there's a quote that states life is 10 what happens to you and 90 how you react to it which means that your reaction is drastically more important than the circumstance and that's critical to know it's critical to understand that nothing no one in life has more power over your own situation than you then there's an old story that hits on this point exactly there's a father and a daughter and basically the daughter is complaining she's complaining about life how difficult things are she doesn't know how she's going to make it in whatever it is she's
doing i mean the bottom line is she's tired of the day-to-day right and her father gets this idea he says come with me into the kitchen and he gets three pots of water puts them on the stove and turns the burners on as soon as they start boiling he drops a potato in the first one an egg in the second one and some coffee beans in the third one and after some time goes by and they boil a little bit he pulls them out he puts the the potato in a bowl he puts the egg
in a bowl and uh he takes a ladle and he puts some of the coffee in a cup and he says what do you see she says well i see a potato i see eggs and i see uh coffee he says yeah but look closer there's more there and she goes and she touches the potato and it's now soft and he hands her the bowl with the boiled egg and she takes the shell off and breaks it open she sees that it's hard inside then finally he asked her to take a sip of the coffee
and you know she smells it she takes a sip his smile comes to her face she says so what does all this mean what are you trying to say he says well the potato when i dropped it in the water it was it was rigid it was tough it was uncompromising but in the boiling water it became soft weak then you have the egg that was basically the opposite this delicate layer protecting a liquid center and the boiling water made it hard and then there was the coffee that wasn't just changed by the situation it
created something new it took the same adversity and used it as a lever to bring something beautiful into existence [Music] he then looks at his daughter and says look when things become challenging when things become difficult which one are you what's your approach see maybe the question is not about how challenging this situation is right maybe we've been asking the wrong question maybe it's how do you transform yourself and by default the world around you how do you take your strengths your values your loves your joys your happiness and let that lead you into something
when life gets hard and it does what do you become i always remind myself you know we are not defined by life at peak state as much as i wish that were the case right we're not shaped by the easy days or the times that we floated by because those times are great they're enjoyable but they're not what make or break us it's the times that challenge us and ask us to be what we have not yet become that's the good stuff and this is another one of those you know simple but not easy type
things because on paper it makes sense it's understood but it's an outlook that manifests over time it's slowly stacked piece by piece and brick by brick realizing that every situation provides you with tools to make something out of an apparent nothing and then it waits right because fate is in your hands and i can certainly think of you know times in my life that's one of the reasons i love these stories i can reflect where each one of those pots of boiling water was relevant i can think of times i was too headstrong like the
metaphorical potato i thought success would be easy i thought projects would be simple to execute i spent months doing things that just weren't good because i didn't ask what does the world need i ask myself what do i want to give the world and there has to be a marriage there right and it was a quick reminder that the world owes me nothing i was humbled or softened as the story goes i've been the egg i've been timid i've been uncertain thin skinned worrying about what people would say or the content i was creating worried
about perception how would things look if if i failed and very quickly i learned that when life is a game of comparison or one-upmanship when you do things for reasons and people other than yourself can't win you overcompensate you do things for the wrong reasons and you lose yourself you become hardened and then there's the good stuff right getting to the coffee not bowing down to the circumstances but shaping them not letting life dictate how the story goes or the fate of your character and what's interesting is i'm pretty sure that being that metaphorical egg
in the potato they lay the foundation to become the coffee the life lessons the falling down the picking my ego up off the floor learning to trust myself not be led by the opinions and expectations of others you essentially learn that you can take the world around you and change it that it is malleable it is flexible you have that power you have that ability it's up to you to believe it and that's critical because no one comes along and co-signs that understanding for you it's an internal process [Music] you start to learn that things
aren't there to provide instruction they're there to propel you but can you see the unknown is the opportunity the obstacle is the way and the loss is the armor that you pick up during the journey and so you know all of these words essentially come to one point and that point is you have so much more control over your life than you think you do as i've said before you are stronger than you think you are you are more resilient than you can even imagine and when life tests you and again it will remember that
the challenges are not happening to you but for you the world isn't taking away what you have it's giving you what you need so long as you're willing to adapt with it to grow expand out because you not only have the ability to change yourself but the world as well you
