Transcription
The person who goes to the gym every single day, regardless of how they feel, will always beat the person who goes to the gym when they feel like going to the gym. It is astounding how many people want to be spectacular in life, but also want to fit in and be 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.
Just get up, move towards that challenge, whatever that challenge is. Move towards that challenge and go attack it. And guess what? I had to get up even though it was hard and I had to take ownership of my life, take ownership of my time, take ownership of my day. What I have found is that when you take that kind of action and that kind of step of following your gut and your intuition, taking that step, whatever it is, universe has a funny way of meeting you halfway.
They look winners fail a million times. What makes them a winner is that they believe it. They're headstrong. Nothing's going to stop them. The spectators have tried it and failed it. And if we mean remain sitting down, they don't get up anymore because they don't believe it enough. The naysayers disbelief overrides their ability, potential, and mental capacity that they can't be more than that.
When the rest of the world shut you down, you woke up the next day and you said, "I got this. I do this. I breathe this. I am this. You can't stop me." Like, I'm going to be the baddest mother walking. Man up. Stop crying. The decisions you make right now is up to you. You crying about something that happened to you when you was a kid. You ain't even no kid no more. You a grown man. Take full ownership. The stupid stuff you doing. Your parents didn't make you play no video games. And what you crying about? So what? Your daddy wasn't there. What you crying about? You ain't 10 no more. Man up.
So I had to learn to man up very quickly. And I think that was an edge because I had to learn how to make money. I had to learn how to make friends. I had to learn how to fight. I had to learn how to defend myself. I had to learn how to defend my family. When our backs against the wall, you have the instinct to want to protect your family. You see, all the instincts are in here. It's pulling those instincts out. And sometimes to pull out the right instincts requires some travesty or crisis or challenges to go through. So, human up, get up, and get on it because the weak will struggle. Success is reserved for those that are the strongest. And so every time I would need to pull the trigger on something and there was resistance and reluctance, those five words, it's time to man up and then I would do it. And then you need to have the courage to follow through. Quit halfassing yourself.
Every time I've risen the standards, people have made me feel guilty that maybe I'm raising it too high. Maybe I'm too tough on my guys. Maybe I'm too edgy. And I expect everybody to step up and man up and woman up. Maybe I'm a little too demanding. Maybe I shouldn't raise my standards to this level. Don't let him confuse you. You keep raising a standard. And guess what? I had to get up even though it was hard. And I had to take ownership of my life, take ownership of my time, take ownership of my day. Sometimes, man, we really got to teach oursel how to be a man. along that journey, we'll bump our head and then learn a lesson. You know, dig deep and do what you have to do. It's time to man up and become a man. Kill the boy and let the man be born.
The difference is how do you look at it? How do you approach it? How do you deal with it? How do you admit it and see it for what it is? And then what do you do about it? What do you do about it? You cry about it. You mope about it. You drink about it. You sleep around about it. You get mad and get in fights about it. You just hang around. Just turn the world out. Just zombie about it. You fry yourself with marijuana about it. said, "Dwayne, I'm sad." Dude, that's a part of life. You think you're the only man on this planet that's sad? Say, "Dwayne, I'm going through depression." Well, welcome to the world. Welcome to the rest of us. If you look at the stats around suicidality in the UK, the thing that's most likely to kill someone between the age of like 18 and 40 is themselves for a man. Do we really not know what it is to be a good man? And and I would go so far as to say to be a good human being, right? Because take responsibility for what you're doing. Take take ownership of your world. Take ownership of your life. Go try and accomplish something that's hard. You may win. You may lose. You may succeed. You may fail. I'll tell you what, you'll be better.
If you avoid those things that are hard, if you don't accept that challenge, if you don't step up and step into that cold water and you sit on your couch and eat Doritos, I I I can tell you this is not a good move. This is not a good move. Don't do that. Don't do that. Just get up, move towards that challenge. Whatever that challenge is, move towards that challenge and go attack it. is wake up. Stop sleeping on yourself. Step into your authenticity. Step into your intelligence and your brilliance. Release your gift. God has given you something great. Release it into the earth. Whatever that goal is, whatever that insurmountable feat has been, whether it's weight loss, financial, mindset, relational, I don't care what it is, career, to be a CEO or an investor, whatever it is, get it done. This is not the year you sleeping yourself.
There's nothing going to stop me. If you didn't make me, you can't break me. If you didn't make the sun come up, you can't stop me. If you didn't make the moon shine at night, you can't stop me. My purpose, my will, my dedication, my motivation is all about doing the business. Because guess what, ladies and gentlemen? That's what I'm about. I'm about that business. I'm about that life. What are you about? Man up. Stop crying. My teacher don't like you. Why? Maybe you disrespectful. Why don't Don't say she don't like you. Go look in the mirror and take full ownership. Why does she not like me?
You're watching LeBron make his dreams become a reality. You're watching a black mama make his dreams become real. If you put the same time LeBron put in and I started studying and I realized as an African-American male, I need to get a master degree and a PhD in order to do what I'm doing. And guess what? I had to get up even though it was hard and I had to take ownership of my life, take ownership of my time, take ownership of my day. Change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change. Like if you are angry, use it. If you are sad, use it. Because like what else are you going to do with it? like you might as well let it help you like or it uses you.
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. No one's effing coming to save you. No one's going to make you better at your business. No one is going to get you to be a better persuader of people or framer of people other than you. There's a lot of grown men and women that are still boys and girls cuz they think someone else is coming to change their life. The only thing that's valuable, guys, is how you see yourself in the mirror. How you look at your shadow of light and are you happy walking next to it? No one's coming. No one's coming. Everyone, no one nobody is coming to take responsibility for your dreams. Nobody is coming and going to get that project done that you've been thinking about doing. No one is coming to grow your business, to heal your pain, to improve your marriage, or to make more money for you. It is up to you. It has always been up to you. Your life is your responsibility.
So what? You slip up, you fall down, big deal. That doesn't mean you stop. Do you give up or do you keep going? No one else forgives you. Learn to forgive yourself. Hold yourself up. When everybody else says no, you say yes. It's time to take ownership. You want your clothes wash. Mama, make the boy wash his clothes. Teach him how to separate the colors from the white. Mama, let your boy cook. Teach him how to cook. Let him take ownership. Make him go grocery shopping. He said, "Well, he don't know how to cook like me. Give him at least a day. Then give him two days. Take ownership. Teach him how to change the oil. Make him put gas in the car." Ownership.
I love my daughter to light. But when we go when we go to the gas station, my baby girl get out. My baby girl get out and pump the gas. And somebody said, "Why you make your why you make your queen to be Why you make her Why you make her pump gas?" Cuz I need to teach her. one day I might die on this plane and she need to know how to put the gas in the car. And I was thinking about all the things you got from your time in the Seals and it's almost a bit of like a microcosm of what I think a lot of men are looking for. You know, that sense of purpose, the brotherhood and they find it these days in like video games and stuff, right? Which I video games. I've got no, you know, I cost no judgment on people that play video games. I've played video games my whole life, but there's a it seems like there's a reason we're getting like increasingly addicted to these video games cuz they're giving us something that we're searching for in real life and not getting. You use the words brotherhood, purpose. These are things that the seals clearly have in huge huge amounts. Is there anything else that you'd add to that list of what it takes to feel fulfilled?
Yeah, jiu-jitsu. It's it almost says become a joke amongst me, my friends, people that listen to me is you got some kind of a problem in the world. You got some kind of problem in your life, go train jiu-jitsu. There's a reason why I say that. Cuz the things that you just mentioned, discipline. Guess what you need to go train jiu-jitsu when you're tired and you don't feel like it? Discipline. Guess how you feel when you're done? You feel awesome. You get a bunch of dopamine. Guess who you're there with? A bunch of dudes that you can relate to. And guess what you're going to do together? You're going to struggle. You're going to go through some some hardship together. You're going to sweat. You're going to choke. You're going to get your arm broken. Like these things are going to happen. Not going to get your arm broken, but you may. Or you're going to you're going to be with a little brotherhood. And by the way, women train jiu-jitsu, too. My daughters all train jiu-jitsu. It's all good. It's all good. So yeah, do you just do this one way? Now look, could you go to the rock climbing gym? Yes, you could. Could you go to the CrossFit gym? Yes, you could. Could you go to the to the Yeah, the soccer field, football field, whatever. Yeah, you can do that stuff. So yeah, go do that stuff. Go do that stuff. That's shared suffering together with a group on a regular basis, whether you want to or not. That's some that's those are all little components of being in the military or being in the SEAL teams. That's what it is. That's what you're doing.
Wait, what does what does a SEAL platoon do? They train to get ready for go to war. How do they do that? They go to the desert. They carry their guns. They run through little choreographed moves. They get hot. They carry weight. It's suffering. It's just shared suffering and they're working together and they're learning skills. That's what you're doing in a jiu-jitsu gym. That's what you're doing on the soccer field. So, go out and do those things with other human beings and it's going to make it's going to make things better for sure. Listen to me very closely. Make these boys grow up, fellas. Take ownership. Don't you ever say you don't have something because of what somebody's doing. So, I need you to take ownership of your time, of your what? Of your mind. Of your what? Oh, come on. Y'all playing.
I used to get so mad at Jaylen. Jaylen would get up. I knew it was football day cuz he get up 6:00 in the morning. His uniform was ready. His shoes was ready. And he would eat breakfast. I'm like, "What's going on?" He like, "Game day. Friday night lights. game day and I would be so upset and you like why you hating on me. You hating on me, Dad. Like, you can't stand. I'm going to be a football player. I'm going to leave. You hating on me. I said, I'm not hating on you, but what I hate is that the energy for school and the energy for life, you don't have the same energy for that that you got for football and girls. All I'm asking for is the same energy you put in sports. I'm asking for the same thing in terms of your mind.
Good man is a man who can protect and who can provide and who can serve, who can comfort, who can reprimand, who can discipline, whatever is necessary to make the world a little better because he passed through. The loud voices of this world are the 99% who don't understand exactly what you have to do. That's why when I speak and you don't understand me, it's probably a good thing cuz that probably means I'm in an area of life that you're not in. It is astounding how many people want to be spectacular in life but also want to fit in and be 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.
[Music] 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. You ask all my teammates, one thing about Michael Jordan was he never asked me to do something that he didn't do. And they're going to say, "Well, he wasn't really a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant." Oh, well, that's you. Because you never wanted anything. If you're cool with walking in the shadows of yourself, and you know, the only person you got is the man right there in the shadow. Man, how you doing? Pretty good. How you doing? All right, man. Cool. Cool. It's kind of weird having a conversation with you, but ain't no one else around because everyone else has faded way back then. Way back there, you know, if you're cool with that kind of walk of life, tell you man, world is your playground.
So, I went to a a powerlifting competition a couple of years ago. There's this one guy there lifting. He holds a bunch of records in the squat. And he's a a normal working-class guy from a normal working-class town on the outskirts of Newcastle. And watching that man warm up is something else. He's got a a sacred playlist. He never listens to the songs apart from when he's about to step on to the lifting platform. He's got these headphones on and he's just walking up and down in the same way that you'd see a bull ready to go out, ready to go and chase something. And he steps out on stage and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. You're watching this guy channel fury. That's the god of war. 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." 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. Let's say you wanted to start a podcast in the past and you did three episodes and then you fell off and then they think I told you so. Stop with these dreams. Stop with this crazy content stuff. You're never going to become an influencer or whatever your goal is. Replace influencer with what whatever your thing is. The thing is is that you are still closer having done three than having done zero. And so it's just about directional correctness and realizing that criticizers are more often correct, but when it matters most incorrect.
But for some reason, I thought that I needed to be the guy. And I said, "No, you know what? You don't need to be the guy. Your leader, you need to support your leader. And it's not about you." And so that right there also changed my attitude because then from then on in my career and in my life, I realized, hey, I don't always need to be the center of attention, which is what our ego wants us to do. Our ego always wants it to be about us. And it's not about us. It's not about us at all. In fact, in a situation like that where the platoon commander wants to do something, maybe he sees something that I don't see. Maybe he's got a different strategic objective that he wants to accomplish and I'm undermining that. And what does that do to our platoon? Hey, it makes me feel great because I think, oh yeah, I might not be the guy in charge, but I'm out here making the calls. That's your ego. And what you have to do is subordinate your ego and be supportive of the person that's in charge and you move forward together as a team. Cuz that's what it's about. It's not about me. It's about the team.
If you are someone that deals with a crippling sense of insufficiency, your ability to discount any good thoughts you have in your mind is going to be so strong. If you try and lead with positivity first, I need to think it, wish it, believe it, and I will achieve it. Your set point of negativity is going to just crush that into the ground. I'm speaking from personal experience, right? As the guy that was chronically unconfident and still has the imposter syndrome that does creep in, you have to start with action. It needs to be, okay, what would have had to have happened in a week's time for me to look back on that week and find pride in myself? Stop breaking promises to yourself. and you say, "I'm going to wake up tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. and when the option comes to hit the snooze button," don't do it. There's one win that you've got for the day. That's action, right? You want to leave your job and become a writer. Okay? Can you commit to writing one blog post on Substack per week for the next 3 weeks? That would make you feel like less of a loser if you did that. Action has to come first.
Winning requires you to go so far deep inside yourself, it's way beyond the surface. It's way beyond internal. It it's going to a place that a lot of people haven't visited in a long long time because they're afraid to visit that person because when they visit that person, they don't know who that person is anymore. 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 the minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will you know if you push in something will pop out the other side that you can you can change it you can mold it. Um that's maybe the most important thing.
When I was growing up you know I watched like a lot of westerns you know it was the the the silent hero kind of thing the Gary Cooper thing. But my idea of masculinity growing up was a man who was in control of himself, who wasn't mean, wasn't pushing people around, who was decent, who treated women well. So treating women well is a masculine virtue is a good thing. It comes from a position of strength. You're not insecure about your masculinity. You don't have to prove that you're a man by demeaning women, by pushing them around. You can respect women and respecting them is a sign of your strength, is a sign of being secure in your masculinity. You don't need to put other people down to make yourself feel better. Okay? So, we have to redefine these qualities. But there are no icons like out out there. You either have the Andrew Tates out there or you have these wimpy men who are just so afraid of being masculine. Okay? Your aggression, your assertiveness, your testosterone is a good thing. It's how things get done. It's what energizes you, what's puts you in the world. It makes what makes makes you ambitious. It makes you assert yourself and and motivate yourself. It has to be channeled. It has to be disciplined. But you have to see, you know, we were talking about our people pleasing things and how you reframe it. You have to see who you are and see the virtue in it and see the power in that.
You know, look, I I always try to outwork people, right? That's just how I made my mark. So, the game was at 7:00. I was like, you know what? I'm going to come to the stable center cuz we're playing this when the Lakers had Kobe and Shaq. Okay, this is like the championship Lakers. I like, you know, I'm going to get there at 3:00. I want to make sure I make 400 main shots before I go back into the room. And then I sit in the sun and I get ready for the game. So, you know, get in the car, get to the gym, get there, and as I'm walking onto the court, who do I see? I see Kobe Bryant already working out. So, I worked out for a good hour, hour and a half. And when I came off after I was done, I sat down and of course, I still hear the ball bouncing. I looked down. I'm like, "This guy's this guy's still working out. He's he was working out for like it looks like he was in a dead sweat when I got here and he's still going." And it's not like his moves are nonchalant or lazy. He's doing like game moves, you know. Um, I sit there and I un lace my shoes. I'm like, I want to see how long this goes. So, I sit out there and watch another 25 minutes and they got done. I said, "Okay, I think I've seen enough. Go play, you know, come back, get in the sauna, get ready for the game." That game, he drops 40 on us. Okay. And after the game is over, I'm like, "I I have to ask this guy. I I have to understand like why why you he works like that?" Right. So after games, I'm like, "Hey, Cove, like why why were you in a 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. And he's like, "It's don't hold there. There's nothing wrong with that. Like I'm not saying I dislike you as a person. You just you inspire me to be better." And it was the first time I started to see this level of competitiveness where I said, "I need to start doing more."
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. Like when do you become a man? You become a man when you become responsible for other people. And part of that is taking accountability. I grew up on a in a culture that told me going to war made you a man. Going to prison, coming back, coming back makes you a man. Making a million dollars makes you a man. You know, and and it doesn't. Who teaches you to be a man?
We all have these ladders or battles, roads we have to walk in our given lives. Be you famous or or or whoever's out there listening, we all have our individual challenges. It's cliche. Money don't make it better. It don't. It it fame just magnifies the problems and the opportunities. I never looked at things as problems. I look at them as opportunities. Maybe look, maybe that's something I can say, you know, someone a well, she did this and I Well, what an opportunity you have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the world, you know, because they did this and she said that. Yeah. Well, well, what an opportunity you have to make a difference because you never know who's watching.
Winners fail a million times. What makes them a winner is that they believe in headstrong. Nothing's going to stop them. The spectators have tried it and failed it and we mean remain sitting down. They don't get up anymore because they don't believe it enough. The naysayers disbelief overrides their ability, potential and mental capacity that they can be more than that. Why is that? Why do people assume that tomorrow is waiting for them? Why do people think that that son owes them something? Why do people think that the idea of having more time is the best time to have? You don't have a lot of time, ladies and gentlemen. All you got is what you have. And what you have is what you need. And what you need is to get up and be about your business. Because life is just that. It's business. So what are you going to do? Are you going to lay around and wait for your opportunities to pass you by?
Arm yourself with words. Be precise in your language, right? Say what you mean. Read. Read great men and great women. Make yourself literate. Get your tongue in order. Get it under your own control. Get rid of the ums and the likes and the you knows and the pauses and get rid of everything you say that you only say to impress other people and just see if you can say what you believe to be true. There's sometimes you could be in the meeting and you could be the smartest guy in the room and you don't want to let anybody know that. Let everybody talk. Let everybody think they're smarter than you, but you really know what's going on. There's other times when you're in the room, you could be the least smartest guy in the room, but you got to make them think that you're smarter than them. And if you can master that technique, then you can get just about anything you want in any negotiation. I found that to be true. Let people talk first. try to get as much out of them as you possibly can and then you can kind of figure it out. Like with Gotti a couple of times I had to sit down with him. I knew that he could never believe that I was winning. So in the midst of the argument I had to figure out what he really wanted and how I can get what I want, letting him think that he got what he want. It's all about how you you you carry yourself.
In the water arsenal, we have different tools. We have physical tools like talent, mobility, strength, coordination, techniques, leverage, angles, timing. But if you're talking about mind, we have different tools. Visualization, emotional control. In the spiritual side, we have hope, we have faith, we have patience. Those elements they give you chance of of letting the situation cook in a in a slow burn and see how it goes because if you impatient if you don't have the hope if you don't if you not believe in yourself but if you faith you're going to find the light you're going to find the hole you're going to you have the hope things going to do what so you become smoother even in the bumpy rides so I start to feel like my growth was depending of this growth not only physical not only mental but also spiritual.
I think one of the things that people fe like struggle with is actually being very real with themselves. The difference between being, you know, the difference between understanding who you are versus who you wish you were. And I think that's something that I'm always very fascinated by when I have a meeting like this, like what kind of read do you have on yourself? and how like, you know, I think I would struggle a lot if I didn't really genuinely know who I was. And it and then once you know who you are, you get more comfortable with what you're up to. Are you going to let success sit around and wait for you? You believe that success is your best friend. Success doesn't care about you if you don't care about success. You know why? Because success is already made up its mind. It is going in the direction that it needs to go. It is hunting for the one that wants it the most. But you're not doing the hunting. You're sitting around waiting. You become something else less of yourself because you don't believe that you have the potential and the capability to be the best of yourself. So why you just sit back and you wait for somebody to pat you on the shoulder and say it's okay. At least you gave it your best. Your best ain't good enough. Your best don't work. You need to go beyond your best. You need to go beyond the level. You need to let the world know that you exist. You need to let the world know that you made different. You built different. You're stronger. You're more passionate. You believe in yourself.
When the rest of the world shut you down, you woke up the next day and you said, "I got this. I do this. I breathe this. I am this. You can't stop me." Just in your life, in your life, be an agent for good. It's kind of like people say, "I support the troops. I support the troops." What do you do for the troops? Do you send them care packages? No. Do you walk up to them when you see them in a restaurant in the airport in uniform and do you stick your hand out and say, "Thank you for your service." No. I don't do anything, but I support the troops. No. That just means you're not against the troops. And going through life, become a good man or woman. Second, be a dangerous man. Now, being dangerous is not being a threat. They're two different things. Often, the most dangerous man in the room is the quietest man in the room. You can't be a good man, a fully good man, if you're not a dangerous man. All right? To be good is to do good to people. And sometimes doing good to people is protecting those people. It's protecting those people, protecting those around us. All right. Third, be educated. Listen, you want to know how to be a man among men? You start following and reading and listening to guys like Jaco Willlet, Jordan Peterson, um these guys, and start learning and start learning, start reading. Um and just the brain is a muscle and like any muscle the more you work it the stronger it becomes. And lastly be wise. Now wisdom it it's a lifetime of study. Wisdom is and wisdom is not what you know. Wisdom is knowing how to apply what you know. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is classified as a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]