Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong | Powerful Motivational Speeches Compilation

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong: This episode acts as a reminder that our strength comes from our struggle...

Why is it that when we look back on our lives, it's never the easy days or the simplicity. It's not the calm that changes our reality or makes us who we are. Don't get me wrong, calm and simplicity, they're wonderful, but they're not transformative. And why would they be? Why would we change or seek to obtain more without a reason or incentive? It's times of struggle, of turbulence. It's when life was hard that we had to rethink who we are. Reshape the way we look at the world.

Because without chaos, you don't get calm. Without the storm, you don't get those crazy neon colors and golden rays it leaves as it passes by. In order to triumph in any capacity or any area of life, there's always a sacrifice that must be made. The adversity is the fire that forges it. that forges the iron. There's a saying hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.

It's a cycle. This is generally used in a sociopolitical sense, and I think in a lot of ways it applies today, but where I've really found it useful, where I've found value in it is at the personal level. Because what I've noticed is that growth also appears to have a cyclical nature. And when we're in a rough situation or overcoming an obstacle, we have to push, we fight, we grow. Sometimes without even realizing it, we achieve a result.

And by default, this transformation that in one way or another makes us something new. But then it becomes easy to level out. Right? And that's the challenge. It creates this period of stagnation. It's like we made the jump and it becomes real easy to stay there. And that's why I have found value in when life is not providing resistance to manufacture some. Because that's the only way to grow. Progress is happiness.

Victor Frankel and Mansearch for meaning, you know, he says purpose is to find from struggle. If things are too calm or simple or quiet, life begins to lack meaning. And that's never a spot we want to be. Life is about the pursuit of something. You just have to figure out what that blank will be. You get to decide which mountain to climb. There's a story about a butterfly making its way out of a cocoon. It makes a little hole.

It starts attempting to push its way out. Someone walks by. They see it struggling and open the cocoon up to help the butterfly out, right? Thinking that they did this great deed. But in doing so, that butterfly has now locked. its ability to use its wings to fly. Why? Because the strength that was necessary to fly

would have been forged when he fought his way out. The butterfly was deprived of the very thing it needed to become something more, and that's the point. It's easy to get lost in the now and seek to eliminate everything that doesn't make the moment more comfortable to remove that, which doesn't make things easier. But whether we're talking about collectively

or the complacency in our individual lives, we have to remember that avoiding discomfort isn't the answer. When your biggest problem is Amazon taking five days to deliver or that your feelings are hurt by someone's comments or opinions on social media, you've lost track of yourself. You may be living in a world lacking the resistance necessary for growth. Maybe it's time to ask what matters.

And I remember when I lived in Boston, I'd walk around listening to podcast downtown, and I'll never forget hearing Ryan Holiday differentiating between passion and purpose. He called passion temporary, a dopamine hit. It's the excitement before the project begins, the beginning of a journey, the honeymoon phase. But passion alone falls short. And it falls short because anything worthwhile is hard. It tests us. It repeatedly presents us with those metaphorical cocoons we have to fight. We have to earn our stripes, grow our wings, and if we stop at passion, there's no reason to battle on.

To take the punches, knowing that they will create for us a tomorrow full of infinite possibility, and that's where we need purpose. That's why it matters. We need something bigger to march towards. A destination that's meaningful. To remind us that those challenging times, they're not a burden. There is no poor me here. They're the fire that sharpens us.

That whispers to us, not only the importance of carrying on, but the power contained within our lives, ourselves to do so. This world, it is not stacked against you. It's never the problem or the obstacle. No, it's the opportunity laid out at your feet. And it's in those very times when we're uncomfortable, when we're unsure, when we don't know where to draw our strength. That we need to remember it comes within. It's an idea that is brought to life through courage, through understanding, through the trials and tribulations of life that didn't intimidate or hold you back, knowing that life has given you everything you need to blaze your trail. So don't be afraid to let it take you somewhere new. 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 amputed way.

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 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 finish line 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? Need not be long.

That is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. A foundation is not made in a day. It's not flimsy or weak. It's what holds everything together. And without it, you have useless pieces. Thoreau mentions a castle in the air, a goal. The answer resting above us, hovering over everything and everyone.

Until we put life into it, that castle remains four walls and empty space. It stays part of an imaginary world. See, most people never get there because they don't understand. They have complete authority over what's real. They set the guidelines with a magic that looks a lot like. like a single step forward with fiction that very closely resembles progress. Edison said, opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls and looks like hard work. It's not that people are lazy. It's not that they're incapable.

It's that they don't realize how small a step is required to build momentum, to turn a snowflake into an avalanche. See, you look at that castle in the sky and you shake your head. You think how nice it would be. You flip on the TV, fantasize about million-dollar homes, debate whether athletes are officially elite. When you could be building a foundation for yourself, doing something for you. All those things you want can be realized, every one of them.

But the road to excellence means nothing if you don't believe you're worthy of it. You are. Start building. You will be blown away by where this life can take you where you can end up. Your goals take shape the minute they enter your brain. Never has there been such a powerful tool as the human mind. The same entity that can build a bridge to anything in the world can shackle you down.

Listen, that visualization, that dream is there. It's there and it's very real. Not to keep you out, but to invite you in. And you will see that the only true fiction in your life is the narrative you use that holds you back. You want that castle in the air? Get it. Stop dreaming about it, wishing for it, and make it...

Part of my morning routine every day is to listen to the commencement speech Admiral McRaven gave at the University of Texas, where he's talking about 10 lessons that he learned during his time as a Navy SEAL going through Bud's training. And he positions them in a way that will really help anybody through life if they implement these concepts. It's an incredible speech.

And my favorite lesson of the 10 is around what he calls the sugar cookie. And I want to delve into it a little deeper because it's such a perfect metaphor. It's so relatable. And so for a quick overview, basically during buds, All the attendees were called to line up for uniform inspection. And the instructors would walk by and check out their uniforms. They had to be perfect, right?

As McRaven says, uniform press, belt buckle shiny, no smudges on the shoes. But the point of the exercise that a lot of people really didn't understand is that the uniforms were never going to be good enough. The inspectors or instructors would always find something. wrong. And the punishment was to go run down into the water with your clothes on, get soaking wet, then roll around in the sand, and you know, it sticks to you all day. That's why they call it the sugar cookie. And what he says is, you were never going to succeed. The perfect uniform was impossible. The instructors wouldn't allow it. But the interesting thing is that some people

simply couldn't handle that idea. They didn't understand that no matter how well you prepare or perform, sometimes you're going to end up a sugar cookie. That is life. It's such a powerful concept. It's a life lesson that must be understood before someone can effectively make their way in the world. The idea that life simply isn't fair.

And those who refuse to accept that are pulled into this void of projecting out and looking to assign blame as opposed to continuing a march forward and reshaping the odds, right? A tough lesson to learn. It's tough to work and work and work and not get that immediate validation you hope for. It's tough that life drops obstacles before us

that we weren't prepared for and don't feel equipped to take on. It's tough when people around you get rewarded or promoted or acknowledged for doing the same, less than you. And if you let it, it will eat you up. It will taint your view of the world. It can close the door to your own self-improvement and open it up for comparing, contrasting, projecting, blaming toxicity. You know, it really hit home for me when McRaven says, look, some people just couldn't understand that no matter what they did, they were going to be a sugar cookie.

They couldn't rise above the apparent unfairness. They didn't realize that they were being prepared for the reality of life, not the gentle, predictable, fair world we often feel is owed to us. So the ones who made it out of the class, well, they took their hits, they dealt with their discomfort, they learned to expect more out of themselves. Right? There simply was no room for the victim mentality there. Those who wouldn't help themselves, they got weeded out, left behind. It really is the perfect metaphor for life. And as far as I'm concerned, the only way, way to ensure defeat is to divert responsibility to the outside world. The only way to remain powerless is to feel bad for yourself, to feel angry that life isn't

what it is in the movies. Again, hard to hear. In a perfect world, hard work is always rewarded. The correct actions always have positive consequences, but that's not always reflective of reality. As the saying goes, it's not your fault where you start or when things you can't control present themselves and make your life challenging. you didn't choose that hand, not your fault.

But guess what? Where you go from here is your responsibility. It is your responsibility to move beyond the cosmic injustice you can do nothing about and create a better situation, a better outcome, a better world. How many times in life do we find ourselves looking in the mirror? I was saying, hey, I did everything I was supposed to do. Why am I being punished?

Why is this happening to me? Why did I take that L? On paper, every box was checked. I've asked the question. We've all asked the question. And every time we do, we're placed at a crossroads of sorts. Do we go one way? Let it derail us, distort our worldview.

Do we let it alter how we perceive ourselves? Or do we go the other way? Do we acknowledge that life is a marriage of highs and lows? And to make something of it, we shouldn't feel slighted by the challenges, but accept them. Let them make us better. I've learned this again and again. I learned this after I spent four months on a project in 2014 that essentially bombed. And it was the first time of my life that I felt that. It's like how? I put everything into this. How could I get nothing back? Well, it turns out I got the world back. I just didn't see it at the time.

I learned one of the most powerful lessons to learn. The universe is indifferent to your agenda. All it does is present an obstacle course in front of you and allows you to navigate as you see fit. Will you focus on the negative? Will you have resentment towards life's injustices? Because a lot of people do. A lot of people can't get past it so they hide from the struggle

that would ultimately become their strength. And see, I'd much rather work to be the type of person who finds the positive, who carries on, who doesn't take hardship personal because it's not a personal thing. In fact, let's remove the emotion from it altogether. Let's focus on getting through.

As a good friend of mine says, if you're on a hiking trail and you get bitten by a snake, are you going to chase the snake into the woods so you can kill it and get your vengeance? Or are you going to go to the hospital and get the medical help you need? Are you going to focus on what's necessary for your betterment to move on, to grow? Every time you accept responsibility for a situation, every time you point at yourself as the one who can make something good happen, you move forward. You stack the odds in your favor.

You position yourself for something bigger and better, and it doesn't mean it will happen overnight, or even that you are entitled to an outcome. But those who remain empowered through life's trials and tribulations they usually find a way. Not because they deserved it, but because they simply did not stop. They did not waste time blaming the universe

and instead created something of value. They got over being that metaphorical sugar cookie and started thinking about the big picture. They accepted the defeats and they learned. They made a pact with the face looking back at them in the mirror that sometimes we don't get the ideal hand, but it will always be up to you, how to play it. There is always a win, always a positive, and to remember that is to create a world of your making.