Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - JUST KEEP GOING | Powerful Motivational Speeches About Life | Start Your Day Right

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

“You can’t move to the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one” - Anonymous

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And by things, I'm not referring to the day to day. I'm not referring to your goals and aspirations, how you spend your time, or who you spend it with. No, I'm referring to the big picture, larger than life, cosmic truths. The unavoidable reality that things will happen beyond your control,

that things come and they go, that as much as we want to understand it all, life in actuality is comprised of unknowns and inconsistencies. What you can change, though, is the meaning of those occurrences. You can change how you view them and what you become in their presence, and that, as it turns out, is an almost incomprehensible strength. See, nothing is so futile is trying to push over a mountain with your bare hand. requires that you climb it or go around it,

or even when life permits through it. But to stubbornly stand in place outstretched arms, hoping that Newton was incorrect and waiting for that 10,000-foot pile of rocks to budge, well, that doesn't do you any favors. And actually, it needs Einstein's definition of insanity, right, where one does the same thing over and over and over, expecting different results.

And look, I've spent many a days knocking on doors that weren't meant to be opened. And when I finally did pull it together and walk away, it wasn't because I quit, at least not in the traditional sense. It was the opposite. It was because I found the strength to continue, right? The courage to look around and find a way forward, not defeat, but a decision to grow wings, to level up. Because I'll tell you, it's easy when one isn't paying attention

to be pulled into the depths of irrationality by their pride, a place where many people stay and knock forever, hoping that one day they'll wake up and that door will open or that mountain will move. No, winning requires adjusting. It requires intricate paths and side entrances. It requires innovation. And when life says no, it's not a no to you.

It's in reference to the door you are standing in front of. I think maturing is depersonalizing the do not enter sides. They are not about you. They are a call to growth. We often can't change the way of things. But we can change ourselves and the paths we walk and that means just as much. In fact, one of my favorite ideas is that there is no failure. Failure in that sense, it gives too much power to externalities.

It says, oh, the world said no. Then I guess the journey ends here. It says, oh, this door is locked. Then I guess forget about what would have been had it been open. No, as long as you are moving forward, looking for a way through, you have not failed. Which means failure only occurs when one decides that it does. When one looks around and says, no thanks.

There are no more doors here worth knocking on. No more paths worth taking, I'm done, right? That is failure. That is quitting. And the world does not mail you that notice. that doesn't arrive from any externality, that is self-generated. That is a letter from you to you. Because if you're willing, the world will keep conforming.

And if you keep seeking that unlocked door, you will ultimately find one. And this is why we have to explore. It's why we need to push against life. Because whether we realize it or not, we dictate more than we could possibly imagine. You know how many of my locked doors brought me somewhere better? You know how many of my valleys of despair were admission tickets to breathtaking views? You are not where you land. You are where you choose to go from that point.

You're not what you are given. You are what you do with what you are given. So don't fight the way of things. That mountain will not be moving. But the beauty is in the fact that you don't need it to. You can still conquer it. You can still get everything you need by placing not hope in the mountain for a miracle, but trust in yourself to find a way.

Lock doors, they only stop those who lack the courage and vision to move on to the next. But that's not you. And therefore the locks won't keep you out. They'll make you stronger. They'll broaden your horizons. And the mountains won't keep you grounded. They'll prompt you to climb higher and farther than you ever have. We often can't change the way of things.

But the way of things can't hold a candle to the strength you possess as you navigate them. Our lives require failure. Like our lungs require oxygen. And when I find the world around me lacking in the resources that I need, it's because in so many ways I have forgotten to breathe. To step out my walls of comfort and breathe in lessons waiting to be taught by the greatest of teachers' life. Life, the unpredictable and often unremarkable miracle. The book that reveals itself through experience,

that tells tales only in hindsight. Our world is a book in which we choose our own ending, and so we must fail. Because failing means living, and we were meant to live. We must fail because every failure is the most. mark of a poet, an artist, or an author bringing this story one step closer to its resolution, continually walking up to a blank wall and making a mark, a single trivial mark, a mark that's misunderstood at best, but likely scoffed at, ridiculed. But each mark gives meaning to the one

before it. These marks, they become chapters, become narrative shifts, become stories. Every failure you throw against this wall becomes part of a mural. It's an element of beauty before the work can even be deemed beautiful. Yet we continually misunderstand. When you hang your head in disappointment, when you see only the smudge of paint you through against that wall, you are oblivion. You are oblivion. to the fact that you're making something meaningful. So here is my challenge to you. I dare you in the midst of the Mona Lisa you are creating

to see it before it's done. I dare you to be strong enough to fail, not just once, but over and over and over again. I dare you to keep your eyes focused, locked in on what's in front of you. When everyone you know hides their failures, when they scream of every little wind for all the world to hear,

I dare you to understand what they do not, to cherish your failures, to maintain trust in the unseen. And when all you want is to get there, I dare you to see your greatness before you arrive. I dare you to look in the mirror and see the hero inside you right now. I dare you to do that. I dare you to take your struggle and see amidst the pain your purpose,

your purpose that will lift you up when you've fallen and will carry you forward when you're lost. I dare you to see light when there appears only darkness, and when none presents itself, I dare you to light the spark, to be the answer you need. I dare you to stand up to the human tendency to embrace security over adventure and predictability over growth. I dare you to walk into the darkness of night, knowing that today's unknown becomes tomorrow's foundation.

And when it hurts, like truly hurts, when you look around, and can't remember why you began or what's pulling you forward. I dare you to close your eyes and imagine looking back and thanking yourself for taking this path. Every low is a courageous step towards transformation, and if you've forgotten that, I hope this reminds you why it all matters. I hope you remember why this mark,

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You won't want to miss out on these deals. Offer ends February 25th. Offers may vary. Restrictions apply. Visit safeway.com for more detail. Be loved or be hated but never simply tolerated. In life, you can live to chase opportunity or you can live to avoid failure. And there are two very different things.

Rather than pursue, we often avoid, we avoid failure, we avoid criticism, we don't want to ruffle feathers or disrupt. No, we choose to simply exist. Never condemned, but never extraordinary, just tolerate. And it's an interesting dilemma, because the best things exist on the extremes, life's fringes. That's where you find your accolades. your accomplishments, that's what we celebrate. It's where you need to be. And you get there not by worrying about what everyone around you thinks,

but by taking your strength, your unique self holding on and pressing the pedal to the floor going all in. And yeah, that means suddenly, my friend, you are exposed. You are vulnerable, you are now out there. It means those who don't have the courage to do you. courage to chase their dreams, they will find you threatening and they will let you know. But it also means that the shackles are off. The door is open.

The light is green and you can build from the ground up. You can build the life you want. The finish line has now become more visible than the prospect of falling along the way and you've granted yourself permission to run through it. Sure, some will love you for these accomplishments, some will hate you for these accomplishments, but let me reiterate the word accomplishment. Because when you live to be invisible, it's a term that rarely presents itself, I promise. Life, it rewards the bold. Those who are bold in their beliefs,

bold in their actions, their dreams, and their pursuits. They are not for anyone but you and years later when you look in the mirror you'll know that you gave every single thing you had to a life that meant something to you loved yes hated sure but merely tolerated no yesterday I drove out a little bit into North Carolina parked the car found a path and went on a long hike to take in some scenery you think about life holistically, kind of contemplate where I'd go from here and why it matters. Which is always funny to think about, right? The idea of having to carve out time amidst our frantic and often chaotic journey to get somewhere to, well, define where somewhere is.

But I think about that a lot. Our days consist of so much running around that I can easily forget what even my calculated decisions add up to. Why? It's a simple enough question. Perhaps one I could ask more. Why? What's with this whole get comfortable with discomfort thing? Why do I place so much emphasis on the quote-unquote path less traveled? Which is a term that one of my buddies was recently given me a hard time about using in all my speeches, right?

It must mean something to me. It's got me here. But is here better than over there? After all, it's not out of the realm of possibility that I'm the one who's missing the mark. And it's okay to examine that possibility. In fact, that's why I'm here. And I bounced this around in my head as I made my way up the trail and noticed as I looked around, everything just felt perfect.

Have you ever had one of those moments where it just seems surreal? The morning was incredible. I loved the sound of the earth under my feet as I took each step, the chirping of the birds in the early morning, the sun making its way through the trees. and I thought, it's amazing that you can live 20 minutes from this feeling and just never experience it. I guess proof that a decision did not go, to do nothing, is still very much a decision. And in this case, would have been the less desirable one.

I'm glad I went. My phone was in my backpack, and for the first time in a while, I didn't even think about it. My mind was stimulated. My senses were taking in something new, something different, something not my studio or laptop or social media analytics pages. In fact, all that stuff felt kind of trivial now that I was removed from it. And I wondered, why don't I do this more? I thought popped into my head earlier that morning. I thought, hey, that's a cool idea.

I just had to get through that initial pushback. The hesitancy of, well, what's the point? What's the desired outcome of a hike? And after all, this little jaunt is just going to distract you from your work and your progress. But at that moment, I think you have to just shut out. reason for a second. You have to remind yourself that there's value, period. Otherwise, we open the door for rationalizing, we talk ourselves out of some of life's beautiful secrets. Sometimes you have to just go. And as I made my way down this trail

further and further, I started to feel better. I felt reassured. Like I had something that I otherwise wouldn't have had, something that's my own. And maybe that is it. maybe that alone is the reason for everything. To collect those incredible things large and small that we might not have had. After all, isn't life just an accumulation of memories, of experiences that are spread out like a choose-your-ending children's book? And with so much control over the outcome, I think that matter deserves my attention

in order to acquire the good stuff, whether it's in a different location or a good location, context or time in my life, I still learn again and again that to get that we have to leave some things behind. And that's the essence of life. You usually get out what you put in. And I think about that a lot. I think about the forks in the road I've come across, those same ones, the life-altering decisions. I guess it's only human, you know, walking away from that promising career that I spent my whole life building towards. Every once in a while, sure, I miss the security.

Leaving this city and the people that made my life what it was, it's haunts me from time to time, trading permanence and structure, for the freedom to condense my life's work into a laptop, and take it anywhere in the world, and empowerment can be lonely, right? And I guess I can't help that in the midst of those situations, the easy decision always feels like the wrong one.

I've just been pulled by the upside. I gravitate towards this grandiose version, version of what life could be on the mark that I hope to make. And to me, the scariest thing has always been not having the courage to see more, to explore. The phrase, what if has always been my adversary, the monster in the closet, and it's a costly one to slay. Right? But life is both suffering and infinite beauty. And it's like, you have to choose where you're going to endure pain and why that matters, so that you can climb the

that means everything to you, that makes life worth it. In other words, meaningful discomfort now or painful regret later. And I strongly believe that life is about pursuing something meaningful. And even the triviality of a hike wants to remind me of this truth. And I could be at home playing guitar, watching Netflix, relaxing. I mean, that would have been easier. But there's only one way to catch me. way to catch that sunrise over the trees. And that way is not Netflix. All those beautiful

views, they require an output of energy to reach them. They come with fear of something going wrong and in doubt that perhaps the turn you made wasn't the best one and that's okay. But I believe that happiness to be truly fulfilled requires trade-offs. And with each step, it becomes easier and easier to understand. For the gym, It's the discipline and the belief, knowing that muscles break down so that they can be built up. For the relationship to flourish, it's overcoming disagreement, accommodating the needs of that person that you love, so that they can be the last thing you see before you fall asleep.

For the free spirit, it's walking away from what you know in pursuit of something that excites and invigorates, even if you're not entirely sure what it means. It's about enduring ones so that you can color. the other. Now what you choose to endure and what you choose to collect is up to you, but that's what makes life such a beautiful ride. A roller coaster taking you through lows to reach highs into darkness to see how life changing the light is when it pushes its way through. Little decisions that become the collage that explodes off the paper when you step back and look. That's what you get back when you make a point to see more.

That's why my love affair with the trivial and the mundane lights my path. It's not just a little thing. It's a microcosm of my everything. It's my saying yes to the opportunity that we work so hard to ignore in an effort to avoid inconvenience. But a life worth living is not always convenient. You could even argue at times it should be inconvenient. Because the higher the climb, the more we give of ourselves, the more precious the world looks from the top. down. In the challenging times, the things we sacrifice and leave behind, they're not so

much a part of the picture as the paint on your palate. That in breaking down, you can now recreate using your own ideals, metrics, and guidelines, a world that you now have the ability to transform. That's why life to me is nothing more than color, decisions, nothing more than paint, steps, nothing more than brush strokes and life. Well, life is nothing and everything. Which has The morning breeze reminds me is a decision that is entirely my own. So much of life comes down to control. Understanding what we cannot control while simultaneously capitalizing and making the most of the things that we can.

A constant awareness that's critical to our evolution. Epictetus wrote, we must be at once cautious and courageous. Courageous in what does not depend upon choice and cautious in what does. And this idea has been shared many, many times in many ways over the centuries. Another of which a lot of folks have heard

is the serenity prayer, right? God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference but regardless of how it's said and who it's said to the point is the same there are things we cannot control that we must find a way to stop exerting ourselves

stop exhausting our energy on they are as the saying goes what they are. These obstacles are immovable. And rather than continue to push and push and push with all our strength and energy, our time is best suited, learning to effectively navigate them. And then there exists those things that are in our control. I believe it was the power of now by Eckartoula.

He said, and I'm paraphrasing, if something cannot be changed, stop thinking about it, right? The future represents anxiety. It's worrying about things that haven't happened yet. The past is essentially depression. It's worrying about things that already happened. We can't do anything about the past or the future. All we have is now. And if it can be changed, then act now in bringing about a desired result.

Take that first step. Create some semblance of momentum, no matter how small. But to worry about what is behind you or in front of you is actually insanity. I remember loving the simplicity and pointedness of that message. Accept it, eliminate it, or adjust yourself to it. Sometimes it helps when I think about things in metaphors, and I tend to do it often. This morning I was drinking coconut water, right?

Of all things. And I was thinking, man, it'd be nice. You know those little pieces of coconut that float around in there? It would be great if they were not in there, right? So I have this idea, just grab a strainer, pour it through the strainer into the glass. I'm leaning over the counter, watching the pieces of coconut collect in the strainer,

and I'm just thinking, sort of zoning out. Like, imagine if those were my problems, just being separated out of my life just like that, how nice it would be, captured in a little net, and then, you know, discarded, thrown away. But, you know, it didn't take me long to realize a couple things. One, such an idea would never happen. Life will always have some obstacle to place before us.

That's what life does. After all, the word is predicated upon the, avoidance of death. It's a struggle and a necessary one. Which leads me to the realization number two. We want hardship. You know, purpose and meaning they're derived from our willingness to overcome adversity and transform because of it. A life without struggle is a car without wheels and sure you might avoid the fender benders but you're not leaving the garage. So that's a that's a thumbs down. So I thought, okay, well, what if I slightly adjust that thinking?

What if it's a subset of problems that I can remove? That's when it kind of hit me, the opportunity at hand, right? Not the so-called problems, but my thoughts about them. There are the real difference maker here. The negative storytelling that can be removed, pushed through the strain. Again, not novel or groundbreaking. Like I said, a few minutes ago, this idea has been around thousands of years but sometimes things land perfectly, right moment, right time.

And I knew what I needed to do was remove the worries and concerns pertaining to the events that I could not change. Yet I exhaust my energy dancing around and around with my thoughts about them. You cannot change the future. You can change right now, which ultimately becomes the future and there's a difference. I had to, you know, pull that back in. See, I think most of our problems are derived from anger

or emotional attachment to the immovable, the unchangeable. One of my favorite sayings is, you can't change the direction of the wind, but you can always adjust your sails. And see, when you remove the self-tormenting you have going on about your past, things you wish you did or didn't do, when you remove the concern

that the future, won't be exactly what you want it to be, which tends to be where I lean of the two, you're left with one thing, the present, right? Clarity. You have officially empowered yourself because the things you allocate your energy to can be changed, can be made better or adjusted. And that's really what it's all about. You can't change the fact that someone you loved or cared about let you down.

But when you dwell on it, you're now giving up the present as well. You're preventing yourself from doing what is required of you now to make your life better. You can't control the fact that your company is reducing its size and your department is being eliminated. Can't control the fact that 8% get accepted to whatever you're applying to. Can't control the fact that you will be criticized for doing the unpopular. thing, the thing that you believe to be right. And I say these things, not to be a downer. I actually don't think there's anything sad about this. To the contrary. Now that you've accepted these truths, accepted this as reality, now you can move toward what's best for you. No more dwelling on the

unchangeable. No more fighting unwinnable wars. No, it's time to go put yourself in position to conquer whatever mountain is next. By straining out the things that cannot be changed, you are left only with what can. You can't change your company's personnel reduction, but you can find something else, something better out there. You can set the stage for a new journey. You can't increase the acceptance rate, but you can increase your value. Go above and beyond. Put yourself in position to succeed. And if you don't, they're lost. Continue learning.

Continue growing. Continue moving forward. You can't stop the world's criticism. But you can learn to toughen up emotionally. Learn to trust your intuition and decision making. Surround yourself with people you trust who lift you up. See, when you stop wasting time and energy on the wrong things, you get the right things.

Like Greg McEwen says in essentialism, it's not what we can acquire. But often what we cut away, removing the things that weigh us down, that we're dragging along with us everywhere we go, they don't need to be there. I say to myself often that I have everything I need. It's there. Some of it's materialized. Some of it exists as a seed that I need to identify in water and nurture, but it's all right here. Which means the problem will never be that I'm incapable. It will never be that I'm not good enough. No, when I'm in the wrong, it's because I've forgotten to see it.

I've either become consumed with the wrong things or lost faith in myself to do the right things. And knowing this has been a gift. It's been tremendous. It's helped me even during the darkest moments to reacquire what matters most. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes days. even weeks or longer, but I get there. Eventually, I arrive, and so can you. You have the ability to parse out

why you feel the way you do, to categorize the thoughts in your head. Can I change it? No, okay, gone. And with all that's left, begins the journey, the good stuff, the adversity and the problems that will make you who you are. And don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying it will be easy.

But I'm saying it will be worth it. And that's critical to understand. Your world is there to maneuver and adjust to reshape. But its transformation depends on a laser-like focus on that which is malleable. That's saying, do what you can, where you are with what you have. It will lead you to exactly where you need to be. Even if you don't trust the road before you, Trust yourself to walk down it.