One Life, One Chance - Powerful Motivational Speech Video

What would you do if you weren't afraid? And what would I do if I knew I couldn't fail? I will never wish for fewer epic stories at the end of my life. And I've never regretted failures. I've always regretted things that I didn't try. Whatever it is that you want to do, there's going to be risk in your life. And risk is a necessary component of progress. Some people never will have much. They're too cautious. Now, you can also be too reckless, but you can also be too cautious. This is called the timid approach to life. You can get so scared. And you can be so easily lulled into the idea that good is good enough. That feeling safe and comfortable is what you should always be looking for. That way of thinking, in your 20s in particular, dead wrong. Taking risks in a non-naive way. Well, then you have something that you can comfort yourself with at night. When you're wondering what the whole damn point of your futile and miserable life. Doing what you mean to do. And wanting what you want to want. Is so hard to do. And so rare. Because we're built to conform. If you're going to get any further, you've got to reinvent yourself. You know that thing that you really want to start doing, but you're worried what everyone might think about you if you do. You should do it. You should definitely, definitely do it. I want you to start to create this mindset of taking risks and going big. I found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Nothing. It was a big risk, it was a big chance, and it was no guaranteed return ticket. It was a one-way ticket possibly to, I'm a head coach of high school football to this day. Take the biggest ******* risks of your entire life right now. Remember, you have time. I figured that if I didn't make the entrepreneurship thing work, I would have a hell of a story for business school. And that was actually like the reasoned argument that I gave myself for being willing to quit. Because your DNA, who you are as a person, is wrapped up in your dreams. And what this world has done to you is take that from you because they know if you know who you are and you get your dream, you're probably not going to work for most of them. You must have faith. You've got to believe in yourself. You've got to believe in your abilities. Believe in your service, your company, your ideas. Unquestionably, you've got to have faith. Faith gives you patience. You've got one life, sleep or snow. The time is now. This is not the time to get the job mom wanted you to. This is not the time to try to maximize as much money so you can buy a fat whip. What you should do is go and travel and learn. Go and start that business that you've always wanted. This is the time to be massively risk, massively risk-oriented. But boy, if you're lucky enough to be graduating today with not a ******* idea of what you're going to do with your future, nobody's ever been luckier than you. Please recognize that. I'll tell you how risky life is. You're not going to get out alive. That's risky. And so the first thing I want you to do today is I want you to keep saying to yourself, I am, I am, I am, I am. You're standing at the precipice, the edge of the greatest move in your life. And the time is now like never before to take a leap of faith. It takes faith to jump off of the edge. It takes faith to step into your purpose. It takes faith to step into your destiny. It takes faith to pull away from everything that is familiar, to step into uncharted territory, to become the person you were born to be. It takes faith. The first person that needs to be influenced in your life is you. If you want to make it happen, it's you. But you've got to take personal responsibility to make it own what it is that you want to do. To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. Are you bold enough? Are you radical enough in your hunger and your thirst to go after what it is that you believe is yours? Are you crazy enough? Are you courageous enough? Hey, you know, at any given moment, you could be one decision away from an entirely different life, different place, different people, a different experience, and maybe a different you. Because sometimes in the process of completely losing yourself and losing expectations of who you are, you might find that there's more to you than you thought. So in my opinion, sometimes it's worth taking action. It's worth trying that new experience just to find out. Do something big. I know that there is something inside of you that you have always wanted to do. When you get to the edge, your brain will always tell you to step back. It's always going to tell you to step back. Because you can fall, always. It's going to tell you to step back. Because before you fail, the last time you did this, you saw someone else fail, you could hurt. You could be off work. It's going to tell you. It's designed to keep you safe. So you have to be willing to play between your brain and your soul. And on some days, you've got to just listen to your soul. And you've got to say, I'm going to leap. I'm going to get to the edge. Most people are at the edge. And you're standing at the edge. And you're watching everyone else fly. Watching someone else live. Wondering what it's going to be like when you jump without ever jumping. And I'm just here to tell you, jump. Because only three things can happen. You're either going to jump and fly. Or you're going to jump and fall on something soft. Or you're going to fall down hard. Either way, you're going to get back up. You already know you've got what it takes to get back up. Your greatest fear is not that you will fall. Your greatest fear is that you will live a full life and never fly. That you never leaped. You're not afraid of dying. You're afraid of dying before the world sees who you really are. Before they really get your fingerprint. Before they really feel your breath. Before they really get your contribution. Before they really feel you. That's what you don't want to happen. You don't want to leave this place without us knowing you were here. All I'm doing is giving my dream a chance. And I'm not extraordinary. You don't get off the hook. I'm an ordinary woman who chooses every day to make one more extraordinary decision. It's called the language of the poor. What if this happens? And on top of that, if this was to happen, look at the fix I'd be in. I better not try. Then I'll tell you what changed my whole life. When I finally discovered it's all risky. The minute you were born, it got risky. Getting married is risky. Having children is risky. Going into business is risky. Investing your money is risky. It's all risky. Why are you here? And what are you going to do about it? Because the truth of the matter is we have a purpose. We have a destiny. We have fulfillment. We've got connections to make. We've got people to meet. We've got rooms to walk in. We've got tables to sit at. When you're working at your dream, somebody said the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory. See, when it's hard and there's a struggle, see, what you become in the process is more important than the dream. That's far more important. The kind of person you become. The character that you build. The courage that you develop. The faith that you're manifesting. Oh, it's something that you get up in the morning, you look yourself in the mirror, you're a different kind of person. You walk with a different kind of spirit. You know it was hard, but you did it hard. No growth comes from being comfortable. And you know what else happens when you take big risks? You grow. You grow into the person that you're meant to become. Do me a favor. Write this down. No risk, no story. It's this simple, right? Like, if you're not going to take a risk, you don't freaking deserve the story, okay? No risk, no reward. I mean, why not take a chance trying to do something that seems impossible that might work? Are you willing to play at that level? Are you willing to risk it all to gain it all? Are you willing? Today is where the rubber meets the road. It's like, it's no risk, no reward. If you want to take the risk, you're going to get the reward. So it's like... Some say it's worth the wait. I say it's worth the risk. I'm telling you to risk it all for something that will last forever. Will you stay mediocre for the rest of your life? Or will you dig down deep and bring the greatness that lies inside of you to the world? No risk, no reward. No risk, no story. No risk, no champion. I'm going to take that chance that they say turns you into champions. My older brother, who was 12, got into an electrical accident and he died in my arms. And really come to terms with that I was the one who got to live. That this life that we live, it's a privilege. And when I really started to take that in, I felt this tremendous urge to do something with my life. To do something that mattered. At some point, everything's going to go south on you. Everything's going to go south and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that or you can get to work. You can't stop. You can't quit. You can't say, I'm a failure. You're not a failure. You're not. You're a wonderful, strong, intelligent youngster. Take advantage of that. Trust in God. Trust in yourself. Until you say, yeah, I'm going to take action. Nothing changes if nothing changes, man. And I'm not preaching at you. I just want to remind you. I've spent a lot of time in my life sitting around wanting things to change. And not being able to make them change. And not thinking I could. And I wish somebody had told me that earlier sometimes. That in order for something to change, there needs to be change. You cannot stand still. Because the world moves away from you if you stand still. And there's no stasis. There's only backwards. And so if you're not moving forwards, then you're moving backwards. How much harder will you work in this off-season now to get back to the championship? I'll push myself to exhaustion. Tommy, we thank you for your time. I feel like we sort of focus on right ways and wrong ways too much. And I think it's in a sense sort of scary to just be born and live life. And I understand the idea of kind of grasping onto a particular thought. Of wanting to kind of feel like you somehow have a handle on the unknown. But you know what? The unknown is the unknown. Every time you have changed, you feel pain. You stepped out of one relationship to another and you feel pain. You leave one neighborhood to another and you feel pain. You go from one job to another and you feel the fire of transition. See change as growth. See change as transformation. See change as evolution. See change as necessary. See change as critical. See change as inevitable. Do something. Stop being ******* scared if you have not jumped on the bandwagon of doing exactly what the **** you want to do. Which is skiing for the next three years or working at a job that's not what your parents want or what society wants. Do something. Stop being ******* scared. And so enough. Enough parents, the kid that's sitting right now at a desk and saw this in a feed and you hate your ******* job. Stand up, get the **** out of here and do you. Live your life. You got one life. And so if you're not willing to be a fool, then you'll never start anything new. And if you never start anything new, then you won't develop. And so the willingness to be a fool is the precursor to transformation. And that's the same as humility. And so if you're going to write your destiny, you can do a bad first job. You're going to get smarter as you move forward. When you can learn to do things when you don't want to, when you don't feel like it, when you're tired, when you can learn to push yourself to do them, that's when the world opens up to you. That's when success knocks at your door. There will never come a time when you can just happily coast through life. It's hard to stay governed by anxiety. It's hard to be inconsistent. It's hard not to have daily disciplines. It's hard not to believe in yourself. It's hard to be broke. It's hard to be poor. It's hard. It's all hard. So choose your heart. What I am telling you to do is chase after that version of yourself that you know you could be. What happens when I decide for myself that I'm going to do something different? Let me just ask you this. Mr. Risk Taker, what's the bigger risk? Carrying on? Make it going? Or taking the deeper dive? What's better? Take eight big risks in life, sin once, miss the mark once, but get seven. Achieve seven. Seven out of eight. Or take a hundred risks, and achieve eight of them. My hunch is that if there's a God, he's saying, go for the hundred and get eight, rather than eight and get seven. If you're not taking enough risks to sin or miss the mark, to fail, then what are you doing? Don't go back with even money. Go back with safe bets. You cannot afford not to. I get the sense that feelings are one of these strange bets. Emotions, investing ourselves, not holding a bit back, not putting one foot out, like putting it on the line, opening up. Yeah. That feels like a retreat in kind, but one that's plausibly deniable. When we just have one foot out, I didn't fully commit myself to this project, this relationship, this friendship, this self-transformation. And it means that if failure comes along, it doesn't hurt as much. But it also means that success is less likely, and if success comes along, you know that you didn't really earn it. We have to define success for ourselves. And then we have to put in the work to maintain it. Take that daily tally. Tend our garden. Keep the things that are important to us in good shape. No, no, no. Don't study the result. What was the person doing when they got there? And everybody who's achieved something great was some sort of outlaw. Some sort of hustler. Out of balance. Out of whack. Dark times. Woo. Ass dream. Still wakes up in the middle of the night and glad there went a mouth guard because they'd have chipped all their teeth with that f***ing nightmare they were having about those things they did back then. I'm one of those. Prioritize who you are, who you want to be, and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character. Let's carry on and trust and be ready to do the work to say, we're not going to just let that slide anymore. No, make a sacrifice today. Sacrifice a plastic ring today for a gold crown tomorrow. Sacrifice something today for more freedom tomorrow. Sacrifice something today for a possible healthier future for your kids. Be brave. Take the hill. But first, answer that question, what's my hill? Whatever your answer is, don't choose anything that will jeopardize your soul.