Episode 152: Blow Apart Your Imagination

Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero and I am recording this podcast from California, from Berkeley, California, where it is absolutely beautiful this time of year. I guess any time of year because they just don't have any snow. If you're a snow person, I apologize. But listen, what I want to share with you, an experience, an epiphany, like no other, and I am not exaggerating, and that is that our imagination is our limitation. Let me explain to you what happened so that you understand what I'm talking about. Yesterday, I went to Stanford University's campus. My daughter had a racing meet where she did incredibly well, And after the meet, she said, "You have to walk the campus, Papa." I have never been to Stanford University. I've heard about it, seen it on the movies, people talked about it. It's where Silicon Valley has partnered with the university. Literally, the corporations, the buildings are across the street from the campus, and the campus is monstrous. As I walked the campus, I saw buildings bigger than anything I've ever seen before. And I'm from New York. I saw land that went on forever, libraries that were endless, facilities, sports facilities better than professional sport facilities or professional teams anywhere on the planet Earth. Everything went on and on and on, and it was spotless. The people were polite. The students there were buzzing with energy. Even the students who were laying in the sun, as they glanced up as I went by, they smiled and you saw their minds were on fire. When you are in an environment, when you are on a campus, when you're in a location that things are beyond your imagination's potential to grasp and comprehend or to come up on its own, your limitless possibilities for the world you're going to create are beyond. There are no limitations. And this is what I clearly, clearly understood yesterday is that when a person is brought up, is raised in an environment that you see something, that what you see is sort of like the goalpost of where your imagination stops. There's no way you can ever imagine, like what I did yesterday when I entered the— walked on the campus and I saw this building. It was very long. I mean, it looked like it had a— it was an arch. Where you could walk underneath because it is very sunny in California, and it looked like it literally went on for a mile, this building. And it was all the school building where the students studied. And I walked down that arch, I walked underneath it, and when I got to the end, I made a right turn. It went on for another mile. I have never seen a building this big before. And every single inch, every single centimeter of the building had incredible detail. Of artwork in stonemasonry. Do you understand the amount of love and passion and energy and just commitment people have made to creating these incredible things? I think this is why people travel to Egypt to see the— oh my God, the pyramids and see the Sphinx. Human beings, we are wired to experience something that is beyond our imagination. And only then, only then does that trigger that thing within you that you were born to say, there is something greater than that. My purpose is something greater, and I am going to achieve something that I cannot possibly imagine, I cannot possibly think of, but that is my end destiny. And the thing is, by watching TV and by talking to stupid people— and there's a lot of stupid people we talk to, and when we're not too many of our friends, we're probably the stupid person too. I'm guilty of that because we're limited. Talking to limited people, maybe they're not They're just limited. That limitation is holding us back. Watching TV is holding you back because it's giving you a visual depiction of what life is, and that's a limitation because they're saying this is life, and life is limitless. Your imagination has no limits. And I understood that yesterday, that after all these years of seeing all these things, I have not lived a full life because I have not experienced and I have not got my mind blown enough. That is one of the purposes in life, is to get your mind blown. When you see something that absolutely blows your mind. For example, one of the things that is definitely on my bucket list that I want to experience so passionately is that I want to see a whale. And not just a whale. I want to see a whale that is so large in front of me. I want to touch it so bad, you have no idea. I'm willing to jump in the water, risk my life. I don't care. But I want this whale to be so large that its eyeball is larger than me. And I'm 6'2", 188 centimeters. I want to experience being next to one of God's creatures, something living, something that's beautiful. But something that is so large that its eyeball is bigger than me. I want to be feel so odd. I want to feel so small. I want to feel so gracious and so appreciative for having a life that I have, having lungs and air in my lungs, having the ability to smell, to taste, to breathe, to love. Life is about blowing apart your imagination, about blowing apart about what is and what isn't. Life is about having life experiences that make you go, oh my God, just resets you. You need to be reset. We all need to be reset. When's the last time you'll be reset? Do any of you understand what I'm saying? Can you take a moment right now and think, when was the last time you experienced what I'm talking about? Maybe it was a time when you went to an amazing restaurant or someone cooked you something that you ate that first forkful, you put the food in your mouth, The fork fell out of your hand. You weren't trying to be rude, but your mouth and your body had an outer body experience because it was so incredible. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about, having life experiences. When I was on Stanford's campus, I understood that I was actually instantly envious that my daughter, who is able to compete and destroy all these people at Stanford— I'm very proud that she beat them all— but the fact that she's competing at this level and visiting campuses around the world that are so beautiful and made by people who are so passionate with life and love that they created with their bare hands these incredible buildings, these institutions for students to grow up and to learn and to think beyond their thoughts. Life is limitless, and we need to blow apart the boundaries of our imagination. By traveling the world, seeing things, meeting people, talking to people, touching things, eating things, laughing. And then you have a whole life. My journey's just begun. And so has yours. Go forth and spread beauty and light, and do not feel bad about anything I've said if you don't understand what I'm saying or you haven't experienced what I'm saying, because I haven't experienced what I'm saying either. I have experienced literally a droplet, a droplet of life yesterday in visiting that campus. It is a droplet of life's experiences in an ocean of experiences. But the beauty is that me and you Together we can start collecting one drop, a second drop, third, fourth, fifth, and we start creating, collecting a pond. Once we created a pond, we could create a lake. And once we create a lake, we could create our own ocean of experiences. There are no limitations. But if we just settle for the seat that we're sitting in or the place that we're standing, that you're standing right now as you listen to this podcast, if that's all you see every single day, then you're limiting yourself and your life, and you're limiting what God has given you. If you don't believe in God, whatever force there is out there, that force has given you an imagination, and that imagination is there to tantalize you to do more, to be more, to live more. Live more. I promise you, there's something out there, a lot, not just one thing. That will blow your mind and will make you feel as bad as I did. I realized, Jesus Christ, I haven't seen anything. I haven't experienced anything. But now I'm hungry for more. And that's where you should be right now. Hungry for more for you. There is more out there for you. There is more to experience. There is more to learn. And there's more to love. And there are more people out there to love you. One thing I take away from all the experiences I've had, especially yesterday, everyone was polite and smiled.

Everyone.

Everyone. I was having a life experience and I was being loved at the same time. That's just one day. We all can have this every day. You could have it every day. Blow apart your imagination. Go beyond it. I know it sounds crazy. I know it's difficult concept to grasp. It took me until yesterday to realize that I had no idea anything could be so big and so beautiful. My imagination was too limited. Blow apart that imagination. Blow apart your life and find the love and smiles and laughter you deserve. This is Thomas Anglero. I truly do love you, and I say all these words to encourage you to have the life and the moments that you deserve in your life. And they are coming. But you're going to need to stand up. You're going to need to go for a walk. You're going to need to travel. Or maybe you're just going to need to open your eyes and look around you. And right around you is the beauty that you've been missing. Find it. Embrace it. 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.