

I never knew how to turn things around.

You show me your crowd I show you your future.

It's simple right?

It's three type of people you need in your life.

You need the inspired.

The excited.

And the grateful.

Every one of them you will need for the rest of your life.

But you're your biggest your biggest distraction.

Tell me what your foundation is.

Where do you go when you need peace?

You don't know what to do?

You know what to do.

But the people you're around ain't doing what you supposed to be doing.

I'm begging you man!

I'm begging you from a man to a man.

Let go!

Let go!

Let go of these people who you know aren't for you.

You know better but you're not doing better.

Make a choice.

Like you just decide.

What is it about you about what it is that you provide that will make you stand out from the competition?

Think about yourself.

Think about your goals.

Think about your dreams.

Being in a great house does not make you great.

It's one thing to have great parents but that doesn't make you great.

It's one thing to work for a great company corporation that's great.

But that doesn't mean you are great because you are in that great house or that great corporation or that great church.

Or that great family that you're a member of.

You're either adding to the greatness of that family or you're diminishing it.

And they said it's possible to be in a great house but you not be great.

You not be gold.

You not even be silver.

You not be brass.

You just be dirt or clay.

A lot of people think that wealth makes you great.

But it's a lot of wealthy people who are not great people.

On the other hand poverty is equated into greatness.

And a lot of people that if they have nothing they must be great.

You're not greatness your greatness is not based upon your income.

There are some people who are good at doing but they're not good at being.

Greatness will cost you something not somebody else.

It will cost you something.

It's gonna cost you some time.

It's gonna cost you some energy.

It's gonna cost you some resources.

It's gonna cost you some hours of your life.

Laying down.

Paying the price.

Going the extra mile.

Doing what other people are not willing to do.

Greatness it's not cheap greatness always costs more.

That's why there's not many people who achieve greatness.

They're not willing to pay the price.

Greatness is not immediate.

In other words greatness takes time to develop.

You can't just run in your room and come out great.

Greatness is not immediate.

You gotta stay with it.

You gotta stay at it.

You gotta keep working on it.

We give up too quickly.

Greatness is not common.

Greatness does not have to have the approval of everyone.

And if you are the kind of person that will have to have the approval of everyone and understanding of everyone

you'll never achieve greatness.

Greatness is uncommon.

You cannot have the approval of everyone and be great.

And the sooner your understand that the sooner you will do great in life.

You're always going to live your life at the lowest common denominator of your friends if you don't watch it.

You can't believe one way and live another way and be great.

Greatness is living what you believe and living up to your potential.

Usually you will not discover greatness in a person until they go through hardship.

It's the hardship the crisis that brings greatness out of people.

There's something inside an internal reservoir that won't lie down and stay down and whine

and call their most three defeated friends and have a pity party.

But there's something about a person that when the waters get troubled and all hell's breaking loose

greatness will step up to the crisis.

Sometimes that will set you back - years

Or you can listen to that advice and it can catapult you to a place of greatness.

But you must be teachable to be great.

You never come to a place that you seize from learning.

Great people never stop learning.

People who are very skilled at what they do they still wanna learn.

"How do I get better?" "How do I get better?"

One of the qualities of greatness is it always wanting to get better wanting to learn more

learning that people who are not good are not open to instruction.

To be great you have to be able to receive correction.

You have to be able to be told you're not doing this right.

And you have to be able to be told that with a good attitude. Keep a good attitude.

Who do you want to be in the world?

Who do you want to be? Not what you wanna do.

Not what you want to achieve.

Who do you want to be?

What is the kind of person when they're reading your eulogy

what do you want the words to be said about the kind of person you have been in the world?

Do you know the answer to that question?

Do you know the answer to that question?

I'm asking that of everybody.

Do you know what that is?

But there are a lot of negative people in your life.

Don't look at them.

Look at the energy that you are creating to attract them.

Don't look at them.

Look at yourself.

What are you doing to draw those people?

Because if you are surrounded by negative people there's a part of you that is willing to tolerate that.

I'm telling you the negative energy will change.

And when you become that force for yourself you won't allow it.

I don't care what their title or role is in your life.

You just really won't. You just really won't.

Sometimes you have to divorce your friends.

And divorce your family members.

And if you handle them with love and doing it they will come back.

You have an opportunity to reconcile.

I speak from what I know.

But I had family members from whom I said "I will not allow you to treat me this way".

No matter where you are in the world right now close your eyes.

And he would list as I'm going to do for you different objects.

And I want you to allow those objects to appear before your mind.

And then let them go.

As I call out the objects okay?

A full moon.

An oak tree by the bank of a river.

A red triangle.

Now open your eyes.

What did you learn from that experience?

The observer of the red triangle the full moon the tree by the river

is the same observer who observes all the thoughts that come in and out of your head all day long.

And just like you could let the red triangle and the full moon come in and out of your mind

you have the same control over all the thoughts that are jamming you up all day long.

As Ernest Hemingway noted

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger in the broken places."

But my question is Why isn't everyone?

To me it comes down to the strategies that you use.

There really isn't anything objectively good or bad.

There isn't anything that happens to you that can't be overcome.

There isn't anything that could happen to you.

Anything.

That when you turn inward you can't find a reason to overcome.

You can't find a way to put those pieces back together.

And that becomes your job.

It becomes literally up to you whether you're going to sit and wallow and woe as me.

Because what happens happen.

And there is no way to take it back.

But how you respond what you bring to that table

whether you meet fire with fire whether you meet that adversity with falling apart

becoming weaker in the areas that broke or you bind them and mend them

and it becomes like a well that literally makes you stronger.

Is a choice.

And it's a choice only you get to make.

But as Stephen Hawking said

"When you complain nobody wants to help you."

There are many things in your life that you have every reason to complain about.

You have every reason to be upset by the things that had happened to you.

The most sinister thing about excuses is they're valid.

There's a million reasons why you should be able to give up.

There's a million reasons why you shouldn't need to try that thing that broke you.

You should be allowed to just sit on the ground

And here's the thing That's your right!

You have every reason to do it.

And maybe people won't even think less of you.

But here's the truth

Why they become weaker or stronger in the places that broke and that's a choice of how you react moving forward.

The great news is the best thing that you can do to become stronger is love yourself.

And as Kamal Ravikant said

"Loving yourself is a practice"

People think that is something that is gonna feel right.

That is gonna feel natural.

That you're just gonna turn inward and there it is the spark of love and joy.

For yourself inside yourself.

But the truth is that's just not the human experience.

That's not the way that it works.

It's gonna be a voice inside your head and it's going to blame you.

It's gonna say that it's your fault.

And no matter how many times people on the outside tell you that that is not true

that this thing happened to you that it isn't you it doesn't define you.

There will be a voice that is going to tell you that it does.

And that's where you have to fall back on process.

That's where you have to realize that you literally have to practice loving yourself.

And that it's okay.

That no matter what happened there is absolutely nothing that invalidates that you're worthy of your own love.

But you've gotta practice it.

You've gotta be willing to do it.

You've gotta be willing to put in the reps.

You've gotta know that it's not gonna feel right.

But you've gotta know on the other side of that is a vision of your life where you actually do love yourself.

Because you took the time to say it.

You took the time to practice it.

You took the time to sit there and feel stupid and say that you love yourself.

And sometimes just putting in the work is what you need to do to get strong.

So put in the work.



