Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - UNBROKEN | The Power of Resilience | Book of the Week

Episode Date: December 20, 2020

"A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory" - Unbroken Howdy gang! I've been doing a Sunday "book of the week" video on YouTube, and starting today will be adding the audio to this podcast as well.  I hope you enjoy.  If inclined, would love you to read along and join me each week as I tackle these amazing concepts, themes and ideas! This week I dive into Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. Read Along: Week 1: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V9xA08I2LQ& Get the Book: https://amzn.to/2LcYLij Week 2 - The Ride Of A Lifetime by Robert Iger Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWa9BiAeuno& Get the Book: https://amzn.to/3oSEMUr Week 3 (this week) Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand Get the Book: https://amzn.to/2JSd7EE Week 4 (Next Week) - The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John Maxwell Get the Book: https://amzn.to/2J5lcFo

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That's why Hardy siding withstands severe weather better than vinyl siding, with styles to match its strength. So you can be sure you're providing your clients with the best. Protect your reputation with exterior products by James Hardy. What's going on, guys? Welcome to the book of the week Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption. I want to talk to you about why this could be one of the most important books you've ever read. The idea from beginning to end, cover to cover, that human beings can do so much more than we thought possible, that when you look at what's right in front of you and focus on getting to the next day or taking the next step, we can really accomplished some incredible things. And I actually did some research on the author,

Laura Hillen Brand, and found out, which makes a lot of sense, for a reason I'll explain in the second, that when she was writing this, she was actually very sick. And hadn't left her house, wasn't able to leave her house for a couple of years, and was so fatigued, she couldn't even write the book. She was struggling to get the energy to type. And it's like, you feel that resolve

And that resilience come through, you know, in Louis' character. I mean, it's based on a true story, but the way it's articulated is just sometimes it's just really raw and powerful. And yeah, I really appreciated reading it. So we'll dive into that. We'll talk about some of those themes real quick. I'll give you three in particular that I think are incredible takeaways. And we'll go from there.

First things first. So this book, to give a very high-level overview, was about a young kid named Louis Zamperini, who's a little bit of an outcast, kind of mischievous, marches the beat of his own drum, always in trouble, and doesn't really find his identity

until he's a young adult. And he starts running. And he's able to take this, I guess, desire to push boundaries onto the track and push your, himself to become one of the best runners in the world, an Olympian. And that alone is an incredible story.

Then the war occurs, obviously, and he's fighting in the war, and his plane gets shot down. He finds himself in the Pacific on a raft with his pilot and another passenger, survives 47 days, is picked up by the Japanese, and then the rest of the book is him, you know, kind of navigating through the internment camps of Japan, ultimately surviving and then picking up the pieces back at home in the United States afterwards. So a lot goes on, but that theme throughout of, again, enduring hardship, sometimes beyond imagination, but finding a way that it doesn't matter who you are or what you're. doing, that is a powerful concept. So let's get right into it. The first theme that I want to talk about

is life always gives us a choice. Now, the Stoics talk about this idea that we need to accept those things that we cannot control and make the most of the things that we can. And, you know, throughout this book, there are many times where Louis does just that. He has this epiphany that I don't like how things are. And hey, I can decide to change them or better them or fix them. And so I'm going to give you a few examples here. The first couple are running, right? So there's a specific example.

I think it's an Olympic qualifier. And it's a 5,000 meter race. The gun goes off and right away, it's one of these races where he's not feeling it. And he drops back to 12th. Again, body not cooperating. Just it happens, right? you don't have good races.

And he has this moment, this realization, where he thinks back to his brother Pete, telling him on his bed, and this is such an incredible quote, that a lifetime of glory is worth a minute of pain. And he just has this epiphany and says, you know what, I'm going to leave everything on this track right now. It doesn't matter what's hurting.

You know, it doesn't matter what I'm going through. It doesn't matter what type of race I'm having. And so basically, He runs an insane last lap, makes up 50 yards on the last lap, and is making such a scene that the audience isn't even looking at the people in front of him. They're looking at Louis, you know, destroying this last lap, and ultimately gets a personal best by eight seconds. And I believe there are so many races in this book in a short amount of time

that I don't remember if this is the exact one, but I believe he qualifies because of that. But long story short, it doesn't really matter. I mean, he turns that negative into a positive, a monumental positive by simply realizing that he can, by making that decision, realizing life gave him a choice, and he made the one to persevere. There's another run where he, and I didn't realize how brutal old races were. But so he's running and some guy stomps his toe and like really messes up his foot. And then someone kicks him from behind his shins bloody. Another guy elbows them and his ribs literally break.

And, you know, my thought is, well, there's your excuse. I mean, no one is going to think less of you after that if you don't do well. You don't meet expectations or exceed expectations, right? There's your reason to say, well, you know, life got in the way. I'll be back next time. But he doesn't. Life gives you a choice. And he decided to win.

despite that, right? To use that as a springboard. And he beats them anyway. And again, I don't want to give you wrong information, but I think he ran the mile in four minutes and 83 seconds, 1.9 off the world record. I think he had the NCAA record that race. But with broken ribs and just a disastrous start.

And it's just such a. powerful thing and he takes that with him, whether he's on the raft or in the camp. And, you know, that's why he survives. And in fact, you know, once that plane goes down and he's sitting in the raft and he's with his pilot, who he calls Phil and another guy, Mac, and him and Phil are very positive. We'll find a way. Let's figure this out. They're trying to keep their mind sharp. They're trying to do anything they can. They're not throwing the towel, whereas Matt keeps saying it's over. We're going to die. He keeps going into fits screaming that there's no way.

And, you know, Laura Hillenbrand does a brilliant job of explaining that Mac died as soon as the plane went down. His body might have gotten the rafts, safe, and sound. But his mind made the choice to call it quit. And these other two guys didn't. And, you know, 47 days later, even though it was a Japanese boat, you know, Phil and Louis got on the that boat. Mack was dead. Mac didn't. And it is because, you know, when life presents its difficulties, it is also presenting you a decision. And we always have to ask ourselves in that, that moment of adversity, what choice or what decision are we going to make?

Number two, survival comes down to our ability to adapt. Now, this is almost a perfect next step from, you know, life gives us a choice. Well, now, now. we have to adapt and we have to take these pieces around us and create something. I think the reason I found this theme so powerful is maybe it's it's you know looking at my own life in my own biases and what I've been through but in my own experience we create plans and it's comfortable to have a plan and things seem so great and calm and orderly when we have a plan. But so much of life is trying to figure out what to do when the plan doesn't work.

And the plans never work, right? Not to a T. And, you know, anyone can operate when the plan's going well. But we win or lose, right? We rise or fall outside of the plan when we have to adapt, right? In this story, the Americans, they're flying these missions over Japan and Japanese-controlled territory. And man, every time they go, something goes wrong. Every time life comes down to things didn't work out the way we wanted to.

How are we going to take this situation and get home? Right? They have bullet holes through the plane or one of the engine's done. Or there's oil leaking. They're on one engine now. It's like, okay, well, how do we reserve fuel? We got to figure this out, guys. Open it up.

Throw some stuff over. Guys, let's stand at the front of the plane. Maybe that will reserve gas. or, you know, they're pulling up to, you know, over some target. And they need line of sight. And there's so much cloud coverage that they can't see three feet in front of their heads. They can't go home. What do you do?

You improvise. Life and death again and again and again came down to how do we improvise. Because the plan only gets you so far. And, you know, those who succeeded, those who landed, those who landed. their planes, those who got home were at their best when life seemed to be most difficult, when there were 500-something bullet holes in their plane. It's just, it was really an important thing and I kept thinking, you know, that's when I'm on the fly in my life is when I need to be at my best, when I need to be figuring things out and not saying, oh, man, things didn't go the way of,

it doesn't matter. The plan doesn't matter. It's gone. The plan only gets you so far. At some point you have to create your own wings. At some point, you have to create your own wings. At some point, You have to land the thing and valuable lesson for all of us. And lastly, the third and I believe most important theme, I always say best for last, is resilience. That power of the human spirit. The ability throughout this entire book of Louis to overcome insurmountable obstacles, to beat runners that he shouldn't beat, to survive situations. He has no business surviving. The odds are against him.

The world is against him. His body's against him. And he makes it happen. And it just makes you think human beings are capable of some amazing, amazing things. There was a line in this book that killed me. It was, he says, if I had to go through that one more time, I'd kill myself. And it just makes you think through his eyes, right, looking back, what he went through him. He survives a crash, which I think there were 11 people on board.

Three survived the crash. Impossible to do on his face there, like very unlikely. Then he's floating around 47 days on a raft on the Pacific, starving to death. No food. Trying to catch fish with hooks, grab birds with his hands. Their sharks circling the boat, trying to rip them off the raft at some point, picked up by people that beat him and torture him and take away his dignity. And he's got disease.

He's malnourished. He can't get out of bed. And so he's looking at this hellscape that he emerged from. And he's saying, that's impot. Like, I can't do that. I wouldn't do that again. I'd rather die than do that again. But being in it, focusing on the one thing in front of him,

in the darkest of nights, right, that one glimmer of hope, that one thing to cling to, that one piece of dignity that he could hold on to. And by the way, you know, same thing with the other people in the camp, right? Like working to maintain some semblance of dignity. He's hit in the face with bats, with clubs, with belts, with big brass buckles. And he gets up, and he continues to move forward. And all he had to do was get to the next day.

And it's like, well, that little decision to get to the next day over the course of years equates to survival, equates to something unfathomable, to surviving when the odds are just insanely stacked against you, it's breathtaking, it's amazing. And it reminds me of Victor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. It's like what people can endure is, you know, it's beyond comprehension. And, you know, this is a tragic story and you hope it's never in these circumstances, but it makes you think, what can I do?

What am I capable of? What can I endure? What can I create? Where am I capping myself? Because we look from the outside end, just like Louis looked at what he went through and said, I'd kill myself, I can't. But he did.

He did. And it's like, so can you. Again, I'm not equating. These aren't, you know, this is an apple, to Apple, but it's, we all have some kind of arena that we feel is too big for us. And the only way to conquer that dragon is to immerse yourself in it and let yourself, you know, be surprised by the results. Let yourself rise to the occasion. Not think about, you know, success in its totality, but just conquering the day, just doing the little thing that makes human beings

so incredible, carrying on in the face of adversity, moving forward. I think if we get better at giving ourselves a chance to do that, if we give ourselves an opportunity to surprise ourselves, we will. It's just a question of, are you willing to do that? do that. And so, you know, I'll put a ribbon on this and just say that's why I appreciate this book, you know, more than I can even express is because it makes me realize what humans can do and what I can do and what you can do. It's about making that decision. So, hey, if you haven't read this, I strongly recommend it, obviously. You know, I just, I can. I just, I can. You know, I just, I can. You truly love this book. And I think you'll take a lot from it. So check it out. Again, if you want to

read along with me week by week, and by the way, I got a few messages that were like, how do you read so much? I don't have time to like put my feet up and read a book for five hours a day. I use Audible to kind of take like a two hour walk every day, every day. And that seems excessive, but the amount of knowledge and the impact these books are having, it's just worth it. It's the best chunk of time I have, right? And it's exercise. And if I throw the shirt off, I get a tan. It's like the trifecta, you know? So it's perfect. And, but if you put your audible on 1.5 speed, you know, like this is read, narrated very slowly. So if you have this on 1.5, 1.6, it's like you lose nothing and you get through the book quickly. But that's how I do it. And it allows me to, again,

get out, exercise, you know, breathe a little bit and listen to these books, consume them quickly. And then I'll pick them up every once in a while to circle quotes and kind of collect my thoughts and stuff like that. But that's how I do it. So, but yes, I'm almost like, I don't have time to read for, you know, 10 hours a day. I'm like, I don't do that. So don't think that I'm just hanging out reading nonstop. There are hacks and ways to kind of get around that. And so Audible is mine. So that's that. And again, yeah, next week, John Maxwell's the 15. I'm going to get this. invaluable laws of growth. So excited to dive into that.

And that's all I got. A lot of good stuff coming this week, guys. So I appreciate your support. Appreciate you hanging out. And see you soon.