Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - TIME TO MOVE ON | Powerful Motivational Speeches | Wake Up Positive

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

"For things to change, you have to change" - Jim Rohn

There are a handful of recorded lectures online by Jim Rohn, who has definitely become one of my favorite thinkers over the years. And I found this little nugget the other day that I wanted to share. He says, there are four emotions that will change your life. Disgust, decision, desire, and resolve. And I want to talk about the first one because I found the story to be incredibly powerful. and also relatable, right, in various aspects of life over the years. So he frames it by talking about a Girl Scout walking up to his front door

to try and sell him some Girl Scout cookies when he's 25 years old. And he's broke, doesn't have any money at the time, and tells her what I assume to be a white lie, as to why he can't buy the cookies at that particular time. right so he tells her that he can't she walks away he says after he closes the door and goes back inside he felt something that completely changed his life disgust an overwhelming feeling that he simply didn't want to live like that anymore he didn't want to lie he didn't want to be broke and I'm quoting him he says the day you can say I've had it

may not be the day it ends, but the day it begins. And that feeling, which of course on the surface seems like a terrible thing, right? No one wants to feel disgust with their circumstance. But it's ultimately one of the most powerful indicators life can present to us. There has always been,

and I assume will continue to be, that point in many different facets of my life where I say enough is enough. I just never thought to categorize it and label it like he did, but that's what it is. You know, getting to a point where you look around and realize you've conceded too much. You've strayed too far beyond what matters to you. You've left too much on the table. That feeling, again, well, uncomfortable, is often what becomes. comes the first step towards that which is truly meaningful, a better version of yourself.

A realization, by the way, that's not some denunciation of who you are, right? It's not saying, I'm not good enough or I'm inadequate. I would describe it as the exact opposite. It's thinking enough of yourself to acknowledge that you're better than this. It's saying, yeah, there's a reality where I stay the same. where I don't change, where I allow this to just be my life. But that's not the reality I'm going to choose, because I respect myself too much to continue living with that dissonance

between my actions and who I know I truly am. And I think at a deep level, we all understand this. You know, so many times in life, funny enough, we don't change until we have to, until our backs are completely against the wall, against the wall. It took me years in my previous professional life to say enough is enough, but ultimately got to that point.

I've been there in relationships, been there with my creative work, been there with my finances. And what's especially interesting is that as you grow, evolve, and your goals change, what you expect of yourself changes, grows along with you, you'll find yourself at that place again. and again and again and again and that's good listen to it right that's your intuition telling you you're ready for more that something else awaits that the status quo is no longer sufficient and there lies the opportunity right to recognize and associate that feeling of disgust as rome calls it with a need to change or an opportunity to change before things blow up or become more

difficult than they need to be. Everything in your life has been allowed by you to some extent. You know, that's an important thing to understand. If there's someone in your life that's making it hell, you to an extent are responsible for that, right? No one gets your time without your permission. If you're doing things that don't move, motivate, or inspire you, well, the reality is you're choosing those actions. Now, the circumstances may be specific to, to you. They may be difficult, and I understand that, but are you asking yourself how you can begin moving away from it?

How you can put walls between yourself and the things that drag you down? Because the bottom line is, it's very easy to become accustomed to things that are a drain on our lives. The old frog in the boiling water, right? You throw a frog in a pot of hot water, it'll jump right out. But you put it in a pot of cool water and you slowly but incrementally increase the temperature until it's boiling, the frog won't realize it's burning alive. I think in the same way we learn to live with that situational disgust.

The things we're unhappy with just become the baseline or normal. It becomes regular. And what I love about this Girl Scout cookie story is that light bulb moment where it's like, no, I don't have to accept this. I can take back control. I dictate how I'm going to live, and I know this isn't it. Now, you don't need to have all the answers right away. In fact, you most certainly won't have them.

But every journey, as the saying goes, begins with the first step. That's precisely why the moment is so powerful. You don't start moving to that new place until you realize that you want. that you want to start moving away from where you are. Rohn talks about disgust being a powerful motivator. That's why. It's the initial leverage you need to create that momentum. To see the gap between where you want to be and where you are.

And this is ultimately a call to that realization. Do an audit on yourself and your contentment, the places you find lacking, They're calling for your attention. And it's normal, it's okay, it's part of life, but it's also your opportunity to begin making that change. I like very simple, very straightforward notes to help me parse through this. Simple list, two columns on the left,

everything that brings me some level of anxiety or that is a drain on my piece. And on the column on the right, directly across from it, simply what I plan to do about each item. Nothing major, but a tangible, manageable step. Because as Jim Rohn says, you begin to utilize that feeling of disgust or discontent to act. You turn that message into something beautiful, an adventure, some variation of growth. That's where the good stuff is. By the way, it also changes our relationship with those emotions when they emerge.

It's no longer poor me. I'm stuck. My life is hard, and the list goes on and on. No, it's, oh, this doesn't feel good. How can I use it to connect me to something that does? Let's listen to that. I don't like the feeling of making excuses as to why I can't buy the cookies. I don't like the feeling of not having the financial resources.

Obviously, can't fix it overnight, but let's make a plan. Let's allow the wheels to hit the road, which, hey, who knows? Might be more than I've ever done. This is the magic beginning, he alludes to, the confidence being earned, the purpose, the meaning, and ultimately, being that we only get results where we place our attention, the outcome we've been looking for. So when you find yourself at that point, when you experience a repetition of disappointment or frustration with your circumstance, Let that be the gift it's trying to be. Let it be the reason you will soon wake up a different person, moving towards that which aligns with who you are.

Sometimes I wonder, why does this season of life feel like it's one undesirable outcome after another? What happened to the law of averages? When is the wind? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? why would I continue going in this direction? When it feels like that spot on the horizon I've been chasing has eluded me.

Why? Why are my results not aligning with my output? It's hard to wake up and do this. It takes all of me to give this much. Sometimes I wonder, where is the delayed gratification everyone speaks of? Where's the fruit of my labor, the arm on my shoulder that says this is why it was all worth it? Why hasn't the payoff shown itself?

Why? And why does it seem like every curveball materializes at the worst possible time? Why won't my body cooperate now when I need it most? Why does my mind play with the worst-case scenarios? Why does an already challenging path have to be more difficult than it is now? How many ways do I have to feel pain? Why does discomfort follow me around? Why won't life let me shake this?

Why? Just maybe it's to show you how strong you are. What you can endure. deep down in your soul you know you are the one percent. Because if you can push through this, you can push through anything. And I don't know why life gives us its lessons when it does. Why the world seems to stack it on when we're at our most vulnerable, when the ground beneath us is most unstable.

But if you can find the courage to step up. back and see this for what it is. If you can hold on to the idea that this is happening for you, you'll come out of this a different person. You don't need to perform a miracle when you're at your lowest. No, the courage, the power, the strength is in showing up. You need to continue forward. Let go of the week, the month, the year.

we are tasked with pushing through the moment, the hour, surviving the day. And sometimes there is nothing more courageous than that, nothing more powerful than seeing what it turns into down the road when we look over our shoulders and are grateful we never stopped. So yes, this season might seem like a non-stop barrage of obstacles and misfortune. Why? Perhaps because it's life allowing you to plant your seed now so that when spring comes around you are provided something you've never had before.

You arrive at that spot in the horizon you've been aiming at. And yes, the results might not feel like they're aligning with your output. Why? Perhaps because when the compounding reaches that magical point, that point of statistical significance. And the desirable things happen then, as quickly as the difficult ones do now, it'll all make sense. You'll appreciate it, value it, and be equipped to handle it. And yeah, life might seem to be throwing you curveball after curveball.

Why? Perhaps because if you can trudge forward now, when your body's tired, while navigating the trials and tribulations of life. When you can bring greatness into existence under duress, just imagine what waits around the corner. Imagine how you'll perceive those seemingly impossible obstacles that slow everyone else down. There'll be nothing more than a cool breeze and a sunny day

as you move towards your best self. Look, it's hard to understand when we are in it. It's hard to make sense of the dark and the chaos and the hurt, but find a way to remember. No matter how hard it seems that this life is happening for you and not to you. This is the seed in the palm of your hand that will mean something that matters. So hold on. Hold on to see that seed begin to rise from the ground. Hold on

To feel the warmth of the sun Hold on through the storms of life They will be why When you look back years from now You'll have gotten from life That which was once Merely A dream

What is failure Perhaps when the plan falls apart Maybe when the project results are underwhelming. No, not quite. When your heart breaks, momentum stops when your world is shaken at its foundation. No, to put it simply, failure is not going. Failure is the plan, never falling apart because you were too scared to make one. Failure is never being underwhelmed by the results of that project because,

you couldn't find the courage to start. Failure is no heartbreak, no setbacks, no challenge to your worldview, because you stood still. I see life's disappointing occurrences as a sort of transaction, some temporary discomfort in exchange for the very wisdom you were looking for placed in the palm of your hand. You endure the pain to get the answers. You accept chaos today

in exchange for the map that enables you to navigate the terrain. How can something be a failure if it places you right where you need to be? How can something be a failure if it brings you closer to the life you dream of. Maybe we don't look at life as failure versus success, but rather as being stagnant versus being in motion, immobile versus mobile.

Maybe it's that simple. If you are moving, regardless of how fast you're giving yourself a chance to overcome, to collect wisdom and people, kick up armor. You're giving yourself a chance to be more tomorrow than you are today. And that means we stop accepting the notion that we are standing still for our benefit. Justifying that we're only stationary because we're waiting for the right moment.

We're here because we need this to be perfect. No, there are a million different ways to get what you want out of life. a million different paths to get you there, none of them require standing still. I already cringe at the amount of time I've wasted waiting for the right time. How I would sit on releasing this or starting that. Oh, it's because I'm a perfectionist, only to learn that perfectionism is really just fear in disguise. You can sit there and wait and refine.

and refine and refine. But I'll tell you what, the one who moves, who creates, shares, collects feedback, adjusts, and repeats will have achieved that level of quote unquote perfection before you feel prepared to acknowledge and share your prototype. It was simply by going that evolution took place. And it took me a long time to grasp this, to understand it, And a part of me didn't want to believe it.

I found it inherently uncomfortable, but life rewards the bold. It always has and always will. Calling for a sort of calculated recklessness. Great things are achieved by doers who can put their egos aside and let the world humble them on their way. to the next attempt. In Ron Chernoe's biography on Washington, one of the common themes,

which I believe made Washington one of the most influential people in the history of mankind was his ability to think, analyze, seek out the opinions of people around him, and then once decided that was that. He was all in. The rubber had met the road. this was now the way. And I find power in that.

As overthinking is so often our undoing, right, weighing out worst-case scenarios, contingency plans, this versus that. When progress requires that we, sure, spend a little bit of time deciding which general direction we go, but most importantly, that we start. And I think we've all been guilty of this. Over-analysing, over-planning. But just like a sailor can't predict the winds, we can't predict all life's variables.

Again, it's deciding on a general direction and then trusting ourselves to navigate life's obstacles as they arise. It's finding trends and patterns along the way in doing our best to utilize them as we move forward. There will be points where the road ahead seems overwhelming, the obstacles too abundant to make sense of, where the mind compels you to stay where you are and stare out in awe. It will suggest that what's behind you is safer, that the worlds you know contains fewer monsters than the worlds you don't. It might even convince you that whatever ambitions you had weren't really that important,

You could easily live without them. And the longer you stand there, the longer you listen to that voice, the louder it gets. You dismiss it with every step forward. Your momentum is a dagger through the heart of any doubt that once tried to occupy the precious real estate behind your eyes. You don't have to outthink it, outsmart it. You just have to move forward. And what you find is that the mountains you once peered up at weren't all that they seen.

A culmination of little hills that can be climbed, manageable rocks that in actuality can be used to propel yourself up the mountainside. There was never a perfect path up. No magic transport to the summit. You might even think to yourself, what a shame that so many are still on the sidelines, waiting to devise their perfect approach, making plans and drawing maps. But that's not how any of this works. To win you go, to make progress, you move.

Knowing full well that you'll find your dead ends, you'll spend time and exhaust energy, going down certain paths that don't ultimately lead you where you want to do. to go. But what a gift the ability to reverse course and take the right at the fork instead of the erroneous left you previously took. Your errors are not permanent. Your errors are correctable. Stagnation is what's permanent. Wishing is permanent. Someday is permanent. But right now, that's pure value. So next time you find yourself looking out as we all do, remind yourself that there are many ways to transform your reality for the better. Many paths to the mountaintop, but there is only one way to assure you never get there,

and that is standing still. So trust yourself to figure life out as it comes, to take the pain and extract from it wisdom to find the strength beyond the uncertainty. Life is giving you everything that is required. Not some things or a few things, everything. All it asks of you is that you dismantle the delusion of perfection and begin.