[Interview] - Eddie Pinero The Next Generation Tony Robbins Part 2

After four years of working as a training consultant Eddie Pinero left the corporate world to embark on a personal venture and after only a year "Your World Within" is already growing into a top platform for life coaching, motivational speaking, and consultancy. Yet Eddie is more than just a next generation Tony Robbins, rather a free spirited philosopher and entrepreneur building a business on the idea of helping people to meet their potential by simply looking inwards for strength and inspiration. The videos posted onto the "Your World Within" website and YouTube channel, made up of a montage of clips that tell a story, with uplifting music playing in the background as he narrates his sagely thoughts, continue to draw interest.

"Your World Within" however is more than just a business geared to motivational speaking. In his inspirational videos, Eddie shares personal thoughts and feelings, stories from his past, his family and experiences that marks his life journey so far, and it is this personal focus that caught my attention. During the interview I picked five of my favourite videos and we discussed his inspirations for each one and their significance to moving forward in life.

It’s interesting how you came up with the idea of using a morning run to plan your day. Did that come to you as you were running?

Exactly. For me when my day opens up, I am very much a person of momentum. If I feel like I kicked ass, did big things at 6, or 7 O Clock in the morning that kind of carries through as opposed to days where I get up at 9; all day I feel like I am backtracking and I don’t quite have that. And that video is interesting because it’s really the only one I have ever done that’s kind of like a verbal blog post. I’ve sort of steered away from that I don’t know why. It was basically things that I do that bring value to my life and putting it out there.

You make the interesting point that if you don’t reflect on everything you have in your life that is good then you go through your day empty. Did you come to that conclusion through experience or was it relayed to you?

It is something I have thought about a lot I mean a lot of it has been through progression. It’s good to be optimistic it’s good to want more, to be driving toward something but if you don’t stop every once in a while and think wait a minute look what I’ve done, what I’ve accomplished, look what I have, something that makes you sad or you get upset about someone else would kill to be in that position. It’s just a matter of perspective, a sequence of experiences.

The other thing is self- image in which you convey the idea of a smoker who quits smoking but inherently believes they are a smoker then probably won’t quit the habit.

That actually is a quote from Tony Robbins, and it’s so true. This was part of the transition for me when I needed to get up early. I need to get up at five, it’s hard and you don’t want to. But if you start to look at yourself as an early morning person, a go getter then you start to believe it and your actions start to correspond with how you see yourself and that hardest part, speaking from my own experience, is making yourself believe with 100% certainty that you are that thing because that really is the key.

This has definitely been my favourite and when I shared it on Facebook it was received quite positively. The story of the boy that put the man together and the world falling into place is interesting. Where did that come from and is it a true story?

It’s a fable I believe, mentioned in the book “The One Thing” which is the first place I heard it. There’s so many things we want to do, we have so many aspirations but if we focus on one thing and become excellent at it your chances of success are exponentially better. So that’s where I heard that.

Do you think the message behind it is something people can look to for possibly if they are really struggling in life, for example mental health such as depression and anxiety could find some kind of message or hope in that?

I hope so because that’s sort of the intent and it parallels with what we were talking about before – everything you see is a reflection of how you view yourself and so building the person up whether that’s through education pushing past all these things to better yourself it directly reflects to other things and we have so much control over things that happen around us that we don’t think about.

            
Do you think the conflict of opposites reminiscent of the yin and yang symbol reflect not just the internal struggles but what goes on eternally such as organisations and society in general where we seem constantly in conflict with one another where we seem to always go looking for the negative?

Yeah if we go looking for the negative we’ll always find it. I don’t think it’s specific to a person by any means.

You suggest that the best thing to do is look in the mirror make a conscious decision to be positive, feed the good wolf – it’s a very strong metaphor yet the negative is so powerful in our minds it can take hold and really bring you down and dictate your day. Do you think in a way bearing that in mind you could take on board the advice of the "Good Wolf" by using the principles of, for example, "Five Ways a Morning Run..."?

That’s really cool I never thought of it like that at all, that’s kind of a road map right there. I think it applies beautifully – my direct thought when I was creating that was in anything the bad is so powerful but there always is good. Even if you take a test when you’re a student and you fail the test, the bad is that you fail but there’s so much good that can come from it in terms of analysing what you did wrong. You know you can fail and the sky doesn’t fall but you have to seek out the good because it doesn’t scream at you like the bad does you have to consciously seek it out that’s why I say look in the mirror because these things that fly all around you if you’re not specifically asking yourself “well what good can come from this situation" it’s going to allude you. That specifically was the message there.

This really struck a cord as it talked about limits and obstacles. People talk about limits due to talent and innateness. Why do people limit the potential to do what we want in life to be the best and reach those goals?

I think there’s certain needs that need to be met. We need jobs, we need to be able to support ourselves and our family and there is a simple way to do that and staying in the confines of that structure will ensure you get through the day. That’s where we place our value. For people who take those characteristics it becomes who they are so I think that’s the biggest thing. There’s a question you asked that ties into it – it’ll come to me.

Is there a fear laden or protective element do you think?

Absolutely and I think some of the resistance comes from people that are truly not happy with what they are doing and seeing someone else make that leap gives them that frustration. You know it’s a really tough conversation because there’s this whole “be limitless", "don’t give up", "focus on something 100%" message but you also have to be pragmatic too in a way in really knowing your strengths and knowing what you’re good at it. So for example I am not great at math, I’ve never really been good at math. Now if I were to invest all my time and energy and have the “no limits” mentality through math I would be better, I would get better and potentially be very good. But if I re-allocated that time and energy into something that I love and that I am truly good at the ceiling is way higher. So yes I feel like if you enjoy something go for it by all means with everything you have but you have to be honest with yourself, is this you? Is it something you’re good at? Is this the best use of your time and energy?

What made you see the value of running in the pouring rain, harsh weather conditions beyond just keeping fit and getting tough?

There are a few things; One is the momentum – you feel so accomplished, especially in Boston. It stemmed from those cold winter mornings when it’s raining, not snowing, there’s wind and it’s just hard to get up and put yourself out in that. It is a long stretch around the Charles River where I normally run – normally in the summer you see hundreds and hundreds of people running, walking and doing all these things and there’s been times where I’ve not seen a soul and it’s like “wow this is really interesting” and you start thinking if it was July there would be people everywhere because it’s comfortable so what it ends up being is an opportunity to take advantage, to be one step better than everyone else that’s hibernating till it’s convenient for them and that’s really where that idea stemmed from.

Have you ever found that to be the case in practice? You obviously don’t let the weather conditions dictate whether you go out for a run, barring injury, lack of sleep, have you found that when you do go out that you outperform those who tend to only come out in the better weather and struggle to get into that momentum?

In terms of my speed in relation to others?

If you like. Have you found that actually from a physical point of view you seem to be managing the course better than the experienced people who tend to shy away from the cold weather, do you find that really has been the case?

I love this question because I am very competitive when it comes to this. I was thinking about it the other day. When there are few people out there running there’s a far greater chance that someone will run by me and that’s because the people who are out when it’s cold, wet, and uncomfortable are the hard-core people that are there no matter what. To me to run in an environment like that where there’s so many people I tend play these games in my head where I don’t like to be passed. I’ve lived here for a while and three people have passed me and I remember every single situation. I play these games where if they pass me and I pass them back I get two points, it’s really childish almost embarrassing but what it does is it really makes me push myself, my pride is through the roof maybe unnecessarily but I just won’t let myself lose. Even though the people I am racing against don’t even know I am racing against them, when you get home and you dissect it, it feels good that you haven’t been passed by all these people who are out, you feel a sense of accomplishment and again back to the momentum thing it’s onto the next thing. If you succeeded there then you’ll succeed here.

Out of all the work you have done so far which ones are your favourites?

I think my favourite is "Chasing Fireflies". It’s more of a slower pace video. When I am putting a video out I sometimes gauge how I feel about it by the emotions when I am playing it out so like I recorded the speech, I’ve made the music I put it together I’ve done the clips and then I watch them. When I watched that back before I put it out I’ve never felt such an impact from my other videos. The message of staying a kid, that childlike mentality just means so much to me I feel like people lose that so fast and I don’t know why it dissipates, but that sense of exploration, that inventiveness good things we attribute to people that we look up to in society they all maintained those habits. So that’s definitely my favourite.

You did draw on some personal experiences of that so I suppose on a personal level when you saw that reflection that must have moved you in some way.

Exactly as I was talking about my time in Roenoake, Virginia. When I graduated college in 2010 I moved down to Virginia for my first job so I was very much on my own that was when I started to see how the world works, figuring things out for the first time that wasn’t in some type of academic setting so it was a big learning experience.

Any others that you are particularly proud of?

I really liked “Create Yourself” I think we talked about that but “Ode to Excellence” is another one of my favourites. It’s the first one I ever did which and  why I think it means so much is that it is all raw emotion. Those lines in that video are me talking to myself, talking myself through difficult times, being scared, having no idea what I was doing, hoping things would work out, following a passion, following this sort of creative drive and it’s a message that’s kind of “Hey man just have faith you’ll get through this” because there was so many times I was like “Just go get a job, get a job” but I kind of just stuck through all that stuff and kept building my own thing so I loved to hear that back, it’s nostalgic a little bit.

Thank you to Eddie Pinero for his kind participation in the interview. 

Visit the Your World Within Website or for the complete collection of his videos you can subscribe to the YouTube channel