Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - You Didn't Come This Far to Stop | Best Motivational Videos of 2026 (So Far)

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

This episode is brought to you by Huel.Success isn’t just about discipline, it’s about removing friction. Huel helps me simplify nutrition so I can focus my energy on the things that matter most.Get 15% OFF your first order of $50 or more at huel.com/eddie with code EDDIE. New customers only.🧠 Join the free community: https://www.agns.lifestyle/pages/raise-your-standard📖 Get my Free Ebook While the World Sleeps https://eddiepinero.com/ebook🧢 AGNS Code "YWW20" for 20% off http://www.agns.lifestyleYou didn't come this far to stop.In this powerful motivational speech compilation, Eddie Pinero shares life-changing lessons on perseverance, resilience, self-discipline, mental strength, personal growth, and overcoming adversity. No matter what challenges you're facing, success belongs to those who keep moving forward when others give up. The key is learning to discipline your mind when your emotions tell you to quit.If you're feeling discouraged, stuck, overwhelmed, or ready to quit, this video will help you regain focus, build confidence, stay motivated, and continue pursuing your goals, dreams, and purpose.Keep going. Your story isn't over yet.📱 Follow Along:Support the Podcast on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2BLf6pBInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/your_world_within/TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@your_world_within📝 Comment below with what's been holding you back as of late. Would love to help you 🙏🙏🙏

Sometimes I ask myself a question. It feels dramatic at first. But the longer I sit with it, the more practical it becomes. It's this. If today were my last day, what would I feel? And there's a lot packed into that question. What would I regret? What would I be proud of?

Who would come to mind immediately? What would suddenly feel important? in what would fall away the moment time became real. And every time I run through that thought experiment, I notice the same thing. The answers are never complicated. In fact, they're actually very clear, which brings to light another uncomfortable truth necessarily.

Because if we already know what would matter in the end, then why does so many of our days look nothing like? it. Why is there such a delta between what we know would make us happy and how we live? And not necessarily in dramatic ways, right? Sometimes in subtle ones, in the way we rush, in the way we default, and how easily we trade meaning for momentum. Now, this is not a rant about the world. It's not a complaint about society or, you know, an opportunity to shake your fist at the sky, it's a mirror. Because most of us, we don't lose ourselves all at once.

We lose ourselves quietly. By living in ways that don't leave a mark. There have been seasons in my life, plenty, right? And there will probably be more down the road, where from the outside, everything looked fine. I was doing what I was supposed to. I was hitting the marks and keeping pace, and nothing was technically wrong.

Right, but hindsight's 2020. And nothing was particularly memorable either. And that's the thing worthy of note, right? Sometimes the danger is not failure. It's not falling. It's not some monumental catastrophe. It's forgetability. It's like blending into the background in our own lives

because the background is safe. Can't screw up when you're not on stage. It's hard to fall when you're just standing still, right? That's safety. But years later, when I think back to those seasons, there's nothing that stands out there. There's no texture or edge. There's just, I don't know, existing.

Days blending into weeks and months, dissolving into years. You think about this, and that's when it hits. It's like when we blend in too well, even our own memories lose contrast. We don't fall off course. We drift. Taken by an unremarkable current into nothingness. When you imagine looking back on your life someday,

what do you actually think you'll remember? Because I'm guessing it won't be the things that fit neatly. You probably won't remember the meetings. You won't remember the routines you never question. You'll remember moments. Specific moments. Moments where something shifted, where you chose differently.

Where you stepped off the path you were supposed to be on. And those moments tend to have something in common. They didn't feel normal at the time. They felt uncertain. They felt uncomfortable. They felt a little strange or out there. There was that feeling in your stomach like, oh man, this deviates from everything I've done in the past. I hope this is okay.

I hope it works out. And that initial sensation I've learned is not a deterrent. It's a key. It's a sign. It's a green light. This morning I was laying in bed half awake. Listening to music as the day started to come into focus. And it wasn't necessarily to, you know, be productive.

The goal wasn't to motivate myself. I just wanted to be present. And a song came on, acoustic piano. It's a pretty niche song by Owl City. It's called Be Brave. And there's a line in. that stopped me cold. It gave me this feeling, right?

Like, this matters. And I'm not sure why it matters, but it matters. And I spent some time thinking about it. The line was, ain't life beautiful and strange. One of those lines that hits you before you can explain it. And the reason it hit me wasn't because it was poetic or beautiful to hear. It was because I somehow knew it was accurate. See, we tend to treat strange as a problem, right?

Strange, something to fix, something to avoid. If someone acts out of character, we say they're being strange. If life doesn't go as planned, we call it strange, and usually not kindly. So I look it up. Strange, unusual or surprising in a way that's unsettling or hard to understand. Okay, check. Then I looked up beauty, something that evokes admiration, meaning, a deep. appreciation and it clicked. Those things aren't opposite, they're partners, they need

each other. Without strangeness beauty has no depth. Without strangeness, beauty's decorative. It's safe, it's forgettable. The things that matter most in life, whether it's love, growth, time, creativity, identity, they're beautiful because they are strange. They're out there, they're different. They deviate from the norm. They resist control. They don't come with instructions. They don't make sense until later. That's not a flaw. That's the point entirely. You know, when you look back on your life, what matters won't be what followed the blueprint. You won't be what blended in seamlessly. What could exist in the shadows behind the curtain. What matters in the end,

is what dared to be different. What was beautiful and strange. That's not poetry, that's mammary. Think about it. The moments that stay with you, the moments that still feel alive when you recall them, they aren't the ones that made sense. They were the moments where you stepped into uncertainty,

where you trusted something you couldn't fully justify, where you chose honesty over approval. And at the time, that may have felt reckless. Again, referencing that feeling in your stomach, a little alarming. You start to feel like, wow, there are things that can go wrong here. And looking back, you understand those moments, well, they were essential. But here's where we get it wrong. Because we know this intuitively.

We know that what lasts is what stands out. And yet, we spend so much of our lives trying to recreate what already exists. trying to fit into templates, trying to smooth out our edges, check our boxes, trying to look normal. But normal doesn't survive memory. Different does.

Strange does. I'm a believer that life isn't meant to be copied. It's meant to be shaped. And the raw material you're given isn't certainty. It's absurdity. It's a life that's so complex and feels so beyond us.

Sometimes it's hard to even begin with what to make of it. It's unexpected terms, unanswered questions, moments that don't fit the narrative you planned. Turns out they're not interruptions or detours. They are clay. They are the way. And the task isn't too eliminated. It's to have the courage to mold yourself from it. I feel like every meaningful life I've ever admired has the same fingerprint.

It's never perfection. Never predictability. It's always originality. We don't celebrate with statues, people that blended in. That did nothing extraordinary. That didn't push themselves out of the box. No, it's a willingness to step into

a didn't quite make sense yet, which is heavy as you're making that step. It's not lost on me that the things that mean the most are the scariest in the moment. The things that call to us simultaneously terrify us. It's like the cost of admission. You want the most out of this life? Fine.

You have to be willing when you step up to that line. Your knees shake and your palms sweat to step forward regardless. It's an acceptance that confusion isn't a sign you're lost. It's often a sign you're early. And as time goes by, there emerges this, certain kind of peace. I guess it only shows up in hindsight, right? It's not the piece of comfort.

It's the piece of alignment. The peace that comes from knowing you didn't betray yourself. The closest I've ever been to heaven wasn't in moments of ease. It was in moments where I chose something true. Before I knew it would work. Before it was popular, before it was safe, before it was understood. moments no one else could see, but I could. I heard a quote about 10 years ago by Nisha

that I've held close to my heart every single day of my life. Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who couldn't hear the music. Everything worthwhile is crazy before it's built. Everything that matters starts from nothing. What an absurd notion that. But see, an abnormal or strange life isn't reckless. It's more intentional.

It's choosing depth over display, creation over imitation. An abnormal life is seeing strange as an invitation. Those are the parts that give your life texture, meaning, again, memory. So again, place yourself in that situation. in that situation. Looking back on your life, when all is said and done, the highs, the lows,

the peak moments, the parts of your life that mattered probably won't be the ones that looked right. It'll be the moments that felt true. The ones that didn't quite fit, that scared you a little, the ones you didn't understand at the time. What mattered in the end

is that which existed out in the fringes. It's that which was beautiful and strange. So maybe the point isn't to escape life's absurdity, but to let it shape you, to stop trying to blend in with a world that forgets itself. No, live a life of courage. One that will survive as a memory.

One, however many years down the road, you'll smile on knowing you could have taken the easy road so many times, but that wasn't you. You were willing to pay the price, to step out of line, to do what you knew to be true, even when it scared you, because ain't life beautiful. One thing I've learned over the years is that consistency usually doesn't break because we lose motivation. It breaks because we leave too many things to chance. And that's why I'm so excited to partner with,

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and the standards that I set for myself. I've also been using Huell Daily Greens Drink alongside it. So get Huell today, 15% off online using my code Eddie at huel.com slash eddy when you spend $50 or more. Thank you to Huell for sponsoring this episode. Thank you for being here. Our most challenging chapters are like running a marathon with ankle weights on. But that's unfair, you might think.

It's heavy. It's something obviously slowing you down. But imagine hearing that and thinking, well, wait until they come off. And you see how fast you really are. This morning I met a friend for coffee. Amazing guy, sharp, thoughtful, just someone whose energy is contagious, right?

And we're talking about life and business and, you know, the usual things. But eventually we peeled back the layers a little bit and got deeper. And I won't get into the details, obviously, because it's personal, but he's going through a very difficult chapter right now. The kind of thing that doesn't just sit in the background, it takes up space, a lot of space. In fact, I think the estimate he gave me was 50% of his life right now is solely dealing with this.

And what struck me, it wasn't so much what he was going through. It was how he was going through it. Because I could see myself in that situation, feeling like the walls are caving in. Right? Like the wheels are coming off the wagon. That's my favorite term to use.

But I'm looking across the table at someone who's the opposite, who's very poised, very calm, wasn't frantic or spiraling, he was just steady. And maybe that's the word, right? And I realized in the moment that steadiness, you know, he's earned that. It didn't come from nowhere. It's come from everything he's already been through.

Every challenge that taught him how to stand still when life does everything it can to shake you. And, you know, I'm paraphrasing a lot of this, obviously, but he told me he's learning every day, getting better every moment at not letting it derail him. He's getting better at compartmentalizing it, giving it the space it demands, but not letting it consume everything else. And that's not easy. That's not, quote unquote, natural. That's discipline. That's awareness. that's someone deciding

this is hard but it's not going to take me with it. And I think the most powerful part of the conversation was this. He said, you know, I can't wait until I'm beyond this. I'm going to feel so free, right? Because if I can get through this, I can get through anything. Now that, my friends, is for special. Because most of us, if we're being honest, myself included, don't always think like that.

When we're in the middle of something heavy, we don't zoom out and say, oh, perfect, this is shaping me. Thank God for this pain. No, that's not human. We shrink into it. We get caught in it. We let it define everything. Again, I do it, you do it, we all do it. We don't always see the chapter.

We see the moment. and the moment has a way of feeling permanent. And that's why I was so excited to share this convo, why it was so inspiring to me. Because he saw it differently. He understood that this is a chapter, not the whole story. And most importantly, he understands what it's doing for him. And I couldn't help but kind of smile and say,

dude, you're running a marathon right now with anything. ankle weights on. Right? Every step costs more. Every mile is harder than it should be, and no one sees that, right? No one's going to give you extra credit for the weight you're carrying. But one day, my friend, one day those weights come off. And when they do, you don't just go back to baseline.

You don't just feel normal. You feel light. You feel fast. You feel like you can handle anything because you've already proven that you can. They say confidence is earned. What an example. Right?

That's the part we miss. We think weight is punishment, random, unfair, something that's just happening to us. But my friends, it's so much more than that. It's preparation. Because when you're forced to carry something heavy, you adapt.

You become more patient and resilient and focused. You learn to move forward when everything in you wants to stop. You learn to think clearly when emotions are loud. You learn how to stand your ground when life is pulling you under, or at least trying to. But what it's really doing is building a version of you that literally could not exist without it. So in your world, when that chapter ends, and it will, you know that you won't be the same person that walked in. you'll have momentum and perspective and an edge

because you'll know what it feels like to carry that weight and keep going. That's why all this matters. In your darkest moments when things feel the heaviest, when it feels like life is just stacking weight on top of weight, on top of weight, that's not the end of your story. That's the training ground. That's the foundation. The moment where if you can just hold perspective,

even a little bit, you start to see, this is not breaking me, it's preparing me. So maybe the question isn't, why is this happening? Maybe the question is, what is this building within me? Because again, one day those ankle weights are coming off. One day the storm passes, the darkness fades. And when it does, the world doesn't see the weight you carried. It sees how fast you are now. Now it sees the strength and composure and resilience.

It sees the result. But you'll know exactly where it came from. And you'll be grateful that you didn't quit in the chapter that made you. That version of you isn't gone. It needs to be reclaimed. I remember sitting in my car one night. engine off, hands on the wheel, long after I'd parked, no phone or music, just silence. And I caught myself doing something I hadn't done in a while.

I was sort of replaying a version of my life that didn't exist anymore. A version where things felt lighter. Where I woke up every day with energy, where everything felt possible. You know the feeling. Where you don't even realize you're in a good chapter until it's gone. sitting there, looking at the pieces, trying to remember what it felt like, trying to trace your way back. I sat there thinking, man, what happened to that version of me?

Not necessarily the achievements or the results, but the feeling, the spark. And here's the dangerous part. When you sit in that long enough, it starts to feel like something you lost. Like it belongs to the past. It's behind you. And I think that's where most people fall. flat. That's where it ends. They turn their best memories into museums, visit them every once in a while, admire them from time to time. But they never think to rebuild them. That night, though, something

shifted because I realized that version of me, the one I missed so much, he wasn't living in a better time. He was living in a better state. He moved differently, thought differently, he chose differently. He woke up and attacked the day, didn't wait to feel inspired, he created momentum, he didn't wait for light, he became it. And the truth hit me hard. Nothing I missed was actually gone. I'd just stopped being that person who created it. See, we romanticized the past like it was magic, like something special was happening to us. The reality is we were the ones making it special.

one showing up differently. We were the ones creating momentum and creating energy, creating life. So if you've been sitting there like I was thinking about how things used to be, let me remind you of something. You don't need to go back. You need to reclaim. Because the spark you're chasing, it's not behind you. It's within you. In fact, some might say it is an entire world within you. See, you can wake up tomorrow and decide to move like that person again. You can choose discipline over comfort, action over hesitation, creation, over consumption. You can stop waiting for the perfect feeling and start building it.

One intentional decision at a time. Because your best moments weren't accidents. They were the result of how you showed up and that means you can do it. again. This isn't about nostalgia. It's about responsibility. It's about understanding that the light you're missing was never something you found. It was something you built. It began internally and was projected out. And look, if you built it once, you can build it again. Stronger, even. Wiser. More intentional. So stop daydreaming about who you used to be. or how good things once were

or a feeling that lives in the distant past and start becoming the person who creates that feeling again. You don't have to chase the past, you just have to step back into the fire and remind yourself exactly who you are. What have you been holding on to just a little too long? There's an old story that hunters used to tell. And this parable that's been passed down over the years, I did a little digging, and there's, it seems like, some truth to it.

I wouldn't take it as gospel. I'd more pay attention to the overall message. But apparently in Western and Central Africa, this was an approach that hunters used to catch animals, particularly monkeys in some instances. And so the idea here is not about strength or speed. It's much more subtle. The idea is a little bit quieter than that. The values under the surface, if you will. So here's what these hunters would do. Here's the context. They would take this sort of narrow-necked jar,

and they'd place something sweet inside of it. So say, fruit or nuts or something just valuable enough for the animal to want to grab. and they'd leave it alone. And then theoretically, a monkey would come along eventually, and it would be curious, and it would peer inside, and it would reach its hand down through the narrow opening, wrap its fingers around the food. And it was in that moment where there was a turning point, right,

where things changed, because with an open hand, it can move freely, can release his hand from the jar. But with the closed fist, It's stuck. Right? The opening that allowed it in is now too small to let it out. And here's the part that matters. The monkey doesn't understand the trap for obvious reasons.

It doesn't think, hey, I should let go. It thinks I need to pull harder. So it struggles and struggles and struggles and it jerks its arm and twists and panics. And, you know, the more it fights, the more convinced it becomes that something outside of it is holding it there. And all the while, the solution's just sitting quietly in its hand. It's like, let go. That's it. That's all you need to do.

No strength, no struggle, no effort, no force, just release. But it won't. Because what it's holding feels valuable. Because the monkey chose it, because the monkey wants it. And so it stays. And it often stays long enough for the hunter to return, long enough for the trap to work. And again, this is an important. distinction, right? It didn't work because the monkey was overpowered. It worked because the monkey refused to let go, to open its hand. It's very much a self-inflicted wound. So now take a step back from the story, right? Because obviously this is not about monkeys. It's about how often we do the exact same thing just in more sophisticated ways. We are just more of the

evolved chimpanzees. You know, we hold on to things that keep us stuck. And I can make a nice long list, I'm sure you could too, right? Old identities, past failures, expectations that no longer fit, the need to be right, they need to be seen a certain way, the version of life we thought we'd have by now, we grip them and my God, do we hold them tightly? Not because they're helping us,

but because we've decided they matter. And when we feel stuck, we don't question the grip, we question everything else. We say, why can't I move forward? Why does this feel so hard? What's holding me back? Right? Just like that metaphorical monkey in the parable,

we pull harder. More effort. More frustration, more force. But the truth is quieter than that. Again, subtle. It's not always about pushing forward. Sometimes it's about opening your hand and letting go. Letting go of the thing you thought you needed.

Letting go of that version of yourself that does not belong in your future. Letting go of the story that says, hey, this is just how things are. Because the trap isn't always obvious. It doesn't always look like a cage. It looks a lot like something you chose, something you justified, something you're not quite ready to release. So here's the shift. Here's the win.

Freedom is not always about gaining something new. As much as our brains are wired to associate growth with acquisition. Sometimes the biggest steps forward come from momentarily stepping back. It comes from opening your hand. From realizing that what you're holding on to is the only thing keeping you with, you are. Not the fruit, the jar, or the world around you. You. So the question isn't what do I need to do. It's what am I still holding? What am I keeping that I need to let go of? Because the moment you do, the moment you release your grip, you'll find something surprising. You were never really trapped.

You were just holding on. The world isn't going to change. It's waiting for you, too. There's an old story about a man who needed to cross a river. This river was pretty intimidating. Wide, strong current, at least strong enough to make him pause at the riverbank. So he stood on the edge watching it, studying it, waiting. And he told himself, the day that thing calms down, I'm going to cross it.

When the water slows, when it's a bit safer, when it's a little easier, I'll make my move. And so he waited. And of course, that river kept moving. Minutes turned to hours, hours turned to days. He'd revisit it constantly. And every time he thought about stepping in, he'd see that current. powerful, still moving, still uncertain, still far from ideal. So we stepped back, he told himself the same thing.

Not yet. The perfect time is just around the corner. Eventually someone passed by, they saw him standing there, and asked, hey, what are you doing? to which the man replied, well, I'm waiting for the river to calm down so I can cross. The traveler kind of paused and looked at the water, then back at the man, and said simply, sir, it doesn't calm down.

And that was it, right? No long explanation, just that, those words. Emphasizing that the river was never the obstacle, the expectation was. There was a mismatch in reality. Now sit with that for a second. Because this isn't about water. It's about how many things in life we approach the same way.

We wait for the right moment, for things to feel stable and predictable and controlled. We tell ourselves, hey, I'll start when life settles down. I'll go for it when I have more time. I'll take the risk when I feel ready. But life doesn't work like that. The quote-unquote current doesn't stop. It's always moving. It's always uncertain.

There's always a reason to hesitate if you are looking for one. And the longer you wait, the more convincing that hesitation becomes. Because now it starts to feel logical, responsible even, safe, practical. But in reality, it's just delay. It's just fear that wolf in sheep's clothing. Because the people who make it across aren't the ones who found a calmer river. They're the ones who stepped in anyway, carefully, imperfectly, uncertain, but moving. And that's the million dollar message here, right?

You don't wait for life to settle. You learn to move within it. To dance through the chaos, to adapt and evolve. You don't wait for fear to disappear. You act while it's still there. So the question is never, when will this be easier? It's, am I willing to start even if it doesn't? Because the river isn't going to change for you.

But you, you can decide to step in, and once you do, you'll realize something most people never see from the shore. You don't need perfect conditions to move forward. What you need is to stop waiting for them. So much of life comes down to control. Understanding what we cannot control while simultaneously capitalizing and making the most of the things that we can. A constant awareness that's critical to our evolution.

Epictetus wrote, we must be at once cautious and courageous. courageous in what does not depend upon choice and cautious in what does. And this idea has been shared many, many times in many ways over the centuries. Another of which a lot of folks have heard is the serenity prayer, right? God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

But regardless of how it's said and who it's said to, the point is the same. There are things we cannot control that we must find a way to stop exerting ourselves, stop exhausting our energy on. They are, as the saying goes, what they are. These obstacles are immovable. And rather than continue to push and push and push with all our strength and energy,

our time is best suited, learning to effectively navigate them. And then there exists those things that are in our control. I believe it was the power of now by Eckhart Tolle. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, If something cannot be changed, stop thinking about it, right? The future represents anxiety. It's worrying about things that haven't happened yet. The past is essentially depression.

It's worrying about things that already happened. We can't do anything about the past or the future. All we have is now. And if it can be changed, then act. now and bringing about a desired result. Take that first step. Create some semblance of momentum, no matter how small. But to worry about what is behind you or in front of you is actually insanity. I remember loving the simplicity and pointedness of that message. Accept it, eliminate it, or adjust yourself to it. Sometimes it helps when I think about things in metaphors and

I tend to do it often. This morning I was drinking coconut water, right? Of all things. And I was thinking, man, it'd be nice. You know those little pieces of coconut that float around in there? It would be great if they were not in there, right? So I had this idea, just grab a strainer, pour it through the strainer into the glass. I'm leaning over the counter watching the pieces of coconut collect in the strainer.

And I'm just thinking sort of zoning out. Like imagine if those were my problems. just being separated out of my life just like that, how nice it would be, captured in a little net, and then, you know, discarded, thrown away. But, you know, it didn't take me long to realize a couple things. One, such an idea would never happen. Life will always have some obstacle to place before us. That's what life does.

After all, the word is predicated upon the avoidance of death. It's a struggle and a necessary one. Which leads me to the realization number two, we want hardship. You know, purpose and meaning. They're derived from our willingness to overcome adversity and transform because of it. A life without struggle is a car without wheels.

And sure, you might avoid the fender benders, but you're not leaving the garage. So that's a thumbs down. So I thought, okay, well, what if I slightly adjust that thinking? What if it's a subset of problems that I can remove? That's when it kind of hit me, the opportunity at hand, right? Not the so-called problems, but my thoughts about them. There are the real difference maker here, the negative storytelling that can be removed, pushed through the strain.

Again, not novel or groundbreaking. Like I said, a few minutes ago, this idea has been around for thousands of years. but sometimes things land perfectly, right moment, right time. And I knew what I needed to do was remove the worries and concerns pertaining to the events that I could not change. Yet I exhaust my energy dancing around and around with my thoughts about them.

You cannot change the future. You can change right now, which ultimately becomes the future. future and there's a difference. I had to, you know, pull that back in. See, I think most of our problems are derived from anger or emotional attachment to the immovable, the unchangeable. One of my favorite sayings is you can't change the direction of the wind, but you can always adjust your sails. And see, when you remove the self-tormenting you have going on about your past, things you wish you did or didn't do, when you remove the concern that the future won't be exact.

exactly what you want it to be, which tends to be where I lean of the two, you're left with one thing, the present, right? Clarity. You have officially empowered yourself because the things you allocate your energy to can be changed, can be made better or adjusted. And that's really what it's all about. You can't change the fact that someone you loved or cared about let you down. But when you dwell on it, you're now giving up the present as well.

You're preventing yourself from doing what is required of you now to make your life better. You can't control the fact that your company is reducing its size and your department is being eliminated. Can't control the fact that 8% get accepted to whatever you're applying to. Can't control the fact that you will be criticized for doing the unpopular. thing, the thing that you believe to be right. And I say these things, not to be a downer. I actually don't think there's anything sad about this. To the contrary. Now that you've accepted these truths, accepted this as reality, now you can move toward what's best for you. No more dwelling on the unchangeable. No more fighting unwinnable wars. No, it's time to go put

yourself in position to conquer whatever mountain is next. By straining out the things that cannot be changed, you are left only with what can. You can't change your company's personnel reduction, but you can find something else, something better out there. You can set the stage for a new journey. You can't increase the acceptance rate, but you can increase your value, go above and beyond,

Put yourself in position to succeed. And if you don't, they're lost. Continue learning. Continue growing. Continue moving forward. You can't stop the world's criticism. But you can learn to toughen up emotionally. Learn to trust your intuition and decision making.

Surround yourself with people you trust who lift you up. See, when you stop wasting time and energy on the wrong things, you get the right things. Like Greg McHughan says in essentialism, it's now that we can acquire. But often what we cut away, removing the things that weigh us down, that we're dragging along with us everywhere we go, they don't need to be there. I say to myself often that I have everything I need. It's there. Some of it's materialized. Some of it exists as a seed that I need to identify in water and nurture, but it's all right here. which means the problem will never be that I'm incapable.

It will never be that I'm not good enough. No, when I'm in the wrong, it's because I've forgotten to see it. I've either become consumed with the wrong things or lost faith in myself to do the right thing. And knowing this has been a gift. It's been tremendous. It's helped me even during the darkest moments to reacquire what matters most. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes days. even weeks or longer, but I get there.

Eventually, I arrive, and so can you. You have the ability to parse out why you feel the way you do, to categorize the thoughts in your head. Can I change it? No, okay, gone. And with all that's left, begins the journey, the good stuff, the adversity and the problems that will make you who you are. And don't misunderstand me.

I'm not saying it will be easy. But I'm saying it will be worth it. And that's critical to understand. Your world is there to maneuver and adjust to reshape. But its transformation depends on a laser-like focus on that which is malleable. That's saying, do what you can, where you are with what you have. It will lead you to exactly where you need to be. Even if you don't trust the road before you,

trust yourself to walk down it. I had a friend reach out last month and pitch an idea. Eddie, there's a 150-mile bike race called the MS-150. It's happening right here in Texas near Houston. But Eddie, instead of cycling it, what if we rocked it? And for those who don't know, ruckings essentially walking with a weighted vest or backpack on. He continued, so it takes the bikers two days.

But if we leave a few days before them, we'll then have four days to cross the finish line at the same time. I did the math slightly less than 40 miles a day. It's a lot. We laughed. No one's done it before. We laughed again. Crazy.

But ultimately we agreed, partially because he's an amazing dude, and partially because I know that the best experiences of my life have all been born of seemingly spontaneous ideas with people I cared about that pushed me further than I knew I could go. We told people, they laughed and said it was crazy. We smiled and agreed. Sure enough, the day arrived. We were accompanied by a mutual friend, making it three of us rucking total, as well as our significant others who were alongside us the entire time in a Bronco filled with food, drinks, and medical supplies.

As we started out, we laughed. Boys, this is crazy. But just like it takes a fraction of a second to realize your hand is on a burning stove, we weren't really sure what we gotten ourselves into. Day one was fun, actually. At least most of it. Setting down the camera,

walking past it to get those artsy passing-by shots. close-ups of flowers and trees blowing in the wind. The three of us reminiscing about old stories, lessons, some dad jokes, even some friendly debate, which I'm sorry, but you guys cannot convince me that we haven't been to the moon. As much as it drives all my buddy's crazy, I won't bend. But onward we marched.

And erosion is subtle, like waves washing up on the beach, except it was the erosion of mind and body, spots under the feet materialized, becoming blisters, becoming open blisters. The sun beaming down began to take its toll. And as it set, we realized we still had 10 miles and it was just day one. It's now evident that we had entered the cage with the beast we underestimated. And for context, you know, I've run quite a few ultra-distant races in my life.

Done the keys 100 a few times, as well as unaffected. Officially, twice. Ran across Arizona, Texas. I've run a few halves. The endurance face is not new to me. This type of pain was not new to me. And still, this was the hardest thing I've ever done, by far. To move consistently with weight, just a different ballgame.

We're crazy, man, I'd say. Crazy, Keeley would reply with the laugh. Eventually, we wrapped up, collapsed into the Jeep where the girls met us with blankets, and electrolytes, crazy, they'd say. You guys are nuts. Day two was even harder. And I won't get into every little detail here. But swollen feet, blisters, shafing, overall fatigue.

You get the idea each day seemed to get harder and harder until we approach day four, the final day. Let's fast forward. It's 2 a.m. Two hours to go on a freeway that stretched the entire way to the finish line at college students. station. My situation was so bad I was basically walking bow-legged like a cowboy. Step, step, step, step. I could focus on nothing, big picture, nothing else.

And then somehow, like all things, it just ends. Even the things you didn't think ever would. And the second that finish line was in front of us, there was a monumental relief to the point that all I could do is cry. And I mean weep like a baby. delusional, exhausted, and overtaken by the understanding that I just did the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Despite the lightning bolts I was feeling pushing up my body, I was basking in a euphoria that money cannot buy. It's virtually unobtainable without a march of this magnitude. I was higher than I'd ever been immediately after being lower than I'd ever been. Like an elevator that takes you from the depths of Death Valley to the highest point of Everest. what is this feeling?

I started imagining a world where I never felt this, where I gave into the pain on day two, or bowed down to the raw skin or swollen blistered feet I was working with earlier that day. That was crazy. We said to each other one more time. But as we got into the Bronco and drove towards the hotel at 4.30 that morning,

looking out the window, I started to think maybe it wasn't crazy. Maybe it wasn't crazy at all. Maybe it was necessary. Absolutely necessary. Maybe, just maybe, it was everything. A little piece of life reserved for a small few. Reserved for a select group, a gold mine, gate kept by nothing other than the question,

how bad do you want it? Crazy, on the other hand. Well, I think that's more a story of never pushing yourself to that feeling of ecstasy, of pride. Perhaps crazy is having a Ferrari in your garage and never taking it for a spin, never pushing the pedal to the floor. Crazy is being so scared over breaking up with normalcy that there's never that little seed of doubt in your stomach, that fragment of fear, that resistance. where you know you're strong, but you also know the Goliath before you is no slouch.

Crazy is never drawing your sword and confronting him. I couldn't stop playing it back in my mind. Was it stupid or did it remind me that I'm alive? Was it insane or did it propel me closer to the life I want most? Was it pointless or was it the point entirely? We'd accidentally chosen the path that we needed most. What we'd done is stumbled into the very thing that makes life worth living. And man, to look back and realize how easily we could have said no, missed it.

How crazy. Your future is built on the promises you keep to yourself. I want to, for a second time, revisit my recent. rucking of the MS-150 in Texas, where a few others and I put weight on our backs and tracked the same course that's intended to be a bike race. And it was definitely, you know, hands down, the most challenging four days in my life. And so, as you can imagine, as soon as I cross that finish line and returned back to, quote-unquote, normalcy, left me with a lot to think about.

In fact, there are so many takeaways I could go on forever. But out of respect for the less is more principle, I've cut it down to what I believe to be most important. And so to set the scene as brisk walking turned into slow walking, slow walking, to limping and limping into more of a shaved duck walk, classic case of me watching the footage back, by the way, and thinking, man, I felt like I looked so much cruel. cooler in my head, but hey, it was a game of however you can finish, right? Just get your body

over the line, drag it there. It's not about looking pretty, it's about finishing the thing. And over the course of the venture, we'll call it, there were multiple times where a camera was put in front of me and I was asked, why? Why are you doing this? As far as questions go, that's, hey, fair. Well, there were a handful of reasons. But the one that mattered the most to me revolved around promises. And not promises made to others, but the ones we make to ourselves. See, lately, in full transparency,

I've been somewhat letting myself down. Not all at once or spectacularly, but slowly. subtly, a sort of death by a thousand cuts. You know that feeling when you tell yourself you're going to do something, where you get a moment of inspiration and make big plans, and then you just don't. You don't do anything. It's like, Eddie, you're so much happier when you wake up at five and go on a walk.

You know that. That's irrefutable. Do it. And then the morning would come around, and my breakfast. brain would go, eh, you're training so hard, though. Your body could use the sleep, man. Be practical. Snooze in the morning goes by. Or I'm going to test this new idea, this new concept, and then I don't really have time to experiment right now. I have a system and a routine, and, you know, you get the idea. It leaves this little feeling in the pit of your stomach where you know, you know that you've let yourself down. And I didn't like that chapter.

I knew I was better and knew I was capable of more. If only I could pull myself out of the cycle of lying to myself, right? If only I could remind myself who the hell I am. And what a better way than to do something that 99% of the world wouldn't do. Not because they couldn't, but because they wouldn't. What better a way than to push through some of the most extreme discomfort I've ever faced? See, walking 150 miles with a weighted vest on your back, it simplifies things dramatically. Life becomes nothing more than, hey, you're at point A, get to point B, period, that's all.

No nuance, no complexities, you go until you arrive. And it was like, upon starting, everything snapped into point. place, my focus, my self-belief, my whole being behind a singular mission, it didn't matter if or when people around me stopped, it didn't matter if it was hot or cold or sunny or rainy. It didn't matter if the blisters or shafing or stiff legs had to say, I had this certainty that, you know, aside from an unforeseen monumental injury, God forbid, I knew I would finish. I would crawl if I had to. And please hear me.

I'm not saying this to sound cool, right? That's the beauty. Anyone can sign their name on that dotted line. But I guess the part that lit me up is the notion that few ever would. See, sometimes we have to remind ourselves who we are. We have to renew vows to the person looking back at us in the mirror. And that's how I saw this mission. Nothing at home is harder than this, Eddie.

Nothing is this painful. Nothing is this long in agonizing. Yet here you are in this arena, a pursuit completely voluntary, an unofficial march through endless backroads resembling some sort of beautiful, scenic hell. And you're stepping up and leading yourself through it to an obtainable greatness. See, waking up at 5 is easier than this. Not scrolling social media is easier than this. Completing the things you wrote down on your daily task list is easier than this. So the problem is not your drive.

It's not your capability or desire. That fire's still in there. My friend, you have it. It's the simplification of identifying what you love. in creating your life so that you are embarking upon the pursuit of that North Star, highlighting the things that matter and committing to them. It's not an easy march, but it's a simple one. It reminded me that I am, in fact, the kind of person who keeps those promises to himself.

I just needed to feel it again, to taste what that was like. If, as the saying goes, people follow through on who they believe, believe themselves to be, I needed to rediscover the hero that somehow fell into the background along the way. And sitting here now, I can tell you truthfully, I did. So if you're listening, I hope you hear me. I hope you recognize that there exists a warrior in you, a hero, a leader, the person you're capable of becoming.

Perhaps you just need to remind yourself, to reconfirm it to yourself. Does it need to be a 150 mile ruck? No, not even close. It can be anything that pulls you out of your comfort zone. Anything that creates some unease that places you in an arena with a formidable adversary for you to conquer. Nothing is quite like stepping out and showing yourself who you're going. are becoming someone who doesn't hide but slays the dragons before them.

If you can keep your composure there, you have all the proof in the world that you can keep the little promises you make as well. And the ones who keep the promises they make to themselves own the future. What's the difference between simple and easy? Well, simple is straightforward, uncomplicated. Easy, on the other hand, means achieved without great effort. The difference between those two words is subtle, but essential to understand. One deals with the complexity of an outcome.

The other, your will and determination to achieve that outcome. Becoming who you most want to be is simple. But becoming who you most want to be is simple. you most want to be is not easy. Just like walking is simple, yet hiking up a mountain is not easy. The procedure didn't change the context did. So let's talk about context. Let's talk about this cyclical nature of growth because it's not that most people can't. It's that most people won't. It's not that most people don't get how. It's that they don't have a strong enough Why? The path is laid out before you, you just have to be willing to walk down it.

Will you? Step one, realize there's more out there. It's not that what you're doing now isn't amazing. It's just that yesterday's act of courage is now today's status quo. What was the spectacular is now the mundane. What was once the ceiling you had to jump to touch is now the floor you walk on. So at the very least, it prompts you to ask, well, what's next? Simple. Not easy. Step two, the acquisition of courage.

Yesterday's courage was a fight. It took a lot out of you, and it's ultimately what got you here. But it dropped you at the curb. It waved goodbye and went on its merry way, and here you. You can stay here, a lot of people do. You can reminisce of the glory days, the old path, yesterday's triumphs. Or you can do that perpetually uncomfortable exercise of vulnerability. Stepping into tomorrow's unknown, reminding yourself that life's greatest rewards

have a hefty price tag and that price is discomfort. But I've already played this game, one might think. What you did was learn the rules. Now it's time to apply them to a new setting, and around goes the merry go round. It might seem like a replication from the horizontal, but here's the secret. You can't see the vertical. You have yet to look down and see your ascent, see what you're becoming. Just by staying on, holding tight, just by believing in yourself enough to begin again, you

are fanning those tiny flames of courage. in your soul that wait to be spread like a wildfire. Simple, but not easy. Step three, mistakes. Now, of course, it's not the mistakes themselves, you fear. It's what you think those mistakes will mean. Ridicule, embarrassment, lack of direction, or identity losing what you have,

but here's the catch. When you realize the upside, is greater than the downside you liberate yourself. When you realize there's more to gain than to lose, your potential for greatness is born. How does one act on this? Mistakes, by making mistakes, by injecting yourself into the turbulence of progress.

Our biology has not yet learned that the uncomfortable thing is the right thing, and that's why you get resistance. That's why it hurts. And it's why a few people. will accomplish what you will. When it comes to your climb every day is opposite day. When they run out, you're running in. When they play safe, you play for the victory. To become who you might be, you must learn how to get there. Mistakes are your curriculum. Simple, but not easy. Step four, trust yourself.

Okay, sure, no problem, easy. Well, yeah, it's easy when you're getting what you want. But evolution takes time and there's nothing quite like giving and giving and giving and not getting. There's nothing quite like stepping up to the plate again and again and again and again and bringing no runners home. So how does one find the strength to continue walking up to the batters box? Well growth is exponential and those swings and misses matter.

The infield singles matter. Everything matters because it's all chiseling your future. herself out of stone. Nothing is dependent on the next at bat as much as all at bat in the aggregate. That's why success is so often considered to be sheer will, dependent not on the home run, but on the discipline, the self-belief to keep walking up to the plate. Repetition and adjustment. Repetition and adjustment. Repeat and refine, repeat, refine. Those are the materials from which all things are made. Simple. but not easy.

And then we have the finale. The ending step five. Celebrate and adjust. At some point you'll be able to look over your shoulder and notice something that perhaps you hadn't before. Space. Space between where you are and where you started. It's not sudden, but gradual. And undoubtedly, with enough persistence, it will emerge.

These moments they are precious. They are times to acknowledge what you've accomplished, the sacrifices you have made. They are life's way of reminding you what you are building and who you are becoming. It's a time of celebration. Every little win means something. Every small victory matters so relish in it.

And then transform it. Normalize it. Recognize that that mountaintop is your founding. Now your starting point has changed and so have you which means so have your expectations with an increase in ability comes an upgrade to what's possible what's expected and look at that We have arrived at a new step one realize there is more This is the process for capturing that which life has to offer if you can fall in love with that Appreciate it respect it While simultaneously understanding it's not scary, it's dependent entirely on your ability to push forward.

If you can understand that, there is nothing you can't do. Nowhere you can't go. Simple, yes, easy, no. But you're not in this for easy. You're in it for the journey, the growth, the adventure. You're in it because it's not easy. You'll see in time, as will the world. That this decision to endure was simply the best one you ever made.

Someday, the things that you currently don't understand will make sense. Someday the big things you're dealing with won't seem so big anymore. Someday the doubts you have about yourself will be revealed as false. Someday you'll see that the things you worry about, didn't matter at all. Someday you'll see that the road before you wasn't something you had to walk flawlessly, but rather something you had to trust and believe in.

Someday you'll look in the mirror and see that you had it in you the entire time, that there was nothing you needed or should have been hoping for. Yeah, someday. Someday that will all be true. But what about some days? from the past.

I remember years ago thinking someday I would venture out into the world. Someday I'd speak my mind. Someday I would start my own business. I would surround myself with people who believed in what I believe. Someday I'd make a little more money, have a little more time to do what I love. Someday I'd have all that. And as I look around, I realize, It looks a lot like someday.

But guess what? As we grow, so do our some days. It's a chase that never end. There's always something more. There's always something bigger and better. And the problem is not the ambition. The problem is forgetting that in so many ways, You've dreamt of being where you stand right now.

You have arrived. You're not the same person that 10 years ago was throwing some days out into the universe. No, you have grown. You have learned. You have evolved. Why does this matter? It matters. Because without acknowledging how far you've come,

You cannot acquire the strength needed to go where you must go. When you don't feel good enough, it's often because you haven't looked over your shoulder and opened your eyes. The evidence is right there. It's hiding in plain sight. There's proof that you've been there. That you faced demons and conquered them. endured your battles and overcame. You did that.

And at one point not that long ago, you couldn't say that you had. You weren't yet that person, but things are different. Now, what you have today was once only that hopeful someday. It was a fleeting thought. It had no merit and no value,

yet you brought it to life. Look what you've done. Understand how far you've come, how you ran when you could, you walked when it was possible, you crawled when you had to, and continued on to arrive at a someday that is right now. You, my friend, are a maker of things unseen, an architect of tomorrow's and some days, so don't you dare, don't you ever entertain the delusion

that this gift suddenly stops now. Suddenly the burden is too much. The mountain is too tall. No, what you do is overcome. That is who you are. You've done it for you. You've done it for the ones you love. And in some cases, the ones who didn't even understand,

but you kept going. Marching through the fires of hell to turn someday, into right now. And I get that the road before you is uncertain. There's no way to know exactly how life will unfold. But that's besides the point. A bird can't predict every gust of wind it's going to encounter. It spreads its wings, takes off, and adapts because it can, because it always has, because that's what it does. I'm not advocating that you should have all the answers. No, I'm suggesting that you trust yourself to find them. To move forward into the haze that surrounds you,

to make sense of the seemingly illogical, bring about reality from the make-believe. Someday you will have what you're aiming for. But here's to never letting a today go by without realizing that you are always living out a someday from your past, you are always arriving and leaving simultaneously. The accomplished and the student, crossing a finish line and on the starting block

with another race around the corner, another chance to stretch your legs and reach for the heavens. If you ever forget that, I ask that you find it within yourself to look over your shoulder, to remember what you once asked for, and to appreciate the journey that you have undertaken. You did that.

Now onward you go, you have more some days to bring to life. I'm going to share something my friend Michael recently said on a call. And for context, he's essentially describing the last few weeks. And I found it pretty profound. He said, we don't actually value what we say we value. We value what we do. Words don't mean anything, right?

The proof is in what we see when we play back the tape. It was pointing to sort of a disconnect between what he personally was saying matters to him, you know, if someone were to ask, and how he was actually spending his time, which was essentially working a lot. And, you know, I'm paraphrasing, obviously, recapping the convo, but he was basically like, man, I talk about how much these things mean to me, people, travel, freedom. But I look back at my life over the past, whatever it was, X many weeks or months. And it's essentially just work, work, and work. So based on my output, what do I value?

Well, I value work. And, you know, this recognition prompted an awareness and a plan for, for change, and I just found it to be incredibly powerful, obviously the main point, but also the self-awareness, right? It's challenging. It's hard to view your life with that clear of a lens, to step back and really see things in totality. And see, I don't think I know of, you know, any super detailed, complex, intricate strategy that's ever changed someone's life. You know, it's always an adjustment to the basics, the big picture things. I'm on the wrong track.

I'm off course. I'm missing what matters, right? It's correcting the dissonance in our lives. And it made me think, wow, right, where's the disconnect between what I say? You know, what I claim to value and how I'm living my life. Where's the gap between what I want most and how I spend my time? And so as I was thinking about this, right, there's a very specific kind of story or anecdote that comes to mind. I'm sure over the, you know, last 11 years of me speaking and sharing and creating, I've touched on it before, but 11 years is a long time.

So I'm going to repaint this picture. It's essentially an old story about a teacher or a professor standing in front of his classroom holding an empty jar. He's doing a demonstration for his students, and he places a few big rocks inside the jar until they reach the top. He then asked the class, is the jar full? And the class, the students, seeing the jar filled with rocks, they nod. Yeah, it looks full. So he reaches underneath the table, has a little cup of pebbles that he pulls out,

and slowly pours the pebbles into the jar. The pebbles slide through the cracks between the rocks, taking up space. So he asks again, now is it full? Students laugh a little this time. Probably not, they say. Correct, in comes the sand. He takes out another cup, pours the sand into the jar. The sand fills those spaces that even the pebbles left behind.

What about now? Class is perplexed. Takes out a cup of water, pours the water in the jar. eventually there's no room. A professor says the lesson is simple. If you don't put the big rocks in first, they'll never fit. And this matches perfectly with the sentiment of Michael's story. Most of us can tell you what our big rocks are.

It's families, health, freedom, creativity, peace, presence, adventure, love, fill in the blank. You ask someone what matters most, and usually the answer. The answer comes quickly. Then you roll back the tape on their actual life, and you find that something else was put in the jar first. Work you don't like or work you're not passionate about, or notifications, or obligation, distraction, noise, survival mode. And by the time we finally make room for the things we swear matter most,

there is no room left. That's what struck me so deeply about that conversation. You know, he said something incredibly honest. I don't think we actually value the things we say we value. I think we value what we repeatedly do. And that makes perfect sense, right? Our lives are already telling the truth. Maybe the calendar is honest.

Our habits are honest. The repetition is honest, not our intentions. In fact, I had a fifth grade teacher who used to constantly say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Maybe a tough lesson for fifth grade, but it stuck. Because the truth is, life fills up quietly, right? No one wakes up one day and consciously decides, I'm going to neglect the things I love.

Yeah, I'm going to skip everything that matters. No, it happens gradually. It's like one postponed trip. One more late night. One more waiting to live. One more season of saying, once things calm down, it's go time. But life never comes.

completely calms down. The stars never align. There's never a perfect. Which means self-awareness becomes everything. The ability to stop and ask, what actually fills my jar? Because if the big rocks really matter, they can't

be what we squeeze in afterwards. They have to go in first. So maybe the question isn't what do you want? Maybe the real question is, what does your life suggest you want? Our days leave fingerprints. Our habits tell stories. Our calendars become evidence.

And eventually, whether we meant to or not, we become the product of what repeatedly fills our jar. That's the uncomfortable part, but it's also the hopeful part. From the pain comes the answer. Because just like Michael, once you become aware of that disconnect, once you finally see the gap between what you say matters and what your life reflects, you can change it. You empower yourself. Maybe not through massive reinvention or a perfect plan, but through the courage to do the things that matter first,

to put the big rocks in first, to stop treating the things that matter like leftovers. Because just like a meaningful life is rarely lost all at once, a beautiful life is also built quietly. One intentional day at a time. One aligned decision at a time. One moment where you stop, look honestly at the tape and decide, no.

These are the things that matter most to me. And starting now, they are where I'll point my compass. We tell ourselves the path is complicated because it excuses us from taking the first simple step. Let's dive in further. If things are complicated, then we don't have to jump yet. We don't have to feel exposed yet. We don't have to step into discomfort yet.

Perfect. Our lizard brains love that. We can instead go on our comfy fact-finding mission, looking for answers that really can never be found. Because what we're looking for only materializes in motion. It only shows up along the way. Sometimes I don't think it's conscious. Sometimes, I'm convinced we have no idea we're doing it.

Let me give you an example. On this podcast, this channel, I like to share about my friends a lot because I'm fortunate enough to learn a lot from the people around me. So I'm going to do it again here and talk about my buddy Stephen Selly. But first, a little context. So recently, I've had some writers block. just kind of stuck and believe me

I talk about it a lot it's not that I'm always stuck but when I'm not when I feel like I'm cruising through a particular chapter I don't share as much because that's not really where I learn the most most value is in the overcoming

and so that's where I like to shine my spotlight and so back to the example here I am essentially trying to pivot on YouTube again As we all know, this is an adapter die platform. And, you know, while my episodes and stories are popping off on Spotify and that's doing really well,

that has not been the case on YouTube, right? At least not recently. And so what am I not going to do? I'm not going to blame the platform. Certainly not going to throw a fit. I have to adjust, right? I have to get better, period. I have to make sure I'm giving as much value to the audience as possible.

That's it. That's the thing. That's the challenge. And so I'm thinking, all right, I finished a pretty powerful adventure a few weeks back with some friends. I documented it all. How about turning that into a masterpiece for YouTube, right? And really excited about the challenge, a more advanced production, a pivot to that next level. And so I get all the video clips.

I grab my mic. I have these ideas in my head. I have notes in my notebook. I sit in front of my computer. day after day, I just freeze. It's bizarre, right? I start telling myself, well, maybe you need help. Eddie, why are you even editing, right?

Have your editors do this. These clips aren't good enough. You shot most of it on an iPhone, right? You didn't get drone shots. Ah, this is too much like what I usually do. Oh, now it's too far removed from what I usually do. Right, you get the idea. It's like, you know, this internal dialogue driving myself insane.

And the video, still sitting there with zero progress. Okay, in comes Steve. And Sir Steve has many talents. But one of them is being in front of the camera. The dude has courage. Period. Objectively. He'll try things.

He'll take creative risks. And it's a numbers game, right? He'll tell you himself, sometimes he hits, sometimes he misses. Sometimes he really hits, sometimes he wildly misses. That's the life of brand building and content creation. But the last year or so, he's gone all in on music. And I get a message from sends me this music video where he's at the beach performing one of his songs, right? And he asked if I'd give feedback.

I said, of course, happy to. Right? And I watch it. And as I'm watching it, I'm like, wow, the cinematography is beautiful. And the idea is simple, you know, simple but well done. Like a cinematic simple, the kind that's hard to do. Because when you're filming that type of thing, you take one step too far and you kind of overdo it. It's easy with that kind of thing to quote unquote do too much, right? And so in my humble opinion, the dude just nails it on this video.

And so we're talking and I'm like, hey, who did the video for you? And he was me. And I said, and who else? And he said, just me and a tripod. And I watched it again and sure enough, yup, every shot is still, right? There's no movement, clearly set up on a tripod. But the setup and the placement of the subject and the changes of scenery and the color grading was all so good that I didn't even notice.

He's just having fun in front of his camera With, by the way, a lens and setup that costs one-third of what mine does This is not about complexity And that's kind of when I realized, like, I'm trying to complicate this simple Trying to reverse engineer an outcome Instead of just saying what I want to say Instead of pressing play And letting it fly

Right? I'm trying to find little pieces of perfection all around me when it's the imperfection that connects with people. It's the realness that matters. You do it because your soul is pulling you in that direction. You're doing it because you love it. You're doing it because you have something to say. This isn't a paint by number. This isn't how do we get views. And deep down, I know that.

I've always known that. Fear has a way of exposing you. It's subtle. And I didn't even realize the reason I was dragging my feet is because somewhere deep down I was afraid. I was afraid that if this didn't work, I'd be back to square one. If this fell flat, I wouldn't have the answer

that I was so sure I had. See, you don't win afraid. You can't win afraid. I don't need a Hollywood film crew or sound engineers or some secret formula. I don't need to study 30 Mr. Beast videos or watch every ultra marathon, you know, documentary ever made. I need to trust myself and my abilities and what brought me here. What I need, like Steve, is to trust myself enough to turn the camera on and just go to relish the simplicity

because simple means less friction. It means fewer obstacles between where you are and where you want to be. And look, I've been doing what I love for over a day. for over a decade. And still, these reminders changed my life. Still, I get yanked under and need to be pulled up by those around me. Still, the basics become camouflage behind things that don't matter at all. And I'm not ashamed of it.

It's life. The difference is now I recognize it. I remember that being stuck is being afraid. They're not different. And for every excuse we make to ourselves about not being ready, not being good enough, or having what we need, there's Stephen Selly on a beach singing into a camera set up on a tripod with zero excuses. Sure, this is me sharing a personal epiphany. But it's also a call to arms.

Because I don't know you, but I bet you have some version of this in your world. I bet there's something you want to try or start. I know there's something that's been on your mind, perhaps tucked away, kept in the shadows until you promised yourself that time is right. It will never be right. You'll never have everything. And the people that live lives of freedom, the ones who change things, they go. They don't tell themselves they need Stephen Spielberg.

They grab the tripod and they walk outside. And you, in your world, you have what you need. And when your brain whispers that you don't know what that is, fear attempting to take you down. And so here's to making sure that fear misses. Here's to doing what matters to you simply because it matters to you. The rest. Not some of the rest or pieces of the rest, but all of the rest is noise.

He wasn't the best father, but he was the best father for me. A banger of a quote from my friend Michael, who I actually referenced a few days ago. You know, putting my buddy on blast here. But I thought it was so moving that I asked if I could share it on the podcast. And a little bit of context, you know, we were talking, he was asking me about, my childhood and I said, you know, I'm a very lucky guy. I have two incredibly supporting, loving parents, and I don't ever take that for granted. And he goes, yeah, well, man, my childhood, it was hell. It was toxic. And I could give you a million examples, right? And he goes on,

he starts talking about his father and sort of the pain around that relationship. And he says, You know, my dad wasn't the best. But over the years, I've learned that he was the best dad for me. It was because of that situation that, you know, I learned to be resilient. I learned to deal with hardship. Right. And so Michael, for context, he's a fireman now. And obviously deals with some pretty gruesome stuff and says, you know, there are situations

where, you know, the average person would turn white, you know, but I'm able to stay composed and deal with it and, you know, take the curveballs life puts in front of me in stride. And I attribute a lot of that to the battles that I once fought and the work I've put in over the years to find good in those things. And I'm just thinking, man, everyone could use that, could hear that. Because even if it's not issues at home as a kid, right? Maybe it's a toxic and unfortunate relationship. Imagine thinking, well, it wasn't the best relationship,

but it was the best relationship for me. Because maybe it taught me, you know, what I want and what I don't. Maybe it reminded me how important it is to show up for yourself. Maybe it taught me to stand up and say never again. Or a work experience that was brutal. It wasn't the best work experience, but it was the best work experience for me. Because maybe I learned that, starting with less money, but existing in a lane with the trajectory I care about means more.

Maybe I saw how important it is to work with people who bring positive energy and light. Sports injuries. Wasn't the best situation, but it was the best situation for me. Because maybe it was an opportunity to rest, to strengthen other areas of my body, to improve form, to improve supporting muscles, and on and on, you get the idea. It's seeing value where others don't. See, the thing about misfortune is it's often the portal to change. When things are quote unquote okay, there's very little incentive to change or evolve.

And funny enough, it's our darkest moments that prompt us to look within ourselves for answers. It's feeling down that brings us to the mirror. Where we're finally able to look ourselves in the eyes and say, I'm ready, I'm ready to change. I'm ready to evolve. This is not going to define me. This is going to be a staircase. Remember that life is not happening to you, it's happening for you. But the value is very much dependent on you. Will you take this seemingly unfortunate outcome and cash it in, turn it into something beautiful, or will you give it power over you?

See that quick convoy with Michael? Michael, it reminded me that those things, things we often deem disappointing or tragic, less than ideal, they're the currency required to build a new life. To renovate our realities and expand the way we look at the world. Life is never going to be perfect. It's never going to be all rainbows and butterflies. It's a game of taking the pieces before you and building something with them. And as you know, you could drop the same pieces, the very same pieces, same ingredients, same circumstances

at the feet of two different people. And one of those people could build a city on a hill and the other could build a literal cell with steel bars around themselves. This convo was a voice whispering, hey, don't forget you have that choice. You get to choose what you'd like, the world around you to look like.

So when life drops something in front of you that seems counterproductive, that's painful, that on the surface certainly doesn't feel like the best thing for you, remember, it's very likely the best thing for evolving into that person you're meant to become. There's a giant sleeping inside every one of us. Not dead or gone. Sedated by routine, the normalcy of every day. Comfort, distraction, a repetition of days that all kind of look the same after a while. And the dangerous thing about a sleeping giant is that eventually the giant forgets that it's a giant at all.

It starts identifying with the cage instead of its strength, with the alarm clock instead of the dream, with survival instead of possibility. You see it every day, right? People with oceans inside them, speaking in buckets of water, teaspoons. people born to create, lead, move, build, inspire, convincing themselves to, quote, be more realistic. You see it in people standing inches away from a life that would light them on fire, that would totally transform their world. But they never touch it, because somewhere along the way they learn to fear their own power. And maybe that's the real tragedy of life. Not the things we usually think of, not failure or embarrassment or loss.

Maybe the real tragedy is reaching the end and realizing that giant stayed asleep. I remember reading a story once about an old circus elephant. When that elephant was young, they tied its leg to a wooden stake. As a baby, no matter how hard that little elephant pulled, it couldn't break free. So what did it do? The logical thing. Eventually it stopped trying. But see, years later, that same elephant weighed thousands of pounds.

Powerful enough to uproot trees, let alone that little wooden stake. Powerful enough to destroy the entire circus if it wanted to. But the trainer still tied it to that same tiny piece of wood. And that elephant never moved. Not because it lacked strength, but because it lacked belief. It didn't understand its power. It didn't understand the giant it was. See, that's most people, not trapped by reality, but trapped by memories, by limiting beliefs,

by stories of not being adequate, good enough, or capable, old identities, old fears, old failures. Old versions of themselves, they should have buried years. You tried once and got hurt, so now you hesitate, right? You opened your heart once and got betrayed, so now you stay guarded. You chased a dream once and looked foolish, so now you play small. But listen to me carefully. Your past is not proof of your limits. It's merely an indicator of where you chose to stop,

and there's a monumental difference, because giants, they don't disappear. They sleep. They sleep under disappointment, sometimes under insecurity or years of distraction and numbness. Make no mistake, they're still there. And every time you feel restless,

that's the giant shifting in its sleep. Every time you look at someone fully alive and feel something, in your chest that's the giant recognizing itself saying there has to be more than this that's not sadness my friends that's a pulse that's the part of you that remembers and maybe awakening isn't some massive cinematic moment maybe it starts quite subtly maybe it's the morning you stop hitting snooze on your own life the day you decide to train again or pick up the

and write again, the camera and create again, the mic, and speak again. It's opening your door and believing again. Maybe awakening is simply refusing to abandon yourself. No, not for even one more day, because yeah, giants wake slowly. First comes awareness, then discomfort from the dissonance you feel. then hunger because of the possibility that exists around you, right? Then one day the things that used to intimidate, you start looking a little smaller and a little smaller and a little smaller.

You stop asking permission, stop negotiating with fear, you stop waiting for perfect understanding that perfect doesn't exist. And suddenly, the same person who once doubted everything becomes dangerous. Not dangerous to people, but to limitations, to mediocrity. Dangerous to that version of you that desperately wanted to settle. That's the moment life changes. Not when the world finally sees you, but when you see yourself.

Because buried beneath the fear and the insecurity and the exhaustion and disappointment, the hesitation. Underneath all of that, there's something enormous. enormous inside you, a force, a fire, a sleeping giant. And one day, if you let it, it will wake up. The question is whether you'll wake it intentionally or spend your entire life hearing it breathe beneath the surface. Wondering what could have happened if you'd answered. hold the vision, but trust the process.

An idea that should act as our North Star, right, as we make our way through life, it proposes believing in a goal, but at the same time understanding that its manifestation will be unpredictable. Challenging, it may not unfold the way we thought it would. To me, though, the most challenging aspect of personal growth. of building the things that matter, creating realities we dream of. It's the mandatory dance we must do with time. The patience that's woven into the equation, it's the empty spaces that we tend to use for manufacturing doubt and disbelief when life has given us nothing to react to.

It's like we create monsters in our heads. And it's really an incredible thing. when you think about it, right? I look back on the past decade of my life in the hardest parts, and some were excruciating. They were pain derived from what I knew I hadn't yet accomplished.

It was a feeling like I wasn't moving fast enough. Like the winners in life had that over there and all I had was this over here. Completely nonsensical narrative, but one that certainly felt real. discomfort from the delta or the gap between what I wanted and what I had, a feeling that would randomly dip in and out of my conscious mind as I sort of chipped away at my goals day in and

day out. And I started to wonder, how can I better position myself to grow, to maintain that ambition, but also to do it with less anxiety, right? As I stated a few seconds ago, hold that vision, but perhaps improve my trust and relationship with the process. My ability to immerse myself in various pursuits without dwelling on the fact that I hadn't yet arrived. Because look, I know this game. We all know this game. There's always going to be another finish line to cross. That's a great thing, but can also, when we're not looking at it correctly, be to our detriment. There are always higher numbers to achieve.

Again, incredible opportunity, but with the wrong perspective, dangerous. If you can't find a way to appreciate the now while you climb, you will be forever lost. There will always be a hole that's never filled. I think we need to be better about supporting ourselves along this journey. No one can be there for me like I can. think that's true for everyone. We need to be our greatest allies. So I brought this question up,

as I tend to do, with a few of my friends, right, with different perspectives. They look at the world a little differently and basically ask, you know, how can we get out of our own ways? Is there a lane to both be tenacious in our pursuit of evolution to continue doing the things that excite and challenge us while also being a little easier on ourselves, trusting that dance we do with time as the process unfold. And so I present this question to one of my friends sitting across me at the table and he thinks about it. He says, Eddie, well, that's what's got you where you are.

That feeling like there's always more. It's the reason for the success you've had and the success you'll have in the future. It's what will push you. It's why you will succeed. People that accomplish things are never satisfied. Jordan was never satisfied. He was never happy. And in that context, greatness and happiness are not compatible.

And, you know, I took it in. I certainly appreciated the perspective, right? In many ways, I think he's right. Sort of reminded me of the idea behind Tim Grover's book, Relentless, that it's an obsession that must take place. It doesn't leave room for much else, right? Incredibly valuable to understand, if anything, just to see, just to grasp what it means to achieve in a world of obstacles.

But truthfully, I wasn't entirely satisfied. How can we better visualize the process so that we're more powerful allies to ourselves? That's what I wanted to understand. And a short time later, I'm at the kitchen table, kind of going over some analytics for social media, like YouTube channel, podcast, stuff like that. And my father, who happened to fly in from Boston, he's at the kitchen table with me. We're having some coffee. and I made a comment about the trajectory of the numbers.

You know, I forget that particular week. Maybe it was higher or lower than expected. I don't really remember. But he made this comment about the patience that I've had with the channel over the years. Just an offhand remark. You know, he said the numbers are like the SMP 500, right? The stock market. There are days when it drops.

There are days when it rises. But over the long haul, it's steadily pointed up. continues to point up. And I found that so interesting. You know, I harp on the small things a lot on this channel, the little breakthroughs that paved the way for larger transformation, ideas that change the way we look at things, which ultimately changed the way we act, which changed the results we get, and this happened to be one of them. You know, it hit me just right. What is perhaps the most important piece in the first. famous book, The Intelligent Investor. What is the idea that made Buffett a billionaire? It's that you

invest in things you believe in and you remove the emotion. You hold the dips. Right. When the stock market takes a hit and everyone's panicking and acting emotionally and selling, you don't sell. You buy more. When the world emotionally rushes out, you rush in. And when the world emotionally rushes in, you step out. Well, in life, there will be days when your metaphorical stock drops, at least you feel like it does. Right? Those YouTube numbers, perhaps numbers in the old bank account, maybe fitness goals fall flat. Maybe you're just not seeing a return on investment. But we are never defined by the events of the day. Even the worst of days, they're merely a small part of a much larger pattern and the truth is sometimes success is so small you can't see it of course you're going

to be anxious if you think every day should be comprised solely of mountaintops and finish lines if you're always looking comparing contrasting but sometimes success is 0.000001% better sometimes success looks like the s&P 500 taking a hit dropping for a day a week or a month sometimes growth doesn't look like what we want growth to look like. But just like intelligent investors, you are putting your money in the belief that at a certain point down the road, the value will be higher then than it is now. And this idea has been everything to me, particularly on the days when it feels like things are going backwards over periods of time where I feel like I've been standing still, where

the voice in my head is presenting all kinds of scenarios. that I could have been better or done more, and maybe so. But these times are nothing more than data points. They are steps along the way. And knowing this, it essentially frees me from the delusion that growth is always visible, that I can always look around and see visible triumph. It allows me to march towards my goals and my dreams,

having a renewed relationship with each step. There's a saying that we need to keep our head in the clouds and our feet on the ground. Life is a continual juggling of extremes, and I think this gets it right. Our strength is in the ability to take those steps. Each one a message to the universe that we are stronger than we were yesterday.

But what makes our journeys truly divine is that they aren't comprised, of or built with those steps like a house of cards, where one wrong move or some delay will cause the whole thing to fall to come crashing down. No, what makes the journey divine is the infinite number of paths that can bring about its materialization. There are no wrong paths. Some arrive sooner. Some arrive later.

Some mid-jurney causes to realize that. The compass wasn't even pointed in the right destination, right? They change what it means to arrive. But the point is every step is required, every step is a miracle, but the power is not contained solely in one step. But rather, what we choose to make of all the steps combined, the dips, the lows, and the losses only have significance if we give them significance. Otherwise, there are just a few stops along.

the way to something beautiful. So why exhaust energy on data points that haven't arrived yet, on destinations in the future? Destinations that we trust ourselves to figure out anyway. Our emphasis should be on the present moment, on gratitude for the fact that we get to wake up and choose the pursuits that we've chosen. In some days, those pursuits will feel like the miracles of the world. they are. We'll see the finish lines, the mountain tops, we'll feel triumphant, and some days those victories will be hidden in plain view, but they are there nonetheless, as we make

our way into the great unknown that is life, piecing each second, each minute, each hour together to become the path leading us where we need to be. Sometimes you can do everything right. and still not get the result you want. This, as the saying goes, is life. I was chatting with my friend DJ recently. He plays baseball in Austria in the summer and fall. He's a pitcher and shared something with me that I'd never really thought about. I guess simply being that I'd never pitched, right?

But I love baseball, grew up watching the socks, and really love the metaphors for life. a lot about that sort of parallel. Most of them we've heard, right? Like a batter that hits 300, which is essentially three hits out of every tenet bats, excluding walks,

is an above average player. That's a lot of failure. That means they fail more than twice as much as they succeed. Right? We've all heard that on and on and on. But this angle, I'd never heard. We were a few of us sitting at dinner

and he said, you know, there are times when the catcher calls for a particular pit, places his catcher's mitt exactly where he wants the ball, and then DJ is the pitcher, receiving the call and seeing the glove, could theoretically execute on that pitch perfectly. He could release the ball, have it move exactly the way he wants it to, on trajectory to land right in the catcher's mitt,

but still the batter makes contact. Somehow, the pitcher did exactly what he was supposed to, to and still gives up a hit. And I'm listening to him to describe it, and it was so matter-of-factly, you know, when he was talking about it, I was sort of anticipating some animation. I feel like I would be so dramatic if that were me, right?

And the guy still somehow gets a hit. But that's not what it was like. He was just, it happens. You know, you have to immediately forget about it and think about the next pitch. You're always immersed in one thing the pitch you're throwing. I just thought that was so cool and so powerful.

And see, here's the thing, right? None of this is an avoidance of responsibility. I think he'd agree with regard to baseball. You know, certainly in life, the vast majority of circumstances, let's face it, they are self-created. Not all, but certainly most. And the ones that aren't, it's often on us to have, you know, prepared for that unknown.

But when I know I fell short or I can measure where I didn't hit the mark, it's frustrating, sure, but at least it's understandable. It makes sense in my head. It's the way things should be. I wasn't good enough, therefore the result was X. It's easier to get over those things. Also, because you now know what must be done to improve. The times, however, when we feel like we've given our all,

done what we were supposed to, and life still smirks and says, nope, not today, it just hurts a little more. My parents trying to explain to me gently as a child that life isn't fair. Well, that childlike frustration doesn't seem to leave, right? It's on us to properly internalize

and digest the reality. Just like a pitcher hitting his spot and still getting crushed, there is a patience and short-term memory required. Wired. Plenty of examples, right? You can be there for someone. Go out of your way to be kind, add value, make their life better, and still get mistreated. That's not fair, but it happens. Another example, just kind of off the top, right? You can invest your money, do exactly what you're supposed to, the whole 401k thing. And the stock market takes a dive. Is that fair? Technically,

you knew the risk. It's still frustrating. You did what you were. supposed to, right? You can practice something for months or years and still not make the cut. You can eat healthy, live a healthy lifestyle, still gets sick. Fair? I mean, not on paper, but it's life. In theory, there's a certain reciprocity you come to expect from the universe that never arrives, right? Greatness is observing, learning not to take. take it personally and moving on right to the next pitch. If you fixate on what let you down, you give that thing power over you. Here's another sort of different angle on this.

Someone recently sent me a link to his substack. And I was taking a look around the platform, right? I'd never really explored it. And came across an article by Dan Coe, who's another content creator on a variety of social media platforms. And, you know, in this article, he's listing off all his failed businesses. And I almost couldn't believe it, right? Not because it didn't make sense, but because I'd always known the guy as, you know, an intelligent media personality with millions of followers.

I never took the time to think about him struggling through failed, you know, drop shipping businesses, SEO consulting, marketing agencies. You know, the list just seemed to go on and on and on and on. And you can almost feel that sort of short-term memory baked into his journey. Now, I don't know him. This is all speculation, but it would only make sense, right, to have evolved that far, to have continuously moved on. Sometimes life just shakes its head, and you can't personalize it.

You can't see it as the world chaining you down, or you not being good enough. It's like, no, you learn from this experience. De-personalize it emotionally. Next pitch. Next thing. Next adventure. Onward.

You just can't stop. Don't get lost in what's gone. Sometimes our idea of reciprocity and validation is respected, and life makes sense, and all is well in the world. Things are, quote, unquote, as they should be. But sometimes, things feel unfair. Whether you're a pitcher hitting the right spot and still getting hit, an entrepreneur in the arena, in the battlefield, putting in work, and not having it click, or toddler Eddie, right,

taken aback by the notion that suddenly there are no more push pops in the freezer. Growth is knowing that fairness or life's supposed tos, they are a guide. They're not the rule. And if you feel slighted by life when it pulls the rug out from under you, and it will to all of us at some point, then you're losing the very thing that will make you great. You can't stop someone who refuses to quit, who stays composed, and who simply moves forward. Next.