– Tried out one thing, tried another thing,
tried another thing, tried another thing,
tried another thing.
Be aware of the longevity of each type of motivation.
You’ve got to become the master
at coaxing the stubborn horse.
You need a sense of urgency.
You need your mind to focus.
You need to be engaged.
Yes, I don’t want to jump.
– Don’t jump, it’s not worth it.
– Hello, Believe Nation, my name is Evan Carmichael.
My one word is believe, and I believe
that entrepreneurs will solve all
of the world’s major problems.
So, to help you on your journey today,
we’re going to learn from entrepreneur, speaker
and author, Owen Cook, and my take
on his top 10 rules for success, volume two.
Rule number eight is my personal favorite.
And I’d love to know which one you guys like the best.
And as always, as your watching,
if you hear something that really resonates with you,
please leave it in the comments below.
Put quotes around it so other people can be inspired,
might win a prize, as well.
And also, when you write it down,
it’s much more likely to stick to yourself, as well.
Enjoy.
(inspirational orchestral music)
– So, why’s it so important to find your purpose.
You probably heard this many times.
You have to find your purpose,
and when you do your life will be amazing.
Your life will be more palatable.
Your life will be a richer experience.
Well, I’d probably encourage you then finding your purpose
is ultimately lying to yourself,
because at some point you’re going to die.
The people who you have affected positively are going to die.
And even at some point, the world is going to die.
So, why do we say it’s so important to find your purpose?
In my opinion, finding your purpose is
where you find your humanity, because most people think
that just by walking around here like this
that they are a human being.
And technically, biologically,
that is true, they are human beings.
But philosophically, by another way of looking at it,
many of these people are just a biological mass
reacting to their environment.
Their values are imposed upon them.
Their opinions are imposed upon them.
And they walk through life reacting.
They’re soaking in information like a sponge,
and there is a lack of a core.
What finding your purpose does is it creates gravity.
The gravity of personal boundaries.
When you have a purpose, you have to create boundaries
about what you will and will not allow into your life.
That’s both from other people, but also your own behavior.
Start now, start immediately,
start yesterday, start as soon as you can.
You have these grand plans in your mind,
this grand vision of how things would look
when you finally start it.
Maybe you’re thinking of approaching that first girl,
or doing that first night of approaching.
And you think, “If I finally did that, what would happen?
“Could I do the perfect first approach and get married?
“Could I avoid rejection?
“Could I have my first night out be my last?”
It’s not going to happen.
Anything that’s worth doing will take time.
It’s going to take a lot of work.
It’s going to take a lot of repetition.
This grand vision that you have in your mind
of perfection is interfering with your life.
Forget perfection, start immediately.
I remember when I created The Blueprint program.
And for years I thought, “If I just put out
“this one Blueprint program, my entire life will change.”
The Blueprint came out, it made a couple of million dollars.
And guess what, I took that money, sunk it back
into my company, and I was back in the same place.
The same thing goes for all the best ideas
that I’ve ever released on video.
I thought, “Oh, I’ll just put it out,
“and once it’s out it will go viral
“and disseminate across the planet and change the world.”
Well, did the world change when I put out that video?
No, if I want to change the world, what will I have to do?
I will have to grind, I will have to hustle,
I will have to keep going and persevering
for years and maybe decades.
Whatever it is that you want to do, start immediately.
Get over that perfect idea in your mind.
Start bad, do a bad job, do a job, make it suck.
At least you’re getting some momentum with it.
Once you get out there and you see how much you suck,
you can begin to make changes,
you can begin to make adjustments.
And at least, you’re taking action.
Do not wait to start, waiting to start.
The time to start is now.
First of all, I believe that most people,
there’s really only a few key areas
where we have almost like a super power.
Aptitudes, all right, I guess we could
call it a super aptitude.
And we’re looking for those super aptitudes
all the time by trying out different lanes.
All right, so take myself.
I’m somebody who has attention deficit disorder.
And what that means is that I can speak almost indefinitely.
It means that I also have almost infinite creativity.
And that also comes from growing up with depression.
When you’re depressed, that can oftentimes trigger
this very, very intense creativity.
So, between having depression, attention deficit disorder,
and also in my case, if you look at things
like growing up unable to read social cues,
you have an interesting recipe for
how I built Real Social Dynamics.
So, I basically found my super aptitudes
because by not understanding something so thoroughly,
I had to break it down so deeply to understand it,
that’s social dynamics, which creates great content.
Plus I’m being depressed, that creates creativity.
And also having ADD allows me to talk forever
because I don’t feel the passage of time
in the way that a normal person does.
I can’t feel time passing, so I could do this forever.
Okay, so if you look at that, that created a super aptitude.
Now, how did I find it?
I tried out many different things.
As long as I was trying out different things, I was happy.
So, tried out one thing, tried another thing,
tried another thing, tried another thing,
tried another thing.
The enemy of the best is the good.
So, once you have a pretty good life,
you’re established as a man.
What’s to motivate you to keep going to that elite level?
The one that I think is the most powerful
in the long term, of course, is higher self-motivation.
And that’s when you’ve taken the focus off of yourself
and you’re seeing what it does for other people.
Basically, you reach a very high paradigm where your sense
of identity is not just tied up in you,
but in everything that you see around you.
Okay, you are this, you’re this,
you’re part of your environment,
your environment is a part of you.
And people who you dislike are just a simple part
of the elements and the lay of the land in that environment.
When you can actually take on,
I guess you could call it a larger circle
of concerns, as Stephen Covey would call it,
you have a very, very long term
and very powerful motivation.
It’s the kind of thing that motivates you
to get out in the rain and record a video.
‘Cause you’re not doing it so much for yourself,
you know, I could be recording a video like this in a room,
but just because I want people to enjoy watching it.
And I see an opportunity, boom, I want to do it.
So, that’s the most powerful motivation in the long term.
Okay, that’s what’s going to make you just go and go and go.
But where’s the problem there?
Well, higher self-motivation is good,
except what starts to happen is you start
to ignore things like, I don’t know, marketing.
You’re all up in the skies, man,
thinking about higher purpose, man.
And all this kind of, we’re all one, man.
And then all of a sudden, you can’t pay your rent
’cause you didn’t do things the way that you should do it.
You didn’t handle something simple like marketing.
Oh, marketing, oh, it’s all so barbaric, right?
Things like that, and then you get screwed.
So, every single motivation is good.
They’re all there to help you.
Personally for me, why I love the higher self-motivation
is because, I don’t know, just petty,
it doesn’t do a lot for me at this point.
And day to day practical concerns,
I’ve already handled that, right?
So for me, it’s about the higher self.
But at the same time, I like to tap into all elements of it.
I’m not above a little petty fun once in a while.
And I’m definitely not above handling my
day to day concerns as a man, especially as a father.
So again, all motivations are good.
Be aware of the longevity of each type
of motivation and then tap into it.
You think to yourself, “Why am I so damn needy?
“I wish I could get rid of this neediness.
“I wish I could try harder to become less needy.”
But actually, what I’m going to suggest to you is
that rather than trying harder to eliminate neediness,
another focus that you could take is creating
what I call an ecosystem of positive emotions.
Just like I was saying about this Hamilton Pool right here,
you have to learn to nurture yourself.
You have to learn to fill your own cup.
Okay, so this is very similar
to something like say, time management.
Let’s say that you’re late all the time,
and you think, “I have to try harder to be on time.
“I’ve got to try harder.”
And you try harder, you try harder, you try harder.
And maybe even people will say to you,
“Hey man, if you’re late all the time,
“it shows that you disrespect other people’s time.
“You’re a disrespectful person.”
And you hear that and you think, “Wow, I know that.
“I don’t want to be disrespectful to other people’s time.”
But what you’re not realizing that by trying harder,
you’re not going to fix the problem.
If you’re somebody who’s naturally late,
the thing you have to do is find other people
to help you to be on time, or you have to set alarms,
or set multiple alarms, or put little tripwires
around your house, or find literal processes
that you can bring to the equation
that will stop you from being late.
Well, it’s the same thing that goes
for stopping being needy.
So, you might tell yourself,
“I have to try harder not to be needy.”
And you can do that, and much like stopping being late,
you can have a bit of success with that.
But what I would suggest to you is
that you need to actually build a different way
of looking at it to stop being needy.
(water splashing)
You have one foot in one reality,
and one foot in another reality.
You try to keep one foot in the presence,
realizing the world’s perfect as it is,
and the other side is the desire to fight.
And to fight the bull that you see happening in the world.
To fight the mediocrity and complacency and just sucking.
I know for me, one of my biggest questions is,
when I think of the pain that I went through
for my first couple of decades.
That was so painful that that left an imprint
on me permanently that for me to not spend my life,
like given the opportunities that I’ve had,
and to even things that looked like negative luck,
in reality, gave me sort of motivations that
in the end wound up as opportunities.
So, you could argue that I had a very hard life,
but those things that were hard resulted
in where I’m at today.
For me not to spend my whole life fighting
for the outcome of helping people
to have a path forward to get out
of the reality that I was in,
I would have to acknowledge that my life has no value.
Like if that makes sense.
For me to say, “You know what, I got out of that bull,
that mental cloud of hell that I was in, growing up.
I found pathways out of it,
and I’m not going to spend my life showing other people
those pathways that I personally learned.
I’d have to say that would basically be me having to say,
“You know what, there’s really no point to life anyway.
“There’s no point to humanity.
“So, I might as well just have fun.”
And that may be the truth. (laughing)
It’s just a big narcissistic self-involved exercise.
But I’ve made the choice to value human life,
and I’ve made the choice to fight as hard as I can for that.
And so, ultimately for me, I think the decision
that I’ve made is like happiness to me,
like when I’m happiest, is when I’m pushing towards that.
And taking time off is nice
if it’s to recharge to go back to the war.
And war doesn’t mean necessarily fighting
against something, but fighting for something,
like just fighting for that positive outcome.
So, don’t think of it as a war,
’cause in a certain way, I’m thinking
whenever you’re fighting against something,
like they say, “Whatever you resist, persists.”
So, it’s not like that kind of resistance.
You don’t want to bring resistance into it,
that’s what I was talking about earlier.
You don’t want to bring resistance against something
into your war, but you want to just think of a happier,
more kind of present energy based outcome
and push towards that, you just push towards that.
And use all of your faculties.
Every faculty that you have, honing it internally
and externally honing it, honing it,
honing it to get it to that level,
and just continually sharpening the sword.
The inner sword but also your outer abilities,
just sharpening it.
And that’s life for me.
What I want you to do is I want you to think of your brain,
not like you’re actually in control of your brain,
but actually rather think of your brain
like a stubborn horse or a stubborn elephant.
And I want you to take on
what I call the chariot riding frame.
And what that means is that a guy who’s going to pick up,
it’s like the charioteer,
he’s going to smack it on the horse.
And what happens as a result of that is
that you have to learn it coaxing the horse
to go to where you want it to go.
So, let’s say that I’m going to come out on the coldest day
of the year to record a video blog.
I say to myself, “You know what, I’ll just show up
“and we’ll see if I like it, if I can do it.
“And I can always go home if I want to go home.”
And once I’m out here, it’s like, who gives a.
I should start to have fun with it.
It’s kind of frightening, I feel like I’m literally
about to die, but we’ll wrap this quickly.
Likewise, say I’m going to go to the gym
and I’m not feeling well.
Maybe I’ll just say, “You know what, dude,
“I’ll just warm up.”
And if I could just warm up then good enough.
Once I get there, I’ll probably take action, right?
So, that’s fine.
How about if it’s with homework?
Okay, I’ll just read a page
or I’ll just go do one math problem.
Next thing you know, you’re crackin’ into it.
Well, whenever you get into a venue,
I want you to think of it the same way.
Like look, I’m just going to go do a quick approach.
I’m just going to say hi.
Even on the way to the venue, just start saying hi.
Literally, that’s what I suggest you should do.
I’m going to send my cameraman inside.
You, just go inside, just go, I’m very safe.
Take the backpack, and you just go inside
and I will survive here, and this and this, bang.
You’ve got to become the master
at coaxing the stubborn horse.
Literally, you’re just the master
at coaxing the stubborn horse.
And when you have that down, you’ll crush.
But when you can’t control the horse, the horse gets antsy,
the horse starts making excuses, and everything goes to.
Some of the things that I do, for example,
is right when I get it I’m like, “Hey!”
And then my reticular activation system
will see everyone looking at me, and I’ll start scanning.
I’m like, are people getting mad, are people getting mad?
And when I see that nobody’s getting mad,
I realize, you know what?
I’m not under any kind of threat here.
And then I go and I crush it.
So basically, you want to think of it
like you’re always showing your brain
what I call proof, not promises,
that nothing bad will happen.
You just keep fueling your brain with that.
So, let’s say that you just go start talking to people.
Let’s just say I talked to this person here.
My brain goes, oh, nothing bad happened.
No one came and attacked me, it doesn’t mean.
So, you actually lose your status anxiety
in that environment, and your brain
will actually unstifle itself.
So, you want to be constantly coaxing
your brain into unstifling itself.
And basically, that’s kind of
the biggest trick I use to warm up.
I’m just like, hey, I’m just riding the charioteer,
or I’m just a charioteer riding the chariot.
My brain’s kind of freezin’ now.
It is very, very difficult to read something
that unconsciously or consciously you know is not going
to make a big difference in your life.
You have to believe that it’s going to make the difference.
You have to see how on your journey,
it’s going to make the difference.
You need a sense of urgency.
You need your mind to focus.
You need to be engaged.
For someone like me, my mind doesn’t get engaged
unless I’m stimulated, unless there’s something going on
in my life that’s interesting, something powerful
that’s going on that’s going to stimulate me to get me engaged.
And this is why every single time on my journey,
I encounter some new book or some new person to learn from.
I’m loving it.
You ever notice when I’m talking about books I’m reading,
or people I’m learning from, I’m really all about it?
That’s because there’s something on my journey
that made me become all about it.
I’m psyched about it, I’m pumped up.
Now, another factor to this,
aside from that sense of urgency,
is the belief that you can actually do it.
The belief that you actually can produce a result.
Take, for example, terrorism.
Okay, touchy subject, I know.
Why is it that the best recruits
for terrorism is people from countries
where there’s a lot of hopelessness?
Well, if there’s a lot of hopelessness,
and you tell somebody, look, you can go fight
this big war against these big bad guys,
say they’re going to do something bad
to this bridge or some crap like that,
something completely stupid.
But you tell this person from a hopeless country,
you know, you can go on this grand adventure,
and take down these bad people, and da da da.
And whatever good things are going to happen
to you in the afterlife or whatever it is.
And that person’s coming from a hopeless place,
the question that I would ask you is
why wouldn’t he do that?
I’m not saying that he should,
but I’d ask you, why wouldn’t he?
If his life is completely hopeless,
there’s nothing good going on,
this suddenly starts providing to a lot of needs
that person has, and that’s why they take that path.
That’s why if you want to get rid of terrorism forever,
killing them all could maybe be a good approach.
But an even better approach if it was possible,
would actually be to eliminate hopelessness.
That would be the best way to eliminate terrorism,
in my personal view, but you may have your own view on that.
And I’m not an authority on that,
but that’s just a thought that I have, okay?
Now, how about as far as believing
that something is possible?
Well, take myself, it is very easy for me to eat kale,
broccoli, spinach, essential fats,
clean meats, stuff like that every day.
It’s very easy for me not to eat processed foods.
It’s very easy for me to go out every day
and work on my game.
It’s very easy for me to spend a lot of time reading.
It’s very easy for me to do 20 minutes of meditation.
It’s very easy for me that when people I work with
are pissing me off, to keep myself calm,
call them calmly and work it out, all those kinds of things.
It’s very easy for me to do that.
Do you understand?
All those things that people struggle with,
such as reading a lot, or learning a lot,
or internalizing it, or implementing it,
is very easy for me.
Why?
The reason that it’s easy for me is
because I believe it’s possible.
I believe that if I do those things, I will have a payoff.
So, if you think about a hopeless place,
well, you put a book in front of them,
you say, “Here look, learn from this book.”
Why would they read it?
Why would they read it?
If you don’t have the belief that it’s actually
going to give you a payoff, there is no point.
People talk about self-development and pay lip service
to it, like you should step up, man, and things like that.
But in my experience, stepping up
in developing yourself involves a lot
of great wins, and thrills and euphoria.
But it also involves a lot of harsh looking
at yourself, like really looking at yourself
in the mirror and questioning yourself.
You want to believe I’m awesome and feel your certainty
and go hard, but I think that you also want
to take very, very harsh looks at yourself.
That can be very painful and you want to do that at times.
And you want to get out into nature, or into isolation,
or out with your friends that will challenge you,
and think about who you are,
where you’re going, what you become.
Because again, you’re motoring along
and if you go a little bit this way, you wind up over here,
if you’re a little bit this way, you wind up up here,
if you’re a little bit this way, you wind up over here.
So, you need those periods of examination
and kind of pulling out and looking at that.
Sometimes I just feel confused.
I have been reading like the front page of Roc Nation
almost every single day for several months.
And I’m watching all these videos,
some of which even contain different opinions
on the same topic, and different angles on the same topic.
And I have all this information in my head.
Finally, after a couple of months of not going out,
and just watching all these videos,
I walked up to a girl and I have
all these different ideas in my head.
And I hear them all at the same time.
And they’re just confusing me.
And I walk up to the girl, and one guy is telling me
to be really direct with her.
Another guy is saying to be funny.
And another guy’s saying I need to make all this drama
with her and make her cry, or call her a dog.
And another guy is saying just be cool,
and to be friendly and cool.
And all these voices and I hear them in my head,
and I don’t know what to do.
It’s like all these things in my head,
in my head, just going on.
And then I just go
hi,
hi,
hi,
hi,
hi,
and then I run away.
And then sometimes I feel like I’m just being manipulated
with all this free content given to me by these guys,
and I don’t know what to do.
And I just thought maybe somebody could help.
But you know what? Nobody can help.
It’s just meant to manipulate me and ruin my life.
Yes, I don’t want to jump.
– Wait a minute, man, don’t jump.
It’s not worth it, it’s not worth it.
– [Owen] Oh, I’m confused, I’m confused.
(screams)
– Thank you, guys, so much for watching.
I made this video because Daniel Sodgeberg asked me to.
So, if there’s a famous entrepreneur that you want me
to profile next, check out the link in the description
and you can go and cast your vote.
I’d also love to know which clip resonated
the most with you?
What lesson are you going to take from this video
and immediately apply to your life
or to your business somehow?
Leave it down in the comments below.
I’m really curious to find out what you have to say.
I also want to give a quick shoutout to Roger Pierce.
Roger, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book,
Your One Word, and making that awesome little cartoon cel
to start up around my book, as well.
Thank you so much for the support, man,
and I hope you enjoy your reading.
Thank you, guys, so much 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.
– When you learn to relate to yourself,
again you have these like low self-image or bad self-talk.
Again, a lot of that is just burning away the bull.
Guys are like, I can’t stop having these limiting beliefs.
Or, I can’t stop feeling bad about myself.
It’s like, you can, you have to slowly do it.
You have to slowly build it up.
Positivity is a muscle that you slowly build up,
and you build them up.
That’s the same kind of thing, right,
is you have to throw yourself into the fire
at the next paradigm until you become
the person who you want to be.
tried another thing, tried another thing,
tried another thing.
Be aware of the longevity of each type of motivation.
You’ve got to become the master
at coaxing the stubborn horse.
You need a sense of urgency.
You need your mind to focus.
You need to be engaged.
Yes, I don’t want to jump.
– Don’t jump, it’s not worth it.
– Hello, Believe Nation, my name is Evan Carmichael.
My one word is believe, and I believe
that entrepreneurs will solve all
of the world’s major problems.
So, to help you on your journey today,
we’re going to learn from entrepreneur, speaker
and author, Owen Cook, and my take
on his top 10 rules for success, volume two.
Rule number eight is my personal favorite.
And I’d love to know which one you guys like the best.
And as always, as your watching,
if you hear something that really resonates with you,
please leave it in the comments below.
Put quotes around it so other people can be inspired,
might win a prize, as well.
And also, when you write it down,
it’s much more likely to stick to yourself, as well.
Enjoy.
(inspirational orchestral music)
– So, why’s it so important to find your purpose.
You probably heard this many times.
You have to find your purpose,
and when you do your life will be amazing.
Your life will be more palatable.
Your life will be a richer experience.
Well, I’d probably encourage you then finding your purpose
is ultimately lying to yourself,
because at some point you’re going to die.
The people who you have affected positively are going to die.
And even at some point, the world is going to die.
So, why do we say it’s so important to find your purpose?
In my opinion, finding your purpose is
where you find your humanity, because most people think
that just by walking around here like this
that they are a human being.
And technically, biologically,
that is true, they are human beings.
But philosophically, by another way of looking at it,
many of these people are just a biological mass
reacting to their environment.
Their values are imposed upon them.
Their opinions are imposed upon them.
And they walk through life reacting.
They’re soaking in information like a sponge,
and there is a lack of a core.
What finding your purpose does is it creates gravity.
The gravity of personal boundaries.
When you have a purpose, you have to create boundaries
about what you will and will not allow into your life.
That’s both from other people, but also your own behavior.
Start now, start immediately,
start yesterday, start as soon as you can.
You have these grand plans in your mind,
this grand vision of how things would look
when you finally start it.
Maybe you’re thinking of approaching that first girl,
or doing that first night of approaching.
And you think, “If I finally did that, what would happen?
“Could I do the perfect first approach and get married?
“Could I avoid rejection?
“Could I have my first night out be my last?”
It’s not going to happen.
Anything that’s worth doing will take time.
It’s going to take a lot of work.
It’s going to take a lot of repetition.
This grand vision that you have in your mind
of perfection is interfering with your life.
Forget perfection, start immediately.
I remember when I created The Blueprint program.
And for years I thought, “If I just put out
“this one Blueprint program, my entire life will change.”
The Blueprint came out, it made a couple of million dollars.
And guess what, I took that money, sunk it back
into my company, and I was back in the same place.
The same thing goes for all the best ideas
that I’ve ever released on video.
I thought, “Oh, I’ll just put it out,
“and once it’s out it will go viral
“and disseminate across the planet and change the world.”
Well, did the world change when I put out that video?
No, if I want to change the world, what will I have to do?
I will have to grind, I will have to hustle,
I will have to keep going and persevering
for years and maybe decades.
Whatever it is that you want to do, start immediately.
Get over that perfect idea in your mind.
Start bad, do a bad job, do a job, make it suck.
At least you’re getting some momentum with it.
Once you get out there and you see how much you suck,
you can begin to make changes,
you can begin to make adjustments.
And at least, you’re taking action.
Do not wait to start, waiting to start.
The time to start is now.
First of all, I believe that most people,
there’s really only a few key areas
where we have almost like a super power.
Aptitudes, all right, I guess we could
call it a super aptitude.
And we’re looking for those super aptitudes
all the time by trying out different lanes.
All right, so take myself.
I’m somebody who has attention deficit disorder.
And what that means is that I can speak almost indefinitely.
It means that I also have almost infinite creativity.
And that also comes from growing up with depression.
When you’re depressed, that can oftentimes trigger
this very, very intense creativity.
So, between having depression, attention deficit disorder,
and also in my case, if you look at things
like growing up unable to read social cues,
you have an interesting recipe for
how I built Real Social Dynamics.
So, I basically found my super aptitudes
because by not understanding something so thoroughly,
I had to break it down so deeply to understand it,
that’s social dynamics, which creates great content.
Plus I’m being depressed, that creates creativity.
And also having ADD allows me to talk forever
because I don’t feel the passage of time
in the way that a normal person does.
I can’t feel time passing, so I could do this forever.
Okay, so if you look at that, that created a super aptitude.
Now, how did I find it?
I tried out many different things.
As long as I was trying out different things, I was happy.
So, tried out one thing, tried another thing,
tried another thing, tried another thing,
tried another thing.
The enemy of the best is the good.
So, once you have a pretty good life,
you’re established as a man.
What’s to motivate you to keep going to that elite level?
The one that I think is the most powerful
in the long term, of course, is higher self-motivation.
And that’s when you’ve taken the focus off of yourself
and you’re seeing what it does for other people.
Basically, you reach a very high paradigm where your sense
of identity is not just tied up in you,
but in everything that you see around you.
Okay, you are this, you’re this,
you’re part of your environment,
your environment is a part of you.
And people who you dislike are just a simple part
of the elements and the lay of the land in that environment.
When you can actually take on,
I guess you could call it a larger circle
of concerns, as Stephen Covey would call it,
you have a very, very long term
and very powerful motivation.
It’s the kind of thing that motivates you
to get out in the rain and record a video.
‘Cause you’re not doing it so much for yourself,
you know, I could be recording a video like this in a room,
but just because I want people to enjoy watching it.
And I see an opportunity, boom, I want to do it.
So, that’s the most powerful motivation in the long term.
Okay, that’s what’s going to make you just go and go and go.
But where’s the problem there?
Well, higher self-motivation is good,
except what starts to happen is you start
to ignore things like, I don’t know, marketing.
You’re all up in the skies, man,
thinking about higher purpose, man.
And all this kind of, we’re all one, man.
And then all of a sudden, you can’t pay your rent
’cause you didn’t do things the way that you should do it.
You didn’t handle something simple like marketing.
Oh, marketing, oh, it’s all so barbaric, right?
Things like that, and then you get screwed.
So, every single motivation is good.
They’re all there to help you.
Personally for me, why I love the higher self-motivation
is because, I don’t know, just petty,
it doesn’t do a lot for me at this point.
And day to day practical concerns,
I’ve already handled that, right?
So for me, it’s about the higher self.
But at the same time, I like to tap into all elements of it.
I’m not above a little petty fun once in a while.
And I’m definitely not above handling my
day to day concerns as a man, especially as a father.
So again, all motivations are good.
Be aware of the longevity of each type
of motivation and then tap into it.
You think to yourself, “Why am I so damn needy?
“I wish I could get rid of this neediness.
“I wish I could try harder to become less needy.”
But actually, what I’m going to suggest to you is
that rather than trying harder to eliminate neediness,
another focus that you could take is creating
what I call an ecosystem of positive emotions.
Just like I was saying about this Hamilton Pool right here,
you have to learn to nurture yourself.
You have to learn to fill your own cup.
Okay, so this is very similar
to something like say, time management.
Let’s say that you’re late all the time,
and you think, “I have to try harder to be on time.
“I’ve got to try harder.”
And you try harder, you try harder, you try harder.
And maybe even people will say to you,
“Hey man, if you’re late all the time,
“it shows that you disrespect other people’s time.
“You’re a disrespectful person.”
And you hear that and you think, “Wow, I know that.
“I don’t want to be disrespectful to other people’s time.”
But what you’re not realizing that by trying harder,
you’re not going to fix the problem.
If you’re somebody who’s naturally late,
the thing you have to do is find other people
to help you to be on time, or you have to set alarms,
or set multiple alarms, or put little tripwires
around your house, or find literal processes
that you can bring to the equation
that will stop you from being late.
Well, it’s the same thing that goes
for stopping being needy.
So, you might tell yourself,
“I have to try harder not to be needy.”
And you can do that, and much like stopping being late,
you can have a bit of success with that.
But what I would suggest to you is
that you need to actually build a different way
of looking at it to stop being needy.
(water splashing)
You have one foot in one reality,
and one foot in another reality.
You try to keep one foot in the presence,
realizing the world’s perfect as it is,
and the other side is the desire to fight.
And to fight the bull that you see happening in the world.
To fight the mediocrity and complacency and just sucking.
I know for me, one of my biggest questions is,
when I think of the pain that I went through
for my first couple of decades.
That was so painful that that left an imprint
on me permanently that for me to not spend my life,
like given the opportunities that I’ve had,
and to even things that looked like negative luck,
in reality, gave me sort of motivations that
in the end wound up as opportunities.
So, you could argue that I had a very hard life,
but those things that were hard resulted
in where I’m at today.
For me not to spend my whole life fighting
for the outcome of helping people
to have a path forward to get out
of the reality that I was in,
I would have to acknowledge that my life has no value.
Like if that makes sense.
For me to say, “You know what, I got out of that bull,
that mental cloud of hell that I was in, growing up.
I found pathways out of it,
and I’m not going to spend my life showing other people
those pathways that I personally learned.
I’d have to say that would basically be me having to say,
“You know what, there’s really no point to life anyway.
“There’s no point to humanity.
“So, I might as well just have fun.”
And that may be the truth. (laughing)
It’s just a big narcissistic self-involved exercise.
But I’ve made the choice to value human life,
and I’ve made the choice to fight as hard as I can for that.
And so, ultimately for me, I think the decision
that I’ve made is like happiness to me,
like when I’m happiest, is when I’m pushing towards that.
And taking time off is nice
if it’s to recharge to go back to the war.
And war doesn’t mean necessarily fighting
against something, but fighting for something,
like just fighting for that positive outcome.
So, don’t think of it as a war,
’cause in a certain way, I’m thinking
whenever you’re fighting against something,
like they say, “Whatever you resist, persists.”
So, it’s not like that kind of resistance.
You don’t want to bring resistance into it,
that’s what I was talking about earlier.
You don’t want to bring resistance against something
into your war, but you want to just think of a happier,
more kind of present energy based outcome
and push towards that, you just push towards that.
And use all of your faculties.
Every faculty that you have, honing it internally
and externally honing it, honing it,
honing it to get it to that level,
and just continually sharpening the sword.
The inner sword but also your outer abilities,
just sharpening it.
And that’s life for me.
What I want you to do is I want you to think of your brain,
not like you’re actually in control of your brain,
but actually rather think of your brain
like a stubborn horse or a stubborn elephant.
And I want you to take on
what I call the chariot riding frame.
And what that means is that a guy who’s going to pick up,
it’s like the charioteer,
he’s going to smack it on the horse.
And what happens as a result of that is
that you have to learn it coaxing the horse
to go to where you want it to go.
So, let’s say that I’m going to come out on the coldest day
of the year to record a video blog.
I say to myself, “You know what, I’ll just show up
“and we’ll see if I like it, if I can do it.
“And I can always go home if I want to go home.”
And once I’m out here, it’s like, who gives a.
I should start to have fun with it.
It’s kind of frightening, I feel like I’m literally
about to die, but we’ll wrap this quickly.
Likewise, say I’m going to go to the gym
and I’m not feeling well.
Maybe I’ll just say, “You know what, dude,
“I’ll just warm up.”
And if I could just warm up then good enough.
Once I get there, I’ll probably take action, right?
So, that’s fine.
How about if it’s with homework?
Okay, I’ll just read a page
or I’ll just go do one math problem.
Next thing you know, you’re crackin’ into it.
Well, whenever you get into a venue,
I want you to think of it the same way.
Like look, I’m just going to go do a quick approach.
I’m just going to say hi.
Even on the way to the venue, just start saying hi.
Literally, that’s what I suggest you should do.
I’m going to send my cameraman inside.
You, just go inside, just go, I’m very safe.
Take the backpack, and you just go inside
and I will survive here, and this and this, bang.
You’ve got to become the master
at coaxing the stubborn horse.
Literally, you’re just the master
at coaxing the stubborn horse.
And when you have that down, you’ll crush.
But when you can’t control the horse, the horse gets antsy,
the horse starts making excuses, and everything goes to.
Some of the things that I do, for example,
is right when I get it I’m like, “Hey!”
And then my reticular activation system
will see everyone looking at me, and I’ll start scanning.
I’m like, are people getting mad, are people getting mad?
And when I see that nobody’s getting mad,
I realize, you know what?
I’m not under any kind of threat here.
And then I go and I crush it.
So basically, you want to think of it
like you’re always showing your brain
what I call proof, not promises,
that nothing bad will happen.
You just keep fueling your brain with that.
So, let’s say that you just go start talking to people.
Let’s just say I talked to this person here.
My brain goes, oh, nothing bad happened.
No one came and attacked me, it doesn’t mean.
So, you actually lose your status anxiety
in that environment, and your brain
will actually unstifle itself.
So, you want to be constantly coaxing
your brain into unstifling itself.
And basically, that’s kind of
the biggest trick I use to warm up.
I’m just like, hey, I’m just riding the charioteer,
or I’m just a charioteer riding the chariot.
My brain’s kind of freezin’ now.
It is very, very difficult to read something
that unconsciously or consciously you know is not going
to make a big difference in your life.
You have to believe that it’s going to make the difference.
You have to see how on your journey,
it’s going to make the difference.
You need a sense of urgency.
You need your mind to focus.
You need to be engaged.
For someone like me, my mind doesn’t get engaged
unless I’m stimulated, unless there’s something going on
in my life that’s interesting, something powerful
that’s going on that’s going to stimulate me to get me engaged.
And this is why every single time on my journey,
I encounter some new book or some new person to learn from.
I’m loving it.
You ever notice when I’m talking about books I’m reading,
or people I’m learning from, I’m really all about it?
That’s because there’s something on my journey
that made me become all about it.
I’m psyched about it, I’m pumped up.
Now, another factor to this,
aside from that sense of urgency,
is the belief that you can actually do it.
The belief that you actually can produce a result.
Take, for example, terrorism.
Okay, touchy subject, I know.
Why is it that the best recruits
for terrorism is people from countries
where there’s a lot of hopelessness?
Well, if there’s a lot of hopelessness,
and you tell somebody, look, you can go fight
this big war against these big bad guys,
say they’re going to do something bad
to this bridge or some crap like that,
something completely stupid.
But you tell this person from a hopeless country,
you know, you can go on this grand adventure,
and take down these bad people, and da da da.
And whatever good things are going to happen
to you in the afterlife or whatever it is.
And that person’s coming from a hopeless place,
the question that I would ask you is
why wouldn’t he do that?
I’m not saying that he should,
but I’d ask you, why wouldn’t he?
If his life is completely hopeless,
there’s nothing good going on,
this suddenly starts providing to a lot of needs
that person has, and that’s why they take that path.
That’s why if you want to get rid of terrorism forever,
killing them all could maybe be a good approach.
But an even better approach if it was possible,
would actually be to eliminate hopelessness.
That would be the best way to eliminate terrorism,
in my personal view, but you may have your own view on that.
And I’m not an authority on that,
but that’s just a thought that I have, okay?
Now, how about as far as believing
that something is possible?
Well, take myself, it is very easy for me to eat kale,
broccoli, spinach, essential fats,
clean meats, stuff like that every day.
It’s very easy for me not to eat processed foods.
It’s very easy for me to go out every day
and work on my game.
It’s very easy for me to spend a lot of time reading.
It’s very easy for me to do 20 minutes of meditation.
It’s very easy for me that when people I work with
are pissing me off, to keep myself calm,
call them calmly and work it out, all those kinds of things.
It’s very easy for me to do that.
Do you understand?
All those things that people struggle with,
such as reading a lot, or learning a lot,
or internalizing it, or implementing it,
is very easy for me.
Why?
The reason that it’s easy for me is
because I believe it’s possible.
I believe that if I do those things, I will have a payoff.
So, if you think about a hopeless place,
well, you put a book in front of them,
you say, “Here look, learn from this book.”
Why would they read it?
Why would they read it?
If you don’t have the belief that it’s actually
going to give you a payoff, there is no point.
People talk about self-development and pay lip service
to it, like you should step up, man, and things like that.
But in my experience, stepping up
in developing yourself involves a lot
of great wins, and thrills and euphoria.
But it also involves a lot of harsh looking
at yourself, like really looking at yourself
in the mirror and questioning yourself.
You want to believe I’m awesome and feel your certainty
and go hard, but I think that you also want
to take very, very harsh looks at yourself.
That can be very painful and you want to do that at times.
And you want to get out into nature, or into isolation,
or out with your friends that will challenge you,
and think about who you are,
where you’re going, what you become.
Because again, you’re motoring along
and if you go a little bit this way, you wind up over here,
if you’re a little bit this way, you wind up up here,
if you’re a little bit this way, you wind up over here.
So, you need those periods of examination
and kind of pulling out and looking at that.
Sometimes I just feel confused.
I have been reading like the front page of Roc Nation
almost every single day for several months.
And I’m watching all these videos,
some of which even contain different opinions
on the same topic, and different angles on the same topic.
And I have all this information in my head.
Finally, after a couple of months of not going out,
and just watching all these videos,
I walked up to a girl and I have
all these different ideas in my head.
And I hear them all at the same time.
And they’re just confusing me.
And I walk up to the girl, and one guy is telling me
to be really direct with her.
Another guy is saying to be funny.
And another guy’s saying I need to make all this drama
with her and make her cry, or call her a dog.
And another guy is saying just be cool,
and to be friendly and cool.
And all these voices and I hear them in my head,
and I don’t know what to do.
It’s like all these things in my head,
in my head, just going on.
And then I just go
hi,
hi,
hi,
hi,
hi,
and then I run away.
And then sometimes I feel like I’m just being manipulated
with all this free content given to me by these guys,
and I don’t know what to do.
And I just thought maybe somebody could help.
But you know what? Nobody can help.
It’s just meant to manipulate me and ruin my life.
Yes, I don’t want to jump.
– Wait a minute, man, don’t jump.
It’s not worth it, it’s not worth it.
– [Owen] Oh, I’m confused, I’m confused.
(screams)
– Thank you, guys, so much for watching.
I made this video because Daniel Sodgeberg asked me to.
So, if there’s a famous entrepreneur that you want me
to profile next, check out the link in the description
and you can go and cast your vote.
I’d also love to know which clip resonated
the most with you?
What lesson are you going to take from this video
and immediately apply to your life
or to your business somehow?
Leave it down in the comments below.
I’m really curious to find out what you have to say.
I also want to give a quick shoutout to Roger Pierce.
Roger, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book,
Your One Word, and making that awesome little cartoon cel
to start up around my book, as well.
Thank you so much for the support, man,
and I hope you enjoy your reading.
Thank you, guys, so much 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.
– When you learn to relate to yourself,
again you have these like low self-image or bad self-talk.
Again, a lot of that is just burning away the bull.
Guys are like, I can’t stop having these limiting beliefs.
Or, I can’t stop feeling bad about myself.
It’s like, you can, you have to slowly do it.
You have to slowly build it up.
Positivity is a muscle that you slowly build up,
and you build them up.
That’s the same kind of thing, right,
is you have to throw yourself into the fire
at the next paradigm until you become
the person who you want to be.
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