- I was embarrassed, I was ashamed,
and I always felt we were the poor kids
in the neighborhood with the way that I dressed
and never had money to do the things
that I wanted to do like my friend Mark,
who lived in the wealthy neighborhood.
He was a kid that I met at the local community center
right across the street from my home.
And Mark would invite me to his home
for dinners on an infrequent basis, and I loved
the way that his parents communicated.
And I loved the trips that he took with his family,
and I loved that he was always able to keep up
with the nicest clothes,
and he had a lot of the nice things that
my family just couldn't afford.
My mother worked really hard,
worked at a local department store.
My father worked really hard as a cab driver.
He still has the same mindset
that he had 45 years ago when I was a young man,
12 years old, whatever the case might be.
He still has the same discussions around money
and much does stuff cost, and how much it's
going to cost for the light to be on in the house
if you're not in the room, to turn off the light.
He still has the scarcity mentality that there's not enough.
I was fortunate that, at the age of 19,
I met a man that really took everything
that I shared with him about my past
and he asked me some questions that
nobody had ever asked me before.
He says, "Have you ever thought
about the fact that you're recreating
that story over, and over, and over again?
And you bought into that story,
that because of your past, because of your parents,
because of the other kids you want this,
and because of the way you were raised you didn't want that?
Have you ever thought that that
could be your story to freedom?"
I said, "What do you mean that could
be my story to freedom?"
He said, "Why don't you take personal
responsibility for using the story,
using your past, as something you don't want
for yourself anymore, but become the young man,
become the person that it takes to upgrade your
knowledge, and skills, and habits, and behaviors,
and expectations so that you don't keep
recreating your parents' story, your friend's story.
Write your own story, and then create that."
And he shifted my thinking, shifted my frame
from being a victim of my parents,
from being a victim of my school or my education,
to becoming victorious by controlling what I focused on,
and the story that I was going to create.
So I'd write down a script for health, and wealth,
and relationships, and career, and business,
and fun, and experiences, and charity.
And I'd write down a story almost like
a Hollywood writer would write down a story
that they'd be filming with Hollywood actors.
What are three things that you can do today,
not tomorrow, not next week...tomorrow you worry
about it then...but for today,
what are three things that you can do,
that when you do those you actually
are moving towards the achievement of the goal?
And when you make that a daily practice,
and you get really good at organizing
all the different things that there are to do,
but then you just choose three and make
a commitment that you will achieve
those three things before the end of the day...
It doesn't matter if it's making more calls,
reading the book you need to read,
watching the video you need to watch,
doing the plan that you need to plan,
whatever it is you focus on the power of three
and you make that a daily practice and habit.
Looked that the sheet of paper, what I was
looking to attract, and you looked at
the side of who I needed to become,
there's almost a perfect match between
what I wrote down and who I became.
But it all started off with taking responsibility.
No blame, no shame, no guilt,
no justification, no embarrassment.
Taking responsibility for my piece of this,
and getting clear on exactly what I wanted to achieve.
Because I didn't want to recreate that story,
I became something different.