998. You Have Everything You Need To Take The Next Step

You have everything you need… to take the next step.

Today, I’m walking you through a simple yet powerful truth inspired by Matthew Kelly: life doesn’t give you everything at once —it gives you just enough.

Enough to move.
 Enough to learn.
 Enough to grow into who you’re meant to become.

We talk about why life unfolds the way it does, how adversity and uncertainty are actually your greatest teachers, and why the “know-how” you’re building right now is more valuable than anything handed to you all at once.

I’ll also challenge how you look at setbacks, silence, and those moments where it feels like nothing’s working—because those might be the exact moments preparing you for what’s next.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, uncertain, or like you’re falling behind… this will reframe everything.

You’re not behind.
 You’re being built.

And right now, you already have what you need to take the next step. 

Transcript

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You have everything that you need to take the next step in life. And the inspiration for this episode comes from reading out of Matthew Kelly's book, resisting Happiness Today. And let me read to you what he writes about unconventional education. He says this, the older I get, the more I realize that life teaches us all lessons. We need to learn to take the next step in our lives and to fulfill our mission in life. It is easy to focus on the formal aspects of our education, but the informal aspects are often more influential. You know, life is always teaching you. Sometimes we're just not aware. We're not paying attention. Life will teach you more than any professor ever will there. Formal education has its place for certain fields but for all of us, life is the best educator out there. But I don't believe that life should reveal everything all at once. It, it it, as bad as we want it. We all want to know how the story comes out. What's the ending of our story? We all wanna know that, but life gradually unfolds it. By giving you just enough of what you need to take the next step, because if life revealed everything all at once, number one, you couldn't handle it, it'd blow your face off because you haven't built up the infrastructure to be able to withstand. Everything life has in store for you. And let me tell you something, life has good things in store for you. The first thing you gotta believe, you don't let society, you don't let your current circumstances, you don't let the outside determine what the inside does. Life has wonderful things in store for you. Things beyond what we could dream of, what we could think of, because a lot of the things that we. That we base our life on is from our limited perspective, is based on from our limited lenses that we're looking through. And life has so much more in store. But she's only gonna give you just enough to take the next step because you've gotta develop the infrastructure, you've gotta meet people along the way. You've gotta share with them and they share with you. You pour into them, they pour into you. And then also you have to build the knowhow, the skillset, and this is super important because if life gave you everything all at once, if you lost it all at once, then you wouldn't know how to build it back because it came in all at once. Life is not a lottery. Life is an investment and she gives you just enough, and it'll reach at times these tipping points where things will compound. But you may not be at that stage right now because see, you have to build that skillset and know-how. So just in case, or if or when everything even unforeseen, fair or unfair. You lose it all. If you've developed the infrastructure and the collaboration and the know-how, you'll know how to build it back faster and even better. And this reminds me, I was listening to a conversation of the founder of Coinbase, and they were at a crucial time at one time. In their company and they said, what if, what if you just had this mass exodus of employees? And without even flinching? He said, I'd build it right back. He said, because one thing you have to understand, I started this company with me and a laptop and I built it up. So if it all came down and ended up with just me and the laptop, I could build it back. Now it doesn't mean that he wanted that. But see, there's that quiet confidence to know when you've developed that know-how, that skillset, that collaboration, that you'll be able to build it back no matter what happens. And that really just diminishes a lot of the fear that you have. The other reason why life is not going to reveal everything all at once is 'cause you haven't earned it. You gotta put that skin in the game and you have to build that resilience and that commitment and that fortitude and that stomach to be able to withstand the highs and lows. Yet you still persevere, yet you still keep going. Life is the ultimate professor, man. She is. And she is going to teach you through adversity and uncertainty. That's the way she teaches you there. Are there you? There are gonna be times in your life where you face some stiff headwinds, where rejection is just coming at you from everywhere and it looks like there's no hope. And then boom. Right at the last second, right in the 11th hour, you squeak by if just for another day, for another week. And she's also gonna teach you through uncertainty. Like you don't know if you're on the right path. You don't know if you're even doing it right. She'll let you know and she'll course correct you along the way. I do believe that life teaches you. Unconventionally through silence as well. And Matthew Kelly even echoes that. He says, I continue to believe that we can learn more in an hour of silence than we can from a year in books. And that may be metaphorical, but there's a lot of truth in that. There's a lot of shower moments that you can have outside of the shower, you know, the shower moments people talk about this all the time. You're in the shower, you're alone with your thoughts. The hot water's just pouring on you, and then you have these aha moments and you're like, oh my God. It's because of the silence. And there's a doing aspect to life that teaches you through adversity and uncertainty, but also there's a section that we don't pay attention enough to, of silence and not being stimulated all the time through Netflix, through podcast, through TikTok, through music. Sometimes these aha moments come from the silence. Of taking a walk with no earbuds in your ear, working out and listening to the patterns of your breathing, just thinking things through or driving in your car, not listening to anything but your own thoughts. And a lot of times, man, people are terrified of sitting in the living room, no Netflix and sitting there with their thoughts because your thoughts are scary. When it's just you and you, the dark moments sometimes bubble up, but they're not gonna take you down. They won't eat you alive. Actually, if you learn to dance with it, you'll learn to process these things, begin to work through these things, and not escape to the next binge watch or buffet or any other thing that we do to escape from it all. We work through 'em, and so there's a tremendous value in that silence as well. Back to the book, he writes, each step I took. At each stop along the way. Let's pause right there. See, there will be stops along the way. There will be times where it looks like in your life things aren't working, or it's not working in your favor. Okay? You're not being picked on in life. You're being prepared. And so, back to what he says, each step I took at each stop along the way, I learned something that I needed to know. Somewhere else down the road. I was constantly being educated, love that, constantly educated for the next phase of this mission. My worldview was constantly being challenged and expanded. What a different perspective that is, is to be open in life. Life is teaching you, but you gotta, you gotta stay open to it and you gotta stop feeling like people are out to get you. Like life is out to get you. No, life is actually talking to you, you have a mission to fulfill in life. And even if you don't know what that is right now, she will tell you. And there will be times where you will have to take a mental knee. There will be times where you need to retrench. Just don't retreat. Don't revert back to your old self. So there will be times, there will be a pause for you to look at the landscape, for you to think about things, for you to be silent, for you to sometimes do the work and say, what am I learning in this moment? Sometimes you gotta go out of the way to be on the right way. And what I mean by that is there are things like he said there, each step I took along the way, I learned something. That I needed somewhere else down the road, meaning I call these shelved experiences, meaning that it looks like it's a waste of time. Nothing's for nothing. It looks like it's a waste of time right now, but a decade from now, you pull that off the shelf and you need it for that moment. 10 years back, you thought it was a waste of time. It looked like life was taking you way outta the way. No, she was preparing you for something a decade later, and then a decade later when there's nothing in the books, there's nothing from someone else who can teach you, and all of a sudden, in the recesses of your mind, sometimes in silence, you're like, wait a minute. I remember 10 years ago when this happened and this is what I did. That's what I'm talking about, man. That's what I'm talking about. And I just want you to stay open, stay curious, stay creative. Life is teaching you. Unconventionally question is, are you listening? Alright, keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.