Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero
Learn To Love Yourself More Than Anyone Else | Best Motivational Speeches of 2025 (So Far)
Fri, 07 Feb 2025
The biggest decisions in life aren’t made through spreadsheets or endless analysis—they’re made with heart, intuition, and courage. Jeff Bezos once said his best decisions weren’t based on data but on instinct, and that realization connected some dots for me. When it comes to shaping our future, logic can guide us, but it’s our inner voice that truly knows where we need to go. Deep down, we know when something feels right—or when it doesn’t. This episode is about trusting that feeling, embracing intuition, and making decisions that lead to a life you’re truly meant to live. Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletter Free Ebook: www.eddiepinero.com/ebook
Chapter 1: What goes into your decision making?
What goes into your decision making? Particularly the big decisions, the important ones. I heard a quote that moved me from Jeff Bezos. It was a video on Twitter. And he said, my best decisions in business and in life have been made with heart, intuition, and guts, but not analysis. And he continues, when you can make a decision with analysis, you should do so.
Chapter 2: How can intuition guide important decisions?
But it turns out that in life, your most important decisions are always made with instinct, intuition, and taste. And that connected some dots for me. Because I think the big decisions, the life-altering decisions, where we are pointing the ship should be made via intuition. Data can't tell you which direction is most important to you.
And even if it could, if your heart's not in it, if it's not aligned with who you are and where you feel you need to be, it wouldn't really matter anyway.
the most important decisions we make even right out of the gate there's this feeling of it's aligned or it isn't we know right away we feel it right away someone once said to me if you can't decide if something's good or not flip a coin because you'll know while that coin is in the air what side you want it to land on and we do we know and so after deciding
After letting intuition guide us, then and only then, in my humble opinion of course, do we calculate the how. That's the analysis part. Once we've committed and our hearts are aligned, yeah, you use the data all around you, the evidence collected along the way to map an efficient path. I think people tend to put the heart and the brain against each other as though they're rivals.
I know I certainly have, but... I think they need to coexist together. Think about it. If you select your North Star based on analysis, you'll probably lack the drive to get there. And conversely, once decided, if you map the course based solely on heart or feel, you'll be operating blind, limiting your ability to make accurate adjustments based on real life circumstances. You need both.
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Chapter 3: What does it mean to trust yourself?
I'm making some pretty substantial changes here in my life. I'm moving again, this time to Arizona, starting up some new ventures, placing myself in a few situations that weren't even on the radar six months ago. I can't explain my rationale using mathematical models. I just know deep in my soul that it's where I need to be. It feels right. It's calling me. The same way 10 years ago,
Writing speeches in a small Boston apartment for no revenue at the time couldn't be explained. Can't show your work on a decision like that, right? It's just something that feels good. And, you know, once you jump in, then yeah, you start relying on the brain, the analysis to grow and improve and evolve.
But I do believe if we made the big decisions based only on the things we could prove or the things we are sure of, The biggest and most important leaps would never have been made. Risks wouldn't be taken. I mean, you don't take risks because you run the numbers and the odds work. You take risks because life is, when you break it down, remove the nuance and details, about the journey.
It's about the ride. And so you jump. You commit to a path. And maybe you realize it's not the path for you. Let's say things don't work out. Well, now you are gifted that wisdom. Understanding you previously never had. And you can take that all with you onto the next venture. How do you put a price on that? How do you quantify lessons of that magnitude?
Chapter 4: Why are courage and risks essential for growth?
What data tells you how important that courage was? We all know the answer. Now, of course, again, data has a story to tell and numbers don't lie, but they also never tell the whole story. They can't paint the picture in its entirety. Which is why I'd scream from the mountaintops, if it means something to you, it's worth exploration. If it matters, try.
If it lights up your curiosity, give it attention. Maybe it doesn't work the way you thought or hoped, but it will lead you to the next thing, and then the next, and the next. It will provide the type of value that simply can't be quantified or even understood in the moment. The story of your life must be written by you. It must align with the person looking back at you in the mirror.
That's the litmus test. That's the benchmark. So trust yourself and your intuition to write it. You belong here. This was something that was said to the class during yoga the other day. As I've said before, yoga is something I'm really turning to as both a mental and physical approach to a lot of the injuries and imbalances I've been dealing with for a very long time.
And part of that, you know, starting something new, was obviously not knowing what you're doing. It's a willingness to play the fool, to be this student. It's signing up to be, you know, at times the worst in the room. And so I hear the instructor say this line, you belong here, and then kind of repeat it again for emphasis.
Chapter 5: How does discomfort lead to transformation?
It hit me hard, you know, and I'll never know if this was prompted by me flailing around in the back trying to do crow pose, or she just felt like, you know, it needed to be expressed in the moment. I'm not sure, but what I do know is that it was exactly what I needed to hear. And in fact, it's what I've needed to hear throughout many stages of my life, which is why I think it hit so hard.
And I want to unpack it for a second. When I moved to Massachusetts, after spending the vast majority of my childhood in the Los Angeles area, I used to joke around with my friends back in LA. I'm like, this is so different that it feels like a culture shock, right? It seems so little of the world. Why do these guys not wear Dickies or spike their hair? Everyone has cargo shorts and New Balances.
What's happening here, right? You know, but all jokes aside, when you're a freshman in high school, that's a big deal. The difference is we're many. And it took a while, you know, but I acclimated. I made friends. I did the thing. But persistently, in the back of my head, I felt like an outsider making my home somewhere that wasn't really mine. Like I didn't really belong there. Then came college.
I went to a small private school where most of the students I knew came from prep schools. And I had somewhat of a more rigorous academic background than I did. And I decided to be a political science major, basically living in my professors' offices during their hours when they would spend extra time helping me write, showing me how to organize my thoughts and put together analytical papers.
It was a long and stressful learning curve. And just like before, I figured it out, did fine academically, but again, never really felt like I belonged there. There were some of the same sentiments with, you know, walking on to the rowing team, where many of the recruits had been doing it all their lives. Same thing in the corporate world. Felt a little out of place.
It was a feeling that, yeah, never prevented me from starting. You know, I'd dive in, I'd figure it out, but there was always this lingering fish-out-of-water feeling that I couldn't shake. Kind of a tangent, but this is, you know, one of the funniest moments for me looking back. In my early 20s, I was at an interview at some insurance company in Boston.
And the guy interviewing me is sitting on one end of a desk. I'm at the other. He's holding a physical copy of my resume and cover letter. Not saying a word, just kind of scanning them up and down. And he slowly kind of drops them on the desk and goes, so Eddie, tell me more about... He pauses, looks back down at my cover letter, back up at me, back down at my cover letter.
Then he traces the first line of the cover letter, quoting it as his finger moves across the paper. He goes, tell me more about how, quote, your lifelong dream is to become a data analyst. And I was like, oh my God, this guy sees right through me. Eddie, what are you doing, man? Like, this ain't it, you know? And I crack myself up every time my mind goes back there.
It's the epitome of square peg, round hole. And I would consistently find myself in that position, right? But, you know, I digress. The point is, me feeling like I'm on the outside looking in has been somewhat of a theme. Even in the areas of my life where I was finding success. Like, I couldn't totally... Be there, like find the things that are important to me and commit to them fully.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of perspective in challenges?
It's like you've been doing the thing for 10 years. You've grown in so many areas, but have you given yourself permission to become what you're seeking? Not kind of, but pour yourself into it. It's who you are, the environment, the people, the variables, the ups and the downs, all of it is who you are. Just imagine what that freedom would allow. Go be the thing. More, more, more, fully.
All you have to give. So yoga class this morning showed up. Even though I suck, even though I'm learning, decided, hey, little symbolism here. No more hiding in the back of the room. Step into those neon green lights, move towards the front. You no longer do things, even the little things, to simply scrape by or exist. Do it to be it. If you're going to do anything, do it to be it.
You belong here. Help me realize what being it really is. that maybe I'd let my definition slip. Maybe my understanding wasn't wide or all-encompassing enough. And yeah, there's a line we need to walk, no question. We must be on the path to acquiring competency in something before we can make it our own. But the beauty of podcasts and Audible and books, all our media outlets,
It's that other people's growth and understanding can fast track our own. Learn from this experience. Life is too short to always feel like you are on the outside looking in. It just is. If you earned a chair at the table, be at the table. If you were let into the room, work the room. If you're spending time and energy doing something, be that thing.
Don't deprive yourself of that precious alignment because it's such a beautiful thing when we allow ourselves to feel it and obtain it. But like so many things, it starts with you giving you permission. It starts with a simple understanding. You may be new. You may be struggling, unsure. You might have a hell of a mountain to climb, a journey to travel. You might have extra work to do.
You might have to add some things and cut away others. You might have to ask yourself the tough questions and accept the difficult answers. But you do, my friend, belong here. Welcome to Your World Within Daily, I'm Eddie Pinero, and in this episode, I wanna talk about sort of a guiding principle to help make the move when you know what you have to do, but you're stuck.
You forget that the value is on the other side of the difficult decision in front of you. So I want to start with a story about cliff jumping with my friends. Maybe four years ago now, we flew into Las Vegas, spent some time in Vegas, and then we hit like national parks in Utah and then Arizona and went all the way up the coast.
When we were in Lake Tahoe at the very end, there was this spot to cliff jump. this really, really high peak. And, you know, it's notorious, and it was just like a scary thing. And I remember walking up. There were three of us, and two other people were there. It's like you have to hike up to it. It's kind of in the woods a little bit.
One of my buddies walked up, and, you know, we thought he was going to jump right off. And he stood there, and he looked down, and he looked down for... I don't know how long, a while, you know, ultimately jumped. As far as I knew, I wasn't afraid of stuff like that, right? So I walk out and I look over the edge and I could not bring myself to jump. Physically, I couldn't do it.
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Chapter 7: How can you reclaim control over your life?
All of them were willing to make a trade. The bottom now for a chance at the top later. Not only is this pragmatic, but it also aids the mind throughout the process. It helps us understand and internalize what we're going through. You know, that initial instinct to think, why me? To shake our fists at the world and fall into the role of victim.
That goes away when we know that, you know, we're enduring turbulence now for something better. When we know that this is merely the cost of admission. You're not at the bottom of the wave because you have to be or even because it's fun to hang out there. You're there because something greater is coming. And a human's desire to delay gratification is a superpower. We all know that.
Things get worse before they get better. So remember next time you're out in the world, right, dealing with adversity. Technically, you don't have to be there. You could be hiding away, letting life slip by. But instead, you've made the decision, the courageous decision, to better yourself. What you're enduring will ultimately become your strong point. And so don't villainize or demonize that.
Cherish it. Hold on to that. Because we need to get beyond the notion that discomfort is weakness. Discomfort is a decision. A bold decision that you should be proud of. Again, you could live your entire life running from the painful things. Hiding from the discomfort of growth. But then you'd also be forfeiting that next wave.
You'd be so hell-bent on escaping the notion that it always gets worse first... that instead you never let your life get better to begin with. There is no bottom or trough on earth more detrimental to the human soul than stagnation. We need to be moving, marching forward, even when we don't know, right? Into the unknown, into the night.
Fighting to get to the ceiling, then gladly allowing that ceiling to become our next floor. It always gets worse first. And thank God. That's where we are made. Conditioned. That's the buffer that separates mediocrity from greatness. That forces us to ask the important questions. Do I really want this? And if the answer is yes, Let it get worse first. Let it be tough out of the gate.
Grant yourself that gift of vulnerability. Because a few waves from now, you'll be on a different level. Physical, spiritual, personal. A few waves from now, the quote-unquote worst parts will be what stand between who you are and who you were. And that decision, the decision to step out and face them, will have been perhaps the best decision you've ever made.
For a second, imagine that feeling in your stomach. the nerves, the discomfort, maybe even the doubt as you walk up to do that one thing that scares you, that stretches you just a little bit further than you're ready for. And as you move towards that sort of dark unknown, the mysterious discomfort, what's on your mind? Are you starting to rationalize?
Maybe you're asking yourself, hey, why did I do this to begin with? Seemed like a good idea at one point. Seemed bold and adventurous. But now it seems like the wheels have hit the road and the narrative is shifting in real time. So try and recreate that feeling for a second. Looking fear in the eyes. Capture what it means physically, mentally. For me, it was public speaking.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can we learn from life's challenges?
And my point here, and for those of you not a fan of Alice in Wonderland, I appreciate you hanging on, but where these dots connect is that it's actually a pretty simple idea. Life unfolds in a way that is unimaginable. When we shift our thinking from, oh no, here comes that feeling in my stomach again, my heart's pounding, my palms are sweating, so I've wandered too far.
When you change that to, here comes that feeling in my stomach, heart pounding, palms sweating, so here comes the beginning of something incredible, life shifts. See, it's not running from that temporary feeling of fear and discomfort, but harnessing it. It's a weapon. It's a tool, right? It fuels the rocket ship headed to the moon. It's the water that that seed of opportunity is dependent upon.
And sure, it feels new and unsettling, and yeah, it's uncomfortable, but so is, as we learn, everything good. And sure, you could turn back. You could avoid that manufactured conflict, confrontation altogether. But man, you have to be okay never knowing what those peaks could have been. You have to be content imagining a life of adventure and not living it. And to me, that's a much steeper price.
Because that feeling of fear in your stomach, it's temporary, it goes away. But the feeling of knowing... you walked away when life held out its hand and offered you more, that doesn't go away. And see, I look at it like this. Two things change every time you say yes.
Every time you acknowledge the organized chaos and move forward anyway, you move both your internal and external worlds one step forward. Internal because life is your identity. And as has been said before, humans always follow through on who they believe they are. I've heard actors saying the most important decision they make is the shoes they put on.
Because it lays the groundwork for how you feel. You just feel differently about yourself in clown shoes than you would in basketball shoes than you would in dress shoes. You feel different about yourself in a suit than you would in sweatpants. And this doesn't mean go reassess your wardrobe. It highlights how malleable identity is.
Yeah, we follow through on who we believe we are, but the powerful thing is who we believe we are is created every single day. Every time we use fear to propel us forward, right? Your subconscious goes, okay, that's who I am. Someone who does the uncomfortable thing, someone who is okay with fear, that's me, right? And that's the internal foundation that means everything.
That's how identity is constructed, right? And if you stack that up with action every single day, you won't even be able to recognize yourself. That's the internal transformation. Then there's the external transformation. Every time you push through fear, you level up. Not significantly. You aren't immediately transformed. In fact, sometimes you don't even notice.
But the truth is, after you say yes, after you take that step, you're fractionally further than a few minutes earlier. Your relative ceiling is now the floor, and it's time to take another step. This is how you create distance over time. So when you hear the word fear, let's rewire that reaction. Let's change how we think about it. Because it's not a monster in the closet.
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