Transcription
When you pray for rain, you got to deal with the mud, too. You will never feel this level of happiness if you don't go for something. And you negotiate with your body to find more strength. But don't you give up on me, Brock. You keep going. You hear me? You keep going. You're doing good. You keep going. Do not quit on me. You keep going. It hurts. I know it hurt. You keep going. You keep going.
I'll tell you this. In any fight, it's the guy who's willing to die who's going to win that itch. I'm playing to win. And to win, I will destroy you. I will do everything to win. And I need to win because when I win is my is my proof that I am I am alive. Uh nothing was going to stop me except death. And I'm not a tough guy. I just had no idea that anything was going to stop me. I had no idea of failure. I had only just like I'm going forward.
It's a man's game tonight now. You know that. It's a man's game tonight. Here we come. Here we come. It's a man's game now. It's like the pillow feels soft and comfortable. Yeah. And the alarm clock is banging on my head and I don't like it. But you know what? I know it's worth it to get up and get after it. I know it's worth it. And you know it's worth it. Here's the thing though. We all know it's worth
I am cold. I am emotionless. I am zen at peace. Ready for war. I go to the core. I am invictus. Are you happy? What's wrong with you? I'm driven. I'm obsessed. And that's what you see. The fact that the fear of the thing is only present when the thing hasn't started. When it feels scary to jump, Ian, that is exactly when you jump. We can stay here, get the kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell.
Winning is for the obsessed. You must be obsessed if you want to win. You must be obsessed with the goal, the journey, the outcome, the experience, the rejections, the resilience, the grit. And throughout that journey, as you hit these micro wins, celebrate them and then lock back in. You got to do it alone. And people will help you. And once you when you get the ball rolling, people will jump on. But if you don't believe, nobody else is going to believe. people come along because your belief is so insane that your belief is so strong that makes people be like, "Yo, this crazy."
It's the number one ingredient is hunger. If somebody's got a hunger that doesn't go away, not a hunger to lose some weight for the summer. I'm talking about hunger to be more, to do more, to create more, to become something, to give something that matters. That kind of hunger that doesn't go away. That's what you see in like I'm sure you know Richard Branson. He's a good friend. You know, Richard is 74 years old and he has the same hunger as he did when he was 16 starting Virgin in a crypt. You know what I mean? That's there. Anybody who has that component that's alive in them is going to succeed. And hunger though usually comes from not having things so well. We think it's further away than it is. And because we think it's so far away, Jay, we create patterns and behaviors in our life that perpetually keep it there.
There's a moment when every boy realizes no one's coming to save him. And that's when he becomes a man. And some boys never get there and stay children forever. Start doing the thing that you want and live your life fully. It's similar to that idea that when you've reached a particular level of personal development, you'll be able to. But this is even more ground floor than that. this is more applicable to more people because even if you're not doing personal growth, there is this sense that you're just going to delay gratification. Like you don't have to be the best, but you have to be dangerous, right? You have to learn just enough to be dangerous to build an idea, concept it, and show it to the world. And then it turns out there are lots of other people, including all 170 employees that work at Instagram, who are much better at doing all that stuff than I am.
And these are all reminders to myself is you want to be rich and anonymous, not poor and famous. You'll fall in love with your own intelligence, boy, and you're going to be in some sort of trouble because I don't care how smart you are, you're not smart enough. And that is not the only virtue. The magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding, dude. The magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. If it's if what's driving you to ascend that hierarchy is because it's going to make you better and the people around you better, that's good. If you're doing it for your own ego though, that's a problem. Mhm.
It's so easy to be great nowadays, my friend, cuz most people are weak. Most people don't want to go to that extra mile. Most people don't want to find that extra cuz it sucks. It's miserable. It's lonely. Game on the line. Who would take the last shot? Me? That's a dumb question. Me. People who obsess about work life balance are typically mediocre at both. Obsessed people apply their obsession to everything and just call it life. I don't apologize. In the end, I don't care whether you love me or you hate me, just as long as I win.
How many people in the plan? How many people in this planet? That's what around 5 billion people, 6 billion. I said I could be every one of them in a fair fight. You need to get on it. You need to be in here every day. You're You're almost out of time. You're 22. You're late. You have to have no fear. You have to have no fear. You have to You have to believe in who you are and what you do and just go get it. Whatever you do, runners, right now, just don't think about the 135 miles of scorching highway in front of you. You won't die. And if you do die, you won't care because you'll be dead. Best case, you win. Worst case, it won't matter. And you just keep punching and punching.
And believe it or not, times, you know, get good. And it goes back to what I once again preach. When times are really bad, we forget they're ever going to be good again. And when times are really good, we forget they're going to be bad again. And we need to always remember that so the paddle doesn't get you. Testosterone has some very interesting effects on the brain. The the major mental effect of testosterone is it makes effort feel good. Lazy people do a little work and think they should be winning, but winners work as hard as possible and still worry if they're being lazy. Know that if you have big goals and big dreams along the way, failure is going to happen. So, how fast do you get up from that? For me, anger was good. Anger was good because it was motivating. The more I could create an enemy, the more I wanted to go out and kill those guys. This is where we hold them. This is where we fight. This is where they die. Get rich or die trying. Yeah. Either I'm going to get rich or I'm going to die in the process. And then if I die in the process, I was doing what I wanted to do.
Somebody out there say they're working harder than you. Lay it up. Somebody up. Let's go. See, I'm not a monster. I'm a man of my word. I'm I'm a big believer that you should only listen to somebody or take advice from people who have bigger dreams for your life than you do. Mhm. And I think most people don't have bigger dreams for you, which means that for me, like their advice is invalid. Your haters will become your congratulators. And the more stones they throw at your ass, your mans ain't going to get bigger. Retired Navy Seal David Gogggins is described as one of the toughest men on the planet. I had to build the I had to build this callous mind and I built it through suffering. Everyone will always underestimate you. You must make them pay for it. Go through the motions. Lift the weights. Sprint the hill. Work on the project. get out of bed.
It always takes me back to that quote of Marcus Aurelius who had a slave that would sit behind him and always whisper to him, "Hey, you're just a man. You're just a man." That was impressive. Well, Steven, I didn't beat him to impress you. I beat him because that's what I do. I don't follow orders. I don't bend a knee. I win. There's a quote that I've fallen in love with. The magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. Dude, the magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. It's time to get back to work. Stop hearing yourself talk. Get off the podcast. Don't be on social media too much. Cut out all the noise. Get back to the mental lab. Do you fear anybody? No. No. If you're if you're up willing to fight me, we can fight. No problem. Come and try me. Anyone. Take the biggest risks of your entire life right now. Remember, you have time. Let me be very clear. [Music] I'll never give up. Never.
I guess it comes down to a simple choice really. Get busy living. You'll get busy dying. Shouldn't stop this. Were your father? I'm stopping this one now. Don't. Okay, let me finish. I got to prove it. Prove it. Why? I'm not a mistake. Pain motivates significantly faster and stronger than pleasure does. Like people are like, "No, passion is the right way." It's like point a gun at a family member. All of a sudden, 10 out of 10 motivation. Pain. He was looking at me and he just had this like look and he's just swinging his hands and I said, "You're not going to beat me. I'm prepared to die." And I meant that, man. I swear to God on my life, I meant that.
What you need is the one thing I talk about my book, which is straight up brutal work ethic. You have to be willing to outwork everybody in the world. That if you want some kind of a good outcome, you're going to have to work hard for it. And if you and if you don't work hard for something, you're not going to get an outcome that's really worth much. It's not a bad thing to be unique. It's not a bad thing to be different. It's not a bad thing to be comfortable with yourself regardless of what everybody else around you is doing. On this rematch, he should have killed me when he had the chance cuz now I'm back and I'm going to kill you and your whole team. You are them. In my mind, I'm always the best. I don't care what the people thinking, what they say. In my mind, not just this year, but always. I'm always the best. I'm always going to say that.
These are the years when a man changes into the man he's going to become the rest of his life. Just be careful who you change into. But I'm telling you right now, this is my life, and I'm willing to die to beat you. I will die to beat you. Know that. All right. Be prepared to do that, Louie. A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory. Remember that. I dreamt this so much so clearly so precisely and so frequently that it has manifested itself into reality. And that's what we uh that's what I am feeling right now. It's it's a dream come true. If you're in a fight, you have to attack. You have to keep attacking. The enemy has to know he is not going to give up. You must break the soul of whatever the is in front of you.
Am I happy? I don't know. Never really thought about it. Don't really care about it. Cuz all I really cared about was when I looked in that mirror, I saw a piece of [ __ ] Happiness wasn't on the mirror at 16. Come on, you scared coward. You got man enough to [ __ ] with me. You can't last two minutes in my world, [ __ ] Look at you scared now, you ho. Scared like a little white [ __ ] Scared of the real man. You know, if I see something, I see opportunity, I'm going to go for it. You know what I'm saying? We only, you know, we're all going to die one day. Yeah, it's true. So, we live like that. Live like you could die tomorrow, you know, go for it.
What broke him down? Was it just body punching? When I was I was hitting him with body punching. I heard him actually he was crying in there making woman gestures like I can't how mind it. But I knew that he was breaking down. I just cracked one day and I was like happiness because it felt so out of reach that I was like just it I'm just not I'm not even I'm not even going to shoot for it. I'm just going to do stuff. Small minds discuss other people. Gossip. Good minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas. People either survive in the jungle or exist in the zoo. Few recognize the significance of the paradoxical reconciliation of the two.
You see this guy here staring back at you? Yeah. That's your toughest opponents. Every time you get into the ring, that's who you're going against. I believe that in boxing and I do believe that in life. You don't become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Outwork your self-doubt. That's it. That's it. Nailed nailed. Because I have a vision. I have my confidence. And I believe in myself. People call it arrogant. I call it confidence. Ignorant people call it arrogant. Intelligent people call it confidence. You're just a correct. You're honestly that's not me trying to be some after school special. You really are. Real men ain't doing it. Real men don't care about that gossipy. Get to work, man. Why be normal when you can be the best? I don't want to be normal. I want to make the difference. So everything I do, I want to make the difference because when I make the difference, I'm the best. And that is not arrogance.
they just comfort us. Uh, you know, greatness is not meant for a few chosen people. It's it's meant for those who persistently pursue their dreams every day and make that choice when they wake up. So, um, just a mentality really in this lifetime, you don't have to prove nothing to nobody except yourself. And after what you've gone through, if you haven't done that by now, it ain't going to never happen. is there's human beings that have different temperament and different minds and different mentality and a ruthless competitive drive that's almost terrifying to the the ordinary person. And so nothing is easy like running is running. It sucks. But you have a choice to make. Do you want to sit down and go back to that guy you once were? No. So this is what it takes.
I've ridiculed everyone on the roster. I just want to say from the bottom of me heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody. The double champ does what the he wants. Nobody believes in you. You've lost again and again and again. The lights are cut off, but you're still looking at your dream, reviewing it every day, and say to yourself, "It's not over until I win." Your biggest enemy is you. My whole book is about you battling yourself. People don't understand is you against you. The only person that gets in your way is you. Nobody else. It's you.
If you pan it down here, you see it's about 3:00 in the morning and there's not a car or a person in sight. If you pan over here, it's the same thing. Not a car or a person in sight. The purpose is you. We forget that. Every day I wake up and I don't want to do some I'm like, "Okay, man. Do you want to be a Today, do you want to feel like a little? Do you want to walk around all day knowing that you could but you didn't?" Next time I call you directly, you'll pick up the phone. Logan, let me give you the ABCs of me. I don't take meetings, I set them. And my respect isn't demanded. It's earned.
If you believe it, if you really believe that you could be something, if you have that little voice in your head saying, "Hey, you got talent. You could do this." Then follow that voice. It's amazing thing about passion. If you love something, if you have a strong passion for something, you would go to the extreme to try to understand or try to get it. Don't give in to the immediate gratification that is whispering in your ear. Shut that down. Do not listen to that little voice. When your excuses make you feel a little bit better about the fact that you didn't execute on what you needed to execute on, then they can make you feel better. But they're not helping you. They're not helping you at all. Look at all those people down there. They follow the rules for what? They're letting fear lead them. What happens if they don't? Life's simple. You make choices and you don't look back.
We have the ability to go in such a space if you're willing to suffer. And I mean suffer. Your brain and your body once connected together can do anything. I was so driven. I'm not I'm not gonna say motivated because motivation is crap. Motivation comes and goes. When you're driven, whatever's in front of you will get destroyed. There's nothing out there for me. And that's the problem. You hung up your cape and your cow, but you didn't move on. You never went to find a life, to find someone. Alfred, I did find someone. I know. And you lost them. But that's all part of living, sir. But you're not living. You're just waiting, hoping for things to go bad again.
This is kind of part of being a man. It's like you kind of got to it all up a little bit. I think so. I think part of learning is dying. I think part of learning is you got to die a little bit because what is learning? Learning is me giving up on my old my old ideas. Those ideas have to die for me to be open to some new [ __ ] And so me learning how to be a better man, I had to die a little bit. Cuz I think right now if I was to quit rapping and I said, "I want to go to the NBA." I would be in the NBA. No, you would. Yes. No, you would. Yes, I would. No, you would. Yes, I would. Why would you think you could make it to the NBA? Cuz I think I could do anything. Anything in life that you put your mind to, you can do. The world The world is your oyster. That's all I tell people.
It was life and death. Either you live or you die. Which one do you want, Tom? That was the decision in the corporate life and in the gym. But if you want something bad enough, if you want something bad enough, you can't let anybody tell you you can't do something. I'll repeat that. If you want something bad enough, you can't let anybody tell you you can't do something. Not even yourself. Here's the thing you have to do. You have to jump. There is no way around. You have to jump. Every successful person has jumped. You got to jump. You got to take a leap of faith. You got to dash off that cliff and you got to jump out there as far as you can. How bad do you want this? If it's as bad as you want to live or breathe or sleep, whatever the hell it may be, I can work with you. But a lot of people, most people don't want it that badly. Which why they always ask the question, man, how did you get to where you are? you know how to do it. You know exactly how to be you or how to be me. You don't want to do it.
And after the game is over, I'm like I I have to ask this guy. Like I I have to understand like why why he he works like that. So after the game is over, I'm like, "Hey, Cove, like why why were you in the gym for so long?" He's like, "Cuz I saw you come in and I and I wanted you to know that it doesn't matter how hard you work that I'm willing to work harder than you." Wow. People say you you have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing and it's totally true. And the reason is uh is because it's so hard that if you don't, any rational person would give up. It's really hard and you have to do it over a sustained period of time. So if you don't love it, if you're not having fun doing it and you don't really love it, uh you're going to give up.
Nobody cares. You know, at the end of the day, nobody cares what we're going through, how your body feels. Nobody cares. we got to we got to do our job. Life life is tough sometimes and it's not fair and it doesn't care sometimes. Um but you're going to hold true to what you believe and you're going to hold true to who you are and you're going to be that person whether it's easy or it's not. And that's the standard that I'm going to hold my children to and that's the standard I hold myself to. If I can't do it, then how can I tell them to do it? Like I'm 54 years old right now like that. I mean it just blew by. And uh you think when you're young that you have all this time, you have no time. There's there there's no time. I mean, one of the the quotes on the wall in the gym in there is um you know, there is no tomorrow from from from Rocky 3.
It's your brother, your mom, your friend. The one comment they're going to say, you've changed. Why are you doing another kick like this? Oh, you're going to try that now. Okay, here we go again. And the thing is is that it's not about them being right or wrong again. It's about how right and how wrong they could be. He had a great quote that said, "Rest at the end, not in the middle." And that's something I always live by. You know, I'm not going to rest. I'm going to keep on pushing. Now, there are a lot of answers that I don't have. Even questions that I don't have, but I'm just going to keep going. I'm just going to keep going and I'll figure these things out as it go. Right? And you just continue to build that way. So that I try to live by that all the time.
People think that you should be weak and you should be docile and then you you you should be a pacifist. He goes, "No, you should be a monster." He said, "You should be a monster. You should be ruthlessly ambitious and then learn how to control it." And it's that old expression, it's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. Why go to a tournament if you're not going there to try and win? There's really no point in even going. Um, that's the attitude I've had my entire life and that's the attitude I will always have. Um, as I would explain to my dad, second sucks and third's even worse. Um, that's just a feeling. But on tour, that's not too bad sometimes though. That's not too bad, but I've I want to win. Um, that's just my nature.
There's no luck in this game. It may be a little bit of luck, but the luck happens after you bust your ass and you put yourself in that lucky situation. Luck doesn't happen. You put yourself in that situation where luck might happen. And that's what people don't know. But to get there, luck ain't going to happen. You have to put yourself in that situation, man. It takes a lot of work. You're not even motivated yourself. Like, I want to see I want to wake you up at 3:00 in the morning. Go, come on, man. We're going running. Like, let me see. I want to see what you do when you're tired. Let me see how you push yourself. Come on, man. Get up. Get up again tomorrow. Get up again tomorrow. Get up again tomorrow. The next day. Get up. Get up. Get up. Get up. Keep going.
How long can you maintain a positive attitude? Where's all this teaching? You're teaching people you can't do yourself. They You need to show people that you could do it. Like, I see a lot of players take vacations with other players that are close friends. And I'll just take vacations just to take vacations or just hang out just to hang out. Like I I'm not I never did that. Though why why why didn't you do that? What? Well, because when I retire, I didn't want to have to say I wish I would have done more. I don't want that.
It takes more effort to start in the beginning. And more people are right about the fact they're like, "Hey, you're not going to hit it big." And guess what? A month in, you're not. But they're only measuring on months. And at 6 months, you're also not going to have hit it big yet. And they're going to be like, "I'm still right." And at a year, you're still not going to have hit it big. and they'll still be right. And every day that you haven't hit it, they're going to feel like they were right. But they're wrong because they're measuring in days and you're measuring in decades. A huge fight for your career, a huge fight for the sport. What does tomorrow night mean to you, Joe? In 16 hours time, this man is going to learn that if you disrespect a person's kindness and take it as a weakness, you must pay. Tomorrow night, I'm going to make this man pay with his life. And I mean it. You're dead in that offic tomorrow night.
The thing is with me is I don't give a [ __ ] I don't give a give a what anybody says or what anybody thinks. I have this mindset. I know exactly who the I am. I have my circle of people that I hang around with who know me and know what I'm about and whatever. And uh anybody else who doesn't like it or doesn't want to bad. Okay. The bad days create the story that I'm one day going to tell myself about what I got through. You know what I mean? Yeah. Without the bad days, the story would be way more lame. There would be no glory in overcoming anything cuz what did you overcome? It was all just 40 to 60, you know, vanilla ice cream mush gray like existence. Yeah.
And every morning you wake up, you hold yourself accountable to that mission, not accompanies your own. Make up your own mission statement. What do you want to be in life? And once you do that now, you can work with somebody to get better. You can work with yourself to get better. But until you know what you want to stand for, you will always just be sitting down. You'll never stand for anything. You just got to weather it and keep on walking and no flinch. Don't let them know they got you. Don't let them know they got you. You just got to keep on going. No matter what the day is, no matter what the move is, keep going.
God gave us everything to point forward to go forward. And what we doing at a standstill or stepping back? Cuz we don't do that. We keep on walking regardless of what they say, what they think, and how they feel. That's what angers do. That they can't affect us. Fear is a mile wide and an inch deep. And so it looks like this ocean that you're going to step into and drown. But as soon as you step into it, you realize it was not that deep at all. And you can keep walking through it. And um I just love that visual because a lot of times when it's like you have this anxiety around this big decision we have to make, if you actually take the step and realize that it's not death, you're not going to drown immediately. There's plenty of other steps you can take from there.
Even if you get a little wet, if you want to change your life, you must change your ways. You must develop discipline. You must develop strength. It doesn't matter where you are in life. It really doesn't. Because the great thing about life is it's always your next move. Your next move that counts. There's a saying when the devil ignores you, then you know you're doing something wrong. Wait a minute. I'm not done now. You know, the devil goes, "Oh, no. Leave him alone. He's my favorite." Right. Father him. Yeah. Conversely, when the devil comes at you, maybe it's because you're trying to do something right.
The confidence comes from preparation, you know? So when the game's on the line, I'm not asking myself to do something that I haven't done thousands of times before. Right? So when I prepare, I know what I'm capable of doing. I know what I'm comfortable doing and I know what I'm not comfortable doing. Right? So in those moments, if it looks like I'm ice cold or not nervous, it's because I've done it thousands of times before. So what's one more time? It is astounding how many people want to be spectacular in life, but also want to fit in and be normal. Like by being normal, you are by definition aiming for average. Normal people get normal results. Weird people get weird results. You literally can't do what everyone else does and not expect to get what everyone else has by doing what everyone else does. You guarantee average results.
Some people it's attractive and they go, I want to do that too. Like you seem pretty happy despite all the stress you're under. Like how are you doing that? And I'll tell people that cuz I create my own bull and my own way harder than whatever I'm facing in the world. And that's how I mitigate the stress of success and pressure and criticism and all that stuff. Like I do to myself way worse than they're ever going to do to me. So that's that's how I mitigate it. Also, hard work looks horrible. It's not motivating. It's not motivating at all. It ain't like Rocky round 14. He gets knocked down. He goes to Apollo Creed. Looks like a man being stuck in a dungeon and there's no way out, but you have to be but you refuse to use it. And that's nothing motivating about that. For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain, there can be no mercy. There is but one rule. Hunt or be hunted. Welcome back. [Music]
I'm alone and look at me. There's nobody around me. Nobody likes me, man. It is what it is. Sometimes in life, people are not going to be around you to motivate you. They're not going to be around you to push you, to celebrate you, to applause you. You got to do it on your own. That's what I'm doing right now. Your time is limited. So don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
What have you learned about how to deal with and overcome fear? Go. when all that all that uh fear that's in your head, all the whatifs and the scenarios that you create inside your own mind that are way worse than anything that is actually going to happen, they all disappear when you go. So just just take action and and start moving forward. The biggest advice I could give you right now, the biggest advice that anybody could give you, and this is not my words. Woody Allen told me this. He said, I said, Woody, what's the secret to success? He said, 85 to 90% of life is just showing up. Show up. If you show up, there's a chance something could happen.
I will not be outworked. period. You know, you might have more talent than me. You might be smarter than me. You might be sexier than me. You might be all of those things. You got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, right? There's two things. You're getting off first or I'm going to die. It's really that simple. No matter what you do, you're all in. This is going to kill you. So, I think you might as well play the most magnificent game you can while you're waiting because do you have anything better to do? Really, why not pick the best thing possible that you could do? Why not do that? Maybe you could justify your wretched existence to yourself that way. I think you could. That's what it looks like.
To get anything of value, you have to sacrifice. I know that, Dad. But I think if we continue down this road, it's going to be too detrimental for the kids. It's just too hard. Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy. Easy doesn't enter into grownup life. It's up to you. The ball's in your court. No more around. You want your life to be better. I can't help you. Lee can't help you. Joe Roden can't help you. Sorry, can't help you. God can't help you. Only you can help you. Grab your balls. Get a notebook and write down what the [ __ ] you're going to do this year. And this is it. You're not going to have these problems. The drugs, the cigarettes, that dumb. It all starts today. All right. No more excuses.
And my personal question to you is why not you? You've got the brains. You can make decisions. You can study the plan. You can change your life. You can grow immensely in the next few years. You can make your dreams come true. You can build a financial wall around your family. Nothing can get through. You can become healthy. You can become powerful. Why not you? There is a hook in me. [Music] One that you cannot see. But it is there. [Music] And you'd think I have a choice. There is no choice. Look, the fire is coming. Are you ready for the fire? The We're firemen. Okay, we are firemen. Got it, folks. The heat doesn't bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. Yes. It tells us that we're ready. We're at home. We're where we're supposed to be. Flames don't intimidate us. What do we do? We control the planes. We control them. We move the planes where we want to. Let's go. And then we extinguish them.
If there was a big meta indicator that you're doing the right thing, doing what everyone isn't doing is already probably the big the single biggest indicator that you're doing the right thing. Like it's a it's the if if if I could wish nothing else on my child whenever I choose to have them in the future is that they have high agency which is that they are they make decisions independent from the opinions of other people and when we hear words like authentic and original and things like that it's because the person starts at square one and says well what do I want and then they start building from there. It's all in your mind. Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. You will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind.
Um there's a book called Celesteing Prophecy. Well, what I like about it is I'm doing something I don't want to do. Every time I start doing things I don't want to do, I grow. Yes. That is a that's a lesson that people need to hear and learn. It's so important because everybody just wants to be comfortable. Everybody wants to sit on the I don't want to go outside. It's cold. I don't want to do this. It's hot. Like you've got to do things that you don't want to do cuz you show your body that your mind is the boss. Your mind is telling your body what to do and then you have control. I cannot stress this enough. The more you put into anything in life, the more you're going to get out. Now, for whatever reason, people understand this. And they understand that the more you put into building a business, the more you're going to get out of it. The more hours you spend working on anything, the more you are going to get out. Work pays.
You're a man. You are a man. Stand up and be a man. Make the hard decisions. Make the sacrifices. make the unpopular decisions and become comfortable in your own skin. And if you are not a person that you are comfortable being alone with, that is the one person in this universe that you have full power, full right, and full responsibility to change. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place. Listen, I don't care how tough you are. It will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done.
Eagles fly alone. I have no friends. Friends are problems. Friends are challenges. If you can't if you aren't into yourself, and that means something else now than what I mean. If you're not into yourself enough that you can't spend the weekend by yourself, then you're something's wrong with you. Visa v self-esteem, being a high performance person and accomplishing the high performance acts, something's wrong with you. Reminder that if you want to be exceptional, you're going to be different from everyone else. That's what makes you exceptional. You can't fit in and also be exceptional. Both have discomfort. When you fit in, you have internal conflict because you're not being 100% you. When you're exceptional, you have external conflict because everyone sees you as different. Pick one.
When your friends start to say you've changed, remember it's because they don't know how to say you've grown. You know, some of y'all are motivated by broke. I'm broke. I'm stuck. I'm up. I can't do nothing. Some of y'all are motivated by just wanting to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish. Other folks are motivated by materialistic things. It's a very simple concept. If you want it, you got to go get it. One of my favorite things from Marcus Aurelius is the whole universe is change and life itself is but what we deem it. Mhm. Life itself is but what we deem it. The eight most profound words in all of philosophy. What he means is that things are going to happen. You are going to have experiences in life. Almost all of the important impacts of how those experiences change you are going to be the story that you tell yourself about what that experience means.
And I dedicate this fight. I wasn't going to fight. I dedicated this fight to him. I was going to rip his heart out. I'm the best ever. I'm the most brutal in Michigan. Most ruthless champion there's ever been. There's no one can stop me. Lynx is a conqueror. No, I'm Alexander. He's no Alexander. I'm the best ever. There's never been anybody as ruthless. I'm Sunny List and I'm Jack Dempsey. There's no one like me. I'm from their claw. There's no one that can match me. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah.
There's a certain delusional quality that all successful people have to have. As I sit here before you right now, as honestly as I can say it to you, I truly believe that I could be the president if I wanted to. And as bizarre as that may sound to people that have traveled the path before me and to people who actually know how difficult it is, foolish Will Smith honestly believes it's listen every day when you get out of bed, life standing right there to kick you in the face, man. Could be anything. Could be you get up and you walk downstairs, you got a flat tire and you're late for work and you got this and that. Life is going to throw all kinds of crazy at you, right? And you have to be ready for it and you got to deal with it. Can't curl up into a ball. You can't run away from it. You can't hide. You have to take all this head on. You have to get up every every day when I get up for out of bed, I strap up and I'm getting ready for war.
I'm obsessed with finding myself now uh after and and not having to prove anything to anybody other than myself and my family, you know, but really myself and realizing that that is enough. You know what I'm saying? Like that like giving your best is enough. And and sometimes we lose track of that, you know, and and Yeah. So for anybody out there, you know, you're enough, man. There are no solutions, only trade-offs. What's that mean to you? That you're never going to completely solve anything in your life or in the world. And there's always going to be compromises that you have to make. And if you aren't willing to make those compromises or you don't keep your mind open for those compromises, you're going to run into some real problems. But if you look at it and the fact that you know you might put a little more effort over here and it's going to take away from some effort over there. You can't just do everything at once. So yeah, no solutions only trade-offs.
Every morning I lose I lose sweat. I lose time. I lose peace. I lose sweat. I lose time. I lose sight. I lose sway. I lose time. Lose track. And I lose track after drop after drop after drop. Going the distance. Losing. So I know I always win. Following your dreams is a lonely, solitary, scary, dangerous pursuit. You can't wait for somebody to think you can do it. And it's like they they cuz they don't think you can do nothing they can't do. Exactly. They don't. You know what I mean? It's like it it's a lonely, scary, dangerous pursuit. And you got to be willing to risk everything to become that seed of what you believe is in there. You got to be fearless. You got to be relentless.
You wake up right to work immediately. Your mind is in action. No one wants to do that. No one. And I don't blame them. But don't be mad when you're laying there in your bed and you're in the hospital and you're 70, 80, 90 years old and you're thinking, man, I feel like I didn't do something cuz you did. You didn't do it. You didn't do [ __ ] You may have lived a great life, man, but you're always going to feel empty inside. I don't feel empty. So, if you wake up in the morning and you don't want to do something, you don't care enough about yourself. And that's what you need to really research is man why am I not doing this for myself because that is that is the number one purpose in life is to better oneself. So that's the only purpose I need. So the reason I get up every day even though there's no race or there's no school there's nothing in front of me is because I have pride in myself.
There's no losing only learning. There's no failure, only opportunities. And there's no problems, only solutions. So, to me, what failure is, failure is the mother of all success. If it wasn't for Michael Jordan getting cut from his ninth grade basketball team, he wouldn't have became Michael Jordan. You know, if it wasn't for uh Oprah Winfrey and how she got fired because she wasn't good for television. You got people like Walt Disney who got fired, if I'm not mistaken, from a newspaper saying he had no imagination. These are the same people that I got to deal with. Tell me what's not what's not a hit record. But I learned along the way, everything that's happening to you is God is processing. Every difficult moment you're having, he just processing. That's all he doing. Everything you're going through is
preparing you for what you ask God for. And if you need to be tough when you get to where you going, then he going to toughen you. If you got to be more caring along the way, he going to let you have some trials come your way that's going to have to produce that in you.
Find something difficult to do. You need that. You're not built for comfort or pleasure. Like if that comes along, good. You know, if you have a day where you're comfortable and there's some things around you that give pleasure, have some sense and enjoy it. But don't be thinking that's what your life is aimed at. That's contemptable. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that. And if they orient themselves in that hedonistic direction, there's nothing in it but shame.
Man, how do you do what you do? At the end of the day, I ask myself one question. Can I take one more step? And usually the answer is yes. So if you can answer that question and not take another step, that is real failure. That is real quitting. So, a lot of people can take one more step if they choose not to. I don't know if you can take two steps. You got to answer that question after you take the first step. But I can always take one more steps. If I choose not to, that's on me. I got to live with that.
A little of the poison that kills you will redeem you. Look upon that which you fear and grow. Right? That's the That's the definition of growth. That's how you learn. You go out on the edge and you look at something poisonous and you get stronger, right? And so God thinks, "Well, I'm not going to get rid of the snakes, but I'll make the Israelites stronger." And you asked why we have a challenge in front of it. It's like, "We're here to become stronger. We're not here to be protected." And you get stronger in proportion to your willingness to look at what terrifies you.
And you might have nine failures. I f my first nine businesses didn't really amount to anything. Nine. Nine as in the first one spent time failed. Second one, this one will be different. Failed. Third one, this one. This is the one. And then seven, six more after that. Right? I'm just painting this picture because like it's painful as because the whole time everyone is telling you, I told you so. And they're right today, but not forever.
There's 10,000 times more going on inside the head of a man than you have any idea. He's carrying burdens that you don't have a clue about. And he don't know how to express them and he don't know what to do about it. And he figures if he puts it out there and communicates it, he's just going to be shot down, called a fool, called weak. So he carries it inside. And you have no clue the burdens and the hell that most men are carrying inside and not even showing you. You uh give them this message that it's okay to be a man. It's not okay. It's necessary. What the hell are we going to do without men?
You look around the city here, you see all these buildings go up. These men, they're doing impossible things. They're under the streets working on the sewers. They're up on the power lines in the storms and the and the rain. They're keeping this impossible infrastructure functioning. This thing that works and in miraculous manner they work themselves to death and often literally be the hero of your own movie.
If your life was a movie and it started now, forget about whatever financial disasters you've had, personal failures, relationship failures. What would the hero of your life's movie do right now? Do that. do those things. We define ourselves far too often by our past failures. We look at our past and we say, "Well, that's me." That's not you. You are this person right now. You're the person who's learned from those failures. And you can choose to be the hero of your own movie right now.
Sun don't stop. Sun going to be up in the morning regardless. That sun is going to be up in the morning regard. Regardless of how I feel and how depressed I am, the sun is going to shine in the morning and at night time the moon going to be there and you going to look up these days going to keep going by. So, do you let the days go by and look up and you done wasted a year doing what? Or do you just pick it up? All right. Well, got to figure it out. Made some mistakes. Life goes on. Let me figure out life from this point. I'm a life goes on type of guy.
Going into combat, going into war. Out of the hundred men that go into war, 10 shouldn't even be there. 80 of them are just targets. 10 do most of or nine do most the fighting. One is a warrior. And it's a true quote to life. I saw it going through training. I saw it everywhere I went. There's so many people who just show up to life that shouldn't be around. And there's few people who do all the work. I wanted to be part of that nine and I'm working towards being that one.
Take yourself out your comfort zone. Do not live in your bubble. Put some more air in your bubble. If you stay in your comfort zone, that's where you will fail. You will fail in your comfort zone. Success is not a comfortable procedure. It is a very uncomfortable thing to attempt. So, you got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. If you ever want to be successful, start putting some pressure on. Put some pressure on yourself. Get out here and get about it.
Your motivation. Your motivation. You need discipline cuz motivation's not there every day. Motivate. I'm missing motivation most days. Wow. Really? Some days. Yeah. Sometimes I got motivation. Some days I'm like, "Yeah, today I felt good. I can't wait to get to the gym. A lot of days like that. I get to the gym and then once I get going, then I feel great. And I feel great when it's over. But it's that beginning part that's hard because your body wants to stay comfortable. Your body will trick you like, man, today's take the day off, Theo. You got to feel good. Theo, what did you get like 6 hours sleep last night? That's not enough.
Don't halfass it. Don't halfass it. Boy, that never goes out of style, does it? I mean, think about it. If you're going to do something, if you've chosen to do something, whatever it is, easy heart, if you give it your all and you don't halfass it, win, lose, draw, get what you want, don't get what you want, whatever the outcome is, if you don't halfass it, at least you're not going to have to wonder, oh, would the outcome have been different? What if I did give it my all? And boy, wondering that is what keeps us up at night.
Weak people hear this soft kid. Oh my god, he must be miserable. Oh my god, what the hell's wrong with him? You're missing the story. You're not listening to the story, man. Look what I overcame. If that doesn't put some badge of honor tattooed in your brain for the rest of your life, you can die today talking to Joe Rogan. You're missing the story, man. Am I happy? What the do you think? Don't mis don't misunderstand the passion in which I speak for not being intensely happy happiest person in the world but I'm not done says imagine you're on your deathbed and standing around your deathbed are the ghosts representing your unfulfilled potential the ghost of the ideas you never acted on the ghost of the talents you didn't use and they're standing around your bed angry disappointed and upset they say we we came to you because you could have brought us to life, they say. And now we have to go to the grave together. So I ask you today, [Music] how many ghosts are going to be around your bed when your time comes?
It's not that simple. Why not? No. That's the biggest lie I was ever told. And it's a lie they tell you over and over again. What's not simple? Any of it. All of it. It's how they get you to give up. They say it's not that simple, Vinnie. So, what's the truth? That it is. And you realize it is that simple. That it always was.
How it's so hard to see the good if you're only seeing the bad. Like there's so many people that struggle with what their version of success is because they're looking at someone else's. There's so many people that struggle with their world of relationship because they're judging theirs based off of someone else's. Right? And when you're constantly in the space of not realizing or noticing your world, your reality, because you're living in what appears to be someone else's, well, your [ __ ] is never going to be right. M it's never going to be right.
One thing that I like that helped me is uh you're you're crazy until you're successful. Then you're a genius. And I think for a lot of people when you know you're grinding as a small channel, people think you're too obsessed. You're a weirdo. Stop only making videos. Like get alive. Be realistic. You're you know I mean people will convince you you're out of your mind for wanting to to do this. But then once you're successful they're like yo your drive, your tenacity was great. But it's like, yeah, well, where was that back then? You know what I mean? I didn't get that when I was a small channel. And so, I think you're crazy until you're successful. Then you're a genius.
So, if you're in the woods and you don't know where to go, start walking. You got to start walking cuz the perspective is not going to change. You have to start moving forward. You have to start start taking steps in order to improve your vision, improve your perspective, change your perspective, make some kind of progress. And worst case scenario, you figure out that you walked the wrong direction. Okay, now you can go walk in the other direction, and that's that's going to be fine. But standing there lost and not doing anything is just waiting to die, waiting to starve to death. Don't let that happen.
We're not on this stage just because of talent or ability. We're up here because of 4:00 a.m. We're up here because of 2 a days or five a days. We're up here because we had a dream and let nothing stand in our way. If anything tried to bring us down, we used it to make us stronger. We were never satisfied, never finished, will never be retired.
My high school English teacher, Mr. Fisk. I actually paid attention one time in class and and he said he had this beautiful quote and he and it read, "Rest at the end, not in the