Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Kill Your Excuses | Powerful Motivational Speeches | Wake Up Positive

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

"Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure" - Jim Rohn This episode is about recognizing and moving beyond the lies your mind tells you while under duress. 

I was in the middle of a workout the other day, and right before things got intense, right before we picked it up a level, I heard someone say, brace yourselves, your minds are about to start lying to you. Now, note, the message was not, brace yourselves, you're about to lose focus. Brace yourselves, things are going to get challenging, the path's going to be unclear. No, the message was much, much simpler, that we would be told lies. objectively, and who would tell them, well, the adversary within each of us, the dark side of the moon, right? Just as there's light, there's darkness, just as we have the tools to build, we have the tools to tear down. In fact, our life trajectories hinge on whether we find those reasons we can or we find reasons we can't. Whether we push those so-called lies away,

or embrace an adopt. But here's what I loved most about that comment. Why I found it so moving. You know, I'm someone who's fascinated by the power of mindset. Obviously, I read about it, I experiment with it, I talk about it almost every day. But I guess in my head, I'd compartmentalized it as something slightly more subjective, right? We'll call it negative self-talk, you know, as an obstacle. as chaos we have to learn to navigate.

And while that's not wrong, there's something about the simplicity of, you can do this, and any thought in your head that says otherwise is a lie that's freeing. That message is like removing shackles. Because that voice in your head, and you can call it a distraction,

A battle, you can call it the unknown, you can call whatever you want. But the bottom line is it's an untruth. You're strong enough to handle the now, period. You are strong enough. Because the liar in you says, you need to know what X minutes, X hours, X days down the road will look like. Oh, you don't? Well, then you can't handle this.

It says, you need to sustain this pace or maintain this momentum. Imagine how bad that will hurt. You see that? You can't endure that. The liar in you says you're not as strong as the ones who did it before you. You see them? They're better. The liar in you will do whatever it can to protect your ego at the expense of your growth.

It wants to push off any type of pain because because the liar in you knows one thing and one thing only safety. So as you put your head down and embark upon the journey of life, remember that when things get tough, much of what you will be told will be untrue. And the vast majority of that won't be external. It will be derived from whatever entity manufactures the thoughts floating around in your head. Winning is calling that liar out, stopping it in its tracks.

Winning is saying there's no proof on earth that suggests I can't take another step forward, and then another and then another. There's absolutely zero evidence that you can't take what's being given to you and not only survive the moment but thrive. See, when you hold the pen, anything seeking to take. tell you how the story ends is simply, definitionally, unequivocally, not true. Not unless you want it to be. Because the story and its ending are yours.

What will become truth is what you write down. Line by line, moment by moment, day by day. So when the liar speaks, understand what she is and keep writing. And when the liar cries out, understand his intentions and keep building. If you want this moment, it's yours. And that is truth. I recently heard someone say, it's not about doing your best. It's about doing what's required.

Are they different? Very. Here's my take. Doing your best has an emotional component attached to it. It's subjective. What exactly is your best? Well, it's a story that you tell yourself. A narrative, opening the door to limitation.

I've always found that when we put our backs against the wall and venture into scenarios where it's essential that we give something done, we somehow always find a way. When we leave no plan B for ourselves, we are required to make Plan A work. And so we do. It's a testament to both the resilience and power contained in the human spirit, as well as the reality that we can astound ourselves when we're unwilling to take no for an answer. that it's not the resources that are the problem. It's usually our unwillingness to move forward into the dark,

our hesitance to try, explore, test, build, and rebuild. Actions that are surprisingly unrelated to one's best and have everything to do with accepting nothing less than an identified outcome. One of the reasons I fell in love with the sport of running is because it reinforced this notion in my life. It became the template with which I could repeatedly amaze myself. I talk a lot about earning confidence, and oh, how I earned it. Step by step, mile by mile, day by day, in the sun, in the rain, in the desert, in the woods,

through city streets, all over the country and the world, I came to understand the relationship between the turbulence of now and the satisfaction satisfaction of later. It was on those days I'd push beyond my usual level of comfort. When that cloud of pain and agony would hover over me. I couldn't even really point to where my body hurt. It just all seemed to come together into this one giant hell. And to learn that I could not only endure that, but grow in those moments.

To see myself rise above any preconceived, notion or understanding of best in order to defeat my demons, conquer the day's objective, it changes the way you see yourself in the world. Now, could onlookers be tempted to call these self-created goals arbitrary, even unnecessary? Sure, and I get why they would, but I'd also completely disagree. Those days were a master class in doing what. is necessary. Realizing that when you shut your rational brain off and don't give your mind a chance to talk your body out of it, you can see just how powerful you are. You realize that story of your

best is nothing more than a house built on sand. Life is not about that story you've told yourself. It's not about your personal records and peak performances. What you think you can do or how far you think you might be able to go. It's about not stopping in the moments when it hurts. Doing what is required, a decision that compounds over time to create what was once impossible. One of my favorite quotes is by Admiral William McRaven,

an absolute hero of mine. Funny enough, he says, if you want to change the world, you must be your very best in your darkest moment. and what a beautiful idea to rise when life presents its periods of turbulence. And sure, it may be a matter of semantics, but in those moments of darkness, I think of your best, not in the traditional sense, not as a personal metric,

but as a willingness to do what must be done, a removal of the spotlight from you altogether and instead pointed directly at the road ahead, at the task at hand. When you choose to make the journey, not about what you can and cannot do, but instead make it about what must be done, the universe, as Paulo Coelho has so elegantly stated, conspires to make it happen. I think back to my journey and at so many periods my best wasn't good enough. I was so lost and so overwhelmed that the only thing I could do was not stop moving. That was my superpower, simply trudged through the fear of things falling apart, the nagging pride and hurting ego.

And what I learned was that life is no different than all those miles I'd put in running. How I felt what my previous capabilities were, what I deemed my best to be. It was all noise. It was all irrelevant. What was required was that I move forward through the chaos and to something better. And so I did. And in your world, so can you. The stories we tell ourselves are so powerful

and in many ways valuable in our journey through life. But there's one narrative that eliminates the necessity of so many others. You can get to the top at whatever mountain you are seeking to climb so long as you do not stop. So long as you let go of the limitations tied to your quote-unquote best

and instead do what is required to get there. You'll see how adaptable and transformative that best really is, how it's a lagging indicator. It will take time, but you're capable of being patient. And it will have its moments of chaos, but you are capable of weathering those storms.

It will present obstacles that leave you unclear, uncertain, sometimes unprepared, but you're capable of picking your head up and moving through that hate. What you know of yourself now is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what you're capable of doing. And how far that goes will be determined not by putting a stake in the ground and calling it your personal best. But as Emerson has said, by hitching your wagon to a star, and pulling yourself towards its light a little bit. Ready to prioritize yourself in the new year? Your skin is a great place to start.

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Your best skin awaits. It's been almost two years since I first read it. And still the main idea from the book, The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi deeply resonates with me. The idea that being happy is essentially dependent upon the courage to be disliked. And at first, it might not seem like the two,

you know, whatever be related. happiness and being disliked, an odd pair, maybe even seemingly counterintuitive. And so you realize that happiness comes from such a personal, authentic place that allowing the expectations of others to chart your course means that you'd probably never arrive there. You have to do what's best for you. And doing what's best for you is going to create a divide somewhere. Why? Because everything creates a divide. Everything is subjective. I knew I wanted to dive into this topic, but wasn't sure the best way to do it.

So the other morning, I was trying to think of like an objective truth, something that no one could disagree with. It was sitting on my balcony and pointed up towards this guy. I thought, let's start there. Simple as it gets, hard to refute that, right? I am pointing up. And I remembered we're floating on a globe, a giant sphere. There is no up. Up is perspective. Everything is perspective. What's the difference between one and two? Some might say it's one.

But technically there's infinity between one and two. You can have infinite decimals. 1.999.9 goes on forever, right? Point being there's subjectivity when we drill down into even the sea. seemingly obvious truth. Now, the value here is not to go running around, arguing with everyone that there's infinity between one and two. There are certain aspects of society that we must adhere to,

otherwise we couldn't function together. But it's simply to show that you following the path you believe is right for you cannot be rightfully assessed by someone else. It's to place trust in your internal personal judgment. And when people don't understand your infinity, that doesn't mean it's wrong. And by the way, I don't have blinders on to the fact that it's hard to do. In many ways, it goes right up against our lizard brain biological wiring.

We're fitting and equates to survival and ostracization becomes a death sentence. But we are, fortunately, beyond that. It's in our interest now, and in fact, I think the courage to be disliked is a critical lifelong journey. I'm better at this than I was 10 years ago, no question, but do I still have a ways to go? Absolutely. There are still things I'm working on every day to let go of. I remember reading in Jefferson's biography about how it was so hard for him to be demonized in the press all the time that it almost dissuaded him from jumping back into politics before his presidential run. And being attacked is a hard thing.

But ultimately he let his beliefs and personal values drive him, his ambition in a lot of ways, and came to see the scrutiny as a cost, decided it was worth the price. Or like I use this all the time, take one of the biggest pop stars of our day, say Justin Bieber. You look at what people are saying about him in the comments of his video. A lot of it's wonderful, some of it's great, sure, but some of it's awful. and that's just the price of anyone putting themselves out there. And again, you think of an inverse scenario. Imagine if he didn't.

Imagine if he limited himself or didn't dive fully into what he does because he knew some folks out there would have some bad things to say. Now, we are, for the most part, neither famous politicians nor pop stars, but our worlds contain the same elements at different scale. There are things we're all scared to do or say because of how it will be received. There are parts of ourselves that we repress because we don't know what the feedback will be. We're all scared to fail in some capacity because of how it will look or what others will say about it, which is why being disliked is courageous.

As Aristotle has said, the only way to avoid criticism is to avoid criticism is to do. to do nothing, to say nothing and be nothing. The opposite of being fully, truly yourself is becoming the manifestation of that quote. It's never pushing yourself, never seeing what you're capable of, never exploring or executing on your dreams, your ambitions. Now, this is speculation, but if I were a gambling man, I'd place everything I own on the idea that when we're old,

looking back on our lives, we'll spend less time thinking about who criticized us or disagreed with us than how we spent our days and who we shared them with. Did we live in a way that made us happy that was meaningful? Because on a sphere, everyone believes they are pointing up. But in actuality, none of us are. We're all merely navigating the subjective universe behind our eyes. So why not truly explore? Why not capture the magic out there

before the hourglass runs out of sand? It's hard, sometimes it hurts, it takes all we have, it requires courage. But I think we'll all come to find that the decision to live fully in our authenticity, regardless of whether others agreed, disagreed, or were indifferent, It was the best decision that we ever made. There's an old quote that stays 80% of life is showing up. Now, showing up means many different things to many different people,

but the idea is not complicated. You can't do anything of significance unless you have first and foremost arrived. Which brings me to today. See, I had a list of concepts I've been excited to talk about things that I've either read or have been recent epiphanies in my life. And I can't wait to share those with you. But this morning, oh, let me tell you about this morning. I finding the energy to do anything. It felt like trying to squeeze blood from a rock.

I woke up with a headache, exhausted because I didn't sleep at all the night before. And you know that feeling. like when you didn't sleep at all the night before, you're oddly constantly reminding yourself the next day that you didn't sleep. And everything just felt off. And really, as I'm speaking now, things still kind of do. And so I got up and I sort of played with the idea

of taking the day off altogether. Maybe I'm due for one anyway. I thought about resting. The little devil with the pitchfork on my shoulder continuously reminded me how great sleep would feel and I was sitting there, you know, kind of weighing my options. Took some IP-profen, started the coffee, sat down on the couch, just kind of looking at the wall, what to do, what to do.

But realistically, I knew. And I want to explain why. Over the years, I've taught myself through repetition that's sitting down and writing and recording, unless I plan intentionally to do otherwise, is it non-negotiated? It's helped me see that the goal, in any meaningful pursuit, should be getting to the point where despite the circumstances, you show up. Stephen Pressfield, whose voice often echoes in my mind when I come face to face with these situations. He wrote, art is war, between ourselves and the forces of self-sabotage that would stop us from doing our work. The artist is a warrior.

Artist, being anyone bringing something to the world that does not yet exist. And he goes on to describe the battle with the mind over sitting down in that chair and writing when we know we must write but don't want to. When a tired or distracted mind begins looking for off-ramps, as mine clearly started doing this morning. These seemingly trivial moments, when any rational sense, soul could argue for the validity of postponing their date with Microsoft Word, well, they come to matter more than ever, because greatness is a byproduct of intentionality. If you become accustomed

to breaking promises to yourself, if you leave that door cracked for exceptions here and there, it will ultimately be kicked open. And that's why I inject little reminders like that into life to keep that mental muscle working. For example, there can never be dishes left in my sink when I go to bed. Why? Because if I skip it once, there will always exist reasons to skip again. It's a very easy thing to not care about. Because here is the reality. Progress is a lifestyle.

Growth is a lifestyle. At least if we're talking about any meaningful type of evolution. I just finished reading, It Takes What It Takes by Trevor Mawad. One of those three to five hour listens on Audible, depending on how fast it's playing, really packs a punch. And I'm going to be diving into a few of his concepts a little more in the coming weeks, but one thing he discusses that I found incredibly valuable is the illusion of choice. And what the illusion of choice highlights is that there are a sense. set of behaviors that must be carried out to be effective. The idea of alternate roots is an illusion. There are no choices when it comes to what's necessary. We know what must be done to win.

Now, knowing that is one thing. Knowing that and having to propel yourself to action when you feel like garbage is something different entirely. But that's why it's so valuable to get to that place where you can take the emotion out, remove the internal deliberation, and automate the things you know are going to help push you to be that better version of yourself. In other words, you show up for you, period, and that is a non-negotiable. That's the level we all need to get to. And I'm thinking about this, drawing parallels to a lot of different aspects of my day, right? the interval training I have this afternoon.

When you're exhausted, 40 minutes in and are switching from squats to mountain climbers or whatever it is, right? Instructor makes the announcement. I don't think about anything. I don't give myself a chance to try and rationalize any weakness. I know. If this is important to me, keep that door shut. No thinking just doing next. Simply doing what you always do, what you've signed up for, cannot be self-perceivable.

just some monumental sacrifice. No, it's just what you do. It's neutral. Sometimes you feel like it. Sometimes you don't. But you do what you do. And that puts you on track to accomplish some incredible things. And so remembering this,

ultimately pushed me through that studio door this morning and placed me down right in front of my mic. Sure, I had to adjust some things. definitely picked some mellower music. There's going to be no crescendos today, or my head will explode. But this is not torture. In fact, I'm really happy with the way the episode's turning out. I would have missed out on something that I think is going to be pretty valuable in a variety of ways.

But what I'm telling myself is that this is not a victory. It's certainly not defeat. It's just what I do. And so the question worth asking yourself when facing the adversity life presents, and whatever arena you were in, is are you willing to show up for you? Can you turn that internal deliberation switch off when it comes to the necessities before you? Minimize that rationalizing that I battled with this morning. We don't need or want that.

There should be no thinking, no crack doors, no metaphorical dishes in the sink. If you decide something is important and you sign that dotted line when it's time to execute, you act. And then you move directly onto the next. The goal is to not even negotiate with weakness. Now that's not to say Pressfield's aforementioned war of art won't raid. on as you journey to the new horizons you've set out for. But just like anything, it's an understanding that will help you focus. We'll help you say no to the distractions and the minutia

and continue writing your story, constructing your reality line by line and piece by piece.