you
[Music]
but home was twice in my life and when
you're down and out it's not an easy
thing and first time I was homeless I
was 23 years old second time as I was in
my 30s and started thinking how bad
things are and oh my god things are bad
how do I exist in this bad situation I
looked at how do I get out of it
but I wouldn't go around collecting old
soda pop bottles take them in two cents
for little one five cents for a big one
get some money and look for part-time
jobs no matter what they paid I wanted
to get out of it I didn't want to be
okay I'm gonna have to stay this way for
a while how do I survive I look at how I
got out of it and by gosh you can get
out of it you just have to do something
you love what you do you want to be the
best at it you know you know you know
make music to be second best you make
music to be the best oh you whatever you
do whatever you don't have to be music
feel fair quite strongly there are times
when something is important enough
you've leave it enough that you do it in
spite of the fear running your own race
the man's trusting yourself even when
others don't I visualized this for
myself when I was selling copiers
door-to-door I had a very clear vision
of what my life was gonna be like and I
encourage everyone to do it take a snap
photo of what success looks like for you
are you how many employees do you have
how much are you making where do you
live what are you sitting at a table
with world leaders are you standing on a
stage in New York City giving a speech
and hold on to that that snapshot and
you will subconsciously start to make
decisions that get you there whatever it
is that you want to do you're there's
gonna be risk in your life and risk is a
necessary component of progress you can
make any pioneering movements in the
world of any kind whether they be the
geographical physical exploration that
I've just been talking about whether it
be you know a more cerebral exploration
of a scientific field takes three
qualities essentially to do well and
extremely while actually in this country
it takes intelligence it takes energy
and it takes integrity and integrity is
absolutely an option you know you may
not be able to throw
all sixty yards and you know you may not
be able to run 198 you know you may not
be able to sink three-pointers from but
you can choose where you stand on the
integrity scale again you weren't born
wired one way or the other that is an
absolute choice to make fear is the
disease Hustle is the antidote important
thing about running your own race is
dreaming big and dreaming big to me
meant knowing my history but not being
bound by it it meant harnessing the past
to drive me into the future
it meant grounding myself and who I was
and where I came from so I could soar to
become who I wanted to become I work
hard you're gonna need some luck with
the harder you work the luckier you get
and if it doesn't work out that's not
the end of the world I just don't have
anything in common with people that sit
there and say oh my god it was terrible
so yeah it's over it's water over the
dam under the bridge get on with it and
start another business the next day or
another career and be honest look in a
mirror and say why didn't it work out
well it wasn't the skill set or it
wasn't I didn't have the temperament for
it or I was in the wrong place wrong
time
maybe I can afford to do it again maybe
I can't but people aren't honest with
themselves they what I've always done is
I've taken a yellow pad I draw a line
down the middle write out the pros on
one side the cons on another in a sense
that if I have let you see it you
wouldn't laugh at me and then when I get
done I just rip it up and throw it away
because I've worked out in my mind what
is real and what isn't and what I can
present to people and what I can write
your goals down it makes all the
difference Harvard did a study in 1973
they took the graduating class and asked
how many of them had goals a hundred
percent of them had goals well they
asked how many had written down their
goals upon graduation only 5% of the
class had in 1993 20 years later they
followed up with the class they found
that the 5%
that had written down their goals 20
years prior upon graduating worth more
financially than the other 95% of the
class put together so I have always
written my goals down about what I
wanted to achieve and I really attribute
a lot to that if you want to be
successful learn from the other people's
mistakes don't learn from the successful
stories successful stories they may
don't listen to that there are a lot of
reasons behind it learn from the
mistakes the other people no matter how
smart you are you will encounter these
mistakes you learn from mistakes not
because you will be able to avoid
mistakes you were able to when these
mistakes can't this suffer comes you
know how to deal with it how to face it
in my life is not how much we achieved
is how much we go through the tough days
and mistakes and this is what is it if
you start to think now would be good I
think you have to feel quite compelled
to do it and have a fairly high pain
threshold and there's a friend of mine
who says like starting companies like
staring at the abyss and eating glass
and there's some truth to that we're
staring into the abyss part is that
you're going to be constantly facing the
extermination of the company because
most startups fail ugly 99 percent of
startups fail so I so you that bet for
staring into the abyss part you can't
constantly saying ok if I don't get this
right the company will die should be
quite stressful
quite stressful and and then the eating
glass part is you've got you've got to
do you've got to do the problems you
gonna sell you're gonna work on the
problem that the company needs you to
work on not the problems you want to
work on the key point there is you've
got to enjoy what you do every day and
for me that's working with very smart
people it's working on new problems you
know every time we think hey we've had a
little bit of success we're pretty
careful not to dwell on it too much
because the bar gets raised you get to a
place where it's easy as an entrepreneur
it's about to get really really hard and
so what you find is with really good
entrepreneurs they're constantly making
things difficult for themselves and it's
pushing I like to say you push until it
hurts or you sort of you want to be
always pushing beyond what you're
comfortable with and you're sweating
just a little bit all the time and when
that happens when you're when you're
constantly pushing beyond what you think
what you know is possible
you're always sweating a little bit and
you're always a little bit nervous but
that is the drug of being an
entrepreneur and so when you're pushing
like that and you're never really
relaxed then it always feels small and
so in many ways it feels to me the same
now as it did at the beginning I think
you should be doing something you're
passionate about so the question is
always you know when I give my younger
self advice you know what I still go to
Stanford little go to the Stanford Law
School possibly but I think a lot more
about why I was doing it I like to
advance every year to advance myself you
know spiritually mentally everything I
like to advance myself I have more fear
going back then losing money you know
that like I said when I was I'm a lost
money I've been broke up in chefs
they've been blowing bread you got to
have grit and grit means getting turned
away from things 14 15 times calling
someone every two weeks you know every
day for five months and then finally it
materializing and something that you
want and discovering the drawer and
figuring things out means you know if
you know fight through those problems
understand and learn how you address
those problems and come up with the
answers to those solutions that come up
with the answers to those problems
within the solution that is uniquely
yours that's an important part of
growing up in solving problems because
if you can't solve easy problems now you
will not be able to solve difficult
problems later if you want to project
yourself to age 80 and then think back
over your life and
here if you're if you're 81 or the thew
want to minimize the number of regrets
you have throughout that period of time
I think this is something a lot of
people do but it was a very clear way
for me to think about making that kind
of life decision and then and in the way
it helped was I thought okay if I go do
this thing and participate in this thing
called the Internet that I genuinely
believe is gonna be a big deal and if I
fail am I gonna regret having tried and
failed and I knew the answer that was no
but I also knew that if I didn't try
that I would always regret that I would
always wonder and it would haunt me do
the best we can with what we have see we
want to live in the now and usually when
you're down and out or having
difficulties your mind is working very
fast not your being your mind is working
very fast and it's working off a lot of
nails from the past so a lot of
experiences from the past and worries of
what may happen the future going through
your mind well if you could eliminate
that by saying okay there's nothing to
do about the past that's done
yesterday's newspapers can't change them
and who knows for sure was could have in
the future let's be here right now take
what resources we have right now act
upon them and act towards a good future
goal the only thing that you can control
that influences success in life is how
hard you work how honest you are and how
well you deal with others you can
control those uh variables but less
variables it you can't control how lucky
you are although the more you work the
luckier you get you have no influence on
the intellectual capabilities that God
did or did not give you but you can work
as hard as possible you can be
scrupulously honest so that people
respect you and you can get along with
others because nobody does anything by
themselves
[Music]
you