Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - I MUST KEEP GOING | Best Motivational Speeches Compilation

Episode Date: April 22, 2023

"If you're going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill

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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. In a way, the world is a mirror that reflects how you feel. And if life is consistently mirroring back images that aren't ideal, perhaps it's time to chip away, not at the world, but at yourself. It's time to work. And sometimes, that's roll up your sleeves and be better work. Let's get up a little bit earlier work.

It's at the gym or study or give you. more work. But sometimes it's acknowledging that if in this chapter of your life you find everything around you intimidating or too distant or out of reach, it's not because the world is too big but rather you've let your own image get too small. It's the identity that needs the maintenance. We do things because we see ourselves as doers of those things, right? Soccer players play soccer. Writers write, painters paint. No one who's ever identified or introduced himself as a runner has ever broken a world deadlift record. No, runners do runner things. Bodybuilders do bodybuilder things. People who view themselves as small

do small things and people who see themselves as capable or strong, daring, adventurous, larger than life. Well, you get the point. We're out there over-analizing all these details, trying to decipher code without realizing that we've already won or lost. You gave yourself permission to run 50 yards, and then became Sherlock Holmes, trying to figure out why the world wouldn't let you reach yard 51. We go as far as we allow ourselves to go. We do as much as we allow ourselves to do.

We become who we allow ourselves to be. They're not saying the other variables don't matter. of course they do. I'm saying over time those variables become blocks for us to build ourselves up or build walls around ourselves that keep us down in one place. If the world feels bland, give yourself permission to seek out the beauty, be someone who finds joy in life. If the world feels lonely, give yourself permission to connect with others.

Be someone who brings people together. If the world feels chaotic and confusing, give yourself permission to break it down. Be someone who turns big things into small, manageable things. If the world feels sad and disheartening, give yourself permission to uncover what makes you smile. Be someone who, in the darkness of night, can find that light switch. Because for every reason to be sad, there's one to be happy. For every reason to be weak, there's one to be strong, so on and so forth. Of course, it's not the easiest to remember when we look out and don't like what we see.

But knowing that the solution is internal, knowing that you decide who you are, where you're going, and where you stop, as much as humanly possible, it puts fate in your hands, which is right where it should be. When you're at your lowest point, you are often without realizing it, positioning yourself to arrive at your highest point. Potential energy accumulating to propel you through an atmosphere of new beginnings. See, I believe our adversity is life asking that we submerge and dive deep. Sometimes very deep.

Just to remember how badly we need that oxygen above. so that when we again come up for air and we will, we notice the warmth of the sun on our face and the calming sound of the waves crashing on the beach. You don't make the most of what's around you until you recognize that what's around you is the opportunity. And so life reminds us, a taxing reminds.

her. Right? It rarely gives without first taking away. It rarely opens new doors without closing old ones. And that, to put it, simply, can hurt. They don't teach you in school that growth is painful. But as it turns out, a life without growth isn't much of a life at all. And so we must dive deep. We're given no other choice. Without night, there is no day. Without suffering, there is no beauty. Without those depths below, there is no surface above. Our submergence is our transformation.

The cocoon that separates who we were from who we will be. But unlike the butterfly, it doesn't just evolve once. Our journey requires that we are continuously growing a new pair of wings. Life is chaos. Life is unpredictable. Life is hard, but you were built to not only endure in its arena. You were put here to excel, to learn the rules and then expand upon the rules. Sometimes break the rules.

You were put here to take the difficulty and provide meaning. piece by piece as if it were the construction of a rocket to the moon. Little pieces of at one point frustration and confusion and chaos combined, reused and transformed into exactly what you need them to be.

Emergent properties. You just have to be willing to see beyond the now and assemble. To come up for air and soak in all that awaits at the surface like you've never done. The other day, I was texting with a friend of mine. Out of nowhere, she goes, what's wrong?

And I'm thinking nothing, right? I haven't said anything. You know, what do you mean? She's adamant, right? She goes, something feels off. I thought about it and realized, yeah, she's pointing out something I've known for a little bit here. Something is off.

I'm hiding from myself. I feel a little burnt out, a little tired. Certain areas of my life had become unevenly distributed. In fact, I was flirting with that thing. I've always feared doing most. Simply going through the motions. That scared me. I don't want this, right?

I've come too far to feel like this. I'm better than this. How do I fix it? How do I solve it? Now, figure it out now. But eventually came to realize the now part just might be the whole problem. Fix the now like it's a headache and me shaking my fist at the sky will be ibuprofen. No, battling imperfection is a fool's errand.

It's setting yourself up for disaster. We are humans, not gods. We are perfectly imperfect. And when something is off, don't fight, listen. Don't retract, expand. Here is the opportunity. I'm under the surface, diving down into the depths of my own soul. Hear what it has to say.

So that when I come up for air and I will, the sun will warm my face like it never has. The crashing waves will offer a symphony to my ears that I've never heard. And I'll see that the world I'm taking in is more a reflection of me than of it. As that saying goes, you don't see the world as it is. You see the world as you are. And how lucky to have taken a step back, a trip below the surface, to realize again that I am the painter,

not the critic. My world had become black and white, not because we live in a black and white world, but because sometimes we forget to put the color in. Sometimes we don't give ourselves permission to expand beyond the parameters we've created for ourselves. So with the breath and the oxygen will come a new appreciation,

a liberating gratitude. There's nothing so sweet as remembering that both the castles in the air and the chains at our feet are imaginary. And hey, you get to choose which one to believe in. See, what time has taught me is that there is strength in our vulnerability. In the times we fall or lose ourselves. And I know the inclination is to panic, perhaps assess too quickly, to not hear but talk, to not listen but attempt to solve, which leads to the application of band-aids on bullet wounds. When we are low, when we are lost, it's our chance to better understand ourselves.

It's the metaphorical equipment room where we stock up prior to our next descent. And if I could emphasize one thing, it would be that our perceived understanding of life, it oscillates. Sometimes we feel like we get it. We do. And sometimes we feel like we're sprinting with our eyes closed. It's a riddle we will never fully come to solve. But I do know one thing. We can't change the unpredictability of the world.

But by observing, by listening, by getting back up, we can change our world. ourselves. By recognizing our strength, we can utilize the down times as they are the education we've been longing for. Remember, the world does not and will not ask perfection of you, so don't ask perfection of it. You were built to endure, to overcome, and to recreate yourself. Losing your wings will never be the problem. It's forgetting that they must be regrown. That is the problem. So step out. Rise to the surface of your world and breathe. Take in the surroundings that will become your resurrection story if you let them. What is the complex, but an accumulation of that which is simple? What are big things, if not just a multitude of little things? There's

comfort in the understanding that all we have in life, all there is, is simplicity, easy to understand pieces. It's just that sometimes we stack them so high that they start to take a new shape. But like Greg McKeown references in his book Essentialism, the power isn't always in acquiring answers. You already have them. They're in front of them. of you, the power is in cutting away the things that don't need to be there. Removing all that stands between you and your ideal existence. And I think that's one of life's great misunderstandings. We don't need to find more.

We need to remove the excess until we're face to face with what matters. And to adopt this principle, it's nothing short of liberating. chaos, confusion, disorder, they don't imply that you lack the right things. They suggest you haven't stripped life of the wrong things. You have not simplified. A thousand miles is intimidating when you look at it holistically. It's a long journey. But it's just a collection of steps, and well, shouldn't we find solace in the fact that anyone can take one step?

It's not a game of complexity. It's a game of understanding what's in front of you. And what's in front of you is always manageable. So much of our stress stems from forgetting what that journey is made of. Whether it's a change in career, mastery of an art, some kind of personal transformation, the result we want. When looking at it from the starting line, it's too complex. to understand too many pieces stacked up. So let's break it down.

Let's find the foundation. What's really there? What are the one, two, three things we need to do? What is that golden question? What matters? If you lose sight of that, then you will stumble through life. I've learned this.

I've lived it. The time I take to myself every day is invaluable to me because I ask myself those two questions, what matter and what are the simple steps I need to take? What can I remove? I was talking about this during an interview this week, my personal growth. And one of the most important aspects has been the understanding

and the zeroing in on what's important. I used to take so much pride in composing the background music to these speeches, end to end. I used to love to be able to say, did it all. That was so I thought the great differentiator. But ultimately I learned to take a step back and ask what matters here. What do you care about? It's the storytelling that I love. It's the impact. And let's be real. No one cares who wrote the background music. It's holistically, how does the piece make you feel? Right? And this understanding allowed me to cut away.

License the music. Saved two days a week, acquire clarity. And realize my My goal is not to be Mozart. My journey is to be one of the great communicators, storytellers of our time, and if a day goes by where I'm not taking a little step towards that, it's the wrong move. Small example in the grand scheme of things, but right on point. It's the power in understanding what matters that makes a difference that allows you to grow, evolve. And I'm confident that this not only applies to long,

term pursuits, but also our challenging times, the dark moments, the periods of uncertainty and discontent. Same concept. Where do you want to be and how do you get there? What's the simple thing you can do to close that gap? Because you are never helpless. You can always do something. And my friends, those little somethings ultimately evolve into a little somethings.

everything. And when we put our phone away, step beyond the noise, spend time with ourselves, we can see how much of life is running in place. Stacking and stacking pieces that aren't even part of the masterpiece we're trying to assemble. If you want answers, start with the understanding that they're buried under mountains of things you don't need. So cut away. Cut away the people and places and things that convolut your story. Cut away the exhaustion of time that provides no value in return. Cut away the thoughts that make life more complex than your journey from where you are to where you'd like to be. As you stand right now, you have everything you need, and there's nothing greater than that, nothing more powerful.

than that understanding. So why not step outside the complexity that you've manufactured that you're living in into a world of clarity, simplicity, and capture what matters? There's an old idea

that once you've started, you're halfway there. How does that make sense, one might wonder? Once you've started, you've only just begun. And that's true, technically. But here's the thing. The journey, the ins and outs, ups and downs,

trials and tribulations, they can all be dealt with. They knock us down from time to time, no doubt. But we learn, we adjust, and carry on as we move forward. Most success stories, they're crushed, not because of that adversity along the way, but because they never begin. They never take shape or materialize. We can't make them real in our heads.

We can't convince ourselves that they'll ever be anything other than fiction. We think that's for someone else. We look around and assume that reality is different than my reality. And overcoming this mental constraint is always the most challenging step. And that's saying, the one I continuously find myself coming back to, human beings always follow through on who they believe themselves to be, continues to be true. If you don't believe you're worthy of something, its pursuit is lost before it began.

So while the mind tries to paint pictures of how scary that road is ahead, how it's too different or big or complex, understand that should you move forward, you'll find all that complexity can be broken down one day, one situation, one little step at a time. The only real demon here is the possibility of inaction because you couldn't make yourself believe it. You couldn't see yourself at the top of that mountain. And so the front door was never opened. Emerson says, hits your wagon to a star. A beautiful reminder that that star is proof your dreams are real.

and only as real as the conviction with which you move towards them. Green light your own glory, your own contentment. Because contrary to what we might think, no one comes up and bestows that upon us. To live life fully is a decision. Decision, Latin root words, cut off. It's removing and abandoning your restraint in order. to be more authentically you, in order that you'll give yourself permission to chase down that which makes you feel alive and soak up all that aligns with your heart and soul.

Once you start, you're halfway there. And oh, that first step, often perceived as the beginning, but in actuality a point, few ever give themselves the luxury of experience. Step one, believe it's possible. Step two, believe you're worthy. Step three, go. Everything else works itself out. You're capable of dancing through life's chaos,

of managing the world's unknowns. So know that, understand that, but most importantly, be one of the few who gives themselves permission to experience that. Experience that. And it starts... 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 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 the 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. 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. 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 something simpler, maybe something more predictable or contained. What if you viewed the fear and you viewed the fear? 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? 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, why 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 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 did 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 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 path simplified or got easier, but because the traveler trusted himself. to walk down it. Let's talk about a point, a destination. What I believe to be a critical or the critical landing spot as we go about our lives. The intersection of purpose and value. Where our personal loves and passions collide with the gifts that we are capable of giving to the world.

Someone once told me that if you're doing something you love, but it's not doing anything for others, it's just for you, it's not monetizable or adding external value, that's fine, right? It's often incredibly healthy, but it's also a hobby, right? Not a job, business, or career. On the other hand, if you're doing something that does add some external value to others, but inside it feels wrong. You're not at all passionate or excited about it.

You're now robbing yourself. One, because you're exhausting your limited time on this planet going through the motions. And two, because if you aren't at all invested in or excited about that thing, there's going to be little incentive to innovate, right? To go above and beyond. To find that ever-elusive value that hides in the fringes. So the answer, the goal, as far as I'm concerned, is searching and exploring until you find that point, that aforementioned intersection where you get both, where you wake up excited, thinking about what lies ahead throughout the day and are simultaneously able to add value to the community at large.

That feeling of being able to pour your heart and soul into something, While also knowing there is much at stake, it's extraordinary. The thing is, though, it's often a challenge to capture. I remember I was invited to do an interview years ago, one of the first I'd ever done. And I still remember this question, right, to this day. How did you end up a writer and the speaker? Did you plan for it?

Was this the goal? And I remember saying, no, it wasn't the goal. and he asked so you fell into it? Then I kind of said, yeah, that's about right. I fell into it. That was essentially that. And as I look back now, that answer, even all of these years later drives me crazy,

because it does such a disservice to the truth. That's like saying someone fell into their dream job. How does anyone fall into any role? No, life is about growing, learning, adapting and repeating the cycle. It took me time and persistence to find that intersection of internal purpose and external value. I talk about the journey a lot, so I don't want to go into too much detail, but very briefly, you know, I went from a corporate position where I may have been adding some value,

but was pretty dead inside. I'd then move to, you know, playing acoustic shows and writing music. around Boston and it was an improvement I certainly enjoyed that to some extent but had a ways to go and also the external value wasn't quite there and then moved to writing speeches which I discovered writing was what I loved about the music like that was an epiphany that was a light bulb moment so I started writing more and more and more like a crazy person and started to finally feel that power of impacting others in a positive way

Okay, noted, right? This is a good thing. Keep moving forward. I started moving on to making videos combined with writing and oh man, getting warmer, right? And by the way, video is scalable. So I'm helping and adding value to even more people. They move on to YouTube, keynote speaking, and ultimately the media company I have today. And so I look at all that, right? The whole process, pretty sloppy. A lot of unforeseen changes. A lot of things I just. didn't expect or anticipate, a lot of poking and prodding. And every move was getting me closer to what brings me joy in my left hand. Well, I held on to what makes society a better place in my right hand, right? What adds value to those around me? I wanted to find that intersection, right? While cutting away things that I wasn't crazy about, right? I didn't like. The so-called hobbies that I enjoyed but, you know, weren't going to be the train that I took to. to impact or prosperity. So no, this exact career progression was not planned, right,

in any way. But this feeling, finding this spot in life, obtaining this sense of purpose was incredibly methodical. And so now when I'm asked that same question, I give a very different answer. And that's critical because it's hard to not know what the future holds. It's uncomfortable. One demographic I get a lot of emails from is college grads, right? The whole world's in front of them and they don't know what to do. My answer is always the same.

You don't have to know what the future holds. You're not supposed to know. The idea is to explore. It's to move closer to the things that make you feel alive little by little. While, by the way, simultaneously cutting away the things that, sure, were worth a shot, but after some exploration, you kind of feel like, eh, not for me. Right? It's a continual process of honing in. And looking for that spot where it's like, this makes me feel good. This is the starting point.

So now, how do I position myself so that I can add value to others while doing this? How can I be a light in this? Can I be a light in the world? And I believe wholeheartedly we all have that. We're all capable of that. It's just different for all of us and requires searching. We have to get over the fact that it's scary stepping off that ledge to navigate the waters of life, knowing that this just might be one of those experiences that goes awry.

But yeah, you put the time in, the energy in. And all you left with was the understanding that, wow, this definitely is not for me. And that's perfectly fine, right? It's like noted. Now on to the next. I say all the time life is not a standardized test. Now, I like that metaphor because it dispels the notion that there is a simple right or wrong approach. That's not how anyone has ever arrived at.

excellence. Excellence is an experiment. Excellence is a journey, and journeys take courage. Believe me, it might seem easier not to go. It might seem easier to stay where you are in order to make this or that person happy. To save yourself the short-term angst of not having a plan. But in the long run, if you're not happy and you don't,

don't, in some capacity, step into that unknown. You eventually come face to face with that word we all hear so much about regret. And that is how I see the process. Saying no to what you want so that you can avoid this short-term discomfort. It's essentially picking up the phone and making an appointment with regret. The only question is whether the reservation is in too much. months, two years, or two decades. So why not set out in search of that remarkable place? That intersection of what you love and what lights up the world. What prompts you to jump out of bed in the morning and what just might inspire others to do the same. When you are in doubt, take the question, is it possible and substitute it for how can I get there?

When overwhelmed, remember that you are not alone in your frustration or your uncertainty, that the world around you was built by people, men and women from all different backgrounds and all different places with all different stories who took that light in themselves and didn't stop fighting, pushing, searching, until it became a beacon, not just for them, but for those around them. I said it before, I'll say it again. We are all capable of that.

That version, whatever it is in your specific life. You can have that reality. You can be that person, but you must both believe it's possible and start moving, towards that life changing. I made it part of my morning routine to go outside, have a cup of coffee,

and listen to this app that gives you basically 15-minute summaries of books. It kind of randomizes it for me. And this morning, the one that came on was called How to Talk to Anyone. And there was a part that really stuck out to me, talked about being methodical, about who you interact with, particularly in a social setting. The idea being that you don't need to be some type of polished politician to be able to navigate a party or work a room.

And it goes into planning. The idea like eating before the gathering or parties, so while you're there, you can focus on connecting with the people you want to connect with, getting the most out of your time there. That type of thing makes sense. But the line or the way it was summed up that really got me was in that situation, be the chooser, not the choice. Pretty powerful framing there, right? Think about how often when we don't ask ourselves what an ideal ending is, what we want, and we simply show up and go with the flow, we're actually forfeiting our ability to shape the outcome of the evening.

It's instead going to be shaped by the people who do have a preference and act accordingly. In other words, we're willingly signing up to be a part of their plan. We're signing on to be the choice and not, as the passage says, the chooser. Like so many things, you know, you can take a single idea or concept from one area and pointed at something else, right? it applies across the board, how many places in our lives are we just going along without any visualized outcome or goal? In what areas are we showing up to the metaphorical gathering with no ideal outcome in mind? Hoping the right people come to us. The right things appear to us. And of course, you know, life is messy. No plan is going to be perfect. But there's plenty of

truth to that old saying you can't hit a target that you haven't created that isn't there and if you don't take the wheel in these little segments of your life you can't then be disappointed when things don't happen when the car doesn't go where you wanted it to go no the one holding the wheel will determine that now let's be real identifying what you want and pursuing it is definitely more challenging right it takes more effort and sacrifice it's emotionally taxing because now there's something at stake, but you also position yourself to now get something worthwhile

out of the situation, a situation that you otherwise would have had very little control over, right? I've referenced a few times my eighth-grade teacher telling us never to hold our hands up to the sky and he would clasp his hands together to make this little bowl and hold them out, but he'd say never just hold them out

and hope something falls into them. As the saying goes, hope is not a strategy, and I think there are different levels to this for sure. It's one thing to never think about what you want in life at all. It's another thing to walk into a party and snack on the pretzels instead of connecting with someone, right? They're very different. But when we understand that underneath both of them, underneath all of it, the same principle apply. We can at least recognize where they're happening in our lives. lives, some small, some bigger and perhaps more important, layers to a cake. But why wouldn't it

always be beneficial to ask yourself, one, what matters and two, what can I do to bring me closer to what matters? At least then you're cognizant. I think often the greatest opportunities lost are lost simply because we're not aware of them. So if we make ourselves aware and we miss the opportunity, let's make sure we missed it because we looked it in the eye and chose no. We met that additional layer of resistance and still said no thank you, right? There's intentionality to it. I remember reading Darren Hardy's book, The Compound Effect, and he's someone that is apparently incredibly meticulous about everything he does to the point where he would write out a description for his future significant other. Like if it were a dream

world, the exact person he was hoping to spend the rest of his life with, from her eye color, hair, what she enjoyed doing, all that stuff. And, you know, it goes to show you the difference a few years can make. The first time I read that, I thought, well, that's way too extreme. I skipped right over it. Now I look at that and I'm like, yeah, he's just creating an ideal so that in the real tangible world, he can put himself in the best position to attract that. person. He's creating a goal. Otherwise, what's the alternative? You just kind of walk around and hope someone appears around a corner someday who aligns with you and what you want and your interests and rolling dice. There's just too many variables in life to constantly be wishing or crossing

your fingers, leaving things up to chance or fate. There has to be some general sense of direction. And I've had this kind of miniature epiphany in many aspects of my life. For example, you know, business, I've been asked, but what do you want it to look like the next five years? It used to be, well, five years a long time away. Do I really need to know? And it's like, if you don't know, then what are you doing today? You're just repeating what you've always done?

Are you acting randomly and hoping it takes you somewhere that will make you happy down the road? No, you have a very big thing. No, you have a vision, and as Bezos has said, you hold the vision and you continually adjust the process. Again, life is messy. Things will change five million times, and that's okay. But there's a better chance good things will happen to you if you identify what they are and seek them out. Even smaller example, Boston, my home, I lived there. I love the people there.

But, you know, five years ago, I was at a point where my work was remote, my team was remote. So rather than simply endure, you know, November to June every year, I ask myself, well, what's my ideal lifestyle like? What if I design around that? Why not move somewhere that really excites me? Now I can run in the heat in January in Miami. That's not a small thing in my life. That makes me a lot happier. And so it's little things like that. You know, you get the point. from the big things to the tiny details, if you don't choose what you want or choose your path,

life will simply choose it for you. And that may or may not be in line with what makes you happen. Or the idea, as many of us have heard in a different way, if you don't pursue your dreams, you will undoubtedly spend your days working to help someone else build theirs. Without you taking control, taking initiative, life will and you will become a pawn on the chessboard of life.

So ask the questions. You know, look in the mirror and delve into the aspirations of the person looking back at you. From social events, sure, to your significant other, to your work or business, to your overall life goal. What matters to you? In these various arenas of your life, what does success look like? What does fulfillment feel like? And once you have that blueprint in your mind, you are now on the road to ensuring its construction.

The construction not of a world you were given, but of a world you chose.