SACRIFICE WHO YOU ARE NOW FOR WHO YOU WILL BECOME - Powerful Motivational Speech Video

Why are you willing to trust a stranger but not yourself? When your own gut is screaming at you, telling you that you deserve a better life, you drown out your own voice because change is too uncomfortable. I hate to break it to you, but the world does not have your back. So if you can't be on your own team, your life is in the wrong hands. Every underdog movie ever has a scene of some person down on their luck, learning how to work harder and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. None include a scene of a guy learning how to log out of slack at 6pm. You do not want to have a victim mindset. You want to have agency on the world. You want to enact stuff that's going on. You want to make it and you're going to have to try really hard. And also, you need to give yourself a break. You have to know that if you nailed your day, you don't just make it back to zero. You got to plus 10. There comes a moment in life when you realize how exhausting it is to constantly explain yourself, explaining why you need space, explaining why you don't answer the same anymore, explaining why you've changed. At first, you do it out of kindness. You do it out of habit. You do it out of hoping that if they understand you, they'll respect you. But healing changes that. Neither do you need permission to protect your peace. Silence is not avoidance and distance is not disrespect. Sometimes it's just growth that no longer fits old conversations. That dream is yours, so stop waiting for permission. Some of you stop dreaming because life hits you harder than you ever expected. But hear me, pick that dream back up. Don't let your past convince you that you were built for something small. Nah, I don't care where you're from. Every day, man, be that dream. I need you to protect it. Work on it daily, even if nobody understands. And even if you feel like you're carrying it alone, it don't matter. What are you creating today? What are you doing today to move the needle forward? You have everything that you need to succeed. It's already within you. The discipline, the confidence, the courage, the compassion and grace. It's all in you. The information you need is going to be from your own process. You understand? Your own failures. Getting into action and seeing what happens is all you need. You have to have the courage to go after what it is that you truly want to do. That's the thing that separates people. Because people work hard all day long. They're working hard, but they're working hard. And at the same time, they're believing that it's not possible for them. What do you have faith in? Do you really believe you can do that? Are you willing to sacrifice to get that? Or are you just going to keep this job that you hate because you're afraid? You're not being tempted to give up because it's hard for you and because it's not meant for you. But you're being tempted to give up because life is weeding out all the people who don't really want it. You are being tested to see if you're the one who's meant for this vision. To see if you're the one who can not only attain it, but keep it, nurture it and teach others to go get it. Those are the ones who are going to get it. If you're ambitious and you have a desire and you're willing to dedicate a thousand days, I will tell you that your life in two and a half, three years will look dramatically different. Can you wake up every day for a thousand days and do the work? What's the work? You know what the work is. The work is keeping the commitments you make to yourself, working on your body, working on your self-esteem, working on your spirituality, working on your mind, working on the skill sets that makes you more valuable to your team. Keep showing up for yourself. Keep taking steps towards your goals and stretching your view on what's possible for you. There's usually no switch that flips that gets you to where you want to be. But the compounding of your habits over time is what really moves the needle. So be intentional with your time. Although they might seem insignificant right now, the small actions and decisions you make today will shape the trajectory of your life. Stay the course. The brutal fact about success is this. It makes you complacent. It makes you arrogant. It makes you closed-minded. It causes you to build a fence around your success and say, boy, I don't want to lose this. And so you get a, I got to hold on to it mindset. You see the objective of your life and the objective of business is to improve every day. What part of improved do we not understand? What part of every day do we not understand? We are constantly improving. Use your success as a stepping stone, not a pedestal. If you want to be anything special and last for a long time, it comes with discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline. Like really understanding the word of discipline and sticking to it. Set a goal, be disciplined to that goal. If you have a mindset and a mentality of what you cannot have, you never will. If you are able to adjust it, no matter where you came from, no matter what your people said to you, no matter how bad it was, no matter, none of that matters. If you can get your mind around a dream, a goal, a possibility, it will become your life. I think a lot of you don't have the courage to forgive yourself. You feel like you have a life now and you're basing it off of your past. You have your family that probably tells you, hey, I remember when you did this. I remember when you made this mistake. And you're a prisoner of your own mind. So you have to have the courage to say, hey, I forgive myself. I deserve it. I have my why. Fight for what you believe in. But the thing is, if you're caging yourself because of your past, you're never going to get ahead. Whoever it is that you believe in, whoever it is that you look up to, they made the same mistakes you did. So just release yourself. Forgive yourself. It doesn't matter what you did in the past. You are here because you're going to recreate yourself. You're here because you're no longer that person. So give yourself permission right now to forgive yourself. And you do deserve it. People who we consider to be chosen, people you see on TV, the people who are going after their purpose. A lot of the times we just think that they're chosen. They're special. It's only them. It's not meant for me. I wasn't picked for a life like that. But really, those who are chosen are just those who chose to be chosen. They're the ones that said, it's me. They're the ones that said, I have everything necessary. Why not me? What makes them so special? I don't know how to. You never let your mind ever again disempower you and say, well, yes, that's just how it is. Instead, success and growth requires you to say, I don't know how to do that. So it is my job to learn that. It switches you from disempowered to a skill builder. It switches you from a fixed mindset. I don't know how. I only have these capabilities into a growth mindset. I will learn. I can expand. I can change. I can get better. That's the critical moment of transformation. And I'm obsessed with being the best version of myself. And that's a daily thing. I'm obsessed with finding myself now and not having to prove anything to anybody other than myself and realizing that that is enough. Giving your best is enough. And sometimes we lose track of that when everybody's telling you who and what you are. So for anybody out there, you know, you're enough, man. You're not ready. You're still talking about what other people are going to say. You're still talking about what other people think. You're still talking about how they hate you. No ---- they ******* hate you. You're out trying to do something. You're out trying to build something. You're out trying to be better. And they're not. And they know what that's going to lead to. So no ---- you're going to get some hate. That's reality. But you'll never move past the beginning stages of your journey worrying about what other people think. Stop talking about it. Stop thinking about it. Go do your thing. Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down and not going the way you want it to. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one that's to come? The quality of self-discipline is the quality that will make you a big success. It's the ability to force yourself to do what you know you should do. And here is the wonderful discovery. This persistence is self-discipline in action. Every time you persist, you build your self-discipline. Every time you practice self-discipline, you build your ability to persist. And the two of them are tied into your self-esteem. So the more you persist, the more you like yourself. And the more you like yourself, the more discipline you have. And the more discipline you have in practice, the more you like yourself as a result, the more you persist. And eventually you get under an upward spiral, but you become absolutely unstoppable. You reach the point where you know you can achieve the goal and nothing in the world can stop you. And every step that you take forward makes you stronger and stronger and stronger. Until finally people say, I know one thing about him. I know one thing about her. You cannot stop him or her. Once they decided they want something, they will not stop until they get it. And when you develop that quality, there will be nothing that is impossible to you. Go do something that's hard. 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, I can tell you this is not a good move. Just get up. Move towards that challenge, whatever that challenge is. And you may be successful and you may not be successful, but you will be better. You have to discipline yourself. Go do something. Do the best thing that you can think of. Put the best plan you have into practice. It's not going to be perfect and it will change along the way, but it will change partly because you become disciplined pursuing the path. And as you become disciplined, you become wiser. And as you become wiser, you become able to formulate better and better plans. Sometimes you just need to admit to yourself that you have no idea who you are or what you're doing. Everything is changing all the time. It's normal to have weeks where you feel lost, months where you don't recognize yourself, and years that leave you with more questions than answers. Don't see it as a step backwards. Humble yourself because that's life's way of redirecting you. Letting you know that you have the chance to find yourself again. Seize the opportunity. All of us, nobody's perfect. We fail too many times. We have so many uncertainty in our life that we have to be capable when we are down to stand up. It's part of the journey. It's part of the process. It's part of our education. In my case, I learn the most when I'm down. And it's good that these certain moments happen because when you are in the top of the wave, you don't see under what's going on. It's good to have problems. It's the only way that you can improve. How do you overcome the fear of failure when trying something new? By far, the easiest thing I've found to deal with this is to think of every single thing in life as an experiment. It's just an experiment. Everything in life is an experiment. And therefore, failure isn't really failure. Failure is just another data point. Don't let complaining conquer your life. See if you can't drive it into a small corner. That's the season of summer. Nourish your values like a mother and fight your enemies like a father. Even if you have to fight the enemies that are within your cell. Make this note. Don't become a victim of yourself. It's possible to become a victim of tragedy. It's possible to become a victim of gossip. It's possible to become a victim of the things that happen out there. But here's the most important thing. Don't become a victim of yourself. Forget the thief in the alley that's after your purse. What about the thief in your mind that's after your problem? People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing. And it's totally true. And the reason is because it's so hard that if you don't, any rational person would give up. So if you don't love it, if you're not having fun doing it, you don't really love it, you're going to give up. And that's what happens to most people, actually. If you really look at the ones that ended up being successful, unquote, the eyes of society and the ones that didn't. Oftentimes it's the ones that are successful, love what they did so they could persevere, you know, when it got really tough. And the ones that didn't love it quit because they're sane, right? Who would want to put up with this stuff if you don't love it? So it's a lot of hard work and it's a lot of worrying constantly. So you got to love it. You got to have passion. You have to become the kind of person that can push through the hard times. Most people can't do that. No matter how long it takes, keep going. No matter how much it hurts, keep going. See, you was placed on this earth for a reason. You weren't meant to be average. You were meant to excel. You understand this grind is meant to make you who you're supposed to be, a dog. A little grind ain't never hurt nobody. Stop being soft. Let's embrace it. Most people cannot push through the challenging, the draining, the frustrating times that make everybody else quit. So you have to build yourself into someone who has the discipline, the fortitude, the grit, the perseverance to push through the hard times, to become someone who is literally incapable of quitting. You need to look at yourself in the mirror and say, why are you only giving 50%? What's wrong with you? You need to put yourself on punishment. You need to tell you no more TV, no more snacks, no more desserts. No more, no, we working out now. No, no more alcohol. Not right now. Not, no, I can't handle it right now. You need to tell you that you owe yourself. 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. Because when you're trying to do something that's bigger than you, whatever you are, you didn't fail mother. That was your first attempt. If you give so much power to words, I don't. I take the power right away. I didn't fail. People will tell you things based on their experience, but they don't know anything because everything is subjective. They don't know who you are or what you've been through. They tell you they tried for their dreams, but it didn't work out. So they gave up and they discourage you to chase yours. But you need to do that for yourself because nobody knows what will happen. And even if it doesn't work out, there's still something to be learned in the process. Stay true to yourself and do your thing. Don't rely on a master for him to run your life. This whole journey is about you learn and acquire the skills and acquire the knowledge and acquire whatever you think is necessary to bring out the best version, let's call it like this, the best version, the best refined potential about yourself, about what you believe you are capable of bringing out about yourself. Meaning the master is already sitting inside of each individual. It's just that we don't nourish that master inside of us enough. The function of man is to live, not to exist. Whenever I get to a low point where I think, why do we even bother? I just try to remind myself this is where most people stop and this is why they don't win. Because to become who you want, you have to go through periods you go. You don't learn how to go through hardship without going through hardship. And so if it's hard, good. It means no one else will do it. More for you. Do you say to someone who's going through a string of bad days or bad weeks or bad months? Say it's okay. You're not alone. I know you're not alone. This is right now and it's okay. But you're not alone. If you're able to just stick in what you're doing right now and in those hard times, believe in they're going to lead to good times. It just creates a lot less friction in your life. I think whenever we're going through a hard time, we just want it to end. But it's those moments that allow us to appreciate the good ones. When you want it now, it drives you crazy to be patient. And I know that's super frustrating. However, that is the rules of the game. It still takes time. Most people will get the feeling how you feel right now. And what they'll say is, I need to do something else. And then what ends up happening by default, they end up spending their whole life in that nether region of nothing because they can't make it through the distance from start to the upward rise of success. And they see it as something that they're doing wrong. And then they quit to find something new, bro. And they spend their whole life in the struggle. Just keep that in mind, dude. It might be frustrating right now. However, if you continue to go, you're going to figure it out. So it sounds like you already know this, dude. You just need to be reminded. You know, it's funny, man. A lot of you young guys think it's a choice to be great. Bro, it ain't no choice. It's an obligation. You don't only owe this to yourself, bro. You owe it to all the people that believe in you that have sacrificed for your success. This ain't no choice, bro. The day you were born, you signed the contract. You ride by others. You ride by yourself. And watch the joy that fills your heart. I believe in you, bro. And so do all these other people. It's time for you to believe in you. You owe it to yourself, big dog. There are a million steps between where you're at now versus like a certain goal that is going to take years to get to. So how I, you know, look at a situation like that is, OK, well, obviously it's going to be a while. I kind of want to be a little more concerned with the short term, right? What do I... Because instead of, OK, what do I have to do for this entire time period to work up to this massive thing I'm trying to... It's much easier to say, OK, what do I have to do today? What are two things that I have to do today that will keep me on track? There's a great Chinese expression, a great old proverb. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. I just keep losing. I mean, some people just supposed to lose? For balance in the universe? I mean, like, are there just some people on Earth who supposed to be here just to make it easier for the winners? Like, really? Resistance is a symptom of the way things are, not the way things necessarily should be. Actual victory belongs to things that simply do not see failure. Let the path push you like a broken branch in a river's current. Well, the problem that most of us have is we think that we're all alone. We think that we're the only ones going through all this stuff. I thought your vision becomes very narrow. And what happened to me was all I did was I peeled back. I peeled back and I was able to get on top of a mountaintop in my head. And when you're high on that mountain, you have a great vantage point. And I was able to look down at the world. And we are, all of us are jacked up. Some of us hide it better than others, but we're all jacked up. And once you realize that, you know, you got to come out of your shell. You got to accept who you are. You got to accept the demons that life gave you, that maybe you gave you. Whoever gave them to you, you got to accept that. You got to be able to look him in the mirror, look him in the eye and say, I'm going to start fixing these things. But if you think that you're by yourself, the reality of your life becomes very, very horrible. And you're not. We are all jacked up. And once you realize that, man, you don't even look at the crowd anymore. You look at your own race. You do your own race. You do your own thing. And you finally find out who you're supposed to be in this life. If you are struggling to find fulfillment, please watch this. Not everything is going to make sense all the time. Not everything is going to feel right all the time. There is so much uncertainty that comes along with this journey. And we're not even 100% sure where we're going to end up. But that's not the point. If we were certain of these things, if we always performed at our best, if we never struggled, there would be no journey. You must shift your focus back to your process. Because your process is your fulfillment. It is your rock, your constant. Stop trying to find fulfillment. Realize that it's yours if you want it. The person who never needed to be told to do the right thing. To the person who has all the motivation in the world. The person who knows they will be successful. I'm sorry. I know your future ahead is an amazing one. But I also know your problems never had the luxury of relatability. Almost everyone in this world is an obstacle to themselves. But they sure have company in their struggle. While your struggle is a lonely road. You know it pays off. I don't even have to tell you that. But I promise you, I understand. You are relatable to those that'll do big things. And it is okay that that comes in small quantity. But as you grow, you lose certain homies. Because it's called closing the gap. This is the gap when we start. This is the gap as you grow. Notice how you grow and they don't. So how do you close the gap? You got to come back down. When you come back down, you lose. So you got to keep going up. That's why closing that gap got to be them catching up to you. And if they don't catch up, you got to leave them behind. Because you get to the point now where you got to start cutting out. You know what I'm saying? It's like you can't look back when you cut them out. Because if they meant to be there, they're going to be there. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same as we are liberated from our own fear. Our presence automatically liberates others. If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. If you're going to try, go all the way. This can mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs, and maybe your mind. Go all the way. It can mean not eating for three or four days. It can mean freezing at a park bench. It can mean jail. It can mean derision, mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance or how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There's no other feeling like that. You'll be alone with the gods and the knights will flame with fire. Do it. All the way. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is. You can't see the proper light if you have never indulged in the very, very deepest dark times. It's not negative. It's just something that you usually don't want to dive into when something like this appears. But it's part of this life. There is no way to run around. So to embrace the darkness, one and one goes hand in hand with on the other side appreciating the light when it comes. The life you want isn't out of reach. It's just outside your comfort zone. You can't build the life you want if you just keep clinging to the same old patterns. This journey is on you. Sometimes it's going to feel hard, maybe even pointless, but that's where perseverance kicks in. Push through the resistance one day at a time and watch what happens when you refuse to give up on yourself. There's a quote from Viktor Frankl that says What is your definition of all in? Everyone likes to talk about early mornings, late nights, hard work. That's not all in. Everybody in this room is a hard worker. Everybody in this room is talented. Talent is a gift. It's not a promise. Everybody in here is putting in long hours. It's the other things that you do beyond all in. If you want your day to feel easy, do the most difficult thing that you least want to do first. If you just do the things you do not want to do, you will have everything you have ever wanted. I need you to go to the next level. I need you to elevate. I need you to dominate. I need you to win. I need you to be that woman, to be that man. I need you to be him. I need you to be her. I need you to be that. And you know why you do that? Because you have a lead. If you do not have the ability to resist, to manage, to overcome doubts, to overcome worries, to overcome concerns, and whatever circumstance that prevents you from succeeding, this is not the year to talk about your problems. This is the year to solve your problems. Decide who you want to become. You know, you can't drift into a new life. You can't back into it. You need to design your new life. Envision a version of yourself that you respect, that you really want to become. And be specific. Build a life that a man or a woman would really want to live. You have to make a decision with such firm intention that the amplitude of that decision carries a level of energy that's greater than the hardwired programs in your brain and the emotional addictions in your body. And your body has to respond to a new mind. So then you make a choice and that choice becomes an experience that you never forget and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Your body's responding to a new mind, but you can't do it being your normal self. It requires a level of energy that is the epiphenomenon of matter. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I think that there are many ways how you can, let's say, motivate yourself to walk this path. So why would I face the dark side of myself knowing already that it's going to be painful? Why would I do that? You have to accept what has happened. You need to accept reality. It's one thing to accept the fact life isn't fair. This is cool. I don't deserve this. It's a whole nother ballgame to accept that this is what has happened and it's not changing. Same as life. Every time you face a challenge that was really, really difficult for you, but you still pushed it through somehow. You still were patient and persevered and were consistent and still tried. And this type of challenge for me was a way bigger victory than anything that was easily attained. It means everything you got inside of you, everything is truly equipped with that you got what it takes to make it through the battle, through the storm, to the next level. Let me tell you what, faith and worry don't get along. They don't coincide. They ain't dogs, they ain't homers, they ain't brothers, they ain't friends. They can't cohabitate. You got to believe. That means you got to have faith. We must suffer. And you can run from it all you want. Once you come face to face with who you are, you have a starting point. The longer you hold on to this wish, the longer you prolong your own suffering. I mean, most of human suffering, our internal pain, our anguish, it comes from the desire to have things be different than how they are. You know, there's one quote I love from the poet Rumi, try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you. So literally saying nothing sustainable and worse while in this lifetime comes from something that's easily attained. Facing yourself. Face your shadow. Face the dark side. Look at your demons. Your lack of commitment is almost an insult to the people who believe in you. And that's what I'm trying to tell myself. There's people who believe in me. So this is what I'm telling myself right now, today. There's people that believe in me. And me having this half commitment, it's not who the **** I am. I want to give back to the people who believe in me. And everything's in arm's reach. You just have to work to get there. There is no easy road to what you want. It's a long road. Everybody that wants to do something doesn't understand the steps that you have to take to get there. It's not just in entertainment. It's in all aspects of life, man. And that's what I learned at a young age. No matter what, you can't escape work. You can't. To truly change is to think greater than your environment. And every great person in history knew this. Whether it was William Wallace, or Mahatma Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, or Queen Elizabeth I, or Joan of Arc. They all had a vision. They all had an idea. Couldn't see it. Couldn't smell it. Couldn't taste it. Couldn't feel it. But it was alive in their mind. It was so alive in their mind that they began to live as if that reality was actually happening now. So can you believe in a future that you can't see your experience with your senses yet, but you've thought about enough times in your mind that your brain is literally changed to look like the event has already happened? Take all of the things that you got to do in a particular day and rank order them from the things that you want to do the least to the things that you want to do the most. And I guarantee one of the big reasons why you never get anything done is because you do the opposite. You start your day off doing all the things that you want to do and then you dread the rest of the day and chances are you probably just end up skipping it. But if you say, hey, let me start my day off by doing all these things that I don't want to do. By the time you're done with it, you're only left with all the things that you're looking forward to. So now you're proud of yourself because you did something difficult that was uncomfortable that you didn't want to do. And now you're excited because you get to enjoy the rest of your day. And they say you can't have your cake and eat it too. How does suffering, how does hardship, how does pain give me purpose? The process of struggle and the one who bears it is a process of development, of strengthening, of learning, of readjusting. But not just to anything, my friend. You are moving towards taking steps closer to embodying what you truly are. You know what's crazy? You know you could be the one if you really wanted to, right? You know that, right? But see, you keep playing the what if game. What if it don't work out this? What if it don't work out that? What if it do work out? Then what? You're going to be happy, right? You can't say you want to win, but then you're scared to lose. What kind of sense does that make? If you put your head down and locking on the vision, how could you not win? Only thing that's going to cause you to lose is your mentality. The man who never fell has no glory. The man who fell and got back up. That's where his glory is. The man who fell 20 times and got up 21 times that man has even greater glory. That man has more courage, way more courage than the guy who was so strong from birth that he never fell. There's no glory in that. That's your moment. It's not that all is lost. When you're feeling the most trapped and down and nothing can go right, I feel like those are the moments that define you. That are like, what am I going to do now? And it's always the feeling when you're getting ready to, you know, people give up right before they get what they always wanted to get. People quit and they give up. And I will not be the person who quit before I got what I wanted. Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career, the most in the history of baseball. But you don't hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that? I didn't know that. Because the 1,001st was the light bulb. Fall forward. Growth is a beautiful process. Yes, it might bring pain. Yes, you might feel overwhelmed. Yes, you might have some fear, right? Some insecurity, some anxiety, right? But that is all a part of growth and it's not something to be frowned upon. And when you take a step back and you understand that all these things that I'm dealing with are actually a part of growth, then you can start embracing them as that. Create something big and lasting. It's going to take time. It's going to entail some pain, some sacrifice. And what you need to do is you need to change your whole assessment of what is pleasurable. What is pleasurable is actually accomplishing something that you set out to actually reach your goals, to actually take the time to make something that's meaningful to you. See, the one thing I want you to promise me is that no matter how long it takes, keep going. No matter how much it hurts, keep going. See, you was placed on this earth for a reason. You weren't meant to be average. You weren't meant to excel. You understand this grind is meant to make you who you're supposed to be. If you want to give up, you can give up. This is your choice. You can do whatever you want. Your time is going to come, but you cannot give up. The beauty is the journey. That's the most important lesson I learned. I remember you strive so hard for a destination that you forget all the lessons you're learning. Well, you're so attached to everybody else. You're so attached to what they say, what they think. And you forget that like that's so fleeting and so meaningless compared to the process of getting there and the process of mastery of anything. And so we learn a lot about ourselves and a lot about life or that the beauty is not in the final destination. That's actually the saddest part of the journey is the end. The beauty is every step along the way. Life is much the same. Painful experiences and challenges come to us all. But it's through these opportunities that we build character and we grow. Remember, only the disciplined ones are free in life. Only the disciplined ones are free in life. If you are in discipline, you are a slave to your moods. You are a slave to your passions. You're passionate about something. People are supportive of you. They believe in you. They want to see you win because you're still the same version of yourself. But the moment you get obsessed about something, they are threatened by you because there's a new version of you. They see the fire in your eyes. They see the chip on your shoulder. They see that this is a man who's locked on to his goals. And that man is very threatening to them. Because when you're obsessed, when you're determined, you're a very different version of yourself. That's the thing you have to understand about winners. Don't do things just because you think you're going to get something for it. That's not why we do things. Do what's interesting to you. Follow what's interesting. Don't worry about the outcome. We don't know. We can't predict the outcome. We can never predict the outcome. Follow your own inner guide. It directs us. It might not make sense. It might not make sense to us. Might not make sense to anyone else. Certainly won't make sense to anyone else. But it might not even make sense to us. And that's okay. It's fine. Listen to yourself. Why is it telling you this? The purpose of going for a hike, ironically, is not to get to the top. It's to be on the trail. And if you constantly stare at the top, you're going to be out of breath. You're going to tell yourself you have so much longer when we are going to get there. And you are going to miss the entire point of your freaking life. Which is the ride, the trail, the bridge, the mile markers, all of it. And so part of my desire to be happier is to continually remind myself it is not about getting on that mountain. Because when you get to the top of that mountain, the top of one mountain is just the bottom of another one. And if you're going up, eventually you got to come back down. Like that is just life. If you focus on the freaking trail, whatever step you're on, and you keep reminding yourself this is going to lead me somewhere. That is where the meaning comes in your life. It doesn't matter where you are in life. Because the great thing about life is it's always your next move. Your next move that counts. No matter where you are, you could change your life if you want to. So it's up to you. The only thing holding you back is you. Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Stop waiting for motivation. Stop waiting for someone to give you permission. You can get anything you want in this life, but you have to be willing to do what you know you need to do, despite how you feel. We all have roadblocks, but there's always someone from a worse situation who made it happen regardless. Your external obstacles are not excuses for not trying. Stop waiting. Start doing. If we give you misery and pain and discomfort and torture, that this will help you for the rest of your life. It's always kind of like an investment, you know? Because from then on, you say, okay, now things don't bother me. You're making a big mistake to always look for comfort. Because comfort is the evil of everything. Comfort is not good. Looking for the easy way out is not good. It's if you got to go and confront kind of resistance, and it's like Nietzsche said, you know, that what does not kill you will make you stronger. When you make the decision to eliminate all the things in your life that is not adding value to your vision, you will take off faster than you could have ever imagined. When you eliminate the friends who are not adding value to your vision, you will take off. When you eliminate the content, all the things you're watching that is not getting you closer to being the version of you that is going to achieve your dreams, you will take off a lot faster. When you get rid of all the actions, all the things that you're doing in your life that is getting you nowhere, and you start taking the actions that is actually going to get you to where you want to be, you will get there much faster. You'll take off faster than you could have ever imagined. Like the person you want to become. That's not fake until you make it, by the way. This is intentional. Intentionally act like the person you want to become, because when you intentionally act like the person you want to become, your brain sees you taking those actions, so your brain starts to change the way it relates to you. If you can get a mental image of the person you would most like to become, begin now to act as that person would act in everything you do. Gradually, imperceptibly, you will actually become that person. It goes back to what the great German poet and philosopher Goethe once said, before you can do something, you must first be something. Say, okay, what is the next right step I can make in this moment, right? I can't climb a mountain in a day, but I can take one step today, and then tomorrow I could take another step. And you just keep taking those steps each and every day. Eventually, you're going to create momentum, and that momentum is just going to lead to more creativity, more inspiration, more clarity. Learn to let go of what leaves, because sometimes what we think is a goodbye forever is actually just a see you soon. If it's meant for you, and it leaves, just know that it's going to come back when the timing is right. Sometimes things fall apart temporarily so that they can fall into place permanently. Be the best thing you can possibly be, and don't worry about what anyone thinks, because you cannot please everybody. Life is beautiful in all its colors, even in the darker ones. They're here for a reason, and let's just celebrate the good moments while they're happening and be grateful for everything. Your laziness is something that has to do with you. You're not connected to something deep enough. You don't feel the necessity. You don't feel the devil at your heels. You don't feel the fact that you could very well die tomorrow. It will impel you to get something done. There's no necessity behind it. And this human animal that we've created is when we feel pressure, we feel the necessity to get things done. We can move mountains, but when that pressure releases and we don't feel the need to get something done, we could become incredibly lazy because there's no necessity. So you have to create necessity in your life. You have to create the need to get things done. You have to give yourself deadlines. You have to remind yourself that tomorrow you could die, you could have an illness. Give yourselves a sense of urgency that I need to get things done quickly. It feels scary to jump, Ian. That is exactly when you jump. Otherwise, you end up staying in the same place your whole life. And that I can't do.