Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Quit Worrying What Could Go Wrong; Focus On What Can Go Right | Powerful Motivational Speeches

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

In this video, Eddie Pinero shares a powerful lesson from a hike in the Arizona desert: most people live cautiously, tiptoeing through life, worrying about what could go wrong. But the truth is, most setbacks can be fixed.. while the upside of courage can change everything. This is a reminder to stop living for the downside and start focusing on what can go right.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

Your constant entertaining of worst-case scenarios is why you aren't miles ahead of where you currently are. Let me explain. Last weekend, I was on a sunset hike in Scottsdale, and we just reached the top of the first climb. We paused for a second, took in the views, had a few sips of water, and then turned to carry on with the hike. We probably made it about 10 feet when we heard a frantic voice behind us. It was like, hey, hey, and I stopped. Turned around, pointed my finger at my chest. You talking to us?

Yeah, the woman said. Just completely out of breath. She goes, it's almost sunset. And I saw a sign down there in the parking lot. Her breathing was so heavy she had to stop every few words. So the sign, it said at sunset they closed the gate, that every car still in the parking lot is going to be locked inside the gate, won't be able to get out.

Another pause to collect herself. And I was just wondering, do you know if this is true? Will they really? Have you been here before? Is there any chance I'll be stuck here? I said, well, I haven't been here at sunset, so I don't really know. I started kind of racking my brain

thinking about some of my favorite hikes in the area, you know, gateway, pinnacle peak. Then Rose mentioned, I'm pretty sure the gates do close, but they have a sense. that when you drive up to them, even at night, they open, and you can easily get out. And I said, ah, okay. So I just yelled back, we're not totally sure, but we think the gates open for you.

Even after sunset, even when it's dark, you should be fine. I don't know, she yelled. I just don't know. I have to leave. I'm out. I got to go. I got to go. I got to go.

And just like it was in a movie, she turned around and just sprinted down the mountain. and it had the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland vibes. And we kind of chuckled and just, you know, hey, you never know what you're going to come across around here, do you? Turn back around, carried on with our hike. Now, important to note, I'm not knocking or making fun of that woman. Let me tell you why.

That's been me. More times in my life than I can count. blowing minor inconveniences way out of proportion, terrified that something might go wrong. And it's derailed progress and growth, change, and excitement, all because the path wasn't certain. I've said no to trips and projects and opportunities. I've ignored the thing I knew my soul was pulling me towards.

I've walked away from adventures. I mean, you name it. Because what if, somewhere along the way, a metaphorical gate closed. Oh, the irony of refusing to move because someday you might be stuck. And then you turn that into a full thought experiment, right? Let's say this person was correct. You go down after dark and the gate's locked and you're stuck. You have to call law enforcement to what?

to open it up. Inconvenient, absolutely. For everyone involved, admittedly, not ideal. But why is our instinct to act like we'd starve to death at Tom's thumb trailhead? Our brains flash this image of ourselves writing a goodbye letter to everyone we know. With a scroll and a quill pen for some reason. I'm not sure why. Dear loved ones, they close the gate.

Tell Michael, he can have my son. signature John Mayer guitar. Right? When you play it out, it's just, it's lunacy. It's insane. The worst case scenarios we create are complete nonsense, almost always. Because look, it's one thing to be reckless and careless. It's another to live your entire life in bubble wrap because you may trip and fall somewhere along the way. Now, obviously, this is way bigger

than that story I just shared. This is about the trap of leaving so much of life on the table because we placate to the downside. We constantly entertain all the things that can go wrong, forgetting that, one,

almost everything is solvable. And two, mostly two, the question, what if everything works out. Hey, what if things go right? Why is that possibility so often left out of the equation? What if you leave that toxic relationship? And sure, perhaps after a brief period of chaos and stagnation, things get better than they've ever been. What if you start the business? And yeah, maybe Rocky at first. But after that, it completely changes your business.

life. It causes you to level up as a person while also putting you in position to add value to the world you could never have in your old life. What if you decide to level up your fitness? And you bet the first month or two at the gym you feel like a fish out of water. But ultimately, you transform mentally and physically in ways that leave you just feeling different, more confident in every room you walk into. Why don't we think about the upside in scenarios like that? You know, when we turned around and finished that hike, it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever experienced.

The orange and purple sky, the path through the rocks that felt like something out of a Lord of the Rings movie, the view from the top during blue hour, when the sky is still painted all those colors, but it's dark enough. that the lights from the houses way down in the valley look almost animated, like a cartoon or something. Closest comparison we came up with was the aesthetic from the movie Polar Express. Almost doesn't look real. And I just think, like, imagine missing that

because of something as trivial as a parking inconvenience. In the grand scheme of things, what's more meaningful, what's more important, what matters? Big picture. Guys, we are missing life's sunsets because we are worried about the shadows they cast. Life is meant to be lived. And I get, by the way, how messy things can feel and sometimes are.

But the simplest of experiences remind us our brains, they want safety, not growth. They want comfort, not adventure. They want to know at the expense of ever diving into the unknown. Remember that the most important, valuable, memorable, beautiful things you will do in your life are tied to some sort of risk or trade-off. And look, I'm not telling you what's right or wrong for you. How could I?

But what I can do from this room in Scottsdale, Arizona, is remind you that most, if not the vast majority of things that don't go the way you want them to are reversible. Solvable. Really hard about the sunsets you say no to because of life's metaphorical gates. Oftentimes, that decision equates to giving up an entire world of possibility because you bowed down to a single minor inconvenience. That's not you and it's not why you're here. Don't chase the made-up ghost stories. Chase your sunsets. Oh, and just for the record, after the most beautiful hike of our lives,

we drove up to the gate, it automatically opened for us, and we drove home. But you already knew that. There's a quote attributed to Seneca that states, no man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. for he is not permitted to prove himself. Meaning it's in pursuing the difficult thing that we obtain meaning. Recognition that we prove ourselves. But prove ourselves to whom?

This is the same Seneca who famously stated that we suffer more in imagination than we do in reality. That he is most powerful who has power over himself. And that's one of the beautiful things about stoicism. It makes us ask a very simple that often overlooked question, who's really the adversary here? Who's the opposition we're dealing with as we fight our battles? What is it that must be transformed? Is it the outside world?

Or the way our eyes view the outside world? What's really holding us back? The circumstances? Or our own personal thoughts about the circumstances. And I think this is where we misunderstand the challenges before us. I want to delve into this power of perspective to explain that we are the gatekeepers between ourselves and our ideal lives. And very often we do a good job of ensuring that gate stays closed.

We sabotage our own goals. own dreams, our own happiness, while simultaneously pointing the finger at a million externalities. See, when we look at the difficulties of life, and there's no doubt that life can be a very difficult thing, it's easy to look at the world as this binary playing field, me versus the world. And in fact, we often visualize the world as the enemy pushing back against us. against us, as if its motives were counter to ours. So many of these narratives, these stories, they actually say nothing about the outside world, and when we look deeper, it becomes apparent that they actually say a whole lot more about us.

It's the one viewing that gets to decipher what the circumstance means. And so all narratives are reflections of the observers. Jim Rohn used to tell a story about two brothers who had an alcoholic father. He'd come home drunk, he'd abuse his sons. They had a terrible childhood. And as they each grew up and had families of their own, their paths kind of diverged. One became abusive, and the other was kind and loving and care. And when confronted, the now abusive brother stated, well, look, how can you blame me? Don't you see how I was raised?

But the kind, loving and caring brother stated, of course I'm like this. I could never put my family through what I went through as a child. Same circumstances, different lenses, interpretations, which means different real world result. And the idea here is to emphasize how one of the most important abilities a human being possesses is the ability to interpret the world around him. I think of us as subjects navigating a world of objects, as though the things around us don't have meaning until we place meaning upon them. That's what humans do. create narratives out of objects.

And that often overlooked, seemingly insignificant ability, places a lot of power in our hands. Very rarely is it what we see, it's what we think and what we do about what we see. You ever hang out with people that just tend to be happy, upbeat, positive energy. I have a very good friend like that where his first inclination

is always to find the positive. In moments where I've sort of trained myself to pause, take a second, sift through the emotion, uncover the value in a tough situation, refocus, and take a strategic step forward. I look over at him and he's already arrived there. He's been there for three minutes, right? Eliminated the negativity.

It's his first. instinct. He's the metaphorical kid hopping around in puddles, whistling at the top of his lungs, while everyone else is hiding out from the rain, or at least trying to find the courage to run out onto the street with. Then there are people who seem to always find the negative. It doesn't really matter what this situation is. Happiness is fleeting, only to reveal the negativity that never seems to go away, right? The kind of person that if they won the lottery, their first thought might be, oh no, but what if I lose it all. Both examples are people projecting themselves onto the world around them. The same way that smoke covers and consumes an entire room. It's not the room that's the

culprit. Here's another example from Jim Rohn, since we're on a Jim Rone kick. He's making a similar point, and this is all from a collection of speeches. He has on Audible, comparing humans to oranges, which is probably not a comparison you've made recently, but he said, There's consistency to an orange and that it can be filled with one thing. When you squeeze an orange, orange juice is coming out. Period. It will never be apple juice or grape food juice. It will only emit what it has inside, which is orange juice.

And while here's the connection. When life pressures us, challenges us, or metaphorically squeeze us, or metaphorically squeeze, we only emit the emotions that are contained and available, that are alive and well within us. If there is no jealousy contained in our thinking, we're not going to project jealousy out into the world. If there is no hatred within us, we will not project hatred onto others. Why is that powerful? It's powerful.

Because again, it's one of the most important things you can do. Certainly one of the most important things I've learned to do is take that finger pointing blame at the outside world, slowly turn it around and point it back at myself and ask what thoughts, what emotions, what ideas am I letting live inside my head that's altering the narrative, the story I'm telling about myself and the world that I live in. And while one might think, well, that's uncomfortable, that's uncomfortable, that's a unfair, a little extreme, why should I point at myself? It's not my fault. I would challenge you, at least for the sake of the next few minutes, to see such a change as empowering, as your

advantage, as the bridge from where you are to where you want to be. See, if you always have feelings of, let's say, jealousy around a particular person, that feeling in your stomach, like, oh, they have it all. They're ahead. They live how I want to live. They're. They live how I want to live. this and that and I kind of hate them for it. You're naively giving the external world the power. You're saying, I feel the way I do because of that out there. Some cosmic injustice, you are powerless because you're neglecting your personal agency as a factor.

But when you turn that finger around and say, I only feel this way because I'm allowing myself to, then you can ask the question. and so many never think to ask. Why? Why do I feel this way? Which lights a path to how can I fix it. See, the key to a better life is realizing you don't have to be in the passenger seat

pointing at and blaming the driver, complaining about the road being taken. No, you can get into the driver's seat. You can take the wheel. You can take control. inherit responsibility. And there's more at stake. There's greater vulnerability.

But the upside is unfathomable. And I find myself thinking all the time, man, people are blaming the wrong things. They're shifting blame to the wrong adversaries. The real villain here is not the driver or the road or the weather. The real villain is the voice in your head. pleading with you not to take the wheel.

Pleading with you to ride shotgun and complain as the world passes you by. And of course it makes sense to qualify that. With the inevitability that there are some things placed upon us that are just bigger than us, that we can't control. And you can make a list however long you want to. Natural disasters, decisions, and actions of others, health problems. We don't often get to choose the landscape. So as the Stoics would say, understand that.

Understand what you can't control and what you can. Because the beauty is that you can control how you navigate that landscape, and that is power. That is what makes the difference. See, the two brothers, I mentioned a few moments earlier, same landscape. Different navigational tactics. different view of what it all meant. One took the wheel and one did not. So that's Seneca quote. That states, no man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted

to prove himself. Well, it's perfectly clear as far as I'm concerned. The question is not whether or not to face adversity. I think we all understand that. What I hope we take from today is a better understanding of what the true adversity is. A better understanding of the fact that in front of us there is always an answer, a key to every lock. Some people just don't think to look. They're so busy peering around every corner for external enemies and scapegoats that they don't give themselves permission to succeed. Maybe unfortunate, but it's true. You can hit the bullseye over and over again.

But if it's the wrong target, it won't do much for you. You might as well have missed by 50 feet. And I think that is what we overlook. You can't always fix the outside world. You can't change the unchangeable, but you can always change yourself. You can always fix you. As Tolstoy said, everyone wants to change the world, but No one thinks of changing himself.

You're capable of being both your greatest adversary and ally. So choose wisely. Because the world around you will do nothing more than respond accordingly to your decision. How do you visualize the road you're on? With its twists and turns, smooth terrain, rough terrain, straightaways, hills. what does it all mean? Do you find it odd that it gets more challenging

as you get closer to your destination? Right? The further along you get, the more tension life puts between you and the finish line. Almost like the universe is adamant about weeding out those who think they can skate by. What is the difference between saying you want it and really wanting it?

Perhaps it's a willingness to find out, fight through a storm just for the opportunity to find calm and serenity in its center. This morning, as the sun was coming up, I went for a run. A nice five-mile run down the coast, and the way I planned it out was simple. 2.5 or halfway up in soft sand, and then I'd stop, and I'd turn around, and I'd run 2.5 back, but on the harder surface, right? easier to handle, almost like a reward for pushing myself on the way up. And things were going perfectly.

I made the 2.5 mile run up. And when it came to stop and turn around, I realized what should have been obvious from the beginning was high tide. Which means I didn't get that hard surface to run back on instead. Not only was it softer than the way up, but I was running on a slope. And that just threw my mind for a loop, right? I'm embarrassed to admit I was actually angry about it. You know, I pushed myself hard going up and wanted that breather.

Almost felt like life pushed the finish line back 2.5 miles. And trust me, as I'm writing this, it seems ridiculous to talk about. But in the moment, just irrationally annoyed. That was the carrot that had been chasing the whole time. So I begrudgingly, you know, moved forward, kind of trying to figure out what to do. And ultimately just continued forward. and, you know, the emotion subsided, and as usually happens, you pull yourself out of the weeds a little bit,

the big picture tells a different story. Different story means different perspective. And that's what I came across, right? This idea or this question, well, why do we expect life to be flat ground? Why was that my assumption to begin with? The easy to navigate path. Why is that the standard? And the more I thought about it, right?

The more I wondered if that's the very reason why we underperform. It's the little spark that ultimately lights this wildfire of regret. Because when convenience is the standard, everything else becomes unfair. Everything else is a burden. When the road should be flat, what are we to make of the hills in our path? Thinking life should be easy, it provides oxygen to a victim mentality. And sometimes it takes these little experiences for me to refocus on these subtle realities. The flat ground is not the standard, it is earned.

It's a gift. It should be cherished and appreciated because guess what? Life wasn't easy. It isn't easy and it never will be. But I believe the differentiator is knowing that. So I kept running on the slope, feet sinking into the sand. I got my teeth kicked in just a little bit longer and life didn't end. In fact, I think the mental aspect was tougher than the physical.

We're only talking five miles here. But when the standard changes, so does the performance. It's about just moving forward. And like poetry, with about three quarters of a mile left, right? The beach widened. It leveled out, the ground became harder. Each step became easier, and yeah, I was running. But in my head, it felt like I was lying on a bed of feathers.

Because when you prepare to face life's demons, when you're ready for battle, when you anticipate you'll have to give everything. Any adversary that falls short of that feels like wind behind your back. We can endure anything. The question is whether or not we, put ourselves in position to. Mistakes, they don't define us. Heartbreak, it doesn't kill us. And criticism, it doesn't shape us. But I'll tell you what. The fear that they do stops

a lot of people from becoming who they're capable of becoming. Panicking at the slightest sign of discomfort, moving away from anything but the convenient when in reality, inconveniences are the path. As Ryan Holiday famously put it, the obstacle is the way. See, satisfaction, it doesn't even exist without a will to overcome. What meaning does the finish line have without miles of self-doubt and questions and fear and dragons being slayed while you prove to yourself over and over again that you know what, I am more. And I can be more. And the crazy thing is that there's not even a stopping point here. This rocket will propel as high into the ether as you choose to take it.

And look, it's not about running on slight inclines or something. sinking a few inches into the sand. It's not about being rejected, losing or castigated by seven billion self-interested souls. No. It's about not being scared to take the bridge that connects current to future. Complacency to recreation. The known to the seemingly impossible. You're made of so much more than you give yourself credit for.

You are so much stronger than you think you are. So for yourself and for the world, capture that. Own it and redefine what it means, not to simply exist, but to your core with every ounce of your being, your soul, every fiber in your body to truly live. The 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 is it a very difficult struggle in life, it is a question? 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, you know, 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?

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. 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 Frankl 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. 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 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 to be. 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 conform 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.