What if It Works Out? - Powerful Motivational Speech

I sparked that first stream up. I had that one viewer and that viewer made me keep going. And each day and each day and more, week two, I gained, I started averaging four viewers. Week three, eight viewers. Week four, 20 viewers. And once I start something, I'm not stopping. And the winner for streamer of the year, iShowSpeed. What's better? Take eight big risks in life, sin once, miss the mark once, but get seven, achieve seven, seven out of eight. Or take a hundred risks and achieve eight of them. My hunch is that if there's a God, he's saying, go for the hundred and get eight rather than eight and get seven. If you're not taking enough risks to sin or miss the mark, which is what sin means, to fail, then what are you doing? Don't go back with even money, go back with a safe bet. All the what ifs and the scenarios that you create inside your own mind that are way worse than anything that is actually going to happen, they all disappear when you go. Night after night, every single night of my life, all I know, I don't know nothing else. I did it. I did it, bro. I did it. What if I do all this work? What if I do all this? What if I change my whole life? What if I do this work for the next 10 years and then it ends up not working and I don't get chosen? What if I can become someone that no one thinks I can be and just that, just me talking about that, I have the hair going up on my arms because it makes me just like, what if? Go. It's the what if I can pull off a ******* miracle? Go. Man, I'm climbing the ladder, bringing my team. I'm coming for magazines and movie screens, billboards and awards, movie scores and labels. I'm signing checks and contracts on every table. I'm going to go get stuck in the basement, stuck in the gutter. Being on your death bed and standing around your bed, the dreams given to you by life, the ideas that you never acted on, looking at you with large angry eyes saying we came to you and only you could have given us life. And now we must die with you forever. I have worked while you have slept. And I will live like you dreamed. I want to do this thing, but what if it doesn't work? Do it anyways. What would you do if you weren't afraid? And what would I do if I knew I couldn't fail? I will never wish for fewer epic stories at the end of my life. And I've never regretted failures. I've always regretted things that I didn't try. Whatever it is that you want to do, there's going to be risk in your life. And risk is a necessary component of progress. Some people never will have much. They're too cautious. Now you can also be too reckless, but you can also be too cautious. This is called the timid approach to life. You can get so scared. And you can be so easily lulled into the idea that good is good enough. That feeling safe and comfortable is what you should always be looking for. That way of thinking in your 20s in particular, dead wrong. Taking risks in a non-naive way. Well then you have something that you can comfort yourself with at night. When you're wondering what the whole damn point of your futile and miserable life. Doing what you mean to do. And wanting what you want to want. Is so hard to do. And so right. Because we're built to conform. If you're going to get any further, you got to reinvent yourself. You know that thing that you really want to start doing. But you're worried what everyone might think about you if you do. You should do it. You should definitely, definitely do it. I want you to start to create this mindset of taking risks and going big. I found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Nothing. It was a big risk. It was a big chance. And it was no guaranteed return ticket. It was a one-way ticket possibly to I'm a head coach of high school football to this day. Take the biggest risks of your entire life right now. Remember, you have time. I figured that if I didn't make the entrepreneurship thing work. I would have a hell of a story for business school. And that was actually like the reasoned argument that I gave myself for being willing to quit. Because your DNA, who you are as a person is wrapped up in your dreams. And what this world has done to you is take that from you. Because they know if you know who you are and you get your dream. You're probably not going to work for most of them. You must have faith. Believe in yourself. You've got to believe in your abilities. You've got to believe in your service, your company, your ideas. Unquestionably gives you patience. You've got one in the sleep or snow. The time is now. This is not the time to get the job mom wanted you to. This is not the time to try to maximize as much money so you can buy a fat whip. What you should do is go and travel and learn. Go and start that business that you've always wanted. This is the time to be massively risk. Massively risk oriented. But boy, if you're lucky enough to be graduating today with not a ******* idea of what you're going to do with your future. Nobody's ever been luckier than you. Please recognize that. I'll tell you how risky life is. You're not going to get out alive. That's risky. And so the first thing I want you to do today is I want you to keep saying to yourself, I am, I am, I am, I am. You're standing at the precipice, the edge of the greatest move in your life. And the time is now like never before to take a leap of faith. It takes faith to jump off of the edge. It takes faith to step into your purpose. It takes faith to step into your destiny. It takes faith to pull away from everything that is familiar. To step into uncharted territory. To become the person you were born to be. It takes faith. The first person that needs to be influenced in your life is you. If you want to make it happen, it's you. But you've got to take personal responsibility to make it own what it is that you want to do. To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. Are you bold enough? Are you radical enough in your hunger and your thirst to go after what it is that you believe is yours? Are you crazy enough? Are you courageous enough? Hey, you know, at any given moment, you could be one decision away from an entirely different life. Different place, different people, a different experience and maybe a different you. Because sometimes in the process of completely losing yourself and losing expectations of who you are, you might find that there's more to you than you thought. So in my opinion, sometimes it's worth taking action. It's worth trying that new experience just, just to find out. Do something big. I know that there is something inside of you that you have always wanted to do. 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've got to just listen to your soul. And you've got to say, I'm a 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, 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 three things can happen. You're either going to jump and fly or you're going to jump and fall on something soft. Are you 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're 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 were here. All I'm doing is giving my dream a chance. And I'm not extraordinary. You don't get off the hook. I'm an ordinary woman who chooses every day to make one more extraordinary decision. It's called the language of the poor. What if this happens? And on top of that, if this was to happen, look at the fix I'd be in. I better not try. Then I'll tell you what changed my whole life when I finally discovered it's all risky. The minute you were born, it got risky. Getting married is risky. Having children is risky. Going into business is risky. Investing your money is risky. It's all risky. Why are you here? And what are you going to do about it? Because the truth of the matter is we have a purpose. We have a destiny. We have fulfillment. We've got connections to make. We've got people to meet. We've got rooms to walk in. We've got tables to sit at. When you're working at your dream, somebody said, the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory. See, when it's hard and there's a struggle, see, what you become in the process is more important than the dream. That's far more important. The kind of person you become, the character that you build, the courage that you develop, the faith that you're manifesting, oh, it's something that you get up in the morning, you look yourself in the mirror, you're a different kind of person. You walk with a different kind of spirit. You know it was hard, but you did it hard. No growth comes from being comfortable. And you know what else happens when you take big risks? You grow. You grow into the person that you're meant to become. I know one day I'm going to be somebody. Please look at my face. You're somebody now. Do you understand? Yeah. That's the game. I was somebody long before people knew who I was, and I believed that. You're somebody now, Leticia. Why? We all ask why we should work this hard. Why take that many classes? Why go to school that many years? Why take the notes? Why read the books? Why work that hard? Why put yourself through the push-ups and the disciplines? Why? Good question, why? Best answer to why, I think, is the second question. Why not? Why not see how many books you can read, how many classes you can take, how many skills you can develop? Why not see how valuable you can become to the marketplace, to your friends, and to your family? Why not see what you can make of yourself? Why not see how far you can go, how much you can see, how much you can earn, how much you can share? Why not? I hope all of you just one time in your life, but guess what? You will never feel this level of happiness if you don't go for something in your own life. When they knock you down, when they try to **** you, when they talk ---- about you, and they try to put their foot on your neck, if you stay down, you will never ever get that resolve. Fortify your mind and feel this level of happiness as you rise. Why not you? With good self-esteem, why not you starting to change and setting goals? Why not you starting to make progress toward financial independence? I'm really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don't usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I'm inspired by the greats. I'm inspired by the greats here tonight. I want to be up there. If we can read, you can read. If we can change, you can change. If we can figure it out, you can figure it out. If we can turn it around, you can turn it around. There isn't anything you can't accomplish. That's what those testimonials would say. And so I want to say it to you personally. Why not you? You've got the brains. You've got the stamina. You've got the vitality. You've got the interest. You've got your life ahead of you. You've got the future. You can do it. If anybody can do it, you can do it. If one of us can do it, hey, we all can do it. This is why the dark room is so important. Like if I don't put the work in, if I don't do what is required behind the scenes, I'll never step in public authority. If nobody's told you today, let me be the first to tell you. Every single person listening to me is standing at the precipice of the greatest decision they could ever make in their lives. And now here's my last question. Why not now? This is a good time. Set your goals. Work on yourself. Work on your skills. What a good time to get it together. What a good time to start this process. Personal development. Growing. Changing. Developing. Having a good plan for your money and for your life and for your future. Why not now? No, I'm not a part of the country club. No, I'm not. I don't hang out with them. But I'm still going to be successful. I'm still going to get to where they are. Why? Because I owe it to myself. And can't nobody stop me but me. You will not destroy us. You will not defeat us to the day I die. And I just want to ask anybody listening to me, Why not you? Why can't you be the person that changes everything? The innovator. The trailblazer. The disruptor. The person that makes a decision that I will not be the weakest link in the chain of a dynasty. Why not me? Why can't you be the one that makes history? Why can't you be the one that wins again? Why can't you be the one that breaks cycles? Why can't you be the one that overcomes the demons that have haunted a family for generations? Why not me? So I always had a piece of me that felt like the risk's worth taking. Why not try to make your dreams come true? I'll be honest with you kids. One day you die screaming like my father did. You might as well go for it. You might as well do the thing that you dream about doing for heaven's sake. Why not you? You got to drink in an Arizona sunset. You got to see the world. You got to read the books. You got to do the enterprises. You got to be involved in commerce and love and travel and experiences. You got to do it all. Why not you? You got to know the results that come from splendid discipline. There's nothing like a view from the top. The kids are like, oh, the boomer's fucked up. There's unlimited opportunity. Gen Z, do you know how many of you make so much money because it's so easy with TikTok and Shopify and Instagram? Like no era ever. You have nothing but opportunity when you're 20 to 30. We grew up where you had to eat for 15 years before you could even say something. We couldn't talk. Kids didn't talk until they were 35 in the company. This is the greatest era to be 20 to 30 but these are in their TikTok feed and they've got somebody saying, it's the boomer's fault. They took out all the money and we all got fucked. And if you're a loser, you believe it. Three most common traits of very successful people, superiority complex, massive crippling insufficiency, and impulse control. So superiority complex, I can achieve this thing. That's the cheese. Crippling sense of insufficiency, I fear the cat. Impulse control, I'm in a tube. There's only one direction I can go. I don't need to make a choice. How did I attack today? How did I attack yesterday? And if I didn't do something I was proud of, I'd write it down on a sticky note and I would fix it. Don't postpone your better future any longer. Get at it tomorrow with new vigor. Get you some new books. Ask some new questions. Set some new goals. Get you a new journal. Start your projects book. Get a game plan going. Do some more reading. Start to make changes. Have conversations. Make contact. And do it now. You're talented enough. You're hungry enough. So do it. You are the first pick. You are the only option. And there will never be another way. Believe. That is you. It's always been you. I feel in order to get to where you're going requires a reasonable amount of unreasonability. Not like, hey man, I'm gonna jump off a building and fly without the aid of a jet pack. That's unreasonable unreasonability. Reasonable amount is just like, you know, why not me? Why not you? Some people have done the most incredible things with a limited start. Why not you? Some people have done so well, they get to go, they get to see it all, they get to do it. They get to be there. They get to have it. They get to enjoy it. Why not you? Watching the morning mist rise over the mountains of Scotland. Exploring the mysteries of Spain. Soaking up history in London. Why not you? You got to take a stroll through the palace of Versailles. Why not you? You got to have lunch in one of those neat little sidewalk cafes in Paris. I mean, Denny's is okay. You got to try Paris. Someday you got to gaze directly at the Mona Lisa. I can show you where to find the most exquisite seashells in Miami and the Bahamas. I know where they are. Why not you? You got to shop on Fifth Avenue in New York. You got to stay at the Waldorf Astoria. Have dinner at Lou Chow's. Slice roast goose on a bed of apple strudel. Why not you? Honestly expressing yourself. Now, it is very difficult to do. I mean, it is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky and be flooded with a cocky feeling and then feel like pretty cool and all that. Or I can make all kinds of phony things. You see what I mean? Blinded by it. Or I can show you some really fancy movement. But to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, that, my friend, is very hard to do. If I were to choose to live my life over again, I wouldn't live it in this way. What I wasn't aware of when I went to medical school and when I was a physician for decades is how driven I was to justify my existence in the world. There's a fierce sense of independence. Hour, 30 minutes of TV a night, max. Mom would always say, why are you going to watch someone doing something when you can go out in the world and do it yourself? Turn that damn thing off, get outside. Had to be outside. Get out in the world. Go hustle. Figure it out. Be home at dark. You escape competition through authenticity, by being your own self. If I had to summarize how to be successful in life in two words, I would just say productize yourself. That's it. Just figure out what it is that you naturally do that the world might want. The Queen of England died 18 months ago. She ruled an entire nation and accumulated more wealth than 99.9% of humans. And yet, you haven't thought about it, except for right now. No matter how big your dreams, you're going to die. Everyone will move on. Do what you want. It sucks to not be liked, but it sucks more to not be yourself. And mom would always keep on to make sure you're loving yourself. I remember breakups. Heartbroken. She'd let us mourn. She was a great ear. Very sensitive ear to that kind of, to pains like that. Broken hearts. But only for a day. After a day, she'd crank up the ACDC, man. And go like, now. Get up. You're worth it. Her loss. Come on. Get out of bed. Uh-uh. Come on. Uh-uh. Quit moping. Lift your head up. Come on. Come on, buddy. We got this. Uh-uh. Her loss. Give you the day. No more than that. The first thing you got to realize is that you got to love yourself. It's about self-love. Start understanding that if you're going to do something with your life, you got to fall in love with yourself again. No, I didn't grow up on that side of the town. No, my mama don't have no network. No, I don't know a whole lot of people. No, I'm not at a country club. No, I don't play golf. And I don't plan on playing no time soon. But I'm still going to be successful. I'm still going to get to where they are. Why? Because I owe it to myself. Can't nobody stop me but me. You need to get rid of them excuses. You need to stop pointing fingers at people. And you need to start pointing fingers at yourself. What did you not do? I said, empty your mind. Be formless. Shapeless. Like water. Now, you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the tea. Now, water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend. I have had a real challenge over my life in terms of feeling like these are impossibly huge shoes to fill. There's no possible way that I will ever live up to the bar that he set, the impact that he had. And that's made me really hard on myself at times in my life. And what I've had to come to terms with is that I was born into this circumstance because I am fully capable of being who I am. You don't have to be a replica of anyone and how they're living their life. All you need to do is focus on what makes you great within yourself. Everybody thinks that they put their own self-doubt on themselves. It's actually not how it works. Outside forces got into your head and then made you self-doubt. You think it's your voice. Nobody's voice hates them in the beginning. Understand that any level of self-doubt or insecurity that you have in your head has literally been put inside of it and it's not you doing it to you. It will change your ******* young life. So I like to tell people to go back to their earliest childhood memories of things that really excited them before they got mixed up with parents and teachers and all that other people telling them stuff, you know? Like for me, it was words and language. It just was entranced by the sound of language itself, right? It was like music to me. You had something like that. When you get that your journey has less to do with you than it has to do with everyone who will be blessed enough to cross your path. Then you're willing to do the thing you don't want to do. Say the thing you don't want to say so you can hurry up and be the person you've always known yourself to be. You got to stop self-hating yourself. Do something that's going to make you a better person. Make an impact in this world. And it takes patience. It takes understanding. Most importantly, ladies and gentlemen, it takes faith within yourself. That's the problem with some of you. You always want to blame other people. You want to hold other people to the fire but you're not holding yourself to the fire. You just said you're giving 50%. You owe you an explanation. You need to look at yourself in the mirror and say, why are you only giving 50%? What's wrong with you? You need to put yourself on punishment. You need to tell you, no more TV. No more snacks. No more desserts. No more, no, we working out now. No more alcohol. Not right now. Not, no, I can't handle it right now. You need to tell you that you owe you something. The art of expressing the human body. I mean, here it is the natural instinct and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony. Not if you have one to the extreme, you will be very unscientific. If you have another to the extreme, you become all of a sudden a mechanical man. No longer a human being. So it is a successful combination of both. So therefore it's not pure naturalness or unnaturalness. The ideal is unnatural naturalness or natural unnaturalness. Let me just ask you this. Mr. Risk Taker, what's the bigger risk? Carrying on like you're going or taking the deeper dive? What's better? Take eight big risk in life. Sin once, miss the mark once, but get seven, achieve seven. Seven out of eight. Or take a hundred risk and achieve eight of them. My hunch is that if there's a God, he's saying, go for the hundred and get eight rather than eight and get seven. If you're not taking enough risk to sin or miss the mark, to fail, then what are you doing? Don't go back with even money. Go back with safe bets. You cannot afford not to. I get the sense that feelings are one of these strange bets, emotions, investing ourselves, not holding a bit back, not putting one foot out, like putting it on the line, opening up. Yeah. That feels like a retreat in kind, but one that's plausibly deniable. When we just have one foot out, I didn't fully commit myself to this project, this relationship, this friendship, this self-transformation. And it means that if failure comes along, it doesn't hurt as much. But it also means that success is less likely. And if success comes along, you know that you didn't really earn it. We have to define success for ourselves. And then we have to put in the work to maintain it, take that daily tally, tend our garden, keep the things that are important to us in good shape. No, no, no. Don't study the result. What was the person doing when they got there? And everybody who's achieved something great was some sort of outlaw. Some sort of hustler. Out of balance, out of whack, dark times. Woo. That's dream. Still wakes up in the middle of the night and glad they're wearing a mouth guard because they'd have chipped all their teeth with that nightmare they were having about those things they did back then. I'm one of those. Prioritize who you are, who you want to be, and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character. Let's carry on and trust and be ready to do the work to say, we're not going to just let that slide anymore. No, make a sacrifice today. Sacrifice a plastic ring today for a gold crown tomorrow. Sacrifice something today for more freedom tomorrow. Sacrifice something today for a possible healthier future for your kids. Be brave, take the hill, but first answer that question, what's my hill? Whatever your answer is, don't choose anything that will jeopardize your soul. You've got this great line where you say, so many people are obsessed with how to live longer instead of how to live better. How do you come to think about that? I'm for it. The longevity. I'm for it. But in the pursuit of it, are we measuring quality of life along the way? Some people aren't. And I personally don't want to have the highest number, but then go, well, I need fun, or I didn't enjoy that, or that sucked. Profit measures quality with the quantity. So I'm saying real success is when you have profit. Well, really great longevity would be for those quality years, quality time left in this life. I also say that because while I'm not looking forward to it, I'm not really afraid of death or dying. I'm not looking forward to it. I'm shaking my boots if I'm face to face with that great white. You know what I mean? I'm not looking forward to it. But I see it as a, obviously, it's inevitable. And obviously, I personally see it as hopefully a comma, you know, not a period. So tomorrow is not today's measurement when the misery is bad enough. These people don't have the suffering consideration. It's a privilege, man. I'm trying to put food on the table right now. I'm paying my rent tonight. Are you going to talk to me about investing in my future? And I say, and that's part of what faith and religion are for. To help those in misery hang on to a hope that will most likely not be served them in this life. To sell them belief and faith that they will be served in the next. And what if there is nothing there, man? What if there's nothing to hope for? What if there's no next? I don't know. But either way, in misery here or without a heaven there, not having any hope or faith in anything is a certain way to remain where you are forever. But if you can find something that you can keep going, something that no matter how small, to look forward to and continually have faith in and chase, well, then your life here is going to be better now. Heaven or not. Let's go to the dream. Let's flip that script. I always have gone from nonfiction to say let's make that the dream. Just keep living. Art emulates life. Let's go to dreams. Let's go to poems, prayers. These are pursuits of an ideal beauty. These are in between the lines. This is in between the math. This is not academic. This is not intellectual. These are ideals that we pursue. The beginner's mind that we have as a child. Before we know worse and I don't want to be ignorant. I don't want to be foolishly optimistic. Let's look to those and believe that we can still make those real.