The thing about life is
it's not always easy,
and you can't always win.
Some point of your life,
it hits you.
It hits you really really hard.
The person you love
doesn't love you back, you get fired,
you lose a family member.
At some point of your life,
you're gonna hit rock bottom.
You're paralyzed, you're like,
"Why?"
And that why
can really really destroy you.
Once you start asking yourself, "Why me?"
Why not the others, why me?
I'm actually a good person,
I never did something significantly bad,
why the hell
did it hit me?"
Because that's life.
Life is unfair.
It's hard.
It's not easy.
It's hard changing your life.
And here's what I wannna say to you,
for those of you that have experienced some hardships,
don't give up on your dream.
There are moments when you're going to doubt yourself.
The rough times are gonna come
but they have not come to stay,
they have come to pass.
We all go through problems,
they don't have to overwhelm you though.
Problems don't have to take you out though.
Problems don't have to make your miserable though.
You don't know what's going to happen.
And so like normally break you,
because when it hits you, you wasn't ready,
but if you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready.
If you stay ready and you stay plugged up,
when you hear bad news,
it don't break you
cause you're already energized.
See, we're not supposed to tuck our dreams in on the pillow
when we get up in the morning.
We're not supposed to leave them at home
and go and fulfill somebody else's dream,
we're not supposed to do that,
that's not what we're wired to do.
That's not who we are. Your human spirit
doesn't care about the economy.
The human spirit doesn't care about the past.
Your human spirit doesn't care about any of that.
Your human spirit simply says,
what's our command for tomorrow?
What do you want to create?
It's not keeping score, your brain is keeping score.
Cause your brain is designed to keep you safe.
Your soul, your intuition, your human spirit
is designed to make you soar.
And when you get to the edge of that stage,
your brain will always tell you to step back,
because you could fall.
So you have to be willing
to play between your brain and your soul.
And on some days you gotta just listen to your soul.
And you gotta say, I'mma a leap.
Because only three things can happen,
you're either going to jump and fly,
or you're gonna jump and fall on something soft,
or you're gonna fall down hard,
either way, you're gonna get back up.
You already know you got what it takes to get back up.
We all have two people,
we have the easy voice,
which is that very comfortable voice,
holding you, saying it's gonna be okay.
Doesn't care how good you are,
just loves you.
Just loves you no matter how messed up you are in life.
That's that voice that we all love.
This other voice that we walk very far away from,
is a voice saying, hey man,
you're not working your butt off hard enough.
You're not trying hard enough.
Turn up this voice over here.
The voice saying things to you that aren't nice.
I'm saying listen to the truth.
The truth is in this other part of your brain
saying, look, man,
you're wasting a bunch of percentage here.
We have 80 more percent that we're not tapping into because
in this other percent
is suffering,
pain,
failure,
self-doubt,
darkness.
And then a whole bunch of light.
But to get to this light,
you gotta go through all of this sh*t.
Success is like
A quiet daily set of tasks.
Real real small.
It's like that quiet walk to the gym.
Some empty asss gym late at night.
Over and over and over.
Or as I sit there studying other great people,
And then comparing it with what I'm doing and looking at it.
Over and over and over.
Doing 20 minutes of quiet meditation a day.
Over and over and over.
Making the choice to eat
foods that enhance my brain neurotransmitters.
Over and over and over.
It's a very quiet process,
where you're just drawing your state from within yourself,
doing these like simple little tasks, but finding love
in those simple little tasks.
It's not this big rah-rah speech where you do this one thing
and something big happens.
Everyday I demand more from myself
then anybody else could humanly expect.
My number one competition is me.
It's always you versus you.
You're gotta be the one to get up every morning,
be disciplined, put in the
consistent daily hard work,
because that gains success.
No couch, no trainer,
no mentor,
no boss can do it.
You versus you.
Most people wanna be perfect when they come out the gate.
Most people wanna do things right all the time,
you're not gonna do everything right.
You're gonna make a lot of mistakes,
you're gonna have a lot of struggle,
you're gonna feel dumb and ask questions,
and not know what to do
or where to go.
And that's part of growing,
that's part of the experimentation process.
See, life is about living, life is about growing,
life is about challenging yourself,
life is about stretching.
"What if you don't make it?"
So what? I'm enjoying the trip.
You look at any person,
any person who has achieved greatness in this life
from a career standpoint
or a physical standpoint,
any of those things
require all in effort.
I mean, jump the f*ck in the pool
head first,
don't worry about the what ifs,
and make yourself f*ckin swim.
And when I say all in, I mean
all in.
You only live once,
so do what you feel passionate about.
Take chances.
Don't be afraid to go outside the box.
Don't be afraid to fail big.
To dream big.
This is your time,
this is your moment,
your destiny is calling out to you.
You have to make up your mind,
you're not gonna let people talk you out of it,
circumstances discourage you.
delays cause you to give up,
you're going to stay focused on your goal.
If you're playing by boats of depression and anxiety, that
does destabilize your identity.
So, um, it's almost by definition, but having said that, look, this is when
habit and plan and strategy are so useful.
So in the periods of depression that I've had.
What's sustained.
Some of them were long
and certainly the most unpleasant experiences of my life.
Um, you, this is when you need a philosophy, let's say
that's aligned with your vision
and your strategy to sustain you, because
what would, what would happen to me is that
I know I have these a vision and I suppose the vision is of a world that's better in
It's less likely to descend into ideological catastrophe and where people are more
responsible and more awake and more educated and,
and healthier
all of that
A vision of a better world, you know, a world that's less hellish at least,
but also a better world and some sense of what role I might play in.
And, and so that's very motivating.
Like it's a profound goal to try to make things better
and you can do that locally.
You can do that for yourself.
You can do that for your family.
You can do that for the broader community and all of that's worth it, man.
It's worth making some sacrifices for it's we're suffering for to some degree.
And then you decompose that into the day to day and week to week strategies
and actions that you're undertaking the plans and the activities
that you're putting forward to make that dream a reality to realize it.
And then when the depression and anxiety come along, you think
part of it with depression, it's like, it's just bloody endurance.
It's like you get up and, you know, Work through the next
hour, you try to stay on track.
You try to implement your strategic plans to the best of your ability and you hope,
and you pray that you'll get through it, you know, you'll get through it.
And that the darkness will recede and
you stay on track.
You eat, even though you're not hungry, you get up, even though you want to
stay in bed, you interact with people, even though you'd rather be alone.
And it's the benefit of disciplined habit
can sustain you.
It's like the boat you're rowing in through a terrible storm leaks and all,
and maybe you'll be overwhelmed, but you have the boat and you can roll forward.
And that's what you've got.
And so endurance is a huge part of it.
And then I would say with it's anxiety, it's the same thing.
It's like are very much the same as
you're terrified and, and uncertain, but you
move ahead to the best of your ability.
And again, you operate at least to some degree on hope and if you haven't got hope,
then you've got blind, bloody endurance,
and that's all motivated by some sense that
you're working towards something that's worthwhile working to work,
you know
and that is well, that's your own long-term wellbeing
to treat yourself properly.
It's the stability and productivity and harmony and health of your family.
That's a huge deal.
And then it's whatever benefit you can be to the community.
And if you have to limp along and drag yourself forward in order to maintain
that pathway, then so be it
because it's better than the alternative.