Rise and Grind #1

Some of you are going to sleep and youdon't deserve to be. You don't deserve rest. You lazy. You don't deserve rest,rest is for people who work. You ain't doing nothing. Every day you chillin. Youneed to know your why and my why wakes me up every single morning. You don't getit. Listen to me very closely. You can writeeverything down if you want to be brave enough to write every one of your goals down butI'm gonna tell you something. Life's gonna hit you in your mouth and you gottado me a huge favor your why has to be greater then that knocked out. At the end ofyour feelings is nothing but at the end of every principle is a promise. Find aman who's diligent at what he does and he shall stand before kings and not meanmen. Every day you say no to your dreams you might be pushing your dreams back awhole six months. That one single day that one day you didn't get upcould've push your stuff back, I don't know how long. 

The first level to successin life, listen to me, the very first level, the very first level is you seeingit like it's clear to you like you know exactly what you want, you know exactlywhen you want it, listen to me you know exactly what it tastes like, you knowwhat it looks like, you know what it smells like. Beforeyou really blow up- blow up and you get success, you literally have it in thepalm of your hand without having it. I didn't come here to make friends. I don't even care if they respect me, I know who I am. I got enough respect for myself. I do not want them to beat me. They're nevergonna beat you. They came close today. I'm telling you right now, I'm tellingyou right now because I care about you I'm telling you right now because I'vebeen there, I've done that, you've been at it for three years and you about to quit, you've been doing it for five years and it don't look like you think,you put all your money in it you put all your time in it, peoplelooking at you crazy, five years you've invested, oh. You put too much in it toquit now and the problem with some of y'all is you want somebody else to support your dream. Thisis my time, this my moment, tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow, ain't no such thing as tomorrow. Whatdoes your dream look like? What does it smell like, what does it taste like? If you wantit to happen, get your butt up and make it happen. If you want it to happen, rise and grind. And right now I need you to listen becausewe are going to go from A to Z and I dare you, yes you to make a choice and choose to change. Average into amazing. Broken into booming, confusion into clarity, desperation into domination, endangered into exceptional, failure into first class, give up into go-getter, hopeless into hungry, nah nahI gotta say it like Les Brown - 'you gotta be hungry!' And what that means is your classroomhas to be like your favorite place to eat. 

You gotta eat it, you gotta drink ityou gotta see the success. You gotta live the success, you gotta breathe thesuccess and you got this and that's why you made the decision to changeintroverted into influenced, jacked up into jaw-dropping, knocked out intoknowledge of self, last place into the leader of the pack, minor into major, no chance into next level, out of touch into outstanding. This is just a reminderof how powerful words can be as it relates to our mindset so I need you tokill that negativity and speak that positivity into existence because thosethat can weather the storm, those that can fight through the adversity, thosethat can push through the problems, are putting themselves in a position toprosper and winners like you understand and that's why you chose to turnpain into passion, power and purpose quitters mentality in to qualitylifestyle, regret into redemption, sadness into superstar status, terrible intoterrific, unlikely into upper bound, vindictive into victory, weakness into winning formula, x'ed out into eXtraordinary. I know, I know they start with E but they're pronouncedwith an X so we gonna make it work. Yearning into yes you can, and finally from zero into zinormous and that's how you go to the next level and win not only in the classroom but in every aspect of your life. As Albert Einstein said, trynot to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. Atthe end of the day, success is incredibly motivating and accomplishing your goalsand your dreams is something that I wanted to do since I was a little kid,that's been a driving force in my life but through all of that, the times thatI've felt happiest, the times that I felt most secure, the times that my anxietyand my stress have been at zero are the times where I felt like I was being mosttrue to myself. Where I was trying to really become a person of substance, Iwasn't looking for something extrinsic, I was focused inward and trying to developthe person that I'm becoming, that I had some code that I was living by. That Iwas really deciding not just what outwardly success looks like but whatdoes it mean to be a good person, what does it mean to be an effective person,what does it mean to be worthy of trust and those things at the end of the day,those things are something that when you invest in finding value in that, that ittakes you somewhere amazing and as Bruce Lee said, knowledge will give youpower but character will give you respect and at the end of the day, I really can'tthink of anything better than that. I can't think of anything that will keepme company when I'm alone, when there's nothing but silence around, when all Ican hear are the sounds of my own thoughts the only thing that is going to bring meor you comfort is respect, is self-love is knowing who you are really andknowing that you're true to that even when nobody's looking and that conceptthat notion of having a guiding light, a principle, something by which you steerby that you are always true to and then in your moments of stress, chaosconfusion, of desire that in your moments of deepest desire, that you're still trueto that, that all you think about is that North Star of being that person that youwant to be, when you let that be your guiding light, when you stay true to that,nothing can hurt you because nothing will be able to make you feel badlyabout yourself because once you know who you are and you're true to it, nothingelse matters. No matter what type of circumstancesthat you have been raised in or have experienced you always have the abilityto find a way out and create success for yourself and I had to do that in my ownlife.

 I'd see all the college students go towards the campus and I thought tomyself “Where are they going? What are they doing? Why do they look different than the rest ofpeople there in the group?” That always kept in the back of my head. Our mother said, “Whatever you do, in order to change your circumstance you’regoing to have to get an education.” I kept that in the back of my head.No matter what I had to educate myself. I had to get a degree.So people that I saw going to the school down the street, that’s something I could do.I had that vision. I would go to this school that was in a predominantlywell-off area and everyone had books and paper and really nice shoes.I remember looking at this thinking, “Oh, I don’t have any of that.”Every time I could come back into my neighborhood I would see the graffiti, and I’d see the trash. I thought to myself, “What makes a difference?Why are there people here in this situation, versus here in this situation?” Every single day I would come back and it came down to this, it was the thinking.How we think, how we look at situations, whether or not we see ourselves doing well and beingsuccessful, or versus if we see ourselves as a not successful person in anenvironment. Our thinking defines our life. When we can take hold of ourthought and see it for what it is, and change it, and transform it, and change itto convert it into an energy that unleashes a brainpower that allows us tochange a situation, that my friend is how we change our lives, and that’s how wechange everyone else’s life.  

What happened was I was failing algebra. I failed algebra,I failed geometry, I failed calculus and chemistry. There was thiscalculus teacher that said, “All right, I’m going to offer calculus tutoring foranyone who’s willing to come to the campus during the winter break.” Ithought everyone’s going to show up. There was only myself. I thought tomyself, “This is such a blessing.” I sat there and I picked his brain. I'm like“How do I look and what does an integral mean? What does the tangent mean?  What doesthe instantaneous rate mean?” These are all words for derivatives incalculus, and I got to just sit down with him. That was the first time ever that I realized I was smart.When I sat with him it was amazing because I realized what was stopping me was my own fear. It wasn’t anything withmy educational aspect. It was me thinking I couldn't do well in mathematics andwhen I learned to remove that fear and “I’m going to do this no matter what’sgoing to happen. I may fail it. I may not fail it. I’m going to do well at this andI’m going to just see where it goes. I’m going to put my all into it and findout.” And I put my all into it and I failed. But something inside of me shifted.I realized failing wasn’t that bad. If I can spend a little bit more time at itI can actually do really well with this. That was a shift in thinking.I’m like, “Alright, I’m just going to spend some more time in it and I’m going to actually get this.” When I overcome my own fear it was when Iwas working with someone else and recognizing that person next to me was the exact mirror of myself and if I could help that person right next tome, I was helping myself at the same time.

It became this teamwork. Every single person on the campus needed mathematics and so I got a chance to know everybody on campus and became one of the most popularpeople because everyone needed mathematics and that confidence that wasbuilt from taking something that I failed at before and shifting my thinking about it and embracing it to actually create a new reality for myself,that’s what empowered me. That’s what allowed me to graduate top ofmy class, which later opened up the door to launch rockets. You know one of the most powerfulsentences in the world consists of ten two letter words right and it goeslike this: if it is to be, it is up to me. And you can make your dream become areality, you can make any goal achievable you just have to want it. You need tosurround yourself with people who want you to achieve, people who want you tochallenge yourself, people who want to see you get to the top but if you can't breakpast that barrier of being afraid to go into obstacles then really you're nobetter than the 90% who just have a dream and do nothing about it.

 You needto want it with every part of your body. You need to commit yourself becausecommitment and effort is the only thing that will like break these obstacles andget you where you want to go but until you do that you won't get anywhere andthe truth is a lot of people unfortunately surround themselves withpeople who put them down, who think that their dreams aren't worth it and here's thetruth. You need to learn to stand up for what you believe in even when the wholeworld is sitting down and if you can do that and believe in what you believe in,the world is yours to take. There's no other way around