle and contentment. How low the lows can feel, I get it. But the truth is the wrong stories will simply keep you down, hold you there.

They'll ensure blinders stay on as life rotates around you and the opportunity dissipates. We are the stories we tell ourselves. And that's beautiful news because it means the reflection in the mirror holds the key to transformation. Life can give you the details, the context, but it can't write the script. That, my friend, is all you. Remember what's yours to control and what's not what must be let go. Remember that nothing is so futile as attempting to move the immovable or change the unchangeable. Remember that your greatest strength is focusing your time, talent, and efforts, exhausting your energy on that which you can control. And sometimes this distinction hurts.

But to fail to see it is to shackle oneself to delusion. Right? You can complain about the weather all day, but to complain about it, to focus on it, to be stuck. in it is not going to change it. Your time would be better suited looking at how to adjust yourself to it. And that's what life repeatedly tells us. There's plenty we aren't happy about, plenty we wish we could change. But to stay there in that space is to forfeit your greatness, your strength. Why? Because there is so much you can control. so much you can do.

You can always position yourself to succeed. But that calls for first separating what's yours and what's not. There are people I wish were different. There are situations I prayed were alterable. There are outcomes that are given without my asking. That's just life. And a losing mentality is to fight that, to feel anger or resentment at the people that lets you down.

Why couldn't they be how I want them to be? It's to dwell on the situation that occurred despite your wishes. Why couldn't it have just happened my way? It's to refuse to acknowledge the outcomes that have already materialized. Why couldn't it just have evolved differently? All that, as hard as it is to see, is embrace. facing a mentality of victimhood. It's walking down a path that has no desirable destination in store for you.

When you accept the unchangeable, you then become the architect of your reality. Sure, people, places, and outcomes weren't always the best, but now you ask, how can I navigate around it or better yet, use it to my advantage. It is, to use the famous metaphor, not shaking your fist at the wind, but building sails for your boat, creating a path to take you somewhere new. So let the energy, the time, and emotion that's wasted on the immovable dissolve. The question worth asking is where do you most want to be and how can you get there? And while those details outside the scope of your control can feel like a bottomless gap

in your way, I promise that what's around you is enough to build a bridge over it. There's enough there for you to find your way. So long as we learn to separate the gap from the bridge, the details from the solutions, when all you see is why you can't go or how it can't be solved or how impossible something is, it's not that you are looking at an unfortunate truth, it's that you are looking at the wrong supporting evidence. When we stop seeing the details and outside circumstances as the deciders of fate, we win. When we place our eyes upon the controllable, when we step into what is ours to move and shape

and transform, we finally see that the journey to something bigger is not only possible, it is inevitable. The other day was on a podcast with Evan Carmichael, who's a YouTuber and entrepreneur, and we were talking with Shaquille, who was the host, about the mental side of the entrepreneurial journey, how we set goals, but also prepare ourselves for the inevitable. diversity associated with growth. And one question, Shaquille asked us was, where do we see ourselves in five years? Okay, so side note, I have a unique relationship with this question.

As someone who was unsure in experimenting with their career, right, for much of their adult life, I never quite knew how to answer it. You know, it's like two things can be true at once. It's a very reasonable question. But I also didn't like answering it, right? Hated it to my core, you could even say. I could never really articulate why. It just made me uneasy, right?

Like five years of lifetime. How am I supposed to know? And again, no knock on the host at all. It's a very common and practical question. I'm glad he asked it because it opened the door to a pretty cool conversation. So anyway, he asked the question and I'm thinking, oh, man, like, how am I going to approach this? And before I said a word, Evan blurts out, look, if you know exactly what you're going to be doing in five years,

you're thinking too small. In that comment, to say it made me happy was an understatement. It was like, thank you for saying what my mind has been trying to piece together for a decade and a half. You know, if you know exactly where you're going to be, of course you're limiting yourself. There's just too much predictability, too much routine. process and not enough experimentation, not enough life.

Why? Because growth is unpredictable. It takes us places we didn't expect, shows us things we didn't anticipate, it unveils truths and minor miracles about ourselves, that we, let's face it, never would have seen had we been dismissive of all life's variability and opportunity. Now, does this mean we don't move with,

conviction in a general direction. Does it mean we don't have goals or ambitions? No, I certainly don't think it does. You can't hit targets you don't aim for. That will always be true. It merely means life is not about being perfect in bringing about a particular result. It's about making adjustments throughout your pursuit of meaning. If you feel closer to your purpose when you change the medium, then change the medium. If it means your heart tells you left is where the value lies and not right, then go left. To me, it's essentially reminding us that life is not a black and white, yes or no, checklist or test.

It's a game, and you have to grant yourself the freedom to play. You have to give yourself permission to grow. I think about how much time five years is. And how five years ago, I wasn't even thinking about creating media the way I do now with the amazing team of people that helped me. I wasn't speaking on stages. I hadn't crafted my creative style. I didn't know the people I know now who introduced me to not only new people, but new ideas. These are characters.

They're stories, their opportunities that present themselves only as you immerse yourself in the journey. And I was okay not knowing exactly. but merely moving towards a general direction. The most important decisions were, you know, looking back, not what I said yes to, but what I said no to. As I moved through life experimenting, learning, growing, I was able to craft something that worked for me. Not other people.

Not what's in books. There's no roadmap. No, it's an experiment. And this is more of the reassurance I would have wanted, during those years from an older version of myself. Like, it's okay to not know exactly where you'll be. Just promise yourself this. If it matters to you, you'll find a way to move to it,

with it, towards it. And if it doesn't, then let it go. Surround yourself with people that lift you up. And if they don't let them go. Let them go. You'll hear a lot of talk about the right way to do things, especially in this information age. Those ideas and decisions may have in fact been right, but they also may be wrong for you.

Try, test it out, and if not, let it go. The experiment that is your life is the reward. It's a luxury. such a beautiful ride. You know, don't box yourself in because of some made-up theoretical plan. Don't avoid the path to a new world because I checked my list and this doesn't line up with where I said I'll be February 23rd, 2008. Now, go live your life.

Do your best to exist in that place, the intersection of what you love and what adds value. Let it bend, let it transform, let it teach you things about yourself and the world. There aren't correct ways to live, but I think there certainly are some wrong ways. And that's time spent out of obligation, adhering to a story that means nothing to you. Push. See what life gives back. Your footsteps in the aggregate will reveal truths and tell stories you could never have even dreamed up. It's in going that your book is written. And just a friendly reminder, people don't

read books for the last page, the ending. No, they read them for that stuff in the middle, right? The journey. So next time I'm asked what my five-year plan is, I'll probably say same as my 10, 20, and 30-year plan. I don't know. But I can tell you, I won't lose sight of that North Star, the one that calls my name. But at the same time, I won't be afraid to wander into the night. Dance in the moonlight, even get lost in the shadows from time to time. Growth is directly correlated to one's willingness to push forward into the dark. And well, into that darkness.

we shall go. This moment is a collage of your past. The steps that brought you here, the things that shaped you, it's a story comprised of what you choose to remember. And so I ask which memories get your attention. Or do you choose to shine that potentially life-changing spotlight? What are you looking back? on. Do you remember those times you felt lost? Those times life was turned upside down when you went into panic mode, when you were perfectly mapped out reality was shaken at its foundation. Yet you got up and found steady ground, didn't you? Do you remember that? Do you remember when the things you thought were forever turned out to be as fleeting as a

setting sun? When you realized a life well lived would mean figuring out the vast majority of it on your own, relying on your courage and your strength. Yet you pushed into the dark of night and lit a path, didn't you? Did you remember that? Do you remember the hard hits? The blatant losses, the gut-punching defeats. When you looked in the mirror and thought, this reflection, it's just not who it needs to be.

This burden is too much to carry. Yet you got yourself together. You found faith in your reflection. And you not only carried that burden, but you made something of it, didn't you? You remember that. What do you choose to remember? And I'm not talking imagine or create or bring to life.

No, which truths are you letting in? How quickly we forget who we are, how fleeting the recollection of our strength. See, if you take a single step back and examine, you'll see a breathtaking sample size of the demons already defeated. The mountains already climbed, the dragons already slayed, and you stand here now, afraid and unsure, as if you haven't already fought through the depths of hell, as if you haven't already proven to yourself. that you've been there as if this moment is new to you. You have what you need. And that's not the law of attraction or conjecture

or hopeful thinking. It's remembering what you know in your soul to be true. You are made for this road laid out before you.