Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - IT'S TIME TO STAY FOCUSED | Best Motivational Speeches | Wake Up Positive

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus" - Bruce Lee

You can be your greatest fan and also your biggest critic. In fact, not only is it healthy, it's necessary. To be there for yourself, celebrate that commitment to show up, but also to hold yourself accountable for growth. Because to be great is to know there's more in you, to understand that there's greatness waiting to be extracted from the miracle that is you. Here are two words. I want to take a look at both of them. Consistency and adaptation. Consistency first. Why? Because consistency gets you in the door. It's the cost of admission.

Consistency is you showing up for yourself. Day in and day out. Creating mastery and competence through repetition, manufacturing a data set that will be used to guide your journey, taking a once stagnant idea, and putting it into motion. Consistency is doing what you promised yourself you'd do when you said you'd do it. Why? Because that's who you are. You create goals and then conquer those goals. When your head hits the pillow at night, you may be tired, you may have struggled, you may have swung and missed, you may be wondering how things unfolded the way they did, but you showed up. So celebrate that. Celebrate yourself, be your biggest fan. Because the world can't take your will to step forward and cannot seize your consistency,

not without your permission. So other than part one, let's call consistency the commitment to show up for you. Now the second piece, Consistency's older brother, adaptation. See that consistency, like we just talked about it, will get you in the door. It signs you up for the game, but it guarantees nothing. See where consistency puts that pen in your hand, paper in front of you, patch you on the back where consistency gives you a chance to write your story. One's level of success or achievement relies on their ability to adapt.

To do the thing that's so hard for people to do, look in the mirror and ask, How can I be better? I've been consistent for 30 days, sure. Here's what's right, here's what's wrong, now it's time to adjust, to be critical, to understand that expecting more of the self does not in any way diminish the task at hand. It gives you room to expand into that next version of yourself

in a way that simply, showing up doesn't. Without a willingness to adapt you get Einstein's definition of insanity right doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. You get day after day of wondering why this square peg won't just save us all the trouble and go into the round hole. Without a willingness to adapt we move for the sake of moving and we work for the sake of working, but if we could find it within ourselves to look at the data that's been acquired day after day and use it to help guide ourselves to that North Star, we'll find strength. To seek out the delta between where we are and where we want to be, that is power.

But it calls for more than just showing up. It calls for looking around. It calls for looking around. It for observing and then adapting. So yeah, your greatest fan and your greatest critic. Be there for you, but don't let yourself get away with good enough. Showing up is critical, it's powerful, but it's just the beginning. If your eyes stay open, if you're willing to both love yourself and improve yourself simultaneously, all the world becomes available to you. There are no mountains you can't climb or oceans you can't cross.

And sure, the world will do what the world does. It will place challenges before you. But rather than those challenges being the reason you can't, rather than accepting those challenges as a permanent reality, they become nothing more than the next puzzle to be solved, next little adaptation that's required of you. You show up, you self-assess, you adjust, and carry right on towards that horizon again and again. So when you find yourself frustrated or up against that wall, remember, you are building your

ideal reality. Proud of yourself for showing up, for being consistent. Because as dire as it might seem, you overcame. came a lot to get here. But also know that the challenge at hand is not an indictment of you or your goals. It's your chance to review the game plan and adjust. Your opportunity to do what so many fail to do, not shrink from the world, but adapt yourself to it.

Grow because of it. Today is your opportunity to take what the world gives you and build something new. to find ourselves requires we must first lose ourselves is I believe life's greatest paradox leaving that carousel of comfort the predictability of what we know the certainty of who we believe ourselves to be for a promise with no real guarantee of being kept well it's nothing short of irrational are the odds in our favor, perhaps not. But by stepping off, by placing our bets on a different track with a different prize at a different time, we have increased those odds from zero to, well, I guess we decide.

And see, the world teaches us that it's advantageous to spin. A spinning carousel is predictable. It can't be cheated. There's very little room for loss or humiliation or setbacks or even life to get in the way. You know where you start and you know where you end and that's just the thing. This spinning world is so easy that people don't want to leave. In fact, it's not until you walk away from the crowd that you even face the unknown. And that's precisely why it's so hard to walk alone. It's hard. It's challenging because of the now. not because the now can't be measured or understood, no, we get it, but because there's this little whisper in the back of our heads that the now might go on and on and on forever,

that that check will never be cashed, the summit never reached. No, just footsteps down a perpetually long, windy road, and that's, you know, and maybe, just maybe we miss that carousel. We miss the safety and security. And that's what sometimes makes it such a stressful thing to walk alone. We think about all of ourselves, our mind, our heart we've left behind along the way. Truths, we now have to face things. They never taught us on that carousel.

We had to learn that we were wrong about who'd be by our side through it all. We could no longer hide behind the notion that when things got tough someday, every one, everything would be there would be the same. We learned to swim by jumping into the deep end. Seeing in real time that people only believe it already exists. What's put in front of them. That ideas are empty. That a dream is a language only spoken by its creator.

And if you want it to mean anything, you must dedicate your life to translating it. We learn how much is backwards, how much of life is reactive. That success is being one of the few who don't react, but build a world to react to. And in the thick of it all to internalize the process, because talking while talking does nothing, plans are just potential energy confined to your pocket. You have to be okay growing that seed by yourself. Like a runner making her way past a crowd.

Right? The crowd sees calm, sees peace, sees the finesse of an athlete gliding over the pavement. They have no idea the war being fought behind her eyes. The silencing of constant whispers to slow down to do less, the repression of pain that consumes her to such an extent. It can't even really be pinpointed. It just kind of floats over her body. They'll never know that. And what we learn, is that they don't need to.

It's the truth. And see, it's also what makes it quite lonely to walk alone. Walking alone, well, it's a lot of things. But it's never boring. It's never dull. And if you can hang in there long enough, without even noticing the headwind you've been fighting, it becomes a tailwind.

And where we may have felt alone, The idea pops into our heads that maybe that's not quite right. If anything, the wind at our back is now momentum. It's a partner along the way. That carousel, yeah, it's still spinning, but somewhere else. Some far off place beyond our field of vision. And no, things don't ever become easy. We wouldn't want that.

But difficulty is interpreted differently now. Not a burden, but a cost. And one we'd gladly continue to pay. And that space that once felt so empty, so desolate, so helpless. Well, now it's made up of people who see what you see. Who hopped off their own carousels and wandered through the desert, they too navigated through the impossible and the never been done. It's funny how, at some point, we always find each other.

And I suppose now, having traded the carousels for the adventure, we can walk alone together. Us against the world. Standing up in defiance of the odds, chasing that glimmer of hope. All in on a moment. a pursuit to find what most won't and see what most can't. Not because we were made different, but because we chased down the idea of different. It gets a tough rap walking alone. And in so many

ways it's a fight. It takes all of you. But you don't come out the same person you were when you stepped in. The same person you'd still be today had you stayed on that. carousel. So if you are still spinning, step off. And if you have, if you're still adjusting to the discomfort of reality, if you're making your way through the hell of uncertainty or questioning whether you have what it takes or have the strength to commit, I promise. In fact, you're right where you need to be. So don't be distracted by those screaming of their successes or communicating, capturing every small wind as they make their way around the carousel. It's the quiet ones who change themselves.

The ones who take life one step at a time, one battle at a time who redefine reality. And I'm sure you can't see it now. No one can. No one can. No one. No one can see the sun amidst the storm, but you'll emerge. Stronger than you ever were. You will navigate towards the ideal and away from that life you once settled for. It's a long path, but it's worth it. So get up and let your feet guide the world. Let's go walk alone.

Goodbyes. Our tiny beginnings. Sunsets. They grant a very special kind of permission. A green light to take all the value and the beauty, all the life lived, and carry it into tomorrow. Which sounds easy enough.

But then again, on paper, so does running a marathon or climbing Mount Everest. And I'd wonder, how could something be painful and transformative? How could something break me and be good for me? It's not hard to see the dissonance there, right? But here's the thing. Oddly enough, that seemingly paradoxical experience is consistent. Consistent throughout our lives.

appearing every time we grow. Our darkest moments feel like endings, perhaps because we're hanging on to what was, the ideas that felt like home. But in actuality, those moments, those goodbyes, are already the beginning of something new. The same way midnight sparks

the beginning of a new calendar day, right in the heart of darkness. unbeknownst to us while the world is turned off and our minds are asleep. A hello in disguise. When we said goodbye, my heart immediately declared war on my mind. Why? Because her not being there didn't make sense. Because when you care about something, you fight for that thing.

Because goodbyes, well, they signify change. I liked this chapter, but my brain fired right back. Right idea, just wrong time. What's the reality of this situation? Did you ask yourself that? It said, letting go can be the hardest thing and the right thing simultaneously that I should know the rules.

And so goodbyes were said and sons, they sat. And we went to sleep in separate beds, not knowing anything about the future, except that it would be different. Way different than today. And immediately in comes the heart. Picks up the mic, tap, tap, is this thing on, check one, two. Hey, make sure you're aware of what's gone. Make sure you spend your time thinking about what you don't have.

See the blank pages they used to have writing. You see the empty space that used to be occupied. Make sure you shine that spotlight on what was once there. Oh, it's empty? How does that make you feel? Asks the heart. Then the door opens, in comes the brain, the pragmatist, more direct, certainly more matter of fact.

Says, hey, time to move. You have things to build and places to go. You can't let that blood pumping organ get in the way of what really matters here. really matters here. Place up your shoes. Open the door, go make a name for yourself, kid. Go be that guy. You get what you focus on, remember?

Focus on the reality, the process, the analytics. Data doesn't lie. Your heart does, though. I let them fight it out for a few. Our desire for faction so deeply ingrained that I feel like I'm looking down at myself, my right half fights my left half. How best do we go forward here?

Right, wrong, yes, no, stop, go, before realizing, like so many things the truth hides in the gray space. Maybe in an obtuse way, they both want the same thing. The truth is it hurts because change hurts, but that doesn't mean I've lost more than I've gained. It doesn't mean that yesterday's memories won't impact the minutes that make up tomorrow. Nothing is disappearing into thin air here. This isn't a magic trick. The time spent doesn't suddenly become meaningless. No, it comes along because I'll continue to move along and those moments are now me. So recalibrate.

acknowledge that. When I watch a movie, see a concert, go on a breathtaking hike, run up the coast in the morning, they are experiences that take me somewhere beyond the physical. Their peak experiences. But they are not forever. And interestingly enough, upon their completion, they're not quite gone either. They make a little home for themselves. somewhere in the soul, like a candle that as small as it might burn is never truly extinguished,

a light to help guide the way forward. And so when we find ourselves in the dark, how powerful that we remember to reach for it. As the saying goes, you have everything you need. And you do because of everywhere you've been And everyone that's helped keep your soul ablaze You are the continuation of the best story ever written And no hero makes it on his own And so that night I decided to mix things up a bed

Sit under the bright lights of the South Florida sky glistening pieces of wisdom that share for free. And the moon, that moon. Which I recently learned we can only see because the sun's light reflects off of it. Perhaps they too knew each other in a previous life. But me, I got in my car, drove out to the beach, a nice change of scenery,

figured it would be a real tree, to hear myself think, to find clarity. Climmed up onto a lifeguard stand, let my feet dangle over the edge, and just looked out. Watched the waves crash on the sand. The clock would strike midnight soon, and while the world slept,

I would be given a brand new day. And what a relief, because the previous one was painful, the previous one hurt, the previous one broke me. But as I sat there, waves crashing, feet dangling, I was starting to feel like those little pieces just might come together to comprise something meaningful. As Hemingway put it, the world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places. Well, under those stars, I felt like I could be strong. Like once again, I could be anything and the heart and the head

can bicker all they want, but they're saying the same things just through each other. One sees what's no longer there, the other sees what's next, and that's what goodbyes do. Force us to look around and realize what we've become as we start the next journey. Eyes a little wider, soul shining a little brighter, because of her, because of me, because of the blank spaces, because of what will someday occupy them, because of what it all means. And just like that, midnight, quiet, calm, those waves, they crashed and they crashed, celebrating the new day. They've certainly been here before, and they'll be here tomorrow long after I come and go.

And in a way, my impermanence is what makes the now so precious, why it all matters, why the sun and moon conspire to shine light on this very lifeguard stand at this very moment in time, reminding me that down is not out, wandering is not lost, that I am stronger than I've ever been. And sometimes it takes a goodbye. to remind us. Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it. This was written by the author of Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman. And what he's referring to is a cognitive bias known as the focusing illusion. Pretty basic idea means that we elevate the importance of things that we think about while ignoring other aspects of our lives.

By thinking about something, it suddenly matters more to us. And while it's easy to interpret this disconnect between our thoughts and reality is alarming, there's also an opportunity here to use this to our advantage, right, to further become the captain of your ship. I've heard my entire life, think positive thoughts. We all have. But there's value and understanding. why that's true.

Otherwise, it just feels like a meaningless ritual. So, Conneman talks about a study with college students where they were asked about their overall level of happiness, and then they were asked about their dating lives. And the answers they gave, there were really, you know, there was no correlation between the two answers. But when the order of the questions were switched, when the students were asked about their dating lives first,

and then their overall happiness, the correlation between the two answers increased. The answer they gave about their overall happiness mirrored however they said their dating lives were, at least to a much greater extent. Why? Well, because dating became the variable or the framework that they used to measure their overall happiness, even though perhaps they didn't know it, right? But by focusing on it, it became more relevant. It bled into other aspects of life, right?

You get what you focus on. It's that simple. And the truth is, as I mentioned earlier, nothing is as important as we think it is. Everything is magnified, kind of blown out of proportion in our minds. So the question is, why not use that as an advantage? Why not let that become our strength?

realizing that if simply thinking about something can change the trajectory of how we view the world, it can be transformative to simply minimize the bad thoughts and focus on good ones. Have you ever thought about how delicate the line we walk between not caring enough and caring too much? For example, to feel like existence is pointless, right? everything's bad, there's no reason to try. That makes it hard to get off the couch, lacking that purpose. But then, on the entire other end of the spectrum,

to feel like life is riding on every step, to feel like we're not allowed the flexibility or leeway to make mistakes, life matters too much, that also severely limits how we live. just in a different way. And so I want to explore how do we find that middle ground? How do we find that picture in our heads

that puts us right where we need to be? The idea that, of course, today is important. Life is a beautiful opportunity to extract meaning from the world around you, to build something that matters. But it's also no checklist. It's no standardized test. No, it's more of a game.

We shouldn't be walking around with the weight of the world on our shoulders because that doesn't help anyone. Let's face it, life is just not all that serious. As a good friend of mine, Steve always says to me, you know, we are sacks of meat on a rock floating through an infinite, ever-expanding universe, and nothing matters. I've heard him say that a million times, right? Let's go, let's do it. Nothing matters. Let's make it happen. And I'm 100% get it. It's a check against the idea that the world will collapse if we screw up. That if we drop the ball, it's over.

Kind of pointing to the fact that the only way to truly lose in life is to look back and realize we were too scared to live. And so in that context, absolutely, I'm on the nothing matters bandwagon. But here's the deal about this video or podcast episode, whoever you're consuming it. In a perfect world, it's a buffet, not a menu. It's an opportunity for you to think, to reflect, to pick and choose the pieces here that will help move you along. Because after all, you know, we're all walking different paths. So how could one person present a one-size-fits-all solution to anything?

No, the goal is to understand the framework by which we operate. to understand that the thoughts we think have a monumental impact on how we live. And so if you find yourself on the uninspired side of things, know that there's not a problem with you. You just haven't found a path that lights you up. You are perhaps focusing on the wrong things, right? Not leaving space for the right ones. And if you find yourself constantly smothered by the weight of you.

your own expectations, if every little step, decision, or movement matters too much, know that you are perhaps creating adversaries that don't exist, that you are right where you need to be, but you have to let yourself live, experience life. You know, one of the most beautiful Victor Franco quotes I've ever heard. He says, ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. There is so much power packed into this idea. It's like when you look around and see the outside world backing you into a corner,

dictating to you how things should be, remember that you don't take orders from the external world. You create the external world. when all you see is negative. When all you feel are reasons to turn back, when the good in life is hiding away, reach out and find the positive. The one thing that can pick you up and carry you forward.

And look, I'm not advocating that we live in this state of delusion. I'm not saying close your eyes, cover your ears, and pretend everything's great. I'm saying every day, every situation provides at least one thing you need to be closer to where you want to be. And it just so happens that we're not always inclined to see that one thing, that solution. It just so happens that we need to become aware to remind ourselves. So this is your reminder to look for it. Your reminder to focus on the things that lift you up and breathe life into you, not the things that keep you down.

And so here's to finding that sweet spot, right? Walking the line between Victor Frankel's meaning starts with you. And my old pal Steve's mantra, nothing matters, so go live your life. This is not a race. You're not being graded on the outcome here. You're giving yourself permission to experience that jolt you get when you open your eyes as the sun comes up each morning, knowing that how you're about to spend your time

will be a product of the game you designed. A game in which, yes, you'll feel lost from time to time. You'll lose that North Star every so often. You'll question the journey you're on. But guess what? When you take responsibility for the circumstance, you also empower yourself to right the ship. You're at the wheel playing the game of life as it was meant to be played on your terms. If it does not serve you, let it go.

If it doesn't help you move beyond it. As Kahneman states, our thoughts grossly over-examination. exaggerate that reality on the ground. So let that framework emphasize your passion, your strength and your dreams, not the inverse. What we focus on, we get. So believe in yourself with such conviction that those around you look on and wonder,

what gave you the right to see those things? What made you think it was okay to believe? in that which you believe. You never got a permission slip in the mail. You never stumbled upon a permit that granted you access to the good things in life. No, you just came to understand the game and how it's played.

You came to see that we have options, the option to find the bad and the option to find the good. The choice to see why you can't and the choice to see why you will. That's what will separate you from both your past self and those looking on from afar. See, change is never a product of magic as people seem to think.

No, most often, it's taking on the challenge of seeing what is not yet there. Stepping into the arena with possibility, with the up, So today, see it. Focus on it, lock it in, and don't let go. With everything you have, all that's within you, don't let go. For everything tomorrow can be, for everything you have always been, don't let go.