You're feeling discouraged because of what you've lost,
but I want you to know
that what you have left is all you need to rebuild.
This is a new beginning for you,
so this is not the time for you to slack off.
This is not the time for you to go to your unhealthy
coping mechanism, whatever that is for you.
This is not the time
for you to go into your room, turn off the lights
and pull the covers over your head.
Since most people go through life
not allowing themselves
to step out because they don't wanna let go.
They don't wanna be blown around.
They don't wanna be moved.
The courage to face life's
whirling wind of contradictions.
The courage to love yourself,
the courage to love,
the courage to take a chance, the courage to be who you are.
But remember, you're never really helpless,
and the sense that you are helpless
or that you might be if certain things were to happen,
is something we really ought to be afraid of.
And that we should refuse to accept.
Just because your circumstance don't reflect it right now
doesn't mean that you don't have it.
Believe in yourself and get up outta there
and go do what you've gotta do.
We have to redefine success to be peace
because if you are not at peace, you are not successful.
You get that if pain is driving your need to produce.
If you are not successful.
You're running away from something.
To me, every day is a beginning,
a new day, a new week, a new shot at life,
an opportunity to come out of the gate like a man possessed
and attack the day without mercy.
And of course, I will get tired.
I will get beat up, I'll get knocked down
and drained, and I will have some bad days.
But I will not stop.
Courage is not the absence of fear.
Courage is the judgment that what you want
is more important than your fear.
Human potential is not of
any kind of measurable limit.
It can go as far as you desire
or as as far as you have the courage to walk.
Trust yourself.
Trust the process of overcoming fear.
Trust your ability to overcome and adapt.
I promise you, you are capable.
Now is the time to become your own biggest advocate,
not another obstacle, not something in your own way.
Do not fear the work that comes with facing your fear.
Welcome it and watch what masterpiece
of awaits in your own reflection.
It was very difficult to pick myself up each day believing
that I could do it.
There were times that I doubted myself.
I said, God, why?
Why is this happening to me?
I'm just trying to take care of my children and my mother.
I'm not trying to steal a rob from anybody.
Why did this have to happen to me?
It was very hard.
And here's what I want to say to you.
For those of you that have experienced some hardships,
don't give up on your dream.
No one could have convinced me by holding on,
by continuing to push forward,
by continuing to run toward my dream.
At one day,
I would have my own talk show.
It's a long shot, ladies and gentlemen,
from Liberty City and abandoned building on a floor
never knowing my mother or father.
It's a long shot
being here with you today in this dome in Atlanta.
It's a long shot.
No college training labeled edible, mentally retarded,
but I kept running toward my dream.
It's very important
as you hold onto that dream,
their moments when you are going to doubt yourself,
their rough times are going to come, but they have not come to stay.
They have come to pass.
It's very important for you to know that.
Don't say I'm having a bad day.
Sam having a character building day,
it's very important for you to believe
that you are the one
to make this happen.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.
You are your most valuable asset,
your life, your potential, and your possibilities are the most precious things you have.
Thus, your great goal in life should
be to fulfill that potential and become
everything you are capable of becoming.
Your ability to learn, grow, and fulfill your potential is unlimited.
Today, people are graduating from high school
and college in their seventies, learning new subjects and developing new capabilities.
Your ability to learn and remember can continue throughout your life.
If you keep your brain alive, alert, and functioning at its best.
your most precious financial asset is your earning ability.
Your ability to work is your primary source of cash throughout your life.
You could lose your home, your car, your bank account, and everything you own.
But as long as you have your earning ability,
you can earn it all back
and more in the months and years ahead.
Your biggest investment,
most people don't realize this.
they take their earning ability for granted.
But it has taken you your entire life to develop your earning ability.
Every bit of education experience and hard work that you have invested in
learning your craft and developing your skills
has gone into building this asset.
Your earning ability is very much like a muscle.
It can increase in strength and power year by year as the result of regular exercise.
Likewise, the opposite is true too.
If left alone or ignored, your earning ability,
like your muscles can become weaker or even decline
because you have simply failed to upgrade it continue.
In other words, your earning ability can be
either an appreciating or a depreciating asset.
What got you here won't get you any further.
Some people are actually losing value each year,
declining in earning ability because they're not
continually upgrading their knowledge and skills.
They don't realize that whatever knowledge and skill they have today
is rapidly becoming obsolete.
It is being replaced by new knowledge and skills that.
If you don't have them and someone else does,
you will be in danger of being overtaken by your competition.
The achievement of personal excellence is a
decision you make or that you fail to make.
But in the absence of a commitment to excellence in your chosen field,
you automatically default to average performance or even mediocrity.
No one becomes excellent accidentally,
or by just going to work each day.
Excellence requires a definite decision and a lifelong commitment.
Knowledge and skill are the keys to the 21st century.
Becoming the best person you can possibly be
and moving to the top of your field require the application
of self-discipline throughout your life.
Mental fitness is like physical fitness.
If you want to achieve either.
You must work at it all your life
you can never let up.
You must be continually learning and growing
every day, week and month
throughout your career and in other areas of your life.
If you're going to join the top 20% and stay there
to earn more, you must learn more.
Abraham Lincoln once wrote,
the fact that some have become wealthy is proof that others may do it as well.
What others have done, you can do as well.
If you learn how
everyone who is at the top was once at the bottom.
Many people who come from average or poor families
with average incomes or who grow up in average circumstances
have gone on to become some of
the most prominent people in their fields,
and what hundreds of thousands and even millions of other people have done,
you can do as well.
Was philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote
that the very best proof that something can be done
is that someone else has already done it.
There's great power in self-reliance.
Self-reliance means you simply look mostly to yourself.
It would be nice if someone just gave you this, gave you this, gave you this.
It would be nice if everyone did their
job exactly as they're supposed to do it,
but here's what you've got to do.
Primarily rely on yourself.
Primarily say, I'm the person responsible
and I will learn the necessary skills so that I can help people learn their skills.
If I need lots of people to do certain things to build my organization,
that is what I must have, but I've got to be the final backstop.
I've got to be the final one that people can rely on
so that if this is missed and this is missed,
I can catch up, I can fill the gap.
I can do the job.
We have to do it when we conduct meetings.
We have to do it when we conduct training.
We have to do it when we're in a class of just a few,
what someone might have missed.
We're there to fill in self-reliance.
Primarily, we're learning to count
on yourself.
So that you can do this,
never complain and never explain.
Here's the next key power, and that's image.
There's many parts to image the image that others see you as
the image you have with other people,
and that's very important how other people see you.
If they don't see you as a leader,
chances are they won't pay attention.
If they don't see you as being in control,
chances are they won't have the trust.
If they don't see you as knowing
where you're going, what you want to accomplish,
they probably won't follow.
But if people can see you, if you have the
image of someone that's in charge, in control,
in control of your life, your future, your destiny,
in control of the situation,
if they see that, that kind of image is powerful,
it helps to win the day, it attracts other people.
People want to be around people that are in control,
that are powerful, but they know how to use their power influential,
but they know how to use their influence.
That kind of image is important.
But here's a very important image, and that is your image of your self,
the way you dress, the way you talk,
the way you think,
your capacity for learning.
All of that is an important image that you have of yourself,
the image that you have, that
if it needs to be learned, you could learn it.
If there's a book that needs to be mastered, you could master it.
If there's a skill that needs to be learned,
why couldn't you get busy now and learn that skill,
that kind of self-image
that I am continually trying my best to be the best I can.
Because one of the most important places
you have to look is into the future.
Yes,
you've got to look into the past.
Yes, you've got to look around.
Yes.
But one of the most important places you have to look is in the mirror.
You know how I appear to other people, that's important.
But how I appear to myself
is the ultimate importance.
That kind of image
to where you'll develop the self-confidence, you'll develop the self-reliance.