Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero
Discipline is Power - Inspirational & Motivational Speeches
Thu, 14 Nov 2024
In this episode, we dive into the power of trusting the process and finding meaning in the journey. Steve Jobs once said that we can't connect the dots looking forward, only looking back. The challenges and unexpected paths you’ve taken have shaped you into someone stronger than you ever imagined. Life’s hardest moments often bring the greatest growth, and it’s only when we look back that we see how each struggle was a stepping stone, each storm eventually leaving us better equipped for the road ahead. Life isn’t about knowing every answer in advance but trusting that each step forward is part of building something extraordinary. Like an unwritten instruction manual, the journey reveals its purpose as we move through it. So, when things feel chaotic, or you're hurt by life’s unpredictability, remember you’ve already overcome so much. There’s meaning in the mess, strength in your resilience, and clarity waiting just around the bend. Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletter Free Ebook: www.eddiepinero.com/ebook YouTube: www.eddiepinero.com/youtube
Chapter 1: What is the power of trusting the process?
One day, it will all make sense. As one Steve Jobs said during a Stanford commencement speech, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. Your job isn't to know, but to trust that someday you will. is to have the courage to paint in real time a portrait that will be ever evolving.
Chapter 2: How can challenges shape our identity?
It's the strength to be wrong, the resolve to rise to your feet time and time again. Because one day, it will all make sense. And you'll see. You'll see that the roundabout, often confusing, unpredictable road you walked was the road you had to take. It made you who you are.
And you'll see that all those challenges forced you to become someone that you, at one point in your life, never dreamed you could become. You'll see that those people in your life, the ones you clung to, the ones you saw as permanent fixtures in that ever-evolving story, they were merely temporary, supporting characters, there to teach you about yourself and the world before exiting stage left.
You'll see that the scariest things weren't the failures looming around every corner, They were the magic never created for fear of what lurked around those corners. You'll see that dropped into the heart of even the most violent storms, the darkest of nights, you always had enough to get out. Sometimes the steps were too small and the progress too unremarkable to notice,
Those clouds, at one point or another, always ended up behind you. In life, the game itself becomes the instruction manual. To understand, you have to play. To learn, you have to go. Therefore, a life well lived can't be about having all the answers, You're crafting them with every step you take. It's about trust. It's about belief. Not in a defined trail, but in your ability to blaze your own.
I encourage you, as you navigate the day-to-day unknowns, to remember how strong you are. when you're frustrated at the hand you've been dealt, when you're hurt, when you're saddened by something that's transpired, remember that you can handle it, that there's meaning in the pain, in the chaos, right?
Because I know our default isn't to smile and mentally transport to the value that the pain will someday bring, right? I get it. But you have to know that you can, one, make it through the chaos and know that, two, there will be a point in your future when you look over your shoulder and appreciate the turbulence you endured.
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Chapter 3: What does it mean to find meaning in suffering?
You'll be grateful because of the beauty, the meaning, and the happiness it ultimately brought to fruition. That's what makes life worth living. You'll be grateful for the struggle because it empowered you to push further into life. It taught you to not only endure, but to find meaning in suffering.
To ultimately create something beautiful out of the very thing you wanted to run away from, but didn't. See, life is not all one thing. It's an oscillating wave of circumstances And you'll see at some point that every second mattered in the sense that it gave you exactly what you needed most when you needed it.
So trust that the road will be unpredictable because that's exactly what the road will be. But also trust yourself to be someone who navigates the foreign waters ahead. Someone who points the compass straight towards the horizon Because regardless of the world around you, that's exactly who you are.
Chapter 4: How can we visualize our potential?
When you wake up in the morning, I want you to visualize this.
I want you to visualize a world where you know, where you're certain that good ideas flow through you. Where the world around you needs and appreciates your courage, your decision making. Imagine a world where you aren't reliant on anyone or anything to fix the issues in your life, to make things better. Instead, you see yourself as the guy or gal that makes it happen, that steps up.
You're responsible for being the change you want to see. I want you to imagine stepping outside your house, shoulders back, head held high, excited to go chase down all that opportunity. Because one, you know it's there, and two, you know you are worthy of it. Now hold that thought and think, this could be the reality you live.
As soon as you wait for it, give yourself permission to live that way.
How different would your life be if you greenlit those things? See, it's hard to break away from the framing that we've given ourselves, especially over time, how it's materialized. It's hard to reinvent the identity you've created for the person staring back at you in the mirror. But the truth is, all worthwhile things are hard. I love the Robin Sharma quote.
It says, if you want what only the 5% have, you need to be willing to do, but only the 5% are willing to do. And sure, this could be physical. Dedication, long hours. Could be a lot of things. But before any of that, how about seeing yourself worthy of someone who can become the 5%? That in and of itself is hard. In fact, Believing that for me was one of the greatest challenges of my life.
Seeing myself as that person, right? That doesn't come easy. It has to be chipped away at, earned. But when you create that mentality, when you hold on tight and you walk towards it relentlessly, you become it. Little by little, day by day.
so much of life is making yourself believe you are who you want to be it's a perpetual feedback loop of sorts you believe you are so you act like it which then reinforces your belief which prompts greater action and around and around we go i'm going to give you sort of an arbitrary example of how powerful this can be.
A few months ago, for the first time, I hired a cleaning service, which my rationale used to be, dude, put on a podcast, zone out, clean up a little bit, once a week, who cares, right? But that little investment changed a lot. One, my place looks nicer, so I feel better and I'm more productive. It's consistently just nicer to be here.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of the 'extra 22 seconds'?
All you had to do was wave your hands in the air and tell me the things I wanted were way too dangerous. That getting them would hurt way more than the status quo. All you had to do was tell me I'd be better off looking out the window for the rest of my life wondering what could have been. Because at least I'd be safe.
Suffering by that window is far easier than suffering out in the big, bad world. That was your pitch. And for a while it worked. But ultimately, the pain of staying was too much. The curiosity too great. I had to know. I had to see if I could build a world that meant something. Keeper of Dreams, you failed in holding me down. You lost, at least back then.
But as we grow, as the game progresses and the rules change, Keeper of Dreams, so have your tactics. You've improved. You don't attempt to blatantly scare me anymore. Your objective isn't to instill fear out in the open or make me tremble at the thought of an unknown tomorrow. No, your objective is to distract me with the now. It's to make it so that I don't think about tomorrow at all.
You want me to be so consumed with what I have now that I get lost in it, to relish in the certainty I've created. You hope I stay comfortable. Because Keeper of Dreams, nothing is so dangerous as comfort, and you know that. You know it would be both reasonable and easy to focus on maintaining and not growing, to preserve and not to expand. Each chapter in the Book of Life has its seasons.
And now it appears we're in a different kind of winter. It's not as cold, it's not as dark as 2013. I could theoretically now sit by a fire and wait this thing out and how happy you'd be to hear that, keeper of dreams. The thought of me numb and content. You want nothing more than to be that governing body
that assigns trivial and meaningless tasks that keep me preoccupied in the now while everything good sails away. But Keeper of Dreams, you'll fail. You'll fail again and again. You will continuously come up short. As Will Durant wrote, empires are stoic in their ascent and epicurean in their demise. People are no different.
I won't be tempted by the luxuries of an easier existence when times are good, just like I won't be held down by the discomfort when they are not. Urgency will be manufactured. Greatness will be pulled from the earth. Resilience shaped from the chaos that surrounds me. Know that I will always be moving forward despite your every wish and your every effort.
Not because I'm ungrateful for the now, but because for this life, I am beyond grateful. So indebted that I want to capture all its magnificence and leave it better than I found it. As a friend of mine recently said, I want that dash on my tombstone to represent courage, a dream realized. Keeper of dreams and aiming to keep me down, you propelled me forward.
You weren't my undoing, but my incentive to grow. And by the way, that will be how this story ends. Higher and higher until all that's left is your ashes and your attempt that you tried, that you really did, But you didn't keep any dreams. You helped give them life. And what a twist in the story. Keeper of dreams? Thank you. I simply couldn't have done it without you.
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Chapter 6: How do we navigate discomfort in our growth?
And I don't really remember the first time I started doing it or even why, but like so many things, that 22 second period organically became a habit. sort of evolved to take on a life of its own and would come to symbolize for me a little challenge. The idea that the end is never really the end.
And no matter how tired I was or how bad I wanted to stop, especially when you can see that finish line in reach, I could always squeeze out a little more. Like there's always something extra to give. And you could certainly go down that 22 second rabbit hole, right? Just 22 more seconds. And then you finish that and you realize you can do just 22 more and just 22 more.
It's like this never ending spotlight into how incredible we are as humans. That our stopping points almost always are constructed. Rarely is there not an extra 22 seconds or 22 somethings we can endure. And not only that, I think there's a case to be made that our growth occurs in that final push. There's a ton of value, you know, hidden away in there.
The stretching of the mind and body, the last rep that breaks down the muscle, the last few seconds of that run that forced the lungs to work their hardest. Exhausting that last bit of energy and focus, you know, studying for an exam. Maybe that's where you confirm your comprehension and understanding of the subject matter.
It's like when we are pushing ourselves just outside the limits we drew up, we are simultaneously expanding those limits. And so over the years, I've adopted that mentality And I look at myself in the mirror now, and I can see it. I'm not the same person I was a decade ago. Those little decisions to add on 22 seconds, they stack up, and they stack up in a unique way.
Because it's not necessarily about the time. It's not the same benefit that, say, an hour every morning at the gym would bring. Obviously, that would be incredibly valuable, but in a different way. I'm talking about mentally, an armor that we come to wear, an identity that gets materialized. It's how you see yourself and how you see the world. You understand how manufactured our parameters are.
And I get it, we have to stop somewhere, sure. But it's an acknowledgement that those somewheres are fiction. They are arbitrary. You weren't made to exist within them, but to stretch them, to recreate them. And that's an endeavor that is always uncomfortable. But as far as I can tell, always worth it.
The strength to go a little bit further than initially intended or designed is what will place you in a league of your own. And that's where I wanted to start, by bringing attention to the idea that there's always an extra 22 seconds, and you are always capable of obtaining it. That is yours. Whether you choose to see it or not, it's an option. It's always an option.
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Chapter 7: What lessons can we learn from adversity?
Which sort of connects us to my next thought. If I know that's who I am, someone that fights for that 22 seconds, if I know that's what I'm capable of, and that's what lights me up, What about those times in my life when I had no desire to reach for the extra 22? Because sitting here, I can think of plenty. I can think of times when there was dissonance between my identity and my actions.
Here's a quick story, right? This was a... a shift in my life and my understanding of reaching for that little bit more. When people ask me about my process, what I'm building or where I see myself in X number of years, I tell them I'm playing the long game. I'll sacrifice some short-term wins now to continue forward with a plan that I believe wholeheartedly
will transform from linear to exponential, right? It's like Gary Vee's motto. You know, you're young, you have time. And impact is not about succeeding at 34. It's about flourishing at 45 and 55 and 65 and 75. Like, that's fun to me. That's the exciting game to play. And it's methodical. The challenge is...
You know, as you're locked into this big picture plan, you have to pass a lot of shiny objects along the way. A lot of, hey, look at them over there. Maybe I should be doing that too. That worked for her. Will it work for me? Right? Sometimes you forget to trust yourself and stay the course. And so a few years ago, I felt this pressure to pivot. to adjust focus, right?
I'd been talking with some mentors of mine who were very successful in their individual fields and passions. And I thought, hey, you know what? It's time for me to start focusing less on the craft and more on monetizing the craft, right? The dinero side of things, which is great and it's healthy, but here's the catch. As long as you're doing it in a way that aligns with who you are,
And so a few months go by and I found myself living in this overly sized and priced condo on the beach that I was going to use to impress clients. You know, making products that didn't excite me. Talking to people I didn't really want to be talking to. Living a life that was not my own. I'd lost myself. Right? My love is storytelling. It's capturing life's seemingly overlooked secrets.
That's what I get excited about in the morning. That's the value I want to share with the world. And look, money is important. It's necessary. It's freedom. But for me, it can't be about the money or I lose the drive. Right? And here's the point I'm making where it all comes together. What I found
is that when you're a stranger in your own body, there's almost no incentive to push for that little extra. It's like, who cares about fighting for 22 seconds? I'm so misaligned, I don't even wanna be here, right? That is the red flag. That's the indicator that it's time to adjust. Because if I'm someone who wants more, who pursues and acquires more,
and I don't feel the urge to do so, you know, it's time to change. And I broke the lease, put everything I had in a car, went on a little three-month excursion, realigned. And if I'm not willing to suffer through that little extra to go above and beyond, it's not for me. And so that's a big example, but it obviously manifests in smaller ways as well.
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Chapter 8: How can we redefine our relationship with pain?
It was a consistent and sustained shot at the walls you placed around yourself for the opportunity to see them crumble. Recently, I was thinking about something a friend of mine named Tom told me a few years back. He owns a company in Oklahoma City and was telling me about how someone he'd hired essentially stole from him.
And the first question that came to my mind as he was telling the story was, okay, what are you going to do about it? And I asked him the question, and he was kind of quiet for a second, and then asked in his southern accent, Eddie, if a snake bites you, are you going to chase it into the woods to get your revenge, or are you going to get the medical attention required to save yourself?
Basically, are you going to focus on the past or on what to do from here forward? Basically, he cut ties with the person but had moved on. was already thinking about next steps that were best for him, his family, and his business. And I can tell you since hearing that, it's become an incredibly valuable idea in my life. Especially as you realize that there will never be a shortage of problems.
You do what you can to avoid them. You try to steer clear when possible, but adversity will always be a factor. It's about knowing that and stepping into it regardless. It's just, it's something that's always intertwined in our development. And I find value in asking myself, is this action I'm about to take conducive to my growth and my happiness? Or am I just chasing snakes?
Does this just feel good in the short term because I'm angry or I've been wronged or something along those lines? Especially since most harm inflicted on others derive from incompetence, not malice, and I truly believe that. I think very frequently we attribute sinister motives to others when 99% of the time it's sheer stupidity. It's imperfect humans trying to navigate an often complex world.
We make mistakes. Now, I'm not suggesting you don't stand up for yourself when you've been wronged or slighted. Of course you should. But the magic is in not personalizing the situation. Possessing the emotional IQ to understand, hey, look, it's not about me, but whether I can salvage the situation from here. And that depends solely on how I choose to look at it.
Emerson wrote, people do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. And what a powerful point. The flexibility and the leeway available to us when it comes to making sense of the world speaks to not how the world is, but how the onlooker thinks and interprets it. Depersonalizing the situation is one of the greatest superpowers at our disposal.
When you're angry and accusatory, you will, as Tom put it, end up chasing snakes. You'll end up breaking things that will need to be rebuilt and uttering words you'll wish you'd never spoken. But the five seconds required to pause, to collect yourself, and realize that you're in control is everything.
The ability to see the person, the situation, or the world not as an adversary stacked against you, but as an inevitable challenge that must be managed. So how will you choose to manage it? How will you choose to arrange the pieces? And by the way, I'm fully aware the constant theme for my speeches and podcasts and videos is the act of pointing not out at the world, but in at ourselves.
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