Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - If You Don't Start Now, You'll Be Here Again Next Year | New Year's Motivation

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

"If You Don’t Start Now, You’ll Be Here Again Next Year” explores how quickly time moves and why small, consistent actions matter far more than dramatic changes. Using relatable examples, the episode challenges listeners to stop waiting for motivation and start showing up, reminding them that time is moving forward with or without them, and that today’s habits quietly determine where they’ll be a year from now.More from Eddie Pinero:Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletterYour World Within Podcast: https://yourworldwithin.libsyn.com/Stream these tracks on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2BLf6pBInstagram - @your_world_within and @IamEddiePineroTikTok - your_world_withinFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/YourworldwithinTwitter - https://www.twitter.com/IamEddiePineroBusiness Inquiries - http://www.yourworldwithin.com/contact#liveinspired #yourworldwithin #motivation

A year from now, this moment will matter more than you realize. Time is moving faster than you think. And not philosophically or poetically, but in real life. You blink in the months are gone. You look up, another season disappears. You tell yourself, hey, you know, you'll start soon. Suddenly a full year is behind you. No warning or countdown, certainly no mercy.

Time is marching forward, with or without you. I want you to think about this. Picture that guitar you picked up two years ago. And obviously, for many listening right now, it won't be a guitar, but there was a thing. There was something that piqued your interest, you dabbled, and you let it go. But go back to that moment and just imagine picking it up

and practicing for an hour a day. no pressure or expectations, just consistency. And you do that every day for a year or two years. Well, what's always crazy to do is look back and think about two years, right, gone in what feels like a blank. How fast these large chunks of time come and go. And today, you wouldn't be thinking about learning guitar. You wouldn't be watching videos or saving tutorials, at least not. elementary tutorials, you'd be someone who plays.

And again, the point of emphasis is not because you were special, not because you were motivated every day, because you just set a time block aside and you showed up. While simultaneously, time did what it always does. Time is marching forward with or without you. Now imagine this. Last fall, you decided it was time to get serious. You joined the gym.

you felt the spark. Imagine if you went five days a week. Not perfect workouts. Some days you were injured, some days you had to tweak things, some days you weren't really sure what you were doing, no heroic sessions, just consistent ones. And that decision, the decision you may still think of as recent, but already start looking like a different body,

a different level of confidence, a different standard. Because fall doesn't feel like that. long ago, but it was long enough to change everything. You'd stayed with it. Time is marching forward with or without you. And this is where most people lose. They wait for motivation. They wait for clarity.

They wait for the perfect plan. They think progress requires some massive move, you know, a reinvention, a breakthrough moment, a day when everything suddenly feels obvious. Man, that just doesn't. doesn't happen. Sure, in the movies, the main character looks up and sees this glorious epiphany, but that's not real life. You know, progress requires starting small and staying long enough for time to compound your effort.

And here's the uncomfortable truth. Most people don't fail because they're incapable. They fail because they don't respect how fast time moves and how capable they are of starting. that process. Time is marching forward with or without you. A year from now, as the sun sets on 2026. You won't remember how busy you were. You won't remember how tired you felt. You won't remember how unsure you were about the journey. You'll remember the result. You'll either be living in the quiet pride of progress or the quiet frustration of the knowing you stalled, you waited.

You held your hands out to the universe hoping it would give you something, forgetting that you already have everything you need. There is no neutral outcome. You don't get to pause the clock while you decide. Time is marching forward with or without you. Look back. The last year of your life, how fast did it go? fast enough to surprise you fast enough that details blur together

fast enough that you can't quite account for where all the days went that's not life slowing down my friends that's acceleration and if you don't begin if you don't create a little piece of reality with habits and structure and standards conducive to what you want

time doesn't just pass it leaves you behind time is marching forward with or without you and this isn't necessarily about doing more it's about doing something consistently enough that time starts working for you instead of against you instead of you know bringing regret and disappointment and dread you know that feeling when you know there's something you want to do but you aren't doing it it's not a good feeling why not let it compound for you Make your life infinitely better with each passing day. That's all it is.

One hour a day, five days a week, one decision, you stop negotiating with yourself over. That's it. That's the formula people keep overlooking because it doesn't feel dramatic enough. It doesn't feel like a home run. But I've said it before, I'll say it again. You don't leap mountains.

You climb them one small rock at a time. Right? It's repetition. time is marching forward with or without you. A year from now, this version of you will be gone, this body, this energy, this exact window of opportunity. You'll either look back at that point in time and say, I use that season well. Or you'll look back and say, man, I thought I had more time. Where did it go?

The reality is you didn't. None of us do. Time is marching forward with or. without you. So please, for all that is good, stop waiting for the moment to feel right. Stop waiting for certainty. Stop waiting for life to slow down. It won't. Start small, show up often, let time do the heavy lifting, because it already is moving in that direction. Why not hop on the train? A year from now, this moment will matter more than you know. Not because you thought about it, not because you intended

to start, but because you acted while time was moving. Time is marching forward with or without you. Why not dance? There's something incredible about the prospect of starting over. Not because you're unhappy with who you are. Or because each step that brought you here wasn't perfect in its own unique way, but because somewhere deep down, we can feel the infinite. We know that when it comes to what's possible, we are a flicker of light in a galaxy of stars, waiting to take shape, find our way to shine out across the very elements from which we came. See, beginning again simply means a new chapter. It means the next adventure.

It's places you've never gone, people you've never met. It's stories untold and dreams still dancing around in your head. There's an old Dr. Seuss quote, I remember as a kid. He said, sometimes you will never know the value of a moment. until it becomes a memory. And turning the page on that chapter is, if nothing else, a temporary reminder that we are in the very moments we'll look back on and smile.

It shines a spotlight on the people that mean the most and reassures us that the small stuff just might be. After all, life doesn't dwell on the heartbreak or the times we've fell. But the times we got back up, the times we looked with confidence at the road ahead, and smiled at the horizon. As each fleeting moment is discovered for the very... So here's to breathing in that ocean breeze. Laughing until your stomach hurts.

Here's to dreaming like there are no rules and living like there's no tomorrow. To creating your masterpiece one word, one note, one brush stroke at a time. To dancing when the music isn't playing and sharing your song when it is. Here's to seeing the beauty when most walk right by it. Being light in darkness and a voice in silence. Here's to living life on your terms. Paving your own path and writing your own story. The one where the hero doesn't stop until the princess is saved and the castle is taken.

The one where reality is a reflection of imagination. Because if you do these things, when you look back years from now, you'll have a lot to say. But I promise you, I wish won't be one of them. Not because of what you were given, but because of what you... Hey, gang, Eddie here. So, I've been building something alongside your world within. It's called AGMS, always grateful, never satisfied. If you've been listening to the podcast, you know exactly what that's referring to.

That duality of appreciating the present moment, but also not being afraid to ask the world for more. for diving fully into your potential. And I'd love for you to be a part of this journey as we build and build and build. I have a free newsletter, agns newsletter.com, where you'll get daily motivation, monthly challenges, as well as updates on all the exciting things

we have coming around the corner. So if you're so inclined and you'd like to be part of this journey, I'd be honored for you to sign up. Link will be below. Look forward to seeing you there. The hard thing. brought me through hell.

But also to that which exists on the other side. The hard thing prompted me to question and doubt, but also provided the pieces I used to build my confidence little by little. It made me ask the tough questions, the ones maybe I didn't want to hear the answer to, but also gave me the power to transform those answers I didn't like. The hard thing meant forfeiting being the expert in my world

in exchange for the role of student in a foreign arena. Gave me new ladders to climb, new possibilities to reach for. It showed that true growth requires a willingness to be the beginner. It took some people out of my arms, my circle, my work, And in some cases my life altogether, but always seem to open the door to those souls better aligned, to those conducive to the journey and the process. Let's remember what the hard thing is. Beyond the pain, because we all know it does bring that. Beyond the challenges, because there are certainly many.

Beyond all that exists the hope and the change and the promise. Robert Frost says the best way out is always through. Through because it's the chaos, the haze, the darkness of night that shapes us. It's in being broken that we learn to rebuild our world with the pieces and perhaps most importantly. We learn that such a rebuilding process is possible to begin with, that the now is not mandatory or permanent. The hard thing, as it turns out, is nothing more than a transaction. Turbulence for the view above the clouds, fear in the moment, for confidence in the future. It's learning that although life sometimes appears to paint a picture of conformity,

formity and helplessness. There's always a path leading to the very place we need to go. It just asks we find the courage to walk it. Churchill has said the pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. And this beautiful message rings true. Because from the difficulty, is the advantage.

And sure, our first instinct is to see the problem. Our eyes tend to initially fix it on that which is unfortunate. But beyond that is where we get the most incredible things life provides, as if one is removing the shell or outer layer in order to get to the nutrients in the center, the ingredients required for growth, the pieces necessary to experience life, life at its fullest.

And so we must be reminded that those opportunities, they're not rare, they're not reserved for everyone but you. They just tend to disguise themselves as the things we're most inclined to disregard or walk by. But if one finds the courage to move into them, through them, if one can see the difficulty not as a deterrent, but as a bargain, They'll be given everything on the other side. Reality is not changed with the magic wand or the granting of a wish. It's from staring down the heart thing and moving directly into it one little step at a time.

There's a saying that will always be true. It will be true on your best days and your worst. It will be true after video. It will be true after victory and it will be true after defeat. It will be true when you have momentum and it'll be true when you're down on your luck doing everything in your power to create momentum. That saying is your future begins now. Hey on the surface might not seem like much.

Sure, my future starts now. I know that. Everyone knows that. Well if that's true, if everyone does in fact know that, why do we spend so much time stuck, reliving our past, unable to break free? Why do we remain terrified to change? Why do we feel such a connection to who we were, how others saw us? Why must we remain loyal to the character we've been playing in our mental autobiographies? See, here's the thing about the past and the future. One is fixed, can't be changed, and the other, well, it's waiting

for you to tell it what it is. One is expired time. One is plans to be determined. And it's interesting how we continue to conflate the... Epictetus has said that the more things we value outside of our control, the less control we have. Well, I'm going to be the messenger here relaying the precious truth that yesterday is in fact out of our control. What can be controlled is where we go from here. the next step. Meaning today is not your failures. It's where you take those lessons. It's not your mistakes.

But it's what the stronger you can now endure because of them. It's not the dreams you let slip away, but where your pursuit might take you now. And yeah, yesterday certainly contributes to your outlook, as all information does. It's value considered. its impact assessed. It guides you, but it's not you.

And that difference is astronomical. There's a question about the role the past plays in our lives. That has to mean something, right? Your past is in many ways your story. It's why you think the way you do. It's contributed to your understanding of the world. It will always be a part of you, and I believe that. But I also believe the past is a story.

And just like reading one chapter in a book, simply sets the stage for the next one without controlling its direction so does every day that has led you up to now life gives us the tools to experience to grow learn and then shed that which does not coincide with what's important your failures are not you but they are precious and that they push you towards what you'd like to be see you can experience something and not be that thing. As Kirkagard says, if you label me, you negate me.

If you proclaim me to be X, you're essentially stealing from me the infinite possibility that is the future. Yesterday has nothing to do with what I can become. And so taking it a step further, never mind being labeled by someone else, how could you label yourself and see it? is anything but self-sabotage. See, you're never defined by your past, but always learning from it. It's not who you are. It's the cheat codes for what you can be. Without that winding road of misfortune and mistakes, the incredible expansion we long for doesn't materialize.

Imagine if everyone who ever felt down in life felt like a loser who temporarily lost hope. Imagine if they looked in the mirror and said, okay, this is who I am now. now. There would be no triumph in the world because anything meaningful requires the resiliency to map our way from the hell that was our darkest moments to what will become our proudest moments. Destiny, destiny, destiny means that you separate the finite from the infinite. What you used to call yourself has prepared you to move towards the horizon. But what you used to call yourself is also as irrelevant now as those seconds that you watch tick away. Seconds that maybe you're not proud of.

Seconds that perhaps taught you about the world. Seconds that gave you a glimpse of what's possible. Unveiled the happiest of times. All of it. In its own unique way, it brought value, but none of it is your future. future. Why? Because back to that beautiful, all-powerful sentence, your future begins now. Your destiny is awaiting its marching orders and all you have to decide as you stand today is where that ship will sail. There's a saying that some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.

I've always found this interesting, this idea, how the same subject, same situation, or occurrence can be interpreted so differently. Right? It can plant the seeds for such different outcomes. Like Yashimi and Koga mentioned in their book, The Courage to be disliked, well water is 60 degrees. And it's always 60 degrees. In the summer and the winter, but depending on what time of year, right, the makeup of the outside world, that 60 degrees feels different. The water didn't change its circumstances did, and our thoughts are no different. It's not the world that writes the story. We do. And every second moment day is merely an interpretation.

Does time tick by? Or is it driven into a state of flow? Is it transformed into something more? Was losing an indicator that, hey, maybe you're not good enough? Or is it your motivation to be better than you've ever been? Is your day an allegiance to the present or an invitation to chase down tomorrow? See, the world doesn't get to tell the tale. The world is paper, it's ink, its ideas.

The world is everything you need to decide how your story's going to go. How does he see the world? How does she define reality? That's the question. Because you don't need to change the world. You need to change the way you see it. And you don't need to change who you are. You need to change the imaginary shackles you've placed around your ankles

that are limiting the heights you could reach. In fact, the world, as far as I'm concerned, is an accumulation of thoughts, ideas. It's 8 billion individualized movie screens attempting to interact, to coexist together. And when you look at it like that, it's not that your mindset plays a role or it's kind of important. No, it's that it narrates the play.

It's the glue that ties everything together. What you see is what you get. And this isn't a one-and-done thing. It's an everyday thing. Because there's always going to be occurrences in our lives that challenge us to threaten our understanding of who we are and what we're capable of. There will always be the temptation to make the opportunity into the problem and the hero into the villain.

But why forfeit that control? I remember hearing that if you find time to be grateful, both in the morning and at night it changes your life. Not because the world transforms, but because it reinforces the perspective you need. We are lucky to be here. We're lucky to have challenges that push us forward. Lucky to have ups and downs that bring us closer to the people. in our lives, we're lucky that chaos and discomfort open a door for transformation on the other side, and look, I get life isn't perfect. And not everything can be great all the time.

But I do believe that if we can bring ourselves to stop, to breathe, to even focus briefly, we can find value in any situation. What's in front of you, it exists, right? It's the well water. You can't go back in time or remake the obstacle at your feet, but you can, always decide how to make that work for you. And that's a superpower. And I use that. I use it when my short-term ideas or videos or projects underperform. I use it when people let me down.

I use it when in the moment I'm either under or overwhelmed. The question, where is the win? In this spot, this situation where most would hang their heads and let the outside world rewrite the story, how can I find a way to hold mine high and maintain? my own accountability. Extreme differences in life outcomes are so often prompted by such subtle realization, subtle decisions. Their reason to stop could be your reason to not only carry on but thrive. And the best news is you don't need approval or authorization. You don't need the stars to align or doors to open up. You just need to give yourself permission to see the sun amidst the

clouds, the hope amidst the doubt, you have to remind yourself that there is always something to cling to, always a second chance, there is always a win. All you have to do is to see it. Find something to make yours. I connect every few months with some of my good friends to strategize, kind of reflect back on the previous quarter plan for the new one with each of our businesses, kind of share ideas, stuff like that. And I was chatting with my friend Keith about life before he found success in what he's doing now, the struggle and the turbulence he faced, as well as ultimately his decision, and that's entirely what it was, to turn things around.

And I've talked about his backstory before, so I'm not going to get too much into it, but essentially he grew up in a very negative environment, dealt with a ton of adversity, but got through it. Started his own national business installing and repairing commercial pizza ovens and the guys just crushing. And, you know, our conversation in that moment wasn't so much about the doing.

It was more on the overcoming and how mentally we had to recreate ourselves to have any chance of moving beyond what we knew. I've talked about it a little before. Kids are simply not taught in school how to thrive, how to build, how to act, how to ask more of themselves in the world, they're taught to follow instructions,

to do what they need to do in order to pass the exam, to progress to the next level. Then there's a gray area, because I'm not saying this is totally valueless, but I am saying that anything beyond that requires a reworking of sorts. You ask anyone who stepped out of that cycle, and they'll tell you the mental and psychological shift

that needed to take place, it was almost overwhelming, right? It's a lot, but it's imperative. I recently looked up the word entrepreneurship, and this is the definition. The activity of setting up a business or businesses taking on financial risk in the hope of profit. And in my mind, it is the risk precisely that's challenging, that brings us so much pain, but also contains within it the reward. It's one of the craziest dilemmas we face.

You know, you'll have to endure some of the worst times of your life, but because of that, you'll get to experience highs that would otherwise have been almost completely improbable. We have to rework the thinking that says discomfort equals run away. It's like, no, discomfort equals the price of something better, and sure, it's by no means mandatory, but it's where the upside lives. You have to train yourself to step out into the chaos with the expectation of taming it. And yeah, everything could go wrong, but also everything could go right. And just imagine.

Imagine what that would look like. That possibility alone validates the risk. We just need to convince ourselves. And that risk, by the way, is not just financial. In fact, most of the time it's not. It takes a variety of shapes in our lives. You run the race, you risk losing. You go up and talk to the girl, you risk rejection.

You pick up and move somewhere new. You risk winding up somewhere you don't want to be. And maybe temporarily things do fall apart. But maybe you win the race. Maybe you find the love of your life. Maybe you relocate to the happiest place you've ever called home. Calculated risk is the beginning of everything that matters. And so back to the convo.

We were talking about the different risks we've taken. How some chapters were fun, some were challenging, and some were both. And how, for me, there was even, from time to time, a conversation where I was asking myself whether it was really worth it. You know, when you're uncomfortable, the mind wants. wants to do one thing, get rid of the discomfort. And I had to convince myself, remind myself that I'm someone who risks good to pursue great. Risk hurts.

And somewhere in that conversation was when Keith said he remembers the exact point the risk became worth it. The discomfort became easier to manage. We're so used to taking orders to playing scared that the incentive just wasn't there until Keith's words, it became mine. The most invigorating thing he ever did was find a pursuit to call his own. That's powerful. His business injected him with a new energy

and in essence a new life because he suddenly had a stake in the game. And I think that's what so many of us in so many areas are missing. The risk appears bigger when it's not counterbalanced by something meaningful. So find something to make yours. The simplicity there is beautiful.

Complex ideas expressed in simple ways are always worth holding on to, right? We are programmed to lose because we are programmed to live according to someone else's standard, to think small, to ask ourselves, how do we not screw up? But when you can step outside that little self-imposed circle, and instead ask yourself, what's something I can create that is my own, something I care about, that I can nurture, invest a part of me into. That's when life really starts paying dividend. You're not existing, you're living.

Or as I've recently discussed, you're empowering yourself to not just sit in the room, but be in the room fully. I use entrepreneurship as the model for this discussion, because that's been such a huge part of my life, where I've been injecting my time. attention and yeah, risk. But the point is not that everyone needs to stop what they're doing and become an

entrepreneur. That's one path of many, obviously. The point is that there is a risk-reward dynamic in entrepreneurship that we should all understand extract and inject into our own lives where it best applies. We've learned to settle in so many

ways that we must know there is tremendous value in asking what is it in my life I want to invest in? Make mine. Give myself the opportunity to experience the excitement of defining the things I care about and watching them grow.

Whether your current arena is entrepreneurship or motherhood, fatherhood, academics, a particular relationship, some combination of these or anything else. To make magic out of the mundane requires we first make it. ours. We take ownership, responsibility for the journey, we accept the risk and chase down the rewards. You can do amazing things when you realize what you're capable of and commit to its

manifestation. So in a world where, yes, we are conditioned to fail, step out from those subtle shackles of learned helplessness. You are anything but helplessness. It's just that you've yet to reach out and pull your dreams into your orbit. You've yet to put a stake in the ground and say this matters and it's time to see it through. Because once you do that, the good stuff begins.