Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Life in Color

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

In this episode I premier a brand new speech called Life in Color and talk about the prospect of clawing your way back from misfortune. Life can be tough.  It can challenge you, test you, and even lead you to question the road ahead. But there is a simple truth to life as well; it will always be what you make it. The greatest masterpieces known to man weren't made instantaneously.  They took time and consistency, an accumulation of little brush strokes that materialized and found meaning over time.  You don't need the answers, you simple need momentum, to step forward and paint the portrait of your life...one day at a time.      

Welcome to Your World Within Daily. I'm Eddie Panero. In this episode, I'm going to premiere a brand new speech called Life in Color. And talk about the prospect of being down and out and clawing your way all the way back up. Good morning. I have something really exciting for you guys today. Premiering a speech called Life in Color. So usually, for those that don't know, I've been uploading to my Your World Within YouTube channel for years. now about once a week. And I thought I'd do something a little bit different. Play it here before I upload it there. And just get your take. See what you guys think. The idea is, well, it's called

life in color. And the idea is about, you know, those periods of just discontent, like where you're unsure about the future. You don't feel good about things. The outlook seems bleak. You're just unhappy holistically. You know, I feel like we've all sort of fallen into those little periods of despair at some point. And the question is, you know, how do you emerge from them without falling into the trap of thinking that that defines you or that is you or that's your, you know, your new identity? And it's like, no, this is an imposter. You just need to get back to where you were and how. And so this is a simple metaphor, right? The bad people. periods being black and white, how do you put color back into your life?

And the video or the speech is about understanding that you are the artist and you don't need to have the masterpiece completed and you don't need to have all the answers and you don't need perfection. When you're in a bad place, you simply need to start painting. You're not looking for perfection. You're looking for momentum. You're looking for momentum. You're looking for one brushstroke at a time. And I talk about a period of my life where I went through that situation and it was, you know, simply finding ways to change my outlook. You know, from the morning, I always talk about that being a little hinge for me, you know, getting up with the sun to recognizing, you know, the beauty around me, to sitting there with a cup of coffee, to just finding gratitude and things

that I'd walked right by, to realizing how much control I have over my life. Victor Franklin uses the idea of, you know, movie scenes. And we don't know what they are sometimes until the very end, and that's okay. There are periods of struggle, right, in conflict, and that's okay. So long as you continue moving forward and looking for resolution. And that's what this is about. And so it's a pretty long video or long speech, about seven minutes. So I'll stop there and let you guys check it out.

But I hope you enjoy it. It's called Life in Color. Found a quote the other day. It said time heals nothing unless you move along with it. And I thought, well, that makes perfect sense. You can't pursue a new reality, a new world, unless you can detach and depart from the current one. But that's in theory.

And my question was, is it the destination or the path that holds us back? Because in my experience, the greatest struggle in life, it isn't what to do, it's knowing how to do it. How do we get there? We know we need to get back up, but how? How do we initiate a spark and create momentum and take that world of black and white and add color? Because those times of gray, when life seems to lose its purpose, we find ourselves simply existing and not living, that's when we need answers. And I guess this quote, it jumped out at me

because it prompted an equally important question, which is, now what? And I started thinking a few years back, 2017, probably the most difficult year of my life. It was void of any of that beautiful nuance, the uplifting moments that we like to remember when we look back. For me, it was essentially an ended relationship, was relocating away from family and friends,

was having a few dollars in my bank account, everything I own in a trailer, and starting over. And what I'll never forget about that experience, you know, in totality, was that I saw it colorless, bland, dark. Essentially, the road ahead had lost that glimmer that it once had.

See, I used to get so much joy in telling stories. But life had kicked me around so hard that I, at least for the moment, forgot the point. Like, what was my reason? And I knew, like I said, what I had to do, but I couldn't wrap my arms around the how. How do you get the train moving again?

And then I got this email. Right? And I'm going to paint a picture for you. New apartment, trash, there's stuff everywhere, suitcases open. I hadn't shaved in two weeks. I'm exhausted, couldn't sleep, sitting there, frustrated with my laptop. And the email is basically someone looking to create a

documentary asking if they could stay with me for three days and create a film about always maintaining discipline and living a productive life. And I just erupted into laughter, right? I don't think Seinfeld could have written something more ironic. It was just, it made no sense. But it caused me to reflect, right? I obviously declined the video. just wouldn't have felt right or accurate in that moment, but I started to think, how is there such a gap between the old me and who I was sitting on that bed? Is this the new me? And if it's not, why have I allowed this imposter to stay so long? I've always said a life change is one decision away. A light switch away. Just reach out and find it. And when you're going through times

like this, it's funny, life has a way of doing its best to conceal the beauty. It's like it becomes this black in white painting and it stays that way. It stays that way until you put color into it. One brush stroke at a time. Because life is intimidating when you see everything you're not, when the blank canvas feels like emptiness and not opportunity. But life doesn't require of you the whole picture. In masterpieces, they aren't made overnight. They're not instantaneous. They are a product of trust, of faith. Not in the canvas or the brush, but in the artist. Through his eyes, he's capable of transforming his experience into art, his misfortune into meaning. Victor Frankel uses the metaphor of a movie. Each day being its

own scene where often they don't even come together until the very last act. Trust that. Believe that. But man, start painting. In the very next morning, like everyone before it, I woke up to a yellow beam of light, making its way through a crack in the blinds, painting the wall of an otherwise dimly lit room. But this time I saw it. saw it. This time I didn't close the blinds, I opened my eyes and sometimes that alone is the

little hinge that swings a big door, a door that I walked through. And I saw the green of the palm trees, the beauty, the simplicity, and thought, how lucky am I to be where I am when I am? I saw a blue sky, a miracle in its own right that's not confined to story or a story or a narrative and well maybe I'm not either the white of the sidewalk leading me to wherever I choose to go next the red of my running shoes hitting the pavement the gold of the sun bouncing off the buildings the black of a cup of warm coffee as I soak in the day and the teal chandelier that hangs over the horizon as the same sun that started it all retreats after a hard day's work See, you have everything you need and life is not always perfect, but it is always

What you make it How things are is not how they should be your need to be But how you've allowed them and most importantly black and white does not describe reality so much as it describes What's not there what's missing from reality and my hope is to never conformed form to that sketch or outline that masquerades as truth, but to see beyond it, to find the strength, the courage, the self-belief to pick up the brush, and live life in color.