Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - RECREATE YOURSELF IN 2024 | Powerful Motivational Speeches For Success

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

"The only way to reinvent yourself is to leave who you were and embrace who you want to be" - unknown "Recreate Yourself in 2024" is a curated compilation of speeches designed to fuel your transformation in the coming year. Each talk is a puzzle piece, guiding you to step into a new version of yourself. Tune in, get inspired, and let's make this year the canvas for your masterpiece of change.

Tomorrow is the most dangerous word in your vocabulary. Because while it's a symbol for hope, it can just as easily be the reason that your dreams remain little images in your head. Tomorrow diminishes the significance of the air that you're breathing right now. It tells you that someday you can begin your journey. And that you can just wait and make yourself comfortable until then. Tomorrow masks itself as an escape. For those held down by fear, those resistant to change,

it encouraged you to be content where you are, stating that you have your whole life to get where you want to be. And for some, tomorrow lasts forever. It evolves into regret, into immobility, into an excuse to never really do what you were meant to do. Tomorrow can be worse than failing, because often it implies that there was never a beginning, there was just a vision, just an idea being put off for a better time that never came. There will never be a moment in your life, more precious than the one you're living in.

Your heart beating in your chest, the air in your lungs, the blood in your veins. They're giving you an opportunity to make a change, to become who you want to become, to live, to inspire, to achieve. Who really knows how many tomorrows you'll get? And the last thing you want is to look back on your life thousands of days from now and wish you had the courage to do what you wanted to do. To wish that you understood how fast tomorrow's come and go. and that all you will ever have is the present moment. Every journey starts with a step. That courageous act of moving forward, not knowing what tomorrow will bring,

only knowing that you'll be further along then than you are now. That you'll be stronger, wiser, smarter. Because you didn't wait for tomorrow. You didn't wait for anything. And that is the difference between I am and I wish I was. It is the difference between dreaming and truly living. When I was younger, posters of the Boston skyline were plastered all over the walls in my room. Something about the city, it pulled me in.

It was a portal of sorts. Encapsulating many of the things I loved, right? my favorite sports teams, where I saw some of my first concerts, was the place where anything and everything happened. As a young kid, it was representative of what life could be. The possibility. Now, I reference this now because my day to day is obviously more complex than it was then. My cognitive mapping of the world looks a lot different to this.

than it did when I was 13. I've seen a lot of possibility become responsibility. And in many ways, that's just part of growing up. Maturing, it's a great thing. But I also believe we are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. I think we're capable of being present and dreaming simultaneously. And when we let go of the ladder, we for us. of the latter we forfeit something innately beautiful about our time on this planet.

This thought was prompted by my looking around the house the other day. Realizing there's absolutely nothing on the walls that resembles that world, right? You'd never know it was the same person. There are no rock bands, there's no fast cars or cityscapes. Not now. And the point is not that I need those things or even want them. The point is, without a doubt, their existence symbolized a hope, a sense of excitement, their presence reinforced that there is something fun and invigorating out there.

They reminded me of the world's breadth beyond my going to school and soccer practice. And I don't want to lose that. I don't want anyone to lose that. See, our imaginations shouldn't be inversely proportional to our age. Taking down the poster shouldn't leave a void that's never filled again. And I guess I wanted to pass that reminder along. Just how much of life is unexplored. Simply because you've drawn parameters around yourself over the years and called it your

day-to-day existence doesn't mean that's all. all there is. And you used to know that. When you hung posters and played with your friends, you used to know that. We all did. What makes life incredible is that we are always one decision away from recapturing that magic. We've never gone too far to adjust a situation we aren't happy with. We're never too old to explore that idea that we've had in the back of our minds. we're never too far in to change direction or pick a new path. What you see around you isn't all there is. That's what we need to remind ourselves.

In so many ways, reality isn't a set of instructions we have to adhere to. It's something we build. And when you stop dreaming, when you stop growing, you also stop building. When you stop building, you stop living. Maybe I don't hang those pictures on my wall anymore, but now I have the ability to actually, physically, step out my front door and immerse myself into the upside of life. We all do.

If this world does anything, it extends its hand and invites us to step further into it. It asks us to remember that which has been taught. tucked away in our imagination, to bring it to life one step at a time. Just go. Sure, things will feel strange at first. Abstract at first, wrong at first. It's incredibly difficult to separate from the past. It's hard to detach from the deeply rooted biological whispering of, hey,

Hey, at least you knew what to expect back then. But that whispering has preservation in mind, not happiness. And at some point, we need to stop preserving that which is not ideal. So go. The walls that once existed, they'll crumble. And this will be startling at first. Shocking at first, intimidating at first. It's incredibly difficult to watch foundational structures crumble around us,

especially when you know you are the one that lit the fuse. It's hard to walk away from the faint murmur, stating, hey, this was your home. How dare you leave it? But those words, they have status quo in mind, not growth. And home is an idea you'd. take with you. It's no set of parameters. Just go. The stories you told yourself, the narratives you thought were forever, will prove to be nothing more than the end of an underwhelming chapter.

This will feel abrupt at first. Unfair at first will leave you deeply unsatisfied at first. It's incredibly difficult to realize that happily ever afters aren't linelieu. They're cyclical. It's hard to walk away from the voices pleading with you not to turn the page, stating that because their realities will remain the same, so must yours. But those aren't the characters with whom you'll emerge victorious. Some movies must be recast, the setting, reimagined, the hero reinvented. And so it should be known that your greatest strength is the little steps that you are capable of taking.

The little decisions you are capable of making. Remember, safety is not safe when it keeps you from what you need. And the wrong nows have a tendency to evolve into the wrong forever. The small concessions, well, they become the big mistakes. So if it's a sign you're hoping for, let this be it. If there's a time you're waiting for, let now be that time. If it's someday you are dependent upon, let today be that day. As doing nothing is in fact a decision, but only one of many.

One path laid out before you, one single grain of sand, where the edge of today's world touches the shores of tomorrow's. Sometimes it's about the ability to stand up, face the horizon, and just go. Go because it's only upon going that you realize you're capable of the journey. You finally see in yourself the strength you've longed for. It's in going that you realize yesterday's situation wasn't even really the problem. It was your fear of the unknown, of leaving that situation. It was living with the devil you knew.

of potentially having to face the devil you didn't. That's what happened to your wings. They just felt safer tucked away. But it's in going that we acquire perspective, the tragedies, the devastation, the things that kept us awake at night. They really weren't that bad, but how are we to know? When you build walls around yourself, what's within them becomes your entire world. It's in going that you create yourself.

And while everything you need is already beating in your chest, the great unknown before you is the water to that seed, the key to that door, what you fear is exactly what you need. And so the beautiful dance through life goes on. Not beautiful because of its elegance, it's rarely that. But beautiful because of its promise, its malleability. Beautiful because we get to move without answers in order to find answers. Beautiful because what we become is directly proportional to what we're willing to endure. And that means that the universe doesn't judge.

It doesn't know us by our failures or our mistakes. But by our courage. Our courage to face all of these things and move forward anyway. To relentlessly explore the resilience of the human spirit. An infinite light in an otherwise finite world, a bridge that is built beneath our feet in real time. What a weight off of our shoulders to know this. We don't have to get it right.

We just have to step out the door trusting that We will pick up enough pieces to put together something meaningful. We just have to go. And then the world, it opens up. Just like that. Leave the old, embrace the new, simple you think to yourself. Well, yeah, of course, the best things in life are always simple. Always have been, always will be.

We just imagine them to be difficult. We have a knack for making simple decisions into complex matrices of cause and effect. Pros and cons, wins and losses. We learn to think for years. Until we finally come to the brilliant realization that happiness, that meaning that a life well lived comes when we think less. Ready, fire, aim, there is no perfect path, just an adjusted course. an adjusted course, an endless series of change, of learning that falling is just a road sign

indicating where we need to go next. You can't plan for that. You can't chart a course that doesn't exist. No, you leave who you were yesterday behind and you set sail. They'll ask you, where do you see yourself in five years and you'll think who knows. But It couldn't be here. It must be somewhere evolved. Where pieces of the world shaped your outlook and became the armor that you now wear. New game, new rules, new expectations, new people, new places. And what really changed? Well, how you view yourself.

It's funny how it all works. How things come together when we look over our shoulders. our shoulders like it was meant to be as if this had to be the way things are. No, you could very easily have stayed dreaming, looking out that window, wishing you could leave, hoping for answers that didn't exist. And so the complex now feels as simple as we meant it to. We move forward, not knowing, but trusting. And we look back with the sense of understanding. and a confidence that was built over time. In the game of life, there are people who go and people who stay.

People who build and people who don't. And I'm not saying everything will be perfect, or everything will immediately snap into place. How could I? But what I am sad is that in moving forward, we pull back the curtain on the opportunity that is available to us. We move from the physical limitations

the physical limitations of the bodies we walk around in and towards the infinite power of the mind, the powers them. We become who we were always meant to be. How do we know what that is? Well, not until we look over our shoulders, of course. So go. Go make your mistakes. Go learn your lessons, feel your moments of pain and your moments of bliss, your times

of doubt and your times of certainty. Because in doing so you will have done the very thing so few people get to do with their limited time on this planet. Truly live. So go. Just. If you remain calm in the midst of great chaos, it's the surest guarantee that it will eventually subside.

Julie Andrews. One of the most powerful things about intentionally immersing yourself in difficult situations. Is that it prepares you for the inevitable adversity that will come your way when it's unexpected, unplanned. The obstacles life places before all of us. That's why I so often draw a line from physical fitness and athletics to the real world, doing difficult training,

for me, particularly endurance training or interval training, is it creates a level of exhaustion. I tend not to encounter anywhere else, right? It's a phenomenal practice at separating out what must be done in the moment from how we feel. It uncouples those two things. It's taming chaos in a controlled environment that improves our ability to handle stress out in the world.

And what keeps pulling me in, is when you're in it, going from set to set, 45 minutes straight with no rest. There are these particular moments where your heart rate's elevated, your body is fatigued, you're pushing your physical limits, and under a different set of circumstances, you'd stop.

Maybe you'd take a breather, because that's what makes sense to do. But this is what's powerful, right? In those moments, you learn to float above all of that. It's excess. It's noise. It doesn't matter, right? You're separating anything that isn't the question, what's next? You don't have to perform any miracles or break any records.

No, only find a way to calmly engage in one exercise after the next. One step after another. your job is to not stop. And again, this is a microcosm of what we deal with out in the world when the world is chaotic and stressful. When our minds are worried about what's in front of us because we aren't sure how much longer we can sustain what's happening in the present moment.

That's when we get worked up in frantic, sometimes erratic in our decision making. But this reminds you you can be stronger than your environment. environment, your circumstances. You can say no to the chaos that's attempting to pull you in. As Viktor Frankl has spoken, you may not have control over your circumstance, but you always have control over your attitude.

What does this mean? Well, it is the incentive, the green light to step forward. You don't need to think about how you wish you felt. You don't need to think about how you might feel 10 minutes from now. No, the goal is breathe and consider simply what must be done. This idea, it translates beautifully when something goes wrong at work. When a relationship becomes fractured, when you feel slighted by life, the temptation is to let it all consume.

But if you're able to breathe in, to compose yourself and focus only on what needs to happen next, there is nothing that can hold you back. When you don't relinquish your control to outside circumstances, you have everything you need to effectively navigate through them. Nothing matters. Nothing but your ability to carry out the task at hand. To conquer that adversity that is emotional. in the midst of difficulty.

Right? Simplicity, as the saying goes, is the ultimate sophistication. And it doesn't get simpler than this. Breathe, execute, and you will find your way home. I was in the middle of a workout the other day, and right before things got intense, right before we picked it up a level, I heard someone say, brace yourselves.

Your minds are about to start. are about to start lying to you. Now note, the message was not brace yourselves, you're about to lose focus, brace yourselves, things are gonna get challenging, the path's gonna be unclear, no, the message was much, much simpler, that we would be told lies, objectively,

and who would tell them, well, the adversary within each of us, the dark side of the moon, right? Just as there's light, There's darkness just as we have the tools to build. We have the tools to tear down. In fact, our life trajectories hinge on whether we find those reasons we can or we find reasons we can't. Whether we push those so-called lies away or embrace an adopt. But here's what I loved most about that comment.

Why I found it so moving. You know, I'm someone who's fascinating. by the power of mindset. Obviously, I read about it, I experiment with it, I talk about it almost every day. But I guess in my head, I'd compartmentalized it as something slightly more subjective, right?

We'll call it negative self-talk as an obstacle. As chaos, we have to learn to navigate. And while that's not wrong, there's something about the simplicity of you can do this, And any thought in your head that says otherwise is a lie that's freeing. That message is like removing shackles.

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

Well, then you can't handle this. It says, you need to sustain this pace or maintain this momentum. Imagine how bad that will hurt. You see that? can't endure that. The liar in you says you're not as strong as the ones who did it before you. You see them? They're better.

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

Winning is saying there's no proof on earth that suggests I can't take another step forward. and then another and then another. There's absolutely zero evidence that you can't take what's being given to you and not only survive the moment but thrive. See, when you hold the pen, anything seeking to tell you how the story ends is simply,

definitionally, unequivocally, not true. Not unless you want it to be. because the story and its ending are yours. What will become truth is what you write down. Line by line, moment by moment, day by day. So when the liar speaks, understand what she is and keep writing. And when the liar cries out, understand his intention. and keep building.

If you want this moment, it's yours. And that is truth. How much did you care? What do you mean? I didn't understand the question at first. In that room, how much did you care what they thought of you? Like if zero is not at all and ten is you cared a lot, how much did you care? Hmm

8 I said Probably around an 8 out of 10 And that Is the problem Because if you care You are not Free I've been working my whole life

To obtain that word In its truest sense Freedom and I made progress. The world around us is tough to change, but most things worth changing are tough. I've uprooted and walked away from people that brought me down. Plenty of times.

I've walked away from places that just weren't me. I've committed to carving out a path that I deem meaningful in my life. See, but you can always turn your back, and walk away from people, from places, from situations. Here's a little caveat no one seems to tell you about, though. You have to take yourself with you. There's no destination to which you can arrive without your thoughts. There's no place you can show up without your narratives or your view of the world.

And the more I navigate this floating rock we're on. The more I'm convinced that weather is determined by the onlooker, not the atmosphere. Some people simply choose to see sun. Some people choose rain. Our forecasts are internal. I've referenced this book often because it's one of the few cheat codes, not to any subset of reality, but to life in general, that allows us to reverse engineer true concordial.

It's called the Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Brani Ware, where she speaks with mostly older people during their final days, asks them what they would do differently if they could do it all over again. Regret number one, and we can actually stop right there, is I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the one others expected of me. Meaning, the number one thing people wished they did differently was careless. They wished they'd lived in their authenticity, put more weight on their goals and their dreams, than those of strangers that pass like ships in the night. Every time we repress who we are, our future selves shed a tear. And I know that's not pretty or uplifting to think about. right, a future you looking down and wishing you'd sought out that freedom in its truest form,

the freedom to live fully. But look, sometimes carving meaning out of life just isn't pretty. Sometimes what's necessary is not pretty. See, everything's relative. And perhaps understanding that it's not others who are the judge, But it's instead that older version of you sitting on the bedside, reflecting back on this one roller coaster ride. Maybe that's who we're living for. That's the well from which our courage should be drawn. We are guests passing through a miracle with minds that falsely and irresponsibly whisper, we have all the time in the world, trying to convince us that the trip lasts.

forever. But it doesn't. Your life is a raindrop in the thunderstorm. It will be over as fast as it arrived and how you choose to live it will be everything. See, there will always in some capacity exists that voice asking you to dial it down. There will, from time to time, be sweaty palms and shaking knees. You know, those human things. But when you find yourself standing on the edge of that door, looking out at a world that you know calls your name, let your voice be louder than all of it. Let the beating of your heart be stronger than your fear. And if you can't do it for you, then please do it for that version of you years from now, looking out the window, smiling about how you almost said no. You almost boxed yourself in, you almost let what

matters pass you by, but instead you captured life like a child chasing down a firefly, that in a world of constraint, you allowed yourself to be free. Dream away. His dreams remind us of hope. Hope that becomes courage. Courage that manifests itself in little steps forward. steps that over time create a new world, a new world that looks a lot different than the one you once knew. So dream away.

Dream away because we have all been blessed with the ability to take nothings and make them some things. We've all been given the power to take blank spaces and make them landscapes to see with our eyes worlds that aren't yet there. And what a shame it would be to repress that gift. To label it fiction. To keep it next to our books and our movies. How much a tragedy. To allow it to be merely a temporary escape. Instead of the permanent beginning, it was meant to be.

So dream away. Let it lead you. Because dreams, they'll either become the stories we'll, detail or the regrets we hide away. A personal evolution or untapped potential. The reason we jump out of bed in the morning or the reason we keep our eyes closed. Clinging to the last few seconds of joy

before we confine ourselves to the self-made prisons we built. The invisible walls that separate what we see from the possibility a short trip away. But look around you, one might say. This is reality, and this looks a lot different than the dreams that bounce around in my head. If dreaming was some magic formula,

I'd be there already. Well, magic isn't quite my claim. No, dreams are not magic. I think they're composition. is so simple, so practical, so obtainable that magic isn't needed here. In fact, thinking dreams require some larger-than-life magic might just be the problem. Dreams require a willingness to start and a single step forward. The rest, well, the rest we figure out along the way.

Every little decision to carry on. Through the haze of that great unknown, that's where we discover life's possibility, and if that's magic, then my friend, we are all magicians. Okay, he might inquire further, but is any of it guaranteed? Hmm. Well, that's a highly complex question

as we make our way through this highly complex world, but I will do this. I'll guarantee one thing and one thing only if you do not dream of better tomorrow's. Today will be eternal. Things will stay exactly as they are now. See, your dream is the North Star that guides the path. The target calling the arrows, it's the lighthouse that brings the ship home from sea. Without a foundation to build upon,

you'll have nothing to stand on. So instead of talking about guarantees, let's talk about lost opportunity cost. Let's talk about what happens if you don't go. If you don't explore, if you don't build, what will you miss? See, most people, they only understand what has already been created.

Let's not be most people. Why stay in the lines when there's nothing else to discover? Why black and white when color changes the dynamic entirely? The greatest enemy of possibility of potential is one's need for certainty. It's the person who talks about something more, but knows something more will remain an afterthought. because as beautiful as it sounds, it's not guaranteed. And because they cannot guarantee something better, they will guarantee the status quo.

But I'm asking you to see the flaws in that line of thinking. I'm asking you to understand that our very biology cries out for safety, that we have to fight our urge to settle, our desire to take the monster we know over the one we don't, because it's the monsters we don't know that put meaning into life. It's the journey that elevates the destination, and while it might feel like what you want in the short term, that long term, it sings a different tune. To get where you need to go, you have to move into the headwind that is the comfort of now. Find within your own.

yourself the courage to simply crack the door, to just let a little bit of light in and see how it forces its way into every corner of your soul. Once you feel that satisfaction of progress, you'll be consumed, pulled in as though the only thing larger than fear of failure is the rush of becoming who you were meant to be. I once heard something that changed the way. I looked at the world, something simple, the idea that we don't climb the mountain for the view. We climb mountains because of who we become on the journey up. The view is merely representative of that journey. The dream isn't in and of itself the goal, it's an invitation to immerse yourself in all that is beautiful, meaningful, worthwhile, jaw-dropping,

opening and powerful. It is what cracks that door and lets the light in. So dream away. Because that dream, it's no threat to your safety. It's what will ultimately save you. So dream away. Dream away so that you capture that sunrise you were given. Dream away so that you are pulled to that which makes life worth living. Dream away so that you never lose that child inside, so that you don't leave the adventure on the table and keep your ideal existence on the shelf. Dream away so that you see the abundance that surrounds us,

the hope within us and the future that calls us for yourself, the people in your life, and the ones who eventually will be, dream away. The other day, I was sitting in Miami traffic, looking out the window, and it dawned on me. How interesting that human beings haven't solved for this. Like, this is a major annoyance in a lot of people's lives. Now, we put human beings on a rocket ship. We've navigated them beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

We've landed them on the moon, but still are unable to effectively get around between 4 and 7 p.m. on weekdays. It's just kind of interesting to realize. Now, there are very practical reasons for this, sure, not to mention people studying and invested in the problem. And I think most noteworthy, I'm not even saying one is more valuable than another. This is merely a thought experiment. we get the results where we place our attention. We valued going to the moon. Because of this, humans walked on the literal moon.

And we're so used to this having happened that its shock value isn't quite there, right? But for a species who 100 years ago was traveling by a horse and buggy, that's pretty impressive. And I just think it's a cool reminder that where we place our focus is where we'll get our positive results. We can change everything if we place a spotlight on it. That begs the question, where are you placing your spotlight?

As John Maxwell said, nobody ever went up a hill on accident. There was intentionality, which gave life to focus and action, planning. growth. We only evolve or we shine that spotlight, or as I've said in previous episodes or videos, what you water grows. I've certainly spent my fair share of time, angry, annoyed by things that have, by no coincidence, given zero effort to fixing. And when you do nothing to solve a problem, all you can cling to is the ability to complain about it. If you're not putting energy and resources there, you most likely won't win. One of the best advice I got from a friend a few years back was to highlight the things that

matter to you and measure them because this allows you to be aware, to be intentional with your action. It's deciding which handful of things are going to be your quote unquote moon landing and then watching over them like they are precious. Let's say a goal of yours is to increase your net worth. If you're looking at your bank account every day, you're much more likely to make better monetary decisions than someone who keeps their finances in the dark because they hate thinking about it. There are deliberate actions that must take place to bring about that change.

When I look at, say, YouTube, I tend to know a substantial amount about my metrics. Because I really care about the channel and its growth and its impact. I watch it and I monitor it. Things dip. I need to know why if they took a sudden upswing and their growth. I need to know why. If success on a platform is my metaphorical moon landing, I'm locked into every up and down.

I have to understand what's going on so I can make the necessary adjustments to grow. And then when the growth happens after time has elapsed, I can think, in my own little world, that was space travel. I was driving that metaphorical horse and buggy not all that long ago. but I stayed locked in. And this may seem simple, and it is.

But for what it's worth, my biggest breakthroughs always tend to be. I've exhausted a lot of energy, and in some cases even paid a decent amount of money, so learn the simple things. Nothing is that complicated. We just think it is. Which is why we do nothing and then complain about the delta between the real and the ideal. But I'm here to tell you that if you decide on a few things that matter to you, and then measure their progress, allocate the energy to moving along with them, where you'll be in months or years from now will astound you. It will be breathtaking. But you have to be willing to peel back the curtain and immerse yourself in it. Prove to yourself that, sure, it might feel big and complex. But once you give something that time and attention, it becomes clear pretty clear.

quickly how simple it all is. What's one thing you can do every day in each meaningful category in your life that will get you closer to where you want to be? If you watch over that process and you adjust along the way, the amount of opportunity available, the amount of change you'll create is unbelievable. And someday to others on the outside looking in, your progress will seem out of this world larger than life. It will appear a moon landing. But you'll know it wasn't the miraculous. It was just a simple decision to give it time and attention.

You watered it, and so it grew. Every once in a while, for a brief moment in time, we need to pause. We need to take a breath and ask ourselves. who we are. Of course, not in the literal sense, not the reflection staring back in the mirror. But in the context of the road you've already traveled, how far you've come. Because it's easy to become consumed with what's ahead, especially when you can start to feel that finish line. you can see the top of the mountain. When you know everything is about to be on the line,

your greatest test awaits. But here's one of the greatest secrets I've ever been told. That test is not about right now. It's not even about the future. It's about the foundation you've already been building and trusting yourself to be you. It's all those times you could have said no, but you didn't.

How you, like so many others, could have taken that easy road, but you opted for something greater. No, my friend, this obstacle before you is not where you prove or make or create yourself. It's where you simply verify who you already are. Cash in on a prize that's been years in the making. It's where you validate the price you've been. paying for as long as you can remember. And what you need to take with you, what you need to understand right now more than any other

time is that you aren't here to simply survive or navigate foreign territory. No, you, you were made for this moment. There's a saying that pain is temporary, but quitting is forever. And that simple quote has got me through some of life. greatest trials and tribulations, most challenging times. Because to put it simply, when we're overwhelmed or we're amidst life's chaos, our minds don't scream out, oh hey, you've gotten through this before and you'll get through it again. They don't remind us of our strengths or reassure us of our dedication.

No, when we feel like we are neck deep in chaos, all we see is what we're not. That's why people quit. They become consumed with the dark, forgetting that the answer is a light switch away, overlooking the fact that they already have everything they need. So let this be your reminder that getting across the finish line doesn't require some miracle, doesn't require you to do what no one in humanity has ever done before. No, all it asks is that you believe in yourself to hang on when others would let go,

to continue forward when you most want to turn back because it's always darkest before the dawn, most challenging at the peak. When the roar of the crowd becomes audible and the trophy visible, find it within yourself to rise amidst the pressure, not to shrink, but to expand, to be the most powerful person in your life, you.

Because right now, in this moment, you have arrived. Years from now, when you look back, Make sure you remember one thing about this moment. That you gave everything you had. That you leaned in on those late nights and those early morning wake-ups. The hours upon hours in the books, the preparation, dedication, and the resilience. That you knew who you were.

And let it manifest and lead you into the future. See, we all find ourselves that this fork in the world, road, the one where we have a decision to make. Will I survive or will I thrive? Will I exist or will I truly live? And in the race of life, it's when our hearts hounds in our chest. The blood flows through our veins. Our lungs cry out for air. Our minds beg us to stop, slow down, relax. It's in that moment that we must carry on. We must be our best. We must put all those little pieces together to create our masterpiece.

To breathe life into the foundation that you have been standing on this whole time. See, this moment is yours. If you're willing to endure, to hang in just a little bit longer, give just a little bit longer, Give just a little bit more. If you're willing to put all of yourself into the task before you, you may just be amazed at what life gives back. That thing that gives you butterflies, that lights you up, that world you see when you close your eyes,

chase that with all of your soul. Chase it. It's easy to brush off life's potential. It's just outside the realm of possibility. To see the ideal as some form of windows shopping that you can almost touch. A fantasy to be explored when you sit back in your office chair or pass time in the doctor's office waiting room.

But I think these ask you ask you Inspirations mean more than that. Not distractions, but a north star. Not a diversion, but the path. And by the way, I'm not naive about this pursuit. And all that it entails, the truth behind it, I'd never advocate that what's possible or meant to be is somehow easy.

In fact, I'd argue the only way something is meant to be is if you're willing to commit to the difficulty in bringing it to life. Otherwise, it wasn't meant to be anything but a missed opportunity because it surely will be a difficult road. And here's what we come to learn. Everything of value is difficult. You know, in an attempt to oversimplify, I often break life down into the easy things. versus the difficult but meaningful thing, and in some ways sure that's true. But I can also honestly say it would have been more difficult for me to have stayed where I was, not moved at all, to not have pursued what I believed in.

It would have been more difficult thinking about that life I could have lived, the doors that could have opened, and that's just it. life is about choosing your difficult the difficult you seek out intentionally or the difficult you come and let take control render you helpless and I think when we find ourselves in routines or we've built for ourselves a world

you know we know we don't want to live in anymore or we've outgrown it's not that the current is real and the future is not it's that we somewhere along the way decided to face the wrong opponent. Some adversaries make us stronger. They force us to be more to grow. Other adversaries or opponents, they sit back and they let us defeat ourselves and that's what we don't want. See, when the world knocks you down, you get to rise

rise again. Wiser, tougher, stronger. But when you keep yourself down, well, there's nothing to be gained from that. Those two opponents, they are not the same. I reference my speaking career because for me, it's where that transformation is most evident. It's where it all began. My opponent was very much me. Avoiding opportunities, hiding from failure. I didn't give life a chance to knock me down. And so it didn't. How could it?

I'd already placed myself in chains. And because of that, guess what? I stayed the same. I couldn't evolve. My ideal future was an idea that would briefly entertain me from time to time and move right on. It wasn't until I found the courage to switch my opponents.

From myself to the world, I let life humble me. I gave talks where I was nervous and had cold feet, keynotes where my delivery was mediocre at best, where I barely got by. But with these battles came metaphorical riches, came that trust that had to be manufactured, that confidence that had to be earned. When I got out of my own way,

I was able to let the trials and tribulations of life create a new foundation for me to stand on, to redefine reality. And the good news is that anyone can do that. Anyone can ask that question? Something external, in my way right now that I need to figure out that I need to solve? Or am I in my own way? Am I not even giving myself a shot? Have I settled for right now as truth? When right now is just the less

ideal difficult. When I was little playing action figures with my buddy up the street, we used to think it was cool to see around corners, to see through walls, to know what was coming before it arrived. For action figures, absolutely. In superhero movies, why not? But in the journey through life, you don't need to see around corners. In fact, it's counterproductive because it is the interaction

with the unknown that matters. It's adjusting amidst life's uncertainty that comes to make. you who you are, transforms you and your reality. As far as I'm concerned, the only way to lose is to remain behind that corner. Peering out every now and then, hoping to get some kind of advantage or shortcut, willing to let life pass you by while you wait for the stars to align, thinking that that vision of an ideal life will stroll along the sidewalk, see you and reach out a hand, that weight will

be a long one, unproductive and difficult, more difficult than trusting yourself to face whatever lurks around that corner. So remember that who you are is built. And every time you do something a little bit scary or unsettling, every time you wander a step or two outside of your comfort zone, the reward is not just the short-term triumph you feel as you leap from, you fall. As you leap, that obstacle and carry on. No, you are investing in a new you, a new reality. You're investing in something changing before your very eyes, putting a little marble in a jar that is your potential,

and you can't see it. Not now. No one's going to announce it to you. You might not even realize or understand until you look back years down the road. But those little acts of courage acts of courage, they matter more than you know. They're not trivial, and they are certainly not insignificant.

When that movie plays in your head and you think to yourself, I wish, or if only, and the delta between that image and the reality on the ground disappoints you, gives you a little knot in your stomach or dissatisfaction that floats around in your thoughts, Remember that that feeling is transferable. That difficult can be exchanged for one that actually changes things. You can get off the merry-go-round and towards a new North Star. Difficult, yes, but we've seen the goal is not to avoid difficult. It's to pick the difficult that will transform your life.

It's to find meaning in a world that if you do, not pay attention, will paint your landscape with routine and obligation. And today can certainly be a continuation of that script. A box that's checked, a calendar square with an X. Or it can be the beginning of something that gives you butterflies that lights you up, that brings you one step closer to the world. world you see when you close your eyes. Hope.

That bridge that connects the present to a more ideal world. The idea that no obstacle is too big to overcome, no situation too dire, to emerge victorious, and that you are never confined to how things are. FDR has said, we have always held to hope. The belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world beyond the horizon. Why does this matter? Well, to put it simply, before one can leave this situation they are in, they have to believe

there is another path worth taking. It's not always seeing, but trusting. It's a tale of two components. the belief that something better is out there and two the belief that you are strong enough to bridge that gap to create that world so let's start with number one there was a study done by Kurt Richter in the 1950s and he used rats and it was kind of a gruesome experiment but definitely worth talking about because the takeaway is incredible right and I kind of cherry-picked the relevant parts of

the experiment, basically he wanted to delve into the role that hope plays in our lives. And what he would do is he would drop rats into a jar of water and observe. See how long they'd swim before they'd drown. And for the most part, these rats would swim for a minute or two and then ultimately give up. There was this innate feeling of hopelessness. But then he made a change and when they were close to drowning, he'd reach in, he'd pick them up, He'd hold them for a little while. And then he'd placed them back in the water.

And the results between the two groups were night and day. The rats saw in the second group that it wasn't over. And when they were placed back in the water, they had a reason to continue swimming. And they did. Some of them did for hours. The only difference being that they had hope. They saw there was more. And I don't think that's too different from us.

The situation may be different. but the rules generally apply. So much of conceding or giving up in life, accepting an existence that falls short of our ideals, it's when we don't believe in something more. We stop swimming. You don't give ourselves a chance. So instead of creating bridges to walk on,

we make walls that lock us in. Hope is knowing all pain, all discomfort is temporary. And the second component is belief in yourself. Belief in yourself to traverse that space between current and the ideal. It's self-empowerment. You can be the difference maker in your life and others. And it's funny, the other day after reading about the Richter experiment, I was sitting at a friend's house with my laptop,

kind of trying to figure out what to make of it, right? Because the idea of hope I knew was powerful. And I wanted to share that story. I wanted to write something that would highlight its value, but it seemed kind of unfinished. Or simply part of an explanation. I'm sitting there thinking about it, and I hear this loud bang over and over again,

and I get up and I run to the back of the house, right, to make sure everything's fine, see what's going on. And my friend's standing there with goggles on, this grin on his face and a sledgehammer, and a huge hole in the wall in front of him. And I'm like, dude, what are you doing? doing. You just knocked your wall down. He goes, yeah, I wanted to make another closet. His family's growing. He needs more space. And he just took it upon himself to make that happen. I just looked

at him and walked back out. Start walking the living room. And it hit me. This is a component of hope. Seeing what's not there and doing something about it. If the swimming experiment is step one, this has to be step two in real time. Step one, believing seeing something more. Step two, taking action to change it now. Buying into the fact that you have the power to change your own world. And it's funny because any house or room I've ever lived in, my thoughts always, you know, you look around and this is it, right?

This is the situation. This is what's being given to me. How do I make the most of it? How do I play within these parameters? Not, okay, this is fine, but it could be better, you know, by smashing down the wall in the back over there, creating something new. And, you know, obviously the message here isn't about home maintenance. This is about taking a sledgehammer to the places in your life in which you are not content.

So that you can build in its place something that matters. You look around to your left, you're right, and you're unhappy. That's not the end of the story. That's the beginning of the story. That's where the wheels hit the road. In other words, it's looking at life. With the lens, with the freedom of knowing things don't have to be what they are. They don't have to stay the same until the universe changes them.

No, they can be what you make them. And what life teaches us again and again is that walls can be stepped over. Knows can become yeses, impossibles can become commonplace. But first, there must be hope. There must be an understanding that your world is a 10,000 foot view of all the little stories you tell yourself and the narratives you believe. See, every day when you wake up and take your first steps, breathe your first breaths, know that nothing simply is. No, it is simply chosen and can be re-made.

That's what makes life such a beautiful thing. It's flexibility, it's promise to provide what has been relentlessly sought out. So remember, it's when you can't find your answer. When the odds look grim, when the rest of the world tells you know that you most need hope. Hope, the power, the strength to look within yourself and remember that one life can change and two, you can change. Armed with this understanding, nothing is impossible. When others fail to see the answer, the light in themselves, in the situation, you become the reminder that light is internally manufactured.

We aren't given answers so that we may believe them. We are given the opportunity to believe, and thus we create that ending we hope to pursue. And without this, life is nothing more than a permanent status quo. It's holding our hands to the sky and receiving what light chooses to provide. But that's not why you're here. It's not why you woke up today, not to accept, but to create. To find hope in the tragedy and the hardship and to find within yourself the strength to move forward with whatever you decide comes next.

The message in this episode was inspired by some background music. The very music playing behind my words right now, actually. I have this thing for acoustic tracks. I just feel like they completely change the dynamic of a story. But I digress. I was writing earlier, opened my notes, found a topic I wanted to discuss, spent about two hours on it. But as I listened to this,

this song and looked over my words. I just felt like what I'd written didn't do it justice. Do you know that feeling where maybe it's your work or any other aspect of life really, where you know what you have is good enough, like no question, good enough to get by, maybe even better than average? But at the same time, you have this little voice in your head almost guilt because you know there is within you something better. Like sure, this will get you through the gate, but you just know you're conceding something. And it's that curiosity, that question, what could I have

created and given to the world that just pulled me in a little deeper? I was recently in Cincinnati, one of my oldest friends, Mike. We met in fourth grade, and we've been in touch ever since. And we having dinner talking about how we were always in trouble back in the day. And I mean, we were always in trouble as kids. Went to a little Catholic school in Southern California. And the way they disciplined us back then was they had this system where if you were talking when you shouldn't be, you'd get a T for talking. And that T basically counted as one strike. If you did something besides talking that was inappropriate, you'd get an I, which, I presume is for inappropriate.

And I's counted as two strikes. And we couldn't really remember what the system was completely, but I think we landed on, you know, if you got up to seven total strikes before the end of the week, you'd get a note sent home to your parents. And we were going back and forth, kind of disagreeing on the effectiveness of that system. You know, the classic carrot versus stick argument.

You know, Mike thinks it was a great system. And certainly there was a lot of value there. You know, it kept us in check to an extent. But I saw it differently in the sense that all it did at times was rearrange incentives. You know, like if it's Friday afternoon and I'm sitting there, I only have one T for the week. You bet the teacher turns around. I'm throwing that apple-shaped stress ball right at the back of Mike's head. You know, I've earned myself a little breathing room over the course of the week.

Why not do just enough to avoid that note going home? home to Mrs. P. And it just seems like looking back now that a reward-based system might have been more beneficial. Instead of tiptoeing around and manipulating the rules so that we could avoid those negative outcomes, why not learn to aim to reach for more, right, for the positive outcome? And here's why I'm going down this rabbit hole, because I know this seems trivial, but here's the honest truth.

It took me into my mid-20s to unlearn this. and even the most basic sense. Certainly not just because of my elementary school. It's how we're all raised, right, to avoid the negative. To do enough to avoid punishment or embarrassment. It's not about mountaintops. It's about dodging the T's in the eyes, learning and manipulating this system to get what we need

so that we have just enough. You know, and as an adult, I'm not talking merely finances here. I'm talking relationships. I'm talking health. I'm talking all aspects of life. Right, that little voice that we all have, we all know it. The one that said to me two hours ago, yeah, this speech is fine. You'll avoid missing your deadline.

You'll feel like you got everything done on schedule today. You won't have to call your editor or postpone anything. But like, how good do you feel about it? Because you're capable of more. This is good. But somewhere behind that curtain, there is great. No, I'm not saying this episode is going to be, you know, third in history behind King's I of a Dream speech in the Gettysburg Address.

But the message means something to me. It means everything to me. The ability to leave good in pursuit of great changed my life. And most of the time, not even in the larger-than-life sense, I'm talking about the little things. I'm talking about the courage to walk away when I had to. To fight for more when I felt slighted. To get out of bed when I felt like my ego was crushed. In a world where we're conditioned to find and settle for adequate, that little perspective shift lit a fire in my soul.

which honestly, if anything, just makes life more fun, more exciting, more impactful. When you feel like you're generating meaning in your own life, it puts color into the mundane. And that's the message that I want to leave you with. When you hear that little whisper in your soul, that question, is this your best? Is this who you want to be? Is it where you want to be? Why not entertain it? Dive into the curiosity.

Walk through the door and see what lives on the other side. At worst case, the decision's reversible as most are, and you backtrack to the start and repeat the cycle. But at best case, life opens up. And sometimes it's a hard conversation to have with yourself. No question. Sometimes it hurts being that vulnerable with the person in the mirror. But your soundtrack deserves a story that matters to you.

And you don't find meaning running from the T's and the eyes. You don't find contentment hiding in the shadows of life. You arrive where you're supposed to be by following that curiosity straight into an evolved version of yourself. By listening when the voice asks, is this where you were meant to be?

The other day I woke up with a plan three things I had to do so I wrote them on my whiteboard they were essentially my objectives for the day but it ended up being one of those days where things didn't unfold the way I anticipated and for a variety of reasons curveball after curveball

with some sloppy decision-making sprinkled in there. Eventually, morning became afternoon, afternoon became evening. I found myself exhausted and looking up at a whiteboard that was showing me I had accomplished none of the things listed. And I hate that feeling. Having clear objectives and not meeting them. And so after dinner, I got a phone call, and I found myself talking about how I fell short,

getting it all off my chest, letting it all out there. And I got that reassurance that I wanted without even realizing that I wanted it, right? The voice said back to me, Eddie, this happens. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. No one's perfect. You put a lot of pressure on yourself. Tomorrow's a new day, right?

That type of thing, and it's like, okay, exhale, time for Ben. And the next morning, I was outside relaxing, doing some thinking, and came to this point. And you'll see how these dots connect here in a second. But essentially, I see life as a staircase, right? Where we thrust ourselves out into discomfort, into chaos, and then amidst the storm, we're forced to grow. We step into shoes. We were once unable to fill. And what was once bigger than us is now normal.

It's every day. It's ordinary because we fought for it. We pushed ourselves through. That's evolution. But now, guess what? That old ceiling has become the floor. It's time to evolve. It's time for that next step in the staircase.

Time to thrust ourselves back into the chaos of life so that we can again take. something bigger than us. Take the next intimidating thing and make it commonplace. And as I sat there outside thinking, I found myself to be at that next step, ready to leap out again into the tumultuous winds of life. But this time it felt different. There's an intersection, and I talk about it often, of doing what adds value to the world, and doing what makes you content personally. Okay, I think where those two things meet is peak living.

That's where the magic happens. And I'm fortunate enough that these thoughts, speeches, episodes, videos, whatever you want to call them, on some days, literally reach over 200,000 people. And that's not meant to be a humble brag or anything like that. It's just to me so incredible that I can't process it, right? I get emotional thinking about it. My dream is to add value to other people, provide that little lift that might help someone look at their own problems differently,

maybe see a path when before they were unable to. That's what it's all about. And then, in addition to that, a parallel track, on a personal level, feeling like I'm growing and evolving as well, constantly stepping up those stairs one by one, having the courage to continue fighting those unknowns and making sense of life's complexities. That's why so many of you were on this journey with me.

And so as I looked up at that next step, and it felt bigger than it ever had before, I knew the task needed to be bigger than it's ever been, which would require of me one of the biggest changes I've ever made, and that scared me to death, knowing that in order for something to be born, something must die. Something must be left behind. I'd been stepping forward for years and thank God for that, but now it was time for a leap. And so back to that whiteboard I mentioned earlier. If you hang in with me long enough, I usually, come full circle. Right, back to the list of goals I miss, the bad day, why am I so fixated on that? Well, it has nothing to do with the day itself. Everyone swings and misses from time to time.

It has nothing to do with those three goals. Everyone falls short here and there. That's part of life. It's about the person I want to be as I endure those turbulent times. It's about the strength to handle. my own chaos and battles differently. Before you can lead others, you need to lead yourself.

And that means being vulnerable. It means being honest. It means looking in the mirror and asking yourself the tough questions. It means being stronger than I've ever been. There will be times that require of me that I push for without having to hear from my parents or girlfriend or buddies that everything's all right. The next step requires that I trust myself to be the guy in my own life. To have impact in the world, one must find strength within themselves where they didn't know

it existed. This is a leveling up that I know is required for me to be more than I've ever been, stronger, bold, more confident when I'm most fearful. There was a line I used to draw, separating me in the people I look up to. And the moment for me was a message. I knew it was time for me to mentally remove that line. You'll never be more than you envision yourself to be. It was time to be my own answer. Promote myself to that next level, from the kid with a dream to the

man that makes it happen, it's time. It's just simply time. Even the ones I love, the ones closest to me, they can't provide that. It has to be internally derived from a place so deep that come hell or high water. It's happening. And telling people about my little misfortunes so that they can pat me on the head and tell me things are great. That's antithetical to what is required of me next. There is a level of courage and strength and excellence in all of us that lives at the bottom of this abyss that we must pull up with everything we have until it becomes intertwined with who we are and where we're headed. And as I sat there, I knew it to be true. I couldn't help but feel that change was about to happen and it would stem directly from how I see myself. It would be the product of who I

knew myself to be. And so now, most importantly, I present this question to you. Are you at that next step? Are you looking at a chasm that must be crossed? Were all your little decisions, all the courage and discipline and strength that you utilized to get here that has positioned you for this moment, is it telling you something is next? Is it time to dig deeper and be more than you have ever in your life been. In my example, by the way, was not about holding in our problems or dismissing those around us. Asking for help and we need help is courage. The small circle we surround ourselves with is a direct reflection of who we are.

No, for me, it was about being the type of person who trust myself to weather those storms. About moving with greater conviction. graduating from going to be to is currently. That whiteboard, that phone call was the turning point and nothing more. And my example may fit your life like a glove. You may think, wow, that's exactly the lens I need right now. But maybe it's not. Maybe your situation is a little different.

Maybe the road you're on is newer, less traveled. Maybe it's the courage to take that first step, to play the student, perfect. Because whatever it is, as you look up at that next step, what matters is that you know in your heart and soul that you have what it takes to become that person. It's not bigger than you, it is you. Someone once told me that the world,

will not believe it until you do. So believe. Believe it like your dreams depend on it, because as it turns out, they do. As it turns out everything about your future is make believe until you breathe life into it. Look around you at your current reality. Remember that it is a product of what you've allowed,

and that at any time you can up the ante, climb the step, reach a new level. You have it within yourself to do that. Just give yourself permission to be that person. And it will be scary. It's going to hurt at times. But let's be that vulnerable. Let's show the world what we can create when we move into it as though it's ours. As though destiny isn't assigned.

but written one beautiful act of courage at a time. Sometimes the inspiration doesn't come to you. No, sometimes you have to go out and find it. When it hurts the most, when the deck seems stacked against you, when the road to travel seems to be longer than you can endure. These are the times we're tasked. Not with weighting, but with creating.

And those lows, they become highs because they force us to self-assess to look around and say, I don't want to feel this way anymore. I'm done tolerating X, accepting Y, associating with Z, and so a bridge must be created to something. And your question is simply what's. Is that something going to look like? Here's what's interesting. Knowing what you don't want is often the beginning. It breathes life into a first step.

Maybe you look up and you have no idea what step 2,000 or 3,000 looks like, and that's perfectly okay. You don't need to know exactly where you're headed, exactly what the top of the mountain will look like. What took me forever to figure out is knowing that here isn't right for you wherever here is is enough, because it is the beginning.

The engine that makes it all work. You don't owe explanations. Apologies aren't required of you. All you needed was that feeling in your stomach that more is out there and perhaps you've been depriving yourself of it. For a tad too long, you just need to leave scarcity behind and train your eyes to find the abundance you exist with him. The other day I saw a quick interview Tiger Woods was giving. And I'm not really a big golf guy, but when the greats talk, I listen. And those who have been

following him know that he's had kind of a rocky past, right? A very public, you know, family situation to injuries, surgeries, a recent car accident. And you can only want someone like that to rise from the ashes, right? I feel like everyone's rooting for him to rediscover the dominance he once possessed. And basically in this interview, the interviewer's asking him about day one of the Masters where Tiger played well enough to make the cut. You know, he survived day one and was about to continue the tournament into the weekend, but it certainly wasn't the best golf he's ever played. And so upon reflecting on it, he says, and I'm paraphrasing,

things aren't the way I'd like them to feel. But I've given myself a chance, and I love the way that sounded. Not just because it came from a man who's been metaphorically battling uphill for what feels like sometime now, but because it's how we all reemerged from our adversity. It doesn't matter what happened yesterday. Your past, all of it, the ups and downs, the bumps and bruises, they've all brought you here. And if life is one giant tournament, you've made the cut. You get to play in your masters.

Tomorrow is coming. And it brings with it the chance to write the ship. To discover the undiscovered, to find yourself again. By showing up today, you've given yourself a chance. And that is the most powerful thing one can possess a chance. I think too often we look at what we don't have. We spend our time focusing on the holes, the blank spaces, the gaps. Instead of looking at the opportunity we've created to pivot wherever we deem necessary, the flexibility is

the asset, but only valuable when we recognize and utilize it. And yeah, that can feel like a tall order when we are not at our best, when we're operating at a level that, let's say, is less than ideal. It's easy to see all the problems we're going through as supporting evidence that the world is bigger than us, that we are outmatched by life. But really, all these things that have come together to create our current state, there are nothing more than life providing you a chance an opportunity to turn the page

you know a tiger you know those lows those setbacks and perhaps even the personal anguish one would assume would accompany those things they've given him the gift of now and he recognizes that just like everything that has paved the way for you has done the same. It's created the conditions from which you can now grow,

further evolve. It's providing a little nudge towards those things we need to do, but maybe sometimes drag our feet a little too long. So when the world throws you curveball, how about seeing this situation as a chance to hit off speed, to step up to the plate and make something of what we thought was misfortune.

When one trades, it's happening to me, for it's happening for me, you're presented advantages that were previously unavailable. They weren't there, and not because they didn't exist, they weren't there because they weren't recognized. Because perhaps you saw the very thing that could help you, as the thing that would hurt you.

But regardless, here you are. Sharpened by the mistakes you made and shaped by the lessons you learned, you are here. Not to relive the past, but to create a new reality, write a new chapter, walk a new path, you are here. And wherever next happens to be,

let it unfold. because you chose it. Let it evolve because it's who you are. Leave the stands and make your way to this stage where sure the stakes are higher but so is the upside. I often talk about the power of looking over our shoulders at those highs and lows from time to time. Not because they have power over us but because they have made us powerful. Look at all you've endured. See all that you've overcome. And for what? Well, to put it simply, for the gift currently at your fingertips. The chance to say years from now, that sure you lost yourself, things became chaotic, confusing.

convoluted, maybe you were unsure, maybe at times you even felt alone, but those times, the same times that could have kept you down, instead reminded you what you were capable of becoming. You don't get the light at the end of the tunnel without walking through the darkness. And so to remember that, that all this has unfolded, To bring about something beautiful on the other side, well, that just might be the perspective that you've needed, that you've left behind. The world will only give you what you ask for. And so right here, right now, instead of accepting a continuation of your past, how about demanding an evolution of yourself? That game of life awaits.

And so for your sake and the world's, don't be afraid to play. Goodbyes are tiny beginnings. Sunsets. They grant a very special kind of permission. A green light to take all the value and the beauty, all the life lived, and carry it into tomorrow. Which sounds easy enough. But then again, on paper, so does running a marathon or climbing Mount Everest. And I'd wonder, how could something be painful and transformative?

How could something break me and be good for me? It's not hard to see the dissonance there, right? But here's the thing. Oddly enough, that seemingly paradoxical experience is consistent. Consistent throughout our lives, appearing every time we grow. Our darkest moments feel like endings,

perhaps because we're hanging on to what was, the ideas that felt like home. But in actuality, those moments, those goodbyes, are already the beginning of something new. The same way midnight's sparks the beginning of a new calendar day right in the heart of darkness, unbeknownst to us while the world is turned off and our minds are asleep. A hello in disguise. When we said goodbye,

my heart immediately declared war on my mind. Why? Because her not being there didn't make sense. Because when you care about something, you fight for that thing, because goodbyes, well, they signify change. And I liked this chapter. But my brain fired right back. Right idea, just wrong time. What's the reality of this situation? Do you ask yourself that? It said, letting go can be the hardest thing and the right thing simultaneously that I should know the rules. And so goodbyes were said and sons they set. And we went to sleep in separate beds, not knowing anything about the future except that it would be different. Way different than today. And immediately in comes the heart. Picks up the mic, tap tap, is this thing on, check one, two.

Hey, make sure you're aware of what's gone. Make sure you spend your time thinking of about what you don't have. See the blank pages they used to have writing. You see the empty space that used to be occupied. Make sure you shine that spotlight on what was once there. Oh, it's empty? How does that make you feel? Asks the heart.

Then the door opens, in comes the brain, the pragmatist, more direct, certainly more matter of fact. Says, hey, time to move. You have things to build and places to go. You can't let that blood pumping organ get in the way of what really matters here. Place up your shoes. Open the door, go make a name for yourself, kid. Go be that guy.

You get what you focus on, remember? Focus on the reality, the process, the analytics. Data doesn't lie. Your heart does, though. I let them fight it out for a few. Our desire for faction so deeply ingrained that I feel like I'm looking down at myself while my right half fights my left half. How best do we go forward here?

Right, wrong, yes, no, stop, go, before realizing, like so many things the truth hides in the gray space. Maybe in an obtuse way, they both want the same thing. The truth is it hurts. because change hurts, but that doesn't mean I've lost more than I've gained. It doesn't mean that yesterday's memories won't impact the minutes that make up tomorrow. Nothing is disappearing into thin air here. This isn't a magic trick. The time spent doesn't suddenly become meaningless. No, it comes along.

Because I'll continue to move along and those moments are now me. So recalibrate. Acknowledge that. When I watch a movie, see a concert, go on a breathtaking hike, run up the coast in the morning, they are experiences that take me somewhere beyond the physical. Their peak experiences. But they are not forever. And interestingly enough, upon their completion, they're not quite gone either.

home for themselves somewhere in the soul, like a candle that as small as it might burn is never truly extinguished, a light to help guide the way forward. And so when we find ourselves in the dark, how powerful that we remember to reach for it. As the saying goes, you have everything you need. And you do because of everywhere you've been and everyone that's helped keep your soul ablaze. You are the continuation of the best story ever written. No hero makes it on his own. And so that night, I decided to mix things up a bed. Sit under the bright lights of the South Florida sky, glistening pieces of wisdom that share for free. And the moon, that moon, which I recently learned we can only see because the sun's light reflects off of it.

Perhaps they too knew each other in a previous life. But me, I got in my car, drove out to the beach and nice change of scenery. Figured it would be a real treat to hear myself think, to find clarity. Climmed up onto a lifeguard stand, let my feet dangle over the edge, and just looked out. Watched the waves crash on the sand. The clock would strike midnight soon, and while the world slept, I would be given a brand new day.

And what a relief, because the previous one was painful. The previous one hurt. The previous one. broke me. But as I sat there, waves crashing, feet dangling, I was starting to feel like those little pieces just might come together to comprise something meaningful. As Hemingway put it, the world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places. Well, under those stars, I felt like I could be strong. Like once again, I could be anything. And the heart of and the head can bicker all they want.

But they're saying the same things just through each other. One sees what's no longer there, the other sees what's next, and that's what goodbyes do. Force us to look around and realize what we've become as we start the next journey. Eyes a little wider, soul shining a little brighter, because of her, because of me, because of the blank spaces because of what will someday occupy them because of what it all means. And just like that, midnight. Quiet, calm. Those waves they crashed and they crashed and they crashed celebrating the new day.

They've certainly been here before and they'll be here tomorrow long after I come and go. And in a way my impermanence is what makes the now. so precious why it all matters why the sun and moon conspire to shine light on this very lifeguard stand at this very moment in time reminding me that down is not out wandering is not lost that I am stronger than I've ever been and sometimes it takes a goodbye to remind us I spent some time in Roanoke Virginia one of the most beautiful places I've ever lived. It's this little valley surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And across the street from where I lived was a park. You could look over in the evening and you would see hundreds of fireflies flying around. I always thought it was such a cool thing, you know, bringing back to when I was young, when I was a kid, and it was such a thrill in running around trying to chase those things. And seeing this day in and day out let me to think, you know, 24, 25 years later about all the things that have changed in my life. Back then, life was pretty straightforward.

You know, as a child, you place your value on what feels right in the present. You're not thinking about two years down the road or wondering what others are going to think. Your creativity and your sense of exploration are running on all cylinders. Then something happens. We begin to understand the way of things. We see what's valued in society. We see what's expected. We see how success is defined.

And so begins our ascent up the ladder. And rung by rung, we climb. Looking above us, below us to see where others are. See how fast they've moved in relation to us. And eventually this coincides with how we see ourselves. And as you know, how you see yourself is the best indicator. of what you will become. Which is why when so many people aren't happy with their day to day,

that's a huge red flag. That's breathing, that's not living. Folks have been climbing this ladder their entire lives and never stopped to ask if it's where they were meant to be. Maybe the top of the community ladder isn't what you want. But you never thought you only acted. And if you don't think, if you don't ask yourself the question, you will climb and you will climb and you will climb until you burn out. I try and spend a few minutes every day thinking about this.

It's the most important thing I can spend time on. It's my life. It's more important than green paper. It means more than the opinions of others. It's the backbone of everything. Everything around me and the meaning I give it stems from how I'm. identify myself who I am, which brings me back to those fireflies, to running around on a hot summer evening, not having a care in the world. There is something intrinsically perfect about those

moments. Life is about peak experiences, joy, excitement, so that you never lose that spark, because it's all that separates us from every other being on the planet. If we don't have that, what do we have? What separates us from ants moving dirt? Monotonous action based on instinct. There's just no thrill in that. Why not create a life that allows you to feel that excitement every day? Don't act because you're supposed to.

Act because you so desperately want to that there's no other option. because you couldn't live without the adventure, you couldn't pass on the experience. Here's a secret. If you become fixated on a life that means nothing to you, at some point you will probably get to the top. And from there, you will have a beautiful view of everything you missed out on.

So maybe there is something to the whole chasing firefly routine. Maybe a four-year-old, running after a glowing bug with a jar deserves more credit than he's given.