Your Reactions to Life, Determine Your Life

Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero, and I want to wish you a happy new year, a happy 2024. I wish you and your family a prosperous and most importantly, a healthy new year. Love each other. Give each other a hug. Look each other in the eye and just greet each other. With the love and respect each of you deserve. I am so excited for this new year because the perspective that I've been working on, that we've all been working on our whole lives, is going to be executed in 2024, right? Isn't that your attitude? We start off every year with this attitude: this is going to be a better year, I'm going to be a better person, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do this. And yet things don't get accomplished. Here's how things are going to be accomplished this year. The number one thing that I'm going to live by, the number one thing that I want to share with you, this perspective that truly has changed how I could just relax on everything. And isn't it wonderful to have a way in which you can relax, that things don't stress you out that much? I want to share with you that, and that is one of the ways the Stoics live by. The Stoics, the Greek philosophers who looked at life and said things are different and that we all have to live with a different philosophy. And one of the Stoic beliefs is that it is not what happens to you, it is how you react to it. I'll say it again: it's not what happens to you, it's how you react to it. You get in a car accident, that's what happened to you. What's important is how do you react to the car accident? Do you yell, get outside the car, yell, scream, go into road rage and shoot the person or chase them or beat them up? Or do you get outside of the car after the car accident and go, I have insurance, it'll pay for it, I need a new car anyway. How do you react to what's going to happen to you in 2024? Because things are going to happen to you. A lot of things that right now, from your perspective, where you are mentally, where you are, these things that are coming, are you going to see them as being very, very negative? The world is in war. They haven't declared an official world war, but damn, are we close. Right? That's going to happen to you. And because that— it's going to happen to all of us— things are going to get bad financially. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs. If you lose your job, that's something that happened to you. How do you react to it? You may have trouble paying your bills. You may have to skip a meal. These are the things that are going to happen to you. How do you react to it? The person that you thought that loved you is going to tell you that they don't love you. How do you react to that? You're going to fail the exam. You may be thrown out of school. You may not make the school swim team, the club's football team. You'll be pissed off. But is that the right way to react? How you react to those things that are going to happen to you, irregardless of whether you go outside or not, you cross the street or not, the only thing that matters is how do you react to it. I have found that with this perspective, the reason why it's so powerful is that it takes away the whole, like, nuclear bomb feelings of feeling sorry for me, for myself, or being victim. All that is gone when you live and see life from this perspective, the Stoic perspective, that things are going to happen to me and I'm not a victim. Is part of life. And only thing that matters is whether I'm not gonna allow this thing to be devastating. And most things, when things happen now, I just go, okay, things didn't happen. Can't, can't control it. I didn't control it. But what I can control is how I react to it. And I'm not going to freak out. I'm not going to go nuclear. Take it easy. And now focus on the next step. Focus on the next moment, the next minute. What am I going to do? How can I use this situation to benefit me? Think about something that's recently happened to you that doesn't— that didn't— you didn't like, that didn't make you feel comfortable. Now, how did you react to that? Got it. Now, if you would have taken the approach of, okay, this happened, how can I use it to my benefit? Going back to the car example, the money I get from the insurance, I could put down payment on that car that I really wanted. Let me tell you a story because that's where that came from. I had a car— short version of story. I sent it in, a mechanic dropped it off at the mechanic workshop. I didn't know, but in the evening, the mechanic and his crew were using the car to break into homes. And but I sent the car to them because of the problem with the car. Anyway, in the middle of the week, that week, while I was waiting for the car to come back, they crashed the car in a tunnel, totaled the car in the middle of the night because there was a problem with the car. It was not safe to drive, idiots. So anyway, um, the insurance company paid me the price of the car after the whole police investigation. That's a long part of the story, but I eventually got back the money that the value of the car was worth. Actually, I got a little bit above market value, and I took that money and I put a down payment on a proper car. It— I never freaked out. I never freaked out that they stole my car. I never freaked out that they used my car to break into homes. I never freaked out that my car became part of a wall inside of a tunnel. I just made sure and did what I got to do so I got my insurance money, and I took that money and said, what a blessing. I'd have to go through the whole process of trying to sell the car on a used car market. Here's the cash, is in my account. That was easy. Let me go purchase a better car. How we react to things. How do you take things? Why can't you just take everything and just laugh the shit off? Why not? What does it cost? Person tells you, 'I don't love you.' Say, 'Damn, thank you. I thought there's gonna be a long breakup. You did me a favor.' The company says, 'We don't want you here anymore.' You said, 'God, thank you. I needed new opportunities. This was just— this was getting long in the tooth. This was getting boring, or I didn't want to be here.' What a blessing. What are you going to give me as I leave because you want me to go? What a wonderful thing. It's how you react to things. How do you react to it? You become sick. Do you feel sorry for yourself, like the man flu? As all us men, we like think we're dying, and truly we think we're dying. We get man flu. That shit, that is no joke. But do you feel sorry for yourself, or do you say, I am going to take this downtime to sleep? And get the rest that I need and not think about the emails and think about the phone calls and the meetings and everything I'm missing. Oh my God, I'm meant to take a break. I'm meant to just sleep. I'm meant to just rest. How you react to what happens to you is all that counts. Go forth and spread beauty and light. Don't get worked up with all the things that are going to happen to you. And it's going to happen to you, it's going to happen to all of us. But what's going to happen to you is individualistic for you, is specifically created to drive you out of your mind and to make you grow and wake you up in that moment. You're welcome. How you react to it is what matters. You know, I grew up in a Puerto Rican household, and Puerto Rican culture is not a very quiet culture. There are not many cultures that are quiet, right? The Italians are loud, the Spanish are loud. All these cultures are known to be loud and expressive. And you know what? God bless it. It's a lot more fun that way than being like the Nordic cultures, which is internal, introvert everything, hold everything on the inside. Not that it's bad, it's just different. I prefer you have a choice in life. Be what you want. I prefer expressive, but you don't always have to be expressive all the time. You don't always have to go, oh my God, look at this, Jesus Christ, blah blah blah. Grew up with that. You just go, okay, I'm not internalizing it, but I'm seeing it as, okay, what's this one about and how does it benefit me? What lesson am I supposed to learn from this? Because I know I didn't want this to happen to me, but it's happening to me, or it has happened to me. How do I digest this? What do I to. Right now, I'm inside, I feel like I'm about to explode, but I know I'm not supposed to because then I fail the test. How I react to this right now determines who I am. Who am I going to be? This is your 2024. This is your 2025, 2026. You can turn your entire life around, your entire life around, just by being in control of how you react to everything that happens to you in your life from this moment on. Isn't that amazing? Who you're meant to be is yet to be born, but will be born in how you react. I'm Thomas Anglero, your biggest fan. I love you. Until next time.