TRY IT FOR 7 DAYS - The 1% Are Doing This EVERYDAY! | Eric Thomas on Impact Theory

eric thomas over the next 60 minutes you and i are going to give people the keys to success you ready let's go awesome all right guys you're going to want to stick around to the end where i'm going to give you what i think is the most powerful eric thomas quote and you are not going to want to miss it right eric what is one thing that highly successful people do every day that helps them achieve greatness execute execute on the things that they say they wanted to get done not what you want me to get done my mother wants me to get done my coach wants me but the things that i really feel like if i do these things i'm going to be successful execute on the things that you said you were going to execute on so then why don't most people ever find success like if it really is and i know what's hiding in the word execute but most people do not and i always tell people only execution matters i see it but how do people get good at that so the first thing you got to do is you got to get out of your feelings like for me these are great people who could blow up like who could be successful whatever they touch but something happened that day you know you woke up got into it with your spouse or your kids call with something that was going on or you were sick like they're a group of people that feel like it's okay not to execute because i'm not feeling okay because today is not a good day because all the stars didn't line up and at the end of the day none of that matt like to have a good day is great but just because you have a good day you still got to execute and so i think for most people they go wrong because they think it's a feeling when execution is a fact one of my favorite quotes from you is about that that feelings basically aren't facts and facts are the things that are going to help you process through your feelings that's a paraphrase but it's pretty close um and i got that actually from the book uou which is absolutely phenomenal thank you uh and what i love about it is this idea of you need to take responsibility for you that there are gonna be difficult times in your life there are gonna be times where you have every reason to make an excuse absolutely but that won't serve you and i'm always telling people the most insidious thing about excuses is that they're valid like most people have a real reason to say like hey this didn't happen for me whatever in fact tell us about inky which was it's a really powerful story i've heard you tell before yeah so you know first of all for me the whole inky you know i don't want to call it a disability i don't want iggy to call me you know i said but for one not to have the use of their arm training every day for the nfl going hard i think he was trying to get out of some pretty dire circumstances absolutely uh multiple cousins living with them uh they're shifting out to bed right so one person sleeping in the bed one day another person sleeping in bed and for inky to lose everything but say to his self like yo this doesn't matter what matters is the success that i want what i promised my grandmother what i promised my mother what i promised my wife what i promised myself and so inky's thing was yo despite this happening i owe it to myself to still be the person that i dreamed of being and this setback will only be a setup for a comeback how do people cultivate that because so i know your story my story certainly is nowhere near as difficult as where you started but even for me there were times where i just felt like oh my god like this is so hard there's so much to overcome the emotions kick in you and i know firsthand that you can mistake your feeling for i'm i'm just recognizing an objective fact right so inky training all this time to get into the nfl is really excelling ends up like severing an artery or something crazy in his arm because he hit somebody so hard ends up losing use of his arm at that point he has to pivot like there is no more nfl that's completely off the table and so to say that it would be justified to say that well i had a shot it was my body to get out god whatever way that you're going to frame it does not see fit for that to happen how do you help people in that state cultivate a different mindset is it by just pointing out it's more effective is it something else no it's you're already in pain get a reward for it like you're already in pain so at the end of the day you everything is already messed up so why would you go through all that pain and not get something for it like it doesn't make sense like it doesn't make sense to put all those hours in okay yeah it was football but it don't make sense to put all those hours in and not transfer those hours to something else it doesn't make sense not to recycle the pain and get wealth or a successful life a successful spouse like whatever have kid whatever it is and so for me just going through my go through i was like it can't end here like bro it came in here i've worked too hard i've i've i've done i've read the books i've gone to the conferences i went to the classes i i got the degrees like it can't end with just life is going to deal me this hand you know and so i truly feel and i don't want to um promote gambling you know but i gamble you know as a as a young adult to make money and i and i watched guys who had a royal flush lose because of the giddy and the excitement i'm like oh he he got something you know i'm saying okay take what i have to leave but i also watch people who had nothing in their head with that poker face actually act as if they had a royal flush and win and so i i learned early like yo it doesn't matter if you grow up rich you still got to play your hand it's not like life says all right you rich so you're not going to have any your parents will never get cancer you know nobody in your family will ever have multiple squirrels like you'll never get covey you're rich it doesn't work like that like you still have to do life regardless of how you come into life and i think some people feel well if you come into life and everything is great then that's the way you live life but no it doesn't matter if you come in great if you come in poorly it does not matter you have to do life and if you're smart you do life on your terms and you don't let life make you do it on its terms so you were homeless at 16. let's say let's let's you read the book so honestly 13. okay so that's when you first started running away at 13. at 16 i kind of felt like i did this a couple times i got this i got this i can't i can't handle this you know so this is in detroit though this is the detroit this is in detroit it's not exactly warm in the winter in detroit not at all so start leaving at 13 and make it pretty much permanent at 16. you've got a lot of reasons to uh say you know hand i've been dealt a bad hand it's going to be difficult to play what was the moment where you switched around and decided you know what knows i'm not going to tap out i'm not going to let this be my future so church and not necessarily church because i didn't grow up going to church so it wasn't like the building ah it's magical but the pastor there was a military man i think he was an army man you know so he had love but it was tough love right and i'll never forget he pulled me to the side and he gave me something that i had never had before and that was purpose he gave me a sense of purpose and he said to me you are a phenomenal speaker you got to imagine i'm like 16 almost 17 high school dropout coming to church smelling you know what i'm saying like i think it's so funny like when people like your story i think that's funny they're like man you have a phenomenal story i'm like i wish this was a story like just my life so i'm literally coming to church when i come haven't brushed my teeth i haven't taken a shower i i smell based on whatever was the last time i had an opportunity to take a shower you know i'm in a strained relationship with my mom i'm on the verge of getting kicked out of school i have no bank account no credit cards and this guy looks at me and says you're going to be a phenomenal speaker like you just you got that genesec you have something about and i'm thinking what first of all nobody's ever said anything like that to me before and nobody's definitely said it in this state that i'm in and so for me i'm i'm pulling for strings for something in life and this guy's like yo you got it and not only do you have it i believe in you so much that i'm gonna use my name at my alma mater to get you in school if you could just get a high school diploma or a ged we're gonna get you and so i don't know if it was him i don't know if it was the words but this sense of purpose and this identity like yo i you're right i can't i i've never seen him speaking in the way he saw it before i got in trouble clowning in class telling jokes but now he's saying that what i do with martin luther king with malcolm x what garvey what these people do you can you have the ability to do it and it was at that point i was no longer i wasn't homeless and i don't think i've ever said this before but i was i was homeless but i wasn't discouraged at that point anymore like it was the craziest thing i was literally homeless practicing sermons i was literally homeless prac visualizing being in college you know at that time a different world uh was on a spin-off you know from the cosby show and like you could actually i was like watching a different world and seeing myself in the cafeteria seeing myself in the dorm room so this is the first time in my life that i had this sense of life this sense of purpose that yo i am not worthless despite the fact that what i considered my parents they weren't married they didn't they weren't in a long relationship like i saw myself as an accident like these are two kids you know what i'm saying uh i don't know if it was in love and lust i don't know what it was but i there wasn't a nursery there wasn't a book with names you know there wasn't uh a baby shower you know i looked at myself like i'm an accident and this is the first person who spoke to me and said really you're not in the accident you you you really were designed to be here and you have a phenomenal gift that's going to change the world and it was at that point i'm in abandoned buildings seeing myself speak i'm i'm i'm an abandoned buildings you know seeing crowds i'm an abandoned building seeing myself travel and it would it was at that point i believe that this eric thomas not this version i was definitely the eric thomas 1.0 but it was at that point that i began to see myself in a way i'd never seen myself before all right i want to put a few ideas together that is really incredible so it's all about execution we know that's where we started meaning and purpose so you talked about finally having purpose to do this and then somebody believing in you absolutely i have the chills do you so i know you do a lot of work with at-risk youth you go into the prison system is part of why you do that helping people find purpose and having that spark a belief that somebody else believes in them yeah but a part of that is feeling this i old pastor and i owe all the people that sort of helped me to get from where i was to where i am now and i owe them that tough love you know and i owe it to them to believe in themselves and to see that like i owe it to myself to recreate that moment between me and him with as many people as i can as often as i can because he said to me listen to me there is absolutely nothing you can do for me but pay it forward and at that time i don't know i don't know what period for it was i didn't see the movie at the time you know but afterwards i began to understand what he meant and so i'd literally wake up every day believing that i owe the people who didn't owe me anything now again i i don't know this to be a fact but i do believe that there are people who believe that i have value because of where i am you're talking about people who at my lowest point that believed in me in the way somebody today would believe in me based on what i do when i hadn't done anything and so i'm like wow that's rare people don't necessarily do that and i just felt i'm obligated to do that to as many people as i possibly can and that's what i wake up like i wake up every day with this all right i'm going to win the nobel prize and it's not about the nobel prize it's not about norway it is about if lebron and michael jordan are playing for the finals and uh gretzky is playing for the stanley cup and somebody else is playing for the pin it like my my pin it is the nobel prize because you don't get that without helping millions of people get from one place in their lives you know to another you need a goal you need something to aim at i love that i love how often you talk about winning a nobel peace prize i think that's really cool um so going back to the going into the um the at-risk areas and helping people so i've worked in the inner cities a lot okay and one thing for sure i mean some of it on purpose some of it accidental if i'm quite honest but it put me in contact with um the coming face-to-face with your zip code as the number one predictor of your future success and so i was like why is that true and so i'm there i uh so my whole thing is it doesn't matter who you are today it only matters who you want to become and the price you're willing to pay to get there right so that's i just believe that to the core of my being and so my wife and i are building our last company quest we're in the inner cities because that's where you manufacture and so i was like is this really true or is this rhetoric that it doesn't matter who you are today and we're like it's real so if that's true then i should be willing to employ people that have a criminal record and so i'm like cool put the word out that you know regardless of felony convictions we'll consider you for employment and so we had just a ton of people line up around the block just to be interviewed it's crazy and so we end up with these incredible people some of them really intelligent smarter than i am and they're going nowhere i'm just like what is going on and in your book you talk about that poverty isn't just about money you may have even said it isn't about money but it's about mindset it's how you think and before we started rolling you said to really help somebody you you'd have to like go back to kindergarten and start planning the right ideas in their mind yeah that idea of it's a set of ideas now the earlier that you can get them to people for sure the better yeah but that it's a set of ideas that end up holding people back i want to talk about this idea of getting people to believe in themselves the fact that somebody could look at you and one thing that i find interesting and i don't know what you think about this i imagine that meeting you at 16 you'd see that glimmer of like whoa this person can be something but at the same time there's probably a little bit of like let me like blow on this ember and just see what happens even if i don't know that it's going to turn into a raging inferno i want to give them a little bit of oxygen absolutely what is that when you try to give somebody oxygen what do you say to them is it just you can do it or no you know i think for me and as a speaker i try to start with like where are you so if you're in poverty it's like okay i got to show you wealth like in your own world i've got to show you that this ideology that you're holding on to is probably not yours you know i tell people all the time when i grew up you know no it was no college why didn't i want to go to college i was in detroit in detroit you could make 25 an hour working for ford gm or chrysler so so when you were a kid growing up in detroit like the goal the apex is i got a job at ford motor company i've got salary i've got uh uh insurance i've got health benefits 401k like i've got a career and so for you you grown up in detroit you see ford the bigger buildings are gm you see chrysler iacocca like you see him on magazines and books and he's he's on the new york times best sellers list and it's like whoa gm chrysler and so what i do is i figure out where you are and i dare you to come out of where you are to if nobody ever influence you where would you want to be like what do you want what do you want to do not what they want you to do if you could dream if like what would your best life look like for you if you didn't have to impress your mom or your dad if you didn't have to go to college because your parents went to college like what would you really do and then if they can tell me which most people can some people are so dark that they don't even know what light would look like but more often than not a kid would tell me nba i said no don't just be okay the nba is over where you live where do you live what are you are you married do you have children what are you and if i can figure out where you want to go at that point then i can snatch your current reality and help you to build a new reality to help you to get where you go now i tell this to people all the time i just wanted a career i never i never even heard the word billionaire before i never heard anybody say the word i never i was never i didn't even know what that meant and one day i was in the room with dan gilbert and warren buffett damn and i was like whoa god why am i here like i'm not a billionaire like i'm not like what would i be in this like what did they call me for why why did they invite me into this room and i started doing my homework who else is in the picture went back i thought i was um you know a detective and i'm trying to figure out okay who else is in the room why are they in the room what's their net worth and then one day it hit me you're in the room because you're going to be this one day so everything you heard you didn't hear it just to hear it just to be wrong like you heard it because you can do real estate like venture capital you can't do that these are all humans in this room so for me i was taken into a reality that i didn't know exist and jamal says it best your level of exposure often determines your level of success so i was exposed to billionaires so what i try to get kids to do is say look i want to expose you you can go to la when i want to la you put you can put the things on and go to la you can you can go on a computer you can read a book like you can get to sunset without ever going and then once you get to sunset here and get the sunset here you can get the sunset here so for me it's i gotta get in here and i gotta get in here and if you let me into these two spaces i can get you wherever you're trying to get to okay you keep getting the chills dust so powerful so i was always freaked out that uh you've got people in compton that live 20 minutes from beverly hills and they've never gone yeah and so back at quest i used to high performers i would take them to dinner in beverly hills and then i would drive them around bel air now at the time i'm not making a lot of money either but i was like yo you've got to dream to your point about getting in somebody's head getting them to believe like you have to imagine it and i was like you hey i i need you to know that this kind of stuff exists i need you to know that like a waiter will seat you and be kind to you and like try to take great care of you and that there are fancy beautiful places that you can go that are free there are malls that are just nice that you can walk around and see and enjoy and that to get them to expand their you know sense of the world absolutely and that so few people do it so one thing watching your talks that i love man and like i think is what makes you so effective to your point about getting in their heart is you take people's excuses away from them and get them to really start recognizing that they owe themselves something absolutely that man owe yourself something that really hits me like that is a really cool idea but you you take their excuses and you get them to start dreaming about what they want one thing i want to ask you there was a talk and you may do this all the time but i saw it in one talk and i was like damn like that's really out of fashion right now but to me i was like standing up and i want to clap you were like i want everybody in this room you live in you the us and i want you to say with me usa and you like got the crowd like channing usa why do you get people to do that because people have to understand and this was um utah you know this was a group of guys 25 to 40 years old and it was like guys you got to understand the opportunities that you have you know i've been to third world countries where it does not matter how early you wake up it does not matter how long you stay up it doesn't matter what your skill sets are it doesn't matter you don't have opportunity you have people all over the world who are dying to get here literally dying to get here you have an opportunity of a lifetime and where much is given much is required so if you have an opportunity to be wealthy to build phenomenal relationships to start a business like you just you got llc non-profit you know s corp like you got opportunities you got banks that you can get loans from uh you can go online and sell stuff from online like you don't have to have a store anymore a storefront like you can literally become rich from your watch so it's like yo instead of you looking at everything that's not look at what is so absolutely is there's some stuff to complain about one thousand percent it's a whole bunch of stuff i can complain about it's a lot of stuff that i can be angry about but man my grandmother died at 93 and a month later my other grandmother died at 90. i didn't realize how quick life was i'm like yo my grandmother was 93 i spent 51 years with both of them they're gone it's over i will never be able to talk to my grandmother again and i'm next so because life is short i don't have time to focus on what's not i've got to focus on what it is then get up and go get it and and for me it's like guys some of you in this room have opportunities that i don't have some of you in this room have connections or network i don't have and and i'm killing the game and you're not so i need you to i need you to understand where you are america's not perfect i don't know if there's a place on planet earth that is so we're not looking for perfect but we are looking for opportunity and we have it so it's like yo say it because i need you to understand what you have and then i need you to appreciate what you have and then i need you to go after everything that's got your name on it with no excuses because some man when i pulled up and i saw you know the scholar i was like yo do you know there were people 400 years ago 300 years ago who were in the process of building this and it was a vision and they never got to experience it i know you know you know do you know what type of mindset you have to have to build something that you know that you're not going to get to enjoy but yet you put energy into it because you're thinking about the next generation you've got this vision that's gonna outlast you like that's that's that's rare and so now it's been built go fly first class it's been built go live on the people why do you live on the east coast and then you live on the west coast because it's too cold that's why and if i can get a house in the gold coast i'm going there so it's like yo we have opportunity whatever you do don't waste it don't cry about it get up and go make it happen what is up my friend tom bilyu here and i have a big question to ask you how would you rate your level of personal discipline on a scale of one to ten if your answer is anything less than a ten i've got something cool for you and let me tell you right now discipline by its very nature means compelling yourself to do difficult things that are stressful boring which is what kills most people or possibly scary or even painful now here is the thing achieving huge goals and stretching to reach your potential requires you to do those challenging stressful things and to stick with them even when it gets boring and it will get boring building your levels of personal discipline is not easy but let me tell you it pays off in fact i will tell you you're never going to achieve anything meaningful unless you develop discipline all right i've just released a class from impact theory university called how to build iron-clad discipline that teaches you the process of building yourself up in this area so that you can push yourself to do the hard things that greatness is going to require of you right click the link on the screen register for this class right now and let's get to work i will see you inside this workshop from impact theory university until then my friends be legendary peace out the get up and go make it happen this is where you really shift into another gear i heard an interview that you were doing you and your business partner and your business partner was telling a story about when he was 21 years old and you told him he needed to give up sex yes and i was like damn say what and i just thought okay eric isn't around this really is about execution why did you ask him to give up sex and why on god's green earth as a single man at 21 did he agree now that part i can't that part i don't know but i'm grateful you trust me i saw at that time that it was a distraction for him that as much potential as he had and i knew in his eyes when he said i'm going to make you a household name like he was adamant about yo i can't believe you just gave that guru story and we can't book you for a free gig at a school he was like cj was like yo i just can't believe this so his thing was you don't have a problem it's the fact that you don't have celebrity people don't know you so we gotta we gotta do the brand and so i'm listening to a kid who's like yo we gotta go make it happen but then i'm looking at a kid who's spending hours in in relationships i'm i'm looking at a kid who you know is coming to work but after work some of the energy is going to i'm like bro you won't have to get that up because that is a distraction of where we're going and not only is it the distraction of where we're going if we get to where i believe you can take us you go you you can turn back on sex as much like you're going to be all right but it is a distraction it is allowing you not to be as disciplined as you possibly can be and we have an opportunity of a lifetime the two of us like we can really create something together and so if you can lock in if you can give me 120 for the next few years cj i believe and we're here like we did it but there were it was a distraction it was constantly on his mind when he wasn't actually engaged in it it was just like bro it's taking up way too much real estate for us to be able to go where we're trying to go i need you to get focused i need you to get locked in yeah that story really hit me because i was the fact that he didn't really hit me well yeah that he did it that certainly is a testament to his faith in you but it also i think is a testament to it works and getting focused and um really deciding what what is it that i'm trying to be great at and put in the hours and the energy to get great at that thing there's two stories that i want to bring together here you're either going to think i'm crazy or we're going to help people really understand what it takes to be something let's go so i'm not religious okay but i respond it's interesting that you say that because you've been as a true preacher formerly at a church um now i think you refer to it as a ministry absolutely so you approach religion in a way that i think really resonates in terms of religion has survived for thousands of years for a reason right and my hypothesis is that the reason is that it gives us something that's very effective absolutely and that you have a god-shaped hole in your heart that you're going to fill with something you could fill it with god you could fill it with a marriage you can fill it with a business whatever many people fill it with things that are not very useful absolutely um but the stories that i want to bring together are so you tell your partner that he needs to give up on sex and when he was explaining why he listened to you he told another story and the story that he has the chills just remembering it the story that he told was there was you guys were on the streets of harlem and this really big guy was like he said he was like six five 280 pounds or something and he was like barreling down the street he's on the phone yelling at this guy telling him that he's gonna kill him and all this stuff and he jumps back up onto the stoop to not be in the way of this freight train coming down the street and he said you wouldn't move and he's trying to get your attention you're just standing in the guy's path and the guy gets up to you you grab him by the wrist he looks at you like he's going to punch a hole in your head and you tell him to get off the cell phone you take him by both wrists and you start praying and by the end of it the guy gets down on his knees with you and is sobbing and crying and i was like damn okay now the reason that i got it immediately when he was telling that story is one of your quotes which is the only thing standing in your way is you that's it and once you understand that this is a game that you're playing here and you're playing here and that you have to and for people that are i'm just listening i'm pointing at my head in my heart that once you take control of what you're trying to achieve you're thinking execution mode you've got meaning and purpose now that transitions us to the heart and we're thinking about okay how do i get my emotions in check and then how do i proceed towards something that means something to me um that that is to me somebody who really understands what the path to success is that you have to get yourself under control one i really want to understand what what is it that you picked up on in that guy like what did you see that made you go there's a a thing here that that we could have a breakthrough or whatever like that's you know in life man some things some things you you know mathematically you can explain it's like it's succinct right it's linear but other things is like frequency like vibe and so as he was walking toward me i felt me i felt that darkness that dark place that i was once in i felt that you know but i felt okay like he's on the phone saying he's gonna do whatever but he's still on the phone like you like if it was that deep you just hang up the phone and you just go do whatever you say you you're still talking about it and you're still talking about it because whoever you're having this conversation with some kind of way you still care enough so i could hear this battle that he was personally going through and when i saw him like yo e.t 16 year old 12 13 year old e.t a 16 year old out of control e.t and i i saw the rank the rage and the anger and the darkness and i was like yo you gotta take a chance why cause somebody took a chance on you like i wasn't tom i wasn't the dude that was sitting with a poster saying help me i'm i'm messed up i was messed up and somebody saw me and went yo we gotta salvage this kid like some kind of way this this past i don't know if it's everybody maybe he did it whatever i don't know he made me feel like it was just me and now when i look at my life i'm like wow he really did he really did save thousands and thousands of people's lives i could have easily been in prison or dead this guy by rescuing me you know how many people i've inspired i don't know how many people i've inspired but it's got looking at the videos and algorithm it's got to be a couple hundred you know what i'm saying so a couple hundred thousand you know maybe some millions so i'm looking at this guy like yo e you got a chance to do the exact same thing so being selfish it might have been more of me just like yo he he go a big one baby like this this the finals like this the super bowl like go for it you know and his response i'm nervous i'm scared just like you know they don't know i'm nervous and i'm scared but i'm too scared not to try like i'm too scared not to take the risk i'm all in now i've been watching him paying attention and listening so boom i go in and his response falling on his knees and crying was like okay maybe i am story could have been real this can go good or bad there's no middle ground and so for me it's i saw eric a young hurt eric thomas it was like e here's your chance to do for this guy you know what somebody did for you do you remember what the what did you say to him that that gave him the breakthrough i don't remember the only thing i do know is the hug you know is is the the command of bruh you gotta get control of yourself like you walking up and down the street like you're just out of control like what are you doing you're screaming and hollering cussing this is a church i didn't even grow up in church but like bro you got to have respect there's kids out here like come on bro like not you you're like i'm not hurt that you're fussing and cussing at the church i'm hurting for you out of control like your emotions got the better of you and bro you need to you need to get a grip and so whatever we said other than i don't know hug get control and then before i know it you know he's bawling and i'm like yo this thing works and this is before the hip-hop preacher just e.t at that time this is no videos you know we hadn't really blown up at that time but for me i thought it was great because it was like yo pastor said hey yo it's working and it's working on real people with real problems this isn't this isn't you know um the studio e.t like this isn't uh huh you know the e.t that's it you know putting powder on it you know like no we out in the streets like anything could have happened in new york this is new york this is harlem it could have went a total different way so i even felt a sense of like yo i i can you know like i can't do this i did people do respond and i had to speak that night and i spoke with more energy probably not spoken a long time because it was like yo if it don't work in here it's okay because out there it works out there and again i felt good about myself i think people get confused sometimes when we do what we do a part of it is for us and our life and our vitality and our belief in confidence in ourselves sound like lisa now our confidence in ourselves i love it man see to me that's the whole idea of you owe it to you yeah it's it's kind of a hard message it's tough love it's direct it's and i think that's a big part that's certainly a big part of what um i think people respond to in me is that i'm not letting myself off the hook and therefore i'm not letting anybody else off the hook that there are opportunities you either capitalize on them or you don't all of us are going to get kicked in the face at some point or another and it's really about how you respond to it and so by it's interesting because i actually didn't know because the time that you told that story they didn't ask what you said to him so i had no idea but i'm not at all surprised that the punch line was like you're out of control get it under control which one having somebody hold you accountable it's really interesting in fact man i really want to know your thoughts on this so they've looked at what why is it that kids that grow up with a single mom do worse than kids that grow up in a two-parent household and look i'm sure it would be equally bad if you only grew up with a father there's just a lot less statistics so when looking at it it's and this is a thought my wife and i don't have kids but this is a thousand percent us you've got the mom who's like totally empathetic they want you to go to bed because they know what's better for you but oh like they don't want to upset you and so you end up going to bed late the dad's like no no you're going to bed and if i have to drag you by the ankle if i said it's nine o'clock it's nine o'clock and that's that and when you don't have somebody that holds you accountable there's there's a sense of like i'm not seen i'm not checked like somebody doesn't i don't know if it's that they don't love me because you know your mom loves you but like you you want somebody to absolutely check you yeah you know i tell people it's crazy my biological father wasn't in my life and me and my mom struggled because i knew my mom didn't want me to go after him because of what it meant in her life whatever the pain remnant whatever it was and so i kind of never shared that i miss i want to know who my dad is i want to you know it's crazy it's like i was an adult and i still i wanted my daddy you know i i wanted to know who my father was and i don't mean i knew who he was by name but like yo who are you how am i like you you know what i'm saying what were your goals and aspire what was your struggles what are your challenges and so i feel that like you said with mom you know that love is there you know moms will die for you she'll do anything for you but with dad it is that damn what am i capable of i remember my daughter she loves her mom they have the best relationship but she would get dressed and walk right past her mom and be like dad what do you think you know and i'm like wow this is crazy my son would play football and you could see he you know picked up a fumble and he i'm like run but he's like hey did you see me with the i'm like yeah we could talk about it afterwards and so i i i think there is an affirmation in father's along with that correction but you said something earlier that i thought was important you know what bothers me is individuals ability to check and hold people accountable like i'm like yo it's crazy if you weren't wired to check people or when somebody can't you know like didn't meet your expectations i would be like yo don't hold yourself accountable but like i look i literally look at humans when somebody don't pay them back on time or somebody picks them up later somebody doesn't keep their promise like you feel this why didn't you how dare you and i'm like well how do you pass you in the mirror like yo i'm not mad that you held him accountable but how can you hold another human that responsible but you don't hold yourself responsible like how is that possible like somebody doesn't do what you think they should do and you go off but then you give you a pass like you don't go off on you i'm like yo if you go off on my man that's cool but when are you gonna go in the mirror and check yourself like why are you giving yourself a pass why are you giving yourself a out that same energy you have to let others know about themselves you cuz my man out you i mean he he didn't whatever it was he was supposed to do he didn't do he almost ran into your car like you cussed my man out like you went off but then you didn't finish school or you didn't write the book or you didn't do the album or or you didn't go back to school or you told yourself you was gonna lose weight and you just let you just let yourself off the hook like well you didn't do it poor you i'm saying no do me a favor with that same energy you use to hold somebody else accountable hold yourself accountable because here's the deal you hold me accountable and i change how do you benefit from that like how do you benefit from getting on me and making me make adjustments and corrections you don't benefit from that you don't get the money that i make when my business blows up or when i get my degree and i've seen people get on me eric you need to finish school i'm like bad but you got some stuff that you need to overcome i lit i literally listened to you you got on me and you checked me about not finishing what i started okay well i finished what i started but you still haven't checked you about some of the character defects you have so that's why i get a little taken back because i'm saying use that same energy you use on others i'm not saying don't hold people accountable but i'm saying use that same energy on yourself and you'd be shocked how much further you'd be in life if you just punish yourself if you put you on punishment that's what i like about you man you put you on blood put you on punishment uh what i like about you is that the very reason that you want them to hold themselves accountable is because they would be shocked at how much better off their life would be that to me is like the interesting part so we're living through a weird moment right now where there's this idea in race car driving where they say don't look at the wall because you're going to go where you look and so even though the wall is the thing you're worried about because you don't want to crash into it if you look at it that's actually what you're going to hit now if you pay attention to the turn and the other cars then you've got a shot i always thought that was really interesting when you apply that to yourself if you're looking for all the things that are wrong you're going to find them and there will be a litany of them if you're looking for excuses you're going to find them and they're going to be valid and you're going to have every reason to give up and you talk about the darkness a lot dude that's really important for people to understand you can think your way into any state you can think your way into negativity and you will find it everywhere you can think your way into positivity and despite the fact there are a thousand things stacked against you you'll see the path forward and it will make your life better like that's the thing that i'm really fiendish about and so i want to ask you like given the the way that right now people especially in the u.s are looking at the way things are working against them what do you say to somebody like that because it's not like there aren't things to complain about but how do you get them to refocus that energy on the things that they can control man i say i say this world is fascinated with sports so we are consumed with hours upon hours of just watching sports so i say hey guys if you're gonna be watching all this sports like use the sports world in your world because you're spending all this time watching it what kid and i i don't even know if i wanted to go you know and play in the majors but i remember being with my boys on the block and just a couple of us and i would dream that i was on the plate two outs two strikes three balls bases loaded we down by three and i'm on the plate we all you're on the free throw line your team's down by one you get to shoot two free throws at zero time on the clock game seven of the nba final like we all dream of that but then we get in real life we want to be punks we get in real life we solve it's like yo let the gas go up i'm gonna make more money let the inflation go up game seven like this game seven in life let's go if it was easy everybody would do it i don't even want it to be easy everybody would get a phd if it was easy to get a phd then it wouldn't be valuable you could just open up the door so i tell people like look look at the tragedies and say yo you thought well enough for me to come at me batman you you you you trained in the dark man say i was born in the dark this is what i do cut all the lights off if you want to you're not going to stop me because you got all the lights like out this is this is where i thrive and i'm saying if you're a real human because we are a little different than some of the other things that were created we have a will there's some things that we have i'm like activated instead of crying and quitting and giving up again we're going to go through pain all of us won't get a reward from it i got a reward for mine like i have worked so hard when i die i will physically be dead but you'll still be knowing about eric thomas the videos will still be out the books will be out whatever businesses we set up kids will still be going to college they'll be going to the super bowl every year through my foundation they'll be taking a trip to dubai i i you know i tell people all the time they're like what what motivates you now because you have what you want what motivate i said i did it but can i duplicate myself can i scale this reality you know can i scale positivity can i scale getting through pain can i scale taking a bad hand and turn that joke into a royal flush can i can i scale that so for me it's not this is happening this has happened this has happened i look at it game seven this is going this way this is where the michael jordans are made this this is where the magic johnsons the larry birds like this is where the real ballers this is when the real ballers come out okay you won game one okay you won game two okay we won two then you were three one three two and we came back and beat you like we don't go we're down two we go this is what i signed up for that's what all the weights were for this is the eating right this is getting up early going this the trainers like this is why i went to this school this is why i got this coach like this i long for this and i live for this and some people i don't know are you not cut out for it i don't know but for me when i see trials and tribulations i go it's showtime with a real eric thomas with a game seven eric thomas please stand up activate grand slam grand slam activated and shape of e.t and boom it's out of here so i just look at it as hey if you want to complain go for it i will rise to the level of the challenge did i love that so much it it is the only path forward like everything that i've seen about life tells me there just isn't another option again the excuses are valid you can take them but your life is going to be worse what do you teach your kids about racism because i've heard you say racism is real it exists but yeah i say to my kids for every challenge that exists prepare yourself for it don't go into it don't go into it unprepared the man or woman who's unprepared for a challenge would probably not come out of it the way he or she wants to come out of it you have a better chance i'm not telling you that stuff can't happen to you but you have a better chance if you are prepared for it um which is why i wouldn't got a phd why because i felt like talent-wise you were prepared to be one of the greatest speakers in this generation but language-wise you're not prepared to be one of the greatest speakers diversity-wise you are not prepared you grew up in detroit which is probably the most segregated city united states of america you're not prepared to be diverse because you've not been in an environment that was diverse you need to go to michigan state you need to prepare yourself for where you want to be so for my children you will run into some of the greatest humans in life prepare yourself to get the most out of that relationship i was just with somebody recently i was like yo i love you more in person than i did on the videos that's not by accident like that's why i walk in the room your personality i'm gonna be my authentic self i'm going to bet got it i'm not walking in the room like uh uh lisa hello i'm just sitting there 10 and whatever no i'm like yo this is what presented itself in the room you're a hugger i'm a hugger let's go and so to my children yo prepare for everything it doesn't mean that you're gonna win because you're prepared but you have a better chance of winning if you are prepared so they got mad at me i sent them to when they were younger they might have gone to a um 50 50 school in terms of diversity when they got older they've been they were the minority why are we in a high school where in mid-north cause you're going to michigan state so we're not going to prepare you when you get there we're going to prepare you now so now they're like okay dad when they travel the world oh we are prepared why because we went to school with we have friends that are our teachers were this was the environment so i say racism um economic struggles marriage parenting prepare yourself in advance for these situations so that when they come you have a better chance of controlling those situations and not letting those situations control you one thing that you said in a video and i was like this just cannot be said enough is you were saying like imagine somebody i don't remember the amount of time that you gave but like 50 years ago they don't have the internet yeah or 300 years ago when we're embroiled in the just absolute travesty of slavery like that's like a whole thing that now you could take right now a course from stanford university on your phone for free you can take mit courses on your phone for free and so to not prepare yourself by taking advantage of those things like at some point it's you owe yourself to get in that to learn that stuff to prepare yourself push your education that to me is like that's so powerful encouraging people to invest in turning their potential into skill sets absolutely you get one life you know it's funny somebody would say well how do you prepare yourself for well when i was younger i thought i had to address every human that said something to me now depending on that person's intelligence and depending on that person's ideology i don't have to enter i don't have to entertain you i'm not i'm not forced because you made a statement i'm not forced to respond i tell my son all the time bro somebody if you're on the road in this road rage drive home you don't have to get into it with that person because they almost hit their car because here's the deal son that person may have nothing to live for no one to live for you do come home come home and you can talk to me about dad i can't believe he hit the bat he almost hit the back of the car he swerved over into the i don't know maybe somebody in this family died maybe he just lost his job maybe his mom just passed and like he's not in his right mind but whatever you do don't engage in a person who's not in their right mind if you're in your right mind there's nothing that good that's going to come out of it you've been in your right mind they're not in their right mind and you're sitting there having a discussion with them you having a discussion is not about to put them in their right mind like you're not about to change so do me a favor come on and we can laugh about it at thanksgiving you remember the time the person almost hit you up so so becoming educated and prepared also lets me know who i should be having conversations with who i shouldn't have when i should because there's a time and season for everything when i shouldn't so it's like oh son sweetheart my daughter prepare yourself i don't i'm not saying you have to get a master's a phd i'm not saying that but i am saying you know the world you live in you know what the issues are prepare yourself accordingly kobe bryant has one of my favorite quotes of all time not as good as the quote though that i'm going to give you at the end of this from eric thomas to make sure you guys stay here till the end uh but he says booze don't block dunks and to me what i take away from that is that you can get so good at something because the talent scouts who know basketball better than anybody else in the world were given budgets to go around the entire globe to find the most talented athletes on planet earth pay the millions of dollars and their only job was to stop kobe bryant from scoring points and he still despite that scored 81 points in a single game so literally people the most talented athletes on planet earth paid millions of dollars to stop you from doing something and they still can't do it because you can get better than they are that's good and that's my thing is look there there are no matter what even if it isn't racism they're going to be a thousand things in business let me tell you people trying to stop you every single day and so your job you owe it to yourself just to stay with your book which i love uh you owe it to yourself to get so good that people can't stop you and i love it because any human being can do that like that's a lot of i love it that's the answer that's it right there that's the answer i think i love that kobe said i thought he was a jerk kobe said why would i pass the ball to you when you haven't even trained properly i just always wonder like why is my man hogging the ball he like yo why would i have confidence in somebody who's getting to the gym late who's leaving early we losing doesn't seem to care that we lose it why would i give the ball to you and i'm like yo genius you're not even executing at your own personal responsibility my whole career is contingent upon what you do and what you don't do yeah i'm taking this and i and it shifted my thought process because i'm like here i am judging from the outside why aren't you being a better teammate but the real question is why aren't you being a better teammate by seeing my energy and matching my energy because we're on the same team with the same goals so yeah but i absolutely love we have the ability to no matter what our circumstances are get better the iphone is getting better why aren't we samsung is getting better tesla whatever it is technology everybody sees the benefit of not staying where they were five six years ago if they want to be progressive and survive so as a human why wouldn't i every day try to be the best version of me or at least every year say all right yeah well you don't know me if you knew me in 2002 you don't know eric thomas that was the 5.0 version this the 14. this is the ep 14. you don't know who i am and i just i would just say to people yes it takes a lot of work to become a new model but it also takes a lot of work to suck to be average it takes a lot of work to do that as well and the rewards for being average don't match the reward yep i have to work hard but to have even this opportunity you know there's something that i i read in the scriptures that said find a man who's diligent who executes and he shall stand before kings and queens and not me men so when i get the opportunity to come into an environment like this i see it as e if if you with number one you close to number one if you're not number one because you are attracting high level so when i used to have to do right state and i run with wright state uh by bowie's nothing wrong with that but when i started doing alabama when i started speaking at auburn when i started speaking at the elite programs it was like so so when i when i work hard and i come into a place like this i don't go i want necessarily but i go wow this is what's capable for humans that operate at a high level we sat down and you were like e i'm trying to take the podcast i'm like what you the best you consider one of the best podcasts out and you trying to get better i'm like yo i can't wait till this interview is over i got to let everybody in our sphere know hey y'all we playing with the podcast like i know we not necessarily we just sitting around chatting around but no no no 2023 we we owe it to the people who follow us to not stay where we are but to take it to that next level so for me being in a room with somebody who's executing and operating at a high level it just get me juiced up it let me know that i would much worthy work hard and and and experience this and hang out with and get to know somebody like you then i would be average and just get the stuff that i don't know who or who's deciding what i get i don't know who but those people who live like that and they have to decide what the government gives like i don't want to live like that i don't want you to tell me how much i'm going to get or how much money i can make or when i can take vacation or when i can man i'd much rather put into work and live this experience dude that's so well said there i heard oh god i forget who it was i was watching i think it was a reacts video and they were talking about people getting the checks from the government over you know the course of covid and respect like you needed it for sure for sure but they were exactly yeah yeah they were talking about people though that were acting like they pulled a fast one on the government and he was like basically saying exactly what you just said like yo you're standing in line for a handout and me i'm over here i didn't get a check but like i control my destiny i control where i go and going back to kobe like when i see somebody playing at that level i'm just like oh man he's he's got natural gifts right height speed agility all of that stuff and for anybody tempted to make that excuse for somebody like kobe let me say he won an academy award yeah he won an academy award e.t so he he plays basketball at the highest level and tells you this is about outworking everybody else this is about getting so good that they can't stop you that no matter how much people hate you no matter how much they boot for you you can be so good that they can't stop you and the man won an academy award i was like this is insane you want to talk about something that inspires me i there there are two people that were celebrities that passed away that i can't let go of it for some reason i never met either of them brandon lee's uh sorry bruce lee's son brandon lee when he died i don't know that messed me up it was just too weird and then when kobe died i was like never met him ever but i'm still messed up about it i don't like living in a world that where he's not in it because when when he was in basketball and i was super inspired by his attitude but i'm not a sports fan in any big way so he was on my radar just because his work ethic is so insane but when he got out and won an academy award i'm like because entertainment that's my business so i'm like i want to compete against him i want to go against the best of the best and honestly not because i think i'm as good as him but because i want to be that absolutely i want that you know when you you look at the rabbit that the dogs chase and dog racing like i want that person that's outpacing me that's just killing me with how good they are like i'm so inspired by that and that's what like when i was watching your talks not only do i get inspired but when i think about what you're the way that you engage the audience and i'm like he's trying to break them out of excuses he's trying to get them to dream he's trying to get them to visualize and i'm like wow that's so powerful because it will change their life absolutely absolutely yeah absolutely you know and what when you talked about kobe what i thought about was it doesn't have to be a hundred years but look at what he did in such a short period of time so it's almost like guys we not only do we not have an excuse youth if you make it to 100 you lose two things perhaps your independence and definitely your youth right so people who are 100 they might still be alive but they may not have all of their independence you might not be able to get in the car and just take off whenever you want to take off like there might be some other things that mentally or your health that's not a hundred percent and your youth is definitely gone and i look at coleman was like yo not you didn't necessarily live to be a hundred but the time you had on earth you put in work and then you went and dominated one area and then you started coming over and said now i'm coming into some other areas that are not my areas per se but i'm gonna bring my greatness over here and i'm gonna kill it and that's all i'm saying to people greatness is in you activated but what you're activating is the norm this isn't right that isn't right somebody said to me you know how much the gas is and someone be honest with you i didn't i never went i've never gone to the pump as e.t he was eating this version of e.t i've never gone to the pump and looked at how much it cost and i've never not filled up the gas tank as this version of e.t now maybe when i was younger and my 20s still making crazy decisions and not as mature as i am now maybe i was like give me 10 on 5. you know but but but at this version i'm just like it doesn't matter how much it is i'm gonna fill it up it doesn't it doesn't matter how much the uh emirates first class costs to go to dubai it doesn't matter i don't want to sit in a world with three people because i don't want a stranger in my conversation with my wife like i just wanted to be me my child would pay whatever they want me to pay so it's just the two of us in this capsule and we could bring that joker down and for the 14 hours me and you could get it in without my man in the middle saying oh what part of san diego do you live in i'm like i wasn't even talking to you like how are you in my conversation so i will pay for whatever to get off the plane and be ready to speak like as soon as the camera like when i land they got the cameras on me so i want to sit in the seat where i would be comfortable and i can get off e.t where i don't need two or three hours of preparation because i took a shower on my way there you know i'm saying i they gave me 30 minutes for the shot and i took like i give it to me an hour before we land i want the best foods like i will i will do whatever it takes to to have that reality than to be the average dude that everybody's telling me what to do you can't go see your daughter get her award because you need to be at work nobody i'm an academic advisor students don't even come to get academic counsel at 9 15 a.m they're not even up but because you control me you can tell me no i can't go see my child and i mean no i'll do whatever it takes to be there for my baby girl i'll be there to watch my son play football or to watch my son walk across michigan state's uh the bread i want to see it i don't want the boss to tell me you got to take time off to go watch him when my daughter got her master's degree everybody was like you stood the whole time you never sat down because she graduated with her four-year degree doing covet and she didn't get to march so now i'm like girl you you girl you did it you went and did two more years just to get that like they were about to mess up our record of me walking across the breast my son walking across we could say my daughter graduated but we couldn't say she marched across she marched and i'm gonna stand here the whole time and watch her and look in her face and i hear anything that the speakers are saying or miss all the other kids that are coming because i want my baby girl to know if you can't count on nothing else you can count on your daddy being present i'm not the greatest father i probably won't win father of the year i probably won't get that i'm a little too aggressive for that you feel me but you will never be able to say your daddy wasn't present and it doesn't matter how or why you get up at three o'clock why don't you why don't you get up when you need to get up and do what you need to do so you're telling me i live in the country that if i get up at 3 o'clock in the morning i'll be rewarded for it that i can control my own life if i get up at 3 o'clock in the morning i can take a nap whenever i need taking that i'll stay up as long as it takes to be there for my wife when she was diagnosed with ms i'll go to every doctor's appointment with you i will we'll go out to eat afterwards we'll do ice cream we'll make these hospital visits a date this will be a date day i'll do whatever it takes to make that happen get up early get a phd write a book put a bunch of free videos up online learn a second language i'll do whatever it takes to keep this freedom i'll do whatever it takes damn all right i'm about to give you guys my favorite et quote of all time but first where can people follow you etnspires.com there it is yeah all right boys and girls definitely follow him and this quote i think sums up everything that we've been talking about today and certainly should tell you why you should be following him and the quote is if there's another mountain to climb climate that hit me like a lightning bolt i hope it hits you guys speaking of things that will hit you if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care peace because 31 is young um but i i my life is a lot just slower now because i've been able to look back while creating this book and realize that basically the goals i had as a young man and a musician and a creative person were

Channel: Tom Bilyeu

Views: 354,936

Keywords: TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, talk show, interview, motivational speech, Eric Thomas, hip hop preacher, et inspires, tombilyeu, Conversations with Tom, Health Theory, mindset, success, how to be successful, entrepreneurship, entrepreneur, motivational video, secrets to success, you owe you, best of eric thomas, ET, eric thomas how bad do you want it, eric thomas focus, be accountable, find purpose, take the opportunity

Id: w1vC80R4MuY

Length: 64min 36sec (3876 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 01 2022