WATCH THIS EVERYDAY AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE - Morning Motivational Speeches

You can be your greatest fan and also your biggest critic in fact not only is it healthy it's necessary to be there for yourself celebrate that commitment to show up but also to hold yourself accountable for growth because to be great is to know there's more in you to understand that there's greatness waiting to be extracted from the miracle that is you here are two words I want to take a Look at both of them consistency and adaptation consistency first why because consistency gets you in the door it's the cost of admission consistency is you

showing up for yourself day in and day out creating Mastery and competence through repetition manufacturing uh a data set That will be used to guide your journey taking a once stagnant idea and putting it into motion consistency is doing what you promised yourself you do when you said you do it why because that's who you are you create goals and then conquer those goals when your head hits the pillow at night you may be tired you may have struggled you may have swung and missed you may be wondering how things unfolded The way they did

but you showed up so celebrate that celebrate yourself be your biggest fan cuz the world can't take your will to step forward and cannot Seize Your consistency not without your permission so other than part one let's call consistency the commitment to show up for you now the second piece consistency's older Brother adaptation see that consistency like we just talked about it will get you in the door it signs you up for the game but it guarantees nothing see where consistency puts that pen in your hand paper in front of you Pats you on the back

where consist y gives you a chance to write your [Music] story one's level of success or Achievement relies on their ability to adapt to do the thing that's so hard for people to do look in the mirror and ask how can I be better I've been consistent for 30 days sure here's what's right here's what's wrong now it's time to adjust to be critical to understand that expecting more of the self does not in any way diminish the task at hand it gives you room to expand into that next version of Yourself in a way

that simply showing up doesn't without a willingness to adapt you get Einstein's definition of insanity right doing the same thing repeatedly and expect ing different results you get day after day of wondering why this square peg won't just save us all the trouble and go into the round hole without a willingness to adapt we move for the sake of moving and we work for the sake of Working but if we could find it within ourselves to look at the data that's been acquired day after day and use it to help guide ourselves to that North

Star we'll find strength to seek out the Delta between where we are and where we want to be that is power but it calls for more than just showing up it calls for looking around it calls for observing and then Adapting so yeah your greatest fan and your greatest critic be there for you but don't let yourself get away with good enough showing up is critical it's powerful but it's just the beginning if your eyes stay open if you're willing to both love yourself and improve yourself simultaneously all the world becomes available to you there

are no mountains you can't Climb or oceans you can't cross and sure the world will do what the world does it will place challenges before you but rather than those challenges being the reason you can't rather than accepting those challenges as a permanent reality they become nothing more than the next puzzle to be solved the next little adaptation that's required of you you show up you self assess you adjust and carry right on towards that Horizon again and again so when you find yourself frustrated or up against that wall remember you are building your ideal

reality be proud of yourself for showing up for being consistent because as dire as it might seem you overcame a lot to get here but also know that the challenge at hand is not an indictment of you or your goals it's your chance to review the game plan and Adjust your opportunity to do what so many fail to do not shrink from the world but adapt yourself to it grow because of it today is your opportunity to take what the world gives you and build something new [Music] we have a desire to Define that which

is often undefinable when it comes to life and its highly coveted outcomes assessing The things that we want we use probability to solidify things that are entirely fluid for example you know you often hear about the odds of becoming a professional football player the odds of becoming a CEO of going to Harvard making six or seven figures numbers that often paint a picture of why you can't right when you hear only one in however many millions of people Accomplish something the intent is to show you that you're more likely to fall into the millions bucket

than the one bucket to show just how rare or difficult or out of the ordinary achieving that thing would be almost like they're being compared to a lottery a random number generator luck a pursuit in which you have zero control think of a a a huge glass jar right one red marble 3 million green Marbles and it's like you close your Eyes and you better pull out that red otherwise you won't become the Oscar winning actor that you dream of being and the problem with looking at life that way is that it overshadows the most

important element of success understanding just how much control you have the one in however many hundreds or thousands or Millions wasn't born that red marble in a Jar full of 3 million green ones no he or she just did things Differently lived differently they didn't relinquish control they took control and that's the difference that's what matters the lottery is sitting back and hoping your numbers pulled in real life you create your own probability every day every minute that that goes towards working towards a goal that means you get closer why would you take a snapshot

of the present moment in time and use that To define the likelihood that you'll live out your dreams someday down the road it doesn't tell you you anything it's the steps along the way that make your vision a reality using the same metaphor every step every decision to push forward every time you dig deep and find a little Advantage you're replacing one of those green marbles with the red one maybe you can't quantify that numerically maybe you can't see the Progress but it's there in fact numbers should never scare you because they're an indicator that

the vast majority of people aren't prepared preped to go all the way aren't willing to do what it takes and that you by simply not stopping by thinking that you can by giving more than the person next to you have a tremendous advantage over the rest of the world when you hear only a small number of people make it or graduate or get accepted or win your Thought process shouldn't be oh no it should be perfect this is my opportunity of course the number of elite people in any arena is going to be small think

of what it takes to get there think of the sacrifice needed to make it happen the cost that must be paid the only odds that warrant attention are the odds that you will continue forward and you should know that they are 100% because when you trust yourself to find a way when you Focus on how to make it happen you have an advantage the world around you they focus on why things can't happen they see what can go wrong they harp on the fact that it's not easy remaining fixated on why you can on finding

a way means you most likely will the terms difficult or demanding or even unlikely they have nothing to do with you Crossing that finish line if you are 100% convinced you are going to do just that words like difficult they just Imply that there's going to be plenty of opportunities to quit and turn around along the way a Temptation that must and will be ignored they mean that you will be tested that you will have to ask ask yourself potentially numerous times if this means something to you if it's truly worth it and if the

answer is yes then the numbers the probability the odds they are not an adversary they are an ally Peter Ducker has said that what gets Measured gets improved and this insight's been incredibly valuable to me over the years I want to explain why until you measure something you're operating in somewhat of a black box you're essentially guessing aiming at Targets you can't see which ultimately means you're leaving life up to chance but once you begin to gaug your progress in a specified area you now Have information to work with you have an increased sense of

awareness and the ability to focus which as I've said before and believe wholeheartedly what you focus on becomes your reality so here's a quick example that I think adequately uh paints a picture here of what I'm talking about uh way back when I first started my business I was uh chatting with a friend about wanting toow grow my YouTube Subscribers add value to as many people as I possibly could with my work back then it was all YouTube that was the Crux of my business and so the first question he asked he goes just out

of curiosity how many subscribers join the channel daily and I realized in that moment you know I don't know I knew the total amount like I kept tabs on that but not the sort of daily fluctuation how much grew on Monday versus Friday you know That type of thing uh and this guy he had a Tracker he's very big on that basically a sheet with the most important things that he's trying to change in his life and every day when he would wake up he'd record a quick measurement in each of those categories and my

first thought was eh you know that's a little over the top it's a little extra but hey one of my favorite mantras is that you are your own experiment and I was happy to try Something new that you know could have a positive impact and so I did I started uh recording daily the net subscribers that join the your world within community and what I found was incredible they say it's the simple things that make the greatest difference in our lives and this would certainly be no exception right first and foremost just seeing that number

every day kept growth at the Forefront of my mind it kept me aware and excited and thinking Through that lens as if I were on a journey or mission to outperform the me of yesterday right if on some random day you grow 30% more than you usually do it's only normal to see that and ask well why can't this happen every day Why Can't This Be My reality and next and and probably more obvious it armed me with the tools to tactically improve my performance those daily metrics helped me find critical answers arrive at Important

conclusions you know what days of the week and weeks of the year have the greatest impact what trends lead to increased viewership my daily average subscriber count is X I wonder what it would take to bring it to why right and so basically instead of just showing up every day with my fingers crossed and hoping I'd hit it out of the park I had a more informed approach it's like Taking a blindfold off and all of this prompted by writing one little number down in the morning the more I did this the more it became

obvious that it should be implemented in other aspects of my life if this is important to me if I say with conviction this is an area I want to improve how could I afford to not know the extent of its growth and now I do track the handful of Things I'm most invested in growing because those will be most impacted by my giving them attention there's a saying that what you water grows well your focus and your attention is what will water the seed what will give it life if you're looking to lose weight but

you never look at the scale you're hurting yourself right you might say well I don't want to be all about the numbers it's a lifestyle change and I certainly Agree the point is not to track every single step you make it's to realize how often we operate blindly it's to show you that with 100% certainty your increased awareness and attention dedicated to any Pursuit will make you more effective in bringing about your desired result Knowing Your Daily Progress keeps you in the game it keeps you excited and also arms you with the tools to make

the necessary Changes see we are brilliant creatures capable of incredible things but it's critical that we position ourselves so that we can win the game it's critical that we not only look but see to be simplified to condense life down to only what's important and to monitor those things that are important to you will give you a tremendous advantage and again this is basic stuff but we skip the basic stuff Because we think the big changes come from complexity they don't they come from choosing a Target and working to get closer and closer to its

Bullseye like Greg mun says in essentialism growth often has nothing to do with the acquisition of more sometimes it's about eliminating the things we don't need and focusing on that which we do now I'm suggesting we take it one Step further and measure our growth as we take those meaningful things into the great unknown life can be challenging that's no secret so why not arm ourselves with every Advantage available to us why not keep yourself excited and invested and knowledgeable often we look around at what we don't have and think man I could never have

what they have I could never Do what he she does the reality is they identified what matters and brought it to life one small step at a time and guess what you can do the same it's not a miracle you need it's awareness so here's to keeping your eyes open to not only looking but seeing and in doing so getting results from the opportunity we otherwise would walk right by [Music] Sometimes it's not about the odds it's not about things being perfectly aligned for you sometimes it's about making something out of nothing it's about simply

finding a away or as the saying goes using what you have where you are I want to share something with you that I found pretty valuable so the World Cup is on and I really enjoy watching soccer or football Depending on where you're from and what you call it and caught a handful of games over the Thanksgiving holiday and one of those games was our Argentina against Saudi Arabia and for those who maybe don't watch or follow international soccer Argentina is a Powerhouse right ranked third in the world coming into the tournament their team has

some of the best players in the world they're just Incredible to watch the Saudis on the other hand not so much right they're certainly not known for uh their soccer so it's kind of a a David and Goliath esque story so what's the significance here well let me share some stats Argentina possessed the ball 69% of the time Saudi Arabia only 31% as expected Argentina took 15 shots Saudi Arabia only three again as expected Argentina dominated with Possession and had more attempts Saudi Arabia however won the game 2 to one shocker right outmatched outclass out

everything except outscored which happens to be the only thing that matters in a soccer game obviously they had far fewer opportunities but what they did do is capitalize on them made the most of them now those two teams that could play a 100 times it wouldn't be outrageous uh To predict Argentina winning 95 of those matches but this is my point that 5% can be carved out can be willed into existence what it comes down to is what you do with what you have what you make of those few and far between opportunities that arise

cuz here's the deal there will be times when we feel simply outm matched by life as though the Universe is outshooting Us in control bending and shaping us to its will and maybe at that particular point in time that's exactly what's happening to use the previous metaphor maybe at that moment we are not the Argentina we are relegated to a lesser equipped adversary my message to you is that there is enough there to hold off the Goliath pressing and pushing my message to you is that there Is enough to be outshot but not outscored that

when we must dig deep we are capable of unearthing a strength a will an ability to rise I'm not talking about making it through unscathed no I'm talking about making it through period when it seems as though we couldn't when we had to crawl through hell to reinvent ourselves or rewrite the story there's power in knowing that Despite the the seeming struggle and despair that a way exists in fact a friend of mine often says to me there is always a way to arrive at your IDE ideal outcome you just have to figure out how

to connect the dots in other words that outcome you're looking for it already exists the question is how do you get from point A to B to C to ultimately your destination it's not a matter of whether it's Possible it's a matter of arranging the pieces at your disposal to create that bridge and the reason I love this world cup metaphor is cuz that All or Nothing mindset in the past has been an adversary for me those who've been listening to me for a while have heard me talk about it it's like things aren't perfect

fine I'll wait until they are oh I'm injured and can't work out Okay then who cares what I eat what I do I'll wait until things are back till I'm healthy till they're how I want them to be but no to win sometimes you have to find a way when the odds are in favor of the resist distance sometimes you have to step up when life is out shooting you 16 shots to three sometimes you have to be better than you thought you could ever be it's easy to maintain momentum when You're healthy right but

maintaining momentum when you're not at your best that's something different altogether coming out on top when you're the underdog digging deep and finding a way to win when the easy thing to do would be to submit to life that's special and guess what it's always there it's always available Admiral mcraven in one of my favorite speeches ever written he says If you want to change the world you must learn to be your very best in your darkest moments he beautifully said it makes perfect sense it seems reasonable until we are kneed deep in those moments

it's easy to forget when we feel intimidated by a task that seems bigger than us it's easy to forget looking up at an obstacle or situation that seems to be statistically favored by Life it's easy to forget when walking away feels like the more pragmatic option but that's why regardless of the hill to climb time you must [Music] remember when you are outmatched or seemingly outclassed amidst the battles of Life there is a way to come out on top aemerge Victorious your job is to find it and the opportunities may be few and far Between

but what will you do with them when they present themselves how will you make the most of the resources that you do have because sure life is largely determined by the small stuff the predictable things what we do day in and day out but the pivotal moments the times that shape our existence they come down to finding a way when there appears to be nothing to Cling to you are down but never out lost but never gone as long as there is a heart beating in your chest as long as there is blood pumping through

your veins there is a way I challenge you to find it Freedom lies in being bold Robert Frost something caught my eye on Twitter not too long Ago was a headline referencing the boldness of wolves in the wild so I clicked it to delve a little deeper took me to an article by Emma Mars and here's the summary like a 10,000 ft view okay basically there's a parasite called T Gand that infects animals and then causes those infected animals uh to act bold perhaps uh even reckless in some situations and the article States why and

goes into some great detail but for Now I'm going to jump right to a specific point because there's a part where the article mentions how uh two Wildlife ecologists Meer and Cassidy studied Wolves at Yellowstone for 27 years and upon studying them they find something very interesting after taking blood samples from 229 wolves they found that wolves infected with that t gandi parasite uh that again makes them act Bolder were 11 times more likely than uninfected wolves to leave their birth Family and start a new pack the infected wolves Wes were also 46 times more

likely to become Pack Leaders which mea states are often the only wolves that breed and so this appears to portray a direct link from boldness to increased social status and possibly even reproduction rates and with that boldness comes risk sure but with risk comes reward up side now obviously the day-to-day Actions of wolves at Yellowstone uh is not an apples to Apple's comparison with human beings functioning in society but personally I can't help but feel the value contained in the case study in fact it was my thinking about it while falling asleep that prompted me

to uh find the article again and share it for the simple reason that I know there are places in My life that I can be bolder I know there are places in my life where I can dial up that risk factor in exchange for results that supersede what I have now you don't get more without giving more and I know there are places I can give more in fact I'm pretty confident There Are Places every single one of us can give more see here's the Thing being bold means drastically different things to different people and

it's in this truth that the magic is found boldness for one person might be completely different from someone else it might be more travel for another it might be taking on a project at work for another it might be leaving a detrimental situation for someone else you know going through a a low point or deeply challenging time it might be Simply getting out of bed we are all operating on different planes at any given time my bold today won't be my bold next week that's just the way life works but here's what I do know

we can all find within ourselves that courage to be bold in whatever Arena we are in and every once in a while someone will say to me yeah but Eddie can't you just be happy where you are why does it always have to be the next thing or Bigger or better or more to which my response is look of course we should be grateful for what we have of course we should appreciate the gifts and the beauty that surrounds us day in day out because it's there and it's infinite but and you knew there was

a butt human beings are Purpose Driven our happiness is often derived from our progress our journey is the destination and we often find when we Look around that we have given pieces of ourselves away sometimes without thinking about it perhaps we become stagnant with areas of ourselves that can be elevated that are destined to evolve I love looking back at those courageous moments in my life right they mean everything to me you know I like to say it's the Small Things repeated day in and day out that make us who we Are the vast majority

of the time I believe that to be true but those pivital moments those opportunities that our consistency creates for us well boldness in those instances changes everything and walking onto a stage when you've never never spoken before when your body is physically rebelling and you don't want to walk on stage is everything calling you all packing up and leaving a situation that's no longer In your best interest is painful it's instantaneous but is ultimately everything making an investment that you believe in deciding to hire someone with Incredible vision and talent being vulnerable enough to share

your thought with the world these things are risky they are bold but in your world they are everything and so the obvious connection here is our desire to lead in a world seemingly void of adequate leadership it's setting an example it's not Settling for the ground floor when the sky is the limit yes on all counts but it's also leading yourself at times we forget just how important important that is that you need to lead yourself to something meaningful significant change does not come along without your initiating it no doors open if you don't knock

the world will only give you what you ask of it and I'm here to remind you that asking more of the world yes it's hard It's uncomfortable it requires you to be more today than you were yesterday but you are capable of that you are bold enough to be that Robert Frost says Freedom lies in being bold I believe that's because in your courage lives the infinite upside so powerful that one simply cannot grasp it while standing still so go go find those areas of life your life where you know you're holding Back where you

know in your soul you have more to give and breathe life into them knowing that sure and being bold missing the Mark is a possibility but in never leaving it's a certainty if you never go you will never arrive so find the courage to ask more of yourself because more there is [Music] [Music] [Music] sometimes the moment has a way of appearing bigger than it really is a facade let me explain there was this kid when I was in first grade let's just call him Mike and what Mike would do was follow us all around

the classroom and outside at recess would constantly look for reasons to quote unquote tell the Teacher on you right dude was an Absol menace I'm 35 and I still remember Mike my buddies and I would be you know playing basketball outside uh you know maybe just learn some awesome four-letter words would love to give him a test run but no not if Mike was around Mike would go right to the teacher and see we feared Mike because we feared being in trouble now as time passes yeah you look back and realize how absolutely Ridiculous that

is I want to uh Shake younger me and say who cares about Mike go live your life he doesn't matter but the reality is at the time he did matter he mattered a lot because he was the personification of uh what was most scary to us in the moment right as a child the voiding being in trouble or timeout or whatever it was uh seemed to be a big deal and here's what I Think I think every chapter of life has a mic not in the literal sense but in the sense that there's something we

fear something that consumes our time and attention something that's been inflated to a state far greater than it really should have been that has an impact disproportionate to reality because as real as it seems in the moment a few years down the road we'll do the usual you know shake our head laugh about the seemingly obvious Lack of perspective during that chapter hindsight being 2020 we'll be shocked we couldn't see what we eventually came to see but that's what growth is it's a good thing we want to evolve no one wants to be the same

in 10 years see life the same way in 10 years but it's also an opportunity to obtain some perspective to understand that our current fears aren't all we've built them up to be we just can't see it yet Unfortunately the dust has to settle before the picture makes sense just like right now we can't judge the world around us the same way historians will be able to with Clarity that's why I often reference bronny wears top five regrets of the dying because it's a list of things people in their final stages of life look back

on and say yeah that was dumb right it's people who have already walked the path pointing out the Metaphorical mics they've encountered along the way because here's the deal the root of our stagnation the root of our frustration our despair comes down to fear in some capacity right when you dig deep it's a fear of leaving or staying a fear of criticism fear of unknowns fear of letting down the people we do know our demons are manufactured they're comprised of fear fear that sure we'll eventually laugh and shrug Off but ohe the power in being

able to fast forward that sequence to understand that life is too short to be held down by chains of our own making right how about laughing in the face of what intimidates you now not 5 years from now but now how about looking around and asking yourself what obstacles in your life our mices how about breaking our constraints down into what they've always been manageable tasks simply waiting for us To change the narrative if you aren't pursuing that which is Meaningful it's most likely because somewhere deep down fear is holding you back and that fear

is holding you back because let's face it you've let it in see the moment is beautiful it's powerful it has everything you need but it's not bigger than you it never will be bigger than you so let's not wait for some arbitrary Time in the future to arrive at that conclusion [Music] don't stay down in the ashes use the pieces to build new things don't dwell on what hurts use the lessons to chart a course to happier days don't fixate on What's Missing there's an endless supply of what's not there instead Rejoice over and Capitalize

on what remains don't take Misfortune personally remember that life is neutral it's you who has to decide whether to shrink in its shadow or grow because of it don't compare yourself to people around you we only see highlight reels we only see the best of our neighbors but they have their demons their problems their struggles Too instead compare yourself to who you were yesterday that's the only worthwhile Benchmark don't exhaust time wishing you had someone else's gifts or natural abilities sure they have theirs but you have yours too explore and go all in on your

unique superpowers because that's exactly what they are should you choose to bring them to life don't let the gravity of the moment Keep you down you might feel feel lost or defeated but it's not always about feeling good sometimes it's whether or not we can move forward when we don't so step into that unknown knowing sure you might not be at your best but that lives are often defined during our imperfect moments don't waste energy on hope the future is a construct an idea that you have no control over and that Will make you its

slave if you allow it to see the value of right now right now you have the power to change adapt evolve to make things happen right now is all you'll ever have to control build tear down Retreat Advance follow or lead everything is a choice life provides the components to go up or down left or right it's a Perpetual fork in the road endless Opportunities but you are the architect you decide what they become the difficulty we face in life is not personal if you remember this you disarm every adversary obstacle every complication you'll ever

face so quick story recently I was renewing a lease for my apartment something that usually is Pretty simple right only this time things were not simple confusion chaos misunderstanding after misunderstanding I received emails and letters saying you know you need to provide these documents in order to renew you need to have XYZ information submitted to his ASAP and uh I'm sitting here thinking guys you have all this info right I've lived here a year same guy let's put two And two together and after a while I started to get like truly annoying eventually to the

point of taking it personally so I stopped what I was doing and I go down to the front office thinking I'm going to go scorched Earth here I really wanted to emphasize how absurd and ridiculous all this was I opened the door it just kind of sto in my tracks first thing I see it's a crowded Room filled with tenants asking for things making requests looking for info and the people that work there were so patient and kind running around doing their absolute best to make everyone happy and get everything done and almost immediately I

realized Eddie you made this about you this is not in any way about you basically I created this fallacy that because things weren't working the way I wanted them to then there must Have been some Universal resistance right there's an idea I heard a while back fact that very rarely steers me wrong is that two things can simultaneously be true at once so in this case is there opportunity for these guys to tighten up a bit bring more clarity to their operations and best practices yeah certainly true but on the other hand was building this

up as a them versus me match in my Head dumb and counterproductive yes ALS so true the world will always provide adversity right that's not news to anyone it's just what the world does that adversity will take a thousand different shapes and appear an infinite number of ways but here's the deal life is neutral things just happen they aren't good or bad they just exist in The Ether we as storytellers decide to put a charge into Things we decide whether it's happening to us or for us we choose and that's a takeaway here there's power

in Remembering not to take things personally in any aspect of life because when we do we actually lose our grip on reality we become emotional and not rational and this is visible everywhere right take rejection for example something we all deal with it's not personal the person on the other end is Thinking about themselves they're locked in on their own incentives they're not thinking about you and however you feel about this it's just the truth so assess the situation sure maybe find some areas where you can improve and carry on being mistreated again not about

you as the same goes hurt people hurt people same goes for criticism and hate Online right something that a lot of people truly fear it will almost always be true that people who uh are more accomplished than you or further along in their career trajectory won't waste time bringing you down in the comment section no it's people saying things hoping that their comments will get approval and attention so they can feel validated their actions are being cared out for ready for this Themselves and to misdiagnose or take it as a shot to the heart well

that's creating a battle scenario that doesn't need to exist it's not them versus you it's them versus them you're just in the crossfire now does this perspective or or point to not take things personally uh mean that we Advocate personal responsibility does it mean we say well it's not me it's it's the world so not my Problem no of course not right this perspective gives you the power to do the right things and the necessary things because you understand that the problems you face are not a giant indictment of you as a person getting angry

creates a scenario where you know you reallocate your your energy from doing what's best for you to instead being mad at him or her or this group or that circumstance or the world in General you know bad things happen and by the way they happen to everyone everyone gets rejected at some point everyone gets let down by people close to them at some point everyone loses their way at some point everyone has their expectations fall short everyone has pushed back it's not just you it's the the world doing what the world does and there's 8

billion of us running Around operating uh in our best interest trying to navigate a big crazy world that's often uh incredibly difficult to understand so with this perspective right going forward you know my lesson from a few weeks ago what would I have done differently during all that chaos with the apartment a handful of things and first of all remind myself that in the grand scheme of things it's trivial it's just not that important two understand incentives Right these folks aren't trying to make things hard for me they're trying to do their jobs well so

they can live their best lives which brought their attention to other things it happens and three when you're calm you can actually solve the problems at hand when you don't stack your problems up to look like adversaries working against you when you instead see them as merely a challenge or puzzle to be Solved Life Starts to look a lot different it just feels different to walk around as though life is on your side as though hardship is nothing more than the water necessary for the seed to grow as though all those challenges you face are

opportunities being presented to you because I'm not sure you can simultaneously fight and solve I think one of our most important decisions is to select one you can make the rejection an Opponent the criticism a rival you can make the disorder your Nemesis or you can realize that all of it falls squarely into the box that is light pieces to be taken out one by one so that you can construct the ideal life comes down to the advantages that exist all around us the choices we make to live freely with the wind at our backs

or confined by the walls we build around ourselves and sure your current Obstacles might be because of decisions you've made maybe even decisions you wish you could take back but the current moment right now in this second is neutral it does not hold a grudge have an agenda now right now is simply right now in the same way that 2 + 2 is 4 four is not good or bad it doesn't want you to win or lose it's just for same goes for the crossroads before you and that puts the onus entirely on you to

decide what you will make it all mean will you Slow things down to find Clarity will you open your eyes to see the value because look there will always be a Delta between reality and the stories we tell ourselves about reality that's just how human beings work it's how we've managed to survive for Millennia so understand that and gift yourself the narratives that bring you closer to the place you want to be the road before you will be challenging not because its push back is Personal but because the amidst the resistance you'll find the components

you need to live your very best life [Music] the thing about time is that it comes and goes tomorrow will make today a distant memory and as quick as you are here you'll be gone what's in front of you is an opportunity to make right now something you'll never Forget you have the ability to write history to create a story that will live with you for ever think back to all the days leading up to today all the training the hours of preparation the pain you felt they have brought you to this moment they are

the armor that you wear right now is about execution it's about taking all those hours and turning them into the best version of yourself today is about being Better than you ever dreamed you could be these are the moments you live [Music] [Music] for gone are the insecurities the doubt the disbelief this day is yours look your opponents in the eye they cannot give what you can you have built this opportunity piece by piece you have created an Unstoppable force and it's Finally time to reveal that to the world let people doubt you they'll see

with time let the obstacles stand you will run right through them let everything in this universe tell you no you have already told yourself yes the hardest thing in this world to stop is someone who knows they've won before the game has started this is your everything embrace it make it so that you never forget [Music] today you are the god of of your world and in your world you write the script there is no tired you left that in the wait room years ago there is no one sure pushing yourself to exhaustion every day

took care of that there is only when when do you rise [Music] up there comes a point when you just given too much your sacrifices too great To accept anything but the very best everything else is noise this is your day it will not disappear with time it will live on you have earned today go make sure the world knows a [Music] [Music] there's a point for everybody where you know life tells you directly or indirectly that it's time to Level up right and I think that's a good thing uh you know life is a

staircase where you know the climb to that next step is uncomfortable but then you get there and things sort of normalize and you know in your in your soul uh it's time to take that next step right step up again and that step is going to be just as uncomfortable as the one before it's going to be different it's going to be bigger uh you'll have evolved but change is always Uncomfortable and and that's just the way it works and um I want to share with you something that uh a friend of mine Evan told

me um and it it helped me see that process differently uh he was talking to me specifically in terms of being in front of a camera which will make sense when you hear the metaphor but I think it's applicable to um you know everything any situation uh you know I was talking About that need that feeling that want to take the next step and uh very basic question you know what do you want to do and I wasn't exactly sure how I saw uh things evolving right and so the the metaphor was well you've been

Mickey Mouse for so long that you've been sort of neglecting the Walt Disney side of things and maybe that's intentional maybe that's how it should be maybe someone else should be Walt Disney maybe you should be Walt Disney and Mickey less like however you want to you know you can you can bend that and reshape it a million ways but the idea was you know when you are so focused on being in front of a camera telling your story writing creating um sometimes you lose sight of where the ship is going and I just thought

that was such a powerful metaphor if if makes you think and I've spent weeks thinking about it It's the right message it's what you need to hear and um I've been talking to people who are uh you know doing things that have nothing to do with speaking or or you know content creation anything like that and when they talk about their situation it's funny I I find myself relaying the same message because it's like you know you are so in the weeds of your dayto day doing things that um you know are important but they're

they're They're uh smaller details they're more technical things they're more day-to-day operational things uh that you don't know where that metaphorical ship is sailing and it's because you haven't been able to step back and really think about it um you know really assess where you're going and uh why and and why it matters to you and so one of the answers that I've found uh well it's a two-part answer it's it's it's finding a way and this is Not rocket science but it's it's sort of step one to take the smaller things and get them

off of your plate um but the other thing is to make a intentional time to just think to really reflect on life and and where you're going and understand like really try to deeply understand where you are now where you want to be and and how you can bridge that um you know that's a uh a powerful thing to be able to comprehend and it's very easy when I talk about This it the the thing that drives me crazy is it feels so obvious and feels so intuitive uh I could have spent another two years

neglecting that right be get so caught up doing what you do in the dayto day right falling behind catching up uh you know managing uh the the pieces moving the widgets around trying to stay afloat that you don't have time to ask a big picture question and so that's what this is all about it's are you so busy being Mickey Mouse in your life that the Walt Disney side of things is being neglected needs some love needs some vision and some understanding uh and if that's the case beautiful because now you're thinking about it now

the wheels are in motion and uh you know you can you can point that ship where you need it to go today belongs to the architect he sees Towers before they pierce the sky an Opportunity before it transforms into the extraordinary he knows that what he wants most cannot be [Music] given it must be sculpted so he builds he builds because those skylines don't raise themselves from the earth the extraordinary does not appear on its own they are dreamed into existence by The Architects of Reality the ones who seek not to take from the world

but to contribute to it today is the beginning of something new something better something worth remembering and it's existed long before the present moment waiting for your vision your courage Your persistence to bring it to life too many times we fail to reach into the realm of what we know and get more of ourselves it's okay to Struggle to be wrong to have to rebuild a thousand times but the great tragedy is closing our eyes and walking by life's opportunity everything you need to rebuild the life you dream of is around you your every move

if only you'd reach for it see it before your eyes do become the architect of change nothing is impossible when you are the one setting the rules when your hand draws the guidelines you are not at The mercy of the world you are creating it this is yours and there will never be a moment like it again so don't run from it or hope life gives you what you want take the pieces in front of you and construct your masterpiece [Music] found a quote the other day said Time Heals Nothing unless you move along with

it and I thought well that makes perfect sense right you can't pursue a new Reality a new world unless you can detach and depart from the current one but that's in theory and my question was is it the destination or the path that holds us back because in my experience the greatest struggle in life it isn't what to do it's knowing how to do it how do we get there we know we need to get back up but how how do we initi iate a sparkk and create momentum and take that world of black and

white and add Color because those times of gray when life seems to lose its purpose we find ourselves simply existing and not living that's when we need answers and I guess this quote it jumped out at me cuz it prompted an equally important question right which is now what and I started thinking a few years back 2017 probably the most difficult year of my life it was void of you know any of that beautiful Nuance the the uplifting Moments that we like to remember when we look back for me it was um you know essentially

an ended relationship was relocating away from family and friends was having a few dollars in my my bank account everything I own in a trailer and starting over and when I'll never forget about that experience you know in in totality was that I saw it colorless Bland dark essentially the road ahead had lost that glimmer that it once had See I used to get so much joy in telling stories but life had kicked me around so hard that I at least for the moment forgot the point like what was my reason and I knew like

I said what I had to do but I couldn't wrap my arms around the how how do you get the train moving again and then I got this email right I'm going to paint a picture for you new apartment trash there's stuff everywhere suitcas is open I hadn't shaved in 2 weeks I'm exhausted couldn't sleep Sitting there frustrated with my laptop and the email is basically someone looking to create a documentary asking if they could stay with me for 3 days and create a film about always maintaining discipline and living a productive life and I

just erupted into laughter right I don't think Seinfeld could have written something more ironic it was just it made no sense but it caused me to reflect right I obviously declined the video just wouldn't have felt right or accurate in that moment but I started to think how is there such a gap between the old me and who I was sitting on that bed is this the new me and if it's not why have I allowed this impostor to stay so long I've always said a life change is one decision away a light switch away

just reach out and find it and when you're going through times like this it's funny life has a way of Doing its best to conceal the the the beauty it's like it becomes this black in white painting and it stays that way it stays that way until you put color into it one brushstroke at a time cuz life is intimidating when you see everything you're not when the blank canvas feels like emptiness and not opportunity but life doesn't require of you the whole picture masterpieces they aren't made overnight they're not instantaneous they are a product

of Trust of faith not in the canvas or the brush but in the artist that through his eyes he's capable of transforming his experience into art his Misfortune into meaning Victor Frankle uses the metaphor of a movie each day being its own scene where often they don't even come together until the very last act trust that believe that but man start painting And the very next morning like everyone before it I woke up to a yellow beam of light making its way through a crack in the blinds painting the wall of an otherwise dimly lit

room but this time I saw it this time I didn't close the blinds I opened my eyes and sometimes that alone is the little hinge that swings a big door a door that I walked through and I saw the green of the palm trees the beauty the Simplicity and thought how lucky am I to be where I am When I am I saw a blue sky a miracle in its own right that's not confined to story or narrative and well maybe I'm not either the white of the sidewalk leading me to wherever I choose to

go next the red of my running shoes hitting the pavement the gold of the Sun bouncing off the buildings the black of a cup of warm coffee as I soak in the day and the teal chandelier that hangs over the horizon as the same Sun that started it all Retreats after A Hard Day's Work see you have everything you need and life is not always perfect but it is always what you make it how things are it's not how they should be your need to be but how you've allowed them to be and most importantly

black and white does not describe reality so much as it describes what's not there what's missing from reality and my hope is to never conform to that sketch or outline That masquerades as truth but to see beyond it to find the strength the encourage the self-belief to pick up the brush and Live Life in [Music] Color I think a substantial amount of Life comes down to self trust to believing in yourself right but here's the thing it's not blind belief it's not toxic positivity where You close your eyes cross your fingers shut the world off

and just assume things will work out because you're entitled to a great result no but I'm referring to is uh an active and deliberate trusting of yourself to learn to make the necessary adjustments and to keep moving forward when we have faith in our ability to step forward and improve simultaneously there is no defeat when you know you won't stop Until you land where you want to land then limitations become a choice success in any capacity is a you thing not an outside thing and this popped into my head a few days ago during uh

EV all things a game of axe throwing so quick story from last weekend A friend of mine um and I after a day of working on the podcast went down to uh Fort Lauderdale uh to this axe throwing place which is it's random but it's a it's a great time simple Concept there's this uh giant Target and you take turns throwing little axes at the Target basically uh darts right if you think along Ong those lines and there were eight of us in the group they divide you into two teams of four and you play

various games until the end right the end there's this final session where it's every person for themselves it's like a free-for-all each person gets three rounds to throw axes at the Target and Uh whoever has the best score wins so think of the target just in a a TR additional way right the bullseye or the little point in the middle is worth five then the next smallest Circle outside of that is four then three then two and then the biggest circle along the edge is worth one right so whatever you hit with the axe that's

the point you get except they put these two little blue dots on the top third of the circle and They say if you can hit one of these blue dots you get 10 points so high risk but certainly High reward and my friend and I super competitive right he looks at me starts telling me how he's already got this in the bag and I'm like all right we'll see uh and it's been arguable but I probably had been the more consistent um of both of us up to that point in the night nothing fancy just

straight away aiming at the middle Aiming for those bulls eyes and and fours not even attempting to go for those you know hard to- reach blue dots no need straight up the middle and here's what this is important we step out to take our first shots of of the finale here my friend goes first immediately hits one of those little blue dots boom already I'm down 10 points so what do I do I completely leave my strategy and I started thinking No I'm behind I can't let this happen I spent uh my next nine shots

and the only nine shots I had right uh trying to hit those blue dots and missing every time just get Ked killed right he onon handedly and then I realized uh when the scores were read out at the end that if I just ignored everything my buddy had done and stayed true to my game aimed for the center of the board average 3.5 or four points a throw I would have won and by a substantial Margin but I let the outside world impact my strategy I started chasing those long shot blue dots when I knew

they were a distraction right now I'm sure the last thing you expected to hear today was the recap of an axe throwing contest but uh if you bear with me there's value here right so let's Step Beyond the ax throwing let's take it up a level let's talk about when you know what's best for you you know where you Want to be and what's working but you're pulled out of your lane because of what someone else says or does you hear him or her over there accomplish something great you look in the mirror and go

man I haven't accomplished anything like that right maybe I need to change what I'm doing my Approach Maybe I'm Wrong see and the beauty of that little game was that it reminded me that there will always be outside circumstances Trying to redirect my course but we have to trust in ourselves that we are doing what's best we have to know our own game in our own strength now don't complate this with the stubbornness it's not about never adjusting no we need to adjust but adjust when it's best for you not simply because other people are

taking a different approach right it's hard to stay consistent uh with the world pushing ing other options Consistently right people finding success in various ways taking other paths talking about their incredible strategies and how great X Y and Z is it's all noise you have to trust you and again not Blind Faith but an understanding of who you are and a willingness to continue to grow with every step forward there has to be some element of understanding that sure things will get Challenging life will push back but that doesn't mean you are wrong or in

over your head it's a compounding of little actions and trust in yourself if you can do that the world remains yours it's day by day or in my example throw by throw knowing your bullseye and aiming steady up the middle we all know how hard it is to see Results before they exist the Mind tries to find every example out there depicting why you're wrong why the finish line is too far away life is constantly creating off ramps saying hey if you don't want it that bad or you're unsure of yourself here's a way out

come with me right it's constantly sowing seeds of Doubt which is why we must dig deep for that strength life is a game of you versus you if those around you win good for Them and if they lose well hey wish them well on the next go around but none of it has any bearing on who you are and the race you're running are you going to show up for you are you going to be your biggest fan when it takes every single part of you to keep going don't let the loudest voices in the

room disway you from what you know to be right don't let the blue dots hinder your direct line to the bullseye right block out that noise Block out the distractions and do what is required of you win your race because that's the only Finish Line of value walk your path because that will bring you where you need to be and when you question the pursuit remember what you've overcome all the steps that brought you to right now and how yeah maybe they weren't flashy or over the top but they were consistent they've given life to

the present moment what you do is Succeed what you do is overcome just don't lose your bullseye Mark Twain said the two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why the first gets you into the show and the second asks what what will you do with your time here what will you make of this Sunrise because we only get so many and I think there's immense value In understanding that each and every one of us are here to leave this place better than we found

it to stand up when we could be sitting down step out and make something of the chaotic and often hard to understand world around us when you realize the miracle that is your existence when you understand the almost impossible odds of you being here thinking feeling breathing in the air Around you you begin to see the value of today cuz it's not an obligation it's a currency the most precious of Comm Commodities today is your time to step into that new version of yourself to see something more so that you can begin the process of

creating something more because the truth is life will always be what you decide it is if you walk up to your window look Through the Blind and decide what you see is the finale the final script that's exactly what it will be but if you see right now as a Beautiful Beginning the initiation of the ride of a lifetime a transport to the next version of you and the next and the next then you are signing up for a World Without Limits a world where you can feel what it's like to be tested and Endure

to be lost but find your way to build something meaningful out of the seemingly meaningless that's why you're here that's what it means to truly live today is your day your chance don't let it slip away from you don't be fooled into thinking it's less than it really is it is your ticket to Infinity a journey that starts when you decide it does when you look out at that vast unknown and say I'm not going to settle for anything less than a life of Adventure I want the challenges the turbulence the losses and the battles

they will bring me to a place I could never have arrived at otherwise you get from Life what you give so give it all leave no path unw walked no stone unturned today is the most important day of your life because it will connect the you of yesterday to the Limitless you of every day that comes [Music] Next you can allow yourself to be distracted or as Robin Sharma suggests you can do incredible things but you can't do both you can stay where the Safety and Security is or you can risk what you have in

pursuit of your dreams but you can't do both you can remain the character depicted in yesterday's story or you can take those Lessons experiences and craft a new story but you cannot do both life is a game of trade-offs where any decision to go in One Direction is a simultaneous decision to not go in another a commitment to X is necessarily a rejection of Y at least in that moment making this question all the more important what is your North Star I ask Because everything you do is bringing you closer to or holding you back

from capturing [Music] it one of my lifelines over the years has been clinging to the quote or idea that Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication right consistently trying to arrive there why because when things get complex in my life I don't know what I'm choosing clutter means I've lost sight of what's Necessary versus what's trivial I become unclear on those critical tradeoffs I'm making and we've all experienced this right the simplest questions are always the hardest to arrive at we can talk in circles about the details but how often are we honest with ourselves about the

why I remember job interviews in college going on and on about the books I read the papers I'd written current Events but then falling flat on my face when asked so who's Eddie Panero uh a dude doing an interview like what do you want from me my brain had never gone there or even less formal I'll never forget a friend of mine a few years back asked me what my perfect day was just casually as we're driving I said I don't know Tom I've never really thought about that he goes then how are you ever

Supposed to have a perfect day if you don't know and how simple simple and simultaneously incredible who wants a life without perfect days right like like what is all this for the world is infinite and you can be ruled by its variability and its complexity you can run around adhering to all its rules hoping you're doing the right thing Whatever that is or you can identify carve out and Rule p over your own little piece of it your own kingdom you can choose you if you take the time to uncover who you are what lights

you up and then as Emerson Advocates hits Your Wagon to that [Music] star the best investment of our time is to truly understand and decide what we Should be saying yes to because if we don't know what matters then nothing does here's a famous dialogue from lisis Carol's Alice and Wonderland Alice would you tell me please which way I ought to go from here that depends a good deal on where you want to get to said the cat well I don't much care where said Alice then it doesn't matter which way you go said the

Cat well so long long as I get somewhere Alice added as an explanation oh you're sure to do that said the cat if only you walk long enough beautiful passage if you don't care where you go any road will take you there and see it's not wrong to not know it doesn't make you bad or mean life is a waste of time it just means you're taking a large portion of control which is one of your superpowers And tossing it up into the ether it means you are bowing to Hope and I know that no

one here wants to live every day merely clinging to hope this is not a we'll see how it goes Channel or podcast right this is about the little changes that take life from a 6 out of 10 to a 9 or a 10 out of 10 it's about using what's around us to maximize the miracle we are living and breathing every day again life is Complex so for you to take the time and simplify to remove what's unnecessary what an advantage yeah I could do this or that I could go here or there but guess

what I've spent the time thinking asking myself the tough questions and now I can be more deliberate in choosing my path so that I arrive at a correct destination a destination that belongs to me that means something to me that lights me up and excites Me that's living and of course this isn't a one-time light bulb moment a permanent move no as we grow we change what we want shifts hey sometimes the current path even reveals itself to be the wrong path it's happened to me plenty but when you're consistently in tune with what matters

to you who you are you can make the adjustments you can be Deliberate no more shooting targets in the dark because life is too short our days numbered our arrows finite live life like each day means something because each day is transporting you to your something let's use the pieces around us to build our own skylines etch our own stories into the sands of time if a decision to do one thing is a simultaneous decision to not do something else make sure to have that North Star In scope so that you don't amidst that chaos

of Life unknowingly turn your back on it ask yourself who you are and be as patient as possible possible working for that answer because as far as I can tell that information is the key that unlocks infinite possibility it's knowledge that opens the door to life on your terms [Music] remove the Lifelines eliminate plans b c and d let the curtains close and the lights dim see the beginning of something new requires the ending of something current so make life Propel you into chapter 2 let the do slam and lock behind you throw away the

key with the boats burned and turning back off the table we have to make it work we have to figure it out well how we might ask with only These pieces with only this circumstance with only these resources well it's funny how when walking away is no longer a possibility so many other possibilities are born when we're stuck between the wall and our demons we roll up our sleeves and do that which we have been let's face it running from we fight we become proactive we Take initiative it was always there we just never had

to so if you can't do it on your own make life make you because the bottom line is there are New Horizons that await your arrival they are always there but they require you to make the trip to look out over the vastness of what's before you and convince yourself that what's ahead can become your new normal And oh how I wish we weren't biologically preconditioned to preserve to stay safe to stay the same how I wish we weren't constantly being pulled to stay right where we are our minds they love it here with the

rest of the world the change the hope the progress all on the other side of that window all outside All Foreign to us you don't need any of that it'll tell you or maybe after you conjure up a little courage it might compromise it Might say fine it's worth a try put one foot out the door but don't forget you can always come back to me you can always Retreat it's warm here safe here it's predictable here the Mind wants you to know that when things get tough mediocrity and comfort are always right behind you

ready to embrace you with open arms and it's for this reason that those boats must be burned that the door must be locked and that chapter must be Closed the journey before you it's going to be difficult there's no question about that anything of value brings difficulty and when faced with the adversity the only way to defeat it is to know there is only one way one option available to you and that one option is forward it's through there is no backwards or compromise there is no safety not if you want from life that which

is Extraordinary not if you want the things we covet dream of whether they're interpersonal Financial career oriented health related maybe you just know in your soul that right now ain't it any move to something better will present to you its obstacles and my advice if it's what you really want is to have decided before you started that there is no other way there's no negotiating with [Music] yourself cuz if you allow that door to be cracked life will kick it open so point the compass North and dismiss any notion that what's comfortable is more important

than what's meaningful when you're cold nothing is more appealing than that warmth but warmth is deception a shortterm ploy for you to forget what really matters an illusion see cold Subsides but Victory is forever knowing that you pushed forward when most wouldn't is forever transforming potential into strength when your knees shook is forever so burn the boat for no other reason that there is no way forward so long as there remains a way back make life make you win and where most would look around and see evidence of defeat you'll find again And again in

the same quotee unquote evidence the tools to build ladders to New Beginnings and bridges to new worlds there's a saying that I love that most of life's successful people were too ignorant of the odds to know their accomplishments were considered at one point impossible and I love it because it highlights that there was never a a fall back option a concern for the statistics there was no worry or exhausted energy On what if rather it was constant building and adjusting finding ways over through and around the walls that inevitably stand before us there was no

way home so they pushed forward into their greatness and so can you whatever shape form or color greatness looks like in your eyes whatever Mountaintop appeals to you if you want it if you're willing to decide Before you go that you will one day stand amongst the clouds peering out at that world you deemed wasn't against you but for you anything is possible [Music] [Music] of all life's lessons it's my relationship with what it means to suffer that's transformed my reality something that's Learned not unlike one's ability to read or write an understanding that unlocks

the door to fulfillment n says to live is to suffer to survive is to find meaning in the suffering dovi says pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and deep heart the really great men must I think have great sadness on Earth Helen Keller says although the world is full of suffering it's also Full of the overcoming of it our problem is not that we suffer our problem is that we don't know how to perceive it when it inevitably arrives we are taught that it's synonymous with a a giant street sign saying

wrong way we're taught that the perfect life is free of its grasp it's why when suffering does arrive we're so inclined to run from it I reference my experience as a D1 rower often Not because I stood out or even really because of my love for the sport I reference it because it is the point in my life when I learned to suffer when I learned what I could put my body through my mind through and see that like all things discomfort simply ends and life is different on the other side that's why I talk

about waking up to go to the gym in the morning when it's still dark in the middle of winter the practices that made me throw up Having three exams two papers but thinking about a 2K test because part of me couldn't believe I was doing it because up until that point in my life I would have simply said no that's why I reference the three of us Walk-Ons that were there senior year out of this 60 plus that showed up freshman year we built a relationship with suffering you understand what opens up To you when

you agree to for a moment in time walk through those flames of hell it's not a trick or a complex formula it's just taking yourself to places most haven't learned to go not because they can't but because they haven't learned when you know you can push yourself far beyond what you thought possible not only survive but come back renewed re-energized a different understanding of the world it's hard to See anything as too much or outside the realm of possibility in my personal life I can make difficult decisions in my professional life I can sit down

and write when I don't want to when I feel like I can't I can take on projects that scare me that take me so far outside my comfort zone my ceilings have no choice but to become floors you elevate yourself with each yes Gustav Lanson says there is no art with without commitment and suffering That is not a demon to be avoided it's truly the beginning of everything Joo he says discipline equals Freedom or what is discipline if not one's ability to accept and harness suffering to teach yourself not to step back but forward into

it into the chaos into the disarray that's where our lives are assembled it's where we are made and so my message is where you would once say no dare to say yes even if it's a footstep a moment one toe In the water teach yourself that the very discomfort you've been running away from that most run away from will be the reason your life transforms change isn't a miracle it's a decision we we are in some ways helpless to what occurs around us there are things that are beyond our control but the gift we possess

our power if you will is the ability to determine what we Let in how we internalize the externalities we are responsible for being The Gatekeepers of our mind Protectors of our world there's a little saying that I aim to live by it's incredibly simple basically the idea is if something is not a net positive on your life start working to eliminate it if there's a person that is draining creating more negative than positive Then they don't deserve to be in your world stop letting them in if there's some place you're going that doesn't align with

what you value start working to eliminate that destination from your day today stop letting it in if you find yourself constantly thinking about worst case scenarios it's always well what if this goes wrong or that goes wrong if you find yourself missing the opportunity And instead spotlighting the problem start working to identify and isolate those thoughts so that they can be eliminated stop letting that stuff in the great part about having so much control over our lives and our perspectives is that we get to choose what gets our time and attention the tough part though

and it is tough is that it means we also have to ask ourselves questions that perhaps we Don't want to ask we have to be honest with ourselves like truly honest and the reality is sometimes it hurts to do that to ask how am I contributing to this pain this struggle what am I letting in that needs to be kept outside the gate from now on and what we often find is that the answers are there the opportunity is there sometimes even in plain view but our attention is often diverted from it and instead allocated

to the Things that don't even serve us or align with who we are we've habitualized finding the problems and not the solutions and I can list examples of this uh over the course of my life all day right epiphanies where I realized I needed to defend the thoughts that enter my mind and better cultivate a world where I can succeed where I can be happy money for example this switch from seeing it as a scarce resource something That everyone's fighting over how to outmaneuver the guy to the right of me how to get my hands

on this elusive object nope block that mentality at the gate and let in instead the idea that money is merely an exchange of value how can I be more valuable to more people where value goes wealth follows or as I've talked about before the injuries I deal with so frequently right keeping the poor me or I can't deal with this or whining I'm willing to Put in the work why won't life let me succeed keep all that outside the gate and let in here is an opportunity to get better in other areas I can't lift

maybe I'll take a month or two to crush cardio to eat better to build mental acuity find a way or maybe it's that person who made their way into my life that over time became a net negative that we've gotten to the point where our coexistence takes away more Than it adds they no longer belong inside the gate in my world right only let in people who do make your life better and we have control over all of this it's about accountability it's about personally understanding The Authority you have over what comes in and what

stays out very few things in life are just because things exist in our day-to-day because we have somewhere along the line allowed them to be There so take some time to see yourself as the gatekeeper of Your World audit what you're letting in and what you're keeping out to do so will set you up for a life on your terms A Life That's not wasted or even nearly endured but one that's lived to the fullest in John Maxwell's book the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership he talks about momentum and how they're saying if you Can't

take the Heat then get out of the kitchen doesn't quite get it right advocating that it should instead be if you can't create the heat then get out of the kitchen and being that we are all leaders in our own lives I think he hits on something that none of us should overlook the power of momentum of not waiting but creating reminding ourselves that we are not not Spectators sitting in the stands and simply reacting to or complaining about the events taking place below no we have the ability to change the things we do not

like and create the ones that don't yet exist when we know they should too much of the time we react to that metaphorical heat in the kitchen as John alludes to forgetting that we can dial it up or down we're not only characters that have been Created we are ourselves creators and I talk a lot about mental shifts that have changed my life and there are plenty but perhaps the most important was the realization that I can do something about the things I don't like and I know that sounds simple probably even obvious but I

look back at various stages of my life and I'm Blown Away by the amount of things I tolerated for Years and years simply because I gave it no thought there were so many questions that I never asked so many opportunities I never explored until I realized hey you can stop accepting those things you don't want it's amazing the power of a simple list that was created two columns left side all the things that bothered me that I wasn't happy with or that I knew should be there that have been lacking and then on the right

column what I'm Going to do about it every single item each one what's the step I'm going to take and I just poured my heart onto that paper and it's like you look down and feel like you have finally moved into the driver's seat there's something incredible about knowing that you have taken control something satisfying knowing that you're not just accepting what falls out of the sky and lands in your hands right especially since we seem to Have this proclivity to box ourselves in human beings are amazing in their ability to adapt but the danger

is when we adapt to and normalize a reality that falls short of what matters to [Music] us the danger is in forgetting that nothing happens without momentum and momentum is self-made one of my favorite stories is About a man walking through the circus and he sees these enormous elephants each with one end of a rope tied around one of their legs and the other end of that rope connected to a chair the man as he's walking by he's curious asks one of the trainers hey isn't that dangerous couldn't the elephant easily break free and get

away if you wanted and the trainer says no see we started doing this when they Were baby elephants and when they were babies they couldn't physically Break Free they weren't strong enough and so over the years as they grew and became bigger stronger never dawned on them that by simply pulling on that rope or walking away they could break free These Chains might as well be invisible and that's what they were mental the Rope wasn't keeping the elephants to the chair the elephants Were keeping the elephants to the chair and there's something there in that

message for all of us for some of us in this particular moment may be its big picture for others maybe we're at a season of life where it's simply creating momentum uh in some type of smaller capacity and I travel through these ups and downs personally all the time I think that's a healthy thing it's a sign That you're looking for that growth you're checking the world around you for those imaginary ropes recently went through a period where I just felt too long had gone by without something significant happening I needed to create moment M

and so I asked well who was I reaching out to how was I pushing myself what was I doing that scared me what was I doing that was growing how could I take things up a level all these little levers of Opportunity are all around us but we have to know to look for them to see them and Pull and it's truly an incredible thing you do that and you start to feel the movement underneath you the momentum the excitement because you're trying new things you're taking new risks talking to new people and that's how

that snowball grows we have to realize that we are Mighty big elephants Perpetually tied to these comically small chairs we have to create that heat in the kitchen because we're not only capable we are ready we are equipped to move forward see the moment is never going to be perfect the momentum will never come to be on its own those things wait they wait for you to stop watching life go by and click Start on the Stopwatch yeah time has always ticked away but it will never mean as much as it's about to now take

pick talk Whispers the opportunity signifying that in order to evolve we must decide we are bold enough to go where we have not yet gone and strong enough to leave some things behind to choose to accept some discomfort in its impermanence instead of a regret that is forever and that's a trade that demands We look into the future and find Value in the Unseen it's a move that says the seconds ticking by mean too much to dishonor them by not making the most of what's around you and those answers are always there at the end

of the day that's what it's all about right we make decisions without even realizing we're making them to accept the current moment as fate is to choose what you're giv over What is possible over everything that's out there available for you it's never too late to pull on that rope around your foot to be who you as the saying goes might have been know that in your world nothing consistently shows up or exists without your stamp of approval that will always be true nothing Carries On without you allowing it to do so and that understanding

will be the difference between the ground level and The exponential Heights you are capable of reaching the creation the email the phone call the ride the book The Period of time the step out the door any and all of life's seemingly unremarkable characteristics within them is your ticket to Greatness just know that you have to be the one that winds the clock you are the sun around which everything else revolves the architect that makes something of Value from them there will always be momentum where you decide there should be momentum so pick your head up

open the door and step out into the world of [Music] potential that [Music] await I want to start with a story um 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 went all the way up the coast when we were in Lake Tahoe at the very end there is this spot to Cliff jump this really really high peak and you know it's notorious and it's just like a a scary thing and 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 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 [Music] jumped as far as I knew I wasn't afraid of stuff like that right so I walk out and and I look over

the edge and I could not bring myself to jump physically I couldn't do it rationally I couldn't Speak myself or talk myself into it there was no more rationality going on it was just I was frozen in fear and I just remember sitting there and looking down and you know people would come up and ask about it and they'd be like you know can I jump and I'm like go ahead right like it it almost got to the point where it was was hurting my pride and I still couldn't jump and and I just stood

there and I stood there and I stood There you know I forget how long it took I don't really know and and time was probably felt insane in that moment but eventually I did and it was incredible right it was a forever long drop in just the adrenaline and the excitement and you realize for a second that type of thing that's Peak living and there's more of that out there in the world and and all of a sudden you want to capture it and obtain it and you realize what you had been Missing you know

and then my friend came up after me he stood there for for just as long too right it it's just it's a very weird thing and it's hard to explain there are so many situations that are this peak in our life this Cliff that we know we need to jump from we know the other side is better or we suspect but we can't bring ourselves to do it and this all came from from uh a quote I found from John Green one of my favorite Authors in in his book Paper Towns it says it is

so hard to leave until you leave and then it is the easiest goddamn thing in the world and that's right on the money right being on the edge of that Cliff it is Terror sheer Terror it is so hard to make that jump and then you do and it's like life opens up and it's the same thing with in this case right it's so hard to leave until you do it's terrifying to uproot to Change to go somewhere you don't know but once you do life opens up it's incredible the other side is beautiful and

it's it's it's it's waiting for you all of this is coming to a single point a rule that I use to guide my decision making and the rule is simple if you are not content where you are that is your reason to jump because on that Cliff Rationality dissolves the future is unknown and it's scary and how are you going to logic Ally talk yourself into a scary unknown when you're at that point you can't it doesn't make sense and I think that's why so many of us are scared to make that jump and we

ultimately turn back and we concede and go okay I'll just stick with what I have this isn't great but it is what it is I can't bring myself to make that jump right we're all There at some point I've been there I've been there with speaking Big Cliff for me when I first started ultimately jumped and and you know put me on a trajectory that changed my life right same thing with making videos same thing with my first client like all these things uh they're terrifying and in the moment you can't logically speak through them

so you just have to Go and it's like well how do you logically exp you don't you just go because if if the present here's the rule the present is not making you content go jump right never forget that the path the the future is is comprised of a trillion paths and you can bend them and shape them and remake them and sometimes it won't work sometimes it'll you know blow up in your face but again you're still presented with an opportunity to adjust and remake and Bend and reapo and continue forward right the only

way to lose is to stay on that Cliff for the rest of your life life and so if you needed some type of rationality if you needed some type of reason I'm I'm hoping that maybe I can give that to you today if you are not content where you are jump because somewhere along the way you'll figure it out every time I've jumped it's changed my life for the better Maybe not Immediately but ultimately and as I say that's what life's all about so hey I hope you got something from this podcast if you did

please subscribe rate review helps me get it out to the world and guys I appreciate that and I will catch you [Music] tomorrow yesterday I drove out little bit into North Carolina parked the car found a path and went on a long Hike to take in some scenery think about life holistically kind of contemplate where I'd go from here and why it matters which is always funny to think about right the idea of having to carve out time amidst our frantic and often chaotic journey to get somewhere to well Define where somewhere is but I

think about that a lot our days consist of so much running around that I can easily forget what even my calculated decisions add up To why it's a simple enough question perhaps one I could ask more why what's with this whole get comfortable with this comfort thing why do I place so much emphasis on the quote unquote path L travel which is a term that you know one of my buddies was recently giv me a hard time about using in all my speeches right it must mean something to me it's got me here but it's

here better than over there after all it's not out of the realm of possibility that I'm the one Who's missing the mark and it's okay to examine that possibility in fact that's why I'm here and I bounced this around in my head as I made my way up the trail and noticed as I looked around everything just felt perfect have you ever had one of those moments where it just seems surreal the more morning was incredible I loved the sound of the earth under my my feet as I took each step the chirping of the

birds in the Early morning the sun making its way through the trees and I thought it's amazing that you can live 20 minutes from this feeling and just never experience it I guess proof that a decision to not go to do nothing is still very much a decision and in this case would have been the less desirable one I'm glad I went my phone was in my backpack and for the first time in a while I didn't even think about it my mind was stimulated my Senses were taking in something new something different something not

my studio or laptop or social media analytics pages in fact all that stuff felt kind of trivial now that I was removed from it and I wondered why don't I do this more the thought popped into my head earlier that morning I thought hey that's a cool idea I just had to get through that initial push back the Hesitancy of well what's the point what's the desired outcome of a hike right after all this little J is just going to distract you from your work and your progress but at that moment I think you have

to just shut out reason for a second you have to remind yourself that there's value period otherwise we open the door for rationalizing we talk ourselves out of some of life's beautiful secret Sometimes you have to just go and as I made my way down this Trail further and further I started to feel better I felt reassured like I had something that I otherwise wouldn't have had something that's my own and maybe that is it maybe that alone is the reason for everything to collect those incredible things large and small that we might not have

had after all isn't life just an Accumulation of memories of experiences that are spread out like a choose your ending children's book and with so much control over the outcome I think that matter deserves my attention in order to acquire the good stuff whether it's in a different location or context or time in my life I still learn again and again that to get that we have to leave some things behind and that's the essence of life you usually get out what you put In and I think about that a lot I think about the

forks in the road I've come across those same ones the life altering decisions I guess it's only human you know walking away from that promising career that I'd spent my whole life building towards every once in a while sure I miss the security leaving this city and the people that made my life what it was it still haunts me from time to time trading permanence in structure for the Freedom to condense my life's work into a laptop take it anywhere in the world but empowerment can be lonely right and and I guess I can't help

that in the midst of those situations the easy decision always feels like the wrong one I've just been pulled by the upside I gravitate towards this grandiose version of what life could be on the mark that I hope to make and to me the scariest thing has always been Not Having the courage to see more to explore the phrase what if has always been my adversary the monster in the closet and it's a costly one to slay right but life is both suffering and infinite Beauty and it's like you have to choose where you're going

to endure pain and why that matters so that you can climb the mountain that means everything to you that makes life worth it in other words meaningful discomfort Now or painful regret later and I strongly believe that life is about pursuing something meaningful and even the triviality of a hike wants to remind me of this truth I could be at home playing guitar watching Netflix relaxing I mean that would have been easier but there's only one way to catch that sunrise over the trees and that way is not Netflix all those beautiful views they Require

an out of energy to reach them they come with fear of something going wrong and in doubt that perhaps the turn you made wasn't the best one and that's okay but I believe that happiness to be truly fulfilled requires tradeoffs and with each step it becomes easier and easier to understand for the gym rat it's the discipline and the belief knowing that muscles break down so that they can be built Up for the relationship ship to flourish it's overcoming disagreement accommodating the needs of that person that you love so that they can be the last

thing you see before you fall asleep for the free spirit it's walking away from what you know in pursuit of something that excites and invigorates even if you're not entirely sure what it means it's about enduring one so that you can collect the other now what you choose to endure and What you choose to collect is up to you but that's what makes life such a beautiful ride a roller coaster taking you through lows to reach highs Into Darkness to see how life changing the light is when it pushes its way through little decisions that

become the cage that explodes off the paper when you step back and luck that's what you get back when you Make a point to see more that's why my love affair with the trivial and the mundane lights my path it's not just a little thing it's a microcosm of my everything it's my saying yes to the opportunity that we work so hard to ignore in an effort to avoid inconvenience but a life worth living is not always convenient you could even argue at times it should be inconvenient because the higher the climb the more we

give of ourselves the more precious the World looks from the top down in the challenging times the things we SA sacrifice and leave behind they're not so much a part of the picture as the paint on your pallet that in breaking down you can now recreate using your own ideals metrics and guidelines a world that you now have the ability to [Music] transform that's why life to me is nothing more than color decisions Nothing more than paint steps nothing more than brush strokes and life well life is nothing and everything which as the morning Breeze

reminds me is a decision that is entirely my [Music] own the thing about storms is that they all have one thing in common they Pass and once gone they leave you as a person different than who you were before you stepped in before you found yourself consumed by its adverse conditions they are disruptors breaking down and shaking up but not for the sake of chaos itself no storms break us down so that we can build again so that we can find within ourselves the power and the Strength that simply remain tucked away during those sunny

days and so walking up to the storm what you'll immediately notice is a break from the normal the everyday an obvious Detachment from the standards by which you had been living but don't be fooled into thinking those dark clouds and heavy winds have nothing of value for you don't be tricked into thinking the rain will Consume all the good in life because at the end of the day it's that very rain that washes away the excess and leaves the meaningful we don't grow despite the storms we grow because of the storms so compose yourself and

embrace what's around you amidst the storm you might realize that you don't want some of the things you thought you did you might realize that life contains variables that make it incredibly Unpredictable and when old plans meet new variables sometimes we learn that the path we were walking down requires adjustment it needs change not because we were wrong the dream was wrong or the path was wrong but because life is an experiment experiments are meant to test hypotheses and support exploration without the storm sure everything seemed fine everything was Flawless but in the thick of

it when the variables the multiplicity of factors present themselves it often paints a picture for us that we previously weren't able to see that's okay ideal even it's life so when amidst the storm and presented this new information this new portrait pivot grow with your understanding and newly acquired Knowledge there's no point in remaining tied to the ideas the people and the places that once served you but have since run their course right growth is perspective and awareness and as the storm shakes your foundation it also hands you a Clarity that those blue skies simply

could not so adjust adapt and move further into the person you are Destined to become you can't learn that on a sunny day know that's what storms are for and amidst the storm you might find yourself scared nervous unsure you might even look back and wonder what life would have been like had you not stepped in perhaps you're angry with your yourself for not navigating around the inclement weather maybe you'll find yourself Asking how did I let myself end up in such a situation when there were visual indicators and weather forecasts people warned me about

moments like this yet here I am you might find that the drop in temperature is uncomfortable the rain difficult the wind annoying but here's what they don't tell you there's something innately powerful about proving to yourself that you can move forward despite those Things that when you're scared and step forward anyway when you're lost but maintain your Poise and Trust in the process when you're down but cling to hope to that light at the end of the tunnel you emerge with a different understanding in of who you are you end up stronger because you've allowed

yourself to become stronger and you don't get that on the sunny days no that's what storms are [Music] for and amidst the storm you might feel like the sacrifice required in life is more than you want to endure maybe even more than you can endure after all it's during our trying times that we're forced to make some of our most difficult decisions we might be forced to let go of some things that had been Staples in our Lives that in order to say hello to some things we must necessarily say goodbye to others and this

hurts especially while it's happening it hurts but what you're really doing is learning to identify what matters and mitigate the things that don't support that Journey sometimes storms teach us that growth is not about acquisition and Obtaining more and they show us instead that we've been carrying too much that we become a customed to surrounding ourselves with things that no longer Elevate or Inspire or push us does and the best way to evolve is to move forward with less so when you see parts of yourself fade away or dissolve hold your head up because when

you get to the other Side you just might see that cutting away those things was more liberating than anything you could find or pick up along the way and we're not taught this lesson on those sunny days no that's what storms are for and amidst the storm it's quite possible that you'll feel lonely from time to time maybe misunderstood perhaps like the whole world has everything figured out they're Moving single file through the correct door while you wander around aimlessly that's not true no one has all the answers and everyone has their storms the question

has always been as far as I'm concerned what will you make of yours cuz we're always presented with the decision to let our adversity Define us or to find something of value in it the opportunity hidden in plain View you're never alone in your pain or your distress those things are an inevitability tied to the miracle that is life but what you are is powerful powerful enough to learn in your Solitude and bring that understanding back out to the world powerful enough to let the lessons guide you to something beautiful powerful enough to find the

Meaning underneath the turbulence we often confuse our times of greatest transformation with setbacks we often forget that the darkness cannot withstand a single flicker of light and we can be that light when we trust ourselves it's a lesson that can't be taught on sunny days no that's what storms are for and that Storm that very thing you want with all your heart to avoid it's not antithetical to your happiness or your Prosperity no ultimately it's how you create those things the trials and tri tribulations help us look at life from different angles they remind us

what we are capable of show us we can do so much more than we thought that we have in many cases been accepting a reality that is not our own that is just the Beginning and so whether you were on the outside looking in or at this very moment in the heart of chaos remember this is making you who you need to be Ure it never feels good in the moment it's never exciting when it's happening but there will be a point when you look around and see a world unlike the one you stepped away

from one in which you are stronger Bolder Wiser one in which you have greater Clarity and understanding a better sense of who should be with you and where you are going it's not despite but because of the storm that you'll Rise From the Ashes and from the quote unquote Misfortune to find yourself and your way [Music] [Music] It's not about what happens to you no one escapes adversity no one lives free of discomfort or Misfortune or Struggle No it will always be about what you do with what happens to you in other words it's not

the event it's the response not the obstacle but but the ability to navigate around it not the Wave but the ability to ride its momentum to something greater it is not what happens to you it is what you do about what happens to you the famous Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus aelius said you have power over your mind not outside events realize this and you will find strength and I think this realization comes down to the fact that there is always a Way buried Underneath It All something powerful to leverage but getting to the

value calls for a rewiring a change in the questions that we ask not how could this happen to me but how can I be better tomorrow than I am now because of what happened to me not can I still be that person or accomplish what I said out to but I am that person now how will I adjust my path so that I Get there we're operating within a world of value Limitless opportunity the difficulty simply pushes us to that value faster expedites the process it forces us to open our eyes and see that the

world works for us so you you take for example the fear of starting something new that fear it doesn't have to be an end point or a red light indicator fear doesn't mean you're not Qualified or prepared or equipped it simply lets you know that you have finally acquired the courage to step out of the safety of the only world you knew and into the turbulence of growth onto the path of something better and where it's easy to move away from that feeling to turn your back on the chaos and Retreat to something simpler maybe

something more predictable or contained what if you viewed the fear as The price that we all have to pay to pull the curtain back on the best things life has to offer changing the question from will I be afraid to instead this is important this is Meaningful therefore it's inevitable that I will experience fear but what will I do about it how will I conduct myself amidst the fear will I continue forward those are the questions that Contain the value right I can't keep the water from rising or the walls from caving in no that's

an inevitability where I'm going the worthwhile Road always has its adversity but will I use that water to learn to swim the walls to climb to adapt and scale what will I make of this that's the question that becomes the difference and sure you could stay away you could choose not to take the path that Presents the danger and the turbulence you can attempt to contain the World Around You by simply refusing to experience it but then of course you become presented with the question why intentionally refuse to cash in a winning lottery ticket why

diminish your gift in such a way if it's not what you look at it's what you see why see the world as an adversary why see Yourself as less than you are the saying goes when you fight for your limitations you get to keep them you'll never exceed the person you've decided yourself to be and yes the world can feel intimidated it's unknown you in many ways can't control the characteristics that make life what it is but you can always control you just like you can't control the wind But you can adjust your sales you

can't control the ties but you can predict and plan and execute accordingly you control you and that is where the power is and of course of course there's going to be times where that's hard to see when it's not your first instinct to find the value take for an example a change a loss the end of a relationship the point where people uh tend to feel their lowest it hurts to have something and Lose it to have what you were once so sure about challenged what you once believed in called into question but this doesn't

have to be a referendum on you as a human being right sure you made your mistakes but you have the opportunity to dwell on them or to acknowledge them and ask the question I know what I know now how can I be better than I've ever been in my life how can I position myself to get More of the good and less of the bad same idea different context when those walls feel like they're crumbling down you have to know there is more on the other side just beyond with the eye can see and this

isn't just an idea I play around with in my head I make a concentrated effort to think this every time something goes wrong when my first reaction is emotional my first emotion is anger or frustration it's like take a breath compose yourself and start Looking for the value because here's the truth the world is not going to end today there's going to be a time down the road when I look over my shoulder and right now is a distant memory what will I have done with it and it's the times that might have broken you

that contain the greatest transformation I like to say the greatest tragedies or the hardest times made me who I am today the losses taught me that I had Everything I needed the failures showed me what I'm capable of enduring the times I was let down taught me to depersonalize the shortcomings of others but to simultaneously hedge against them the times I was lost showed me we only discover or meet our potential when we leave the little day-to-day realities that we create why because because we are in control not of the external but the Internal and

that ends up being a bridge to a reality that means something so when you find yourself at the base of a mountain looking up understand that there are two ways to perceive The Climb you can see it is the gravity pushing down on you as Earth standing in your way or as an opportunity to ascend to a version of yourself that previously not only Didn't exist but wasn't available this is your opportunity the same opportunity that the vast majority of the world would disregard or misinterpret that most would feel fear of and be dissuaded by

most would live in the stories about who they are aren't and what they aren't capable of but not you you didn't place that mountain before You but you sure can extract the value from [Music] it all you have to do is decide that you're capable and that the meaning and the value and the freedom of Tomorrow means more than the discomfort of today if you allow that for yourself you will become truly Unstoppable not because the path simplified or got Easier but because the traveler trusted himself to walk down it [Music] [Music] [Music] could it

be that the answers to our most challenging questions are so small that they're brushed off as insignificant that in pursuing that bulldozzer we think is necessary to knock the door down we refuse again and Again the key that would simply open it why is our first instinct to think our next action needs to be as big or as glamorous as that intended result again and again my default has been to you know look for some brilliant Monumental Insight or some secret answer that would unroll like a a scroll containing a treasure map but again and

again I learn and I relearn that what I need what is required is so Reasonable it's so accessible that it almost feels like the universe has a sense of humor right it's sitting back and chuckling while we run around with keys in our pockets looking for a sledgehammer to break the door down this is kind of a a funny story so last year I had my first year world within live event and Evan carmichel was one of the speakers and after the event we were talking about YouTube right he says why don't you swing by

we'll look At your channel we'll see if I can offer any suggestions or pointers and uh you know I gladly accepted the offer um and so I showed up later in the evening he's got his laptop open he's running all these tests right there's graphs and there's charts and comparison tables and my first question is obviously what are you doing and he says I'm testing my YouTube titles and thumbnails and I'm thinking interesting right here's a guy who makes So much content he's got 378 million views right why are you exhausting time and energy on

this so I asked him Evan does it really matter I mean if your thumbnail picture is orange or yellow or if there's a face on the left or right side or if it's capitalized or not right if it's if it's good people will show up and the watching isn't that what matters well it turns out I was wrong in fact I couldn't be more wrong and when You're talking about a Channel with millions of Impressions making a a small change in color could mean your videos are clicked 1% more which means thousands if not Millions

more views which means it's shared more seen more which means the channel grows and that's not from him going back and recreating and Reinventing the wheel no it's using the key he has in his pocket right now you know and that's the the reason I Found this so incredible because until that moment I'd always approached the the platform with a sledgehammer right using our metaphor I had this idea that you know I I truly found to be an epiphany and change the way I think about things so I'd get really excited I'd make a video

about it I'd release it out to the world and maybe it wouldn't do so well you know people wouldn't watch that particular video would just kind of sit there and my thought was Always all right hey it worked for me must not a hit for everyone else that's life on to the next one never did I think for a second that hey you don't need to recreate the wheel you're looking for a bulldozer when you need a key right you need to slightly adjust the titling or make the thumbnail more appealing right and and the

idea is these little tweaks are sometimes all that's required you know we think we got to reach out and find some answer or Readjust every aspect of what we're doing and it's like no it's a little thing and it's right in front of you and it's very manageable and it's very realistic you know and believe me especially for people that aren't content creators and there's a lot of you listening to this right now I get how trivial it seems but isn't that the point and sure enough within the next few months I changed some thumbnail

pictures around and two videos that were Just sitting there got hundreds of thousands of more views and I you know as I tend to do look at the bigger picture well how many times in life are you trying to find this Monumental answer and it's like nope tweak here adjustment here change the way you are measuring success and it changes your tactics think about productivity right I've been in the same boat I want to be more productive so how well maybe if I get better at scheduling I'll get Scheduling tools maybe some time management apps

I know I'll do a daily checklist that'll do it that's what I need but in reality the commonality when I have productive days is they all consist of me waking up not stressed having time to think reflect plan and moving on and it flows into every other aspect of my day right it doesn't require me to buy some $1,000 productivity course big result often requires small Manageable action and again the point here is that change can feel overwhelming CU I think the default mechanism is to assume the next step needs to be as big as

that desire TI result it's like oh I want to climb that mountain so I have to figure out a way to jump that high no that's not true you have to take small steps many times and where we should be looking for consistency or something within our grasp or looking for some small Self-contained Miracle you know everything feels bigger than it is it's an interesting part about growing up you realize everything's not as big and intimidating and shiny and sparkly as it appears to be you know we have the tools right now in real time

in fact they're very ordinary very unimpressive and that's with goals just like people you know I grew up uh seeing pictures of my grandfather who was an admiral in the Navy talking to American presidents and Heads of state and I'd ask him you know how was that what was that like and he'd always say look they put their pants on one leg at a time just like I do just like you do right I think in a lot of ways you know we need to take the Glamour and the Mystique away from the things we

want and the people we aspire to be like right big goals are an accumulation of little steps and and quote unquote successful people or ordinary human beings who had the Courage to take those steps not for attention or likes or follows but because they cared and they respected the process enough to stick it out and so can I and so can you right you have everything you need whether you're talking about creating on YouTube or putting yourself in position to conquer the day learning or emulating those you admire nothing is other world ly for you

sure you'll have your strengths and your weaknesses Because we all do but there's no magic you need to find or acquire no bulldozer or Sledgehammer needed to lessen the gap between real and ideal just the understanding that the key in your pocket the one you already have will get you through the door it's not a commitment to Perfection it's a commitment to remind yourself that every time you're stuck or overwhelmed or lost that perhaps you're looking for miracles in the clouds when the solution is Simple at your feet it's not the mountain it's one rock

it's not the forest it's one tree it's not the journey it's one step and as time goes by you'll find yourself moving beyond that previous reality Beyond those looking for the home run or other worldly answers and Beyond The Narrative that you don't have what it takes because you do and you always did you simply had to commit to walking that path [Music] how can I be happy all the time it's a question I get probably more than any other right and every time I read that question you know I pause for a second and

can't help but think that it's somewhat misguided happy all the time how can I eliminate everything and I guess the thinking is you know it's it's it's folks that know the channel and watch um my videos right so they they hear the Perspective and the positivity in the messages and you know they want that to be a constant reality and I get that but the part that I think is overlooked is that those breakthroughs right those Lessons Learned they come from uh stories that were carved out from hardship right from some of my most difficult

times it's not that happy isn't the goal it is but at the macro level it requires micro adjustments right periods of difficulty You know we're human we have emotions we have Highs but you bet we have lows and there's good but there's also bad and I don't believe that happy all the time is the Target and the targets everything that comes your way the good and the bad making something out of it a net positive finding happiness in places where perhaps we didn't see it the first time right thinking big picture thinking macro our overall

contentment with life See that's the beautiful component that we're prone to overlook and so I thought for some clarity what I do is start from you know day one when I started this journey this entrepreneurial um you know process and I'd go through some of my messaging some of the the the videos that I've released along the way and talk about why how I got to that point how I got to that lesson learned and why maybe happy all the time is Misleading the first video I ever released called owed to Excellence and essentially it's

about it's a promise to myself to never quit to never give up to Never back down no matter how difficult things get and I wrote that uh after my first true entrepreneurial project I was on my own for the first time and love music right music's always been sort of the backbone of my creativity and I thought you know what I'm going to do I'm going To put everything aside I'd saved up some money I'm like I'm going to record an album an acoustic album and that's what I did and and I blocked off the

world and for 3 months I wrote songs and recorded them and edited them and mixed them and mastered them um put them all on CDs I sent the CDs to radio stations clubs bars all around Boston I thought it was going to you know be this lifechanging thing and it was but not in the way that I thought the CD got no Traction right family friends bought it were very supportive but you know that's really where it ends and it was the first time in my life truly I'd given everything for something and gotten no

response it was the first time I realized that effort does not always equal a result but here's why it was the best thing that ever happened to me one I realized that maybe it's not that good which looking back now is what you'd Expect doing something for the first time it's like dude you have to hone your craft you have to write 2,000 songs you have to put in so much more time to to be at a level where you want to be you can't just think that it happens overnight right and that was a

very important thing for me to understand the second is I realized that I was at the bottom of a very big mountain looking up you know this is a process and it's going to take Persistence it's going to take patience and it was stressful right particularly because I didn't have that that safety net that I once had I wanted to retreat back to the Simplicity of what I had the sort of the the reassurance of a job you know I wasn't sure that the cost the the uncertainty of the moment was worth it it was

stressful but that situation helped Define me right it wasn't Perpetual happiness that taught me this lesson no it was one of my toughest Times from that failure came my resilience came my Ode to Excellence I wrote a speech called perspective and this is you know months down the road um I I saw my first kind of glimmer of light right I've been you know doing the music thing and and also creating a brand on YouTube and and sharing my thoughts telling stories and I finally saw a little bit of success I wrote a speech called

running in the rain and it was getting traction it was Doing well it was being shared creating I was getting speaking inquiries all these things and I'm like all right well here we go right let's go a little bit of momentum and I woke up one morning and I got this email from YouTube and it was like we had to remove the video from your channel um because you broke Community guidelines and apparently I put some keywords uh on the bottom of the description to help it get traffic running inspiration things that would Help it

sort of move to the top of the pile when someone searched for it and I remember being so so angry about the situation I felt so sorry for myself it was like momentum attention they're so hard to capture I'm finally getting it and now this right and My Views are declining and everything's going backwards and you just feel like that was delusional I felt like the world was ending but that prompted me to look at the big picture right to realize that Look there's nothing you can do except re-upload the video start over and and

keep my head up think about it life is going to throw things at me that are much more difficult than this like there's going to be difficulty and loss and uh problem even even tragedy and if I fold over a video being taken down I don't really have a shot right so from that tough time I gained perspective I learned to toughen up I started to understand that it's not what happens to You because everyone has difficulty in their life but it's how you deal with it that's what brings happiness at a macro level wrote

a speech called dancing with no music you know I remember the situation exactly I was sitting at my desk kind of brainstorming a new project I was going to work on and and my phone buzzed pick it up and I had a text message from um you know a friend at the time and he accidentally sent a text Message to me kind of poking fun at at me and my work and what I was was doing was meant to be about me to someone else and he accidentally sent it to me directly uh and I

remember sitting there thinking like dude are you kidding me right these are the people that are supposed to have your back they're supposed to be uh you know picking you up encouraging you when you're you know going through these difficult times and so in that moment you know i' felt more Alone than I I had in a while wasn't a great feeling but it prompted thought thought prompts perspective and I began to realize you know look it's not his fault right people don't see you know the world as it can be right they don't understand

your vision they see now not your idea Not Your Potential they see now and if you want to bring that to fruition you have to separate the negativity sep SE at the people that That do that and think like that and say those things and live life like it's already there like it's guaranteed and so from that difficult moment I learned that I need to dance with no music believe in myself see it before it's there act like I already hear the melody and I'm moving towards it that's the only way to push through that

cloud of chaos into the result that you want that you so desperately want I wrote a speech called the last Train home and at this point I've been working hard to to build your world within for I don't know maybe a year at this point and one of my greatest struggles was that I continued to feel the pressure to adhere to standards that I didn't personally believe in right I was restricted by benchmarks that they weren't integral to my journey and so you know before working for myself it was trying to impress my Boss and

you know the idea of promotions and goal sheets then it became you know comparing my style to those around me to people that have found success in some capacity and I even remember you know running at 2 p.m. and feeling guilty because all those people doing quote unquote the right thing they're working in an office right they're they don't have the luxury of of running downtown and like that was my mindset and so I fell into the temptation of viewing uh Precedent or like previous success stories as as not just a tool but as the

singular way to reach the summit and so I was continually zigging and zagging you know here's the here's the shortcut or here's the the method here's the strategy I need to incorporate this and this and this and every time I diverted from what felt true to me I stumbled every time I left my path for someone else's I became lost in this CL out of confusion and it took you know that Reoccurring experience um for me to finally understand you know it was from those times of disarray that I began to see the significance of

patience that it's okay it's okay to take my own train even if it's the last one to leave the station Don't Panic don't do something you don't feel is true or right believe that that your train is there it's waiting and you will catch It that's a very difficult thing to do it's not a happy experience but it evolves into this Freedom right this flexibility and ultimately this satisfaction with life that wouldn't be there uh if you didn't seek it out if you weren't patient enough to find it I wrote a speech called remember why

you started hands down one of the toughest transitions of my life and I was in a situation that on the surface wasn't bad In fact you could say it's good I was surrounded by Beautiful People beautiful relationships in a good place that I liked but I was coming to the realization more and more that the situation wasn't conducive to me creating what I felt like I wanted to create I'd sort of lost track I've lost that fire that energy that I had when I first began um and that's due to concessions it's a small compromises

that I was Making along the way that add up and you sort of slowly Lose Yourself a little bit at a time and when you make that realization it's like well you have a decision to make you know are you okay 30 40 years from now with sacrificing the thing you wanted to build because something else was more important or other things uh you know took priority and I don't think either one is right or wrong it's the question that you have to answer and I Made that decision and I packed up put my stuff

in a trailer and and I left and I I remember as you know my world faded away in my rear view thinking like this is the hardest thing I've ever done I didn't believe for the first 200 miles I was actually going to go through with it I really didn't and eventually you know I arrived D at a new place and I made it my home and dedicated myself fully again to what I believed into what I felt right truly In my heart in doing and I felt that energy that fire sort of reemerge and

you know right you know you wake up and it just feels good you have this uh this passion that's there um that you want every day that you want to m maintain that you want to drive you and I knew I knew it was the right decision but that wasn't born out of happiness that wasn't born out of the easy thing um it was very very difficult to get there it was almost a battle Right you have to fight to rep prioritize and so this comes up a lot when I hear that question how can

I be happy all the time and it's like well you know you can do the easy thing that's easier in the short term but then will you be happy in the long term you know it's sort of a catch 22 it's it's a prioritization it's understanding what makes you feel alive what makes you feel truly good authentic and that's not a question of short-term consistent Non-stop happiness it's a question of long-term fulfillment sometimes we have to do the difficult things to create what we want longterm big picture and lastly I'll talk about OD to Excellence

part three which obviously it's been years since part one right and and A lot's changed the goal posts have shifted the cont text is new but the idea is pretty similar right it's it's a promise to myself to to move into Uncharted water Whether that's because it feels right I'm called to do it or sometimes just for the sake of sheer curiosity uh it's that idea that sometimes what awaits around the corner uh can change your life right that unknown can be exactly what you need and you don't know unless you move there and the

difference in context is that now I'm settled right now I'm I'm I'm substantially more comfortable than I was when this whole thing began for me and The danger in that is nothing's screaming at you constantly to continue to grow and evolve and develop right it's real easy to fall into routine and just kind of keep going the way you've always gone and I remember sitting right outside talking to a good friend of mine on the phone and we were talking uh you know strategy talking about growing Our Brands and just kind of the different worlds

that we're involved in and he asked you know Eddie why uh you know Have you stopped doing the music thing I think there's something there and you know I music's obviously been a big part of what I do it kicked off my creative Journey as I mentioned earlier with that album it's been sort of um you know intertwined into this process you know I write a lot of background Tunes I'm I I wrote the background music you're listening to right now I haven't completely left it but I've Pivoted and when he asked why it it's

been sort of in the background I couldn't give a complete answer I I I didn't really know but as I began to think about it the answer really Rose to the surface right I became uh so fixated on on one dimension of what I was doing that I started to look at it through a lens of scarcity and ignoring the infinite possibility out there I mean really in relation to what's possible my Accomplishments are are are a grain of sand on the beach right it's very minimal but that's not how you look at things when

you really get lost in the weeds I didn't want to hurt my credibility I didn't want to lose what I built I didn't want to sabotage a quote unquote winning formula but guess what that's not what life's about that's not what my brand or message is about that's not what got me here right exploring creativity is what got me here it means Everything to me and and that was such an eye openening thing it was such a beautiful uh reminder that Ed you're limiting yourself you're not evolving fully there's there's a treasure chest around the

corner and you're too worried about losing your shiny penny it was from this predicament right being honest with myself um that that courage and that determination grew you know in fact uh the struggle ended up exponentially Increasing my overall happiness because it reemphasized the creative flexibility necessary to do what I think's right the third OED to Excellence is a promise to keep that flame lit and see these are just a handful of little stories right they're they're little epiphanies but I can say wholeheartedly that they shaped me not because every day of the journey I

was constantly smiling but it was the specific times That I wasn't that made me stronger I'm happier now my life is better now because of these situations and that's what I want to emphasize right happy all the time isn't the goal it can't be the goal living a life you're proud of and turning the bumps along the way the inevitable roadblocks along the way into momentum that's going to give you longterm happiness that's going to make you feel better about every moment it's such a Gift to be here we're so lucky let's move away from

the idea that there are people out there that never have a bad day nothing's ever wrong in their life cuz that's not only untrue but it dilutes the opportunity in front of you it makes you feel like you're losing when bad things happen when in fact those are the tools to win to live every day to the fullest right the reality is sometimes it it is the Hallmark card thing right hands out sun On your face smiling humming your favorite song Life is good sometimes it's picking up those little pieces when things feel like they're

falling apart around you but know that regardless right either one or anywhere in between there is positive there there is power at your feet just find it hold it and by all means keep moving forward [Music]