I started the Mentor Me series
with the goal to learn from people
who’ve done more than us, and by hanging around them
a little bit longer, some of their mindset,
their work ethic, their values,
seep into us to help us become
the best version of ourselves.
So today we’re going to learn from the best of
Eric Thomas Motivation from 2015.
Mentor me, Eric.
Tip number one is my personal favorite.
And I’m curious to figure out which one
you guys like the best.
Also, as Eric’s talking, if he says something
that really resonates with you,
please leave it in the comments below
and put quotes around it,
so other people can be inspired as well.
Enjoy.
(uplifting music)
“ET, why do you speak with so much authority?”
‘Cause I’m talkin’ about my life,
not something that I read.
I ate out of trash cans.
I had no business eating out trash cans.
I lived in abandoned buildings.
I had no business living in abandoned buildings.
“But, ET, your daddy wasn’t in your life.
“Your mom was teenage mother.
“You grew up, come one, E, look at your shirt.”
That’s not an excuse.
There is no excuse
for not living up to your fullest potential,
no excuse.
I told you.
I didn’t get a new daddy.
I didn’t get a new mama.
What changed?
I changed.
And I stopped being a victim.
I stopped saying I’ve got to wait for good things
to happen to me.
And I said I’m going to grind.
I’m going to fight.
I’m going to work.
I’m going press forward.
I’m going to learn.
I’m going to do everything in my power, every single day.
I’m going to do everything in my power
to become a victor, not a victim.
Now let me say this before I move forward.
And I can’t explain it, but you better feel me.
Winners win and losers lose.
I can’t explain it any better than that.
I don’t know how it happens, but winners win.
And if you create a culture of losing,
if you keep being a victim,
if you keep letting losing happen to you,
if you keep letting people do you and treat you
any kind of way, it’s going to become a culture.
Let me tell you all, I’m not from New Zealand, guys.
Come on, listen to me very closely.
I’m not from New Zealand,
but I know about, let me say it this way, so I can help you.
I know what about what team.
(triumphant music)
I’ve never All Blacks play a day in my life.
I’ve never been to the stadium.
Where’s the stadium?
Help me out, where’s the stadium?
Okay, I’m going, see what I did?
I’ve never been to the stadium.
You’re like, “Eric, the stadium,
“that’s Hobbit that way, Eric, that’s not the stadium.
“The stadium is this way.”
I’ve never been there a day in my life.
And if you watch some of my videos,
I have All Black in my video, why?
‘Cause they’re what?
They’re winners!
And when you’re a winner,
you don’t even stay in your own little town.
When you’re a winner, winning spreads.
So everybody, I got videos where I’m like,
you all, I don’t really know how to show my passion.
Somebody said get the All Blacks.
Aah!
I’m like, yep.
That’s what I need, All Blacks.
(triumphant music)
Yep, yep, I need the All Blacks.
I need the All Blacks, ’cause they say what I’m saying.
They just say it in rugby.
I don’t say, I’m don’t even know how to, I’m like,
ooh, that’s a violent sport.
Their passion is all over there, why?
‘Cause winners win.
And I can’t explain it to you.
But you better stop making excuses
and find a way to win,
because once you start winning,
you going from 1,500 to 3,000 to 5,000 to 7,000.
You remember, C?
From seven to 10.
Nothing changed, we still in the basement.
We don’t have a building.
We still use the garage for all of our products.
We don’t have business cards.
We don’t have a five-year plan.
We don’t have a three-year plan.
How do you do it then?
E, we wake up and grind.
Winners win.
I focus more on winning than I focus on structure.
I focus on winning.
And when you become a winner,
they start seeing you with winners.
Now it’s important for me to let you know
that you are powerful beyond measure.
Listen to me, I told you last week,
because perhaps I don’t know
your daddy wasn’t in your life,
your mother wasn’t in your life, I don’t know.
You didn’t have a mentor.
I don’t know.
But you may have never heard someone look you in your eye,
look you in your soul and tell you that you
not only matter, you’re powerful.
And you are powerful beyond measure.
But, listen to me, knowing is half battle.
It’s not enough to know.
It’s not enough to know.
Now I need you to apply.
So I’m going to give you three quick principles.
And I want to, when this thing is over, I’m telling you,
I want you to take your life to a whole new level.
I want you not only to understand you matter,
I want you to go in the mirror and say,
“I matter.”
So the first story I’m going to tell you, right?
‘Cause I don’t know if you’re like me, right?
But I remember, as a business,
when we got our first credit card, excited.
We had a pretty nice limit on there,
so we could get our products, and we could travel,
we could get our t-shirts, the whole nine.
But it was weird when we first got the card.
I don’t know if you ever seen that strip before.
That’s right, you matter.
You’re powerful beyond measure.
You know what I’m talking about.
You got the card, right?
Limit, we had a nice size limit.
We had the money to do what we needed to do
to take this ministry to whole ‘nother level, right?
But when we got the card, what we discovered was,
although the money was in the bank,
before we could get the money,
before we could use the money, we had to activate the card.
That’s right, we had to call that number and say,
“Yes, we agree.”
Are you hearing what I’m telling you?
I’m telling you that, look, you can’t activate light.
You can’t begin to experience light
in the way you want to experience.
You can’t have it, you can’t be it, you can’t do it,
until you activate it.
And, yes, it’s all in there,
all your gifts, all your talents,
everything you need to do
to be what you’ve been called to do,
what you’ve been birthed to do,
you can’t do until you activate it,
until you recognize you matter.
Everything about you is great.
But the problem is you have consciously chosen
to be average.
I get it!
I get it, like innately, innately, everything about you
is great.
Everything about you is phenomenal,
but you have consciously made a decision to be average.
You are average in school.
You are average at your workplace.
Like everything you do is average.
And not because it’s average,
but because you made a decision.
You made a choice to be average.
Why?
‘Cause the people around you are average,
or maybe you grew up in an average environment,
or went to a average school,
or you work for an average company.
And so you’ve decided,
you’ve decided to go against who you are.
You’ve decided to go against who you,
all right, all right, all right, so I get it.
Watch this, this is deep.
So that’s why you go to the basketball games.
I got it now.
That’s why you spend hours watching your favorite athlete.
Right, right?
‘Cause when you watch him, you watch him,
and something about you that’s attracted to that greatness,
because there’s something in you that’s great.
So that’s why you watch him,
because it’s easier to watch him reach greatness,
than it is for you to put in sweat and blood,
and tears to become great.
That’s why you, that’s why, I got it now.
That’s why you buy all the magazines.
And you’re looking at homegirl on the magazine, right?
I got it now, ’cause it’s easier to look at her
and get motivated and pumped up,
and you feel something inside.
What do you feel?
You feel that greatness, and that phenomenal,
you stirrin’ up.
That’s why.
That’s why you put those headphones on,
and you just shut the whole world out.
And you listen to your favorite artist,
you’re listening to them sing,
or you’re listening to them rap,
and deep down inside, you hurt when you listen,
because it should be you.
I got it now.
I understand now.
You are attracted to greatness,
because greatness is all in you.
But it’s easier to watch greatness.
It’s easier to go see greatness
than it is to put in the time, to put in the energy,
to discipline yourself, to sacrifice.
It’s easier.
And so that’s why you average,
and so you’re frustrated,
because you’re not living like you should live.
No, you don’t have what you should have.
You’re not being who you should be,
and so that’s why you don’t want to wake up in the morning.
That’s why you pissed off with Monday,
’cause Monday is the day that you’re supposed to go
mold and shape and create your greatness.
That’s why you like Friday, I get it.
‘Cause Friday you get to chill.
You don’t have to face yourself on Friday.
You don’t have to face yourself on Saturday or on Sunday.
That’s the day that everybody is partying,
everybody’s drunk, everybody gets to forget
that they didn’t become who they were supposed become
during the week.
That’s why!
I get it now!
But I challenge you.
Listen to me, I challenge you.
What do you I cha?
‘Cause I know you can.
Listen to me, some of you, you’re not even in the game.
Can you do me a favor?
Get in the game.
You could be great if you just showed up.
Get in the game.
You can’t make a difference, until you make a decision.
Aah! (laughs)
You better hear what I’m telling you, man.
I’m talking about the secret to success.
I’m always telling you how I went from one spot
to the next spot.
And that was it right there.
Listen to me, catch the first principle.
You got to hear it.
You can’t make a difference until you make a decision.
So, for real, some of you, man, you keep cryin’,
you complain about your job,
you complain about where you are financially,
you complain about your relationships,
you complain about your opportunities.
You’re complainin’, complainin’, complainin’.
Listen to me, you murmurin’ and complainin’.
You complainin’ and complainin’ and complainin’.
Shut up!
Stop complaining and do me a favor.
If you want to make a difference,
all you got to do is one thing.
This is how you get started.
You want something different?
Listen to me, all you got to do
is make a decision, that’s it.
And for those of you who been making the wrong decision,
all you got to do is make the right decision.
But if you want to make a difference, make a decision.
Are you hearing what I’m telling you?
What I’m trying to do for you to take you to that next level
is I’m trying to give you control of your life back.
Some of you, you ain’t got control,
you talkin’ about your job.
You got control.
Listen to me, some of you talkin’ about your economics
like you ain’t got no control.
You got to control.
I want you to know that your life right now
is the sum total of your decisions,
not your mama decision, not your daddy.
Listen to me, even if you made they decision,
you decided to make they decisions.
So I need you to do me a favor.
I need you, from this day forward,
for the rest of your life, make a decision.
And I ain’t talkin’ about, again, something that I read,
I’m telling you what I experienced.
I remember being upset.
Okay, the word is pissed off, forgive me.
When the boss going to tell me I can’t go see my daughter
get her award.
You heard me say it before, it burned.
It burned.
You can’t go see, my daughter’s gettin’ an academic award,
seven, eight years old.
Ain’t nothing like having your daddy in the building,
and my boss tell me I can’t go.
So guess what?
I let it burn.
And then one day I made a decision.
And I made a decision to walk away.
And let me tell you something.
I walked away.
And two weeks later, the video went viral.
When You Want to Succeed as Bad as You Want to Breathe
went viral, but it didn’t go viral
until I made a decision.
The video never went viral when I was complaining.
It never went viral when I was murmurin’.
It never went viral when I was talking just to be talking.
But when I made a decision to walk away,
when I made a decision, aah,
when I made a decision to follow my destiny.
I felt it calling me.
My destiny was calling me.
And when I decided to stop letting it call me,
but I chased after her, we went viral.
Make a decision.
With every milestone,
while you may be excited about the milestone,
there’s a part of the milestone that you don’t want to face.
Are you hearing me?
And listen to me, I knocked out the coursework, boom,
got it done, in order.
“ET, why did it take you two years, ET,
“after you finished your coursework,
“why did it take you two years to get started
“with the dissertation?”
I’m going to be 100 with you.
Look, knocked all the coursework out,
but when I finally got to the dissertation,
I had to get to that demon.
I had to deal with it.
I had to face it.
Face what?
We’re not talking about elementary school,
middle school, high school.
I’ve had a professor or two tell me in college
that, “You will never get your dissertation.”
that, “While your writing has improved,
“but in terms of your analysis, you are not critical enough
“to do a dissertation.”
Are you hearing what I’m telling you?
We’re talking about, look, math.
I love math coming up, why?
It is what it is.
Now please excuse my dear.
I’m telling you, like, it is what it is, right?
It’s not subjective.
Writing is subjective.
I’ve had teachers that look at my work
and strip it into parts.
The fear, the fear of what?
The fear of rejection, right?
My teachers were so subjective.
I put my whole heart into it.
I put everything I could put,
and they tell me, “Edit it again.”
Revision after revision.
Edit after edit.
Are you hearing what I’m telling you?
I had to deal with the fact that
writing has never really been my strong suit.
And even though I worked hard,
and I put in hours and hours,
in the back of my mind, aah, in the back of my mind,
I can hear the teachers say,
“ET, you don’t have what it takes to get a dissertation.”
I’m a grown man dealing with that fear.
I’m a grown man dealing with the rejection
of getting all that red, aah, all that red on my paper,
of having to do it over, and over, and over, and over.
And come on, come on, somebody feels me.
You feel like you going to do 120%,
you’ll give everything you have
and it still won’t be enough.
I feel you, I was there.
A part of the milestone is,
“What if I give everything and it ain’t enough?
“What if I put my whole heart, my whole mind,
“my whole soul into it, ET, and it’s not enough.
“What if I do it and I fail?”
That’s why I feel you.
So you just like you’re not going to do it at all,
because you’d rather not do it and find out truth.
And I’m telling you, you got to me a favor.
You got to face your fear.
You got to do it anyway.
Your boy, ET, had to face his fear.
That’s right.
Yep, I know you see ET, beast mode!
And you right, I am beast mode.
But it don’t mean beast mode without fear.
It don’t beast mode without a little anxiety.
It don’t mean beast mode and I’m just 120% sure.
No!
I have to live by faith, too.
And I made up in my mind, “ET, you got to go after it, E.”
Look, I finished my coursework, it took me two years, why?
‘Cause it took me two years to get over the fear.
It took me two years to get over the anxiety.
It took me two years to finally say, “Goliath, here I come!
“Goliath, you might be taller than me,
“you might be bigger than me,
“you might be stronger than me, but I’m comin’.
“And I’d rather die trying.”
I’d rather die going after this dissertation.
I’d rather give everything I got,
I’d rather give a year, I’d rather put in work
and fail, than not try at all.
Hey, listen, let me just explain something to you all.
I got to keep it 100.
CJ 12 years younger than me.
I was out of high school before
this boy was even really born.
Are you hearing what I’m saying?
My man 12 years younger than me, 12 years.
And he picked up that phone.
And he had one of them heart-to-heart.
Do you have anybody in your inner circle
that’s willing to be real with you?
That’s willing to keep in 100?
That don’t care nothing about your feelings,
but they care about your goals and your dreams?
CJ hit me up.
I had called my man, left a message, like,
“C, they killin’ me.
“They want to know when the mix tape comin’ out.
“When is the next mix tape comin’ out, C?”
C said, “ET, let me tell you somethin’,
“shut it down.”
I said, “What?”
He said, “Shut it down, tell ’em ain’t no mix tape comin’.
“Stop doing TGI, shut it down.”
That’s why you got the reruns for so long.
He said, “Shut it down, E.
“Shut it down.
“I’m tired.”
He said, “I’m going to keep in 100, I’m tired, E.
“The last two mix tape, you was talkin’ about how you
“going to get your PhD.
“Between me and you, y mano y mano, man to man,
“we will not come out with another mix tape
“where you’re talkin’ about what you’re going to do.
“Shut it all down, E.
“Do you understand that the future of the company
“is on you finishing the PhD?
“Shut the gig down.
“Shut it down.”
And I’m telling you all, one of the, yep, one of the ways
your boy got the milestone done, I had to shut it down.
I shut down the phone calls, flat out.
From a certain time, don’t call my house.
If you love me, text me.
If you love me, it ain’t no emergency, don’t call.
I had to shut it down.
Shut the TV down.
Listen to me, put the controller down.
Shut down going out bowling on the weekends,
going to the club.
Look, shut it down.
Shut down your favorite team.
Stop watching your favorite footballer, basketballer,
soccer, whatever it is, shut it down.
And I’m tellin’ you, you ain’t got to shut it down
for the rest of your life.
But you got to shut it down long enough
so you get your Super Bowl done, yep.
So you get your NBA Final is done, yep, yep, yep, yep.
So you get your World Series done, yep.
Are you hearing me?
So can get your national titles done.
Are you hearing me?
So you can get your book done,
so you can get your CD finished,
so you can get your degree,
so you can take your marriage to the next level,
shut it down!
I had to shut the noise down.
I had to shut it down.
And when I shut it down, when I shut certain things down
in my life, boom!
I went to a whole ‘nother level.
All right, you all got to do me a huge favor.
All right, look, I know the power of one.
Trust me, look, don’t get too analytical.
I know the power one.
But I’m telling you, sometimes to make a milestone
become a reality, you got to get it done by twos.
One of the greatest basketball players
that ever played the game, yep, Michael Jordan.
(crowd cheering) – Oh, one spectacular move
by Michael Jordan!
– Yep, Michael Jordan didn’t do it alone.
Come on, come on, come one.
When you say Mike, you got to say Scottie Pippin.
Are you hearing me?
LA, LA, baby, when you say Kobe Bryant,
like for real, for real.
You can’t go without sayin’, when you talk about that era,
you can’t go without saying Shaquille O’Neal.
Are you hearing me?
Sometimes, yep, the power of one is great.
MJ was doing his thing on the solo, yep.
Kobe was doin’ his thing on the solo,
but you got to keep in 100.
When Jordan had Scottie, aah, magical,
magic happens.
Oh, when Shaq was with Kobe, aah!
Magic happen.
And what I’m telling you is,
as long as I was doing it by myself, yep,
as long as I was doing it by myself,
I could never get that dissertation done.
The power of two.
No man, and I mean it, no man is an island.
And let me tell you what changed the game.
What changed the game is when I met with Dr. June.
What the changed the game is when I sat down
with Dr. June and I had some accountability.
Can I say it?
Aah, accountability partner.
Your problem is you’re doing it by yourself.
Your problem is you don’t want nobody to know
that you got (laughs) I know, I know you’re afraid for them
to see your weakness.
I know you’re afraid to be vulnerable.
Yep, you’re afraid to tell ’em your dream.
Look, you got to tell somebody.
Somebody got to hold you accountable.
I’m not telling you to tell the world,
but one other person needs to know.
And one other person needs to hold you accountable.
And my life changed.
My milestone became a reality.
Listen to me, I’m giving you the secrets to to success.
The day I told Dr. June I want to get it done.
And Dr. June looked me in my face and said,
“Don’t play with me.
“Don’t play with me, are you ready?
“Look, not only do I have a PhD, not only have I sat
“on many committees, listen to me very closely,
“I can and will help you to get through this.
“But don’t play with me, you got to be serious.”
And doc said, “All I need you to do,
“you tell me when you want this PhD.
“You tell me when you want to be finished
“with this dissertation, you tell me when.
“And I’ll tell you what you have to do every single day,
“how many pages you have to write,
“how much research you have to do,
“how much time you have to spend on it.”
Listen to me, it did not become a reality,
it didn’t become real until I sat down with Dr. June
and we made a commitment.
Are you hearing me?
Before it was just an idea.
Before it was just a thought.
Before it was just something I said.
But when I sat down, y mano, y mano,
man to man, y mano, y mano.
Man to man, when I sat down and I made that commitment,
and I shook his hand, and I looked him in his eyes and said,
“I’m ready to get it done.”
All we did was meet every Monday.
Are you hearing me?
I know this sounds too simple.
I know it sounds too good to be true.
All we did was sit down on Mondays and nine o’clock,
and every single week he said,
“This is what you need to get done.
“If you are a man, and you do what you say you’re going to do,
“and you make no excuses, and you don’t let nothing get
“in your way, I guarantee to you, in a year’s time,
“if that’s how long you want this process to take,
“I guarantee you we can get it done.
“But what I can’t do is I can’t do it for you.
“But I can show you what it takes.”
There was a part of me that I never really wanted
to link up with nobody else,
because I really didn’t want to fully expose myself.
I didn’t really.
And he said to me,
“Kid, you’ve never written a dissertation before.
“How would you know how to do it?
“That’s what I’m here for.”
And when you get that life coach,
that’s the problem with some of you.
You can’t get to that next level,
because you’re trying to do it on your own.
You’re trying to do it in your own strength.
And I’m not saying there’s no power in one.
Mike was murdering the game, putting up 60 something
against Boston.
Mike was dunk contest, Mike was doing it.
But Mike never reached those milestones by himself.
He had to bring somebody else into his sphere of influence.
All right, I’m going to give you a secret, right?
I’m going to give you a secret to solving problems, right?
And it’s deal with it, all right?
It’s deal with it.
And we’re going to break this thing down.
And I’m telling you,
if you can apply this particular principle,
if you can apply this particular principle
to all your problems, we going to get to the next level.
Listen to me very, very closely, all right?
This is important, guys, I’m telling you.
This is like a key that’s going to unlock all doors.
I need you to deal with the problem.
Are you hearing what I’m saying?
Revolutionize my life.
I know it seem real simple.
But I’m telling you, I don’t care how complex,
I don’t care how big,
I don’t care how small the problems is.
Listen to me, the secret is in actually dealing with it.
Do you understand that you if you can be a person
who can deal with problems,
do you understand that you going to attract opportunities
that other people can’t attract?
Do you understand the type of wealth you will have,
not just financially, but relationally?
Do you know how many people will call on you?
Do you not understand organizations, how many institutions
will call on you?
Do realize that most people in this world
get broken by problems?
We have very few people who have the ability
to solve problems.
And once you become a problem solver,
you are, listen to me, your stock goes up.
Your value in life goes up.
Remember what I told you?
People don’t call ET just because they want to be motivated.
People call ET to help them solve problems.
What do you want?
That’s right, that’s right, real simple, right?
But that one question is going to direct us
the rest of this year.
It’s real simple.
What do you want?
All right, so I got to get that out,
because once you know what you want,
all right, listen to me, listen to me,
you got to get it, ’cause I’m doing some simple stuff.
You’re like, “ET, that’s real simple.”
Write the vision.
What I’m asking you to do is write the vision
and make it plain, because when you know what you want,
I’m not starting with your why, right?
I’m not starting with all that.
Right now I’m starting with your want.
What do you want?
Because if you don’t know what you want,
and you’re watching me, nothing else matters.
But when you know what you want,
“E, why do you wake up at three?”
‘Cause I know what I want.
Look, you eat however you want to eat.
You do whatever you want to do, right?
When you don’t know what you want,
when you’re not clear on what you want,
like, you get up whenever you feel like it,
you don’t have no drive, you don’t have no passion.
And so when people ask me, “E, where your passion come from?
“Where you drive come from?”
I know what I want.
And every single day I wake up, boom, and I go pursue it,
every single day.
So what do you want?
Do you want to retire?
Do you want to spend more time with your family?
I don’t know, what is it?
You want a better job?
You want a promotion?
You got this dream that you want to pursue,
you want to write a book, you want to do a CD,
like, I don’t know what you want.
Do you want to be an artist?
Do you want to be an engineer?
I don’t know, but I want you to start the year off.
We’re not talking about, you know, fake dreaming,
and just writing goals down, and be doing it.
I’m talkin’ about knowing what you want,
because when you know what you want,
that’s where the drive come from,
that’s where the passion comes from.
So two more questions, two more questions.
I’m going to give you an assignment
and I’m going to let you get out of here, all right?
So the first thing I want you to ask, after you see it,
you might have to cut this off, and cut it back on later,
after you write the vision, and make that vision plain.
Do you want to spend more time with your family?
Well, what is it that you want?
Do you want to be there at your son’s games?
You want to be there for your daughter’s recitals,
like, are you tired of missing out on life
’cause you’re at work?
I don’t know what you want.
But my second question is,
what are you willing to sacrifice
to get what you want?
What are you willing to give up, right?
Because I told you this before.
You got to give up, listen to me,
to go up, you got to give up, you got to give up,
you got to give up.
So ask yourself this question.
And I want you to write it down,
like this homework assignment.
You want to be the best at your company,
you want to make more money than you’ve ever made,
you want to travel the world.
I don’t know, I don’t know.
You want to build your second home.
I’m not sure what you want.
But I need you to understand that you got to give some.
You can’t stay where you are
and go where you’re trying to go.
And that’s the problem.
Many of you, you love your comfort zone too much.
You love it.
You love security too much.
And I’m telling you, you can stay where you are, you can.
But you can’t stay where you are
and try to go where you’re going.
I didn’t know how long it was going to take.
Yep, when I took 12 years to get that four-year degree,
I didn’t know how long it was going to take.
But let me tell you something, let me tell you something,
I never gave up, and I never gave in.
And the difference between people who succeed
and people who fail,
look it’s not that people who succeed
don’t go through nothing.
We all go through our go through, look,
but the difference is one of us quit, yep,
one of us quit, one of us gave up, one of us gave in.
So I just got four things I want to say to you real quick.
The first one is, look, work while you wait.
Yep, I said it.
For real, for real.
We don’t know how long it’s going to take, right?
But if you stop now, if you quit now,
one thing I can tell you is, for certain,
it’s never going to happen.
So the first thing I need you to do is
you cannot stop.
Okay, rest if you must,
but you cannot stop and question life,
like you cannot stop and question your circumstance
and situation so much so that while you could be working,
while you could be further along the road less traveled,
you’re sitting there contemplating,
you’re sittin’ there moaning about it,
you’re sitting there complaining about it.
And I get it.
I’m not minimizing your struggle.
I get it.
I understand, but you got to work.
You got to work, ’cause what happens?
What happens if you wake up 30 days later and you there?
What happens if you wake up 60 days later
and the change is coming?
You know what’s going to happen?
You’re going to wake up 60 days later, 90 days later,
and everything’s going to change but you.
And you’re going to get the same results you got
before that happened, because you’re the exact same person.
So work, work while you wait.
Look, you all got to do me a favor.
I am tired of hearing this hater talk, right?
I got haters.
Listen to me very carefully, please.
Look, you got to be careful of the words that you use.
You got to be careful of the words
that come out your mouth,
because I don’t care if you mean it or not,
if it’s victim, you’re planting a seed,
you’re going to get victim stuff back.
But victor, victor.
Like you got to be careful what you say, haters.
Look, I love my haters.
I embrace my haters.
Listen to me, I’m going to say it again.
Love my haters, embrace my haters.
Why?
Because my haters will say things to me
that my mother would never say.
My haters will say stuff my wife will never say.
My haters will say stuff that people that love ET
would never say.
My haters give me a perspective.
Are you hearing me?
My haters give me a perspective that nobody else
can’t give me.
Listen to me, I got to shout out my haters.
I love my haters.
I got to shout ’em out.
Let me tell you all something, right?
So I was all over the world, doing my thing,
speaking at these different venues, right?
And then I had a enemy.
That enemy don’t know I know who they are.
But I know my enemies, baby.
I know who my enemies are.
You better hear me.
I got to a speaking engagement, spoke,
when I left, I got banned from that whole arena.
And I know they did it, ’cause they were there.
And when I shook their hand,
they couldn’t really look me in my face. (laughs)
They couldn’t really look me in my face
with the same energy I had,
with the same passion and love I had.
They couldn’t reciprocate it,
so I already knew they was haters, right?
And a couple weeks later, I found out that I was banned,
I couldn’t speak there no more.
I wanted, when I see ’em the next time,
I’m going to give him a kiss in the mouth.
(laughing)
I said it, I’m going to give my man a kiss in the mouth.
Why?
Because what he did for me was,
when I got banned from speaking from that region,
when they told me I couldn’t speak no more,
what I was able to do was go to another level.
Why?
I was all over the place, and I didn’t have the ability
to say no to churches.
I didn’t want to say no to churches,
but when my man got me banned,
he put me in a situation, you all,
where I came home and I was focused.
I was able to be more focused at my church.
I didn’t miss any weeks, because I was there,
I was with my family after church.
We were having, aah,
you’re not hearing what I’m telling you,
my hater helped me.
My hater helped me to stop being sporadic,
being all over the place.
My hater helped me to get focused.
And let me tell you something,
when I got focused, you can’t finish a PhD
and say, yeah to everybody.
You can’t finish a PhD and have your hands in everything.
You can’t finish your PhD and not be laser focused.
My hater helped me.
My wife wasn’t trippin’.
My wife was like, “If that’s what God told you,
“then go do it.”
My loved ones was like,
“Woo, dad traveling across the country saving lives.”
But hater helped me.
My hater, one, gives me a perspective
that no one else will give me.
Two, my hater puts me in a position
that nobody else will push me.
And let me tell you, finally, woo!
My hater give me energy and passion like nobody else.
Let me tell you something.
There are times when I’m thinking about taking a nap,
and I think about my hater.
(laughs) Listen to me, there are times when I think about
doing something stupid.
And I say to myself,
“ET, if you mess up, do you know how much, do you know how
“your haters will relish in this?
“Do you know if you don’t finish your degree
“how much your haters will relish in this?
“Do you know if you don’t finish your book, how much, aah!”
My haters give me passion.
My haters give me purpose.
My haters, aah, you not hearing me.
You hatin’ on your haters.
Don’t hate on your haters.
Love your haters, embrace your haters,
listen to your haters, take perspective from your haters,
because your haters are going to elevate you.
Your enemy will elevate you, not destroy you.
So it’s your boy ET saying
you better stop trippin’.
You better watch what you say, you better watch
what come out your mouth.
Just because it don’t look good for you,
don’t mean it ain’t good for you.
You better understand that even your enemies
can teach you something,
even your haters can teach you something.
So it’s your boy saying, “Haters, hate on!”
(laughing) Haters, hate on!
You don’t destroy me, you only make me better!
– Thank you guys so much for watching,
I hope you enjoyed it.
It’s hard not to be motivated after watching this video.
ET always delivers.
I’m curious, which clip had the biggest impact on you,
and why?
What messages did you take from this
that you’re going to immediately apply
to your life or to your business somehow?
Leave it in the comments below, super curious to find out.
I also want to give a quick shout out to the
Hawaii State Public Library System.
I got a notification that you guys
picked up a couple copies of my book
and I really appreciate it.
So I wanted to give you a quick shout out.
So thank you for your support of Your One Word.
Thank you guys, again, for watching, I believe in you,
I hope you continue to believe in yourself,
and whatever your one word is.
Much love, I’ll see you soon.
”
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