I’m on government assistance and I run out of money,
and I had to buy pampers for Jelani.
And I had $11.42 in the bank.
And I remember wrapping my son in a towel
for two days.
I remember the second day like you said,
I had my hand on Jelani's stomach and I said,
"Don't worry baby,
Mommy will never be this broke or broken again!"
And that day,
what shifted for me...
was, I was willing,
and I don't know if this is going to sound crazy,
I was willing
to completely die
to any form of me that I had been
so that I could birth
the woman that I was becoming.
The reason why a lot of people won't
become who they want
is because they're too attached to who they've been.
And you hear it all the time when people say,
"I've always been this way!"
Okay, well, if that's working for you, keep doing that!
I knew it wasn't working for me any longer.
I had hit
my version of rock bottom.
So I was willing to let go of everything
and everybody.
See, another reason why people won't get there
is because the doorway is for you to fit through.
You're trying to carry everybody else through
because you're trying to be 'rescue 911.'
And you got to rescue you first.
I am much more valuable to my family
and to my community
because I was willing to let them go.
Go through the door myself,
teach myself, learn myself,
condition myself
and then come back and get them.
I'm much more valuable to them now.
But I had to go through a window time of 10 years
of judgment.
"You are leaving us,
hanging out with white people all the time."
"You going to these crazy countries."
"We, we don't know what..."
I had to be willing to
to allow my conviction
to make me inconvenienced.
See, we want to grow
but we want to stay liked by everybody.
I was willing to be my own rescue at the risk of your approval.
Most of us aren't like that.
Facebook is an example, we want to be liked.
Well, I woke up and I like myself today,
so your like is extra.
My job is to like me first.
I was willing to say every day, "Lisa, you like you?"
"Lisa, are you proud of you?"
"Lisa, are you playing for loud?"
Every day before I checked in with anybody else.
I was willing to inconvenience my entire life.
My entire life
I was willing to disrupt my entire life to buy my future,
to buy my possibility, give my dream a chance.
See, we're not supposed to tuck our dreams under 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 that my son's father went to prison.
The human spirit doesn't care what happened to your family.
The human spirit doesn't care about the past,
that you may have been molested
or your family may have been broke
or you may have been betrayed, or you may have a divorce.
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.
Because your brain is designed to keep you safe.
Your soul, your intuition, your human spirit
is designed to make you soar.
When you get to the edge,
your brain will always tell you to step back.
It's always going to tell you to step back.
Because you can fall.
Always, it's going to tell you to step back.
Because before you fail,
the last time you did this
you saw someone else fail.
You could hurt, you could be off work,
it's going to tell you, it's designed to keep you safe.
So you have to be willing
to play between your brain and your soul.
And on some days you got to just listen to your soul.
And you got to say "I'm going to leap, I'm going to get to the edge."
Most people are at the edge
and you're standing at the edge
and you're watching everyone else fly.
That's Pimp My Ride, watch My Crib, all this stuff.
You know, watching people's lives on Facebook
you at the edge.
Watching someone else live,
wondering what it's going to be like when you jump without ever jumping.
And I'm just here to tell you "Jump!"
Because only 3 things can happen.
You're either going to jump and fly.
Or you're going to jump and fall on something soft.
Or you're going to fall down hard.
Either way you're going to get back up.
You already know you got what it takes to get back up.
Your greatest fear is not that you will fall,
your greatest fear is that you will live a full life and never fly.
That you never leaped.
You're not afraid of dying.
You are afraid of dying before the world sees who you really are.
Before they really get your fingerprint.
Before they really feel your breath.
Before they really get your contribution.
Before they really feel you.
That's what you don't want to happen.
You don't want to leave this place without us knowing you are here.
All I'm doing is giving my dream a chance.
And
I'm not extraordinary.
You don't get off the hook.
You don't get to be let off the hook.
I'm an ordinary woman
who chooses every day
to make one more extraordinary decision.
Everything that I need to get back up
I have in me
if I don't have what I need, I can go get it
once I figured that out
the world was my like, playground.
Like.. the question is just where do I go get it?
Oh I don't know about that. Where do I go get it?
And...
and I don't come from a learning background where I was a great student.
I wasn't.
You know, my highest grade in school was a C+
and when I got a C+ I did the happy dance
and...
and so I didn't have a background where studying was natural for me,
but when I realized
that if I go study something and I learn it
I own it, it's mine now
man, it was crazy because...
all through school I struggled.
I.. the last time I took an English class
My English teacher told me I was the weakest writer
she ever met in her entire life,
- Lovely. - Yeah.
Lovely. And the same year I took a speech class
and my speech teacher, he said, quote unquote Miss Nichols,
I recommend you never speak in public, that you get a desk job.
- And so I... - That's mean.
Yeah. It just, it's just, you know it was
It was demotivated people,
sad people. Hurt people hurt.
Sad people make other people sad.
Bottom line. Don't take it personal
hurt people hurt.
See most people want the convenience of transformation
without the inconvenience
required- required for transformation, so
my grandmother says, and I love to repeat this
your conviction which you're passionate about
your conviction and your convenience don't live on the same block.
They ain't even in the same zip code.
So if you want to have a conviction for something
you have to sign up,
sign up to be in convenience.
We're trying to find
convictions and passion and breakthrough
on the inside of our box.
Well, when you realize that the box doesn't even exist
like someone made up, "Oh, you're playing outside the box"
so we all bought into 'there's a box.'
Well, I don't live.. I don't even own a box.
I don't even.. I only want to get in your box
like, Oh you better come out here, because I ain't getting in there,
and so when you start thinking like that Tom,
all of a sudden
everything is possible.
So I.. you know people.. I disrupt people when I say
You want to make me extraordinary because it lets you off the hook.
What if the God that we call God, the divine, whatever your faith is.
What if there’s no partial?
He's not going to give me a hookup and not give you one
not going to give me an opportunity and not give you one.
I’m just going to go after it.
If I die, I'm gonna die on a treadmill like Will Smith said.
I’m going to be on the treadmill running.
You know, I’m not- I'm just not going to stop
because I believe all things are available to us.
I’m just willing to go after them. Are you willing?
And then that is so disruptive
because then you got to make a decision.
Because it’s easier to live inside the parameters
of well as a black woman
well as born and raised in south central well
I’m academically... I’m dyslexic, I’m dyslexic
I wrote seven books, I’m dyslexic.
So just knowing like, I’m not perfect
what I do really well is I manage my imperfection well.
And so we’re all waiting for perfect.
It’s an illusion that will never come to you
and it’s an excuse to never show up and play.
Your story is not meant to be your fortress
your story is meant to be your fuel.
Any story
like the fact- the beauty of me being
one of the top 1% earners in America
is that I was on government’s assistance
- Right. - Like that’s the beauty.
Like come on, it wouldn’t be a big deal if my family was rich
whatever like...
I’m supposed to do something.
The beauty is that
when you show The Little Engine That Could story
like I’m not going to run fast but I ain’t going to stop running
I might slow down and have to breathe and catch my breath
but I’m not stopping.
Because I believe all things are available to all of us
and good people should do well
because when good people do well
good people just do more good in the world.
I’m that same girl who ran track for Dorsey High School
who struggled to get into high school.
Got kicked out of college because I couldn’t afford to stay-
that was on government’s- I’m that same girl.
I’m that same girl, I don’t forget her.
I’m also that same woman
who runs a multi-million dollar business.
I’m also the same woman who has seven best sellers.
I own both of those.
I own all of it.
I don’t shrink to my greatness
and I don’t live in my saga, my sorrow.
If you can own your brilliance
while owning your- your imperfections.
If you can own
your giant while owning your smallness.
If you can live in duality
constant duality
the freedom
will be
earth shaking if you can live in that.
See, either you don’t want to be as great as you really are
and you’re trying to dim your light
so that others won’t feel insecure
about themselves in your presence.
And so you keep playing at 79 watts
when you know you’re supposed to shine at 159 watts
and you keep checking the temperature of the room
to see what the room can handle
versus just giving the room you and letting them in but-
if your lights too bright then let them put on some shades.
Can you give yourself permission
to live in the duality of your imperfections and your smallness
and what you’re learning and what you still have to learn
and your greatness and your brilliance and your light?
Can you allow them to coexist and then serve them up to the world?
To love you, to see you, to inhale you,
to judge you,
to leave you, to love you.
You’re just.. some of us are just as afraid of being loved
as we are to be left.
If you go where you’ve never gone,
do what you’ve never done
and say what you've never said
you’ll become the woman and the man you’ve always known yourself to be.