I never said
when you want to succeed as bad as you want to eat
because you can go 21 days, maybe 30, without eating.
I never said
when you want to succeed as bad as you want water
because you can go about 3 days or so without it.
I said when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe
then you'll be successful.
And so one of the things I want to do for you as an educator today
you don't necessarily need better skills per se.
That's not what you need but what some of you need
is to go from 70% to 120%
Some of you need to go from 80% to 120%
The reason why I'm giving a 120 is because your dad is not in your life.
The reason why I'm giving 120 is because your father's in prison.
The reason why I'm giving 120 is because your mom is working two jobs.
The reason why I'm giving 120 is because your grandma's raising you.
The reason why I'm giving 120 is because you live in a community
where education is not valued.
So I don't care what you do academically when you leave here,
you can't go and get credit for getting A's.
That in your neighborhood, in your community.
Nobody affirms you for reading at a certain level,
nobody affirms you for doing well on your A.C.T or your S.A.T.
where you come from education is not affirmed
So even if you are a scholar you have to keep it to yourself,
you have to suppress it.
So the reason why I give 120
is because your daddy is not there to give 80
and your momma's too tired to give a 100
and your grandma is washed out, so she's giving 50.
And y'all do that little stuff about you going to eat
but ya'll ain't got no doggone motor you get tired, quick.
You- you practice for one or two days, you worn out.
You do a couple hours you tired.
But yet you competing against people right now
that's their lifestyle and you think they're about to let you take their lifestyle.
I don't want to do it as much as I want to eat.
I don't want to do it as much as I need to drink
I want to be the best in the world as bad as I want to breathe.
I want to be the Michael Jordan of education.
I want to be the LeBron James of education
and I ask you the question
I ask you the question today. Are you giving 120?
I never said,
when you want to succeed as bad as you want to eat.
I never said,
when you want to succeed as bad as you want water.
I said, when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe,
then you'll be successful.
I told my professor what happens if I fail?
he said, what happens if you pass?
I said, but what happens if I don't get it,
what happens if I put in all these years and it don't work out?
He said, but what happens if you put in all these years and you get it?
You got skill and you got will
you got skill and you got will
Two total different things.
You were born with certain things but to get to the next level
and not just get to the next level, to stay at the next level
you gotta have will when you get to that next level.
So when you play, you have to compete.
When you have an opportunity why would you give 80%?
When you have opportunity, somebody answer that for me?
Y'all- y'all talk, why would you give 80%, 70%?
Why wouldn't you always give 120%?
For real, you might get it but right now what?
Oh, I can't hear y'all. You may get it, but right now what?
You don't have it.
You have nothing to fear, guys, you already overcame all kinds of stuff.
Because a lot of you don't see that what's going to take you to that next level
that's going to separate you from everybody else
because you've got to ask them to separate you
What's going to separate you from everybody else?
I, I don't know what that is for you
But just talk about when you hear my, when you hear my videos
one of the things you notice that separates me from everybody else
I don't do what in any of my videos?
I don't curse enough, you've never seen me cuss before
you've never seen me drink before, you've never seen me smoke.
I'm not against drinking and smoking
but my brand is "I don't drink, I don't smoke"
What are you going to do to separate yourself?
Like I do things to separate myself from everybody else.
The passion that I have when I speak,
the grind that I have when I do what I do.
What are you going to do to separate yourself?
People you're not even going to be hanging out with
All I want to hear is E, they're grinding like they've never grinded before.
Yeah, I want to hear they are out there handling that rock like E
they monsters E, they like freaks out here E like,
they going hard E, that's all I want.
Well, some more stuff is keeping you
from doing what you supposed to do. I love it
You have the opportunity of a lifetime
and- and- and what- what I'm trying to get you to understand is
when you understand you have an opportunity
you, you play a little different
I wasn't successful because of who I was
like and a lot of y'all- for real.
Here's what you got to stop doing
You hold people to the fire when they don't do what they supposed to do
but you give yourself a pass
like and you got to stop doing that.
Like I see in this generation,
people will let their kids get away with stuff
that I know you won't let nobody else's kid get away with it.
But sometimes when you so close to something
you don't treat it in... You don't- you don't treat it real
like you give it a pass because it's your, he's your baby.
But if somebody else was to get on your couch and do that. You'd have a fit
or somebody, so what I had to start doing was saying
you got to stop holding other people to the fire,
you've got to hold yourself to the fire.
And I realized that without a schedule
I was the one that was messing up my life
and I realized I needed a schedule because
I wasn't, I wasn't the brand
to get me where I wanted to go, if that make sense.
Like that version of Eric Thomas
would never make me a 1 percent. I realized that
So when I sat down with Warren Buffett 3 things that blew my mind
I never really realized where his money came from.
So the first thing I did was I was like, his money comes from investments.
Well, what happened was when he was 12 years old
his father gave him his first like grand and let him make an investment.
So I realized he's not getting up early in the morning just to get up in the morning.
What he says he does is he reads.
He doesn't just read books, that's not what he does
he reads financial reports.
So this dude was telling me
he read a financial report of General Motors in like 1964.
And I'm thinking like why would you be reading this, it's 2014.
he was reading the document, the financial.
Listen to me.
He's a financial genius.
What was he reading? Finances.
For real, y'all be coming up to me like, yo E what are you reading?
Why, you trying to be a motivational speaker?
You trying to be the next Martin Luther King?
You trying to be the next Mother Teresa?
Why are you trying to read what I'm reading?
Like, what are you try, like you trying to impress somebody?
Why are you reading what I'm trying to read if you're not trying to be me?
He was not reading Mother Teresa, he wasn't reading about leaders
he was reading a financial report from 1964 General Motors,
why? Because General Motors had one of their successful financial years in 1964
and so he was looking for the clues of
what were they doing specifically in 1964
that can be duplicated in 2014.
That's what he was looking for.
So a lot of you get up early because ET get up early.
But you getting up early for no reason, you just up early
So be careful that your routine is pointing to where you're trying to get to
and you're not wasting time
So I'm looking at Warren Buffett, he says he reads 6 hours a day.
He reads, he reads financial documents 6 hours a day.
That's the first thing he does 7 days a week, 6 hours.
But watch this you go, Ooh
When you read something for 6 hours
times seven,
that's 42 hours, right?
That's 42 hours a week, right?
I don't know how many hours that is a year,
but guess why he makes the best financial decision?
Because all he's doing is financial stuff.
That's, he's putting in 10,000 20,000, 40,000 50,000 hours.
If you're gifted in 3 areas then, I mean you're gonna have to get 30,000 hours
just to be like basically a master.
But what if you did one thing
and got 30 hours of information in just that one area.
You guys got 10,000 in 3 different areas
So why you got 10,000? I got 40,000, 50,000 in one area.
What? Speaking
and guess what the disk is?
The disk is still going further into personalities.
It's still the same exact thing, so I'm putting more hours on top.
So the routine is important
because eventually it's going to make you a beast
in one particular area.
That's why you need a routine
because you can't trust yourself not to get off-track.
That routine is going to keep you on track
and make you a one-percenter.