Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - UNLEASH YOUR POTENTIAL - Best Motivational Speech Listen Every Day

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

"The best way to predict your future is to create it." - Peter Drucker Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletter Free Ebook: www.eddiepinero.com/ebook  YouTube: www.eddiepinero.com/youtube  In this powerful video, Eddie Pinero explores the journey of self-discovery and unleashing your full potential. Eddie shares insights, stories, and practical steps to help you break free from limitations and pursue your true path. Learn how to transform your mindset, embrace your unique journey, and chase your dreams with determination. If you're feeling stuck or searching for motivation, this video is for you. Join Eddie and start unlocking your true potential today.

So not too long ago, Jordan Peterson was doing a tour, and he made a stop in Phoenix, Arizona. And he was talking about the role of God in our lives. And I really enjoy that type of philosophizing that conversation. And I went, and it was a blast to just have that discussion, be in a room, an auditorium with so many different people from all walks of life, with different beliefs and backgrounds. And one of the things he mentioned was that perhaps

there is a too rigid of view of God in some circumstances. And maybe that turns people away. His question that he posed is, what if God is simply one's willingness to pursue what they were meant to do? do. The courage to accept life's challenge, face adversity, and find that level of meaning, embrace that calling that each of us individually have available to us.

Stepping into that greater version of yourself. And I won't get too far into it, but just for some context, he specifically referenced a story about Abraham and the Old Testament. and how he was a really old man before he stepped out and basically became that person he was meant to be. And so I'm going to quote Jordan Peterson here. He said, as long as there is breath in you, there is room for another adventure. Think about how powerful that is.

Not something we hear every day, right? For me, it's profound for two reasons. One, it's the reminder that there must be adventure in life to begin with. That's a prerequisite. And that decision to step out the front door and become the person you were meant to be, it's not a luxury. It is life. And second, in sort of the corresponding piece, is that it's never too old to do that. It's not like when you're 18 or 25 or 35, or 35.

that ship sails and heads to a distant horizon and you missed it. No, there's always the ability to step out your front door and take that path you've never taken. Become who you were most meant to be. And that calling, refer to it as whatever you want. You know, nodding your head and finding the courage to embark upon that journey is where you get to see who you really are. You get to unveil a version of yourself that's been caged in waiting to come out, that potential that's been hiding away in your soul and waiting to be released,

the chance to give to the world which you were meant to give, to both ignite your soul and simultaneously be a light in darkness for others. You know, another quote that night, he said, people are capable of carrying an immense burden and still struggling uphill. If you're willing to grit your teeth and go, the sky's clear. The path emerges. But I promise you will amaze you how much you can endure, how far you can go. And you might look around and wonder, me, surely this is for someone else. But no, this message is for you. That reminder that time is finite.

And those hypotheticals, you know, entangled in your curiosity, those what-ifs, those if-onlys, they're waiting for you. They matter. And they're calling you now. You know, in a way less formal setting, my friend Steve, and I'll never forget this. Something's just hit you. You know, we're sitting there, random Tuesday, having lunch at Panera. And he said, you know, Eddie, we are.

are sacks of meat on a rock floating through the infinite, nothing matters. And I thought that was such a beautiful sentiment. You can take that as two ways. Nothing matters, so why leave? Or you can take it as nothing matters. So why wouldn't I try? Why wouldn't I cash in this once in a lifetime lottery ticket? Why wouldn't I do what I'm called to do? Those worst case scenarios, the playing small, none of that matters. How could you not step into life when you're only here for such a short amount of time? How could you not want to see how far you can go and what you're capable of when that

clock is ticking in the background? It's an irrefutable fact that there is more for you should you choose to pursue it. that curiosity, that voice calling your name, that's not a coincidence, that's not a fluke, that's a hand reaching out and asking you to accept that next version of you. And you can call it anything from divine to a pragmatic, why not? But the truth is, there's more for you. There's more beyond that door. So I ask, why not?

walk through it. The hard thing brought me through hell, but also to that which exists on the other side. The hard thing prompted me to question and doubt, but also provided the pieces I used to build my confidence little by little. It made me ask the tough questions, the ones maybe I didn't want to hear the answer to.

but also gave me the power to transform those answers I didn't like. The hard thing meant forfeiting being the expert in my world in exchange for the role of student in a foreign arena. It gave me new ladders to climb, new possibilities to reach for. It showed that true growth requires a willingness to be the beginner. It took some people out of my arms, my circle, my work, and in some cases my life altogether, but always seemed to open the door to those souls better aligned, to those conducive to the journey and the process. Let's remember what the hard thing is. Beyond the pain, because we all know it does bring that.

Beyond the challenges, because there are certainly many. Beyond all that exists the hope and the change and the promise. Robert Frost says the best way out is always through. Through because it's the chaos, the haze, the darkness of night that shapes us. It's in being broken that we learn to rebuild our world with the peace of the peace of the world. and perhaps most importantly. We learn that such a rebuilding process is possible to begin with,

that the now is not mandatory or permanent. The hard thing, as it turns out, is nothing more than a transaction. Turbulence for the view above the clouds, fear in the moment for confidence in the future. It's learning that although life sometimes appears to paint a picture of conformity and helplessness. There's always a path leading to the very place we need to go.

It just asks we find the courage to walk it. Churchill has said the pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. And this beautiful message rings true. Because from the difficulty is the advantage. And sure, our first instinct is to see the problem. Our eyes tend to initially fix it on that which is unfortunate. But beyond that is where we get the most incredible things life provides,

as if one is removing the shell or outer layer in order to get to the nutrients in the center, the ingredients required for growth, the peatients required for growth, The peace is necessary to experience life at its fullest. And so we must be reminded that those opportunities, they're not rare, they're not reserved for everyone but you. They just tend to disguise themselves as the things we're most inclined to disregard or walk by. But if one finds the courage to move into them, through them, If one can see the difficulty not as a deterrent but as a bargain, they'll be given everything

on the other side. Reality is not changed with the magic wand or the granting of a wish. It's from staring down the heart thing and moving directly into it one little step at a time. I was listening to Alan Watts the other day. And he was referencing a Zen parable, and he asked this question I thought was pretty cool. He goes, when a flag is flapping in the wind, what's moving? The flag or the wind? The answer, neither.

It's the mind that moves. It's how our minds interpret our experiences that create our realities. And the reason this reminder is so important to me, The reason I don't believe we could ever hear it enough is because keeping that understanding front and center in our lives tells us how powerful we are. Sure, we often can't control the situation. We all know that. But we can always control what this situation means.

Every event is open to interpretation. And that's what's so incredible. You know, yeah, sometimes it takes a while to get to the value. Especially when our minds want to default to the negative or what's missing or what's lost. But if you're willing to look underneath every occurrence is exactly what you need. And so take for example something we can all relate to, right, losing something that truly mattered, that we found meaningful, whether it was a person, a job, an activity, a physical impairment, right? When asked, what does this change mean,

the mind goes loss. It defaults to, I had it, I loved it, and now it's gone. But underneath that, there's a chance to take the pieces of what remains and go down a new path, to find something just as or even more beautiful. The same loss can mark the beginning of an adventure. Is it ideal at first, no, but it's usually not. the ideal that prompts our most important change.

It's life's turbulence that pushes us to seek out something new. And I love taking this little trip down memory lane, right? Because, you know, it's the business ventures that fell apart that caused me to look in the mirror and choose to be more. It's the projects that just didn't end up being that good, right, that allowed me to see this journey as a creative one. where, hey, some projects hit, some don't, but it's not personal, it's a ride, and what an opportunity. It's the breakups I went through.

And while, sure, if you were definitely brutal, they gifted me with an opportunity to personally level up, to dial in my understanding of what really matters to me. I can think of physical setbacks, monetary obstacles, all these things that hurt in the moment, Now, I'm not sure I could have controlled the initial emotive response, right? The human reaction. But learning to ask, well, how can I get better from this? That's a different question. How can one month from now be amazing because of this situation,

regardless of how it feels in the moment? It's not the flag or the wind that moves. It's my mind. So how will I choose to paint? the landscape around me? How will I choose to give meaning to the things that will ultimately comprise my reality? That's power. Now, I've always felt it easy to conflate, like, finding value in our lives with being happy all the time. But again, we're emotional creatures, and life can be challenging for all of us. I don't think it's possible to be happy all the time.

That's not the goal. The true victory is in finding gratitude along the way, in pausing and asking, how can I take this seemingly unfavorable result and find a way to win from it? Because guess what? The sad truth is most people don't do that. Most people walk right by that stuff. Most people chalk up the L's as L's and leave the good stuff behind. If you know there's a win in everything and you ask that your mind look for it, the reality you create will be one much different than someone undergoing the exact same circumstances with their eyes closed. Remember, it's the mind that moves. It's you who writes the script, who controls the narrative.

And that's not a burden. That's a gift. It's what makes you more powerful than you could ever imagine. I used to separate building up and tearing down, as if they were two totally different ideas, rather than one perpetual loop. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Simply transfers from one thing to another.

We are renting everything in this world, grabbing little pieces of life as we run through it. And what we leave behind in the rear view has the potential to tug at our heartstrings as we see it collapse into the horizon, sure. But it also has to. Yesterday was in its own way the beginning, a nurturing parent,

preparing you for the world of today, pushing you out the front door and maybe you don't feel ready, we never do. But things have to go in order for more to arrive, the tearing down is the building up. I have a significant relationship with this idea, letting go. I think because it's personally been one of my greatest adversaries.

You know, and the words that escape our lips pull back the curtain on who we are. Humans are just projectors with eyes. As my words escape, the hope is something beautiful will be let in. As I'm sitting here, writing, I'm thinking about how exciting the prospect of scaling this message, growing this brand, helping more people, adding more value, while simultaneously dancing around the terror of relinquishing

some level of creative control with my work. You can't of course grow and still do things how you did them in a one-bedroom apartment in 2014. This isn't new. They've been grappling with it in different contexts for years. It's so personal to me, but the reality is there's no grace space here. This situation is clear as glass. You have to let go in order to acquire.

You have to tear down those barriers in order to make room for more. This is and always has been a me conversation. I'll look at myself in the mirror conversation. Eddie, what are you willing to let go of because there are roared. that must be cut. See, these conversations hurt, but they are the transfer mechanism to all that is beautiful.

Being self-aware hurts. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that it hurts less than operating in a state of consistent delusion. So I offer this question to you. What was the last conversation you had with yourself? When was your last is what I want and what I'm doing, aligned conversation.

When was your last? Am I holding on to too much conversation? Your last, if I want parts of me to be reborn, am I willing to let the unnecessary things die conversation? Life is a cycle. And we forget that. As we get comfortable, as we become accustomed to routine, It's easy to forget.

Are we shedding the old or hiding within it? And Gary Keller is one thing he mentions how a domino can knock over another domino 50% larger. So if you were to start with a two inch domino and keep increasing the one next to it by 50%. The 23rd domino in the progression would be able to knock over the Eiffel Tower. The 31st would be as tall as Everest. The 57th domino would be able to bridge the gap between the Earth and the moon. See, but it must be understood that it's the 50% growth from domino to domino that makes the difference. If each domino stays the same size, you don't get any remarkable transformation.

And in many ways, that's what we do. We want the moon, but we stay that two-inch domino. That's my example of holding on to perhaps too many aspects of the creative process. That holding on prevents the 50% jump. For you, the journey before you will be a different one with different characteristics. But the rule is the same. The old dominoes must fall in order to create something new. That energy must be passed on.

And it is capable of transferring, this is the important part, to something much bigger than itself. That's why we allow the old to fall. It's not that it's valueless. It's that its value was in setting up the brilliance that now awaits. You can't be afraid to tear down the old, right? We have to seek out that fearlessness

that exists within us. It's crippling our growth, diminishing our capacity to live life to the full. That's what's scary. Protecting that which no longer serves us is what's dangerous. So let yesterday fade into the rear view. It may hurt, it may tug at those heartstrings, that when you look back years from now,

it will be the reason, the very reason you'll have embarked upon the adventure of a lifetime. It's what you destroyed that will have opened the door for everything brought forth the manifestation of the beautiful life you ultimately came to build. You belong here. This was something that was said to the class during yoga the other day. As I've said before, yoga is something I'm really turning to is both a mental and physical approach to a lot of the injuries and imbalances I've been dealing with for a very long time. And part of that, you know, starting something new

was obviously not knowing what you're doing. It's a willingness to play the fool to be this student. It's signing up to be, you know, at times the worst in the room. And so I hear the instructor say this line, you belong here, and then kind of repeat it again for emphasis. It hit me hard, you know. And I'll never know if this was prompted by me flailing around in the back

trying to do crow pose, or she just felt like, you know, it needed to be expressed in the moment. I'm not sure, but what I do know is that it was exactly what I needed to hear. And in fact, it's what I've needed to hear throughout many stages of my life, which is why I think it hits so hard. Now, I want to unpack it for a second. When I moved to Massachusetts, after spending the vast majority of my childhood in the Los Angeles area, I used to joke around with my friends back in LA. I'm like, this is so different that it feels like a culture shock, right?

It seems so little of the world. Why do these guys not wear dickies or spiked their hair? Everyone has cargo shorts and new balances. What's happening here, right? You know, but all jokes aside, when you're a freshman in high school, that's a big deal. The differences were many. And it took a while. You know, but I acclimated.

I made friends. I did the thing. But persistently, in the back. of my head I felt like an outsider making my home somewhere that wasn't really mine. Like I didn't really belong there. Then came college. I went to a small private school where most of the students I knew came from prep schools and I had somewhat of a more rigorous academic background than I did.

And I decided to be a political science major, basically living in my professor's offices during their hours when they would spend extra time helping me write, showing me how to organize my thoughts and put together analytical papers. It was a long and stressful learning curve. And just like before, I figured it out, did fine academically. But again, never really felt like I belonged there. There were some of the same sentiments with walking on to the rowing team where many of the recruits had been doing in all their lives.

Same thing in the corporate world. Felt a little out of place. It was a feeling that never prevented me from starting. You know, I'd dive in. I'd figure it out. But there was always this lingering fish out of water feeling that I couldn't shake. I'm kind of a tangent, but this is, you know, one of the funniest moments for me looking back in my early 20s.

I was at an interview at some insurance company in Boston. And the guy interviewing me is sitting on one end of a desk. at the other. He's holding a physical copy of my resume and cover letter. Not saying a word, just kind of scanning them up and down. Then he slowly kind of drops them on the desk and goes, So Eddie, tell me more about, and pauses. Looks back down at my cover letter, back up at me, back down at my cover letter. Then he traces the first line of the cover letter, quoting it as his finger moves across the paper. He goes, tell me more about how, quote, Your lifelong dream is to become a data analyst.

And I was like, oh my God, this guy sees right through me, Eddie, what are you doing, man? Like, this ain't it, you know? And I crack myself up every time my mind goes back there. It's the epitome of square peg round hole. And I would consistently find myself in that position. Right. But, you know, I digress. The point is me feeling like I'm on the outside looking in has been somewhat of a theme.

even in the areas of my life where I was finding success. Like, I couldn't totally be there. Like, find the things that are important to me and commit to them fully. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't still exist today. Right? I've worked like a madman for 10 years to build this company and this brand. And certainly I've seen some progress.

In this industry, I've gotten to surround myself with some incredible people. And every time I walk into a room with folks that I've looked up to for years, I'm grateful, which is good, but sometimes too grateful, which is my entire point, right? At some point, you have to transform from looking up to into being one of, to give yourself permission to belong. And yes, you need to do the way. work, and yes, confidence is earned.

But if you don't give yourself permission to do a thing, not kind of or sort of, but to fully with all your heart and soul be that thing, I think you'll always be leaving part of yourself on the shelf. It feels like, to me, a lingering defense mechanism. You can't be great if you're not all in. And part of growth has been reflecting and asking, Hey, you say you're all in, but are you? Are you immersed? And that's what I want. I think to some extent that's what we all want, to not just do it, but be it.

In a million years, I don't think my yoga teacher would expect that. A word's prompted a 10-minute rant, starting with my childhood on the West Coast, but man, did that comment create a lightbulb moment for me. It's set this stage for such a beautiful epiphany. It's like you've been doing the thing for 10 years. You've grown in so many areas, but have you given yourself permission to become what you're seeking? Not kind of, but pour yourself into it. It's who you are, the environment, the people, the variables, the ups and the downs, all of it is who you are.

Just imagine what that freedom would allow. Go be the thing. More, more, more, more fully. all you have to give. So yoga class this morning showed up. Even though I suck, even though I'm learning, decided, hey, little symbolism here. No more hiding in the back of the room. Step into those neon green lights, move towards the front.

You no longer do things, even the little things, to simply scrape by or exist. Do it to be it. If you're going to do anything, do it to be it. You belong here. Help me realize what being it really is. That maybe I'd let my definition slip. Maybe my understanding wasn't wide or all-encompassing enough. And yeah, there's a line we need to walk, no question,

we must be on the path to acquiring competency in something before we can make it our own. But the beauty of podcasts and audible and books, all our media outlets, it's that other people's growth and understanding can fast track our own. Learn from this experience. Life is too short to always feel like you are on the outside looking in. It just is. If you earned a chair at the table, be at the table. If you were let into the room, work the room.

If you're spending time and energy doing something, be that thing. Don't deprive yourself of that precious alignment because it's such a beautiful thing when we allow ourselves to feel it and obtain it. But like so many things, it starts with you giving you permission. It starts with a simple understanding. You may be new. You may be struggling.

Unsure. You might have a. hell of a mountain to climb, a journey to travel. You might have extra work to do. You might have to add some things and cut away others. You might have to ask yourself the tough questions and accept the difficult answers. But you do, my friend, belong here. There's a connectedness that I want to call our attention to, a connecting of dots.

Let's reverse engineer this simple idea. Life's trajectory is most inclined to change in our biggest moments. It's the opportunities that come around once in a blue moon, when it's all on the line. The moments where we have to operate under tension. How do you perform when the lights are the brightest, when the outcome weighs heavy? we only get a few truly revolutionizing opportunities in life, and we must be our best in those moments. Okay, but how?

That's the million-dollar question. As far as I'm concerned, the answer is in the mundane, the boring things. The answer is in repetition of the tiny steps that stack up again and again and again. See, a lot of people can picture the big opportunities, right? A lot of people dream of having the ball in their hands down by one with three seconds left on the clock. But they're not at their gym. They're not chipping away at their physique or their health. They're not studying the ins and outs of the game.

Now, that stuff's boring. Just give me the ball with the game on the line, I'll figure it out, right? Except that's not how the world works. works. My friends, as the saying goes, confidence is earned. I want to tell you about a wall in my studio, a blank wall. And as I've moved over the years, it's changed color, it's changed shape, but it's always been there. And it's heard me speaking directly to it for thousands of hours at this point. It's seen me stand up, put a rug in the center of the room, and talk to it like it was an audience at Gillette Stadium again and again and again.

Not because it was fun. No, it was tedious and, to be honest, sometimes annoying. But look, if we're reverse engineering those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, what I always knew was that I'd be ready, because that one opportunity isn't really about that one opportunity. It's about all you've stacked up along the way, all you've built. It's enabling the mind when you walk on stage and the lights go on to think, oh, this isn't special. This is just muscle memory.

I've already paid the price. I've already won. I've already suffered, lost, learned, and grown. This is just where I collect my prize. And so my friends, I ask of you, what is your equivalent of my blank wall? Where are you creating those reps? those reps, how are you building yourself up? So that when those fleeting opportunities do arrive, you don't get worked up.

You don't ask anything of yourself that you're not equipped to give. You simply smile and think, I've earned this. This is who I am. And now the world will finally see. I'm going to share with you a general metaphor about life. This brought me a ton of value, help me maintain perspective over the years, and I think it's going to help you as well. I'm going to be using YouTube as my example here,

but worry not. This applies to everything. I just happen to be immersed in the content creation space. So, to frame it, the growth of a YouTube channel is a lot like the stock market. You certainly want it trending up over time. You want your work to reach, you know, as many people as it can. But there are and have been segments along the way where that growth slows down. There are times when the channel overall, it just gets less engagement, less views, all of it.

And you look at it when that's happening, when you're in the midst of one of those dips and you think, oh no, what have I done? Anytime something you're creating slows down, it can be jolting. And this has over the years occurred many times, and every time my instinct is the same. It's, ugh. You know, that type of just duress. And I put a lot of time, energy, effort into this. This work is someone of what I'm most proud of in my life. So it's like, sound the alarm right?

Now I need to figure this out. And every time. things eventually correct and continue in that upward trend. Sometimes it takes a little longer than others, but I get there. And here's what I've learned. When there is a dip or a slowing down of anything that's going in the opposite direction of the way you want it to go, I do four things.

One, pause and breathe. Because you have to. regain recapture that perspective. Life, as I say so often, is simply not that serious, so stop making mountains out of molehills. Two, seek to understand why. There is some sort of change. What's different?

What prompted the change? Knowing that is power. So find it. Three, once you have that information, make the necessary alteration. It's not only about having the answer, but it's in implementation. It's adjusting. It's testing. And four, be patient.

Trust the process. You can be ferocious in your day-to-day and also calm and poised with the overall process and faith in its unfolding. And so I'm going to give you one more YouTube example, and then we'll pull it up to a level that's more broad and applicable everywhere, right? Something interesting about YouTube is that a lot of channels only have a handful of videos. We'll say four or five that generate the majority of that channel's interactions. It's a pretty common thing. And so when things slow down, you can often point to one of those four or five videos. So let's say something does.

There's a dip. You one, you take that breather. Two, you inquire. Pull back the hood. What's going on? It looks like one of these videos is not getting clicked as much as it. was or it should. Okay, that's great to know. Now what do we do about it? Test different thumbnails. Try new ones. You try and it fails and you try and it fails and you try and it fails and you try and

bam, one resonates. This new thumbnail gets clicked 3.3% of the time instead of 2.8. Everything goes back up. Impressions go back up. We have righted the ship. And I know that's a very detailed example. Not everyone's a YouTuber, but everyone's, you know, in their own way, niche down doing their thing. Right. And so you have to look at it in the context of what you're doing. What's your metaphorical YouTube channel? When things are wrong, how can you pull back the hood, identify that piece and tweak? If we step outside that box, what we'll find is that life is like that stock market. It's like a YouTube channel. It's not up and up and up. There are lows. There are metaphorical recessions.

There are times where it feels like the world is collapsing around us and we think, oh no, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? It's over. In reality, nothing is over. This is the roller coaster ride that is life. You don't get highs without lows. And when you think about it, you wouldn't appreciate them without the lows either. The setbacks are baked into the growth. And I'll use relationships as another example because I know in some way it's relatable to everyone. When the wheels, fall off the wagon with the relationship that meant something to you, whether it's a breakup, falling out with a friend, whatever the case may be. The tendency is to perceive it as a falling down,

the walls crashing down, rather than a little blip on your S&P 500. So what do you do? Same exact plan. One, breathe. Understand that this is a process and all will be well. Two, you want to be understand the why. You're human. You're going to feel emotion before you can reach any level of necessary pragmatism to fix anything. So allow that to occur. Gather yourself and then ask what prompted the break. Were you too different? Did you not align? Why? What did you learn about yourself? About the type of people you allow into your life? Three, once you have that information, adjust. How can you be better moving forward? You'll never be. human beings are complicated and messy and relationships are not an exact art. Too many variables.

But that doesn't mean you can't improve your approach in the future, mitigate some of the mistakes you made, target the things in people that you truly value. And as you do and you are number four, patient in the process, you'll find things level out and ultimately begin to rise. That situation was not and never was the end of you. It was a necessary low before a future high. And so 10,000 foot view, remember that during your difficult times, those moments aren't indicators that life isn't working for you. They are a part of every journey, factors necessary to every ascent.

And if you see them as such, you will conquer them, learn from them, and climb them to that place you most need to be. As you open your eyes, your feet hit the ground, you step out of bed, maybe as you sit and reflect with your coffee at the kitchen table. I want you to do me a favor. This is something that brings me substantial peace of mind. And I'm thinking it could be a value to you as well. I want you to take those things that you consistently think about, right?

The ones that have been bothering you or troubling you consistently come up in your mind. The ones that you thought about yesterday and the day before and the day before, you know, the so-called problems. Not so positive narrative. Stories about why you can't. And instead, think about each one's corresponding ideal, what the perfect situation would look like if you could turn each quote unquote problem around. The perfect story, the most exciting narrative.

And then ask, what can you do today to move one step closer to the place you want to be? How can you make those ideals real? And the reason this is valuable is because it reminds us that we are not powerless. Quite the opposite. It shows you how new and exciting and untapped your future is. This is your opportunity to remind yourself that you are not yesterday. You are not your past, you are not your mistakes. You're not any of those things, even though our minds often trick us into believing it's

so. It's kind of like running around the same block over and over again. You become so accustomed to it that you forget you can take a right out of your street and go anywhere you want to go, see anything you want to see. Every morning is a fresh start. An opportunity to connect new dots. And you can point that compass, any direction you choose. You are shackled to nothing, bound by no one.

And admittedly, that can be hard to hear. I remember the first time I had that realization that most of my limits were self-imposed. That I was complaining about the work I did. The places I spent my time and who I was spending it with. It bothered me from the second I opened my eyes in the morning until I closed them at night until I realized that I had more control than I could even imagine. And that detaching from the past, yeah, it would hurt, it would be scary, sure, I would lose some things.

But what a world to gain. What a story ahead. For some reason, things seem so messy and complex that we overlook our ability to simplify and change them. If it doesn't bring value to your life, you have the power to fix it. And maybe not overnight, but human beings are resourceful, resilient. If you have an outcome in mind and you believe in it, a step in that direction every day will come to mean everything. It's defining.

So no, this is not just an ordinary morning. This is the beginning. This is where you are blessed with the opportunity to move away from the old. and towards the ideal. Jack Welch has said, control your own destiny or someone else will. And I'm passing this along today as I believe it's one of the most important things

to understand. Not a once-and-done thing, but a reoccurring question. Where have I relinquished control? How can I recapture what matters most? As the world around us shifts, slips and slides, so does our grasp on it, which is why I find this continuous self-reflection so powerful.

I have a flight this afternoon, which means I have a hard deadline, and a lot I need to do before I head down to the Miami airport. I've been traveling a lot recently, which means I've been finding myself in this situation a lot recently. And here's what's become abundantly clear to me as I work through the logistics. On travel days, I'm exponentially more productive than on my typical, quote-unquote, workday.

I wake up with an urgency and sense of control over my time that apparently is lacking on, say, your typical Tuesday. And I'm shot out of a canon. Today, for example, I've worked out, written and recorded two speeches counting this one, recorded short video content sent to my editors, planned next week's topics, might even have time to go live and hang out for a few minutes. And I'm sitting here thinking, you know, dude, if I had a flight at noon every day, I'd be worth $500 million by June, what is the difference between today and every other day? Simple.

My approach towards it. How I utilize and control the resources at my disposal. This is a powerful, powerful thing to realize. You know, it begs the question, how can this urgency be manufactured? because that's what it's about, right? Setting up the parameters so that they are most conducive to our success. Another life-changing quote I came across a few years ago was you are your own experiment. Meaning life is about testing things, trying different methods, exploring different approaches,

and also having the discipline to observe their outcomes. Why? So that you can use that information to position yourself for success. That info is as good as gold. One understanding and two implementing, so that we're not pushed back and forth by external factors like leaves in the wind, but are instead creating our own ideal circumstances. These, let's just call them, travel days have helped me realize how much power, energy, control I relinquish on a typical day. And most importantly, how I can change that. You know, time for a new experiment. Let's try approaching every day like there's a hard cut off at noon.

How? I'm not sure yet. I'll test and explore until something clicks. But there's definitely some information worth noting. I've picked up my phone zero times today, which is obviously valuable. I've second-guessed my messaging and communication a lot less. Don't have time to waste on the small things. Nope, not when you fly out at noon.

This is information I'll take with me. Little nuggets of wisdom that I've been able to collect. And so I'll finish with an important reminder that this is not so much about efficiency as it is about awareness and a willingness to adapt. Like becoming a robot is not the goal here. But the discipline to step outside yourself and look at how you're spending your time

so that you can make it more valuable and meaningful is. We let the outside world dictate far too much, and we don't even realize. We just sort of move through it. We relinquished control because we had no idea it was ours to take. We are very often unaware of the power that we have

over ourselves, our circumstances, and our lives in totality. We're unaware of just how much value we walk right by. The opportunity is not days, weeks, or months, way it lives with you now every breath every step every decision you just have to open your eyes and invite it in how much did you care what do you mean i didn't understand the question at first in that room how much did you care what they thought of you like if zero is not at all and ten is you cared a lot how much did you care

8, I said, probably around an 8 out of 10. And that is the problem. Because if you care, you are not free. I've been working my whole life to obtain that word in its truest sense. Freedom. And I made progress. The world around us is tough to change. But most things worth changing are tough.

I've uprooted and walked away from people that brought me down. Plenty of times. I've walked away from places that just weren't me. I've committed to carving out a path that I deem meaningful in my life. See, but you can always turn your back and walk away from people, from places, from situations. Here's a little caveat. no one seems to tell you about, though. You have to take yourself with you.

There's no destination to which you can arrive without your thoughts. There's no place you can show up without your narratives or your view of the world. And the more I navigate this floating rock we're on, the more I'm convinced that weather is determined by the onlooker, not the atmosphere. Some people simply choose to see sun, some people choose, rain, our forecasts are internal. I've referenced this book often because it's one of the few cheat codes, not to any subset of reality but to life in general that allows us to reverse engineer true contentment. It's called the top five regrets of the dying by Brani Ware, where she speaks with mostly older people during their final day. asks them what they would do differently if they could do it all over again.

Regret number one, and we can actually stop right there, is I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the one others expected of me. Meaning, the number one thing people wish they did differently was careless. They wished they'd lived in their authenticity, put more weight on their goals, and their dreams than those of strangers that pass like ships in the night. Every time we repress who we are, our future selves shed a tear. And I know that's not pretty or uplifting to think about, right? A future you looking down and wishing you'd sought out that freedom in its truest form,

the freedom to live fully. But look, sometimes carving meaning out of life just isn't pretty. Sometimes what's necessary is not pretty. See, everything's relative. And perhaps understanding that it's not others who are the judge. But it's instead that older version of you sitting on the bedside, reflecting back on this one roller coaster ride. Maybe that's who we're living for. That's the well from which our courage should be drawn.

We are guests, passing through a miracle, with minds that falsely and irresponsibly whisper, we have all the time in the world, trying to convince us that the trip lasts forever. But it doesn't. Your life is a raindrop in the thunderstorm. It will be over as fast as it arrived, and how you choose to live it will be everything. See, the world always, in some capacity, exist that voice asking, you to dial it down. There will, from time to time, be sweaty palms and shaking knees.

You know, those human things. But when you find yourself standing on the edge of that door, looking out at a world that you know calls your name, let your voice be louder than all of it. Let the beating of your heart be stronger than your fear. And if you can't do it for you, then please. do it for that version of you years from now, looking out the window, smiling about how you almost said no. You almost boxed yourself in, you almost let what matters pass you by.

But instead you captured life like a child chasing down a firefly, that in a world of constraint, you allowed yourself to be free. What's the difference between paying a fee and paying a fine? The answer to this question may not be as small or insignificant as we're inclined to believe. I recently picked up the book The Psychology of Money by Morgan Howell. It lays out some valuable concepts and ideas about investing and managing our finances, growing our wealth. But there's one idea that I wanted to share because, yeah, from an investing standpoint,

it's important, critical even. But it's relevant to so much more. And I think an understanding of it will help us in many aspects of life. So first let's start with the financial piece and then we'll sort of grow the metaphor, because Howes-L talks about how we should look at investing in the market. And one of the hardest things for us to deal with is the market's volatility. It's difficult for us to invest our hard-earned money and then see the market go, let's say, for example, down 20%,

like seeing that huge dip in our investment, that's not fun. Everyone knows that. That can be nerve-wracking. And it dissuades a lot of people from investing or keeping their money in when they should. It ultimately keeps them from getting the returns available to them, right? But here's the point he makes.

He says, those people who see that volatility as a fee and not a fine are more inclined to win in the long term. understanding that market returns are never free, they demand a price. And that price is the roller coaster ride that we all have to deal with. That is the market. It's the ups and downs and highs and lows. That volatility is the cost of admission.

And if you understand that, you're more inclined to stay calm. Keep your long-term vision. You're more than likely to come out on top. On the other hand, if when that turbulence arrives, you know, the sudden crashes, the ups and downs and you see it as a fine, as this terrible thing that's happening to a punishment, you're more likely to act emotionally, to be reactive and make decisions that aren't in your best interest. To drive the point home, he mentions Disneyland, for example. The fee is $100. And people will gladly pay that fee because, you know, they get that,

a great experience with their family, their kids that they'll have for the rest of their lives. That $100 isn't a fine. It's not a punishment. It's an intentional, deliberate trade of one thing for another. And if you were to look at it as a fine, you'd never get to enjoy that experience. If you thought that $100 was a punishment, it just wouldn't be the same. So why do I bring all this up? Because I'm a firm believer that the best things in life all come with that price or a fee, as house estates.

But I also think we sometimes have a tendency to look at that cost, that very same cost of admission, as a fine, as a problem. When really, no, it's just trading some turbulence now for a reward a little bit down the road. Sometimes the right thing is the hard thing, the uncomfortable thing. With dividends, it will pay so long as we understand that it's opening the door to something greater. Leaving a situation you know is not good for you hurts. We've all been there, we all know this in some capacity. But it's not a punishment or even a bad thing, right? That discomfort associated with walking away is a fee that will enable you to live a more aligned life in the very near future.

Or let's say you're building something meaningful, something you care deeply about, but it's just you. You and the idea, there is no validation, certainly no external reward, not yet, and continuing forward in those moments is hard. It's taxing, emotionally draining even. But this feeling, again, isn't a punishment. It's not a fine, it's the fee, it's the cost of admission to bring something into life that wasn't there.

Life's greatest moments are expensive. It's just are you going to pay the fee to bring it about with a cost of regret at a different time? And you get the point, right? You can take this and apply it to so many things. Falling down, criticism, feeling lost, having to start from the bottom. These things are not fines, they are fees.

They are price tags. And so often the initial price is a bargain compared to what we'll get back. We just need to stop perceiving their mere existence as the world working against us. No, these are opportunities in disguise. It's easy to walk by the important things, to dismiss the uncomfortable things.

The harsh truth is that our greatest opportunities are often intertwined in our distress. That's why so many people walk away from the things that will make their lives better. That's why so many people, pull their money from the market when it takes a dive. So many people walk away from a project or idea when things get challenging.

Or conversely, it's why so many people do nothing at all. They stay in situations they aren't happy with and know they need to change because the fee to get from point A to point B feels too steep. But I think the value is in comparing the discomfort, the cost, the fee to what it's going to bring

to bring you down the road because often it's a bargain. We need to remember that what it will ultimately provide has life-changing potential. Understand that resistance is not a fine. It is not the world telling you no. It's life asking you, hey, do you really want this? Because if you do, it's yours. So long as you sign the dotted line and pay the price, Most people will be dissuaded by this.

Most people will turn and walk away, but most people also leave a hell of a lot on the table. And I don't want that for you. You don't want that for you. The world we live in is one of abundance. So when life pushes back, understand that it's merely positioning you to move beyond your limits. To redefine your worldview. And while admission isn't free, it's well worth the price.