Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - TIME IS RUNNING OUT | Best Motivational Speeches | Listen Every Day

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” —Anaïs Nin

Dear Keeper of Dreams, I've written before, but 10 years ago you looked different. Way different. In 2013, it was impossible to miss you. You stood out like a sore thumb. Everywhere I looked, there you were. Your goal was to intimidate. Your power was in crying out worst-case scenarios and pointing me to that fear that always seemed to be buried just beneath the the surface. You sure were something. In a little bit of times past, Keeper of Dreams, it's safe to say you're still there, perhaps as strong as ever, but you're certainly not the same. As I've evolved, so of you, a little more subtle, a little more camouflaged, a little more strategic. See, back then when things were chaotic, when the wheels were coming off the wagon,

all you had to do was scream. All you had to do was wave your hands in the air and tell me the things I wanted were way too dangerous. That getting them would hurt way more than the status quo. All you had to do was tell me I'd be better off looking out the window for the rest of my life wondering what could have been. Because at least I'd be safe. Suffering by that window is far easier than suffering out in the big, bad world. That was your pitch. And for a while it worked.

But ultimately, the pain of staying was too much. The curiosity too great I had to know. I had to see if I could build a world that meant something to. Keeper of Dreams, you failed in holding me down. You lost. At least back then. But as we grow, as the game progresses and the rules change, Keeper of dreams, so have your tactics.

You've improved. You don't attempt to blatantly scare me anymore. Your objective isn't to instill fear out in the open or make me tremble at the thought of an unknown tomorrow. Your objective is to distract me with the now. It's to make it so that I don't think about tomorrow at all. You want me to be so consumed with what I have now that I get lost in it.

wellish in the certainty I've created. You hope I stay comfortable. Because keeper of dreams, nothing is so dangerous as comfort, and you know that. You know it would be both reasonable and easy to focus on maintaining and not growing, to preserve and not to expand. Each chapter in the Book of Life has its seasons.

Now it appears we're in a different kind of winter. It's not as cold, it's not as dark as 2013. I could theoretically now sit by a fire and wait this thing out and how happy you'd be to hear that keeper of dreams. The thought of me numb and content, you want nothing more than to be that governing body that assigns trivial and meaningless tasks that keep me preoccupied in the now while everything good sails away. But keeper of dreams, you'll fail.

You'll fail again and again. You will continuously come up short. As Will Durant wrote, empires are stoic in their ascent and Epicurean in their demise. People are no different. I won't be tempted by the luxuries of an easier existence when times are good, just like I won't be held down by the discomfort when they are not.

Urgency will be manufactured. Greatness will be pulled from the earth, resilience shaped from the chaos that surrounds me. Know that I will always be moving forward. Despite your every wish and your every effort, not because I'm ungrateful for the now, but because for this life I am beyond grateful. so indebted that I want to capture all its magnificence

and leave it better than I found him. As a friend of mine recently said, I want that dash on my tombstone to represent courage. A dream realized. Keeper of dreams in aiming to keep me down, you propelled me forward. You weren't my undoing, but my incentive to grow. And by the way, that will be how this story ends.

higher and higher until all that's left is your ashes and your attempt that you tried, that you really did, but you didn't keep any dreams, you helped give them life. And what a twist in the story. Keeper of dreams? Thank you. I simply couldn't have done it without you. There has to come a time when it's now or never. where you look at your reflection and realize that the cost of waiting is far more expensive

than the cost of stepping out into the vast unknown. In every journey, that's when life effectively starts. But here's why this is so tricky. What's caught me off guard so many times in my life, it's the many shapes that wading takes. See, waiting is not always sitting there and doing nothing, not at all. Sometimes waiting is just the bare minimum. It's moving forward so slightly and so slowly that you can essentially trick yourself into thinking that you're progressing. Into thinking you're making it happen.

When, if you really stopped and looked, if you were honest with yourself, If you really took a second to review, to analyze, you'd see that you're leaving almost everything on the table. You're not creating progress. You're dancing with the idea of progress. Sometimes waiting can mean just going fast enough to not have to look at the fear you're hiding behind. That's reality, right?

I think it's a very normal thing, but I also think life is too short for normalcy. I think we can do better than normal. And I believe with all my heart and soul that the world has for us the spectacular, sitting there on the top shelf, waiting for those who can acquire the self-belief and the awareness to reach out and grab it.

And how crazy a thought to realize that we could have been sitting next to the very thing we've needed for days, months, years, but never taught ourselves to extend our hands and reach. When I look back, the most important moments in my life were not tangible acquisition and see the flashy things that try and capture our attention, right, the money, the condos, even social media growth, business growth, whatever it is you're working towards. Those things are wonderful. They are benchmarks that hopefully align with your North Star, but they are not the difference

makers. Not at all, right? They were the byproduct of what really mattered. They weren't the moments that moved the needle. My greatest moments were mental shifts, cognitive transformations. That's why I do this for a living. I see how much can change when we step back and look at life just a little differently. It was my realizing that I was demanding too little of myself,

that the world won't see greatness in me until I see it in me. That shift that pushed me to demand more of myself, seek bigger challenges, value my work to a greater extent, charge more for my services. And that mental shift is what made some of those externalities possible. It's realizing that if you want it, more is on the table. That yesterday doesn't define you. That it's never too late to begin again.

That everything you need you have, right? These are the ideas that truly change lives. They make the difference. And if we don't become aware of these things, we leave them in the rear view. We walk right by them. In other words, the most important moments of my life were when someone or something shook me and effectively said, hey, look around you.

If this is what you want, fine, enjoy. But for your information, there is more out there. And if you step up just a little, if you do just a little more, If you pivot and come at this thing a little bit differently, you will further that reach. You'll create another ripple effect that will transform your life. But we must stop and look around. A good friend of mine, and this is just the other day, right? We're having lunch.

We're talking about marketing. And we always joke that marketing is just a part of the business that I don't particularly. enjoy, right? Necessary, but not my favorite. And we're going through kind of different strategies, ideas. And he presents one, and I say something like, eh, you know, I don't need to do that. It seems a little over the top. And unfiltered, he goes, man, you're hurting your reach. Like, what good is that metaphorical restaurant that's not on anyone's radar? You're going to be the best pizza shop that no one knows about. And it just kind of hit me, right? It's like, man, I needed to see that differently.

Maybe there's room to be a little more aggressive. Again, one example of many. And not every time is the idea or opportunity the right one or necessary one. Right? But at least you stopped. At least you thought about it. At least you contrasted where you are with the potential upside of doing something differently. That is where we leave opportunity on the table.

You know, we most often, myself included, paint regret as this, the result of this blatant walking away from something. A deliberate declaration, sort of a, oh, no, I'm not doing that, no way. And sure, sometimes that's the case. Sometimes we're cognizant of our fear and decline to move forward. But I wonder how often our neglect or refusal is softer, more subtle. I wonder how much of our regret comes from simply not stopping and looking around, not letting in alternative points of view that challenge us and force us to level up. How much of our regret comes from simply not understanding how short life is and how quickly time passes us by.

And if we don't create some abrupt change in our day to day, if we don't manufacture some momentum in our lives, even when it feels least ideal to do so, the ship we needed to be on will sail away without us. So think back to your hardest days. Even the ones that took you out, that brought you to your knees, and realized that you survived every single one of them. You have, four years, been acquiring the armor,

piece by piece to move into something bigger. You've been learning, you've been evolving, but today, what about sitting down with yourself and having the discussion you don't want to have but need to have? What about asking if it's time to leap where you once step? To run where you once walked? What about taking a good look at? around and asking why you're living in ways that don't serve you why you're

conceding so much of what matters again the evolution you want and need is there it's always there and that's the key takeaway here it will always exist but the question is will your commitment to stop to think and to reach for it be there years from now Looking back, I think we'll find that our willingness to ask those questions mattered more than we could have ever imagined. That silence often implies the lack of adversity needed to evolve. Because the reality you want, it doesn't come to you. You must go to it.

And that means re-approaching today's normalcy and comfort, seeing those things for what they are, a continuation of the status quo. Nothing changes until you change. So take a look around, examine those pillars holding up your worldview. Not once, but over and over again. And if one, many, or all of them must be knocked down, then so be it. The point here is that you can build. The point here is that life happens on your terms, whether you realize it or not,

that doing nothing is accepting what things are. It's a head nod and a thumbs up to reality as is. So again, ask yourself what you want out of life. And if you are missing that mark, tear down what must be torn down. It might be hard now. It might hurt now. It might be uncomfortable now. But when you're eventually standing upon an existence that aligns with who you are and what you want,

you'll see how necessary it all was, how it was there the whole time. And thank God you found it within yourself to reach out and take it. The other day, I went to check out an open mic. and basically people sign up to share their short stories, their poetry, stuff like that. And I'm sitting there soaking it all in, enjoying each one as they went up on stage. And eventually this girl makes her way up. The first thing she does is she tells the room, hey, I've never done this before, but I've always wanted to, so here I am.

She takes out her phone and begins reading some of her poems. And pretty quickly, two things stuck out to me. One is she was brilliant. And it's just so incredibly talented that I'm thinking, man, if she keeps doing this, she's going to find herself in some crazy places, she's really going to make an impact. That was the first thing, and the second, as I sat there and watched, was that I noticed that her hands were visibly shaking.

I was pretty close to this stage. And I could see this happening to the point where she had to place one on top of the time of the other, right, to keep the hand that was holding her phone from bouncing around while she read. That's how visibly nervous she was. And immediately my mind went down this road, reflecting back on the moments I've had just like that, because, man, I've been there, where you're both determined and terrified at the same time. But somehow, the desire to try outweighs the fear just enough for you to find yourself in that exact situation. Just enough that you step into a foreign world, still wondering whether you made the right

move, you know, every step of the way from the car, the building, onto this stage, until you hit the point where, okay, well, now you can't turn back. Now you're here. You can't leave. And the thing is, and this is what was so beautiful to me, she was never forced to do this. at gunpoint. No one made her step into that chaos. It was self-created. She could have stayed home. She could have closed her journal or the notes app on her phone,

and that would have been the end of that. But no, not today. Today, one yes would lead to another. Would lead to another and another. And despite the nerves, the sweaty palms and shaky hands, she would open a new chapter in the story of her life. Proved to herself that she's bolder than she thought she was just a few hours ago. That there's upside when you confront those unknowns in life.

And as I sat and watched, I was so incredibly moved, so proud, so impressed. Partly because I know that to many of the people in that room, it might not have looked like much. You know, it's like, Okay, great, round of applause for the new artist or poet. Welcome. But I knew the gravity of the moment.

I understood how big it truly was. And regardless of what words came out of her mouth or how well they were assembled, that night was not about the performance. No, it was about new beginnings. It was about outstretched wings, opening one's eyes to the learned helplessness and pinpointing the opportunity that was simply waiting for that first step to occur. And see, that's what I want to emphasize. That's what I believe every single one of us needs to understand,

to fully get the biggest moves we make in life. Well, it's easy to convince ourselves that they aren't necessary or worth it. The things that transform us hide themselves. A lot of the time, they don't feel urgent. life or death decisions. They can be the stages we never step on. The people we never talk to, the chances we never take because well what happens if we simply stay right where we are? Say thank you but no thank you to those fleeting opportunities. Nothing. Nothing happens more of the same and realistically

nothing is far less scary than all that other stuff. We don't fear nothingness. We don't intrinsically fear more of the same. No, we fear stepping onto the stage. We fear vulnerability. We fear messing up, looking stupid, being judged. And yeah, when you do nothing, you get to skip all that. Avoid all that discomfort and that potential pain.

But you also miss the feeling of victory. Of closing your eyes at night knowing how badly you wanted to just let that ship sail, how terrified you were about what could go wrong, but you did it anyway. You get to feel you have earned the rush of stepping into a chaotic world.

And even if temporarily you tamed it, that's what life is about. Always remember that we have a natural proclivity to avoid pain, not to pursue the things that make us feel alive. Deep down in our DNA, there exist instructions, instructions to run away from the things that could hurt us, embarrass us. Our minds will race, our bodies will kick and scream, our hands will shake, that's just the way it goes.

And so we prove to ourselves that it's, It's all conquerable, that reality can be relearned. It's a layer of resistance that has to be faced and then dismantled. Why was I so moved that night? Because I got to watch in real time someone dismantling that fear on their way to something incredible. It's courage. Stepping into the arena, not for the people next to you or anyone else, but for you.

you know there's more. You know that where you are pales in comparison to where you can be. I'm definitely one to look back from time to time and reflect, and I'll tell you what, I'm incredibly thankful for the hard times that shaped me, the challenges that were forced upon me and made me who I am. But beyond that, and perhaps even more so, the times I stepped out on my own accord, terrified and manufactured change. The times that the fear of staying the same eclipsed the fear of failure. The times I could have stayed home, woken up the next morning and lost nothing, but instead saw what there was to be gained and threw myself into that metaphorical fire so that confidence could be forged and

new chapters could be written. Let's all remember how out of focus the present moment looks. Remember how inclined we are to look at life through a lens of scarcity. We are trying to avoid, avoid, avoid, but if you can even briefly find the strength to step back and ask, what is there to be gained? You see that not going is the real danger. And those stages that seem arbitrary that seem like optional stops along the way while they're just as imperative as the air you breathe they are not some things they are everything we all hit a point where we look back on the roads we traveled and see the culmination of footsteps that have come to constitute our lives and we want that

moment to feel full like no stone was left unturned like we put it all on the line. So will you step onto this stage of life? Stand your ground as the curtain opens, read your poems to a foreign audience. Will you share your voice even though it trembles? Because if you do, you're giving yourself permission to truly live, to feel. Look, we're not here for a long time. This is a very short ride. So why not give as much of yourself to the world for as long as you possibly can? Why not step out knowing that the difference between nothing and everything is what you do with shaky hands? 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, 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 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 of 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. But here's the thing. As life unfolded this equation 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 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 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. 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, the 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 think you could, 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 of today. 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 action. 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 notion.

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 sails. Explore, dream, discover. Explore, but for you, wander down those paths that have for so long piqued 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, 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 will be a time that only, you'll never get your entire life on the ground. 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, because you are strong enough, and because the story you're about to write doesn't continue on until you turn the ability. the page on today's chapter. 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. 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 bed. 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 tame 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 limit.

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 do. 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 forward 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, bolder, 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 the 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 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 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 breed 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. don't worry about losing other people, worry about losing yourself

while trying to please other people. And see, holding on to our authentic selves not always easy. In fact, Emerson said to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. And that holds true, and especially in our fast-paced world,

shiny objects constantly buzzing around us. Sometimes it seems like the only way to see with clarity is to keep our eyes closed. I was in the car the other day, had Spotify on Shuffle, and a Jason Aldine song came on. It's called Better at Being Who I Am. And it's essentially about a guy who loses himself in a relationship a little bit at a time. And the chorus is basically him sharing his epitaph looking around and going, whoa, what the hell happened? And it was laid out in a way that wasn't sort of the obvious, blatant, you know, be yourself. I mean, sure, part of the theme was how important being yourself is,

but the emphasis was on how fragile of a thing that can be. He put a spotlight on the idea that he got good at forgetting he was in a place that he knew he didn't belong, how we can become masters of forgetting that, champions of rationalization. And that was his message, being that he has somehow, somewhere, lost himself along the way. That concession after concession can ultimately put you in a place where you don't know who you are, where you can know something isn't quite right. And still, slowly and subtly, it creeps in. It can consume your reality. And that's what cut through me. Not simply because it occurred. It wasn't so much the epiphany itself, but more so that he showed how easily the erosion of

the self can occur in our lives, how easily we lose ourselves, how sneaky the whole thing can be. And this particular example is pointing to a relationship with his girlfriend, and it certainly can be this. But it doesn't have to be, and often it's not. It can be a job you don't want to do, but hanging in there just one more day turns into more days than you can count. It can be time with the wrong people, doing the wrong thing, going against your best judgment. It can be the business decision for, short-term gain that ultimately points you in a direction you don't want to go, right? Before giving life to that convenient phrase, well, I've come too far to turn back now.

Life is like a small child, always gently tugging on his mom's sleeve to get her to stop doing what she's doing and go get ice cream, right? It's the temptation to move away from the task at hand to abandon the principles just slightly. the objectives just enough that they'll be pulled off track, right? That's always there. And to reiterate, because this nuance is why I think the idea is so important. The message is not simply about being authentic. I think we all understand the value and necessity of authenticity, or at least I hope. Your value is in who you are.

The things that make you unique are the gateway to a life of, fulfillment. What makes you you? And how can you delve into that? Share it with the world. That's the good stuff. Okay, so let's presume we know this. My fascination and goal is to point out the fact that so much around us is looking to take that authenticity and subtly, over time, transform it, that if we are not aware of what we are, we will lose who we are. And that's where you end up in those wrong relationships, wrong places, doing the wrong things. A lot of times it wasn't deliberate or conscious. It wasn't one swing of the axe.

It was letting yourself slip away one day at a time. It's the pressure of an infinite number of things, right? The billion choices you have pulling you in all different directions. It's the people in your life that may have different incentives than you. It's that deep biological tendency to want to appear like you're winning now. It's your brain telling you to do what the crowd does because the alternative creates pain. It's not wanting to let others down because you want to be their source of happiness, completely forgetting that an empty cup has nothing to offer.

It's the deception online. The highlight reels, filtered pictures, humble brags, and exaggerated success stories, all prompting us to say, well then I must have miscalculated. My path must be the wrong path. And maybe we don't come to this realization and immediately jump ship,

but we take in a little water every day. Every time we open the app and feel lesser because of an impossible standard, every time we put the thing that meant something to us on hold for someone else. Every time we chase that shiny object in exchange for what we expect will be short-term validation. But here's the crazy part. It's like when I shut everything off, when it's just me and my thoughts, no distraction, I have a very good sense of who I am and what I want, just in my gut. I know what feels right to me.

And it's only when the chaos comes in that the target can get blurry and the goal seems to live a little further away. And maybe that's why that song had an impact, why the light bulb went off. The idea that something so obvious, so powerful, so important can elude us and deceive us. There's something to that. I'm better at being who I am. Of course I am. And so are you. So why don't we?

Why isn't there an emphasis there? Why is that something that doesn't get our thought and attention? We can't afford to forfeit that instinct. And so this is the part where I remind myself and everyone listening that you get nothing in life without some semblance of self-trust. You have to take the time to understand who you are and trust yourself to build that from the ground up. Without that, you'll get swept up by the currents of everyday life.

But to know what matters in your world and to hold on to it with conviction, that's what it's all about. And then, yes, you will have success letting people into your life. When they contribute to who you are as a person. When they align with your values, when they feel like wind on your sails. And yeah, of course, take the proven paths and utilize the beneficial tactics, but only when they align with what you are building. If not, walking away is the best option, wandering around until you find alignment.

That brings more value than a toolbox of the wrong tools. And sure, sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. I get that. That's called being responsible, but those things, as annoying as they are, should be contributing to something that does matter. to you. The building's foundation is not fun or sexy, but it's necessary. Just make sure you believe in what will ultimately be built on top of it. Otherwise, you are most

certainly wasting your time. Your gift is you. You have something to share, something to explore, nurture, and grow. Stand in front of that, never hide behind it. Protect it. It's the benchmark against which all other things should be measured. We're all better at being ourselves than some impersonation of what we think the world wants us to be. I think the question comes down to, will you allow that greatness for yourself? Will you be courageous enough to keep the spotlight on what matters most? will you maintain the awareness that when you're walking down a path that doesn't align with who you want to be

you can self-correct turn around put emphasis on that part of you that lights you up because that will not only benefit you but it will benefit everyone around you and ultimately benefit the world