Let your heart guide you – AUDIO NSFW
What’s up guys? I want to tell you a story today. I am excited to tell this story because it has been on my heart and it is something that I am just beaming with through all of my being. Today, I want to talk with you guys about being motivated by love. I will tell you that being motivated by love is not something that is I would say easy for me to talk about because to be quite frank, I haven’t actually had that much experience being motivated by love. But I can tell you a distinct one, which makes a lot of sense, is when I finally after the beginnings of figuring out what marriage life could be like, I ended up finally figuring out how to be motivated by love for my spouse, for my significant other. That makes a lot of sense.
But what I but what I really want to talk about is something that hit me just recently. This is something that I just I don’t have fully formulated in my mind and the reason is because it’s so fresh, it’s so new, the feelings are so raw and so real and in some ways it’s hard for me to be able to communicate effectively how much this experience has impacted me.
Being I was motivated by love with my spouse, with my wife, early in the years, but I’ll tell you a moment just recently where I was completely motivated by love. It’s my son and his new karting career. You see, love is the highest and best motivation. Let’s just start there. I wrote that note down. Let’s just start there. Love is the highest and best motivation.
Again, I actually don’t have too much experience in this. Usually, I’m motivated by other things. I’m motivated by goals, passions, interests, opportunities. These are things that usually motivate me. I’m an individual who is innately motivated by wanting to learn more. I want the world, guys. I want to bleed this world for as much knowledge, as much experience, and learn as many things that I could possibly can. That is one of my chief motivators in life – to not waste my life, not waste my time on this planet, and to learn as much as possible. You guys know this. I’m motivated deeply and passionately about learning.
But I’m rarely motivated by love. I don’t mind admitting this to you guys. It’s not something that generally comes up. I’m telling you guys, when it comes to my son and his karting career, beginning his karting life, I was completely enthralled. I was completely filled up with absolute love. Let me give you a little bit of context and a little bit of a story here.
You see, my father was into cars and I into cars. I got into racing later in life getting my SCCA racing license and buying a racing car and these types of things. I got into it later in life and my son ever since he was a child, he would stare and just watch cars and trains go by. We used to live up on the 35th floor of The Atlantic in downtown Atlanta and he used to look outside, we had a floor-to-ceiling window, and he would just stare and watch the cars go by on the highway, watch the cars go by on the streets, watch the trains go by. He was just enthralled. I consider having the car-loving bone in his body to be almost a genetic disease, a genetic disorder of some form or fashion.
We got him into cars early after seeing obviously this innate interest that he had. We put him on ride-along cars. We got him into the ones where you sit on them and they can drive and they’re electric-powered. Then we moved him into the electric Tesla’s that go up to like 10-15 mph. I mean he’s always been involved in this. So the story is that earlier in the year, I had promised my son that I would finally take him out on his first karting experience, his first go-kart experience on a track. I was too busy. I got way too busy, guys. I got way too busy with life, with projects, all sorts of stuff. I couldn’t do it.
My son had been slowly nagging me, not in a bad way, but in a positive way of just like hey, appa, you said that we were gonna go and when are we gonna go? So finally I had the time and this is my bad. I finally had the time to really set out and help him begin this journey by getting him a cart, going with him to get it fitted, allowing him opportunities to talk with the mechanics, conquer the techs about the car and learn about it. Super excited.
Then finally, not too long ago, we took him out to his first private session with a coach. I can’t tell you, guys. I can’t tell you guys what came over me during that first day of karting with my son. It was a life-changing experience. I still don’t really have the words. I got to see my son completely alive. I got to see him completely enveloped, completely involved. I got to see parts of my son, facets of my son’s character that I had never really seen before— his assertiveness, his desire to communicate his needs to the coach.
I remember after one session, I’m down at the the track C and him and his coach are driving up back to the paddock and so I got a run back. There’s a good 2-3 minutes difference between when they’re chilling up, they’re stopping the card, and when I catch up. I remember walking up the hill to the paddock. I see my son holding his helmet under his arm and looking up at the coach and just talking with them. Asking him about how does this work, why does it vibrate like this?
The point is I didn’t interrupt. I saw him talking with the coach and then I came back, I stepped back for a second because I knew that once I came into his periphery, then the context would change. Appa’s here now and maybe Appa will take over. So I stepped back and I just watched him and listened from afar as he was asking the coach questions, digging in to the car, trying to understand what’s going on. These are all things that I could have assumed.
I remember when he was a young boy, even younger, we would go to car shows and he would just sit there and just stare at the wheels for minutes! Just squat and just stare at the wheels for minutes! For me, for anyone else on the outside, you’re like what are you looking for, bro? You’ve been squatting there for a good solid couple minutes looking at this wheel. What he was doing always is just analyzing, trying to understand it, and then he would ask me questions about it.
It was just great to see him in his element. It’s great to see him going around the track. I mean I have never enjoyed standing around for as long as I stood around for that first day, 5+ hours total. I’m just watching my son’s circle the track with this coach. I realized over the last week that I was motivated by love, guys. I was motivated by love again!
Love brings out the very best in you. Does it not? When you’re motivated by love, does it not bring out the very best in you? Absolutely! This experience with my son brought the absolute best out of me. You see, I have a tendency to ruin things for other people. What the hell does that mean “ruin things for other people”? Yeah, I have a tendency to ruin things for other people. The reason is because I want growth. I love forward momentum. I love forward movement. I love success. I love the process of success. I love helping people reach the next tier, the next level. I love helping.
One of the problems that I’ve struggled with for years is that if you give me merely an inch if you’re sitting down with me and you give me merely an inch and you start talking about hey, this is what I want to do, this is how I want to improve, this is where I’d like to go in life. Boom! I am all over you like white on rice guys. I am all over you like white on rice because you have given me a window in which I could pour out myself and give to you of myself. I’d hey, man, I ask me questions. Let me know how can I help?
The problem is I get way too serious. It’s not like a negative serious, but I get too involved. I get too hyped. I want you to grow. I want you to go. So for me, I can tend to ruin things because I suck the fun out of it. Coming into this day one of karting with my son, I remember coaching myself and talking to myself and saying, Peter, don’t fuck it up. Please, don’t fuck it up. Don’t overstep your bounds. Let the coach do the coaching. You’re just a support mechanism here. Don’t suck the fun out of it. He’s just six years old. He doesn’t need to be learning the right turn in, how to hit the apex right. He doesn’t need any of that. He just needs seat time. He needs time to see whether he enjoys this, whether this is something that he wants to do, whether he wants to do it more, whether this is something that brings him alive.
So being motivated by love, I realized this is just over the past week in retrospect, I realized that this was truly a life-changing moment where I truly was motivated by love because it brought the best out of me and I didn’t overstep my bounds. I didn’t become the overreaching parent, the over exuberant parent, the over involved parent that is ruining things for their children. Interestingly enough, one of the coaches that was out there—we got to talking during one of the sessions when my son was going around doing his practice and I got to talk with him and he was telling me that actually one of the reasons why he no longer does what he does in the in the racing world is because his father ruined it for him.
Guys, racing is such a competitive sport. This is not me digging into the racing culture but let’s just say that to be competitive sometimes. Father’s will do things with their children that are just unsafe like popping a couple pills to make them more focused and these types of things. That type of parental pressure can completely not only suck the fun out of the event, suck the fun out of out of doing something that should be fun and turning into something that’s just way too serious their children for goodness sakes.
You see, love protects us from ourselves. It really does. Being motivated by love, by seeing my son go out there, I wanted the absolute best for him and I wanted to make sure that I was not a problem. That I was not a problem in this! I love cars. I love racing. I love modifying shit. I love everything about the car, the automobile world and some of you guys have heard this on other things that I’ve talked about, I truly believe one of the greatest gifts that God ever gave man is the automobile. It is one of the coolest things in the world and I love it.
This love protected me from myself. It allowed me to step back and just enjoy the moment be the videographer, be the picture taker dad that I really needed to be. So shut the up and back up and enjoy everything that my son is enjoying. The coach said my son has already used up all the power of the engine that he’s running—a two-stroke engine. He needs to upgrade from a kit kart to a cadet kart already just after day one and day two. So am I a proud appa? Am I a proud daddy? Abso-fucking-lutely! I am so proud.
But this love that I had guys, it compelled me to give my best, to give myself to others, to give myself to my son, to give myself to the coaches. I was in a questioning position guys. That’s all I did. I asked questions. No statements. Trying not to make too many statements because I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know jack about the karting world in terms of careers and starting out. I’m a learner here. I’m a novice here. I don’t mind having a beginner’s mindset here.
The love that I have for my son, the love that I have for this moment together, to share this with my son I will never forget. Here I am talking about it and it’s hard for me even to really communicate the experiences in full. I’m trying to focus on this idea of love, guys. I hope it’s coming through your podcasts, through your iTunes, through your Android, whatever. I hope it’s coming past, guys because this was just so powerful that I had to write it down.
Love guys. Love asks. If love asked me during these last couple days of coaching with my son, they’ll ask me to step up and be assertive. It compelled me for the desires of my son, the desires of the coach, it was not my desires, but it was their desires. How could I seek those out? How could I be assertive in making sure that they have all the equipment, that they’re ready, that they’re good, that I can be the best support system possible? Assume the best in everyone.
There was there’s a couple times during the coaching day one and coaching day two that we were a little confused as to where we needed to be and what we needed to do, but love covered that. There was no bad juju. I’m not gonna bring up one one issue, but there was one really small, guys, I’m not gonna blow it out of proportion here. It was really small, but it was just like eh, it is what it is. We missed a session. We were supposed to go that session. We missed the session. No big deal. We’ll wait another 40 minutes. No problem, there’s plenty to do in the next 40 minutes. We didn’t miss it. It’s okay. We can wait. We can get on the next session. We can keep moving forward.
Love helped me to look out for my son’s needs. Now, it helped me look for potential. That’s what love does. It helps you look for potential in the moment. Love is motivation in itself to be on your best behavior. Love covers all. Love is that lubricant that makes relationships beautiful. I met some great people on day two of karting. We met a father and his father and his young son who were starting out their first day in karting on day two of ours. It was great! We got to meet them. We got to talk with them. I was just as loving as I could be. Excited about being there, trying to be helpful. I mean they’re more experienced than I am so I’m just listening trying to have no ego in this and just allow my son and then his son to connect, to talk, to talk about their karts. Watch them talk about the features of the kart and point out stuff and hearing them say, oh that’s cool!
You know, love, guys, motivated by love. This is kind of the last closing point that I want to have of this podcast here today is because I was motivated by love. Because I was motivated by love—the highest and best motivation that you could possibly have. It almost exudes beyond you. It’s uncontrollable. It just oozes from you.
I will tell you guys a huge win in my life. That for those two days sweating out there in the sun, having great time watching my son go around and round and round, talking with the coaches, seeing my son’s face and the excitement of getting into the kart, of getting prepped and going and having that laser focus on hitting the line and following the coach and I was fully present. I was fully present.
This is hard for me, guys. This is a challenge for me to be fully present in the moment. I got so much shit to do. I got things to think about. I got projects to think about. I got things to build. I got people that have needs. I have requests of me. I’ve asks of me. I have people to help. I people to work with. I’ve people to meet, people to talk with. I got a future ahead. I got stuff to do. I will tell you, other than simply picking up my phone and taking pictures or recording movies of my son going around that track, I was doing zero work. And I was fully, fully, fully present.
I remember the times when I was growing my relationship with my new bride, my new spouse, trying to figure out life together and figuring out finances, figuring out behaviors, figuring out schedules, finding out the idiosyncrasies and the nuances that make them tick whether they annoy you or not. I remember so many moments when I was enveloped in absolute love for my spouse that so much of that bullshit just faded away. I was fully present with her. I was just fully enjoying the moment. The world goes away. Pfft! It’s like it just goes away. It fades to white and it’s just you there fully present. It feels like all the eyes of the world are on you because you’re there, you’re experiencing it. You’re fully, fully there.
All of your senses are tingling, all your senses are taking in the world. Your eyes are seeing everything with new you. You’re obviously vibrating at a higher level. Your ears are hearing everything. It’s like your soul yearns to soak up every possible moment in that day so that you will never forget any facet of it.
That’s where I was guys when my son hit the track day one and my son hit the track day two. I was fully present, engaged, available, protecting. The love was protecting me from myself. It compelled me to be my best self to others. It compelled me to give myself to my son, give myself to the coaches, give myself to the organization. It assumes the best. It looked out for other needs. It looked for potential. It was the lubricant for the relationships that were there.
Love was everything. And I loved it! I loved every moment of it. I wish and this is one of the last things that I wrote down. I wish I was motivated by love more. I wish I was motivated by love more. I wish I could tap in to the deeper, the deeper motivation of what I know it exists in there. I wish I could tap into that more and I could leverage that more. Maybe it’s just something about being in love with my wife, in love with my life, in love with my son, in love with what they’re doing. Maybe it’s just because of that deep familial context, that deep familial connection that it exudes for me, it oozes from me so easily.
I really wish and maybe you guys have ideas of how to leverage this so you can apply to the regular things of life, but man I wish I could leverage love. I wish I could be motivated by love in everything that I do. You know what I mean. I’m a loving guy. I’m a good juju guy. I’m a positive guy. I love life. I love helping.
You know what I’m saying? To be fully present, to be fully allowing just the world and energy just sucked into you, you’re like a vacuum of goodness. I want more of that, guys. I want to be motivated by love more. I don’t want to be motivated by second tier nonsense. I want to come from the heart. I want it to come from the soul. I want my work to be able to exude that, to be an example of love, to be an example of living with love. I’m still practicing it, guys.
Close to 40, still practicing how to be a good lover, how to be a good husband, how to be a good father, how to be a better communicator, how to be more giving, more loving, all these things, guys. I just want to be motivated by love because I’ll tell you guys, those days that I spent with my son, I’m going to spend many more days which is so great! I get more practice. I get more practice in being motivated by love, learning how to enjoy that, being present in the moment, and ,completely completely giving myself to something greater.
Guys, I have no idea, I have no idea how you can be motivated by love. But I’ll tell you, thinking on it, meditating on it as I have, as I wrote this down, gives me the words and hopefully will start making some connections in my brain so that I can leverage these feelings, I can leverage this knowledge of what it’s like to be completely enveloped by love and being present in the moment and applying that to my daily life, to the mundane, to the routine of life.
Guys, think on love, think on love, meditate on love today. I bet and I promise you, that it’ll improve something. It’ll improve something. Guys, I love what I do. I love what I get to do. I love who I get to meet with. I’m telling you guys, I hope and my prayer for you today, is that you will be motivated by love and that you will allow love to allow you to be fully present in who you’re with and what you’re doing.
Enjoy the day, guys. Thanks, guys. I hope you enjoyed this little story and share it, spread the word, let people know. Subscribe and join us in our behind-the-scenes, Things You Didn’t Learn in School on YEN.io. See you.