Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - No One Is Coming - It's On You | Powerful Motivational Speeches

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

We spend too much time waiting...waiting for the right moment, the right person, the right opportunity. But the truth is, no one is coming to hand you the life you want. No one is coming to save you. The weight is yours to carry, and the power is yours to claim. When you stop searching for answers outside yourself and realize you are the answer, everything changes. This speech is a reminder that the responsibility, and the freedom, has always been in your hands.More from Eddie Pinero:Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletterYour World Within Podcast: https://yourworldwithin.libsyn.com/Stream these tracks on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2BLf6pBInstagram - @your_world_within and @IamEddiePineroTikTok - your_world_withinFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/YourworldwithinTwitter - https://www.twitter.com/IamEddiePineroBusiness Inquiries - http://www.yourworldwithin.com/contact#liveinspired #yourworldwithin #motivation

Perhaps the most important mental shift completely changed my life is this. Stop looking for answers and become the answer. So before I unpack this, I want to give you a little context. I, over the last 10 years, have lived in a few places. I've lived in Boston. I've lived in South Florida. Love them both. Currently, last year, I moved to Scottsdale, Arizona.

And you follow your intuition. Sometimes you just get it right. Like I love this place. I love the weather. I love the hiking. And I think most importantly, the people, the community, the network, the friends I already have. I mean, it's just a beautiful place. Everyone's warm, welcoming.

It's very transient, right? So it's not very clicky. It feels like people are just accepting and always trying to meet new folks. And it's just, it's awesome. With that. would have found interesting is there is a culture of like pop-up networking events. And I separated a little bit from like, you know, some groups that I'm involved in with the same people where we're meeting regularly, you know, once a month or whatever. But there are just sort of, there's an influx of like, there's a networking event here, everyone come, networking event here, everybody come.

And it's kind of sporadic. There was one that happened in a conference room below where I live, right? Same building. I had some friends there. So I thought, you know what? I'll go down. And some incredible people doing some incredible things. And one of the conversations that was being had or the message that was being expressed

was essentially this. It was your one handshake away from your life changing. you're one relationship away from your business taking off. That thing you need just might be the accountant or videographer or editor sitting in this room, right? Which on the surface, sure, why not? You always benefit from having talented people in your life, from having killers on your team in great, you know, working relationships, absolutely. But I couldn't help but think that that idea. could be deceptive, that in a way it's missing the mark.

Because I'm looking around the room, myself included, by the way, and I'm thinking, I bet every single person in this room would be better off if they took these four hours, right, the two, two and a half to be in the room and then I'm sure, you know, people had to drive to the meeting room. So let's just say a full evening. they'd be better off if they took that, went home, by themselves, asked themselves, how can I be better, and worked on being the 1% at what they do? And the reason I think that's so important is because I want to say societally,

but I just think perhaps it's just an algorithm thing online, the content were pushed, the stories were told, it's outsourcing value. So it's, here's how you get rich online. Here's how you have an amazing network of people that will change your life. When in reality, all of those things are lagging indicators, meaning they come secondary. And they come secondary to becoming more valuable. When you ask yourself consistently, how can I be better at what I do?

How can I be the 1% of what I do? How can I be so exceptional? Or as the quote says, so good, people can't ignore you. all those things come. When you're a killer at what you do, people with talent want to be a part of it. You get calls and emails. You get DMs because you're adding value.

When you're adding value in a meaningful way, you're making money because you're contributing to a marketplace. It seems so obvious that we forget. You know, and I'm certainly not saying I am the 1% of what I, but I can tell you I'm locked in on that. And I understand that. And there are hours spent in this very room every day writing and speaking so that I can become closer to that.

Because I know when you have achieved that in your world, all that other stuff accompanies it. Period. So don't interpret this as networking bad. Money, bad. Right? Of course not. But they're secondary.

They're lagging. If you focus on how do I become exceptional, what do I do every day that makes me different, stand out, that makes me great, you're positioning yourself to go to the moon, you're positioning yourself to have all these other things. The network should supplement the greatness. Just don't forget to work on the greatness, right? Life changes when you stop looking for answers and become the answer. too long ago, I shared a few thoughts related to Stoicism with one of the most important messages in my eyes being, you can't always help how you feel. There are biological elements, there are emotions that we as humans simply cannot escape. But what we have control over

is how we act, right? What we do amidst the feelings of sadness or anger or despair. Well, as it happens, fate brought me face to face with that lesson once again. And one of the most interesting aspects of life is that the lessons often have to be re-learned. As the context around us changes, we are forced to draw from that well to take what we knew and transform it and level up. And so, quick story, two weeks ago, ish, my Facebook account was hacked, which happens to a lot of people. It's not uncommon. And to be honest, I'd never really thought much about it. But I'm sitting there and I start getting these emails coming in, right, telling me my phone

number's changed. My email address has changed. My username's changed. All this stuff is changing. I'm like, what's going on? And before I could do anything, I go to look and realize I'm locked out of the account, right? Then I go from my personal page to my business page where I share thoughts like these, these episodes, videos, writings, and basically, you know, stuff I've been working on for years and realize I'm locked out of there as well. So whoever has the account is now operating it and for whatever reason posting like spammy images and videos or applying to people pretending to be me. And there's just nothing I could do, right? I'm just locked out watching this happened. And when I say I felt angry.

It's probably an understatement. I was surprised at how furious I was. It was a rage that I wouldn't have anticipated in a million years. I could not help it. And, you know, maybe it was vulnerability, right? That feeling of helplessness that some stranger had access to, you know, around 100,000 people that trust me. They had no idea what was happening, right? Or maybe it was anger at whoever it was doing this.

anger at Facebook for being non-responsive, maybe a fear that, look, you can work so hard for so long and have something taken away incredibly quickly. Whatever it was, I was distraught for like three hours. And eventually I calmed down a little bit. And I remember just sitting there being so disappointed in my reaction, right? I hated that I felt the way I did because leaders, and that's what I consider, myself, that's what I aim to be in the world. They have to be more composed than I was, period. I thought about that story about the ship at sea that was trapped amidst the storm

or everyone was terrified, the ship's going to sink, people were pale, you know, just frantic, screaming, except for the professor who, although he felt the same fear and was overcome by the same bias, biological characteristics, he was not crying out, indicating that, you know, emotions often can't be avoided, but the response is what carries the weight. And I just think it was a great lesson for me, because for a quick period of time, I definitely, using the same metaphor, cried out, right? And if that

intrusion on my work and privacy was his ship amidst the storm, it's okay that I felt the way I did, but now we have to work on the reaction. And by the way, I've gotten plenty of opportunity to, right? The account's still hacked. There's still weird posts going out under my name, but I manage it way differently. There's a calmness that I've managed to acquire and maintain. We're done complaining about problems here. We're looking for solutions. amidst what we can control and letting go of what we cannot. Look, I know it's a cliche that our most important lessons come from our moments of duress. But this is exactly what I believe that phrase refers to, right?

You need to be hardened by the adversity to change yourself. You need to be able to look in the mirror and go, ooh, I didn't like that. I'm not doing that again, right? And it took an embarrassing three hours of me being furious and acting irrationally. okay, fine. But that's a small price to pay for the lesson that I acquired. So I think for someone listening to this, my hope is twofold. One, don't forget that the initial reaction is often sewn into your DNA.

It's okay to feel what you feel when things don't go your way. But also, as you sort through the chaos, know that you have. Know that you have the ability to not only tame it, but make something from it, right? Truly. So that next time something similar arises, you have a blueprint. You'll be a step ahead. You'll find that perspective.

Probably realizing, as I have, that it's just not the end of the world anyway. When you're able to eventually step outside your emotions, operate from a point of clarity, A reshuffling of priorities always seems to take place. Look, the storms will come. And if you're pushing and growing and trying to take risks, those storms will be numerous. The question isn't will you feel them, the question is can you get a little better each time at not crying out?

Can you improve the reaction? Can you regain composure and stay lost? locked in on what truly matters. Imagine with me a world where you stopped segmenting out the difficulty in your life as other than, where you stop seeing the turbulence as an obstacle to your journey. Imagine with me life as a symphony, where everything works together to create the whole, where the high notes, the low notes, the pauses, the rest, the tempo changes, all contribute to the overall theme.

None of it's unimportant or dismissable. How could it be? Without the low notes, the high notes don't mean anything. Without the rest, you don't get the satisfaction and the power of the moment that music re-emerges. In fact, it was the contrast that created the magic to begin with. All of it is needed. Even when you don't understand why,

You don't know that this slow beginning, the brakes, the tempo changes, that it will all be the reason you are soon awed by the crescendo that awaits. And how could you? It's one flow. The journey points in one direction. You are in this for the ride. See, in our lives, the obstacles, the chaos, the confusion, they hurt. They're unsettling. So the inclination is to dismiss them, to push them away.

This isn't what I need, this is void of value, so get rid of it, we tell ourselves. When in reality, those things are integral components to your song. They are what culminate into your final piece. They're bringing you to that crescendo. It doesn't mean you have to love the challenging times, of course not. But it does mean we should understand that even though we can't see it unfolding before, our very eyes, it's all playing a role. My hurt made me strong.

My struggle injected meaning into my life. It made this song richer, the sound sweeter. Today is what it is because yesterday was what it was. And I know when I'm face to face with something that my gut instinct deems to be detrimental, that two things can in fact be true at once. that I need to work to write the ship, to repoint the compass, but also understand that the storm wasn't void of significance. The valley wasn't all for not.

It's gifted me new oceans to cross, new mountains to climb, and new perspective as I peer out over the view. So as you move through the dark, as you navigate the chaos of night, Know that the light you're chasing is only meaningful because of the depths you are emerging from. Life beyond these shadows is not where the world begins. It's a continuation of an already beautiful journey you're on. It's your symphony in totality.

See, the time will come when you'll look back and you'll be grateful for the so-called inconveniences that surround you now. Your heart needs the contrast that this adversity creates. Your soul depends on the hardship to understand the magnificence of life. It's why now, when it hurts, you must keep going. You have to keep going. You have to let the notes materialize into the beautiful song it will become. the masterpiece it was meant to become. Comparison is the thief of joy.

We've all heard it before, and it's true. Sometimes. It seems like there's always a sometimes, or an asterisk, or a gray area. Comparison can be an incredible tool in simply reminding you that you're playing small, maybe way too small. So from time to time, I'll use comparison to help me paint that picture, to create that outlook.

Quick example. So on the shelves behind me and on my audible library, on my phone, there's a ton of books and biographies about the founding fathers and other notable American presidents. Why? Well, because they lived lives of such courage. They live with such conviction. They just lived differently than we live today. And it forces me to ask the tough questions. It's like, well, why?

What makes up for that difference in magnitude? I mean, was it simply the times? Were they a product of their moment in history? Were they more determined? Did they have more self-belief? Right? Where is this delta that I'm seeing when I look at their reality versus mine? You read Hamilton's biography, who's not a president, but you get the point. You know, in my toughest battles seem to contain the same level of intensity and weight

as his decision just want to fly. Right? So I'm going to run through three bullets that sort of frame my thinking. It's going to seem like I'm unnecessarily beating myself up here, but the point comes full circle. So bear with me. One, Washington, everyone knows, right? Led an army initially, practically destined for defeat. His execution and death was almost assured. Then I'm like, okay, I led myself to the gym today.

Adams crosses the Atlantic four times, for his country. At the time, that just brought unfathomable risk, and he does it with a smile. Me, I'm procrastinating about making a full. phone call. Jefferson, drafting a declaration that claimed independent from the strongest, most powerful empire on earth. Me, I get butterflies before going live on Instagram. We are not the same.

Why? Well, I guess first and foremost, let's make sure we're asking the right questions. Who says you or I don't have the potential to be a Washington? and Adams were a Jefferson. It's not productive to downplay our own battles, right? However small, that's how empires are built, a stacking of small winds. No one just arrives in a position of influence. And these folks surely have their own battles.

That's all subjective anyway. But the comparison here is sacred to me because there is a common theme amongst all of them. And it's not hidden. You don't have to read between the lines to see it. It's self-belief, right? All of these people were in an environment where change was warranted, and all of them believed they themselves could be levers to help shift that status quo.

It's like for no reason the buck stopped with them. And you see that from childhood on. It suggests that if you believe you can be great, and I do, and by the way, so should you, then understand that it's not possessing of courage that is the issue. The issue is that you're merely holding what amounts to a bucket of it when the true depth of your courage reaches miles and miles down beneath the surface. There is so much more, so much that it's incomprehensible. The problem, Eddie, is you can't hit targets you don't aim for.

If you don't stretch, there will be no growth. If you aim for a moderately sized mountain top, that's where you'll land. You'll get a view, sure, better than the ground you stand on now, but nowhere near the view available to you had you merely thought bigger. Thought of yourself as that lever that could implement change. If your giant victory is making a phone call you were dreading, well, then that's the type of courage that will define you.

I think in a perfect world, these aren't destinations, they are pit stops. They are tolls that we must pay along the way. You're capable of way bigger. Life begins when you know that. And see, I don't associate this idea as coming from a place of lack. I just think this game of life is beautiful because the journey is endless. This is a choose-your-own-ending story. And sometimes what I need is to look around and realize,

I'm simply not thinking big enough. The great men and women of history that paved the way for us, they didn't stay connected to these micro problems. They moved beyond them on their way to more. They dealt with life and death. They dealt with seemingly instrumental odds, simply in the name of their beliefs and ideals. Easy wasn't a choice, not for them.

It's why their faces comprise the bookshelf behind me. Now does everyone want, need, that type of personal assent, growth in the face of adversity, that's for you to look in the mirror and decide. But you're here, so I'm going to assume you do, and if you do, it's critical to know that, one, that type of result demands more of you, and two, you have more. Comparison isn't always about inadequacy. Sometimes it holds that mirror to your face. Sometimes it reminds you what mankind can produce with courage introduced into the formula. You just need to be reminded that you're looking at the jar right now from inside the jar.

Expans your thinking. See, there's more. Roger Bannister, probably be my favorite example. First one to break the four minute mile. Prior to that, it was not possible. Humans didn't do it, couldn't do it, wasn't reality. Everyone, quote unquote, knew that. Then Bannister does his thing. Breaks it. Suddenly, whoa, it's possible.

Now it's real, it's tangible. Runners around the world adjusting their targets. They demand it of themselves. Rapid fire, globally, runner after runner, starts breaking that mark. Why? Well, people didn't get more talented overnight. They always had it in them. They just finally allowed themselves to be as good as they were capable of being.

and that thing you're fighting that you're dealing with, it's not nothing. In fact, the battle you're navigating is everything, and I commend you for pushing through it. But take this idea and let it be a part of the arsenal you own and possess as you navigate life's storms. The challenge of today is ultimately small compared to what the best of you is capable of overcoming.

What's now the ceiling, will be the floor tomorrow. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, they were not gods. They were principled men driven by a purpose bigger than themselves. The scope of their belief in what's possible was monumental. And so, to maintain proportionality, they too grew to be momentous.

To fill the shoes of self-created expectation, sometimes the best thing you can remind yourself is how big the world is. how much you can shape and bend your reality, how powerful you are. You're not a quiet observer, but a builder of this world. Then, risking execution makes more sense.

Smiling at the prospect of death at sea becomes reasonable. Giving the metaphorical middle finger to the king of the most powerful empire on earth becomes a little easier to understand. It's like, I get it now. The world is malleable. And they knew with courage it could be shaped in their image. Insert you.

Different theater, different time, different characters, different objectives altogether. But same premise. A malleable world and an opportunity to shape it. So here is to finding the courage to shape your life. never to dismiss or belittle your own small wins for all big things are comprised of only small things, but rather to remember where you are now is not the final destination.

It's one step on your own personal staircase that ascends to the heavens, where you stop is a decision entirely yours. See, something beautiful happens when you set the standard so high that it hovers above the clouds, the obstacles along the way become far less intimidating,

less significant. The story doesn't end down here, so there must be a way. And when we tell ourselves there must be a way, we simultaneously increase the odds of finding one. Right now is not the final boss,

the coveted mountain top. Right now is the small win that will help shape you into your evolved self. Right now is a mere challenge, an obstacle, a slight inconvenience, a story to tell, a data point as you etch into the ether,

your reality. As you dream larger than life and grow into those shoes, you could have played small, but then you woke up. You saw beyond the manufactured finish line that was turning mole hills into mountains and realized if you want it,

This world is yours. And I say, let it be so. I want to share a theme with you that continuously reemerges in my life. And every time it does, I'm grateful. I'm a little bolder, a little wiser, a little more grounded. The idea is simple. It's creating a low barrier to entry. Let me explain what I mean.

The other day I was on a call with Ashley, who was a brilliant member of the team here, and we're talking about social media. And as we're talking, I'm going on and on about the end state, how I think things should in a perfect world be with our platforms and the output. And it's important to know for this particular project, we're kind of on the ground floor, right?

So in reality, I couldn't possibly know what the end States are going to be. There's a lot of epiphanies to be had. There's twists in terms that I couldn't possibly anticipate. I think it's great to have a North Star in a vision, obviously, but winning in the long run requires observation and reflection and adjustment and on and on. So as I'm speaking, you know, she's listening, nodding her head, you know, agreeing with the vision. But after some thoughts says, well, why don't we just start? with what we have now, right? Keep the barrier of entry low so that there's less friction

and we can start seeing how, you know, things evolve. And I thought that was just incredible, right? That's what I temporarily lost in the moment for sure. You win by going and then evolving. So many would be amazing pursuits were never started because, you know, we make initiating them too complex. Same thing happened on another call that same day. I'm talking to Tyler, a business partner for another project coming around the corner.

And, you know, I'm sending them videos talking about ideas for rollout, different avenues we could take. Which, again, it's great. It's better to have a large vision and trim it down than no vision at all, but the convo is the same. You know, Ed, I love it. It's great. But what if we start with one thing, though? One idea. Let's get the gears turning.

That needed to be the theme for the day, and I appreciated it, right? So a few thoughts. One, surround yourself with sharp people like Ashley and Tyler that keep you grounded, but two, and perhaps the main point, stop creating friction for yourself when you're beginning new things. I've talked about this in different contexts, you know, and I've hammered it into my day-to-day in many ways, right? Like, if I'm going on a run, you know, I have the running stuff by the door and ready to go with the glass of, of water the night before so that when I wake up, the process feels so easy that to not go would seem stupid. But life is complex, and so are we. It was a great reminder that your

handle on something in one area of life doesn't mean you'll implement it across the board. And I was grateful for that reminder, was what I needed at that time, right? The reminder that winning is going. Winning is beginning. beginning. Because you're immersing yourself in the process and you're acclimating to it. You're seeing what works and what doesn't. You're growing as opposed to taking an extra three months to put into place parameters that will probably change anyway. One of my favorite mantra is simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Powerful, but sometimes elusive. But if you can keep it front and center, it adds immense value to your life. The most powerful thing that

you can do is of a general sense of direction and go now with what you have. Ashley and I will change our social media tactics many, many times in the future because we're collecting data and we're moving forward. Tyler and I will approach our venture in probably countless ways. Because we're not in love with a particular strategy. We're in love with the end goal. And perhaps you in your world are at a point where you're seeking to initiate something new. And you're playing with the pros and cons, you're listing ideas in your head.

Categorizing details and nuance that, sure, it seems important right now in this moment, but will it forever? My advice to you is to mitigate detail and instead place the value on finding the courage to begin now. Before you're ready, before you have all the answers, before you know how X, Y and Z is going to unfold, mitigate the friction to such an extent that the pursuit feels like a nice hockey rink. You're sliding into whatever comes next. Never underestimate how powerful that is.

And be reassured by the fact that in three months from now or a year from now, the journey won't look the same. You'll be better in execution and wiser in strategy because you simply created a low barrier to entry. You leveraged, perhaps the most important ability you possess. You began. Sometimes we don't understand how much we appreciated or valued something until it's gone. And until it's outside of our lives and there's a space where that thing used to be.

And we think, man, I just want to return to normalcy. I want to go back to how things were, to baseline. You know, and there's a million practical examples of that. Health is an easy one. Physical fitness. You hurt your knee and you're a runner. Man, two weeks for this to heal? I just want to be able to do what I did yesterday.

For me, I used to get crazy migraines, right? And I'd wake up some days and, like, wouldn't be able to open my eyes. And I'd just be in bed, like, okay, clear the schedule. And I'd be thinking, I can't wait for normalcy to feel how I felt yesterday. people coming and going. Man, I loved this person. I missed this person.

Yesterday when they were here, I didn't think anything of it. That return to normalcy. There's a saying that a healthy person wants a thousand things. A sick person wants only one. And I think it speaks to the world that exists just beyond our periphery. It's very hard to see the good

because human beings are wired to focus on the negative. To avoid pain, to avoid suffering, to avoid loss, we're wired for safety. Negativity bias. That scenario, two people at dinner, 99 times. It's the best dinner they've ever had. They go to the restaurant all the time.

They rant and rave about it. But on the hundredth time, there's a cockroach on the plate. Now what? That dinner is forever. tainted as the cockroach place. The negative thing outshines everything else. And in a way, that's how we are wired. We don't wake up every day and go, man, I'm so lucky.

Think about how much I have. Think about how good life is. Now, we don't appreciate or value things so much of the time until they are gone. And there's something that, you know, as I've learned over the last couple years, is gravely missed. And that thing is perspective. How do I get perspective? Gratitude.

It forces you to appreciate how much you have in a way that, you know, in the cyclical, fast-paced nature of life, you just wouldn't. You would skip it. And so what do I mean when I say gratitude? Here's the beauty. Nothing crazy. Very simply put, carving out time. to say what's on your mind, to say what you appreciate, to look around. Yeah, I'm grateful for that.

I'm excited about the things I have to do for work today. How lucky am I that I get to do what I love for work? Or that there's people that I know if I call them, they'll pick up on the other end. And I can have a conversation with them. You know, the people I get to work with, family, friend. Like, that's insane. That's crazy. That's such a beautiful thing.

you know, living here, shelter, food, things that we never think about, particularly being in the Western world. There's not power outages every hour, right? But that's not the case for everyone. Like, it's a blessing. And, you know, it can come across as corny and cliche, but what I've learned is it's not. It's truly armor.

Because when you inevitably hit those challenges and those obstacles, they just seem smaller when you're grounded and understand how much you have and how lucky you are and who's around you and how far you've come. Life is a perspective game. You know, and so you have to manufacture that perspective. It's not what exists. It's how you see what exists. And I'm going to give you an example.

So let's say I had a partnership with the, social media company. And I'm super excited about this partnership. So locked in. Love the brand. Love their story. And I want to take that and inject, you know, my creativity into it and create lots of awesome content and create a campaign.

And you do all these things. And it's like, this is going to be amazing. And then I find out, for whatever reason, not happen. Right? Parties can't agree. Whatever it is, done. So naturally, the rugs pulled out from under my feet, I'm going to feel disappointed, going to feel sad, going to feel loss, going to feel like, you know, I had it all figured out, and now I don't, that little cycle of thing. Now take that exact same scenario.

But before I find out the news, I'm outside, my notebook's open, and I'm spending five minutes talking about or thinking about, how lucky I am, to be able to tell these stories, to be able to help people, to be able to connect with an incredible community, to be able to call friends and family when I need to, to be part of a team, to live where I live, all these things, right? Sigh, smile, close the notebook, walk inside, and then I find out, yeah, Eddie, that partnership's not happening. Okay. It seems way less monumental when it's put next to the thoughts that I just documented on that page.

You know, I love what I do and I have the ability to do more of it, so who cares? Learn and move on. That perspective is everything. It's so much of life I find. And it's why obviously I'm so fascinated with mindset is because our external reality is so often predicated by how we think, the stories we tell ourselves, how we position ourselves to walk through chaos and the unknown. Someone sent me, I think it was from Brad Lee, a little video of him speaking, and he says, you know, how many of you want a million dollars? Everybody, everyone wants a million dollars.

Okay, what would you do for a million dollars? People would do a lot. They'd give up a lot. A million dollars would be a real nice thing. Okay. What if I'd give you a million dollars, But tomorrow, you wouldn't wake up again. No one wants that. No one would take the money. Couldn't use it, right? Which, by default, means every morning when you open your eyes,

it is worth more than a million dollars. It's worth more than any sum of money. It's invaluable. Yet, we are not wired to think that way. We don't get out of bed in the morning and go, what a gift. we get out of bed and go, what do I have to do today? What's on the agenda?

What's the plan? How long till I have to go to work? Right? And it's this reframing of life that positions us not only to be more content, but also to experience more of life. So I scream from the rooftops about practicing gratitude because that perspective shift again, has been armor for me. It's given me so much momentum in clarity as I push through life. And I want to share that with you and, you know, offer or suggest that you do the same.

And the beauty is it's so simple and it's so quick. And it doesn't need to be complex. You don't need anything fancy or any tools. You just need to close your eyes and think for two minutes. And that little internal dialogue, you know, will become pretty powerful. as you make your way through life. The other day, I heard someone say that they've found some of the most important things in their life

in places where they weren't supposed to find them, which is interesting to me. One, because that seems to happen a lot. And two, because it's like, who creates the parameters around what we're supposed to do? Who sets the rules to begin with? You know, I'm continuously blown away by our tendency to create imaginary walls and then live within them. To build steel bars around ourselves that separate the now from future opportunity.

In one of the first videos I ever made, I talked about this nagging feeling of discomfort that occurred right after I left the corporate world and started my own business. And at that point, to call it a business, I was giving myself a lot of credit. I was basically just starting to make videos and put them out on social media. But I would run in the middle of the day, right? That was my thing. Right through Boston along the Charles River, I loved running. But I couldn't help feeling this guilt like I wasn't supposed to. Like I was doing the wrong thing, doing what I was taught not to do.

My whole life, I learned that you go to school or work during the day. That's the right thing. In a decade removed, I've grown, and I've learned. I know how crazy it sounds now. But it took me a long time to even enjoy it and not feel like some devian who was leaving everything he'd worked for up to that point to go and fail spectacularly. The supposed to followed me around like a shadow. constantly trying to pull me back in.

Freedom to me is separating oneself from this exact sentiment. It's doing what's best for you, exploring your own worldview, blazing as the saying goes your own trail, because you'll find very few supposed tos there. I think this is a microcosm of a greater truth. The most important things we do in life are pivotal, moments, our epiphanies are found where we weren't supposed to find them. Because what we're supposed to do is very rarely methodically thought out. It's simply the norm. It's marching orders.

It's what the crowd is doing. It's what will help us blend in. And it's interesting, as I've pushed further and further into life, I've come to believe that rarely is what's best all one thing or all another. It's working to find a balance that supports your ideal life trajectory. That balance will lean substantially more one way or another depending on who you are and what's important to you. And so, I'm not suggesting one always needs to be different, or if something is common, it's wrong. No, thousands of years of evolution and societal stressors have in many ways narrowed down for us what's effective and efficient. It's helped us survive. And to dismiss this outright is obviously counterproductive, but it does explain why any break from these norms

physically hurts. We associate them with survival. And here lies the divide between surviving, which we are supposed to do, and excelling, which is to embark upon a different game altogether. Survival is mitigating risk. Excelling is hunting down the opportunity. Survival is blending in. Excelling is asking, what about me is unique and how can I dive into that fully? Survival is not having to innovate on any large scale because the instructions are clear and laid out for you. Excelling is asking, now that I know the rules, how can I bend and maybe even break them, so that I can improve the rules? so that I can improve my life and the lives of those around me.

And I'll continue with the same example, because I know a lot of folks find themselves in a similar situation now. I wasn't supposed to deviate from my previous life trajectory, my education, my career track, my 401K, but I did, and I found something I otherwise would never have, an ability to work on what I enjoy and share that with others. I wasn't supposed to leave home, the Northeast. The most important people in my life live up there.

But I found comfort, peace, and new beginnings down here that I never would have experienced. I wasn't supposed to do many of the things I'm doing today. It was a genuine curiosity and a willingness to chase down what's meaningful. And the beautiful thing is, anyone can do that. Every single one of us can detach and depart from the supposed tos in our lives. And hey, maybe some of them should be there. Maybe some are adding value and stability that you need and maybe even cherish. But I can promise some of them aren't.

And it's worth a look. It's worth thinking about those things. Where can we be a little braver, a little more courageous? Where can we venture outside the scope of what we've subconsciously deemed every day life? I love the notion that there's always more in you. You just need to give yourself permission to pursue it. It only makes sense that no journey begins until we give it the green light. The world is yours once you do.

once you give yourself permission to pursue it. So what are you conceding? What have you accepted as fact that upon further review you might find to be fiction? There's a world of infinite opportunity waiting for you. Just past your acceptance of the way things are. Just beyond all those supposed to. I was watching a master class by author Margaret Atwood.

It was on storytelling. And, you know, I knew going into it, it would be interesting. I'm not a particular fan of her work, at least from a content perspective. But look, we're talking about someone who's, you know, truly made a mark on the world. Right? There's a lot to be learned from her. So I buckled in and listened to what she had to say. And unsurprisingly, there was a lot of wisdom there.

And there was one idea in particular that really resonated with me. both as a writer, yeah, but also outside the quote-unquote creative space, which I'll get to in a second. The idea was centered around finding the moment to begin, a story's true starting point. And it was interesting. She said, you know, people think stories start on page one, but she'll pick up a book. And I don't remember if she was referencing new authors or maybe someone, a book just off the shelf at a bookstore. But she'll be reading it and she'll think, ah, okay, so this story really begins on page 10. That's the starting point. I think she even referenced her own writing process, being a few chapters in and thinking,

ah, this needs to be the starting point. Got to cut away the other stuff and move this up to page one. And, you know, understanding that's obviously important for those looking to entertain and captivate an audience. You need to give the reader a reason to stick around. but I could also very easily draw a parallel from that to, you know, a bigger picture, our real world. All I could think about was, you know, what story are you telling yourself and where did it start? Or more importantly, has it even started? There's something both liberating and beautiful about the fact that all of us in the stories we are living could at any moment recreate that metaphorical first page.

And I believe that with all my heart. Like we think, oh, page one started years ago. This is how things are now. This is where I exist in life. But what about the idea that beginnings don't have to start on page one? What about the idea that you can cut away as much as necessary to create the right beginning? The story that feels right to you. We don't know anything to the words that were written leading up to now.

We're not beholden to the chapters that came before. Robin Sharma talks about the idea of killing your darlings, which is an old saying that refers to that very challenging task, writer's face, of cutting away the things that aren't absolutely essential to the story's main narrative. It's hard to do. We place value and importance on these things because they feel like a part of us. We feel like they're too significant to dismiss. But in reality, the act of letting go is ultimately a value add

because it ensures that what matters is what stays. It's the ability to understand that the story doesn't begin when thoughts become words. It begins when there's alignment. When the story captivates, inspires, and in the one you're writing, the one that is your life, you can always make that moment right now. There's always a new novel that can be written with new objectives and characters and storylines. It's okay to chop anything that led to this moment. It's okay to create a beginning as you stand here today, right?

It's the idea of sunk costs that changed my life years ago. Just because you spent a long time making a mistake doesn't mean you need to continue making it. Just because you've been writing the story of your life for years doesn't mean the beginning is behind you. You can start this novel here. You can begin this epic adventure now. And I think there's tremendous power in looking at life like that. It's never too late for a new beginning. It's never wrong or impossible to, even at chapter 4, put your finger down on a new starting point and say,

this is where it all begins. Where the new ideal takes shape. We are all authors. And if authors have anything, it's control over the narrative. It's the ability to design a world that aligns with the one. they imagine. Peter Drucker has said that what gets measured gets improved. And this insight's been incredibly valuable to me over the years I want to explain why.

Until you measure something, you're operating in somewhat of a black box. You're essentially guessing aiming at targets you can't see, which ultimately means you're leaving life up to chance. But once you begin to gauge your progress in a specified area, you now have information to work with. You have an increased sense of awareness and the ability to focus, which, as I've said before, and believe wholeheartedly, what you focus on becomes your reality.

So here's a quick example that I think adequately paints a picture here of what I'm talking about. Way back when I first started my business, I was chatting with a friend about wanting to grow my YouTube subscribers. add value to as many people as I possibly could with my work. Back then, it was all YouTube. That was the crux of my business. And so the first question he asked, he goes,

just out of curiosity, how many subscribers join the channel daily? And I realized in that moment, you know, I don't know. I knew the total amount. Like, I kept tabs on that, but not the sort of daily fluctuation. How much grew on Monday versus Friday, you know, that type of thing. And this guy, he had a tracker. He's very big on that. Basically a sheet with the most important things that he's trying to change in his life.

And every day when he would wake up, he'd record a quick measurement in each of those categories. My first thought was, eh, you know, that's a little over the top. It's a little extra. But hey, one of my favorite mantras is that you are your own experiment, and I was happy to try something new that could have a positive impact. And so I did. I started recording daily, the net subscribers, that joined the Your World Within community. And what I found was incredible.

They say it's the simple things that make the greatest difference in our lives, and this would certainly be no exception, right? First and foremost, just seeing that number every day kept growth at the forefront of my mind. It kept me aware and excited and thinking through that lens, as if I were on a journey or mission to outperform the me of yesterday. If on some random day you grow 30% more than you usually do, it's only normal to see that and ask, well, why can't this happen

every day? Why can't this be my reality? And next, and probably more obvious, it armed me with the tools to tactically improve my performance. Those daily metrics helped me find critical answers, arrive at important conclusions.

You know, what days of the week and weeks of the year, have the greatest impact, what trends lead to increased viewership. My daily average subscriber count is X. I wonder what it would take to bring it to Y. And so basically, instead of just showing up every day with my fingers crossed and hoping I'd hit it out of the park, I had a more informed approach. It's like taking a blindfold off. And all of this prompted by writing one little number down in the morning. The more I did this, the more it became obvious that it should be implemented in other aspects of my life. If this is important to me, if I say with conviction, this is an area I want

to improve, how can I afford to not know the extent of its growth? And now I do track the handful of things I'm most invested in growing because those will be most impacted by my giving them attention. There's a saying that what you water grows. Well, your focus and your attention is what will water the seed, what will give it life. If you're looking to lose weight, but you never look at the scale, you're hurting yourself. You might say, well, I don't want to be all about the numbers. It's a lifestyle change, and I certainly agree the point is not to track every single step you make. It's to realize how often we operate blindly. It's to show you that with 100,000, percent certainty. Your increased awareness and attention dedicated to any pursuit will make you more

effective in bringing about your desired result. Knowing your daily progress keeps you in the game. It keeps you excited and also arms you with the tools to make the necessary changes. See, we are brilliant creatures capable of incredible things, but it's critical that we position ourselves so that we can win the game. It's critical that we're we not only look, but see. To be simplified, to condense life down to only what's important, and to monitor those things that are important to you will give you a tremendous advantage. And again, this is basic stuff. But we skip the basic stuff. Because we think the big changes come from complexity. They don't.

They come from choosing a target and working to get closer and closer to its bullseye. Like Greg McCune says in essentialism, growth often has nothing to do with the acquisition of more. Sometimes it's about eliminating the things we don't need and focusing on that which we do. Now I'm suggesting we take it one step further and measure our. growth as we take those meaningful things into the great unknown. Life can be challenging, that's no secret. So why not arm ourselves with every advantage available to us? Why not keep yourself excited and invested and knowledgeable?

Often we look around at what we don't have and think, man, I could never have what they have. I could never do. Never do what he or she does. The reality is they identified what matters and brought it to life one small step at a time. And guess what? You can do the same. It's not a miracle you need.

It's awareness. So here's to keeping your eyes open to not only looking but seeing. And in doing so getting results from the opportunity we otherwise would walk right. Bye. Feeling stuck is a feature, not a bug. Having moments of doubt is a feature, not a bug. Losing perspective from time to time is a feature, not a bug. There's no way to step out into the world and avoid these things. Therefore, the question is not, will these moments arise? The question is when they inevitably do, what will you make of them? And I think that fork in the road is often very misunderstood.

How you look at the world around you is everything. Not because, as the great Tony Robbins says, you close your eyes and chant. There's no weeds, there's no weeds, and they're suddenly gone from your garden, but because it's indicative of the choice we have. that when something happens, we don't always get to control how it unfolds before us, but we do get to choose what it means. And that's it.

A simple decision. And you can see how it's just as easy to go one way as it is to go another. Citing another brilliant voice in this space, Jim Rohn used to say something along the lines of success is easy. It's nothing more than a few simple decisions every day. Well, when asked, why isn't everyone successful, he'd say, because being unsuccessful is easy too. Choosing not to do those things is easy too.

Everything is about your decoder. The world provides the pieces, but it makes you the architect. And so, what are you building? The ones who have had the greatest impact, designed beautiful change, added value to the world, they did it through chaos. Yet those who are the angriest who've done very little with the gifts allotted to them, they'll cite some variation of chaos for the reason they haven't succeeded. It's the lens, it's the decoder, it's the fork in the road,

and you choosing which direction you will take. If you're feeling trapped in a routine, you have in some capacity taken the pieces around you and created a story of limitation. You're forgetting that nothing is stopping you from trying something new today, taking a risk today. When you're feeling insufficient or like everyone around you has it all figured out, you've taken the pieces and created a story of imaginary adversaries. This is not you versus the world, it is you versus you. This moment has given you a fresh start, a chance to find alignment with that which is meaningful to you. One of my favorite metaphors, life is a staircase, where the chaos and the turbulence are ultimately there for you to tame and then move on to the next step. In fact, that's the only way we climb.

The world will consist of challenges, and one of the most important gifts we can give to ourselves is to remove the notion that we can just waltz on through with zero problems. Having that as the benchmark sets us up for failure. There is no perfect path or pursuit. Instead, ask, where is the value? When we fall, ask, where is the value? How can I rise? Grow, adjust. That's why perspective is everything.

One man or woman's business failure is the reason he says, I tried and talks about what could have been over beer with his buddies for the next decade. Another man or woman's failure is the reason she's able to pinpoint where the problems existed and come back stronger, wiser, armed with solutions. See, these aren't wildly different circumstances or initial occurrences. What has occurred are wildly different interpretations, wildly different reactions. Trust me, I'm human. I get the instinct to point out at the world.

To shake your fist at the sky, turn your back on the opportunity. But in truth, that's the only way to ensure values not obtained. There's a stoic anecdote about a teacher on a boat out at sea during a storm and it's enormous, right? The waves are crashing over the side of the boat, rocking the boat back and forth. And that teacher turns pale just like everyone else. He freezes in fear just like everyone else. The only difference is the teacher is not crying out or screaming. Right?

And the message here is that the initial reaction, that's human. It's human to feel anger. It's human to feel frustration, fear, doubt. The difference comes down to, can you pause? Can you collect yourself? And instead of immersing yourself in the emotion, ask, what can I become from this? That is power.

A relationship ended. Okay. How can I now plan to seed to greater fulfillment? The plan didn't work. Okay. Why? What can I learn that will be advantageous on the next approach? I'm lost.

I don't know what to do. Okay? Instead of thinking less of yourself for the lack of knowledge, how about appreciating the fact that you've established a foundation upon which a solution can now be sought. Losses do not exist so long as adversity is pointed out and transformed into value.

And whether or not that happens is entirely up to you. When it hurts, there is value. When you're down, there is value. There's always something so long as we learn to find it. And that's what will make all the difference. Adversity is not

avoidable, but living right means knowing it can't be avoided because it's a requirement. It's from the chaos that calm and order and meaning and growth and momentum are obtained. So even though you may be tempted to turn your back to run or cry out when the winds are strong and the waves come crashing down on your reality, remember that you can not only, only withstand the disarray, but you can come out on the other side stronger. Time waits for no one. Look, the earth will continue to spin, the sun to set, clocks to tick. There are no perfect moments, only moments, waiting to be interpreted by those passing through

them. And as a raindrop in this thunderstorm, an actor in this play, the only rational question in my mind is if time will not wait, why should I? If time will continue at steady march, why let it leave me behind? I'm in my mid-30s, and here's what I've already seen. I've already seen songs I grew up with, referred to as classic rock. I've seen some of my childhood. I've seen some of my childhood sports heroes struggle to throw a first pitch before a baseball game. I've seen a substantial portion of my social interaction become digitized. I've seen once forever people in my life fade away and become memories. I've audibly laughed at the ridiculousness of things that at one point I was sure were important.

I've redefined the meaning of the word home in my life more times than I can count. In fact, the way I see the world and the way I see myself operating, and it continues to change. As the saying goes, the only constant in our lives is that things change, evolve. Why does this matter so much to me? Well, because when I look back, the single thing that would consistently keep me from truly pushing that pedal to the floor, to truly capturing all life has to offer, was a fear, a very specific fear, the fear of losing what I had at that moment. I was scared to death of loss, as we all tend to be to varying extent.

In fact, we're biologically wired to respect the fear of loss to a greater extent than the prospect of acquisition. There's humor in all this, though, a deeply rooted irony. It emerges when we discover that we lose everything. It all goes. The song that's playing ends for each and every one of us. And is this a sad thing? No.

No more than the credits to your favorite movie rolling after the final scene. It was the show, the experience that meant the world. It's a beautiful thing if you let it manifest in all its people. If you move along with it, immerse yourself in its brilliance. My point is that the only way to lose is to wait. It's to not realize that you're starring in your own cinematic masterpiece, and those credits will at some point roll. It's to sit in a chair on the side of the gym while the rest of the room dances.

Life is finite. And the power is not in a flawless existence. It's an understanding to our core that there is nothing to lose. That the window is small, that we should carry out the human equivalent of a fireworks show. We should be obnoxiously bold, absurdly courageous. We should go, live, try, experiment, exploit. build, create. And yeah, sometimes you'll fail.

And sometimes you'll fail spectacularly. But sometimes you'll triumph. And along the way, the mistakes, they become wisdom. They become courage. Both of which are integral to any meaningful grand finale. And as I make my way around the sun for the 36th time, The priority is to remember that these rides are not forever. They are precious.

And that I have the strength to live accordingly. Fearlessly, courageously, my hope is that you find it within yourself to do the same. To pull back the curtains and see now that failure was never the adversary. No, not even close. The adversary is an unwillingness to make the most of your moments. The adversary is freezing amidst the constant hammering away of ticking clocks. The adversary is the prospect of removing failures mask years down the road, only to stare directly into the eyes of regret.

These outcomes constitute your greatest adversary. So for the sake of all that is meaningful, go push into the questions and the risk and the curiosity that makes life worth living. After all, it is not about failure. It's about time. 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. Finding the energy to do anything, 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 today 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 kind of weighing my options. Took some ipuprofen, 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-negotiable? 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 soul could argue for the validity of postponing their date with Microsoft Word, will they come to mess with Microsoft Word, 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 my life to keep that mental muscle working. For example, there can never be dishes left in my sink when I'm

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 Moad. 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 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. 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-perceived as 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, you know, 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 so it'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 rage 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. I put on my shoes, stepped outside, and as I made my way down the street for my midday run, I felt the wind at my back, tailwind.

My first thought, well, nice, this is convenient, especially running along the beach where it can be pretty windy. It's definitely a luxury to have wind at your back. Sure enough, my mind went, oh, but that leaves me a headwind when I turn around and come back up the coast. My mind started to wander. I started imagining what it was going to be like turning around at that 6.6 mile mark. I was doing a half marathon that day and knew that the way back would require that I level up.

And every once in a while, the thought popped into my head, sort of reminding me of the inevitable. And sure enough, the moment arrived. The sun pressing down onto my skin, the humidity wrapped around me like a blanket. I hit 6.6 miles, turned around on A1A, and there was that headwind. But the first thing I noticed was not the force pushing back against me. No, in that moment, I felt the breeze, the coolness. It was refreshing. And there, underneath it all, was my light-bald moment.

What we are presented with day in and day out is a question. It's a choice. Would the wind become my adversary? Something that, yeah, pushed me forward on the way down, but then held me back on the way up? or would it be what pushed me forward on the way down and then cooled me off as I made my way up? And if you think that mental alteration or perspective shift is just nuance or too small to matter,

I suggest you give it a go when you're doing whatever your equivalent of total exertion is, whatever your mental stressor is that pushes you beyond your state of usual comfort when you're in the middle of, let's call it, hurt, whether it be physical activity or a personal situation entirely unrelated to athletics, how are you internalizing the world around you? It's become clear to me over time that winning during our most trying moments

comes down to mental shifts so small that they seem almost laughable in normal conditions. But your mind will always stop. you before life will. So why not put yourself in a position to win? Everything around you is trying to help you in some capacity. Allow that to be the case. Remember that what you look for, you'll find. So if you look for resistance and obstacles and adversaries, they'll be everywhere. But if you look for and seek out value, you'll see that you're surrounded by nothing but value. Even those metaphorical headwinds become hands reaching out, working to cool you off as you make your way to greater things.

So understand that when they arise, those headwinds, the ones that typically hold you back, they hide within them small winds. Small winds that will be the difference. The deeper one descends into chaos, the more important it is to find. those victories, the ones hidden in plain view, the ones that look to many like problems, but you'll know. You'll know just how malleable this world around us is. The world seems to provide not definitive but tools. So which will you pick up? What will you build with them? See, life is never happening to you. It's happening for you. So keep your eyes open, keep your feet moving.

And remember that you will win, not despite the headwinds of life, but because of them. Because you've trained yourself when those around you see can't and won't to find a way. To pull from the chaos, the very thing you need most. Life gives you the canvas. But you are the one who must paint. 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. 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,

and 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 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 yourself. 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. The 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 a lot of to get here, but also know that the challenged 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. You can allow yourself to be distracted.

Or, as Robin Sharma suggests, you can do incredible things, but you can't do both. You can stay where the safety and security is. Or you can risk what you have in pursuit of your dreams. But you can't do both. You can remain the character depicted in yesterday's story. Or you can take those lessons, experiences, and craft a new story. But you cannot do both. Life is a game of trade-offs.

Where any decision to go in one direction is a simultaneous decision to not go in another. A commitment to X is necessarily a rejection of Y, at least in that moment. making this question all the more important, what is your North Star? I ask, because everything you do is bringing you closer to or holding you back from capturing it. One of my lifelines over the years

has been clinging to the quote or idea that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, consistently trying to arrive there. Why? Because when things get complex in my life, I don't know what I'm choosing. Clutter means I've lost sight of what's necessary versus what's trivial. I become unclear on those critical trade-offs I'm making. And we've all experienced this, right?

The simplest questions are always the hardest to arrive at. We can talk in circles about the details. But how often are we honest with ourselves about the why? I remember job interviews in college going on and on about the books I read, the papers that written current events. But then falling flat on my face when asked, so who's Eddie Panero? A dude doing an interview?

Like, what do you want for me? My brain had never gone there. Or even less formal. I'll never forget a friend of mine a few years back, asked me what my perfect day was, just casually as we're driving. I said, I don't know, Tom. I've never really thought about that.

He goes, then how are you ever supposed to have a perfect day if you don't know? And how simple. Simple and simultaneously incredible. Who wants a life without perfect days, right? Like what is all this for? The world is infinite. And you can be ruled by its variability and its complexity.

You can run around adhering to all its rules, hoping you're doing the right thing, whatever that is. Or you can identify, carve out, and rule over your own little piece of it, your own kingdom. you can choose you if you take the time to uncover who you are

what lights you up and then as Emerson advocates hitch your wagon to that star the best investment of our time is to truly understand and decide what we should be saying yes to because if we don't know what matters then nothing does

here's a famous dialogue from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland Alice, would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the cat. Well, I don't much care where, said Alice. Then it doesn't matter which way you go, said the cat. Well, so long as I get somewhere, Alice added as an explanation. Oh, you're sure to do that, said the cat.

If only you walk long enough. Beautiful passage. If you don't care where you go, any road will take you there. And see, it's not wrong to not know. It doesn't make you bad or mean life is a waste of time. It just means you're taking a large portion of control, which is one of your superpowers and tossing it up into the ether. It means you are bowing to hope.

And I know that no one here wants to live every day merely clinging to hope. This is not a we'll see how it goes, channel or podcast, right? This is about the little changes that take life from a six out of ten to a nine or a ten out of ten. It's about using what's around us to maximize the miracle we are living and breathing every day. Again, life is complex. So for you to take the time and simplify to remove what's unnecessary, what an advantage. Yeah, I could do this or that. I could go here or there.

But guess what? I've spent the time thinking, asking myself the tough questions, and now I can be more deliberate in choosing my path so that I arrive at a correct destination. A destination that belongs to me, that means something to me, that lights me up and excites me. That's living. And of course, this isn't a one-time lightbulb moment, a permanent move. No, as we grow, we change. What we want shifts. Hey, sometimes the current path even reveals itself to be the wrong path. It's happened to me plenty. But when you're consistently in tune with what matters to you, who you are, you can make the adjustments. You can be deliberate. more shooting targets in the dark because life is too short. Our days numbered, our arrows finite.

Live life like each day means something. Because each day is transporting you to your something. Let's use the pieces around us to build our own skylines, etch our own stories into the sands of time. If a decision to do one thing is a simultaneous decision, to not do something else, make sure to have that North Star in scope so that you don't amidst that chaos of life unknowingly turn your back on it. Ask yourself who you are and be as patient as possible working for that answer. Because as far as I can tell, that information is the key that unlocks infinite possibility. knowledge that opens the door to life on your terms.

I think a substantial amount of life comes down to self-trust, to believing in yourself. Right, but here's the thing, it's not blind belief. It's not toxic positivity where you close your eyes, cross your fingers, shut the world off, and just assume things will work out because you're entitled to a great result. No, what I'm referring to is an active and deliberate trusting of yourself to learn, to make the necessary adjustments, and to keep moving forward. When we have faith in our ability to step forward and improve simultaneously, there is no defeat. When you know you won't stop until you land where you want to land, then limitations become

a choice. Success in any capacity is a you thing, not an outside thing. And this popped into my head a few days ago during, of all things, a game of axe throwing. So, quick story from last weekend, a friend of mine and I, after a day of working on the podcast, went down to Fort Lauderdale, to this axe throwing place, which is, it's random, but it's a great time, simple concept. There's this giant target and you take turns throwing little axes at the target, basically darts, right? If you think along those lines. And there were eight of us in the group.

They divide you into two teams of four and you play various games until the end. The end, there's this final session where it's every person for themselves. It's like a free-for-all. Each person gets three rounds to throw axes. at the target and whoever has the best score wins. So think of the target just in a traditional way, right? The bull's eye or the little point in the middle is worth five. Then the next smallest circle outside of that is four.

Then three, then two, and then the biggest circle along the edge is worth one. Right? So whatever you hit with the axe, that's the point you get. Except they put these two little blue dots. on the top third of the circle. And they say if you can hit one of these blue dots, you get 10 points. So high risk, but certainly high reward. And my friend and I is super competitive, right?

He looks at me, starts telling me how he's already got this in the bag. And I'm like, all right, we'll see. And it's been arguable, but I probably had been the more consistent of both of us up to that point in the night. Nothing fancy, just straight away aiming at the middle, aiming for those bull's eyes and fours. Not even attempting to go for those, you know, hard-to-reach blue dots. No need straight up the middle.

And here's why this is important. We step out to take our first shots of the finale here. My friend goes first, immediately hits one of those little blue dots. Boom, already, I'm down 10 points. So what do I do? I completely leave my strategy. And I start thinking, no one behind. I can't let this happen.

I spent my next nine shots, and the only nine shots I had, right, trying to hit those blue dots and missing every time, just get killed, right? He won handedly. And then I realized when the scores were read out at the end, that if I just ignored everything my buddy had done and stayed true to my game, aimed for the center of the board, average 3.5 or 4 points of throw, I would have won and by a substantial margin. But I let the outside world impact my strategy.

I started chasing those long-shot blue dots when I knew they were a distraction. Now, I'm sure the last thing you expected to hear today was the recap of an axe-throwing contest. But if you bear with me, there's value here, right? So let's step beyond the axe-throwing. Let's take it up a level. Let's talk about when you know what's best for you. You know where you want to be and what's working, but you're pulled out of your lane because of what someone else says or does.

You hear him or her over there accomplish something great. You look in the mirror and go, man, I haven't accomplished anything like that. Maybe I need to change what I'm doing, my approach. Maybe I'm wrong. See, in the beauty. of that little game was that it reminded me that there will always be outside circumstances trying to redirect my course. But we have to trust in ourselves that we are doing what's best.

We have to know our own game and our own strengths. Now, don't conflate this with a stubbornness. It's not about never adjusting. No, we need to adjust. But adjust when it's best for you. not simply because other people are taking a different approach. It's hard to stay consistent with the world pushing other options consistently, right? People finding success in various ways, taking other paths, talking about their incredible strategies

and how great X, Y, and Z is. But it's all noise. You have to trust, and again, not blind faith, but an understanding of who you are and a willingness to continue to grow with every step forward. There has to be some element of understanding that, sure, things will get challenging, life will push back. But that doesn't mean you are wrong or in over your head. It's a compounding of little actions and trust in yourself.

If you can do that, the world remains yours. It's day by day, or not. my example, throw by throw, knowing your bull's eye and aiming steady up the middle. We all know how hard it is to see results before they exist. The mind tries to find every example out there depicting why you're wrong, why the finish line is too far away. Life is constantly creating off-ramps, saying, hey, if you don't want it that bad or you're unsure of yourself, here's a way out. Come with me. It's constantly sowing seeds of doubt, which is why we must dig deep for that strength.

Life is a game of you versus you. If those around you win, good for them. And if they lose, well, hey, wish them well on the next go-around. But none of it has any bearing on who you are and the race you're running. Are you going to show up for you? are you going to be your biggest fan when it takes every single part of you to keep going? Don't let the loudest voices in the room dissuay you from what you know to be right. Don't let the blue dots hinder your direct line to the bullseye.

Block out that noise, block out the distractions, and do what is required of you. Win your race, because that's. That's the only finish line of value. Walk your path because that will bring you where you need to be. And when you question the pursuit, remember what you've overcome, all the steps that brought you to right now and how, yeah, maybe they weren't flashier over the top. But they were consistent. They've given life to the present moment. What you do is succeed.

What you do is overcome. Just don't lose your bullseye. Freedom lies in being bold. Robert Frost. Something caught my eye on Twitter not too long ago. It was a headline referencing the boldness of wolves in the wild. So I clicked it to delve a little deeper. It took me to an article by Emma Maris.

And here's the summary at like a 10,000-foot view. Okay, basically there's a parrot. site called T. Gondi that infects animals and then causes those infected animals to act bold, perhaps even reckless in some situations. And the article states why and goes into some great detail, but for now I'm going to jump right to a specific point because there's a part where the article mentions how two wildlife ecologists, Meyer and Cassidy, studied wolves at Yellowstone for 27 years. And upon studying them, they find something very interesting.

After taking blood samples from 229 wolves, they found that wolves infected with that T. Gondi parasite, that again makes them act bolder, were 11 times more likely than uninfected wolves to leave their birth family and start a new pack. The infected wolves were also 46 times. more likely to become pack leaders, which Marist states are often the only wolves that breed. And so this appears to portray a direct link from boldness to increased social status and

possibly even reproduction rates. With that boldness comes risk, sure, but with risk comes reward upside. Now obviously, the day-to-day actions of wolves at Yellowstone is, is not an apples to apples comparison with human beings functioning in society. But personally, I can't help but feel the value contained in the case study. In fact, it was my thinking about it while falling asleep that prompted me to find the article again and share it. For the simple reason that I know there are places in my life that I can be bolder. I know there are places in my life where I can dial up. up that risk factor in exchange for results that supersede what I have now. You don't get more

without giving more. And I know there are places I can give more. In fact, I'm pretty confident there are places every single one of us can give more. See, here's the thing. Being bold means drastically different things to different people. And it's in this truth that the magic is found. Boldness for one person might be completely different from someone else. It might be more travel. For another, it might be taking on a project at work. For another, it might be leaving a detrimental situation. For someone else, you know, going through a low point or deeply challenging time,

it might be simply getting out of bed. We are all operating on different planes at any given time. My bold today won't be my bold next week. That's just the way life works. but here's what I do know we can all find within ourselves that courage to be bold in whatever arena we are in

and every once in a while someone will say to me yeah but Eddie can't you just be happy where you are why does it always have to be the next thing or bigger or better or more to which my response is look of course we should be grateful for what we have of course we should appreciate the gifts and the beauty that surrounds us

day in, day out, because it's there and it's infinite. But, and you knew there was a but. Human beings are purpose-driven. Our happiness is often derived from our progress. Our journey is the destination. And we often find when we look around that we have given pieces of ourselves away, sometimes without thinking about it.

Perhaps we become stagnant with areas of ourselves that can be elevated, that are destined to evolve. I love looking back at those courageous moments in my life. They mean everything to me. You know, I like to say it's the small things repeated day in and day out that make us who we are. The vast majority of the time, I believe that to be true. But those pivotal moments, those opportunities that our consistency creates, for us. Well, boldness in those instances changes everything. Walking onto a stage when you've never spoken before, when your body is physically rebelling and you don't want to walk on a stage

is everything. Calling you all, packing up and leaving a situation that's no longer in your best interest is painful, it's instantaneous, but is ultimately everything. Making an investment that you believe in. Deciding to hire someone with incredible vision and talent, being vulnerable enough to share your thoughts with the world, these things are risky, they are bold, but in your world, they are everything. And so the obvious connection here is our desire to lead in a world seemingly void of adequate leadership. It's setting an example.

It's not settling for the ground floor when the sky is the limit. Yes, on all counts. but it's also leading yourself. At times we forget just how important that is that you need to lead yourself to something meaningful. Significant change does not come along without your initiating it. No doors open if you don't knock. The world will only give you what you ask of it.

And I'm here to remind you that asking more of the world yes, it's hard, it's uncomfortable, it requires you to be more today than you were yesterday, but you are capable of that, you are bold enough to be that. Robert Frost says freedom lies in being bold. I believe that's because in your courage lives the infinite. Upside so powerful that one simply cannot grasp it while standing still. So go. Go find those areas of life, your life, where you know you're holding back,

where you know when your soul you have more to give, and breathe life into them. Knowing that sure, in being bold, missing the mark is a possibility. But in never leaving, it's a certainty. If you never go, you will never arrive. So find the courage to ask more of yourself because more there is.