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Language: en
I've seen a lot of incredible people stopped
By an unwillingness to let go of a past that doesn't help them, but as Lily Tomlin said
Forgiveness means giving up hope for a better past
And that's the truth isn't it. There's nothing you can do about the past
There's nothing you can do to undo it or to change. What's already been done and yet somehow
This is the area that people struggle most with in their lives the thing that is hardest for people is
To recognize the immutability of that fact, there's nothing you can do
It's done and gone forever
And there's no way to get it back and the key in your life is to
Understand that that's fine that you're going to learn from what happened that you're gonna grow and get better and that living your life in
The past is stopping you from having a future
But as Seneca noted every new beginning comes
from some other beginnings end
And if you can accept that if you can literally close the door on your past if you can accept
It's never going to get better if you can accept that it is what it is if you can accept that
Part of what makes you a beautiful human being is that horrible thing that happened to you or that horrible thing that you did that?
Thing that you think there's no way
You could ever be forgiven for
But there's no one to forgive you but you and
The only thing that you need to realize in order to give yourself that forgiveness is to understand that nothing is ever going to make
It any different
But in the way that you think
You can make it better and just by reframing that by reframing
What's happened by asking yourself a very simple question?
How is that bad thing that happened to actually the best thing that ever happened to you?
And if you can take control of that situation and really look into it and understand that from that something has come or
something can come
That is great that makes you stronger that makes you better and that the fortitude to look at that thing to
Fortitude to find in paying something beautiful
Something that makes you a better person something that allows you to help other people then
Then you really can free yourself from being bound by the past and turn into something new
Close the door on something so that you really can go somewhere
new and
in the discovery of that new you in the discovery of the new place that you can go in the discovery of something new and
Better for yourself you realize that you're writing that future
And once you realize that you're writing your future once you realize that you can help other people write theirs once you
Realize that you can take control of all that mental baggage and turn it into something positive that literally the bricks that wage you down
Can be the bricks with which you build something new, then you will go on to do something incredible?
Then you will go on to help other people then you will lift other people up and be able to do something that brings
Beauty to this world
but first
You have to forgive
First you have to understand that you're never going to have a better past
But you can definitely have a better future
As
An evolved avi Kant said the only way to truly learn something is by doing it
Yes listen to guidance
But don't wait
That is such a powerful idea and I know right now you're listening to this because you want
Motivation you want to be inspired, but my greatest
fucking fear is
that you'll get
Motivated you'll get inspired and that'll just be a declining art for a few minutes after you listen to this video that ends with you
doing
nothing
And what I want what I really hope for and the reason that I give myself over to making these so
Completely as I know some percentage of you on the other side of this will
Ultimately be prepared to take that first step
You will realize that the only thing that matters is action
and you will take the action and it's in that action that your potential greatness waits and
As Martin Luther King said take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase
Just take the first step
You've just got to believe
That you can learn you don't have to believe that you're already capable of doing what you want
You don't have to believe that you can already build that thing that you dream
You don't have to believe that you already are extraordinary
You simply have to believe that if you take that first step you
Put yourself on a journey not of execution you put yourself on a journey of learning so that you can execute and that
When you understand that difference?
That's when you really will be on that path to greatness and that is the thing that I want for everybody listening to this please
Understand the only thing you need to know is that you have to take the first step
Whatever the vision is that you have for your life
You absolutely can make it come true
And the process is very simple the process is about learning the process is about growing and getting better
It's about recognizing what you're not good at it's about recognizing what you have to learn. It's about taking that first step on faith
on
Faith that you can get better not on faith that you're great on faith that you can
Become the greatest of all time
Once you have that faith once you know that simply being a human being
Puts you in this rare category of creature that can get better through pressure through pain through
difficulty through failure
Those are the things that are going to be the building blocks of your success but in order to begin on that road in order
To have your first glorious failure you must first take that first step
So, please
Don't waste your time being motivated or inspired spend every second of your time
moving forward
That's how you're gonna get where you want to go
Greatness is the most demanding mistress you're ever going to encounter
And I understand the advice that I'm about to give you is not
For everyone most people should turn this off
But if you're gonna stick with me if you're going to listen to what I have to say it's because you want something
Tremendous in your life you want to stand out from everyone else you want to do something
More than other people think it's possible
You literally want to stand outside the norm, and if that's the case for you
Then understand that as Albert Einstein said only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole
Strength and soul can be a true master for this reason
mastery demands all of a person
if you want to
get great if you really want to make a skill set your own if you want to be able to do something and at the
end of the day if you want to transform the world if you want to make grand changes if you want to do all of
That shit all the empty words that people spout all the time
Let me tell you the only thing that's going to separate you from all the other blowhards
We're just talking words, and we'll never do anything is
To give yourself over completely to let that obsession let that thing that you love
completely consume you and in that your only chance to really become great lies as
Friends Kafka said don't bend don't water down. Don't try to make it logical rather follow your most intense
obsessions
mercilessly
Can you do that can you become?
mercilessly obsessed
Can you let something occupy you to where all?
Logic and reason is gone out the window and the only thing that matters is whether or not you accomplish
Will you hold yourself accountable to metrics?
Will you look at the world and see am I actually making change?
Are you prepared to hold yourself to that standard because if you are there is nothing you can't fucking do if you're willing to take
That responsibility on to transform yourself as a human being if you give
your self over to
Getting
great
If you give yourself over to that obsession if you feed it
Like you would feed a beast if you feed it like you would feed a fire that can wipe out an entire
mountainside
Then you've got a chance
But it's got to burn within you like that. You've got to feed it like that. You've got to feed its skills
You've got to get better every day. You've got to constantly wake up and understand exactly
what it is you're building towards that and build towards it with a
Relentlessness that other people think is mania that other people can see only
madness in what you do and
if you can push yourself to that level
then the world will bend to your will as
Epictetus said he is a wise man who does not grieve for things which he has not
But rejoices for those which he has
And that's gratitude isn't it it's the very base decision that we all have to make
Are you grateful for the things you have in your life or are you always wanting more and trust me I get it I?
Understand people that strive for more I understand people that want something bigger and better
But at the same time if you allow yourself to only think about what you don't have to only be striving for something more
That that obsession will begin to overtake you it will begin to corrode you but ultimately it's a choice ultimately at any time
right now in this moment you can stop and
Think about what you have you can put your attention on the things you're grateful for and watch what it does
watch what it does in that instance the way that it changes you the way that it changes your chemistry your feelings in a
moment
Can shift from negative and dark?
to beautiful
With nothing else changing around you nothing but you deciding
That you're gonna focus on the things you're grateful for nothing
But deciding that there are things in your life to be grateful for and that is a decision no matter
What is happening in your life at any moment right now in the depths of a depression in something going on?
terribly in your life you can choose right now to
Think about the things you're grateful for
the breeze a
smile from somebody kind a stranger who holds open a door for you anything, but it's a choice and
As Einstein said there are only two ways to live your life
One is as though. Nothing is a miracle
The other is as though everything is a miracle and what choice are you making?
What are you choosing to focus on right now?
do you
Gratitude fill you up or not and here's the critical part
and I want you to listen to this really well whatever you decide whether you decide we live in a
Of miracles or whether we decide to live in a world devoid of miracles you were choosing one thing to the exclusion
Of the other and when you focus on something that you're grateful for when you look at those little moments in your life and choose
to see them as grand miracles even whinny there's only a
Gentle hand on your shoulder even then it's only a kiss from somebody who you've kissed a thousand times before
Even when it is only holding the hand of somebody who needed their hand held even when it's something that simple
It really is a miracle that it really is something that can fill you it really is something that will change your chemistry
bring a connection between two people allow you to see a grander Vista or even just
open a window and look out at the world and realize that you're alive that this is all a
Miracle that none of this is guaranteed that every breath you take
could be your last and
in that
You can choose to cherish what you have in that you can decide to focus on
that you have a breath to take and
Even when it's something that simple when you train your mind to do that when you train yourself to
Decide to see the beauty in that
that nobody can ever take it away from you and
Matter where you are no matter what's going on in your life
You'll be able to rise up and feel the beauty
That is being alive
So take a minute at the worst times in your life and focus on the things you're grateful for
I
Wanted to spell a myth for you, it's the talent myth
It's the belief that some people were just born with more than others that some people are naturally gifted in some art
and that's just the way the cookie crumbles and
Whatever you're gonna. Be is essentially determined by how you started that your DNA is exactly your destiny
I'm here to tell you right now. That's
Bullshit it's just not true
It's not the truth of the way that humans are designed as a species were the ultimate
Adaptation machine that the very thing that puts us at the top of the pyramid is our ability to adapt
It is the fact that the brain is plastic that it responds to change it responds to stressors it
responds to repetition and
repetition is a slave to obsession as
Conor McGregor said there's no talent here. This is hard work. This is an obsession
You could be anyone if you put in the time
That's one of the greatest athletes of our time telling you that he's not the result of
Genetics. He's not the result of natural gifts. He hasn't been bestowed something by God
He has shown up day after day in the most mundane of conditions on the cold days on the hot days
He put in the work because he was obsessed with
What he could become and that repetition?
That you need to actually gain a skill follows that obsession so in you right now right now
Today you want to start building that obsession you want to look at it like an ember that can become a raging fire
But it needs your time and attention
It needs your time and attention you've got to take that
Interest you've got to take that
Spark of desire and you've got to fan the flame
You've got to turn it into that obsession and from that obsession if you put in the work if you do the things day in
And date out the back-breaking work pushing through the pain
Fighting through feeling like an idiot fighting through embarrassment getting up brushing yourself off doing it again
Practicing putting yourself at somebody's feet and asking
What could I have done better?
Not look at the things you're doing well
But look at the things we're doing wrong look at the things you're doing poorly staring at your inadequacies
with no loss of pride
Because the only thing you value in yourself is your willingness to do that your ruling is to work your ass off
And as Sylvester Stallone said, I'm not the richest smartest or most talented person in the world, but I succeed
because I keep going and going and going and
That's the secret there's nothing more than that
The people that you see that win at the highest level they were the ones that didn't give up
They're the survivors and you've got to ask yourself am I a survivor type am I the type of person that?
continues to push through
When it gets hard when it gets boring when I feel lost when I don't know what I'm doing when I have no faith in
Myself even in that darkest hour can I push?
Forward can I accept that the human body will respond to that stress it will respond to that stimulus
But I have to show up and I have to do the work
And so that's the beautiful thing you're not gonna separate yourself based on your genetics
You're not gonna separate yourself based on who your parents were where you were born
You're gonna separate yourself by showing up when you don't want to you're gonna separate yourself by pushing forward when it hurts
You're gonna separate yourself by always
Moving forward even when the forward is falling on your face
So never lose sight of that. It's the person that keeps going that can't be defeated
Here's the hard truth about getting great
It takes time and dedication
It takes a willingness to accept that you're not yet. Good enough it takes the ability
To stare at the places that you know that you're weak to really look at those things and not let it affect
Your sense of self-esteem and not let it affect your sense of self-worth so that you can still get the momentum going
But you have to understand that in the beginning
We're all terrible and as henri cartier-bresson said your first
10,000 photographs are your worst and so the thing that really makes great art are the people that
Continue to push and the people that continue to work and face how inadequate they are and really
Understand that at the end of the day greatness is a craft
Greatness is a process
Greatness is a habit greatness is the little things that you do every
over time going out everyday
Unafraid of whether or not this is one of the 10,000 terrible things that you're going to do
It's being unafraid to make those mistakes as being unafraid
That you're not yet great
And as Marianne rad maker said courage doesn't always war
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying I will try again tomorrow
And that's it if you want to be great. That's what you have to do you've got to get up again tomorrow
You've got to be willing to face another day
You've got to be willing to accept that you've got to get through the bad ideas before you can get to the good
You've got to understand that you have to start as an apprentice
You have to start as a person going and getting tea
And you have to accept that that's the job that you should be playing that you should be working for somebody else you should be
Looking up to somebody else's seeing what they can teach you because what you know?
Is that you're there to learn what you know is that you're there to get through the?
10,000 bad photographs that you need to get through to ultimately achieve greatness, and if you make the catastrophic error, that's so
many make
To try to tell them whether you're extraordinary
To try to get the world to follow you and look up to you and think here something today
Because the people that living win the ones that
Today the ones that listen today the ones that spend every ounce of their energy
Amassing mastery getting better every day
working their asses off to improve their skill set to
relentlessly look at the things that they're not doing well to
Understand that they have to break themselves down and get rid of all of their ego before they can really find greatness
Those are the people that we remember
So if you want to be remembered if you want to achieve real greatness
you just need to have the courage to show up every day and
Take another swing
Take another photo
Try another task do something that scares you and do those little things over and over
and over until you win as
Kurt Vonnegut one of the greatest authors in modern time said
When I write I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth
but he still did it and
That's the kind of thing that you're gonna hear from the Great's you're not gonna hear that it was easy you're not gonna hear that
They felt suave and cool even the greatest of all time have that awkwardness not clumsiness
They're never quite as good as they want to be but what I want you to understand is even though Kurt Vonnegut said those words
He wrote
tons of books that
changed people's lives that changed the landscape of
Literature because despite the fact that he felt awkward and clumsy
He kept doing it and doing it and forcing himself to move forward to take one step after another even when the process
Was not exactly rewarding he believed in something. He knew that what he was trying to do would ultimately
Get better he knew that if he wanted to accomplish something great that he had to push through the awkwardness and that
Is the very trick to getting great?
You just have to do it you have to go you have to take that first step
You have to push you have to drive you have to strive
every time to get a little bit better you have to strive not to fall prey to your own doubts and insecurities and
As Joan Amos said
If you aren't going all the way why go at all?
But it's doing that in face of the fear. It's doing that in face of the difficulties
It isn't only because someone is great that they say you should either do it all the way to play hard or go home
They're not saying it because the process is in and of itself rewarding
They're saying it because there is something that they're trying to accomplish that demands it
But they're prepared to play on a world stage and once you know why you're doing what you're doing once something sits at the core
Of your being and despite how difficult painful awkward it may be to push forward
you push forward no matter what the odds and
as Hannibal said one of the greatest military leaders of all time I
Wider find a way, or I'll make one and he said that as he was getting elephants across the Alps
Now when you think of the difficulties that you face in trying to do what you're trying to accomplish think about that man
Amassing an army and getting elephants to climb a mountain and saying not this is impossible
But rather if there's not already a way present
I will make one and when you can look at that when you can look at your own inadequacies when you can accept
But you were not yet good enough, but you know then you'll put in the work to get there
You know the allure the things you need to learn that you will push and you will practice and you will shape yourself
Into someone capable of doing it and if you have to literally carve your own path out of these stone
granite of a mountainside you will do that because that's what your goals demand and
When you're prepared to do what ever your goals demand you will accomplish whatever you set your mind to
As Albert Einstein said try not to become a man of success
But rather try to become a man of value
This is something that I think about a lot at the end of the day success is incredibly
Motivating in accomplishing your goals and 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 that I've felt happiest the times that I felt most secure the times that my
anxiety and my stress have been at zero
Are the times where I felt like I was being
Most true to myself where I was trying to really become a person of substance. I wasn't looking for something extrinsic
I was focused inward and trying to develop the person that I'm becoming that I had some
Code that I was living by that. I was really
Deciding not just what outwardly success looks like but what does 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 it takes you somewhere
Amazing and as Bruce Lee said knowledge will give you power
But character will give you respect and at the end of the day. I really can't think of anything better than that
I can't think of anything that will
Keep me company when I'm alone when there's nothing but silence around
When all I can hear the sounds of my own thoughts the only thing that is going to bring me or you comfort is
Respect this self-love is knowing who you are really and knowing that you're true to that even when nobody's looking and that
Concept that notion of having a guiding light of principle something by which you steer by that you are always
true to and then in your moments of stress chaos confusion of
Desire that in your moments of deepest desire
That you're still true to that
That all you think about is that Norstar of being that person that you want 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 badly about yourself
Because once you know who you are and you're true to it nothing else matters
As
Walt Disney said
If you can dream it you can do it
Now what makes me laugh is I know right now some of the people listening to that
They say that's bullshit. They're just limits to what humans can do and
I get that response I understand it. I used to respond to everything like that
I used to see only the difficulty I used to see only the ways in which it couldn't work out
And I couldn't see I was literally blinded by fear
I was blinded by some bizarre sense of pride that wanted to justify my limited existence
That didn't want to have to face that I could be doing more that I couldn't be more that my life was somehow less
than what it could be and
So I would laugh at quotes like that and I know right now of the chills I know right now
There are people that are laughing at that and all they can think about are the limits all they can think about are the things
That prove him wrong and guess what he is wrong there really are limits
But if you fucking waste your time focused on that you're never
Going to create the momentum that you need to actually make something come true in your life. You can build
virtually anything, but if you get hung up on the fucking virtual part if you let that stop you if you
Immediately go to the things that ultimately limit you and hold you back that is where you're gonna stay
forever because if you argue for your limitations guess what my friend they become yours and
Congratulations. You now get to live in that box you get to live in that
self-defined prison
but if like Teddy Roosevelt said
Instead of that you keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground and you don't act like somebody who can't see
That sure there are limits. There are edges to this universe
But you're looking at that
You're looking at how he really executes. You're
Dreaming big and you're remembering that your feet
ultimately is that contact point it is where the rubber meets the road it is that moment of doing and
so if instead of
Rejecting it because your feet must stay planted on the ground
Remember that in keeping your feet on the ground. That's the moment of action. That's the moment of doing something about it
that's the moment of seeing the fucking possibilities and then
moving
Doing something making it real so right now
Give up on those weird mental mechanisms that make you actually want to fight for the things
That aren't possible to get people to believe in it to get people to understand why
You've chosen to stand still
Instead of that convince yourself that you should be moving and don't do what you know you're destined to do
as
Haroon 'yeah noted I
always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on earth, and then I ask myself the same question as
Mark twain put it the secret of getting ahead is getting started, and that's where people get stuck
You're literally like the bird. You could fly anywhere you want you can go
Anywhere you want to go and look
I know you've got a litany of excuses and all of them are valid you've got a job
You can't just leave well. You don't have a job, and you don't have the money your family is in one place
It's the only thing that you've ever known. You only speak one language
You've never traveled before you don't have a passport you can't afford the gas money. There are a thousand
real
Reasons not to go
But the truth is that none of them matter the truth is if you want to build something in your life that you have to
Remember Mark Twain said you have to get started because at the end of the day that is
Literally the only thing that's holding you back you're not moving and once you get the simplicity of that once you understand
That you could act right now. You could say fuck all the excuses you can stop making them
You could stop giving in to them no matter how?
Valid they are no matter how real they may seem you can finally decide that you're going to get up immunity
You're gonna create that momentum that you're going to take a step that you're gonna make the demand that you create momentum that you get
Something done, but you fucking find an answer
or as Hannibal said that you're going to find a way or make one if you have to carve through fucking rock do it because
humans before you
Have done it
And that's the simple truth that is the simple fucking truth and everything else is bullshit
Everything else is the weak voice in your mind holding you back and making you a less version of yourself, so I ask you
Why doesn't the bird fly wherever it wants to go?
Because that's all it's known
Because that's what's safe
Because that's what's comfortable well because it's a dumb fucking animal
What do you want to be if this isn't the life you want to live?
Do something about it?
You