Emanuele Pani (00:02.348)

A dear friend of mine, someone who has known me my whole life, looked at me one night and said something to me that I will never forget. And that permanently changed my life. He said, for the first time in my life, I'm not looking up at you.

Let that land for a second.

This wasn't the judgment from some random stranger. This wasn't the opinion of a of a coach. Wasn't feedback from a coach. This was somebody that loves me, who has who had always believed in me.

who'd always seen something in me and he was telling me

From a quiet, loving, gentle place that I had become a lesser version of myself. And the thing is, he was right. Because somewhere along the way, I had stopped being the cause of the life that I wanted. And instead, I had become the effect of.

Emanuele Pani (01:26.132)

Everything I was running away from. And so today we're gonna talk about the most important law of the universe. And if it's not the most important, it's up there. I believe it is the most important. And the moment that you truly understand it, nothing in your life is ever gonna be the same.

Welcome to CEO Mindset, episode 5. I'm Emanuele Pani. My friends call me E. Let's get into it. So, every great teacher that I have read, I have studied, from Bob Proctor to Napoleon Hill to Thomas Strower to Jim Rohn, to Neville Goddard, talk about this law. And each one of them in a slightly different way, in their own words, but everybody talks about it.

Thomas Stroward used to call it the master law. Napoleon Hill built his entire book, if you ever read Think and Grow Rich, which I'm actually rereading right now. it's all over it. And Bob Proctor talked about it along with the law of attraction, the law of vibration, but it was always part of his teaching. And Bob Proctor talked about it for 60 years. Amazing. If you see videos of Bob Proctor.

He's 86 years old, some of the YouTube videos, some of the last ones that you can find. And he's so energetic because he found the labor of love. And he talks about this law. And the law that we're gonna talk about today is the law of cause and effect. And here is in a simple, simple form. Every effect in your life, there is a cause. And that cause is always a thought.

So your bank account is an effect, your relationships are an effect, your body is an effect, your business is an effect, your happiness or the lack of happiness in your life is an effect. And most people spend their entire life working on effects, trying to change the bank account without ever changing the thinking that created it.

Emanuele Pani (03:46.658)

The identity they created it. Trying to fix the relationship without changing the identity that has chosen it, the behaviors that have manifested it. Trying to build the business without becoming the person that the business requires. It's kinda like rearranging furniture in a house before the foundations are broken, but never going out and actually fixing the foundation of said house, which is kind of problematic.

And here's the line that changed my life. And I've said it on this show before. If you've heard me speak, I've said it multiple times. It's one of my favorite lines, which is this you are the lead cause of every single effect in your life. Not the economy, not your childhood, not your ex, not your spouse, not the market, not the timing.

Not the people that didn't give you the opportunity. That's you. And I know, I'm aware that that statement can land pretty hard. Especially if you're going through something right now, especially if life has felt like it's happening to you instead of for you.

But the liberation, if you allow me to say so, of the law of cause and effect is the fact that if you caused it, you can change it.

Emanuele Pani (05:36.034)

Bah ee, even this thing, yes. Whatever came to your mind, yes. Every single thing in your life, you have cause and you can change. Because it's also the understanding that if you stay in the victim mindset

Victim you, victim identity, has no power.

Emanuele Pani (06:04.492)

Instead, if you embrace the fact that you are the lead cause of every single effect in your life, guess what? You have all the power.

So

Today I'm going to show you

What the law of cause and effect look like in in my life.

And how my life has changed. And I'm gonna take you to I'm gonna share a couple different stories.

Emanuele Pani (06:39.658)

As you guys know, I have been part of an amazing community, an amazing company called STR Secrets. Secrets for shorts. And

I absolute, absolutely loved being part of Secrets. For a long time being part of Secrets and the show and the coaching gave me significance. It was a place where I got to support and be there for other people and it made me feel great. And I always wanted I always wanted more from it. I always wanted to be involved more. I wanted to have more.

of a hand in it. I wanted to be yeah, just more. Coach more, be in it more because again it felt good. I loved helping people and it's so it felt great. And

For a long time I was wanting more than I was than I was as a person. Meaning I wasn't playing at a level that would allow me to have more. And so I had a choice. And the choice came and I got to

I got to realize I got to be honest with myself and understand, okay, I am the lead cause of every single effect in my life. So if the effect is me not having as much responsibility, as much involvement, as much airtime, coaching time as I would have liked to, how can I how can I grow? Because again, it's not anybody else's thing. It's you.

Emanuele Pani (08:29.248)

And thinking that somebody else is going to give you permission is classic effect thinking. You just looked at the facts, the facts are not what you want. And it's like, ugh, I wish these effects were different, and you're not willing to do the work. And so I started doing I started doing the real work. I started doing the inner work. I started doing the identity work. I started working on my standards and I and I grew.

And here's where the story gets interesting. Because I thought that growth would be rewarded from the outside. And it and it was. And also

Emanuele Pani (09:16.756)

Not to the degree

that I wanted. And so for a second, for a moment, that felt like the effect of someone else's choice. But here's what I understood and this is what I understand now. That

Cause and effect always works perfectly. Even in the times that we don't think it's working perfectly, it is working perfectly. Because my growth, my real growth, had made me too big for that container. And I was lucky enough to have Mike as a dear friend who has also done this work, who is gonna be one of my first guests.

And the beauty with the people that love you is that

Emanuele Pani (10:14.648)

They are going to sometime help you see things that you don't see. Because the reality is that the effect of my becoming wasn't more opportunity within the world of secrets.

Emanuele Pani (10:34.752)

It was my own world. This show. This community that I'm building. This conversation with you right now. The cause was my becoming and the effect was my liberation. All I had to do was to be willing to see it that way and have courage.

Emanuele Pani (11:03.073)

Encourage

Emanuele Pani (11:07.566)

Courage is by far the most important ingredient. Or at least it's definitely gotta be in your pantry. As you are building and baking your future and your life, you gotta always sprinkle courage. I wanna share some more stories with you. So, cause and effect, secrets, right? Understanding that component of that.

Part two of cause and effect. I'm gonna share with you something that I haven't really shared on this show yet. I kind of mentioned it that my my divorce and my story through my divorce, my addiction and what came afterwards, those were things that I've shared on the secret show in the past, but not really in in detail. And

The marriage ending.

Emanuele Pani (12:10.878)

It was a very

Emanuele Pani (12:17.366)

It was a very challenging moment of my life. But I'll share with you why it was challenging.

Emanuele Pani (12:27.552)

It was challenging because I was in the effect of the lack of courage for too long. And what do I mean by that?

I was looking at the effects of my marriage not being not working the way that it used to work, that it used to feel. And I could have chosen to make it mean certain things. And instead what I realized over time, especially as I became familiar with the law of cause and effect, because this material found me right in that moment.

as life has this beautiful poetic way of assisting you and giving you what you need the moment you need it and not a second sooner. 'Cause maybe I had learned or heard the law of cause and effect because I read Think and Grow Rich.

shit f fifteen years ago probably the first time. but it w it didn't register. And so so so often information is just yours when you when you're ready for it. But

Emanuele Pani (13:41.081)

There was a lack of courage the moment that I realized that things weren't working out. And my unwillingness to be the cause of change due to the fear of it led to the effects being what they were and what they're still now. So it caused the effect and caused the bad of how things ended.

And I can blame outside circumstances, but the reality is that it's me, the cause of not having courage, the moment the courage required. And so the effects were what the effects were. And now I get to deal with the aftermath of it. And the aftermath of me not being willing to choose myself, the aftermath of not me being willing to have.

the conversations, me not being willing to face what I already knew for a long time before I acted on it. And so I created FX. And

The moment that I found the courage or the moment that I acknowledged that that was that was the route, that was the only way out.

Emanuele Pani (15:08.213)

Everything shifted.

New cause means new effects. But here's what nobody talks about about changing a cause. The old effects don't disappear over time. And this is the hardest part about changing your life. Because you are dealing with today.

The circumstances of today are an effect of the causes of yesterday. And in order for you to create new effects, new circumstances for tomorrow, you gotta change your causes today. All while you're dealing with the fact and circumstances from yesterday. And so you have to be, you get to be aware of this piece of it.

Because this is my story and so this is what's true for me. The feeling that

Surfaced after the divorce with the grief and the guilt and the uncertainty, they needed somewhere to go. And I didn't have the tools yet to let them move through me. And so I found another cause. And that cause was the parting and the cocaine and the night that tune that tuned out everything and it turned into.

Emanuele Pani (16:47.008)

into mornings and I want to be honest with you the way I want somebody else to be honest with with me.

And if there is somebody here listening that has had a a relationship that has had a dance with addiction

Emanuele Pani (17:09.014)

I don't know if this is your story too or not, but my version of it has helped me.

Emanuele Pani (17:18.358)

And my version of it is that I don't regret it. I don't regret that chapter. I don't stand here on a moral high ground looking down at who I was, because that was the best I can do. But what I did realize is that there was a very big difference between consciously choosing to enjoy my vices and being used by my vices.

And for a while I was being used.

The cocaine and the parting wasn't wasn't pleasure, wasn't fun, it was avoidance, it was running. And not the physical kind, the escaping kind. And as I told you guys last week, I was disciplined to the wrong cause. And the effects were showing all over in my life. And so there were two

Moments that changed my life. One was the conversation with with my dear friend. And we were and the funny thing is this happened earlier on, right? It happened just before I was getting ready to go through a divorce. It was like six, seven months before. And I was already kind of kind of spiraling and kind of kind of struggling as he said that to me. And the funny thing is that

Emanuele Pani (18:54.668)

When you have somebody that cares about you and they have a hard conversation with you, you have a choice.

Emanuele Pani (19:09.698)

They're gonna tell you they're gonna tell you the tell you the truth. And then you can choose to receive or react. Because I remember that moment. We were at my favorite place in Miami to go to go dance. It's called Do Not Sit on the Furniture. it's in Miami Beach. And we were sitting outside talking on this sofas in the corner.

And as he said that, it just landed. And I didn't argue. I didn't defend myself. I didn't create a story. Because I I just knew. I knew he was right.

and I realized that I'd been the cause of it. And at that time I also knew

Emanuele Pani (20:12.8)

I wasn't equipped to deal with it. Now, fast forward to the second.

The second moment. And now we're talking about August. It was August fifteenth, twenty twenty four. So we are about ten, eleven months into my separation slash divorce. It's a Thursday. We have the first mediation. I had just come back from Italy. I spent a whole month. Was the first time that I did a month home in the longest time.

My grandpa at the time was still alive and well it was it was great. It was also the first time that I was able to stay consistently sober for an entire month, which was great. And I came back from that month in Italy because this mediation was happening, August fifteenth, a Thursday. And I was really I had really high hopes that it was gonna be

a turning point. And it didn't go it didn't go well. And so I I sent a text to a friend that worked at Dunosit. And I was like, hey Gurley, can you just add me to the list? I'm gonna come down tomorrow, Friday. And I just need I just need an escape. And

Emanuele Pani (21:52.022)

I went there that Friday and

I had all the things in my pockets that I usually left the house with and and I was ready to escape. And I was sitting outside, kinda similar to where I was sitting with my friend Ricardo. And

Emanuele Pani (22:17.592)

And as I sat there surrounded by people that by that point I knew. They knew my name, I knew the bouncers, I knew the bartenders, I knew the regulars. And for the first time...

It just didn't hit the spot.

And I looked around at what I called entertainment, what was my escape, and I just felt hollow. And not because those people weren't what they were before, because I now thought less of them, not because there was anything wrong with that world, but because I had outgrown the cause.

So I had an emotional reaction to the effect. Mediation didn't go well. Emotional reaction, habitual response. And also the cause, me, had done so much work that as I was there, I realized that I had outgrown the cause. I had danced my feelings off.

I was ready.

Emanuele Pani (23:35.998)

And that readdiness that readdiness, babes, is a cause too.

And as you're becoming the CEO of your life, you get to be ready for it. Because until you're ready to become the cause

akay the CEO of your life in this particular analogy that I'm giving you. It's just the effect is just not gonna happen. And the moment you become truly ready, the effects will start to change.

Emanuele Pani (24:15.34)

Because you did a single thing differently. You just shifted. Something little shifted within you. And I remember driving home that night and something was different. And I didn't need to announce it. I didn't need to make a declaration. I just chose differently. That night was a vote.

I mean it was the first vote for the version of me that I actually wanted to be. And I never went back. I never looked back.

Emanuele Pani (24:58.752)

And here's what I want you to understand about everything that I just shared. Every effect I experienced, the stagnation at secrets, the road, the pushing, the grinding, the marriage ending, the addiction, the hollow nights, every single one of them was caused by something I was choosing, consciously or unconsciously. Courageously or not.

But so was every shift. The growth that made me too big for that container was a cause. The courage to ask for the divorce, a cause.

The august fifteenth moment. A cause. This show is a cause.

And so understand that you are always the cause. And the question is never whatever you're causing. The question is whatever you're causing consciously or by default.

Emanuele Pani (26:17.014)

And here's the piece that I want to that I want to leave you with before we close.

Emanuele Pani (26:25.982)

I have no judgment towards that chapter of my life. I carry no resentment towards myself or anybody in my life. Why? Because I understand that A, I am the lead cause of every single effect in my life. And B that I wouldn't be here without those experiences. Because all of those chapters taught me something.

Emanuele Pani (26:55.328)

Every single one of your chapters has also taught you something. And as Napoleon Hill said, every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit. Every effect, even the one that hurt, even the ones that are uncomfortable, contains the cause of something better.

If and this is the question, this is always the question, if you're willing to look at it, if you're willing to do the work.

And so this week, one question What effect in your life right now are you still pretending has nothing to do with you?

Emanuele Pani (27:48.46)

And once again be kind. Don't judge yourself. Don't be hard on yourself. Just an honest mirror as the CEO of your life.

Who is willing to look at the results, the effects, and trace them back to the cause. Because the moment you do,

The moment you're willing to say, I caused this, which means I can change this, is the most powerful moment.

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A human being can have.

Emanuele Pani (28:30.858)

Not because it's comfortable, but because it's it's really, really true. And truth alongside awareness, Babes, as you know by now, are the beginning of all change and the beginning of freedom. You're not the victim of your life. You've never been. You're the author.

And so pick up the pen and start writing a new story.

Emanuele Pani (29:07.246)

Ciao Guys