Run-into-the-Fire

Hello and welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am the host, Thomas Anglero, and my mission for this podcast is to share with you those private thoughts and reflections that I have being one of the top keynote speakers around the world on technology, motivation, and innovation. I hope you truly enjoy all the lessons I share, all the dots I connect that sometimes are just really difficult to get out but it's all for you. I truly hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero and I have some powerful words for you that you must remember when you face adversity, when you face a moment of insecurity, when you don't know what to do. And you are scared. Run into the fire. Let me repeat that. Run into the fire. You see, when you're scared, you don't know what to do. You don't know what to say. There's something inside of you that just makes you feel completely insecure. That is your moment. That is the moment that you're going to grow. You shouldn't run from it. I remember as a kid, When I left my parents' house and I'm living all alone in school, didn't know anybody. These people had— I'm not exaggerating— for every dollar I had in my pocket, they had $10,000 in their pocket, and they were my classmates at only 14. I was so uncomfortable, I was so unsure, and I thought, yeah, you know, my body, everything in my body, everything inside of me said, lie, make up stories, compensate for everything I didn't have, everything I didn't know. I didn't read Shakespeare starting at 10 years old. I didn't have money money in my pocket. I wasn't up to my third car. I didn't have a nanny. I didn't have any of this stuff. Matter of fact, we didn't have food. But I remember this teacher asking me a question. I paused, and I went against every single thing in my body, which was to make up some bullshit story, something impressive. And I ran right into the fire, and I told the truth. I said exactly what I felt. I went exactly where I was supposed to go, the most painful place to go. You know, going— running into a fire is sometimes the shortest way to get out of the fire. If you remember in school, they give you an exam, they say the train's coming at a certain speed and you're halfway over the bridge. Do you keep on running or do you run Towards the train. The answer was always run towards the train because that was the shortest distance off the bridge. See, the answer in life is that whenever there's something complex, your life is in, is in jeopardy, your soul is in jeopardy, your, your integrity is in jeopardy, you run into the fire. You tell the truth. You go where no man has gone before because no man can ever stand that situation where your core is being rocked. Someone you love asks ask you, do you love me? You better say the freaking damn answer. Say the truth. You need to take care of somebody. You take care of them. You don't look out for yourself. Run into the fire. Run into where you are supposed to be and who you are. When's the last time you felt who you were? And that's because you haven't— when's the last time you ran into the damn fire? When's the last time you put yourself in a situation to a person you knew or you didn't know and you were your authentic self and that you said what you truly wanted to say, not in taking into consideration what society wants you to say, what you're supposed to look like, what you're supposed to smell like, all this crap. When's the last time you were really you all the time? All you gotta do is keep running into the fire, keep on doing those things that make you uncomfortable, but it's actually you. You can't just be 1%, yeah, well, The way I look or the way I talk, that's really me, but all the other facets of my life is really not me, but nobody knows that. Does anybody know the 100% of you? How you look in the morning? Is that so bad, the way you look when you wake up in the morning, that everybody gets— doesn't get to see that? I mean, we all look tired. Isn't that the funny thing? We all wake up in the morning, we're all tired, our eyes are all messed up, right? We feel like hell. No one gets out of the bed 100% erect. Everybody gets out of bed, oh, oh, at least people like me, backwards and all that stuff. It's normal, man. No one's perfect. And you know what? That is perfect. You just got out of bed. You're human. Be yourself all the time. And you do that by running into the fire. Every time you're uncomfortable, you run into that discomfort. Every time somebody asks you a question and you know what the real answer is, but everything in your bone tells you to come up with that bullshit answer that you always come up with, say the truth. I guarantee you, the moment after you say the truth, you have this second of, of question mark. What is this person going to do? And And underneath that moment of the question mark, you have this wonderful relaxing feeling like you just lost weight and you just finished a whole pint of Ben Jerry's ice cream. I'm not joking with you. You know, you want a quick— you want a quick high? Run into the fire. Tell the truth. Got it? Go forth. And spread beauty and light. Whenever you see adversity, whenever you feel adversity, whenever you feel uncomfortable, whenever you have to make a decision that really, really upsets you, I want you to take a moment to breathe. I'm not kidding. Take a moment to breathe. Whoever you're talking to or whatever will understand. In that moment of breathing, you're ignoring all the things of society, everything that you've been taught indirectly by people who should never have been your mentor. And when you exhale, you open your eyes. And you come from your heart and your heart will turn— will, yeah, terminate that fire. And you tell the truth and you tell what you really wanted to say. And that next moment you're gonna be so happy because you'll never be that weak person, that insecure person, that scared person. Ever again. You just gave yourself an incredible gift. You just gave yourself, you back to you. I love you, and I'll always be here for you. This is Thomas Anglero. Run into the fire. And on the other side of the fire, you'll find yourself waiting for 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.