When I was nine, when I was nine years old,
I had this dream so I made a plan. And the dream and the plan was to be the best
safety in the whole world. Safety's a position in football, for American
football for those of you who don't know. So I had this plan, I drew up this plan to
be the best safety in the whole world and I had 20 years to do it. I brought that plan with me today. I'm gonna show it to you. Some kids just reminded me the other day that
this plan is now 46 years old, so I felt really good about that. And there it is. That is my little declaration of independence. I gotta show you guys check this out. Oh, nice. It's a hell of a jump. Okay, that's me, right? Look at that hairdo. You guys see that? There I am. All right. You gotta check these cleats out there. Look at those cleats. They're like nine inches long. That's how I drew when I was nine. So that is the 20-year plan to become the
best safety in the whole world. Now, if you, if you wanted to be the best
safety in the whole world, there's one thing you gotta do better than anyone else in the
whole world. And that's this. You gotta do one thing better than everybody
on this planet, and that is this. You gotta be able to run backwards faster
than the fastest man in the world runs forward. So for the next 10 years after drawing up
that plan, all I did was run backwards. Every recess, boom, boom. All my buddies were running forward. I was running backwards. My Dad, he woke me up every morning at 5:00
AM, I went out to the wet grass and all I did was run backwards. Ten years passes, 10 years passes, the dream
is going along just like it should be. Now it's time for me to go to college. So if I'm gonna be the best safety in the
whole world, I gotta go to college and play safety, right? So there's 350 colleges in the United States
that play college football, 350, not one wanted me, not one. Not one wrote me a letter. Not one recruited me. Zero. Think of the worst college you ever heard
of or a junior college in your neighborhood. They didn't want me. So this is what I did. I invited myself to this small college near
my hometown. It was called UC Davis. And at UC Davis, they don't give any scholarships. They basically play football there for fun. It's not even a real deal. Right? So I go, "That's perfect for me. I'm gonna invite myself to UC Davis. I'm gonna keep the dream alive by playing
football for them because they don't give any scholarships or anything." Anybody could play there. So I go to UC Davis. And the first day at UC Davis I get in this
line and the line is like this with a hundred guys in this line. And I'm right in the middle of the line. And at the front of this line is a window
that is cut out of the wall. On the other side of this window are two equipment
managers named Sid and Beasley. And these are the two meanings dudes I ever
met. I mean they had tattoos way before. It was cool to have tattoos and they hated
freshmen, especially if you weighed 145 pounds. So, I'm in this line with 100 other guys and
by the time I get to the front, I say this to sit in Beasley, ''Hi, I'm Bo, and I'm a
freshman and I would like to play on the UC Davis football team.'' To my shock, Sid and Beasley gave me a practice
uniform and a combination to a locker. So I went over to the locker and I opened
it up. I hung up my civilian clothes. I put on this practice uniform and I ran out
to practice. And I practiced for two hours with the UC
Davis football team. And at the end of the two hours, all those
100 guys, all those players run into the locker room. And the locker room entrance is about right
here. Our head coach, a guy named Jim Soaker, would
stand right in front of the entrance to the locker room and he would watch us men file
by. And as I got close to him, this is what he
did after the first practice. "Excuse me. Mr. Eason. Hi, can I have a word with you, son?" And I was like, "Ooh, shit. Coach wants to talk to me already. Must have done good." So I ran over to coaching. I said, ''Hey, coach, how're you doing?'' And coach said, ''I'm doing pretty good. However, you, not so good. Look, you're too small and you're too slow
to ever play football at this university. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna send you home and we're gonna
take away your dorm key. We're gonna take away your meal ticket. Now, you can go home and in 30 days time when
school begins, you can come back, you could go to school here, but you will never play
football at this university.'' I ran as fast as I could, right into that
locker room. I went right to my locker and I undid the
combination. I took off my practice uniform and I hung
it up. I put on my civilian clothes and I ran as
fast as I could out to the parking lot. And in the parking lot is my 1977 Ford courier
pickup. It is a piece of junk. It's all rusted out. It's blue. The windshield is totally broken like this. And then I stole one of my mom's hangers so
that it would be the antenna so I could get music and I stuck it in there. And I got in this Ford courier pickup and
I drove as fast as I could to the grocery store, fast as I could to the supermarket
because 24 hours before this happened, 24 hours before they sent me home, I was sitting
in this Ford courier pickup, just sitting there in my mom and dad's driveway. And I'm the youngest of six kids. So all my older brothers and sisters, they
all said goodbye to mom and dad. They sat in their piece of junk car and they
drove off to college for four years and now it was my turn. So I'm sitting there in my little pickup and
I'm waving goodbye to my mom who's on the porch waving and my dad is standing right
at the headlights of my pickup truck. And my dad is a cowboy. He's a rancher, so he doesn't talk a lot. But me and my dad make eye contact through
the windshield and then he walks around to the driver's side and he knocks on the window
and I was like, "Oh shit, dad's gonna say something." So I rolled down my window and I said, "Dad,
what's up?'' And my dad still doesn't say anything, but
he reaches into his back pocket and he pulls out his wallet. He opens his wallet and he pulls something
out of the wallet and he hands it to me through the window. And he said, ''Son, I want you to take this
to college.'' It was a $10 bill. I said, ''Dad, I don't need the 10 bucks to
pay in for my room and my board. I don't need it.'' He said, ''Son, just in case of emergencies,
take the 10 bucks.'' So 24 hours later, I'm so happy I got 10 bucks
because I go to the grocery store and I get the biggest jar of peanut butter that they
have and old stale hot dog buns. Two bags. Remember in those days you get old bread like
a month old? They sell it for cheap. So I got two bags of hotdog buns. They were so hard, you could drive a nail
with these buns. I got in that Ford courier pickup. I parked it in the driveway of the locker
room and I ate peanut butter hot dog bun sandwiches for dinner that night. And I slept in that Ford courier pick up. Next morning, second day of practice and I
just, you know, I just sorta did, you know what I always did, which was to pretend nothing
happen. And I snuck into the locker room. And as I was making my way over to my locker,
I looked up at that window and Sid and Beasley were right there and they were looking at
me like this. Yeah. And I snuck by them. I'd got all the way over to my locker. I opened it, it was empty. There was no practice uniform in my locker. So I went back to Sid and Beasley. I said, ''Sid, Beasley, you guys, guess what? I'm Bo, that freshman from yesterday? Yeah. Guess what, you guys, there's been a mistake. Yeah. There's no practice uniform in my locker.'' And Sid and Beasley go, ''Yeah. There is no practice uniform in your locker
because you're not on the team. We sent you home yesterday, took away your
dorm key, took away your meal ticket. So get.'' ''But I can't get, see because I got this...I
have this dream and I got a plan, and the dream and the plan is for me to be the best
safety in the whole world. And I only got a few more years to do it. So could you just give me, you know, like
a practice uniform?'' Sid and Beasley are tough, man, tough, but
Beasley had the soft underbelly and he said this to me, ''Freshman, you wait right there.'' And he walks to the back of the equipment
room and he grabbed something off the wall, like a hank of cloth, something off the wall
and he walks back over to the window and he throws this hank of cloth at me and it's an
old, old uniform, practice uniform that doesn't match the rest of the team. It's a different shade of blue up here, the
pants are different shade of gold. There's no stripes, there's no stripes. And they gave me this big ass helmet that
was so big. It's called the suspension helmet. They don't make them anymore, but the padding
inside is actually rope. Rope is the cushion inside. So they gave me this big old helmet, like
this big, so I couldn't see like every other step. The helmet come down over my eyes like that,
but I didn't care. I didn't care. I took this old unmatching uniform and helmet. I went back over to my locker, I opened it
up, took off my civilian clothes, hung them up, put on this practice uniform and I'm out
at practice again, just trying to blend in. But I don't match. A hundred guys out there, it's hot, we're
training, I'm taking every rep, I'm working as hard as I can and nobody says anything
to me for two hours, but I just keep practicing. Thirty days goes by. Every day, I sleep in that Ford courier pickup,
I eat peanut butter hot dog bun sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I go out to practice every day and no
one says anything to me. But everyone now and again, I could see a
coach going over to our head coach, Jim Zilker, and going like this. ''Coach, can I have a question? Why is that goofy freshman still here with
the uniform and the helmet and all that?'' But nobody said anything to me. So I just kept going. Thirty days goes by, now it is time for our
first game and our first game is tonight, and my mom and dad are driving three hours
to come see me play. So, on game night, I just kind of did, you
know, what I always did, which was to pretend that nothing happened. And sneaked my way past Sid and Beasley over
to my locker and I open my locker and it was empty. There was no game uniform in my locker. So I go back over to Sid and Beasley. I just said, ''And Beasley, you guys remember
me, Bo, that freshman. Guess what, you guys, yeah, there's been another
mistake. Yeah, there's no game uniform in my locker.'' And Sid and Beasley are like, ''Yeah, there
no game uniform in your locker because you're not on the team. We let you practice. We thought that was cute, but this is a real
game with real players. You're not one of them. So get.'' I said, ''No, no. You guys, what you forgot was I still have
my dream and I still have my plan to be the best safety in the whole world. And guess what, you guys, my mom and dad are
driving three hours to come see me play. They're gonna wonder where I've been for the
last month. If you could just give me something, just
something so I can go out. Just something.'' These guys are tough, man, but Beasley, that
soft underbelly, but he's pissed. "Freshman, you wait right there." And he walks to the back of the equipment
room again. He grabs another hank of something off the
wall, returns to the window, throws it at me, and he says, ''Here's the deal, freshman,
you're gonna put uniform on.'' Again, this thing doesn't match. It's a totally different-colored uniform. He goes, ''This is what you're gonna do, freshman,
you're gonna put on that unmatching uniform. Then this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna run out with 100 guys with the
lights on and the marching band, and you're gonna be on the sideline. You are going to run to this little spot on
the very end of the bench and you are gonna sit in that spot the whole game. If you move or if the coaches, or you get
in the way of the real players, we will lose our jobs. Do you understand, freshman?'' I said, ''I'll do it. I'll do it.'' So they gave me this unmatching game uniform. I went to my locker, I opened, I took off
my civilian clothes, put on an unmatching game uniform and I run out with the varsity. Game night, lights, on marching band. I was running out trying to blend in with
100 other guys and as I'm running across the field, I look up into the bleachers and my
mom and dad are at the very top of the bleachers like this. "Oh, there's our boy, playing his first college
football game." Little do they know I'm not even on this team. And I make my way just like Beasley told me
to do right over to this little spot on the very end of the bench and I sit there the
whole game. The whole game, I just sit there and all I
could do was look up at the scoreboard and at the clock ticking down lower and lower
and lower until there was a minute 34 seconds left in the game. And we're beating this team like 35 nothing. We're killing this team. I think we're playing like Chico State, somebody
like that. We're, killing them, right? And all I could do was just watch that clock
and then look up at my mom and dad. And I thought one thing, "I gotta get in this
game somehow." So it was time for us to kick the ball off,
right? UC Davis is going to kick the ball deep to
their return man, right? The kickoff team at UC Davis, that was the
best special team to be on. Everybody wanted to be on that kickoff team. In fact, our best player, our best player,
that captain of our team, a guy named Darryl Goss, he was on the kickoff team. And Darryl Goss got the kickoff team to huddle
right here. ''All right, kick off team. Hey, bring it in. Hey, you guys, listen up bring it in, kickoff. Get ready." I was sitting 10 yards behind Darryl Goss
just staring at the back of his uniform because the number on Darryl Goss's uniform was number
two. That's the same number they gave me. They gave me a duplicate unmatching Jersey
of our captain and our best player, Darryl Goss. So I said, "This is my chance." So I sneaked up behind Darryl Goss and I tapped
him on the back of the shoulder pads and Darryl Goss turns around like this. He doesn't even look at my face. He doesn't even know who I am. He goes, ''Why are you wearing my jersey?'' I said, ''Darryl, don't worry about that right
now. I got asked your favorite Darryl. I gotta run down on the kickoff team for you. Can I?'' Darryl Goss is like, ''Are you crazy, man? You can't run down on the kickoff team for
me, the coaches will kill me.'' I said, ''No, no, no. They can't kill you, Darryl. You're our best player. You're the captain of our team. If you just let me run down, and my mom and
dad are sitting up right up there and they could just see me.'' And Darryl Goss thought that was the funniest
thing he ever heard and he gathered all the senior boys and he goes, ''You guys, check
this out. You guys gotta check this guy out. You see that freshman wearing my number, he's
gonna run down on the kickoff team for me. Let's isolate on him. Let's watch him.'' So the UC Davis kickoff team lines up, and
let's pretend going right down the middle of the stage, all the way to the back of the
room is the UC Davis sideline. So if you're off the field of battle, you're
over here drinking Gatorade, right? If you're in the field of battle, you're here. This is where Darryl Goss lines up right here. He's the very end guy on the kickoff team. The sideline is one yard behind him. He lines up here, our kickers, they're going
to kick the ball that way. Darryl Goss's gonna run down and make the
tackle. Here's where Darryl Goss lines up. Here's where I line up. And right before the kicker kicks the ball
off, this is what Darryl Goss does, and this is what I did. And now the number two's have traded places. Our kicker kicks the ball off. I take off. Now, I am small but I am fast because I am
scared. And I'm running down the field as fast as
I can. Now, if, if you are the first person down
on the kickoff team, you are met with what is called the wedge. And the wedge is the four biggest players
on the opposing team and this is what the wedge's job is. They interlock arms like this, four of them
straight across as if they're getting married, 275 pounds each these guys. They lock arms like this. They run full speed to create a wedge. If you are the first person on the UC Davis
kickoff team to get down there, your job is to become a wedge buster. And a wedge buster's job is to go full speed
into the wedge and knock them all down like bowling pins so that your friends can now
make the tackle. And so I'm running down and I look around
and I'm the first one down the course. I knew my job and all my whole life just passed
before my eyes, and it turned to slow motion. And as I was looking at this wedge and I could
only see them every other step because that helmet was coming down like this. All I could think about was, "Uh-oh, this
is really gonna hurt." And as I got to the wedge, instead of busting
the wedge, this is what I did. I close my eyes and I went airborne over the
wedge. And on my way back down to earth, bam, I hit
the ball carrier right in the chest. Bam. He goes flat, the crowd stands up, "Yeah." And I stand up. "Yeah." And over the loud speaker, I hear this, "Tackle
made by number two, Darryl Goss." I dropped my hands and I tried to turn invisible
and get off that field as fast as I could because the part I didn't tell you guys was
Darryl Goss is a 250 pound black man. And as I was making my way back to the little
spot where Beasley told me to sit, I look back over my shoulder and our head coach,
Jim Soaker, the guy who sent me home 30 days ago was standing on the sideline like this,
and standing right next to him is the real Darryl Goss, and he's standing like this. So I watched the last minute, 20 seconds tick
off the clock and I heard the gun sound and I ran as fast as I could into the locker room
straight to my locker. Nobody was in there. I went right to my locker. I opened it up, I took off this game uniform,
I hung it up. I put on this my civilian clothes, I didn't
even shower. And then I ran right out to the parking lot
and I got in my Ford courier pickup. And I had peanut butter hot dog bun sandwiches
to celebrate. And that whole weekend, man, I was dying. I'm dying. I was thinking, this is it. This is...I'm outta here. They're gonna kick me out now. Sid and Beasley are probably gonna get fired. Darryl Goss, he is not gonna get to be the
captain anymore. I'm outta here. Then Monday morning came around, practice. So I just, you know, just did what I always
did. We're supposed to pretend nothing happened
and I sneaked into that locker room on that Monday morning. And I looked up at Sid and Beasley and they
were pissed. I made my way all the way over to my locker
and I opened it. And there was a brand new varsity uniform
in that locker. Four years later, four years later, I was
the first safety chosen in the 1984 NFL draft. Yeah. People always ask, they go, "Well, how could
that be? How could you be the worst player in the history
of America, that 350 colleges do not want, and then four years later be the best player
in the world at a position?" And I said, ''It can happen because what's
invisible to you is this.'' All those 5:00 AMs that nobody saw. My body caught up to me. My whole life I've been obsessed, and if you
talked to my wife who's in the back, she would say the word that best describes me as haunted
by this term called the best. I left football after five years. I had seven knee surgeries while I played
and I just couldn't do it anymore. And the next thing I just thought, you know,
just like all of us football players who come out of the NFL, what we're good at is very
violent stuff. We're the best in the world at that one thing,
like, running 25, 26, 27 miles per hour and then just throwing your head into other bodies. That's what we're great at. That's what I was the best in the world at. And after I got injured, I thought one thing,
I thought, what am I gonna do now? And the first vision that pumped into my head
was an orange jumpsuit, that I was going to prison. I did because the best thing that I do is
illegal in the civilian world. You can get a lot of money out there and you
get a pat on the butt out there, but in the real world, you don't, you go to jail. So to avoid jail, the very next thought in
my mind was, I've got to find a platform. I've got to find something like this, where
I can express myself the same way I do on the football field because you can be the
best in the world at that by physically letting yourself out. Can I do it again? Can I be taught to do it from a platform,
from a stage? That way, I can avoid jail, which is good
for me, and actually make an impact and make a living and build a company, and that's what
I did. I moved to New York City and I went to everybody
that I knew in New York City. And I go, ''I started this plan when I was
9, now I'm 29, right? And now I'm saying I wanna be the best stage
performer of my time.'' And I went to every student in my class and
I said, ''Who is that? Who's the best stage performer of our time?" And this was 1990 and all these kids said,
''Al Pachino was the best.'' And I said, ''Cool, where's he?'' And they said, ''He's Al Pachino, you can't
talk to him.'' And I said, "I'm gonna talk to him because
if he's the best, that's where I'm going,because he's the only one who can tell me how to be
the best at this.'' And he did. I met with Al Pachino for three hours at his
house and he broke down my next 15 years. And I said to him, I said, ''Al, I'd like
to have your mental. Everyone in my class tells me you're the best
stage performer of all of your time. I'd like to be that of my time.'' And he's like, ''I can tell you what to do,
but that's 15 years.'' And I said, ''That's good because I work good
in those kinds of timelines.'' And he broke down my next 15 years, basically. He broke it down on a piece of paper and I
just recreated another 20 year plan with one thing being the same, the best. The best safety in the world, the best stage
performer in the world, not second, not third, one. I don't know why. That's why I'm obsessed with this. So I did it. I did it. And 15 years, basically to the day that Al
Pachino sat down with me,15 years later, I am backstage in a Broadway house in New York
City about to run out to a play that I wrote and I'm the only guy in. And I'd never been so nervous. I'd rather run into the wedge than these critics
in New York. And I ran out and as I ran out, I was doing
the show. I was doing the play just like I'm talking
to you today. I'm talking and I'm talking to the audience
because that's the other character, is the audience. And I make eye contact with a guy in row five
and he's sitting right there on the aisle and it was Al Pachino. Yeah, and I hadn't seen him in 15 years other
than movies and stuff, but I never talked to him. And he was sitting right there and this is
all he did. I'm making eye contact with Al Pachino going
like this. I'm trying to remember my lines and I'm going,
"Shit, that's Al Pachino." And then I'm thinking about like "The Godfather." You know, I'm thinking about...I'm running
through all his movies and I'm looking at him, he's looking at me, and he's got his
arms crossed like this as he's watching me on stage like this. And he's got his lips pursed like this. And this is all he did. Best review I ever got, right? Best review. I just did everything that he told me to do. I am haunted by this idea of being the best
because I think it is natural for us to be the best. Does anyone got a problem with that? Because sometimes I talk to audiences and
somebody will go, ''Well, no, I'm not supposed to be the best.'' And I would just argue it this way. I'm not gonna argue with you about you being
the best, but you can take that up with Mother Nature. And Mother Nature as far as I'm concerned
is undefeated. No one's beat her yet. Okay. So I'm on her team and she says I'm the best,
and she says, you're the best. And she says you're the best because the first
race you ever entered was on the day of your conception and on that day, who remembers
that day? You remember it? Some people do, some people go, "Yeah, I remember
that day." And then some people are like, "I don't even
wanna think about that day." But let me just remind those of us who can't
remember what happened on that day, 300 million sperm were delivered on that day. Three hundred million, you being one of them,
okay? All of those 300 with a million years of design
and instinct to do one thing, what? Get to that egg and fertilize the egg. Now, do you think that's a casual swim for
them? Imagine that swim. It's not like, "Oh, I'm gonna do the backstroke. I hope I find an egg. Hope I get lucky. Oh." Three hundred million to one odds. I bet that was violent and dangerous and we
were swimming our asses off. And I know I was showing elbows at my brothers
and sisters and I didn't even know if sperm have elbows. So you tell me who won the first race you
ever entered, 300 million to 1 odds, you, you. So the rest of your life, once you're born,
you're gonna start try to prove that you're not the best. Take it up with Mother Nature. We are the best. It is our responsibility and it's who we are,
okay? There's one thing, there is one thing on this
journey that I've been attempting to try and to be the best, and I'm just using myself
as a guinea pig, and I use my kids as guinea pigs. They're great guinea pigs, kids. Go, no, your job is to be the best in the
world at whatever you want, whatever you're choosing. That's it. And that's our whole commitment is to that. My whole family is like that. The people that work with me, that's what
they do, right? So that's how it goes. And so I'm gonna teach you right now three
critical things that you've got to have to be the best. Okay? Everybody got it? Here we go. Story, number one. You gotta know your story and that story has
got to be personal, not distance from you. It's not a story like, well, my cousin had
this happen to them. It's not like that. It is the more personal your story, the more
effect you have. The more personal your story, the more universality
that you have. Now, I'll give you a quick example. My dad, remember I told you, I'll give you
a quick example of personal equals universal. My dad was a rancher, right? So he roped cattle. When I was a little kid, I watched him do
it. And one day I was watching, my dad wrote cattle
and he came up on this steer and it's a thousand-pound steer and he ropes the steer and steers don't
like it when they're roped. So they run the opposite direction. The cowboy, my dad, in this case, jumps off
the horse and has to hold that steer down, meaning, hold that rope in his hand and it
just slides through the cowboy's hand so fast as a thousand-pounds steers run the other
way. Well, my dad's hands that day, I saw his hands...smoke
come off his hands as the rope slid through. Now, when we would go swimming, me and my
brothers and sisters in the summer, my dad would get in the pool with us, with blue jeans
on and he would pick us up by our bear bellies and throw us across the pool. Every time he picked us up, we would scream,
"Ah, dad, put me down with those hands." Because his hands were nothing but scar tissue. So that takes me 40 seconds to tell you that
story about my dad's hands. Personal equals universal. When I speak of my dad's hands, you don't
think of my dad's hands. You think of your dad's hands. The more personal your story, the more effect
you have here. Number one, you've gotta know your story. You gotta be personal. Number two, most critical step is physicality. Do you guys know that we're predators? You know the human beings are predators? You'd never know that this day if you watch
the media, right, because they only assign that moniker to the worst of our society,
don't they? We're predators. We are the most dangerous lethal predators
on the planet, right? Great white sharks, killer whales, cheetahs,
lions, leopards, falcons, we're more dangerous, more lethal. Stop apologizing for it. Our whole world has been apologizing for being
a predator. So we're walking around like this, physicality
in your storytelling, physicality to be the best. We're walking around apologetically like this. This is how our world works. Covering every powerful thing we got honest,
we're trying to cover. Our heart, here, here, covering everything. Apologizing. Predators never do that. I was trained by the greatest movement coach
in the world. A guy named John Louis Rodriguez. John, you guys know John Louis? Yeah, he works with the biggest movie stars
in the world because their lifeblood is based on their physicality, not what they say. Physicality, predator movement. There's a tribe in Africa called the Nuba
tribe. The Nuba tribe is known to never be eaten
by the predator cats that they live among. Yet all the other tribes are being eaten and
attacked by predator cats, but not the Nuba tribe. Why? So John Louis goes and lives with...my teacher,
goes and lives with the Nuba tribe and he takes videos and he takes pictures of how
the Nuba tribe move and they move exactly like I move. They are the predator. They don't apologize for it. So imagine all these cats are all around them,
and the Nuba tribe moves through the jungle like this. And the cats are sitting there just like our
predators, just like our criminals in this society where we live. They're sitting there waiting for an easy
meal, and the Nuba tribe will not give it to them because they are unapologetic. This is the men and this is the women, and
this is how they move, like we're supposed to move. This is how we move. Nobody will mess with you. Nobody. At the end of John Louis with the tribe, he
goes to their chief and he goes, ''Chief, you've gotta be kidding me. You're telling me nobody from the Nuba tribe's
ever been eaten by these predators cats?'' And he goes, "No, that's not true. We had some men eaten." John Louis said, ''Why? When?'' And the chief said, ''When the men get drunk,
they get eaten.'' So imagine these guys, these tribesmen moving
through the jungle. Bam. Cats all around waiting. Don't touch them. They go down to the local, drop their guard. It's that subtle. Bam, dead, dead. No different than our society. Your story, your quest to be the best has
got to be physical in a world that is reduced itself to, like, communicating like so tiny
that our bodies just can't do it. We can't fit into it. And that's the reason why we're so messed
up. We start crossing boundaries. We start doing goofy stuff with our bodies
because it's not expressive, but we don't let this sucker out to hunt. Never trust a speaker who is not sweating
their ass off. Yeah. Which gets me to my next point. This is the thing. Number one, more personal, the more universal,
the more impact you have. Number two, physicality. People believe 50% of what comes out of your
mouth, 50%. So as I'm talking up here, you're going, "Oh,
I believe that. Oh, I don't believe that. Oh, Bo, I believe that. Oh, Bo, I don't believe that." Fifty percent one way or the other, but you
believe my body 100% of the time because the body can't lie. Body cannot lie. This is why politicians stand behind podiums. Yeah, it is. That's why they were invented, because that
body is betraying the shit out of them back there. It is. That's just how it goes. Never stand behind a podium because people
don't trust that. They see your body being hidden. They don't trust it. Your body is so believable. You trust it like this fast. Everybody understand this, we are predators. We are the smartest, we are the most lethal,
and we're also the most noble. Don't apologize for it. It's who we are. Don't let the media convince you that, "Oh,
predator's a bad guy, a bad thing." It is not. It is the most noble thing on the planet. And those guys, those media guys, and those
clowns are going against Mother Nature. I'm going with her. Guess why? She's undefeated. I hate losing. I don't like losing. So I saddle up with the best, which is Mother
Nature. And I go with her. And what did she tell me? For one, I'm the best. Number two, I am a predator and I move and
don't apologize for it, so that people, and this is the only promise that I make for the
people that I work with. I make one promise and that's it. You do what I say or better yet, you just
implement exactly what I do. You do what I do and here's the promise. People will have the ability to look away
from you. [00:41:36]
[silence] [00:41:49] And we can do this all day. I'm telling you. Listen, think about this. What if I put a lion right there, a lioness? The one that hunts for the pride. What if I put her right there? What are you gonna do as an audience? You tell me exactly what you do. I put a lion right here and she just sits
there. What do you do? You don't do anything. You don't breathe unless she breathes. You don't think about going potty. You're not like, "Oh, I wonder if I should
call my spouse and check in." No, you have to be a predator on stage. All of you have a quest. All of you have a quest. Who do you think's gonna help you build that
thing? Everyone else. You're not gonna build it alone. Everyone else is gonna help you build that
thing. How are they gonna build it for you? They got to have a predator in front of them
because if somebody apologetic up here and I'm up here and you're saying, "Hey, I'm Bo,
and I'm real strong. I'm powerful guy." But that's what we do in front of people. We just sit up there and we just go, "I'm
not as powerful as you might think. I don't wanna scare anybody, so I'm just gonna
be half the man or half the woman that I'm meant to be, so I'll just try to fit in at
Starbucks like this." But when a predator walks into Starbucks,
what happens at Starbucks? When I walk in to Starbucks, he goes like
this, I'll walk in, the door opens. No one's seen me. This is what the lion does and they can't
see me. The lion's like this, this is what they do. "Oh, hey, you wanna go?" They feel it. Your audience feels it. This is a learn thing. I was an athlete. I didn't know this. I didn't know this could be taught. This is a learn thing, who you are. Re-remembering who you are at the most basic
level. You can't take your eyes off of it. No different than the lioness right here,
because there is danger in the room, but you don't feel scared. Do you? Anybody feel scared? No. Why? Why don't you feel scared? Yeah. You feel safe. You feel safe. Predators provide safety. They're dangerous just like our navy seals,
just like our firefighters, they're dangerous dudes, but they provide safety. Understand? That's what it's about. So the next time you... And just think about own life, think about
the, and I'll finish up here in just about five minutes. Think about the occupations right now that
you can't look away from. You can't dismiss them. What are those occupations? Think about that for a second. What are they? What can you never take your eyes off of? Dancer, at the highest level, Mikhail Baryshnikov,
you cannot... I did my show at his theater and this dude
and I would get in the elevator to go up to my dressing room and he would be going up
to his dance studio in New York. And, you know, I thought he was a big old
dude seeing him perform. He's like that big. Mikhail Baryshnikov, the greatest ballet dancer
changed the sport forever, changed the art form forever. He's this big and he's much older than you
think. You can't look away from this dude because
of all those years of training. You look down at his feet, they're mangled,
his feet. He has paid the price. He is a master. You can never look away from a predator like
that. Nobody could knock him off. If you will saw a green beret charging a beach
head with oncoming fire, could you look away from that? Because you go, "Huh?" No, you can't. If you see a firefighter charging into a burning
building, a building that you're running out of and they're running into, can you look
away from them? Can you go, ah, like you do everybody else? It's impossible to be dismissed if you...if
it's life and death, if it's life and death. To me onstage is be life and death. For you to build your quest, that's life and
death because what happens to you if that quest never happens? what happens to your family? It's life and death to somebody. Everybody understand? The urgency's gotta be there. Okay? We are predators. This is how we're made. It's so much easier to be this. It's so much easier to be the best than it
is to be mediocre. Mediocre, you've gotta invent a whole kind
of language and excuses and point people out. That's our world, man. They just sit over there and point people
out, like, "He's lucky. She's good looking." Just be the best. It's easy. Just do it and there's no competition either. But you got it? Number one, the more personal, the more universal
number two physicality. Predatory instincts, muscularity to the story. When I tell a story, am I physical or am I
just like this? I'm gonna tell you a story about me going
into UC Davis. How long could you listen to that for? You're polite so you'd listen for a few minutes
because you're polite people. I can't stand when I see that. I just want to commit Harry Carey or something. I wanna get rid of myself because of them,
because they're not pros. See, the third most critical step that you've
got to take to be the best, to be the best storyteller, generosity. Generosity. Now, I'm not talking about generosity like,
"Hey, I'm really generous, Bo." Or, "Hey, Bo, I'm a big tipper." I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the art of giving all of
oneself all of the time. Anyone remember a guy named Jerry Rice? Who remembers Jerry Rice? For those of you who don't remember Jerry
Rice, he's known as the greatest football player ever to play the game, ever. He is so far out in front of the guy in second
place, you can't even compare them. He's got 60 more touchdowns than the guy in
second place. Do you know how long it takes to score 60
touchdowns in the NFL if you could stay healthy long enough? You can't do it. I used to play against this dude. It is a nightmare to play against the best
player to ever don a uniform, but at the end of my career, I got traded to the San Francisco
49ers. So me and Jerry Rice are on the same team,
the greatest player to ever play the game, 100 years, we're on the same team. I said, ''Shit, that's good. I wanna see what he does.'' So we get to training camp. First day of training camp, Rocklin, California,
110 degrees outside. I made this little deal with myself when I
was like eight. And the deal was this, wherever practice I
had for the rest of my life, whether it was a rehearsal, or a tennis practice, or football,
or basketball, whatever it was, I was going to be the first person on that court or on
that field. And I was also gonna be the last person to
leave that field. That was just a contract. I didn't even tell anybody about it, but that
was it. And that held true for 20 years. And then I got traded to San Francisco. And I walk out two hours before anybody's
out there and I look out at the green field and I'm like, this is my new home, first one
out of 20 years straight. And I look right over here and guess who's
standing right there, the greatest player in the history of a game. I'm like, "How could that be? Why aren't the lesser players out here? Why is the best out here yet the rookies are
sleeping?" So Jerry Rice and I stood out there for two
hours getting ready. The rest of the team comes out and this is
a great team. Joe Montana, Roger Craig, Randy Cross, Ronnie
Lott, lot of hall of fame players. So they all come out, right? And we start warming up and this is the warm
up. Joe Montana and Steve Young are our quarterbacks,
Joe Montana gets right here. They snap the ball to Joe. This is warm ups, mind you. And Joe's gonna throw these nice little patterns
to the wide receivers who are right over here. Jerry Rice is a wide receiver. The first wide receiver does this. Joe snaps the ball, first receiver does this,
comes off the line, half speed, all cool, breaks off a little slant route. Joe throws the ball, the receiver catches
the ball and stops. Walks the ball back to Joe Montana, gives
Joe the ball, back in line. Second receiver comes up, this is what he
does. All cool, all pro-glide, breaks off a little
slant route. Joe throws the ball, receiver catches the
ball, stops, walks the ball back to Joe Montana, hands Joe the ball, back in line. And then Jerry Rice came up, and I said, ''Oh,
shit. Okay. Let's see what he does.'' This is what Jerry Rice did. Vroom, full speed. Bam. Breaks off a slam. Bam, catches the ball. Boom, gone, 100 yards. Vroom, gone. All of us are like, where the hell is he going? All the way 100 yards, gets his body into
the end zone, turns around full speed all the way back to Joe Montana, right back in
line. Yeah. Next guy comes up. Gonna run a little out route, right, next
receiver, this is what he does. All cool, breaks off a little out route, catches
the ball, stops, walks the ball back to Joe Montana, gives Joe the ball. And then Jerry Rice came up again, and this
is what he did. Vroom, full speed. Bam, breaks it off, boom, catches the ball. Bam, he is gone. Over and over and over and over again, three
hours went by. He must've run 10 miles of dead ass sprints,
putting his body all the way in the end zone, flipping it around all the way back. I've never seen anything like this. I played this game 20 years. So I went up to Jerry Rice after practice. I said ''Hey, man. So, Jerry, what's the deal with you, man? I mean, why do you do all that? You know, the running, why do you do that?'' And he goes, ''Oh, that's very simple, Bo. I do that because every time these hands touch
a ball, this body ends up in an end zone.'' There are no accidents. That guy is so willing to give of himself
that I said, "Look, generosity is a dial that you and me get to turn. Generosity is up to us." All those other receivers, they could have
turned it up like he did, but they said no. And you know what's funny about that? I can't remember their names. I know that my teammates, I can't remember
their names. Jerry Rice lives inside my marriage. He lives inside the way I parent. What? What did I say? What did I say? Check this out. I got asked, I'll close with this. I got asked to marry these two young people,
right? And a beautiful young people, it was in Santa
Barbara and they come up to me and go, ''Bo, will you be the, you know, the preacher man
in our wedding?'' I'm like, ''I'm not a preacher man.'' And they said, ''Yeah, we think you are.'' And I said, "Okay." So I went on the internet and apparently I
am, because eight minutes later, I was a preacher man. And so the first wedding that I ever officiated
was this beautiful couple in this beautiful church in Santa Barbara. And I never use notes or PowerPoint's or anything. But I wanted to be official, right? So I bought this book with leather bound,
but there was nothing written in this book. But I wanted to pretend like I was reading
something, you know, deep. And so I get in front of the congregation,
the first words out of my mouth of the first wedding that I ever officiated was this. "When I think of marriage, the first person
I think of is Jerry Rice." Every dude in the audience was like high-fiving
each other. They're like, "Yeah, man, this is my kind
of wedding." But that's the... This guy's a football player, right? He's a football player, but he's impacted
how much I'm willing to give of myself every day, every department of my life, whether
it's parenting, or marriage, or speaking, or leading. You turn the dial all the way up and then
you see who you end up being. Everybody got it? Audience: Yeah. Bo: The first critical step is you got to
know that story and it's gotta be here. It can't be like distant from you. It's gotta be personal. Second, you gotta physicalize that story,
you gotta turn into the predator. And if anybody stands in the way of that story
of your quest, then they have to be eliminated. I mean, they do because, you know, there's
a lot of people standing in the way, gotta be eliminated. It's not that hard. They're gonna step aside anyway because you're
a predator. Watch when you go to the bathroom right now,
watch how you walk. You're like... Damn, watch, You watch, you watch how you
eating. We're gonna eat lunch right now, right? Watch how you eat lunch. You won't even use the utensils. That's what I want you to be with your quest.
