- And the interesting thing was,
I'm gonna share with you tonight
is I'm gonna train you on some very practical things
that you can actually use
to apply tonight when you leave in your own life.
I've made a ton of mistakes.
I ain't telling you what not to do.
I'm sure Dan can tell you as well,
what not to do.
But I'm gonna share with you tonight
in terms of mindset
that it's your daily method of operation
from the time that you wake up in the morning
until the time that you go to bed at night.
What do you do during the waking hours of your day
and the thing is you're gonna find
is that being successful is quite boring.
Doing the routine habits is quite boring.
It's repetitive,
there's certain things
but the thing is what I have learned,
one of the key things is from my travel all over
and I was just in Africa
and I'm going back to Africa here in over a week's time
that we live in one of the greatest countries in the world
and what I encourage you to do,
those of you in the room that are younger,
or those of you who are more seasoned or older,
go travel,
it'll change your perspective on life.
When you walk into a rural African village,
in a little straw hut,
with a mother and father and a couple children
living on grasshoppers and crickets,
insects, rodents, bugs,
whatever they can eat to survive for the day.
It changes your life.
When you walk into an African village
and you see big vultures flying overhead
and you see women with their little children
that you see in the National Geographic,
you see in the television shows and the infomercials
and you see women going to put their children
on the side of the road
because they can't afford to feed them
and then 30 minutes later
the vultures come down and eat the children like chicken
and 30 minutes later
there's a carcass of a baby laying there.
It changes your mindset in terms of a greater calling,
a greater purpose in life
and I've seen that.
I've seen dumpsters full of babies
and when you see that it causes you to get up
and work in the morning to hustle,
to grind, to grit, to make no excuses,
to be proactive.
So one of the things I wanna share with you
is something that I've studied for quite a number of years
of being around a lot of influential people
is a jar like this.
You can get it at the dollar store,
Walmart, can be glass or plastic.
This is my gratitude jar
and I take notes,
airline tickets,
this is my,
I've already got my new one for this year
but this is my jar from 2014, from last year.
And it's interesting because there was things in this jar
that I didn't think I could achieve.
There's places I traveled to
that I didn't think I was ever gonna go there.
And there's things I accomplished
and what I do is I take notes,
airline tickets, concert tickets,
game tickets, things people say to you,
things I've done
and I put them in this jar throughout the calendar year
and on January the 1st,
on January the 1st of every year,
well this year I was just down the street
at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel,
I went and spent four hours by myself,
on January the 1st
and I dumped out all the notes
and I read throughout all the notes,
throughout the whole year
and there were things I did in January, February,
March, June, September,
that I completely forgot about.
Things that were incredibly challenging
to overcome in my life
and then all of a sudden I realize I achieved it.
And for those of you in this room,
what I've learned in my life is that
how you measure your life as you get older
is through the word called progress
and some of you realize as you get older you think,
"My life's not changed much."
Until you document it
and you have a paper trail of physical evidence
like notes, airline tickets, concert tickets,
things that people have said to you,
you put it in there
it changes the game for you in terms of mindset
and when you start your day of the new year,
it's amazing what can happen for you.
So I wanna encourage you to start doing a gratitude jar.
For those of you who have children,
start your children on a gratitude jar,
start mentoring and modeling to your children
about the importance of gratitude.
Would you wanna do business with somebody who's grateful?
Absolutely, you start to vibrate,
this lady who got up talked about the law of attraction.
Imagine starting your day off.
So what I do when I first wake up in the morning
is I start my day as my daily method of operation
with an attitude of gratitude.
First thing I do in the morning.
Some of you may pray, some of you may meditate.
First thing I do is I start with an attitude of gratitude.
What am I most grateful for in my life today?
Some of you always ask me,
"Where do you get all that energy from?"
It's either medication or meditation, it's a choice.
(audience laughing)
Right?
The thing is though is that what I do is
I focus on things that I'm most grateful for
or blessed in my life.
I don't watch the news unless I'm on it, right?
And the thing is is that
and by the way I don't,
I don't watch news, I make news.
That's the difference between
being a higher level entrepreneur,
is you make the news happen, okay?
You make the news.
How are you as an entrepreneur or business owners,
how do you make the news versus watch the news.
And so one of the things you look at
is that when you first start your day,
is I show up with an attitude of gratitude.