I was stealing money from her.
Her name was Saidi,
and she was a teacher and she used to have
this big white cat that was about 20 pounds.
I used to go over at her apartment
when I was y'know 12, 13 years old just to talk and, and
keep her company. When she would leave the room
I would go into her wallet. I would take 20 dollars or 40 dollars
from her wallet
and she was the most loving caring kind woman
you could you could ever ask,
and I was taking money from her, and
years later I told her
and she said to me that she knew
that I was taking money from her
but she was fine with it because I was like her son
and she understood
what I was doing
why I was doing it.
but she gave me so much love and so much compassion,
so much empathy
that even though stealing the money from her
she was giving it to me
I offered to pay her back all the money that I had stolen from her plus something
she, she wouldn't take it
because she knew she was just helping me get through
some of the hard times of my life.
My parents fought about the, the lack of money every single day
and that stemmed from my father being a gambler.
He was going and gambling on cards and on horses, and almost every single night
he and my mother would fight about his
addiction-his gambling, and the fact that there wasn't enough money
at a very very young age not only was I
doing things to make money so I can give a little bit to my mother and to
have a little bit of money in my pocket to feel safe
Money in my pocket made me feel like I could protect my mom
I could protect my sister
and what I didn't know at the time
was how much of my self-worth and self-esteem I was stripping away
because of what I was doing as a kid
I didn't believe I was smart enough, I didn't believe
I was good enough to do things legally
I didn't think I was worthy enough and
the thing for me that, that turned it all around was
one man, one decision.
The man was Alan Brown and I had
one lunch with him on a Friday afternoon and he asked me
what my goals were, what my vision for life was.
He asked me where do I wanna travel?
What kinda car do I wanna drive?
What kind of home do I wanna live in?
What kind of charities do I wanna support?
He asked me questions that nobody ever asked me.
and in one lunch
the trajectory of my life changed
and it was this one question that changed my life
and the question was
John, are you interested in achieving or are you committed to achieving the stuff that you wrote?
and I remember it like it was yesterday
I said to myself Mr.Brown
What's the difference between interested and committed?
He said to me it's as if your'e interested
you'll do what's convenient
It's as if you are committed you will do whatever it takes
but he also gave me the how-to
and I believe this worked so much that I still do this today
so everyday when I wake up and I brush my teeth
I have, on my mirror, my top three goals and the vision for my life
and as I brush my teeth
I'm reading the words to prime my brain.
So it's brush your teeth, prime your brain
and I'm reading the words and I'm feeling
what it would feel like to actually achieve
the financial success I want,
the physical success I want
the charitable contributions I wanna make,
the difference I wanna make in the world
and it all stems from
y'know not wanting to have an ordinary life
I wanna have an extra-ordinary life and so
everything that I do is geared towards
how do I have and make sure that I have an extra-ordinary life?
and brushing your teeth, priming your brain while you do that
is one of the best habits you can ever get into
It's only the people who are committed to achieving their goals
that actually achieve them.
It's not the people that set goals
It's not the people that talk about'em
It's not the people that hope and pray and dream for them
It's the people who are actually committed
to do whatever it takes.