Commitment.
It means taking a stand.
Taking a stand for you.
It means delivering.
It means coming through.
What if you don't keep your commitment, Les?
What if you give it everything you have
and you come up short?
Or if you don't give it everything you have,
What if you get weak along the way
and you throw in a towel on yourself,
you surrender
to your emotions,
what then?
A lot of people become discouraged,
they become frustrated,
and they say
oh, what the heck.
And they go back to doing what they were doing before
saying it doesn't work.
You get to make a choice.
Is failure going to break you?
Or is failure gonna make you?
You get to decide
failure doesn't.
It's okay to fall.
It's okay to cry.
It's okay to go home.
But quitting
should never be an option.
It's not in falling that makes us failures
it's in not getting up that makes us failures.
And you get to decide if you get up, or you don't get up.
We're gonna take setbacks
we're gonna take some
some defeats
from time to time in our lives.
And when that happens
what that actually does
and what that actually should do
is make
your vision clear.
Make your mission clear.
Anyone who's successful has failed much more than you know.
It's like you look at somebody who's unbelievable athlete
somebody who's an unbelievable
entertainer, speaker, communicator, artist
they didn't just show up that way.
They are being rewarded in public
for what you practice in private consistently.
You might wanna jot that down.
We're all rewarded in public
for the things that we consistently
practice and refine in private.
And so you see that person, you think they're a genius,
but if you watch
they've been failing more than anybody else.
They just failed more often
so they learn quicker.
You've gotta tell yourself
despite
the circumstances, the situations
you have to tell yourself that
I'm not going anywhere until I get the goal.
Until I make my dreams become a reality
I'm not quitting.
I don't care how much money I have to invest
I don't care how much time I have to invest
I'm gonna continue to do this until I become successful.
You can pretend that you care
but you can't pretend that you're there.
The only way you can be there
is to show up.
And what I'm asking you to do for me
you'll never be a failure
if you show up
every single day.
Every single day, when I come
I show up
and I let failure know
failure is not an option.
You can't even let it
sink into your brain.
Not even a second.
You have to know that
this thing is going to work.
Come hell or high water
whatever it is that I set out to do
it may not happen in six months
it may not happen in the year
but at some it may not happen in two years
but at some point
my dream is going to become a reality.
I can accept failure
everyone fails at some point
but I cannot accept not trying.
When you've tried your best
when you've given 120%
you should never feel bad.
You pick yourself up
you look at it from another perspective
You come up with another solution
and you go at it again.
You are a problem solver.
You're not soft.
You're not weak.
You don't quit.
You don't surrender.
You fall 7 times
you get up 8.
There is a cycle of history that is plain as day.
Good times create weak people.
Weak people create bad times,
bad times create strong people.
Strong people create great times.
This is the Cycle of history,
Our thinking, our process is so affected by the way we're raised generationally,
the experiences we go through.
So let me give you an example of why we're having
challenges today and why I'm more than hopeful.
Let's say you were born in 1910.
Now think about it this way first, remember I talked about
pattern recognition, pattern utilization, pattern creation.
What gave humanity its greatest jump in its
capacity was pattern recognition around seasons.
Up until that time, we were hunter
gatherers, barely able to survive.
It all depended on what was happening in the environment.
We were dependent on the outside world,
but once we understood the seasons that planting in the springtime
and then taking care through the summer,
boy in the fall, you can reap and then there's gonna be winter
You gotta hang onto this stuff so you can survive
Once we recognize that pattern,
humanity transformed
communities were created eventually cities and countries and states, right?
So think of it this way.
There's also a pattern of your history as a human.
0 to 21, 19 to 20,21 is a springtime
where everything's easy.
It's easy to grow.
Growth happens.
You don't have to do squat.
Your body grows, life grows
And some of us had a more protected childhood.
Some of us had no protection.
We had to step up and take care of things
when we're seven or eight years old.
But regardless, Overall, it's a time
in which people look out for you.
You are taught things, you consume what you're taught.
But once you come 19, 20, 21, roughly, and sometimes
it's 16 for some people, 25 for others, but you get the picture,
you enter a new season of life,
you go to the summertime where you start testing and go,
well, this is what I was taught, but do I really believe this sh*t?
You know, this is what people say, but now I'm in a relationship,
you know, and so all of this,
this next 20 years is an explosive growth period.
If you work at it from 21 to 41.
From 42 to 62 is a reaping time.
If you planted really in the spring and you
pushed hard through the summer, you're gonna reap.
Now If you didn't plant in the springtime,
you're gonna weep in the season.
You know, you're gonna be like, I don't have any money.
I don't how any time, I don't know what to do,
where am I going?
But that's a season of power.
That's when you really start to be able to lead
companies, businesses, environments, and so forth.
And again, some people get there earlier, some later.
But it overall generationally, that's it.
And then 63 to 83 is winter,
and that wintertime is a little different for somebody right now.
That time is, maybe it's time.
I'm an elder in the community,
now it's time for me to mentor, to communicate.
And if you're lucky, it goes 83 to 103
or the oldest living human is about 119
if you were lucky enough to do that.
Maybe you get an extended period of time
where you enter the next springtime.
So there's seasons.
You gotta understand because if you plant in the winter,
I don't care how hard you work, you're get no reward.
If you bought a house, sounds wonderful
in 2007, normally great, 2007, probably not so great.
You're probably just starting to do okay
in the last three or four years, right?
So there's a timing to things.
There's a timing in your life.
There's also timing in history.
So imagine you're born in 1910.
When would you come of age?
19 years old.
1929.
What did you grow up with?
World War I ended.
During that time, the whole world celebrated
and the roaring twenties began, and you're in your teens,
cars, radios, parties.
You can't wait to turn 19, 20, 21.
And what happens for that generation,
right at that stage of life?
The whole game, the the wolves pull out from it and people are jumping outta buildings.
The economy goes through the floor.
We cut the dust bowl
but it didn't end
there because what happened when they were 29,
1939 World War II
and you and I are too young to know it, but those
around know that it looked like we were gonna lose.
Hitler was storming across Europe.
It looked like life as we know it was over,
and these people went overseas
and became heroes.
They faced such unbelieve
They were, they were thought as flappers, they were thought as weak.
They were a lot like a lot of the generation
that you see today, you know, the, you know,
Z generation, not so much cuz they're just coming up.
But the millennial generation,
older people, I see 'em as weak.
You know, they're snowflakes, they're this and they're that.
But they have technology, they have insights.
And when the outside world is demanding enough, not yet
Cuz they're still fearful
they will grow
And that's when things change.
And so the season occurs.
So think about the difference between the thirties and the forties
versus the fifties versus the sixties
as we came after 63 into an American summer is a different mindset
versus the eighties to the 2000, 2010.
So we're right now, halfway through winter.
We're in another winter.
It starts financially now, it's gone to health
but we're far from it.
It's gonna be war, and it might be cyber war, it might be full on war,
but there's zero question that China and the US are in a collision course
that's going to shape the direction of humanity.
And so the people that right now are alive today
are gonna have to grow in that environment.
I really think we're at a season where there's gonna be a whole new level of growth,
and what I just wanna do is be one of them many sources that can give people perspective.
Because here's the problem,
A year ago people thought we were coming out of, you know, we got vaccines now
and we're coming out of Covid and
it's gonna be all over now, and people are excited.
But now, after going through two years of this,
There's a lot of people now that no longer have a compelling future.
Like, you know, people talking about New Year's resolutions.
Most people don't even have one.
Cause it's like they never followed through anyway, right?
But at least they had something to look forward to.
They're starting to get into learned, helplessness, learn, helplessness.
Something is so bad over and over again.
You start thinking the problem's permanent, no problem is permanent.
Or you start thinking the problem's pervasive
because I haven't handled my finances
my whole world's over because my relationship's bad.
my whole world's over
your life is bigger than that.
Or all this is happening cuz there's something wrong with me.
When you get to that point, you stop trying.
And so my goal right now is to shake that up for people.
People need a new perspective and you can't do it by just sitting and thinking
you gotta move your body.
You gotta change your energy and your focus cuz
low level of energy.
I don't care how smart you are,
you're not gonna use all your ability.
But if I get you into a higher state of being mentally,
emotionally, physically,
then all of a sudden you start remembering who you are and you start coming up
with answers that you never even thought were possible before.
You will hear many people saying:
‘When I am fifty I shall retire into leisure; when I am sixty I shall give up public duties.’
And what guarantee do you have of a longer life?
Who will allow your course to proceed as you arrange it?
Aren’t you ashamed to keep for yourself just the remnants of your life, and to devote to wisdom
only that time which cannot be spent on any business?
How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end!
Stop letting yourself be distracted.
That is not allowed. Instead, as if you were dying right now…
Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses,
to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.
In your actions, don't procrastinate.
In your conversations, don't confuse.
In your thoughts, don't wander.
In your soul, don't be passive or aggressive.
In your life, don't be all about business.
It is essential for you to remember that the attention you give to any action
should be in due proportion to its worth,
for then you won’t tire and give up,
if you aren’t busying yourself with lesser things beyond what should be allowed.
Putting things off is the biggest waste of life:
it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future.
The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy,
which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.
You are arranging what lies in fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours.
What are you looking at?
To what goal are you straining?
The whole future lies in uncertainty:
live immediately.
The best livelihood (particularly for the strong)
is earning a living from the soil,
whether you own your land or not.
Many can support their families by farming land owned by the state or private landowners.
Some even get rich through hard work with their own hands.
The earth repays those who cultivate her, both justly and well,
multiplying what she received –
– endowing in abundance all the necessities of life
to anyone willing to work-
-and all this without violating your dignity or self-respect!
Generally speaking,
if you devote yourself to the life of philosophy, whilst tilling the land at the same time,
I couldn’t compare it to any other way of life, nor would I prefer any other livelihood.
It is living more in accord with nature-
-drawing your sustenance directly from the earth-
-the nurse and mother of us all-
-rather than from another source.