Be That Guy.

It's pushing the water, and there's a jogger. Actually, look at this. Cor, I should stop this with your father. I'm stopping this one now. Don't. Okay, let me finish. I got to prove it. Prove what? I'm not a mistake. It's the what if I can pull off a miracle? What if I can become someone that no one thinks I can be? And just that, just me talking about that, I have the hair going up on my arms because it makes me just like, what if I can be that guy that people who call and this and that? And now I'm speaking at Tom Fair's event. Pressure changes everything. Pressure. Some people, you squeeze them, they focus. Other this fo. Can you summon your talent and will? Can you deliver on a deadline? Can you sleep at night? David Goggins, uh, he wrote, "Be the guy who embraces the ugly, the miserable. Be the guy who embraces hard work, the grind. Don't be afraid of being hurt. Don't be afraid of sacrificing some blood. Kill the boy, John Snow. Kill the boy and let the man be out." The 100 men that go on war, 10 shouldn't even be there. 80 of them are these targets. 10 do most of, or nine do most of 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, they shouldn't even be around. And there's few people who do all the work. I wanted to be part of that, and I'm working towards being that one right now. In life, your family is looking for that one guy right now. They're looking for that one guy who's strong, who's that pillar for the family in hard times. Make sure they look around, they look around and find you. These are the times right now for you to step up. Be that guy that can take anything. You see that look right there? Don't ever let a man see you like that, 'cause you give him the power over you. If you got to take a L, you take it with your head up, chest out, like a man. Dr. Carter had a tear in his eye. I could tell he felt for me. Then he said, "Son, I'm sorry to say, you're not going to box again." And I looked at him. I said, "No, Dr. K, you're wrong. I am going to box again. See, you don't understand what kind of man I am." You are 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. If you had to create a human, what would you put them through to make them tough? It probably wouldn't be a really chill life. What would you put them through to make them patient? You probably wouldn't give them things immediately. And so it's like, we want these traits, but each of the traits has a price tag attached to it. And it's just like, do you want to pay the price tag to get the thing? And so I think if, if people reframe the, the period of life that they're going through as the price that they're paying out of their wallet, but the wallet is their time, is the seconds of life that they're trading for it, then I think more people will be willing to make the trade. Because at least when I look at myself, like when I'm 80 something years old and I'm looking back on my life, I want to have these traits. But in order to have those traits, I know I have to go through these things. And I think for me, that's given me a lot of comfort in hard times. Everything counts. Everything that you do counts. The biggest mistake that people make is they think that only what they want to count counts. No. When you read a book, when you listen to an audio program, when you go to a course, when you go to bed early and get up early and you work, it all counts. And it's all going on the plus side of your ledger. It's the moments in life, the decisions you make on a, on, on a moment-to-moment basis that add up to be the guy or not the guy. Tonight, I did something, you know, that feel more of a guy for me. Who I am. My guy. Partying is weakness for the soul, my friends. So I, I try and avoid it. You're up 20. What's the story? Are you not happy? Or you're only half happy? Or still to be happy about? You're up too old. Job's not finished. Job finished? I don't think so. Yeah. So the goal was to be the first one at breakfast. So I set my alarm. I make sure I'm up by sunrise. I get out of bed. I put on my gear and I head downstairs. But when I get there, Kobe's already there with ice packs on his knees, drenched in sweat. Now, it took me a minute to figure it out, but this guy wasn't only awake before me, he had already worked out. He had just played in the finals days earlier. Meanwhile, I'd been off for months and I was still exhausted. What he had done that morning was incomprehensible to me. That dedication. He had only days after falling short of an NBA championship. That taught me some I've never forgotten. Legends aren't defined by their successes. They're defined by how they bounce back from their failures. And that's what I hope to communicate to anyone watching this. I, I, he, you know, I heard a quote one time from Vincent Van Gogh that really rang true. He said, "He has dedicated his life to his art and he has lost his mind in the process." When I sat and I thought about that, it sounded very familiar. I have given every single thing, every ounce of my life to this craft, to perfecting my craft, and I continue to do so. And in the process, I have lost my mind. But in, in, in a good way. To regular society, to people who wake up at 9:00 AM, who clock out at 5:00 PM, they would look at me and say I've lost my mind. But me, I have found it. Almost. I've got a good question for you. 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? Impossible is nothing to somebody that tries everything. That someone said was impossible has happened. Yeah, 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. Let's do what if. What if? What, what if you lose? I don't even see. I, I can, my consciousness don't even elevate that thought. Therefore, if it happens, you'd be distraught, crazed. What? It's not my nature to allow it to happen. Sometimes life can really hijack your mind. When that happens to you, you're all up. Your goals, your ambitions, everything is out the window. In life, we all go through different things. Sometimes your girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you. Guess what? Get over it. They no longer want you. Maybe you fail a test in school, you worked your off. Guess what? You fail the test. Get over it. Move past it. Learn to not let life hijack your brain. At work, you've been working your ass off for that new promotion. You don't get it. Someone else does. Maybe they kiss better than you do. Guess what? Get over it. Life will hijack your mind if you let it. Don't allow all these things to make you a lesser person. You must own your mind. Don't let life own yours. Get after it and stay hard. You better make sure in the next season of your life that the person who walked away from you knows what they're missing. You better do something with your life. Did you look at me? You better do something so strong and so big with your life that they have to sit on the couch and say, "That's the one that got by, man. I should have just stayed in there a little bit longer. I should have, I should have been a little more patient. I should have prayed a little bit harder." Do something with your life that makes them regret turning you away and turning you over. That means getting better and not bitter. The thing I would say is, when you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is, and you're, your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Uh, uh, try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. Um, but life, that's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can, you can build your own things that other people can use. And George Foreman admits that he gave Muhammad Ali everything he had. And Muhammad Ali grabbed him and pulled him to him. Old man hadn't fought in years, hurt. And Muhammad Ali pulled to him and said, "Is that all you got?" And George Foreman said, when he heard the words, said, "All you got?" It penetrated his spirit and said, "I didn't give my man everything I got. I can't seem to knock him down." And Muhammad Ali said, when he said that to him, he looked into the pupils of his eyes, and he said, "At that point, he knew George Foreman had lost." You know, basketball for me was the most important thing. So everything I saw, whether it was TV shows, whether it was books I read, people I talked to, everything was done to try to learn how to become a better basketball player. Everything, everything. And so when you have that point of view, then literally the world becomes your library to help you to become better at your craft. The world becomes your library to help you improve your craft, better your craft. Yes, indeed. So because you know what you want, the world's giving you exactly the information you 100% at it because you know what you're looking for. You're on that winter arc. I go, I'm on that 365. It's not an arc, it's a circle. It's a circle that keeps going around and round and round. Winter, spring, summer, fall. Love yourself enough to stay motivated. 365 arc. Do a circle. Stay hard. You know, there comes a day, man. Everyone's going to have this day. There comes a day where being average, being mediocre is just sickening to you. It's just sickening. It makes you want to throw up because you've seen people with far less talent than you as you're growing up with them, your childhood buddies, wherever else, they didn't have what you had. Yet now they're going to become something that you haven't. There comes that day. It's either when you're young, you know, and it strikes you on the baseball field 'cause you're sick of striking out, or it's, it's when you get fired from your fifth job, you know, and your wife and kids are on your ass 'cause you don't know how to support them anymore. There comes a day where push comes to shove, where being mediocre, being like average, it just burns it so much you can't deal with it one more day. And you get off your ass and you create something. It's always been there. It's always been inside of you trying to come out. But you've never wanted to unwrap it because it's too much pain and commitment. You were scared you're going to fail. You're scared if you started, you never finish it. You didn't want to tell anyone about it. You knew it was there, but you never wanted to embark on it until something hits you. Get fired, or somebody else gets success, remind you what you could have been. And then the spark is born. And no matter what happens, I'm never going to be in this boat again. And you get up and you go. Even gets knocked down, you just keep going, keep going. You're a wild man. And life has never been so sweet. That can happen at an early age. It can happen at a later age. It's going to happen to somebody. Every, you know, no matter what, it's going to happen to you. And when it does happen to you, thank God. Lucky. These stars that finally you're alive. It's time to unwrap the potential. You can be superior, man. It's within you. It's within every single one of us. And the people that have, that have, have risen to that level were no different than any one of us. They say they believed it, and they're willing to work their ass off to get it. It wasn't about the potential. It wasn't about the genetics. It was about the perseverance. And it was about being the hardest worker in the room. Sometimes you have to go beyond what you're feeling. You know, okay, this hurts, that hurts. We can just sit down and do nothing, or we can see how far we can push the human body to the highest level. Winners do what your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. Your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. Think about every single one of them. Think about it. Your feelings keep you in bed. Your mind tells you, get up. Every single day, your mind is one that tells you get up. And your feelings like, an extra 30 minutes. Just roll over. Don't worry about it. What's the, the central part of your training? Is it running? Is it sparring? Or central part is dodging the nightclubs and the parties and the girls? You know the truth. And being in the bed by yourself at 9:00 at night. And if you can get by that, you'll make it. That's the truth. I tell you the truth, man. If I want to be good, I got to, I got to wake up in the morning. I got to do the extra work. And I got to show up when other guys aren't. And I got to learn. I got to continue to be open to learning. The message I try to deliver to people is, play to win. Don't play to avoid loss. Because the things you fear, the things that's going to happen to you, set that target on something positive. Work for it. Expect it. Get serious. You've really got to get serious. You don't have to be grim, but you must be serious to go from average to fortune. You must get serious. Designing the next five, the next 10 years is so vitally important. What do you want to do economically? Where do you want to go? What do you want to be? What would you like to have? What would you like to share? How much would you like to earn? How far would you like to go? Those are some major questions to ask. Personal development is striving hard to become the kind of person that you want to be. And to become the kind of person you want to be, you've got to work at it. 10 years from now, you will surely become someone. The big question is, who? What are you becoming? And if you go to work on it now, sure enough, in a very short period of time, you can take on a new direction to become the kind of person you want to be. The end of every day, you look yourself in the mirror and you ask yourself, "Did I get better today?" If the answer is yes, and you do that for five years, 10 years, 15 years, how much better are you going to be? Are you getting better every single day? That's the question. And it's just taking small steps. You don't try, try to get it all done in one day, in one week, in one year. It's the process of getting better every day and doing that for a period of years that then creates the masterpiece. Is there any limit to your ambition? No. Or any limit to what you think you can achieve? No. Because I think right now, if I was to quit rapping and said, "I want to go to the NBA," I would be in the NBA. No, you wouldn't. Yes, no, you wouldn't. Yes, I would. No, you would. Yes, I would. Why would you think you could make it to the NBA? Because I think I can do anything. Let me leave you with some words from Muhammad Ali. "Impossible." It's just the big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in a world that they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. "Impossible" is not a fact, it's an opinion. "Impossible" is not a declaration, it's a dare. Two forms of pain. Pain that breaks you, and a pain that changes you. That's the pain of the change right there. That's the pain of progress. The pain that destroys you isn't this. It's later in life knowing you could have been more. And all that's left is you and the mirror, and tears of a possibility left that you allowed to die. Own your life, guys. You have every opportunity. There's no excuse not to be the hardest worker in the room in all your endeavors. School, work, the gym, your career, your relationship. Your needs attached to it. It's got to mean more than anything. Yeah, I go to sleep. I wake up. I work. Go to sleep. Wake up. Work. Do that seven days a week. Yeah. I don't quit. You know, I may not make it the first time, but I'll come back. I got to get my head back in the game. I got to, I got to figure this out. It doesn't mean you leave. It means you study it more. It means you study it more. And and whenever I feel at something, people always say, "Man, how do you handle failure?" Man, I don't look at failure as failure. I look at failure as your first, second, third, fourth, fifth attempt. I look at them as attempts. I don't look at anything as failure. Not trying is failure. I will never quit because if you quit, you're done. You may still be alive, walking around on this earth, you're done. I will never quit. I will persevere and I will thrive on adversity. My team expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than our opponents. I hold myself to that standard. People don't see that. People will never understand. To be successful, you know, all they think about, well, he batted 202, you know, and he struck out a certain number of times. Yeah, okay. You know, but the effort was there, and the learning curve, and the passion was there. That has transcended not just to me, but to other people who are afraid to do things because they're worried about the perception that may come from other places. To me, that's more gratifying than anything. You know, um, so that's the things that my father and my mother instilled in me. Take a negative and turn it into a positive. Don't be afraid to fail. The unfulfilled potential is the story of most people's lives. It is. It is. And it could have been the story of mine. And I tell a lot of people, people go, "What's your biggest fear in life?" And my biggest fear, honestly, was that's not me, man. And God looks at me and says, "That's who you were supposed to be." I was going to work that hard every single day so that when I do retire, I have no regrets. And that was the most important thing for me is to leave no stone unturned. Get better every single day. And if I live that way, then over time, you know, I'd have something that was beautiful. But that was my philosophy. It seems like a pretty simple one, but you know, if you live your life to just get better every single day, you do that for 20 years, I mean, what do you have? My personal goal is to squeeze every ounce of potential out of whatever I have. And I think that if you feel like you have potential left over, then it will eat you alive until you do something about it. Almost every successful person that I have ever encountered has gone through not a month or a year, but many years of doing work without reward, where they have to do things that other people find boring, and they have to sacrifice things that everyone finds interesting. That most people want to do during that entire season of their life, and they basically sacrifice a season of other things that they would prefer to do to do stuff that they would not prefer to do because of the one thing they want most. Why? We all ask, why should we work this hard? Why take that many classes? Why go to school that many years? You know, why take the notes? Why read the books? Why work that hard? Why put yourself through the push-ups and the disciplines? Why? Good question. Why? Best answer to why, I think, is the second question. Why not? Why not see how many books you can read? How many classes you can take? How many skills you can develop? Why not see how valuable you can become to the marketplace and to your friends and to your family? Why not see what you can make of yourself? Why not see how far you can go? How much you can see? How much you can earn? How much you can share? Why not? That's the heritage all of us have in America, especially, is to see what we can make out of our lives now that we've been given this extraordinary opportunity. Just be the best version of yourself in anything that you do. You don't have to live anybody else's story. Um, sometimes people make it seem like you have to have certain prerequisites or or crazy life story in order to be successful in this world. Um, but the truth is, you, you really don't. It doesn't matter where you come from, what you have or don't have, what you lack, what you have too much of. But all you need to have is, is faith in God, an undying passion for what you do or what you choose to do in this life, and a relentless drive and the will to do whatever it takes to be successful in whatever you put your mind to. Make sure you live in the moment and work your ass off every single day. Everybody's asleep, man. Or it's getting home after a long night, you know, going to other party. It's Friday night. It's close to 3:00 in the morning right now. You know, the thing is, man, it's always going to be a party. There's always going to be a time to celebrate and a time to join friends. Or a day, I mean, the bars are always open. Always open. No matter how old you are, they're always open. You know what's not always open? Is the opportunity to, to check the box in life, you know, achieve your dreams. And that's not always open. Mind, live your life like there's a documentary crew following you around and you are analyzing your own behavior. Do what you would want to do so that your kids one day would look back at it and and and see that documentary and look on it with pride. Like, wow, my dad was a bad ass. He really did what he had to do. I love a success story, but even more than a success story, I like a dude who messed his life up and then gets it back together again story. Whoever's listening to this, if you wrote a book right now about your life and you gave it to someone, would it change their life for the better? If not, you get to work. If you go visit the darkness that you've been running from, you'll have the opportunity to leave a better person. You'll have a better understanding of yourself. You'll have a better understanding of your purpose. But if you don't take that trip, and the darkness comes to visit you, it's a guest that will never leave. 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, because what did you overcome? It happens like this. You work, you work, you work, you work. Nothing happens. You work, you work, you work. You watch some people fall off. Nothing happens. It's hard, difficult, and lonely. You work, you work, you work. Still nothing happens. And then for the people that persist and last the test of time, that overcome the adversity, that continue to do the personal development work, and continue to put pressure and march forward under any and all circumstances, it happens like this. It's hockey stick growth. You just take off. I'm not good enough, smart enough, I'm not talented enough. Some people are. Some people are going to start at one. Some people know how to start it off. If you lack talent, you can't sit back and say, "I start in half an hour." I can't do that. I got to start now. And after I get back from starting, I got to start again. And when I get done with that run or that study session, if it wasn't good enough, I got to go back again. So you can honestly outwork anything. I never looked at things as problems. I look at them as opportunities. Maybe look, maybe that's something I can say, you know? So, ah, but she did this, and I, well, what an opportunity you have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the world, you know, because they said this and sin and said that. Yeah, well, well, what an opportunity you have to make a difference. Anything in life that you put your mind to, you can do. The world, the world is your oyster. Only thing promised is death. So basically, life is like a game. So you had to play the game the way you want to play it. 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. The mindset of a winner, which is a winner does more than expected every single time. No matter how they feel, no matter the circumstances, a winner shows up 10x times more than the average person. A winner has these unreasonable expectations of himself. A winner knows that he's destined for greatness. And no matter how many people around him tell him to slow down, be careful, watch out, that's too risky, you don't have the genetics, the DNA, the money, the brain power for that. A winner locks on to their goals and keeps going. This is yours. You're the captain. You're the master. You're the foreman. You're the general. You're the head. Don't give control of this to nobody. I dare you to stop messing around and dedicate the next six months of your life exclusively to your goals and your goals only. Don't announce it to anyone. Don't tell people on Instagram about it. Don't tell anybody. Just disappear. Do the work and reemerge in six months a different person. It's 1:00 AM. I'm going for my third workout. Do I want to go to the gym? Absolutely not. I'd rather, you know, lay in my house and sit in the movie theater and watch movies. But, you know, to be the best, you got to work overtime. To be the best, you got to work overtime. The winners always show up. They're willing to lose in order to gain big. Mental thing there, guys. This body, as great as you are, as sharp as you make the arsenal, it can't do anything if you don't have confidence in yourself. We all fall down in life. The question is, who gets back up? You go after it and you give it all you have. If you lose, at least you tried, man. I failed. It's 10 times more of a man than someone said, "What if?" 'cause "What if" never went to the arena. When you guys find a fear, that fear will either create you or destroy you. I love fear. The reason why behind every fear is the person you want to be. Fear is self-imposed, meaning it doesn't exist. You create it. You can destroy it too. It's an intangible. If you face your fears, guys, you will realize it's not that big. And once you face it, my God, man, it's been all this time running from it. It was so small. If I just faced it, my God, not only did I face it, I beat it back. Energy is never lost. Transferred that negative energy, that fear is destroyed. It comes back in his confidence. Like, what else am I? What else am I capable of? What else am I holding my back from that I'm capable of more? Where am I running from? I don't need to. What else can I overcome? You face your fears, you become the person you want to be. You run from your fears, you're not living. You're alive, but you're not taking the freedom. You're not running the day. The day is running you. You're always a servant, not the master. Guys, there's no perfect way to live your 20s. You either live them up and become an underskilled 30-year-old, or you work them up and become an underachieving 30-year-old. You just have to figure out which you'd rather be. Accept the trade-offs and know that there are no do-overs. Those times when you get up early and you work hard, those times when you stay up late and you work hard, those times when you don't feel like working, you're too tired, you don't want to push yourself, but you do it anyway. Um, that is actually the dream. That's the dream. It's not the destination, it's the journey. We all this pain right now, all work. Well, the thing about pain is, like, you feel it right now. It's temporary, man. But later in life, you don't remember the pain. You just remember, like, the glory and the good times. I went to West Point and our Ranger School, man. There were some really dark hours, dark days, dark years of my life, man. But looking back on it, I mean, I just remember the good people and the good times. I don't remember all those, you know, times where I was so done and worn out. I don't remember that. I just remember that I made it through it, you know? And that exhilaration of pride and achievement, man, that outweighs all the pain and struggle, you know? And that sweat equity to get there, it really does. As long as you get there. That's why when they say pain is temporary, pride forever, that's what they're talking about. Because if you push through the pain to achieve the pride, you forget about the pain. It was already there. But if you can't push through the pain and the pain stops you and breaks you down, then that pain is forever because you never got pride to outbalance it. Up both through this, man. Start feeling pain. It's all good, man. Welcome it. Welcome it, man. Right past pain, it's forever cry, man.