Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Guillermo Chat

Episode Date: March 28, 2020

The difference between privilege and entitlement is gratitude  *note, a lot of people are misinterpreting my comment about Chris having the flu.  1. He had it months ago. 2. I was talking about how happy he was on his usual daily commute, not implying that he went into the office the day he was sick. Probably could have been more clear there given our current situation...oops  

It's not what you look at. It's what you see. Life is not the obstacle. Your perception of life can be the obstacle. Or it can be your greatest ally what sets you apart. Perspective makes the world go round. And I was thinking about this the other day. Yesterday, I have this group chat with two old friends.

It's been over 15 years now, which is just insane. sane to say. But, you know, it's one of those things where it's just random things, kind of flying in and out of your phone all day. It's called Guillermo chat. So that should give you insight or line of sight to the type of stuff that's going back and forth. It's just kind of nonsense, right? Fun stuff. And it stood out to me yesterday because I was having, you know, it wasn't a good day or a bad day. It was just a stressful day. I was trying to squeeze a lot in there. And it's funny, like, when you're in the midst of something like that, even these little periods of time, you sort of lose perspective of everything. It's like when I first started in

corporate America, you'd ask, you know, someone in my program, it's like, how's your day? Oh, my God, I have so much going on. I have so much going on. This is insane. And it's like, you're organizing Excel sheets. But you just get sucked into it. And so anyway, long story short, these guys couldn't be more different than me in terms of lifestyle, right? Their approach to life, they'd be the first to say that, right? They give me, you know, they poke fun at me all the time, right? They have very structured lives, you know, beautiful families. One of them is in corporate America.

There's not that really that endless climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb mentality that I've had over the past however many years, you know, building my, my companies and stuff, they're both very happy, love what they're doing. They're both crushing it in their work, but they'd be the first to tell you it's not really a priority, right? It's sort of a means to an end. They're not consumed by that in any way. And the difference is I wake up and the first thing I think about is, okay, what can I do today to improve the, brand and what can I do today to move myself forward and get closer, et cetera, et cetera, right? What's interesting is, and why I really cherish this relationship, is their worldview.

They're incredibly happy people. They're fun people. You can put them in any situation they'd find the positive. They just love life. And it being around that constantly, it's like a feedback loop. Right. One of them had the flu the other days with his kid sitting on his couch, just smiling, you know, taking pictures, you know, making the most of the situation, on his way to work, the commute, just loving everything about life. And that's what I find invaluable, right? That's what I want to surround myself with. We get so caught up in the small things that we forget to just enjoy, you know, the one in 400 trillion statistic. We shouldn't be here.

We should, like statistically, we shouldn't be here. If your parents made a right instead of a left at any point before you were born, there is no you. This is the miraculous. This doesn't even really make sense. It's not comprehensible. And so what I want to do is quite simply remind you of that. remind you not to sweat the small stuff, remind you how lucky you are.

I live in Florida now, and it's funny, you become acclimated to anything. You just become accustomed to it. When I first moved down here, it was like, oh my God, you don't have to be freezing all the time. This is great. I think I'll stay. But then you get used to it.

It's just like they say any amount of money. That's why chasing money is sort of an endless thing. thing because you could be making 10 million a month. And ultimately, that becomes the norm. And there's nothing exciting about it. And you want more. Right. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you become acclimated to what you have, the standard, the status quo. And it wasn't until, you know, I'd go back up north and I'd visit my, my family and friends and come back. It's like, oh my God, wow, I'm not cold. Right. You forget how lucky you are in a lot of capacity. Just like, Like in college when I was rowing, that dreaded 2K test,

six and a half minutes of agony. And it's just mind-blowing to the point where it finishes and you're sitting on the rug, or lying on the carpet, and you're like, this is the best feeling in the world. I've never been so thankful to lie on this carpet. Nothing changed, right? That carpet's there all week. I could walk up after class and sit on the carpet.

But you're so grateful for what you're not going through, what you finish, what you just accomplished, that it just feels perfect. Or you have a headache. And it goes away and you're so thankful that you don't have the headache. All you are is at your normal state. There's so much to be grateful for. But if you don't consciously think about it, if you don't think about what you have, you'll just be immersed in the status quo, right?

The details become bigger than life. If you don't think about it, you'll always be starting at this self-perceived ground zero. But you're not at ground zero. In fact, far from it. That's almost a cliche now. It's like gratitude journals. Be thankful. Be thankful. Why do people say that?

Because perspective is everything. We only cherish things once they're taken away. We only realize how good we have it when they're gone. In simply thinking about it, how lucky you are. One, to be alive. Two, to have the people in your life. Three, to have the resources and opportunities and things that you do throughout your day to day. There's so much there. There's so much there that you just walk right by. You never think about. Because we're paying attention, again, to Excel spreadsheets and meetings and stuff that just doesn't matter. So what I'm going to do on this beautiful Saturday morning is take my journal out on the deck and just write three things that I'm thankful for because I want to be grounded. I want to start every day acknowledging how lucky I am. I want that to be my launching path.

I want that to be my starting point, my family, friends, my Guillermo chat, the work that I do. The ability to create means the world, right? But you have to think about it. You have to stop. You have to breathe in. Because acquisition, if you don't realize what you have, acquiring is an endless pursuit. So take a second, look around you and be grateful.