Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - START 2022 WITH A CLEAR MIND | Best Motivational Speeches Compilation

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

"The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size" - Albert Einstein

So I recently came across a quote. It says, I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. It made me think about sort of an undervalued aspect of growth or progress. It is the idea that we're not supposed to have the answers. We're not supposed to know. Life is more about the ability, like the mental, to be able to take what comes at you, the highs, the lows, the ups, the downs, understand them,

adjust your strategy and move on, right? Because there are things about the world that you can't change. There are things about the world that we're not going to like. It's no secret. There's a lot of suffering in life. And it's the ability to take that and rise above it to create something of substance that ultimately defines us, right, that makes or breaks us. I can personally look back and think about the times that perfection was my enemy. I didn't want to start a new venture or release some content or, you know, you can fill in the blank. I didn't want to do it because I told myself it wasn't perfect.

Well, perfect is really a mask, you know, for insecurity. It's a top layer. It's being scared. It's being fearful. You don't have to know the answers. And in fact, the most beautiful things around us,

the most important things around us, the creators of those things, their founders, they didn't know exactly how life would unfold. They didn't know that. They had a vision, and most importantly, they had belief in themselves to adjust.

They knew that things wouldn't be perfect. You know, they knew that life wouldn't roll out a red carpet, but they also knew that within themselves was the power and the strength to make the most of any situation to learn and to move on. You know, life is about adjusting your sales. And I feel like it gets lost in the ether. Like people don't talk about adjusting as much as they talk about planning, consistency, right? All these things that are super important, but they're half the battle.

Because things don't go the way we drew them up. And the ones who get discouraged and disheartened, well, as they're going through the process, they look around and go, wait a minute, this is tough. This isn't what I planned. You know, when it's in one's ability to understand that, of course, it's not, you know, how you planned it. That's not what it's about. Winning and losing is about finding a way to win despite the setbacks, the obstacles, the highs, the lows, the lows, and the ups and the downs. So what does this mean, right? Where's the impact? Where's the value?

Well, it means more focus should be on simply starting, simply putting yourself in a position to let life come at you so you can react to it, then sitting there waiting for the perfect launch pad. because there is no perfect moment just like there is no perfect path. There is an individual and his or her ability to make the most of the situation. Put yourself in that position.

Allow life to happen and believe that you're capable of managing those components because you are. And maybe it's struggle at first. You know, it's like the recipe doesn't change, the context changes.

There will always, be challenges, you know, it's their magnitude and the context in which they happen that changed. But once you learn to handle that, once you learn that, hey, look, it's life. It really puts you in a place to live a more productive, healthy, happy existence. You have the power within yourself to do amazing things. Let it happen. Life is the manifestation of stories. stories we tell ourselves about the world and our place within it, rules that we've constructed and we respect we adhere to. They dictate the outcomes we get.

They become our reality. Because to establish a parameter means at some point there's a line that we don't cross, right? And there are obvious lines that we point to and we say no thanks. For example, our values, right? I won't do X because, well, it will hurt someone I love. Or legal parameters. I won't do Y because I know the repercussions, they're too much. It's not in my self-interest.

And these are obvious. These are talked about. We're aware of these stopping points. But I want to talk about a different set of rules. The stories we're writing without realizing we're doing it. How we think we're running a sprint. but I have no idea that there's heavy weight on our shoulders holding us down, and you can't take that weight off if you don't know it's there.

And this all came to me a few months ago. I was in L.A. for the weekend, having lunch with some incredible entrepreneurs. They've done some amazing things. One of them sold a dating app for hundreds of millions of dollars, another one a health care company, another one had a very successful food distributing business, and I'm sitting there kind of blown away. And my priority was to listen, not wrong, run my mouth or fabricate or impress, but to simply observe what creates this type of result.

I was listening to Alex Mayer who created Zeus, talk about his upbringing. He came to the U.S. as an immigrant from Iran and worked his way up from nothing. It's not like these folks were given the world. They took it. And it took me about three minutes to find a commonality in their worldview. To me, it couldn't be more evident. It was impossible to miss. They don't look at life how I do, or at least how I did.

See, the story I told revolved around my parameters. Sure, I had moments of boldness, I pushed myself, I worked hard, but I looked at life in terms of what it would allow. Here's how things are. Okay, how can I stretch that? But that's like repainting or adding onto a house that was already built, right? There's only so much flexibility, so much. you can do with that. But these guys are going around the table talking like little kids on Christmas,

talking about life like it's a game, talking about opportunity like it's an apple waiting to be picked from a tree right outside. There was no, what will the world allow? It was with a smile, anticipation, and self-believe, what can I make? And Alex, who I mentioned earlier, sold Zeus, created Menser Box, and he loves beef, eats it all the time, right? And so it's become his next entrepreneurial venture, a healthy beef stick company, and every thought seems to revolve around that. How can he take something he loves and share it with the world? His imagination is now driving his thought process, which drives his action.

Not parameters, not someone else's reality, but possibility. See, I left the table with this feeling I've never really had before. It's like someone tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me of the freedom contained in every single step. Not flexibility, but freedom, like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. Who cares if you mess up? Who cares if you lose? Who cares? That's part of this game we're playing. A game where reality isn't an obligation to be lived, it's an opportunity to be explored. It's not about what you don't have. It's being grateful for everything that brought you to right now. because right now is a perpetual launching pad.

You know, growth is learning, and that afternoon I learned to take life way less seriously. To enjoy it. To let imagination drive every step, because the difference is some of us build because we don't want to lose. We don't want us to come to fear and not meeting our potential, right?

We fear being inadequate, falling short. We see obstacles. Some of us, we build to capture the beauty, the excitement. That makes the difference. And look, I'm not presenting you empirical data. I don't have all the answers, but I'm willing to bet that years from now, looking back, that simple understanding will have played a substantial role in whatever comes next. The rules changed, and so did the path.

Let's not become so focused on each thing. footstep, that we lose sight of where they're collectively taking us. What are you building? Why are you here? To play by someone else's rules or to transform yourself and by default the world around you? See, reality is fluid. It's malleable and the beauty is in that process of creating a ship leaving the harbor has infinite possibility. Unlimited potential and that gives it its power.

There's no right turn or wrong turn. The only way to lose is to stand still, to think that horizon in the distance is too far or not for you. See, a harbor is not a stopping point, it's a beginning. So take control over that world, push it, test it, see what it has to offer, throw your interests and your curiosities against the world, the wall, see what sticks. See what ignites your soul.

Test the universe because life it rewards the bold. Those courageous enough to step outside their front door and not follow but design. Those who know things are the way they are simply because others before them had the courage to make it so.

Well, now it's your time. Well, now it's your turn. You defeated the one in 400 trillion odds stacked against your birth. You navigated through your low points. You've done enough to get to this very moment, this instant. For the mistakes that brought you here will become the wisdom that leads you forward. That takes you to places you never thought possible.

where exactly that is is entirely up. Like I said upstairs, it's been an amazing trip, so last day, and gonna make it count. Sometimes it's what we don't say that echoes the loudest. What we don't do that has the greatest consequences, where we don't go, that ultimately gets us lost. I remember as a teenager applying to college, I was working on the admissions essay, I was brainstorming with my grandmother, talking over possible topics and approaches.

And she read me this quote that's sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, but that's beside the point. The quote states, 20 years from now, you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sales, explore, dream, discover. I thought this was the perfect bridge to the next chapter in my life. The latest horizon, the newest adventure. I thought it was incredible, and it was. It was exactly what I needed, and so on to that next adventure I went.

And here's the thing. As life unfolded, disequified, somehow transformed from exploration and dreaming and discovery into the question, well, what am I supposed to do? Somehow without my paying attention, life turned into a checklist. A question I couldn't get wrong. A test I needed to make sure I didn't fail. It's amazing how quickly we forget the infinite breadth of life. because we're focusing on the dotted line before us, the one we're supposed to walk. Sometimes we're so fixated on what the expectation is

that we don't ask ourselves where these expectations are coming from. Who is so significant and wise that they know what's best for you to a greater extent than you do? See how that's an important question. and also one you can lose in your periphery as you follow that dotted line before you. When you have a destination in mind, hopes, dreams, ambitions, well, that's an adventure. When someone else has a destination in mind for you, whether this authority is imaginary or not, that's obedience. And sometimes the greatest disservice we can do to ourselves is to not.

is to not stop and think, to not stop and ask ourselves where we're going and why. Do you remember when you were a child and you got into trouble, right? Sometimes you'd get sent to your room. And for me, this was agony. When it was punishment, I wanted to be anywhere but confined within those walls. I hated being sent to my room. And then finally, the door would open. My parents would say, Eddie, you can come out now.

I'd go outside, play basketball for a little bit, and then oftentimes I'd find myself right back in my room. Happy, you know, playing with my toys, whatever I was doing, not a care in the world, and it's like, what changed? Nothing but the context. Same me, same room, same toys, same whatever I was doing. It was, however, no longer a punishment, and I think this realization is worth exploring. We may not realize, we may not even be able to articulate it, but I think we long for control over our lives.

We long to walk our own path. And in this situation, the path led me right back to where I was. Sometimes though, the path leads us in the opposite direction, far away to distant world. The end destination is not as important as the fact that we chose it. that we asked ourselves why and that we believe in the answer and immerse ourselves in its execution. So when Mark Twain talks about the things

that we don't do holding more weight in our hearts, it's because those things we tend to skip over are often the very things that breathe life into our souls. We'll go to school to get good grades, to get a 9 to 5, to get a promotion, to get a mortgage on a home, but the audacity to open that photography studio, the nerve to think you could rent a van and travel the country,

the delusion to think you could start that routine that will get you in the physical shape you've always dreamed of. See, we're lucky and fortunate to have the things that we have. The quality of life we lead now far exceeds those that came before us. life is convenient, incredibly convenient. But what is convenience if it comes at the expense of purpose, of meaning in life, because that's what steers the ship? A crisis of meaning ultimately mitigates everything else.

There is no exploration without meaning. And without exploration tomorrow becomes a repetition of today. not an evolution. And what's incredible, truly incredible, is that our purpose can be rediscovered, our paths redefined. How, by having a long conversation with, you guessed it yourself,

by putting the phone in another room, by disconnecting the Wi-Fi and spending time with you, something along the lines of dear self, what matters to me in this world? Where am I going right now? is where I'm going right now aligned with what matters to me in this world. And sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no great, but what we have now is a foundation to work off of.

An awareness that should be celebrated, that you created. It's so easy to walk through life and never have that conversation. It's so easy to sleepwalk to the tune of someone else's song, the beat of other people's drums. But when you open your eyes, you see the correlation between your thoughts and your actions, your actions and your reality. You realize that when you wake up,

that tendency to ask yourself what you have to do today, to reflect on your problems, those questions you assumed were normal, that you never gave much thought to, well, now you'll see you can dismantle that knows you. Now you'll see that if you can ask yourself what you have to do, you can just as easily ask yourself what you want to do,

what you get to do, what life is inviting you to do. If you can reflect on your problems, you are just as capable of reflecting on the opportunity at your fingertips. If you can spend time dwelling on whether you're walking the obligatory dotted line that's been laid out in front of you, You're just as capable of redrawing that line and allowing it to pull you into a new dimension. Listen again, 20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sales, explore, dream, discover. Explore, but for you. Wander down those paths that have for so long peaked your curiosity. Try things you once felt like other people were entitled to, but you'd never given yourself permission. Be that for yourself, because no one will come up to you and randomly give you that green light. Dream, because without building your castles in the air, as Thoreau calls them, When you live your entire life on the ground, you'll never hit targets that you don't create. And sure, there'll be a time that only you see the destination.

Great, that's life, but with each step forward as it becomes more real for you, it will make sense to others as well. Trust each step like it is in and of itself a miracle. And you'll find in time that that's exactly what each step was. And lastly, discover. Discover who you are, what you're capable of becoming. As Emerson said, to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. To forge your own path, build your own life, stay true to your own heart is courage.

So sail away, because you have the ability. you are strong enough and because the story you're about to write doesn't continue on until you turn the page on today's chapter. There's a rope. It's stretched, taught about 10 feet up parallel to the ground. You're holding on with both hands, just hanging there. You're not alone. There are people to your left and to your right all holding on just like you are.

A few minutes pass, then a few more, and suddenly this little realization trickles into the back of your head. This is not going to be a cakewalk. In fact, it's starting to hurt. You've moved beyond that phase of simply being an unfamiliar territory, and now you know where you are. You're uncomfortable. Out of sheer curiosity, you look to your left, you look to your right, and you start noticing that these people next to you are beginning to let go. One by one, they're making the decision that it simply isn't worth it.

So they make it stop, and so could you. But you decide not yet. You hold on. Maybe it's curiosity, maybe in some convoluted way it's ambition. But you separate yourself from the negative, from the voice convincing the people next to you to just lift their fingers and make it go away. Somehow you're floating above all that. Another minute goes by, another and another,

but it doesn't make a difference because you're focusing on the seconds. Because anyone can do anything for one second, it just so happens that they add up. It happens that they create minutes. And after a little while, you again glanced to your left, you look to your right, and this time everyone is gone. This time you're alone.

The last one standing, hanging on, on this rope? And you think about it, there was no definitive moment when this result crystallized. It was a product of what you didn't do. It's the result of not letting go. To someone passing by, you did nothing remarkable. When others let go, you simply hung on.

And it turns out that that can make all the difference. So many different thoughts, opinions, approaches regarding success, that magical word. What is it? What does it mean? How do you get there with reality swirling around you? Problems, derailing, pushing you back. We're inclined to believe that getting what we want

needs to be some huge production, some monumental shift. And I do not agree with that. Success is seeing the big picture. It is hanging on through the negative, Looking past the now. It's what you don't do. That fight in you that separates your goals from everything else. Look, there's always a point when you're tired, when your fingers start to slip. When a simple decision takes the pain intertwined in the present moment and makes it disappear. But right now is not what you're after. Anyone can have right now. The goal, the finished, is down the road. It requires that you hang tight, that you strap in and ride this thing out. If you want it, it's there. It's that simple. It's not a trick or a riddle.

It's a question. When others let go, will you hang on?