Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - It Gets Hardest Right Before The Breakthrough | Best Motivational Speeches

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

It Gets Hardest Right Before The Breakthrough is a compilation about finding strength in the exact moment you want to quit.The opening speech sets the tone: when your legs lock at mile three, when the applause fades, when the cursor blinks in the middle of the night, what keeps you moving isn’t talent, discipline, or motivation. It’s meaning. It’s the promise you refuse to break, the love you carry, the story that isn’t finished yet.These speeches are for the moments you feel like walking away. They’re a reminder that the wall you’re facing isn’t the end, but the threshold of your breakthrough.Save this episode for when it gets hard, and share it with someone who needs the reminder to keep going.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

Will you be courageous enough to light your lantern in the dark? I recently heard a story about Florence Chadwick in 1952, who was a swimmer attempting to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast, which all in all is about a 26-mile journey through shark-infested waters and, you know, the whole nine yards. And so 15 hours into her swim, this heavy fog rolls in, and it's so thick she can barely see the boats beside her. Shoreline, completely invisible. So she sees nothing.

And, you know, exhausted and just disoriented, she finally feels like enough is enough. Asked to be pulled out of the water. And it's once she is. lifted out and climbs into the boat that she realized she'd been less than a mile from the finish. She's quoted later saying, I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it. But things feel extra heavy when you don't get that reassurance of the finish line. And see, that's just it. Sometimes you won't see the shore.

The darkness, the fog. the uncertainty they hide the destination. And in those moments, the only way forward is to keep moving with the little light that you have. Your lantern, metaphorically, of course, doesn't need to show the whole coastline, just enough to take the next stroke. Two months later, she tries again, visualizing the coast throughout the entirety of her trip and arrives at the destination. See, the enemy here isn't the lack of visibility in and of itself.

It's the instinct to panic when we cannot see the destination, forgetting that we have enough light to illuminate the space immediately in front of us, and that is always sufficient. Even the most courageous among us know, it goes against every instinct to slow. slowly move into the dark, not knowing, not understanding. But piecing things together in real time, step by step, breath by breath, decision by decision. One of my favorite quotes or ideas is that if you wait until you're ready, you will be waiting all your life.

See, the difference comes down to not who has the most perfectly executed plan. but rather who's willing to turn on their lantern who will endure discomfort before they have answers who's willing to go before they have a clue it's easy on paper easy to think about

not easy to do when you immediately feel the weight of criticism of doubt of pressure societal expectations comparison when you're stuck in the gap between where you are and where you most want to be.

All those things, those fears that keep us on the sidelines. But the lantern you light is the small action, the bridge to get you to the next point. And the next and the next and those points they add up. They are what empires are made of. They are the agents of change. They're the email you send when you don't feel like it. The workout you do when the mind says, and not today, man. The vulnerable conversation you initiate, even though your voice shakes.

These little flames, admittedly, don't light up the entire world. But they give you enough light to keep moving forward. There is always enough at your disposal to do the next thing and the next and the next. And these little acts of courage, will they ultimately place you where you need to be, whether that's on a team, an executive suite, or the California shoreline after a 26-mile swim. I need you to remember that.

You have everything you need. But just like a seed that will one day become the mightiest tree in the forest, everything you need doesn't unfold all at once. It is one day, one hour. one action, one move at a time. So the next time you feel helpless, as though the pressures of life are too much and the weight of the world too heavy,

remember, it is not yours to carry in totality. You cannot jump a mountain that will never be expected of you. But what's yours, what's within your power and control, is the ability to turn your lantern on and move. Just move! Because in the dark, you don't need the sun. You only need that lantern and the courage. There's a connectedness that I want to call our attention to, a connecting of dots.

let's reverse engineer this simple idea. Life's trajectory is most inclined to change in our biggest moments. It's the opportunities that come around once in a blue moon, when it's all on the line, the moments where we have to operate under tension. How do you perform when the lights are the brightest, when the outcome weighs heavy? We only get a few,

truly revolutionizing opportunities in life, and we must be our best in those moments. Okay, but how? That's the million dollar question. As far as I'm concerned, the answer is in the mundane, the boring things. The answer is in repetition of the tiny steps that stack up again and again and again. See, a lot of people can picture the big opportunities, right? A lot of people dream of having the ball in their hands down by one with three seconds left on the clock.

But they're not at their gym. They're not chipping away at their physique or their health. They're not studying the ins and outs of the game. Now, that stuff's boring. Just give me the ball with the game on the line, I'll figure it out, right? Except that's not how the world works. My friends, as the saying goes, confidence is earned. I want to tell you about a wall in my studio, a blank wall.

And as I've moved over the years, it's changed color, it's changed shape, but it's always been there. And it's heard me speaking directly to it for thousands of hours at this point. It's seen me stand up, put a rug in the center of the room, and talk to it like it was an audience. at Gillette Stadium again and again and again. Not because it was fun. No, it was tedious and, to be honest, sometimes annoying. But look, if we're reverse engineering those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, what I always knew was that I'd be ready,

because that one opportunity isn't really about that one opportunity. It's about all you've stacked up along the way, all you've built. It's enabling the mind when you walk on stage and the lights go on to think, oh, this isn't special. This is just muscle memory. I've already paid the price. I've already won. I've already suffered, lost, learned, and grown. This is just where I collect my prize.

And so my friends, I ask of you, what is your equivalent of my blank wall? Where are you creating those reps? How are you building yourself up? So that when those fleeting opportunities do arrive, you don't get worked up. You don't ask anything of yourself that you're not equipped to give. You simply smile and think, I've earned this. This is who I am. And now the world will finally see.

I was listening to Alan Watts the other day. And he was referencing a Zen parable. And he asked this question I thought was pretty cool. He goes, when a flag is flapping in the wind, what's moving? The flag or the wind? The answer, neither. It's the mind that moves. It's how our minds interpret our experiences that create our realities.

And the reason this reminder is so important to me. the reason I don't believe we could ever hear it enough is because keeping that understanding front and center in our lives tells us how powerful we are. Sure, we often can't control the situation. We all know that. But we can always control what this situation means. Every event is open to interpretation.

And that's what's so incredible. Yeah, sometimes it takes a while to get to the value. especially when our minds want to default to the negative or what's missing or what's lost. But if you're willing to look underneath every occurrence is exactly what you need. And so take, for example, something we can all relate to, right, losing something that truly mattered, that we found meaningful, whether it was a person, a job, an activity, a physical impairment, right? When asked, what does this change mean, the mind goes loss. It defaults to, I had it, I loved it, and now it's gone.

But underneath that, there's a chance to take the pieces of what remains and go down a new path. To find something just as or even more beautiful. The same loss can mark the beginning of an adventure. Is it ideal at first? No, but it's usually not the ideal that prompts our most important change. It's life's turbulence that pushes us to seek out something new. And I love taking this little trip down memory lane, right? Because, you know, it's the business ventures that fell apart that caused me to look in the mirror and choose to be more. It's the projects that just didn't end up being that good, right, that allowed me to see this journey.

as a creative one. Or, hey, some projects hit, some don't, but it's not personal, it's a ride, and what an opportunity. It's the breakups I went through. And while, sure, if you were definitely brutal, they gifted me with an opportunity to personally level up, to dial in my understanding of what really matters to me. I can think of physical setbacks, monetary obstacles,

all these things that hurt in the moment, Now, I'm not sure I could have controlled the initial emotive response, right? The human reaction. But learning to ask, well, how can I get better from this? That's a different question. How can one month from now be amazing because of this situation, regardless of how it feels in the moment? It's not the flag or the wind that moves.

It's my mind. So how will I choose to paint the landscape around me? How will I choose to give meaning to the things that will ultimately comprise my reality? That's power. Now, I've always felt it easy to conflate, like, finding value in our lives with being happy all the time. But again, we're emotional creatures, and life can be challenging for all of us. I don't think it's possible to be happy all the time. That's not the goal.

The true victory is in finding great. gratitude along the way in pausing and asking, how can I take this seemingly unfavorable result and find a way to win from it? Because guess what? The sad truth is most people don't do that. Most people walk right by that stuff. Most people chalk up the L's as L's and leave the good stuff behind. If you know there's a win in everything and you ask that your mind look for it, The reality you create will be one much different than someone undergoing the exact same circumstances with their eyes closed. Remember, it's the mind that moves. It's you who writes the script, who controls the narrative.

And that's not a burden. That's a gift. It's what makes you more powerful than you could ever imagine. I was thinking about something recently. Something we've probably all heard before. and in some cases already know. But that's why it warrants a little bit of discussion. It's not about knowing, it's about executing,

which are two very different things. And so, I'll start here with the idea that everything is relative. Someone who runs five miles a day and then starts hanging out with people who all run 10 miles a day is more than likely going to at least ask themselves the course question, could I be running more? Should I? Right? That's just human nature. One's perception of normality shifts when they're around people or circumstances that stretch it. And as far as I can tell, this can be applied to anything. I remember a friend of mine, probably about five years ago now,

asked me what my monthly revenue goal was. And I remember telling him and he paused and looked kind of puzzled and asks, you know, why only that? And I thought, only that, right? That's a big number. I was reaching there. But that encounter, I still remember, it rocked my worldview. It's like, okay, wow, I need to, you know, move some things around. I need to aim higher. This is an important convo for me. And I think, you know, there's often a negative connotation we apply to this concept, right? Comparison being the thief of joy. They're always being more too low. acquire, it's a tool, and but not utilized the right way or internalize the right way can be unhealthy. But there's also, when utilized correctly, something not only healthy but incredibly

powerful and advantageous about it. We need to be reminded that we're capable of more, otherwise our worldview can't stretch. We're able to extend far beyond the reality we find ourselves in, but that fact alone does us no good. We have to position ourselves to see, to feel, to believe the more. A good friend of mine and I started reporting to each other daily the workouts we do now twice a day. And the funny thing is, it didn't start out twice a day, but just, you know, the nature of not wanting to be the guy who does less. You know, we've been friends for a while, we're all about helping each other be better in business and fitness and you name it. And you can bet when I've been running around working all day and I'm tired and the little voice in my head starts whispering,

well, you already got a workout in earlier. Just go really hard tomorrow instead. You'll be fine. But then my phone buzzes and it's a screenshot of his workout stats. It's like, nope, have to find time to do it. He's tired. He has a job and a family. he wants to crack a beer or grab a burger, but he didn't. And the fact that he reached for more makes me realize, hey, so cannot. Makes me ask, what are my targets?

Are they big enough? And that's been incredibly effective, prompting this conversation, making me realize, you know, there's something to this. How can I position myself so that I have line of sight to that precious abundance in the other areas of my life that I deemps? important. How can I nurture the relationships I have that serve as a reminder that there is always another level? How can I keep at the forefront of my mind that there are online creators helping millions of people a day? There are business owners making millions of dollars a month. And it's not that I'm not proud and grateful. I'm both of those things. Instead, I love the journey. I love the challenge of seeing what I can become

and know that our default is to get so consumed by the current way of things, we start thinking, hey, maybe that's all there is. We forget to keep our eyes up. And so a few things I plan on doing. I'll share them and maybe they'll prompt some ideas in your head for whatever your values are, whatever you're trying to improve. Recently I set up a mastermind quarterly with some buddies I have that are investors and business owners

simple to report growth, revenue, future plans. As someone who just loves to write and create, it's easy for me to put all that stuff second, so this is going to hold me accountable. Fitness, I already mentioned. This one is new. I have a few friends that I start. to meeting up with just to get out, to unwind,

do nothing business-related at all, which is just as critical as work, right? I have to make time to soak in the world around me. And there are others as well, but you get the idea, right? It's teaming up with those people in my life, where our values overlap and we can help each other win. The saying goes, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

But now imagine, take it. making that a step further. Reaching out to those people and teaming up to help position each other to succeed. You get the accountability, the camaraderie. You become a team looking to get the most of your time on this planet. I've stated many times that my belief is the pieces exist around us to do so many things, incredible things, monumental things. but how we mix, match, and utilize those pieces, the world around us determines that.

So let's ask the question, what is a life well lived to me, and how can I tangibly position myself to obtain it? How can I help those I care about obtain it? Those are some powerful questions and will ultimately lead to some incredible growth. Here's to going even when you don't want to go. To moving forward when you're uncomfortable, to stepping up when you're fearful. Here's to courage. I was talking to a friend of mine earlier today about understanding the difference between two things. On one hand, the fear that presents itself when we're growing, leveling up, right? Like we've all felt nerves

before a big event or an important life change, things like that. Then on the other hand, the emotions that arise when we start to feel like something isn't right for us, similar discomfort, but not quite the same. We feel nervous or uneasy because we know we're misaligned. And where we landed in our conversation was that when you were on the edge of that metaphorical clip and your body's pushing back, your heart's pounding, your mind is racing, you're nervous, you're fearful. The question worth asking is, will I be disappointed in myself if I don't go through with this?

Will I be letting myself down here by turning back? You have to jump into the future and imagine, you know, future you sitting at the table reflecting on this. If you see yourself as regretful, wishing you pushed through, then it's not an alignment issue. It's a matter of courage. And when you think about it, it usually feels obvious looking back. Like, I can easily recognize in hindsight the things I stopped doing because they weren't aligned with who I wanted to be. When you stop doing the wrong thing, it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Like a step back to leap forward. Those decisions create a more fulfilled life. But those times I stopped because, you know, I let the moment get bigger than my end goal. Those times I caved and decided I didn't want to pay the price solely because of the temporary discomfort. I remember those two. That's a different feeling altogether, a not-so-good feeling, as we all know. Jim Rohn says it like this. There's a pain of discipline or a pain of regret.

Choose your pain. One of the things that makes life challenging is that we have to be open to some level of discomfort in our lives. That's just what it is to be human. Now, our power is that we get to choose where we let that pain in and what it means, what it will do for us. Will it be the type of pain that grows us or the type of pain that reminds us what could have been? I really think most of the time we stop, not because the path was wrong for us,

but because we somewhere along the way forgot that most of life's best experiences and circumstances and opportunities come with a hefty price tag. They demand a lot of us. And in those moments when the lights shine the brightest, when we feel the weight of the world coming down on us, it's easy to misdiagnose that discomfort as a stop sign. It's like, oh, I feel alone, I feel unsure, I don't have any validation, my pride hurts, my confidence is shaking,

whatever it may be. These things just, you know, even as I'm saying them out loud, now seem awful when in reality they're just the cost of admission right it's like you have to not know before you can ever know but try telling yourself that as you're wandering around feeling nothing but pressure right it's a different story all together it's a challenge but here's the good news it's a challenge you're capable of handling of overcoming life is about stepping into things we don't feel ready for and then learning repeatedly that we can piece together the knowledge along the way it reminds us that fear is going to show up

regardless of what we do in life but to grow into the people we are capable of becoming we have to understand that fear is in its own unique way an invitation the The discomfort doesn't mean something's wrong, often the opposite. It's letting you know that more is available, that you are right where you need to be, but you have to change in order to become worthy of what's on the other side. Life is not saying no, it's merely demanding of you courage, and courage you have. The other day, I heard someone say that they've found some of the most important things in their life in places where they weren't supposed to find them, which is interesting to me.

One, because that seems to happen a lot. And two, because it's like who creates the parameters around what we're supposed to do? Who sets the rules to begin with? You know, I'm continuously blown away by our tendency to create imaginary walls and then live within them. To build steel bars around ourselves that separate the now from future opportunity. In one of the first videos I ever made, I talked about this nagging feeling of discomfort that occurred right after I left the corporate world and started my own business. And at that point, to call it a business was giving myself a lot of credit. basically just starting to make videos and put them out on social media.

But I would run in the middle of the day, right? That was my thing. Right through Boston, along the Charles River, I loved running. But I couldn't help feeling this guilt. Like I wasn't supposed to. Like I was doing the wrong thing, doing what I was taught not to do. My whole life, I learned that you go to school or work during the day. That's the right thing. In a decade removed, I've grown, and I've learned I know how crazy it sounds now. But it took me a long time to even enjoy it and not feel like some devian who was leaving everything he'd worked for up to that point to go and fail spectacularly. The supposed to followed me around like a shadow. Constantly trying to pull me back in.

Freedom to me is separating oneself. from this exact sentiment. It's doing what's best for you, exploring your own worldview, blazing as the saying goes, your own trail, because you'll find very few supposed tos there. I think this is a microcosm of a greater truth.

The most important things we do in life, our pivotal moments, our epiphanies are found where we weren't supposed to find them. Because what we're supposed to do is very rarely methodically thought out. It's simply the norm. It's marching orders. It's what the crowd is doing. It's what will help us blend in. And it's interesting, as I've pushed further and further into life, I've come to believe that rarely is what's best all one thing or all another. It's working to find a balance that supports your ideal life trajectory. That balance will

lean substantially more one way or another depending on who you are and what's important to you. And so, I'm not suggesting one always needs to be different, or if something is common, it's wrong. No, thousands of years of evolution and societal stressors have in many ways narrowed down for us what's effective and efficient. It's helped us survive. And to dismiss this outright is obviously counterproductive, but it does explain why any break from these norms physically hurts. we associate them with survival. And here lies the divide between surviving,

which we are supposed to do, and excelling, which is to embark upon a different game altogether. Survival is mitigating risk. Excelling is hunting down the opportunity. Survival is blending in. Excelling is asking, What about me is unique and how can I dive into that fully?

Survival is not having to innovate on any large scale because the instructions are clear and laid out for you. Excelling is asking, now that I know the rules, how can I bend and maybe even break them so that I can improve my life and the lives of those around me. And I'll continue with the same example because I know a lot of folks find themselves

in a similar situation now, I wasn't supposed to deviate from my previous life trajectory, my education, my career track, my 401K, but I did, and I found something I otherwise would never have, an ability to work on what I enjoy and share that with others.

I wasn't supposed to leave home, the Northeast. The most important people in my life live up there. But I've found comfort, peace, and new beginnings down here that I never would have experienced. I wasn't supposed to do many of the things I'm doing today. It was a genuine curiosity and a willingness to chase down what's meaningful, and the beautiful thing is anyone can do that. Every single one of us can detach and depart from the supposed-toes in our lives.

And hey, maybe some of them should be there. Maybe some are adding value and stability that you need and maybe even cherish. But I can promise some of them aren't. And it's worth a look. It's worth thinking about those things. Where can we be a little braver, a little more courageous? Where can we venture outside the scope of what we've subconsciously deemed every day life? I love the notion that there's always more in you,

you just need to give yourself permission to pursue it. It only makes sense that no journey begins until we give it the green light. The world is yours once you give yourself permission to pursue it. So what are you conceding? What have you accepted as fact that upon further review, find to be fiction. There's a world of infinite opportunity waiting for you. Just past your acceptance of the way things are. Just beyond all those supposed to. I wouldn't make excuses for

you. I wouldn't look you in the eye and tell you everything is great when in actuality the wheels are falling off the wagon. No, I'd point to the insufficiencies and remind you, that you're capable of chipping away at them. I think that pragmatism can save someone's life. But guess what? Being human is knowing there are things you don't know. Realizing that growth is picking up little understandings along the way and bringing them with you into the future.

Allowing them into the evolution that is you. And part of my personal evolution was coming face to face. with the fact that looking forward isn't all of it. It's part of it. Yeah, we need to be better, of course. Yeah, we can always squeeze more value out of the time allotted to us. 100%. This forward progression, as far as I'm concerned,

is intertwined in human fulfillment. But we are, in this moment, the manifestation of the obstacles we've already overcome. We are the times we wanted to stop and didn't. We are the losses we bounce back from and the adversity we forged into opportunity. We're the endings that we melted down into beautiful beginnings. We are the mistakes, the obstacles, the little encounters with hell that didn't define us, but instead changed us. And that matters.

So quick story time. For about five years after I graduated college, some of my friends and I had this fantasy baseball league we'd used to stay in touch, right? And I think even they would begrudgingly admit that I was oddly good at it. I won like three or four out of the five years or something like that.

And you know what my strategy was? It was simple. I picked players based on who they were over the course of their career. not based on how they performed last year, which is a trap people seem to fall into. So a guy that hits 30 home runs six years in a row, and then last year suddenly only hits seven, it's not out of the question to think he'll hit 30 again, revert back to the mean, to his average, his track record. That to me is more meaningful than some recent struggle, and I took that bet every time.

Now, as you can imagine, the point I'm making here has nothing to do with baseball. It has everything to do with life in general. So much of the time, we completely focus on the current insufficiencies. The bad things happening now, the misfortunes in our lives, we're striking out, and our brain goes into panic mode. It says gap, gap, gap, how do we fill it? And again, yes, that's important. And our plan for resurgence is necessary. but we can't forget who we are and what we've done.

We can't overlook our track record. As the saying goes, you've survived 100% of the bad days. You've lived through countless struggles. You've climbed out of many catastrophes, at least I have. And it seems as though it's when we need that reassurance most that we are most inclined to forget. It's when we, more than any other time, need to prove to ourselves that we are unconquerable, that we question our ability to persevere.

I'd never say to you the road ahead will be easy. I'm not saying it won't suck at times. I'm not saying it won't take all of you. I'm merely saying that you are equipped to emerge victorious, to handle not some of it, but all of it. I'm saying that the person in the mirror is stronger than you can even imagine. But understand, you're not operating on blind faith here. You're not hoping for some miracle.

You're operating on your own record of success. What you do is find a way. What you do is win. You don't believe me, look over your shoulder. Take a trip down memory lane. glance back at all the mountains you've already climbed. And life, it won't be smooth sailing all the time. You'll have your slumps and your adversity, no question.

But they're not you. They are what you were made to navigate. Everything has brought you to this point. And it's great to focus on this point, but don't lose the everything. Sometimes it's not about who you will be someday. Sometimes it's about what you've already become. It's about who you are now.