Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - You’re NOT Behind - You’re on the Edge of a Breakthrough

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

In this powerful reflection, we explore the truth behind Will Smith’s message that “greatness is not this wonderful, esoteric, elusive, god-like feature that only the special among us will ever taste, it’s something that truly exists in all of us.” Life’s greatest rewards don’t come through divine intervention, but by holding on until that breakthrough moment. When you feel like giving up, remember: you’re not behind, you’re on the edge of breakthrough. It’s not about others seeing your vision, it’s about seeing it yourself, over and over again, until the world can’t help but notice.0:00 It's always darkest before dawn12:12 Why gratitude will change your life13:17 One decision away21:45 Become the Answer27:20 When you don't know "what to do"More from Eddie Pinero:Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletterYour World Within Podcast: https://yourworldwithin.libsyn.com/Stream these tracks on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2BLf6pBInstagram - @your_world_within and @IamEddiePineroTikTok - your_world_withinFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/YourworldwithinTwitter - https://www.twitter.com/IamEddiePineroBusiness Inquiries - http://www.yourworldwithin.com/contact

Greatness is not this wonderful, esoteric, elusive, godlike feature that only this special among us will ever taste. It's something that truly exists in all of us. That's a quote by Will Smith, who's had his ups and downs and everything in between, but funny enough, that just makes his message more integral to the theme here. everyone has the opportunity to reach out and touch greatness. I believe that with all my heart.

Which begs the question then, why does so few ever cross that threshold? Well, check this out. Building something meaningful, and my mind is the same thing as a run uphill. It can be lonely. exhausting you see nothing

but the dirt road in front of you it's bleak very bleak until you reach the summit in our gifted of you so stunning that you're reminded why you hung in to begin with

why you battled every step the sun the sweat your beating heart your body screaming to stop the visuals go from dirt to stunning 360 degrees sunset mountain views in what seems like an instant. But how many hold on until that moment occurs?

See, it's a decision, not divine intervention. When you feel like letting go, it's not that life has let you down. It's that you've not yet reached the summit that will act as your on switch. Life is darkest before dawn for a reason. You have to really, really want those things you say you do, as destiny is both an extended hand and a gatekeeper of sorts.

I was recently talking to a friend of mine. In the middle of building a company, it's been a journey. And right now, he's in that so-called valley of despair. He is running directly uphill. He's had a few promising, life-changing deals in the palm of his hands. that fell apart at the one-yard line right it's like he's there he's so close but look it doesn't matter how mentally tough you are practicality always comes knocking at the door how long can you sustain this it will whisper you have a wife and children are you being reckless what will your

family think what will your friends think this is too lonely you're having panic attacks you're sick with stress. And he's telling me all this and I'm like, preach, man. Like, I know the feeling. Then he said something that cut through me. He goes, Eddie, why is it that when you need people to be there for you the most, they're nowhere to be found? When you're at your lowest and support and love and reassurance would be worth more than gold.

When all you want is to be told everything will be fine. Why is there silence? And the pain in his voice, it almost made me choke up. You can tell he's just fighting demons. And my God, isn't that the truth? The greatest victories are attached to the loneliest of times. How often do we hear, don't stop, believe in yourself, keep going. All critical messages.

But without the context, what's their value? Why? Why do they matter to begin with? Well, because bringing things into the world before they exist is excruciatingly lonely. No one understands your vision. And the curveball is, it's not their fault. How could they? The frustration of being the only one who understands is the cost of admission. Don't stop. Why?

Because every ounce of rationality in your body, body knows this feels like beating your head against a wall and it wants to mitigate pain. Who cares about the long term? Believe in yourself. Why? Because waking up morning after morning with what seems like nothing to show for your time and energy and sacrifice is a devastation few will ever get. Keep going.

Why? Because every off-ramp starts to look like its own little. paradise, old ways of living, safe jobs, routines, and patterns, they cry out for you to return. That's why we manufacture belief. Not because it's cool to write mantras in Sharpie on the bathroom mirror. It's not an Instagram play. It's because if you are not there for yourself, if you lose sight of your why, life merely collapses around you, period. If you don't green light each day with the top of the mountain in mind, it's over.

And man, I just sat there with it for a second. After a few seconds go by, you know, responded, you have to depersonalize this because it's not about you. And what an odd thing to say, right? A friend of mine going through it. But hear me out. People only believe what they see. even people close to us. If someone walked up to me with no proof of anything

and said, Eddie, I have a $10 million business in my head, which funny enough happens more than you might think. You can't do anything but smile and say, hell yeah, go get them. Because every innovation starts out as a concept. But the reality, as we all know, concepts don't put money in the bank. It's not about you.

It speaks to human nature. This is what building something feels like. Oh, and remember, when you connect the dots, when things start taking off, and my friend, if you hang in there, they will. Many of those same people will be right back beside you, like nothing ever happened. Like they just fast forwarded through the hell you walk through.

And instinctively, maybe you'll take that personally. It will feel cheap and fake and annoying. But again, it's how the story goes. goes. It's life in the big city. The ones who are actually there through thick and thin, which I'm sure you can count on one hand if they exist at all, they're the exception, not the rule. They are worth more than gold. Everyone else are just humans being humans. This is your transformation. It's your undertaking. This gauntlet, my friend, is for you and you alone. I had someone recently helped me out with the channel, right?

Make some thumbnails, which is the little picture you click to watch a video. And the idea is you make them and then you test them against thumbnails that already exists, like book covers, which ones inclined people to click, right? And the vast majority of the ones he made, quote unquote, lost, they underperformed compared to the thumbnails that were already existing

on the channel. And he's like, man, I spent half a day on this. This is devastating. I feel like a loser, like I'm wasting my time. And I'm like, brother, try seven years of this stuff. Right? It's not personal. Nothing works until it does. This is the cost. You move forward relentlessly until something hits. See, I've walked down that road.

And not because I'm a hero or a badass for continuing on, on, anyone can. But that's the thing, anyone can. And there are days where I wake up numb and sad and frustrated, you bet. Where I become disillusioned, where things aren't happening fast enough. But what do you do? You collect yourself. You remember how incredible it is to get to be doing this to begin with,

with to be adding value to amazing people all over the world with unrealized dreams and untapped potential. You tell yourself that it could theoretically all end today if I wanted to could go back to something safer and easier. I'm not in prison. But I'm choosing this, trading comfort for impact, for upside. When I'm in those so-called valleys of despair, I remember why I signed up, the category of of greatness I'm aiming for. You think that's free or easy? No, life is trade-offs.

The best things find themselves attached to the highest price tags. Never forget that. So when you find yourself in those moments, I need you to grapple for perspective. I heard Hermosey recently described these moments as the inflection point that would drive most away. He says when he feels like that,

He reminds himself, most people wouldn't endure or sustain this. Most people pack it up right here. They don't want the stress or anxiety or uncertainty. So congrats, you were just gifted an opportunity. Make the decision to be different. We started with the Will Smith quote. So let's end with one. He says, make a choice of what you want,

who you want to be and how you're going to do it. The universe will get out of your way. So once you decide, commit, advance relentlessly. Sure, you're signing up for responsibility. You're signing up for chaos, for unknowns, but once you decide, you're also signing up for the greatest adventure of your life. And given those options, I'll take the upside. I'll take the possibility.

I'll take... The Hill. You know what creates positive attitude? I keep learning more than anything else is gratitude. We have so much and we tend to look at the gap not everything we've accrued in the people around us and how good things are and sitting down and just remembering that for a minute or two once a day. You know, like I have parents. I can call friends. I can call grandparents. whatever, whatever the situation is, that's worth more than gold. And if everything goes wrong today, I have that.

And that's pretty remarkable. And so really what gratitude is, is you're creating that perspective for yourself. Instead of living in lack, it's like, no, life is pretty damn good. And because it's that good, we can even add. more we can dive deeper we can go beyond that's the power of bad attitude you are always one decision away from a totally different life it's one of my favorite ideas is what i lean on most when moving through some of the most difficult chapters of life and i think it points to something very important It points to our tendency to forget how much control we have over our own realities.

And not just the small things, but the big things, right? The things that truly challenge us and push us, the things that often feel just beyond reach, larger than life. This idea reminds me that that's not the case. I'm going to give you a few quick examples for context. They're very basic. You've heard them before. The first is my health. What changed everything was the decision to start associating with people

who knew more and were willing to help. Not rocket science. But at the time, I would have said it absolutely is. Right? I started to piece by piece realize that everything was solvable. And even some of the things that weren't totally solvable, like an elbow issue, for example,

it could be made better to the point where I could work around it. It didn't have to prohibit me from living my best life. It wasn't the giant problem I made it out to be in my mind. The list continues on, my work, every day hating what I was doing. Until one day, I thought, well, no, that's enough, right? The pain of the unknown is better than this cycle. slow withering away. That's pain.

And did I know what I was doing? No. Did it bring about a new type of discomfort altogether that I hadn't ever experienced? Yes. But it put me for the first time in my life on a trajectory to figure things out. Last example, the wrong romantic relationships,

the wrong business partnerships, the wrong people in your circle. You only need to see. decide once no more. You only need to decide once, hey, I'm out. I deserve better. Then you begin a process of healing and self-recreation. See, we don't act very often because we don't know what the solution is. And on its face, that's practical. Right? That makes sense. But it's just, it's not a reason to keep yourself in a prison of discontent. I think for two reasons.

One, the misalignment you're feeling, that feeling in your stomach that things are not right, is in and of itself a reason to go, to change, to adjust. And two, you don't start with the answers. You pick up answers along the way. You look in the mirror, you say, okay, I'm ready for more. You step out the front door and then you collect results. It is not the other way around.

And I think that's the problem. You know, people conflate that thing they need with a complete solution. When in reality, the thing you need most very often isn't a complete solution, but it is a bridge from where you are now to a whole. process of recreating yourself. In fact, one of my favorite anecdotes is by John Maxwell, the grocery store at night. You walk out of the grocery store, you have your bags, it's dark, it's pitch black. It's unsettling, but you make your way to the car. Put your bags in the trunk, you get in, turn the headlights on, and what do those lights give you? They give you just enough

to pull out of the parking space. Can't see anything behind you or what's going on around you, but the lights give you enough to pull out of the space. And then they give you just enough to get to the edge of the parking lot. And then they give you just enough to turn onto the street. And then just enough to make a right turn at the stop sign and onto the main road, and on and on and on until you arrive at your house. And so the question worth all the money in the world is,

did you have all the answers at the beginning? Was the whole path lit up for you before you got in the car? Absolutely not. But what you had was enough to begin the process of getting from where you were to where you needed to be. And so you made the decision

to get in the car and turn the lights on. Now, using that exact same metaphor, think about how crazy, counterproductive, just nonsensical it is to stay in that parking lot in the dark with your groceries. Because there's no light illuminating every step, because you can't, where you stand, see the entire path. No, the decision to get in the car

is the one decision that separates you from a totally different life. It's what begins the process of the snowball becoming an avalanche. It's the small thing. That ultimately becomes monumental. See, life is peaks and its valleys, its seasons, its highs, and its lows. But I'll tell you, many of you are standing in the dark right now, keys in your pocket, car and arm's length away, hesitant to get in and turn it on because, well, who knows what will happen when you pull out of the parking lot? But here's another way to ask the question. Who cares?

Give yourself some credit. Trust yourself to figure things out, right? Losing is not starting into adventure and getting lost. That's life. You'll make adjustments and figure it out. Losing is staying where you are in the dark because you're afraid, because you don't have all the answers, because you don't know everything,

because you're not a God that can predict the future and understand and see what's lurid. working around every corner. Winners didn't start with more answers. They started with the courage to step into the dark in pursuit of those answers. They trusted themselves to, day by day, attack the puzzle and the mystery that is life.

You have what you need and you have it now. Let the fact that things are misaligned, that your soul is telling you things are not right, that more is out there, that you can be better, let that be your green light. And your decision to go, again, may not air drop you at a finish line or a mountaintop. But it will be enough to start that process.

It will be enough to empower you, to remind you that you are one decision away from starting the journey that will change your life. Perhaps the most important mental shift completely changed my life is this. Stop looking for answers and become the answer. So before I unpack this, I want to give you a little context. I, over the last 10 years, have lived in a few places. I've lived in Boston, I've lived in South Florida, love them both. Currently, last year, I moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, and you follow your intuition.

Sometimes you just get it right. Like, I love this place. I love the weather. I love the hiking. And I think most importantly, the people, the community, the network, the friends I already have. I mean, it's just a beautiful place. Everyone's warm, welcoming. It's very transient, right?

So it's not very clicky. It feels like people are just accepting and always trying to meet new folks. And it's just, it's awesome. With that, it would have found interesting is there is a culture of, like, pop-up networking events. And I separated a little bit from, like, you know, some groups that I'm involved in

with the same people where we're, meeting regularly, you know, once a month or whatever. But there are just sort of an, there's an influx of like, there's a networking event here, everyone come, networking event here, everybody come. And it's kind of sporadic. There was one that happened in a conference room below where I live, right? Same building. I had some friends there.

So I thought, you know what? I'll go down and some incredible people doing some incredible things. And one of the conversations that was being, being had or the message that was being expressed was essentially this. It was you're one handshake away from your life changing. You're one relationship away from your business taking off. That thing you need just might be the accountant or videographer or editor sitting in this room, right? Which on the surface, sure, why not?

You always benefit from having talented people in your life, from having killed. on your team in great, you know, working relationships, absolutely. But I couldn't help but think that that idea could be deceptive, that in a way it's missing the mark. Because I'm looking around the room, myself included, by the way, and I'm thinking, I bet every single person in this room would be better off. If they took these four hours, right, the two, two and a half to be in the room. to be in the room and then I'm sure, you know, people had to drive to the meeting room.

So let's just say a full evening. They'd be better off if they took that, went home by themselves, asked themselves, how can I be better, and worked on being the 1% at what they do? And the reason I think that's so important is because I want to say societally, but I just think perhaps it's just an algorithm thing online, the content we're putting, the stories were told, it's outsourcing value. So it's, here's how you get rich online. Here's how you have an amazing network of people that will change your life.

When in reality, all of those things are lagging indicators, meaning they come secondary. And they come secondary to becoming more valuable. When you ask yourself consistently, how can I be better at what I do? How can I be the 1% of what I do? How can I be so exceptional? Or as the quote says, so good, people can't ignore you. All those things come.

When you're a killer at what you do, people with talent want to be a part of it. You get calls and emails. You get DMs because you're adding value. When you're adding value in a meaningful way, you're making money because you're contributing to a marketplace. It seems so obvious that we forget. You know, and I'm certainly not saying I am the 1% of what I do,

but I can tell you I'm locked in on that. And I understand that. And there are hours spent in this very room every day writing and speaking so that I can become closer to that. Because I know when you have achieved that in your world, all that other stuff accompanies it. Period. So don't interpret this as networking,

bad. Money, bad, right? Of course not. But they're secondary. They're lagging. If you focus on how do I become exceptional, what do I do every day that makes me different, stand out, that makes me great, you're positioning yourself to go to the moon. You're positioning yourself to have all these other things. The network should supplement the greatness. Just don't forget to work on the Right? Life changes when you stop looking for answers and become the answer. So here's a pretend conversation. Follow along. I don't know what to do. Okay. But if you did know what to do what would that look like? I don't know. That's an impossible question. It's not an impossible question. If you did know what to do and you had to do something right now, what would that look like?

I guess I'd start planning and making the necessary calls and buying or collecting the things I think I need to start. Beautiful. There's your starting point. See, here's the deal. No one, and I mean no one, quote unquote, knows everything. Because very rarely are there objectively correct answers. In fact, I would even simplify it further. Life's not comprised

of people who know and people who don't know. Life is comprised of people who act and people who don't act. People who wait and people who move into the unknown before they're

ready and create. and create answers. So let's take this further with a little anecdote. Pretend there's a home builder. And you're looking at him, and you are asking, where's the family going to sleep? Where are they going to eat?

Where are the memories going to be made? When there's important conversations to be had, where are they going to be had? Where's the Christmas tree going to go? What's going to matter most? How is this house going to become a home? To which point the home builder would say, wait a minute.

You're putting the cart before the horse. I don't know that. I don't know any of those things. And I couldn't possibly know any of those things. But I can tell you this. Here's the plot of land. Here are some bricks. And one brick at a time, I'll bring this home to life.

And little by little, it will look more and more. more like a home, and someday a family will be in the home, and someday those memories will be made just as they should, just as it feels right. But the entire process begins one brick at a time. I think we often forget that we don't need to build homes, right? We need to just metaphorically lay those bricks. The effort ultimately becomes the home.

We don't run marathons, for example. We run one step at a time. The exhausted energy ultimately accumulates and pushes us beyond that finish line. Similarly, we don't read books. We read sentences, which are a collection of words comprised of letters. We do that which is manageable. We do that which is right in front of us. And with consistency, it evolves into the meaningful.

And so this seemingly trivial question, yeah, but what if you did not? know. What if you did have the answer? To me, it's everything because it reminds us that if we have enough to just start manufacturing momentum, then we have everything we need. Because life is created by doing. Knowledge is found by doing. Wisdom is acquired by doing. We have to go. And history shows us over and over again that this is the case. You take some ideas out of thin air, right? It's Edison with the light bulb, iteration after iteration after iteration.

It's Lincoln, the pain and suffering, you know, coming from failed political campaign after failed political campaign, just knowing something was there, but not how it would work out or how those dots would connect. It's jobs and wares, you know, in a garage, building a Mac, having no idea what it would evolve into. One of my favorite books, Hatching Twitter,

talks about the founders in a room when it was a radio app. What's this going to do? They all have different ideas, different beliefs, different thoughts, but they just kept going. The power is in doing. It really is a miracle to go before you're ready. It's the only way. And again, I use these folks as examples not because they themselves are extraordinary,

although certainly impressive people, but I use them to show the magnitude of what that action and self-trust became. We look around and see these things that have been embedded into our everyday lives, right? There's so much certainty tied to them now because we see them every day, their life. And we often then assume wrongfully that they're not. these things were always definitive and clear, right? That they always belonged there. Their fate was certain.

Their existence signifies the opposite. It's like sheer will to lay one brick down after another, to adjust, pivot, and evolve. Until that magic was created, until reality looked a little different than it used to. And so, again, this little mental adjustment, right, of I don't have the answer, I'm not sure to, okay, but if I did, what would it look like? If I had to do something, what would that be?

That adjustment in mindset really is a gift because it pushes you through the door, right? There's an idea that almost all decisions are reversible. And when you think about it, very rarely do you do something that either one can't be changed, if it's wrong or two brings you to where you're supposed to be incrementally right it's like going solves itself it's not going that you can't fix it's staying in and looking at life through the window that kills you it's stagnation that you cannot change but going going you can fix or adjust or pivot or evolve. Going plants the seed.

And I'm not saying, you know, this from a place of like, guys, I've cracked the code, it's easy. No. It's simple, but it's certainly not easy. In fact, I have to force myself to go. Through hesitation and internal resistance, you would not believe. But what helps me is knowing, hey,

your feet need to be moved. scared, unsure, lost, whatever, find a way. And the beautiful thing is through momentum, our issues entirely resolve themselves. When we're in motion, we are building, we are correcting, we are growing. Immobility is the enemy, not falling down. So sure, maybe you don't know what to do, but if you did, ask yourself what that might look like.