if your name is mentioned and people say
oh hell oh damn and then you’re doing
something wrong
courage is the most important important
of all the virtues because without
courage you can’t practice any other
virtue there’s an African saying which
is be careful when a naked person offers
you a shirt I thought that I had caused
the man’s death because I had spoken his
name she was an American poet and civil
rights activist she’s best known for her
series of seven autobiographies which
focuses on her childhood and early adult
experiences she was respected as a
spokesperson for black people and women
in her works were considered as a
defense of black culture she’s Maya
Angelou and here’s my take on her top
ten rules for success rule number one
was my personal favorite and make sure
to stick around all the way to the end
for some special bonus clips also as
she’s talking if there’s something she
says that really resonates with you
please write it down in the comments and
put quotes around it so that other
people can be inspired as well I have a
painting by Phoebe of a group that she
calls history Sookie’s funeral and they
all the women they’re about nine women
and they they all look like women and my
grandmother’s prayer meeting group so
whenever I’m obliged to do something I
take that painting and I look at that
painting there’s an empty chair and I
think now what would grandma do what
would she say I can almost hear her
voice say my sister you know what’s
right just do right you don’t really
have to ask anybody the truth is right
may not be expedient it may not be
profitable but it will satisfy your soul
[Music]
it brings you the kind of protection
that bodyguards can’t give you try to be
all you can be to be the best human
being you can be try to be that in your
church and your temple try to be that in
your classroom do it because it is right
to do you see people will know you and
they will add their prayers to your life
they’ll wish you well I think if your
name is mentioned and people say oh help
oh damn and then you’re doing something
wrong but if your name is mentioning
people say oh she’s so sweet he’s so
nice oh I know oh god bless her yeah
yeah so try to live your life in a way
that you will not regret years of
useless virtue and inertia and timidity
pick up the the baffle take it up it’s
yours this is your life this is your
world I’ll be leaving it long before you
under the ordinary set of circumstances
you make your own choices
you can decide life isn’t worth living
never be the worst thing you can do how
do you know so far try it see so pick it
up pick up the battle them and make it a
better world just where you are yes and
it can be better and it must be better
but it is up to us
I mentioned courage and I would I would
like to say something else about that
finding courage in the leaders and in
you who will become leaders at courage
is the most important important of all
the virtues because without courage you
can’t practice any other virtue
consistently you see you can’t be
consistently kind or fair or humane or
generous not without courage because if
you don’t have it sooner or later you’ll
stop and say ah if the threat is too
much the the difficulty is too too high
they the challenges is too great you
know I believe that self-love is very
important if you read my work you know
I’m always talking about loving oneself
I never trust anybody who tells me he or
she loves me as the person doesn’t love
herself or himself there’s an African
saying which is be careful when a naked
person offers you a shirt
I mean if he had something cover himself
first right so I like to look at
self-love it is very important that it
comes from within that you have a sense
of yourself so that when you walk into
an office
you don’t go alone bring your people
with you bring everybody who has loved
you with you say grandma come on let’s
go
great grandpa you’ve been dead all this
time come on let’s go I have to go in
here and have an interview come on
auntie come on my friends come let’s go
and when you walk in people don’t know
what it is about you they can’t take
their eyes off you you may not be cute
in the given sense you may not be
fashion model size in that particular
sense you may not be any of those things
but they can’t take their eyes off you
and they say of you in this incredible
wave which I don’t understand they say I
don’t know but she has charisma you know
what you have is all those people around
you so think of that anytime you have
anything to do bring everybody with you
that you can remember who has loved you
and then you have that sense of having
been paid for and when you walk in
people will say now I think you’re
overqualified if you don’t laugh you
will die you know you really must laugh
and if every human being in the world
would admit it he or she is the funniest
person you’ve ever met f tupid I mean
some people just rather be a little
stodgy and boring and you know but the
truth is they themselves know that
they’re very funny and the sense of
humor is and in self-defense against
those who have pretend not to have any
sense of humor
and against the the cruelties of life
when Muslims there’s an African American
song nineteenth century which M is so
great it said when it looked like the
Sun wanna shine anymore God put a
rainbow in the clouds imagine and I’ve
had so many rainbows in my cards I had a
lot of clouds but I have had so many
rainbows and one of the things I do when
I step up on a stage when I stand up to
translate when I go to teach my classes
when I go to direct a movie I bring
everyone who has ever been kind to me
with me black white asian
spanish-speaking Native American gay
straight everybody has to come with me
I’m doing a mistake come with me I need
you now long did you see so I don’t ever
feel I have no help I’ve had rainbows in
my clouds and the thing to do it seems
to me is to prepare yourself so that you
can be a rainbow in somebody else’s
cloud somebody who may not look like you
may not call God the same name you call
God if they call God at all you see I
may not eat the same dishes prepared the
way you do may not dance your dances or
speak your language but be a blessing to
somebody when I was seven and a half I
was raped
I won’t say severely very doll rape is
severe the rapist was a person very well
known to my family I was hospitalized
the rapist was let out of jail and was
found dead that my and the police
suggested that the rapist had been
kicked to death I was seven and a half I
thought that I had caused the man’s
death because I had spoken his name that
was my seven and a half year old logic
so I stopped talking for five years now
to show you again how out of evil there
can come good in those five years I read
every book in the black school library I
read all the books I could get from the
white school library
I memorized James Weldon Johnson Paul
Laurence Dunbar Countee Cullen and
Langston Hughes I memorized Shakespeare
whole plays fifty sonnets
I memorized Edgar Allen Poe all the
poetry never having heard it I memorized
it
I had Longfellow I had guida mocha song
I had balsa Rudyard Kipling I mean it
was a Catholic kind of reading and
Catholic kind of story when I decided to
speak I had a
to say and many ways in which to say
what I had to say I listen to the black
minister and listen to the melody of the
preachers and I could tell when they
would start up on that kind of thing
when we know they mean to take our soul
straight to heaven or whether they meant
to – or straight to hell I understood it
so out of this evil which was a dire
kind of evil because rape on the body of
a young person more often than not
introduces cynicism and there is nothing
quite so tragic as a young senic because
it means the person has gone from
knowing nothing to believing nothing in
my case I was saved in that mutinous you
see in the sort of day I was saved and I
was able to draw from human thought
human disappointments and triumphs
enough to triumph myself
we don’t understand talent we don’t
understand electricity we probably use 1
billion of 1 billion percentage unless
I’m in a degree so infinitesimal that we
couldn’t even say how little it is
you can plug into two holes in the wall
you can light up a cathedral you can
light up a synagogue
you can light up a temple right you can
light up a surgery or you can
electrocute a person strapped in a chair
electricity makes no demand it says I’m
here that’s if you are stupid you will
ill use me if you’re intelligent you
will use me for the furtherance of your
kind
well I think talent is like that we
don’t know what it is but a painter
maybe he or she is born with the I fight
to see depths then you understand to
have sure but that’s physical um maybe
she is born with the throat
it makes her sound like a bird you know
a clitoris lyric soprano baritone but
singing has very little to do with voice
it is ok but if it really was about
voice Ray Charles and Willie Nelson
wouldn’t be meant mister yeah you know I
just did a story on autism and it was
the people who couldn’t write couldn’t
express themselves but saying in pitch
and pitch and beautifully and can and
can compute forty columns of three
numbers each right thank how do they do
that that’s Talent that’s Talent
I don’t know it I mean I I thank God I
have it but I think every person born is
born with talent there’s a place in you
that you must keep inviolate you must
keep it pristine clean so that nobody
has a right to curse you up treat you
badly nobody know mother father no wife
no husband knows nobody because that may
be the place you go to when you meet God
you have to have a page but they just
say stop it back up naughty must not
know no absolutely and that’s one I told
you 25 years ago
yes say no when it’s no yeah say so back
it up because that piece has to remain
clean and clear and that has to be a
place within you yes ma’am yeah when
you’re writing poetry are you writing to
express your experiences
or do you write to inspire other people
no I write to to try to say what I see
but I’ve seen and of course I hope that
it’s inspirational when you were writing
phenomenal woman
did you realize how many millions of
women would be inspired by that no I
don’t realize any of that I just I just
do the best I can
you may write me down in history with
your bitter twisted line you may tribe
me in the very dirt but still like dust
I’ll ride does my sassiness upset you
why are you beset with gloom just
because I walked as if I have oil wells
pumping in my living room
like moons and like funds with the
certainty of tides just like hope
springing high still like that did you
want to see me broken bowed head and
lowered eyes shoulders falling down like
teardrops we can buy my soulful crying
does my sassiness upset you don’t take
it too hard just because I laugh as if I
have gold mines digging in my own
backyard you can shoot me with your
words you can cut me with your lies you
can kill me with your hatefulness but
just like life all right
there’s my sexiness offend you does it
come as a surprise that I dance as if I
have diamonds at the meeting of my
thighs
out of the huts of history’s shame I
ride up from a past rooted in pain I
ride a black ocean leaping and wide
Welling and swelling and bearing in the
time leaving behind nights of terror and
fear I rise into a daybreak miraculously
clear I rise bringing the gifts that my
ancestors gave I am the hope and the
dream of the slave and so there go
thank you guys so much for watching I
made this video because Kayla maroon
asked me to so there’s a famous
entrepreneur that you I made a profound
next leaving the comments below and I’ll
see what I can do
I’d also love to know what you thought
of the video what Clips resonated the
most with you what what did you learn
that’s going to change your business or
your life leave it in the comments and I
will join in the discussion finally I
want to give a quick shout out to
Phillip Norton Phillip thank you so much
for buying a copy of my book really
means a lot to me those you guys watch
it if you want your chance at a shout
out in your future video make sure to
pick up a copy of the book and email in
your receipt so we can keep track thank
you guys so much for watching
continue to believe or whatever your one
where it is and I’ll see you soon
if we’ve been able to stay alive at all
alive and future thinking alive and
having enough courage to care for each
other and have courage to love and know
that we are probably 1% free I mean
that’s what 1% of 60 million free of of
complaints imagine who would we be who
would we be if we were 1% of 600 million
6 billion what would happen I tell you
one thing I think war would be laughed
out of the room I think the very word do
somebody said war another person would
say you mean am I supposed to kill
somebody because he doesn’t agree with
me
I don’t think so just imagine people
would speak time they’re more timely to
each other
courtesy would be invited back into the
living room into the bedroom into the
children’s room into the kitchen if 1%
of our world must complained free we
would care more about the children and
realize that every child is our child
the black one and the white one the
pretty one the planeman the Asian and
the Muslim the Japanese and the Jewish
everyone is our child if we were just 1%
free of complaint imagine that we would
stop blaming other people for our
mistakes and hating them because they
caused the mistake in our minds just
imagine if we laughed more frequently if
we had the unmitigated
courage to touch each other it would be
a just beginning of paradise you know
thank you
oh hell oh damn and then you’re doing
something wrong
courage is the most important important
of all the virtues because without
courage you can’t practice any other
virtue there’s an African saying which
is be careful when a naked person offers
you a shirt I thought that I had caused
the man’s death because I had spoken his
name she was an American poet and civil
rights activist she’s best known for her
series of seven autobiographies which
focuses on her childhood and early adult
experiences she was respected as a
spokesperson for black people and women
in her works were considered as a
defense of black culture she’s Maya
Angelou and here’s my take on her top
ten rules for success rule number one
was my personal favorite and make sure
to stick around all the way to the end
for some special bonus clips also as
she’s talking if there’s something she
says that really resonates with you
please write it down in the comments and
put quotes around it so that other
people can be inspired as well I have a
painting by Phoebe of a group that she
calls history Sookie’s funeral and they
all the women they’re about nine women
and they they all look like women and my
grandmother’s prayer meeting group so
whenever I’m obliged to do something I
take that painting and I look at that
painting there’s an empty chair and I
think now what would grandma do what
would she say I can almost hear her
voice say my sister you know what’s
right just do right you don’t really
have to ask anybody the truth is right
may not be expedient it may not be
profitable but it will satisfy your soul
[Music]
it brings you the kind of protection
that bodyguards can’t give you try to be
all you can be to be the best human
being you can be try to be that in your
church and your temple try to be that in
your classroom do it because it is right
to do you see people will know you and
they will add their prayers to your life
they’ll wish you well I think if your
name is mentioned and people say oh help
oh damn and then you’re doing something
wrong but if your name is mentioning
people say oh she’s so sweet he’s so
nice oh I know oh god bless her yeah
yeah so try to live your life in a way
that you will not regret years of
useless virtue and inertia and timidity
pick up the the baffle take it up it’s
yours this is your life this is your
world I’ll be leaving it long before you
under the ordinary set of circumstances
you make your own choices
you can decide life isn’t worth living
never be the worst thing you can do how
do you know so far try it see so pick it
up pick up the battle them and make it a
better world just where you are yes and
it can be better and it must be better
but it is up to us
I mentioned courage and I would I would
like to say something else about that
finding courage in the leaders and in
you who will become leaders at courage
is the most important important of all
the virtues because without courage you
can’t practice any other virtue
consistently you see you can’t be
consistently kind or fair or humane or
generous not without courage because if
you don’t have it sooner or later you’ll
stop and say ah if the threat is too
much the the difficulty is too too high
they the challenges is too great you
know I believe that self-love is very
important if you read my work you know
I’m always talking about loving oneself
I never trust anybody who tells me he or
she loves me as the person doesn’t love
herself or himself there’s an African
saying which is be careful when a naked
person offers you a shirt
I mean if he had something cover himself
first right so I like to look at
self-love it is very important that it
comes from within that you have a sense
of yourself so that when you walk into
an office
you don’t go alone bring your people
with you bring everybody who has loved
you with you say grandma come on let’s
go
great grandpa you’ve been dead all this
time come on let’s go I have to go in
here and have an interview come on
auntie come on my friends come let’s go
and when you walk in people don’t know
what it is about you they can’t take
their eyes off you you may not be cute
in the given sense you may not be
fashion model size in that particular
sense you may not be any of those things
but they can’t take their eyes off you
and they say of you in this incredible
wave which I don’t understand they say I
don’t know but she has charisma you know
what you have is all those people around
you so think of that anytime you have
anything to do bring everybody with you
that you can remember who has loved you
and then you have that sense of having
been paid for and when you walk in
people will say now I think you’re
overqualified if you don’t laugh you
will die you know you really must laugh
and if every human being in the world
would admit it he or she is the funniest
person you’ve ever met f tupid I mean
some people just rather be a little
stodgy and boring and you know but the
truth is they themselves know that
they’re very funny and the sense of
humor is and in self-defense against
those who have pretend not to have any
sense of humor
and against the the cruelties of life
when Muslims there’s an African American
song nineteenth century which M is so
great it said when it looked like the
Sun wanna shine anymore God put a
rainbow in the clouds imagine and I’ve
had so many rainbows in my cards I had a
lot of clouds but I have had so many
rainbows and one of the things I do when
I step up on a stage when I stand up to
translate when I go to teach my classes
when I go to direct a movie I bring
everyone who has ever been kind to me
with me black white asian
spanish-speaking Native American gay
straight everybody has to come with me
I’m doing a mistake come with me I need
you now long did you see so I don’t ever
feel I have no help I’ve had rainbows in
my clouds and the thing to do it seems
to me is to prepare yourself so that you
can be a rainbow in somebody else’s
cloud somebody who may not look like you
may not call God the same name you call
God if they call God at all you see I
may not eat the same dishes prepared the
way you do may not dance your dances or
speak your language but be a blessing to
somebody when I was seven and a half I
was raped
I won’t say severely very doll rape is
severe the rapist was a person very well
known to my family I was hospitalized
the rapist was let out of jail and was
found dead that my and the police
suggested that the rapist had been
kicked to death I was seven and a half I
thought that I had caused the man’s
death because I had spoken his name that
was my seven and a half year old logic
so I stopped talking for five years now
to show you again how out of evil there
can come good in those five years I read
every book in the black school library I
read all the books I could get from the
white school library
I memorized James Weldon Johnson Paul
Laurence Dunbar Countee Cullen and
Langston Hughes I memorized Shakespeare
whole plays fifty sonnets
I memorized Edgar Allen Poe all the
poetry never having heard it I memorized
it
I had Longfellow I had guida mocha song
I had balsa Rudyard Kipling I mean it
was a Catholic kind of reading and
Catholic kind of story when I decided to
speak I had a
to say and many ways in which to say
what I had to say I listen to the black
minister and listen to the melody of the
preachers and I could tell when they
would start up on that kind of thing
when we know they mean to take our soul
straight to heaven or whether they meant
to – or straight to hell I understood it
so out of this evil which was a dire
kind of evil because rape on the body of
a young person more often than not
introduces cynicism and there is nothing
quite so tragic as a young senic because
it means the person has gone from
knowing nothing to believing nothing in
my case I was saved in that mutinous you
see in the sort of day I was saved and I
was able to draw from human thought
human disappointments and triumphs
enough to triumph myself
we don’t understand talent we don’t
understand electricity we probably use 1
billion of 1 billion percentage unless
I’m in a degree so infinitesimal that we
couldn’t even say how little it is
you can plug into two holes in the wall
you can light up a cathedral you can
light up a synagogue
you can light up a temple right you can
light up a surgery or you can
electrocute a person strapped in a chair
electricity makes no demand it says I’m
here that’s if you are stupid you will
ill use me if you’re intelligent you
will use me for the furtherance of your
kind
well I think talent is like that we
don’t know what it is but a painter
maybe he or she is born with the I fight
to see depths then you understand to
have sure but that’s physical um maybe
she is born with the throat
it makes her sound like a bird you know
a clitoris lyric soprano baritone but
singing has very little to do with voice
it is ok but if it really was about
voice Ray Charles and Willie Nelson
wouldn’t be meant mister yeah you know I
just did a story on autism and it was
the people who couldn’t write couldn’t
express themselves but saying in pitch
and pitch and beautifully and can and
can compute forty columns of three
numbers each right thank how do they do
that that’s Talent that’s Talent
I don’t know it I mean I I thank God I
have it but I think every person born is
born with talent there’s a place in you
that you must keep inviolate you must
keep it pristine clean so that nobody
has a right to curse you up treat you
badly nobody know mother father no wife
no husband knows nobody because that may
be the place you go to when you meet God
you have to have a page but they just
say stop it back up naughty must not
know no absolutely and that’s one I told
you 25 years ago
yes say no when it’s no yeah say so back
it up because that piece has to remain
clean and clear and that has to be a
place within you yes ma’am yeah when
you’re writing poetry are you writing to
express your experiences
or do you write to inspire other people
no I write to to try to say what I see
but I’ve seen and of course I hope that
it’s inspirational when you were writing
phenomenal woman
did you realize how many millions of
women would be inspired by that no I
don’t realize any of that I just I just
do the best I can
you may write me down in history with
your bitter twisted line you may tribe
me in the very dirt but still like dust
I’ll ride does my sassiness upset you
why are you beset with gloom just
because I walked as if I have oil wells
pumping in my living room
like moons and like funds with the
certainty of tides just like hope
springing high still like that did you
want to see me broken bowed head and
lowered eyes shoulders falling down like
teardrops we can buy my soulful crying
does my sassiness upset you don’t take
it too hard just because I laugh as if I
have gold mines digging in my own
backyard you can shoot me with your
words you can cut me with your lies you
can kill me with your hatefulness but
just like life all right
there’s my sexiness offend you does it
come as a surprise that I dance as if I
have diamonds at the meeting of my
thighs
out of the huts of history’s shame I
ride up from a past rooted in pain I
ride a black ocean leaping and wide
Welling and swelling and bearing in the
time leaving behind nights of terror and
fear I rise into a daybreak miraculously
clear I rise bringing the gifts that my
ancestors gave I am the hope and the
dream of the slave and so there go
thank you guys so much for watching I
made this video because Kayla maroon
asked me to so there’s a famous
entrepreneur that you I made a profound
next leaving the comments below and I’ll
see what I can do
I’d also love to know what you thought
of the video what Clips resonated the
most with you what what did you learn
that’s going to change your business or
your life leave it in the comments and I
will join in the discussion finally I
want to give a quick shout out to
Phillip Norton Phillip thank you so much
for buying a copy of my book really
means a lot to me those you guys watch
it if you want your chance at a shout
out in your future video make sure to
pick up a copy of the book and email in
your receipt so we can keep track thank
you guys so much for watching
continue to believe or whatever your one
where it is and I’ll see you soon
if we’ve been able to stay alive at all
alive and future thinking alive and
having enough courage to care for each
other and have courage to love and know
that we are probably 1% free I mean
that’s what 1% of 60 million free of of
complaints imagine who would we be who
would we be if we were 1% of 600 million
6 billion what would happen I tell you
one thing I think war would be laughed
out of the room I think the very word do
somebody said war another person would
say you mean am I supposed to kill
somebody because he doesn’t agree with
me
I don’t think so just imagine people
would speak time they’re more timely to
each other
courtesy would be invited back into the
living room into the bedroom into the
children’s room into the kitchen if 1%
of our world must complained free we
would care more about the children and
realize that every child is our child
the black one and the white one the
pretty one the planeman the Asian and
the Muslim the Japanese and the Jewish
everyone is our child if we were just 1%
free of complaint imagine that we would
stop blaming other people for our
mistakes and hating them because they
caused the mistake in our minds just
imagine if we laughed more frequently if
we had the unmitigated
courage to touch each other it would be
a just beginning of paradise you know
thank you
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