Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - WAKE UP POSITIVE - Morning Motivational Speech

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

"Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start." - Anonymous

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I was in the car recently with my sister, Ali, her girlfriend Alex, and her girlfriend's dad, Jeremy. We were on our way to dinner in Naples, Florida, simultaneously driving and kind of looking through different places to eat. And no one really knew the area well, right? So we get to the point where we're pretty sure we have a spot we want to go picked out. When Alex suddenly looks up her phone and says to her dad, you know, looks like the place we're going tonight is a little fancy. And so for context, right, they're both from London. and their accents make this one million times better.

And he hears her, he looks back over at her and says, well, we deserve fancy, don't we, darling? And I'm like, oh my God, you guys are a real-life movie and don't even know it. I thought it was just such a beautiful thing. Moments like that are everything. Reminders to immerse ourselves in the moment, in what matters with the people that matter.

This, of course, wasn't about the restaurant, but how evident it was that he was grateful to be there. I remember seeing a quote that said, if you can't find joy in a cup of coffee, you certainly won't find it in a yacht. So how's that for perspective? You know, it's the little things that hold the value, the ones that become the big things. And while our eyes are fixated on mountaintops, life is. about the climb. Or as it's put in another anecdote, we live not for the destination, but for the journey. And see, this is a very timely topic for me. I woke up today, having hit the milestone, 500,000 subscribers on YouTube, which has honestly been a goal of mine since I started doing this

in 2014. I woke up so excited, so happy, so grateful for every single view. For every person that stumbled upon my message and saw somewhere in my journey a little piece of their own. But as today's gone on, it's been interesting. I found myself more and more unsure how I feel. Because on one hand, it is representative of that exact thing. The journey, the ride. I feel like the luckiest human alive with friends and family that have truly carried me through the valleys of life. And if anything, milestones like these honor them and the light they bring to the world.

But on the other hand, a part of me couldn't help thinking, oh, okay, I guess one million is next. And trust me, I wish that wasn't true, but it is. I remember reading in the Almanac of Naval Ravikant, a passage where he said, essentially that the excitement of acquisition isn't in the thing we're acquiring, it's in the anticipation of it, the buildup. I believe you use the example of a Ferrari, implying that waiting for it was the fun. That's the rush.

Getting it is just kind of, okay, now I have a Ferrari. And that's what makes these benchmarks we create so interesting. They're everything and nothing simultaneously. Reminders that finish lines aren't of value for their own sake. They're valuable,

they remind you of the race you ran, the highs you cherished, and the lows you fought through. Life ebbs, and it flows, and I'm continuously fascinated by its duality, by the overlap we need to live in, how two things can be true at once and so often are. I can sit here today and tell you, I think in a lot of ways, societally, we've gotten a little soft, too soft. that we often fail to understand that the road to what we want runs through the very landscape that will push us to be more than we've ever been. That we have to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Or that the beauty of being human is that we can make sacrifices now for that which we desire in the future. All this, as far as I'm concerned, is absolutely unequivocally true. But there's also the existential question Yeah, but for what? If you're not living, cherishing the little things, finding the miraculous in something as small as a cup of coffee, then when, when, darling, will you let yourself deserve fancy?

Now, I'm not going to claim I have all the answers. I do not. But if my time on this planet is a test case, well, here's what it showed me. when life is all about the destination, the 500K milestones, the money, the growth, the status, the world becomes hollow, and man does it hollow out fast? Things mean less. And while sure, they're often a valuable direction to point the compass, they are not life.

And on the contrary, when it's all play in no direction, all wandering and no learning, all chaos and no building, that subsequent meaninglessness emerges again. It's in balancing the doom. Life is incredible, but only to those who make a point to see it as so. And God, is that easy not to do? It blows my mind how easy it is to miss the things that are most important.

That's what this day has taught me. The finish lines, and 500,000 and milestones, though few and far between, are a celebration. But they do not point to themselves. They point to the little things. They point to the people. They point to the times you were walking through hell and kept walking. They point to the sunrises, sunsets, and times you sat back and thought, wow, am I lucky?

After all, there's a reason the view from the top points right back down to the world below shines a spotlight on the very ascent you just endured as if highlighting what really matters, what life is really about. And so today, by default, a new ship has left the port towards a new horizon. compass aimed at, let's say, one million. Why not?

But it's essential to remember that that is the North Star that guides the journey. It is not everything. I challenge you to point your compass accordingly to whatever it is in your world that matters, that excites you, that lifts you up. And when you arrive, let it be not. the goal in and of itself, but a celebration of the joy. The happiness contained along the way, the fact that you did look around and smile, did cherish those sunsets, sips of coffee, that you treated yourself to fancy, and that you paused every now and then to say to yourself,

thank you.