Episode 126: Do you know how lucky you are?

Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero. Let me ask you, do you know how lucky you are to be living today in this period of time today? Do you know how lucky you are? Let me tell you a story. Yesterday I went for a very long walk, 5-hour walk in the forest. It was beautiful. I'm lucky. And towards the end of this walk, I took a path, a trail that I'd never taken before, and I came across this exhibition, exhibition built by hundreds of volunteers to represent the occupation of Norway by the Nazis back in the early 1940s. In it was paintings of individuals, Norwegians, British people, Russians, people who survived during the occupation and their stories. I read every single story of each of those individual paintings, and there must have been close to 100. It was pouring rain, and I stood there in the rain giving my respect to these incredible people and what they endured so that I could stand there in the rain and go for a 5-hour walk and not worry about someone hurting me. Do you ever go for a walk and reflect and think how fortunate you are that you don't walk around worrying about if someone would hurt you? Do you know what people have gone through? Not just in 1944, but all the time before that. But let's just talk about this current time. It wasn't that long ago. In the creating of those stories, they interviewed each and every one of those people, and what they said was that it was a race against time. There was one gentleman, they got his story over the phone, then they flew out to Switzerland to meet him. And during that 3-day period, from the time there was a phone call to the day they arrived in Switzerland, he passed away because they all were very old. And it was a race against time to capture their story. It was a race against time to capture and remind people, to remind all of us of how lucky we are. 115 people in a small town in northern Norway ran from their town, escaped the town as the Nazis occupied it, and they lived inside of a cave along the water. You ever see a cave with water that comes into it? This is talking about a cave. Do you know how wet, you know how disgusting that is? You know what it is to live there for months so that you don't get captured and get killed? Just think about spending a night there, one night. Now think about spending, 111 people together spending months together. Do you know what these people endured? Do you know what type of life they had? Do you know what type of life everyone had back then? So that today you can be all worried about what other people think about you, about who said what about you. Somebody glanced the wrong way at you, or what someone said or did on social media. Seriously. How much time are you spending on social media and looking at what other people are doing? Do you seriously think about— compare what I'm talking about. This has happened on this planet, on the very land that you're walking on right now. Back in the 1940s, we had a world war. People were dying, people were bleeding, people were crying. There was nothing but misery on the planet. And today you're worried about people posting about you or not talking about you, not liking what you're writing. Not having the right clothes? Think, I mean, are you embarrassed right now? You should be. Shut off. The world has gone through so much pain. People have suffered so much so that you can have the life that you have, and do you respect that? By in return living the life you should be living, doing what you're supposed to be doing, being the person you're supposed to be being. Instead, you let other people define who you are by looking and keep on listening to other people. It is your life. All the suffering and misery and pain and torture— we're talking about torture— that people have gone through is so that you could have the life that you have, the home that you have, that you go on the vacation that you're taking, that you can lay down in the bed that you're laying down in.

Think about it.

That simple. You would— you cannot lay down in that bed. The technology that made the mattress would not have been made. The clean sheets that you're laying on, the birds chirping in the air, none of that would have happened if it wasn't for all the people who suffered before you. Do you know how privileged you are? And you look on social media and it affects who you think you are. Don't let anyone define your existence. Your existence is defined by you, and it was a gift from everyone before you. Your mother, your father, whether you get along with them or not, they have given you the gift of life. Your grandmother, your grandfather on both sides, they have given you the gift of life. And most importantly, All the people who lived on this planet before you, all of the things they've done that indirectly affected this moment, this very moment that you're listening to my voice today, is a gift for you. So how dare you spend it in a very, very dumb way? I'm really, really disappointed in all of us and how we let Idiots and true idiots that show up on our mobile phones define what we think about. Idiots that show up on the TV set telling us what the world news is. We already know what the news is. You know how news was spread before, before the doob— that was called the doob tube TV set. I forgot what they call it. It was word of mouth. You used to talk to each other. You didn't stay home all day. You used to go out, talk to your neighbor, talk to people, and find out what's the news of the land, the news of the territory. Today, we turn on the TV set, we turn on the radio, turn on the internet, turn on a mobile phone, and we let other people define to us what the hell the news is. This is ridiculous. You know what the news is. If you shut off completely, go barefoot, walk in the grass, after 20 minutes you ground your body, you'll know what is good and what is bad. You'll reconnect yourself to who you are. And then at that moment you'll know what you should be doing. You'll know what life is all about. Do you understand? How far are you from that moment? When's the last time you walked on grass or on a beach or on dirt for 20 minutes barefoot and felt, "Oh man, this is— this— I haven't felt like this in a long time." That's you. How far are you from you? I want you to go forth and spread your beauty and your light, not defined by other people, not defined by social media, not defined by TV, not defined by what your friends said, not defined by what your parents said, not defined by what you read in the newspaper. I want you to talk and spread your word, your sound, your message, your smell, your voice, your energy to everyone, but let it be you. Just because you're different, just because you think different, because you don't see anybody else dancing the way you dance or, or talking the way you talk. Just do you. But don't let anybody put any questions in your head. Do you? That's all we want. A planet of individuals who love and respect each other, who embrace the fact that we all are happy in our individuals. And then there are moments where we meet each other and something happens and is wonderful and is called love. And it makes the planet grow and it makes the planet happy. Make yourself happy and do you. Walking the grass, walking the beach, 20 minutes at least. You do it for 2 hours, my God, you'll really find yourself. And while you're doing that, don't think about any thoughts. You can think about thoughts, that's okay. But don't think about other people. Think about you. And you'll find yourself. And when you find yourself, give yourself a hug. From me. This is Thomas Anglero. I love you and I believe in you. Just do you. Until next time.

Thank you for listening to that episode. If you want to contact me, you can contact me on my website at anglero.com, and you can also subscribe to the newsletter, or you can find me anywhere on social media with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Thank you so much, and I hope to hear from you very soon.