Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - The Best Revenge Is Letting Go & Moving On With Your Life | Inspirational Speech

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

Your greatest opportunity is the present moment... This episode is about letting go of the past and focusing on the greatest gift afforded to you: the now. Regardless of how you got here, the present moment is the beginning of the rest of your life and a chance to right wrongs and begin again.  

Human beings don't see we interpret. We don't take in what happens. We take in the implication of what happens. Everything in our world is story. It's similar to the idea of two ideologically different news organizations, right, reporting on the same event. Neither will be completely factual. They'll both uphold their individual narratives. They're not black and white.

They're interpreting gray space. And our individual lives are no different. We are our own broadcasting channels. Using data to support our individual narratives. See, we know what the story's going to say before the story occurs because we will make it so. We'll make life fit our beliefs.

That's what it means to be human. And so here's where the value lives in the context of this moment. message when we find ourselves in a consistent state of despair or frustration or anxiety. It's a fool's errand to look for solutions in the external world. Because everything we find, everything we come across will support our current beliefs, our current story. That's what we'll keep playing in our heads.

And it's why money can't bring fulfillment and another person can't take you from incomplete to content. It's why status will never equate to happiness. Those acquisitions are like putting premium fuel in a car with a broken engine. It's just not the answer that we hoped it would be. To change your world, you must change your story. Whatever it is that needs to be changed. The location, the objective, the characters, maybe the journey altogether, but it's the neural network behind your eyes that must change,

not the detail it takes in. And so if you feel stuck or feel like where you want to be seems unrealistic, you have to know right now that the very fact you think that way is the problem. So ask yourself, not your girlfriend or your boss or your neighbor, but ask yourself what a turnaround looks like. Do you know? Do you know?

Or have you acclimated to being unhappy? Have you even asked yourself what happiness looks like? Or is your personal broadcasting channel so hell-bent on ensuring your life outlook stays the way it is that it's not even paying attention to the data it takes in? See, I believe wholeheartedly that the first step in any facet of transformation is remembering that you have control, that things in your life, that bring you down or hold you back can be changed. In fact, the very things working against you can work for you, but you have to be aware. You have to think about it.

Now, I'm not a believer in magic, right? I don't think you sit back, say, I don't want to be unhappy ever again, snap your fingers and smile until the end of eternity. But I do believe that once we're aware of our manufactured shackles and our self-imposed limitation, we can start chipping away, doing the one, two or three small things every day,

tiny swings at the tree until it falls. If it's, I'm not happy with my work life, well, what does a better situation look like? What bridges that gap? I'll wake up 20 minutes earlier on weekdays and master Microsoft Excel. I'll send one message on LinkedIn asking an expert about the field I want to move into.

I'll read 20 pages a day in a book related to business. You think those things are small? See what they look like compounded, in a year. Not only that, this is the most important part. You are taking the power back. You're taking control. And that's what feels good. That's where we get our identity. You get a little disappointed at how you've let your physique slip when you look in the mirror. Don't be sad about it every day. Again, ask yourself what the inverse looks like and start doing small things. Subtract one sports drink and add one green smoothie.

Double your water intake. Do a 10-minute daily workout on YouTube. The pieces are out there. And to find yourself again is to realize that they're out there. Realize that you're playing a movie on loop in your head that isn't right. It's just not you. And well, what movie do you want to be playing in an ideal world? through the library, find it, click play,

and start doing the small things that make it real. There's so much power in progress. I've seen this unfold in different areas of my life, but particularly as a writer, as a speaker, it's like you identify who you want to be, you start making tiny steps, and after a while, you're surrounded by the change that you've created. How can you not believe something that you're starting to live?

It has to become your identity because it is you. It's around you. You breathe it. So look around and realize the malleability of your situation. And if what you find is not you, good. Here is your opportunity to tear down the old and construct the new. You can do that. Because you have control.

Because it's within your grasp. So start the new movie, the new story. Make yourself the hero. And set out to find yourself again. Could it be that the answers to our most challenging questions are so small that they're brushed off as insignificant. that in pursuing that bulldozer we think is necessary to knock the door down, we refuse again and again the key that would simply open it.

Why is our first instinct to think our next action needs to be as big or as glamorous as that intended result? Again and again, my default has been to look for some brilliant monumental insight. or some secret answer that would unroll, like a scroll containing a treasure map. But again and again, I learn and I relearn that what I need, what is required, is so reasonable. It's so accessible that it almost feels like the universe has a sense of humor. It's sitting back and chuckling while we run around with keys in our pockets

looking for a sledgehammer to break the door down. This is kind of a funny story. So last year I had my first year old within live event and Evan Carmichael was one of the speakers and after the event we were talking about YouTube, right? He says, why don't you swing by? We'll look at your channel. We'll see if I can offer any suggestions or pointers and I gladly accepted the offer. And so I showed up later in the evening. He's got his laptop open.

He's running all these tests, right? there's graphs and there's charts and comparison tables. And my first question is, obviously, what are you doing? And he says, I'm testing my YouTube titles and thumbnails. And I'm thinking, interesting. Here's a guy who makes so much content. He's got 378 million views, right? Why are you exhausting time and energy on this?

So I asked him, Evan, does it really matter? I mean, if your thumbnail pictures orange or yellow, or if there's a face on the left or right side, or if it's capitalized or not, right? If it's good, people will show up and they'll watch it. Isn't that what matters? Well, it turns out I was wrong. In fact, I couldn't be more wrong.

And when you're talking about a channel with millions of impressions, making a small change in color could mean your videos are clicked 1% more, which means thousands, if not millions, more views. Which means it's shared more, seen more, which means the channel grows. And that's not from him going back,

and recreating and reinventing the wheel. No, it's using the key he has in his pocket right now. And that's the reason I found this so incredible. Because until that moment, I'd always approach the platform with a sledgehammer, using our metaphor. I had this idea that, you know, I truly found to be an epiphany and changed the way I think about things. So I'd get really excited.

I'd make a video about it. I'd release it out to the world. And maybe it wouldn't do so well. You know, people wouldn't watch that particular video, it would just kind of sit there. And my thought was always, all right, hey, it worked for me, must on a hit for everyone else. That's life. On to the next one. Never did I think for a second that, hey, you don't need to recreate the wheel.

You're looking for a bulldozer when you need a key. Right? You need to slightly adjust the titling or make the thumbnail more appealing, right? And the idea is these little tweaks are sometimes all that's required. You know, we think we gotta reach out and find some answer or readjust every aspect of what we're doing, and it's like, no, it's a little thing, and it's right in front of you,

and it's very manageable, and it's very realistic. And believe me, especially for people that aren't content creators, and there's a lot of you listening to this right now. I get how trivial it seems. But isn't that the point? And sure enough, within the next few months, I changed some thumbnail pictures around in two videos that were just sitting there.

I got hundreds of thousands of more views. and I you know as I tend to do look at the bigger picture well how many times in life are you trying to find this monumental answer and it's like nope tweak here adjustment here change the way you are measuring success and it changes your tactics think about productivity and I've been in the same boat I want to be more productive so how well maybe if I get better at scheduling I'll get scheduling tools maybe some time management apps I know I'll do a daily checklist that'll do it that's what I need But in reality, the commonality when I have productive days is they all consist of me waking up, not stressed, having time to think, reflect, plan, and moving on, and it flows into every other aspect in my day.

It doesn't require me to buy some $1,000 productivity course. Big result often requires small, manageable action. And again, the point here is that change can feel overwhelming, because I think the default mechanism, is to assume the next step needs to be as big as that desired result. It's like, oh, I want to climb that mountain, so I have to figure out a way to jump that high. No, that's not true. You have to take small steps many times. And where we should be looking for consistency or something within our grasp or looking for

some small self-contained miracle. You know, everything feels bigger than it is. It's an interesting part about growing up. realize everything's not as big and intimidating and shiny and sparkly as it appears to be. We have the tools right now in real time. In fact, they're very ordinary, very unimpressive, and that's with goals just like people. You know, I grew up seeing pictures of my grandfather, who was an admiral in the Navy talking to American presidents and heads of state, and I'd ask them, you know, how was that? What was that like? And he'd always say,

look, they put their pants on one leg at a time just like I do, just like you do. I think in a lot of ways, you know, we need to take the glamour and the mystique away from the things we want and the people we aspire to be like, right? Big goals are an accumulation of little steps. And quote-unquote successful people or ordinary human beings who have the courage to take those steps. Not for attention or likes or follows, but because they cared and they respected the process enough to stick it out. And so can I and so can you, right? you have everything you need. Whether you're talking about creating on YouTube

or putting yourself in position to conquer the day, learning or emulating those you admire, nothing is otherworldly for you. Sure, you'll have your strengths and your weaknesses because we all do, but there's no magic you need to find or acquire. No bulldozer or sledgehammer needed to lessen the gap between real and ideal. Just the understanding that the key in your pocket, the one you already have, will get you through the door.

It's not a commitment to perfection. It's a commitment to remind yourself that every time you're stuck or overwhelmed or lost, that perhaps you're looking for miracles in the clouds when the solution is simple at your feet. It's not the mountain. It's one rock. It's not the forest. It's one tree. It's not the journey.

It's one step. And as time goes by, you'll find yourself moving. beyond that previous reality. Beyond those looking for the home run or other worldly answers, and beyond the narrative that you don't have what it takes because you do and you always did. You simply had to commit to walking that... Yesterday I drove out a little bit into North Carolina,

parked the car, found a path, and went on a long hike to take in some scenery, think about... think about life holistically, kind of contemplate where I'd go from here and why it matters. Which is always funny to think about, right? The idea of having to carve out time amidst our frantic and often chaotic journey to get somewhere, to, well, define where somewhere is. But I think about that a lot.

Our days consist of so much running around that I can easily forget what even my calculated decisions add up to. Why? It's a simple enough question. Perhaps one I could ask more. Why? What's with this whole get comfortable with discomfort thing? Why do I place so much emphasis on the quote unquote path less traveled? Which is a term that one of my buddies was recently given me a hard time about using in all my speeches, right? It must mean something to me. It's got me here, but is here better than over there? After all, it's not out of the realm of possibility that I'm the one who's missing the mark. And it's okay to examine that possibility. In fact, that's why I'm here. And I bounced this around in my head as I made my way up the trail and noticed as I looked around, everything just felt perfect. Have you ever had one of those moments where it just seems surreal?

The morning was incredible. I loved the sound of the earth under my feet as I took each step, the chirping of the birds in the early morning, the sun making its way through the earth. trees and I thought it's amazing that you can live 20 minutes from this feeling and just never experience it. I guess proof that a decision did not go, to do nothing, is still very much a decision. And in this case, would have been the less desirable one. I'm glad I went. My phone was in my backpack, and for the first time in a while, I didn't even think about it.

My mind was stimulated. My senses were taking in something new, something different, something not my studio or laptop or social media analytics pages. In fact, all that stuff felt kind of trivial now that I was removed from it. And I wondered, why don't I do this more? I thought popped into my head earlier that morning. I thought, hey, that's a cool idea. I just had to get through that initial pushback. The hesitancy of, well, what's the point?

What's the desired outcome of a hike? And after all, this little jaunt is just going to distract you from your work and your progress. But at that moment, I think you have to just shut out reason for a second. You have to remind yourself that there's value, period. Otherwise, we open the door for rationalizing. We talk ourselves out of some of life's beautiful secrets. Sometimes you have to just go. And as I made my way down this trail further and further, I started to feel better.

I felt reassured. Like I had something that I otherwise wouldn't have had, something that's my own. my own. And maybe that is it. Maybe that alone is the reason for everything. To collect those incredible things large and small that we might not have had. After all, isn't life just an accumulation of memories, of experiences that are spread out like a choose-your-ending children's book? And with so much control over the outcome, I think that matter deserves my attention in order to acquire the good stuff, whether it's in a different location or context or time in my life, I still learn again and again that to get that, we have to leave some things behind.

And that's the essence of life. You usually get out what you put in. And I think about that a lot. I think about the forks in the road I've come across, those same ones, the life-altering decisions. I guess it's only human. You know, walking away from that promising career that I spent my whole life building towards. Every once in a while, sure, I miss the security.

Leaving this city and the people that made my life what it was, it still haunts me from time to time, trading permanence and structure for the freedom to condense my life's work into a laptop and take it anywhere in the world. And empowerment can be lonely, right? And I guess I can't help that in the midst of those situations,

the easy decision always feels, It feels like the wrong one. I've just been pulled by the upside. I gravitate towards this grandiose version of what life could be on the mark that I hope to make. And to me, the scariest thing has always been not having the courage to see more, to explore, the phrase, what if has always been my adversary, the monster in the closet, and it's a costly one to slay.

Right? But life is both suffering and infinite beauty. And it's like, you have to be a costly one to slay. And it's like, you have to be a costly one to slay. You have to choose where you're going to endure pain and why that matters so that you can climb the mountain that means everything to you. That makes life worth it. In other words, meaningful discomfort now or painful regret later.

And I strongly believe that life is about pursuing something meaningful. And even the triviality of a hike wants to remind me of this truth. I could be at home playing guitar watching Netflix. Relaxing. I mean, that would have been easier. But there's only one way to catch that sunrise over the trees. And that way is not Netflix. All those beautiful views, they require an output of energy to reach them.

They come with fear of something going wrong and in doubt that perhaps the turn you made wasn't the best one and that's okay. But I believe that happiness to be truly fulfilled requires. There's trade-offs. And with each step, it becomes easier and easier to understand. For the gym rat, it's the discipline and the belief, knowing that muscles break down so that they can be built up.

For the relationship to flourish, it's overcoming disagreement, accommodating the needs of that person that you love, so that they can be the last thing you see before you fall asleep. For the free spirit, it's walking away from what you know. in pursuit of something that excites and invigorates, even if you're not entirely sure what it means. It's about enduring one so that you can collect the other. Now, what you choose to endure and what you choose to collect is up to you, but that's what makes life such a beautiful ride.

A roller coaster taking you through lows to reach highs into darkness to see how life changing the light is when it pushes its way through. Little decisions that become the collage. that explodes off the paper when you step back and look. That's what you get back when you make a point to see more. That's why my love affair with the trivial and the mundane lights my path. It's not just a little thing. It's a microcosm of my everything.

It's my saying yes to the opportunity that we work so hard to ignore in an effort to avoid inconvenience. But a life worth living is not always convenient. You could even argue at times it should be inconvenient. because the higher the climb, the more we give of ourselves, the more precious the world looks from the top down. And the challenging times, the things we sacrifice and leave behind, they're not so much a part of the picture as the paint on your palate.

That in breaking down, you can now recreate using your own ideals, metrics, and guidelines, a world that you now have the ability to transform. That's why life to me is nothing more than color, decision is nothing more than. and paint steps, nothing more than brushstrokes and life, well, life is nothing and everything. Which as the morning breeze reminds me, is a decision that is entirely my own.