Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - KEEP IT TO YOURSELF | Powerful Motivational Speech (2022)

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character" - Emerson

Recently, I was thinking about something a friend of mine named Tom told me a few years back. He owns a company in Oklahoma City and was telling me about how someone he'd hired essentially stole from him. And the first question that came to my mind as he was telling the story was, okay, what are you going to do about it? And I asked him the question, and he was kind of quiet for a second and then asked. in his southern accent. Eddie, if a snake bites you, are you going to chase it into the woods to get your revenge?

Or are you going to get the medical attention required to save yourself? Basically, are you going to focus on the past? Or on what to do from here forward? Basically, he cut ties with the person but had moved on. Was already thinking about next steps that were best for him,

his family, and his business, And I can tell you, since hearing that, it's become an incredibly valuable idea in my life. Especially as you realize that there will never be a shortage of problems. You do what you can to avoid them. You try to steer clear when possible, but adversity will always be a factor. It's about knowing that and stepping into it regardless. It's just something that's always intertwined in our development. And I find value in asking myself,

is this action I'm about to take conducive to my growth and my happiness or am I just chasing snakes? Does this just feel good in the short term because I'm angry or I've been wronged or something along those lines? Especially since most harm inflicted on others derived from incompetence, not malice, and I truly believe that. I think very frequently we attribute sinister motives to others

when 99% of the time it's sheer stupidity. It's imperfect humans trying to navigate an often complex world. We make mistakes. Now, I'm not suggesting you don't stand up for yourself when you've been wronged or slighted. Of course you should. But the magic is in not personalizing the situation. possessing the emotional IQ to understand,

hey, look, it's not about me, but whether I can salvage this situation from here. And that depends solely on how I choose to look at. Emerson wrote, People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. And what a powerful point. The flexibility and the leeway available to us

when it comes to making sense of the world speaks to not how the world is, but how the onlooker thinks and interprets. De-personalizing this situation is one of the greatest superpowers at our disposal. When you're angry and accusatory, you will, as Tom put it, end up chasing snakes. You'll end up breaking things that will need to be rebuilt and uttering words. You'll wish you'd never spoken. But the five seconds required to pause, to collect yourself, and realize that you're in control is everything. The ability to see the person, the situation or the world, not as an adversary stacked against you,

but as an inevitable challenge that must be managed. So how will you choose to manage it? How will you choose to arrange the person? And by the way, I'm fully aware the constant. for my speeches and podcasts and videos is the act of pointing not out at the world but in at ourselves, my responsibility, my fault, my problem to deal with. I understand just how heavy that is, how hard that can be, especially when deflecting blame often feels like it would be a tremendous weight off of our shoulders, when revenge feels like the easy,

intuitive move. But again, it's short-term relief to truly grow, to find the calm and happiness and meaning we long for. It's the internal relationship with ourselves that matters most. It's the ability to say, I may not have created this, or even, you know, I may have made the mistakes that brought this to life, but I can't fix it until I look at both the same. situation and my own reflection and proclaim it's mine now. Let the past be the past. Now it's me and the present. And as far as I'm concerned, the present and opportunity, they are always one in the same.

So long as we choose to see it that way. It's not what you look at. It's what you see over and over and over and over. over again. Is it happening to you or for you? Is it a problem or an opportunity, a setback, or a chance to reset? I want to bring to light a story, one that I've told before, but it's so perfectly representative of the conversation. Jim Rohn talking about two brothers in an abusive household. Alcoholic father, terrible childhoods. You know, they grow up in both. And both Both of the sons have families of their own.

One is the exact same as his father. He's abusive and he's angry. And the other one is a great father. He's kind, he's loving, he's supportive. And when asked why, the abusive brother replies, look at my childhood, right? How could you blame me for this? The other brother, when asked, responds,

look at my childhood, right? How could I let myself treat my family the same way? And in a way, one spent his life chasing snakes, bitter, resentful. The other one asked, well, that was terrible, but what can I do to right the wrong? One personalized it. The other used it as a lever or stepping stone. And this is, of course, a simplification, but I believe every struggle we face in our lives at its core contains some element of this choice.

From the little things to the big things, where do I go from here? It's mine now and I can choose whether to make it better or worse. Chase the snake into the woods or march forward to find the value and write the ship. Remember that when it's hardest, when you least want to. Remember that the present contains every single thing you need to begin a journey to recovery, to growth, to contentment and meaning. You, on your end, though, need to be willing to slow down the moment. Need to be willing to collect yourself and give yourself permission to take that necessary

and appropriate step.