BE DIFFERENT - Start Your Day with Positive Motivation
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It doesn't matter to me any longer how long I live. What matters to me most is how I live. Every day ask yourself that question, how you living? That you would not judge. That you would show up early. That you'd be kind. That if you're going to do something, you do it the right way. That it's never wrong to do the right thing. That how you do anything is how you do everything. And in that way, you will grow your influence to make an impact.

In that way you will honor all those who have gone before you, who have invested in you. Look in those unlikeliest places for wisdom. Enhance your life every day by seeking that wisdom and asking yourself every night, "How am I living?" As Frederick Nietzsche said, "Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal." And that's one of the things that really trips people up.

the way of getting there with the destination itself. And I think that people a lot of times throw hate on having a destination, on building towards some big goal, of having some grand thing that they're chasing. But as Einstein said, if you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people, not to things. True desire in the heart, whatever it is you want to do, work hard to get it.

Don't just aspire to make a living. Aspire to make a difference. That was my mindset. And that's how you get through things. You put yourself, you immerse yourself wherever it is, and you become that. You become that and give yourself no way out. The scariest thing in the world to me, even to this day, was that that could have been the rest of my life. I thought then I was trying hard. That's the scariest thing in the world.

to absorb, let life touch you. Don't let it kill you, but let it touch you. The experiences you have, the good ones and the bad ones, the highs and the lows, part of the gift you can give to others is the gift of your experience. If you remember, if it's vivid, if it's powerful, if it's fresh, if it's unique, if it's vital, you can really affect other people with the relation of your own, relating your own experiences just because you weren't too lazy to live the experience and then reflect on it. Live another week and reflect on it.

Take a half a day at the end of the month, reflecting over the month. What were the numbers? Some weren't good, some were good. The books you read, the books you heard about, relating your experiences at the end of the month. At the end of the year, take a weekend. Take some time, reflecting.

How many times have you had a great idea, didn't do anything about it, and then a year later someone did something about it, made a lot of money, got the promotion, etc. So when you have the idea, the inspiration to act, it's time. Act. And you don't have to know it perfectly. You know, you can drive from here to California, wherever you might be, assuming you're not in Hawaii, by going west. And what happens is that you don't have to see the whole route. You only need to see 200 yards ahead of you.

At night, you can drive just with your headlights, and the headlights keep moving with you. And your goal in life is to, like, get in the game. You don't have to see the whole blueprint. You just have to see the next steps, the next steps, the next steps. And if you keep taking the next steps, eventually you get to where you want to go. Does that make sense? Now, the last thing is called law of attraction. We believe that when you are...

vibrating at the level of a hundred percent expectancy that you're gonna get something it's already a done deal you know piece of cake no no big deal we're gonna win this thing we're gonna get that contract you know I'm gonna make this thing happen and what happens is the universe literally respond sometimes when you're doing this you're putting on it the vision of this should happen by this date

It's okay to set goals like that, but sometimes it takes a week longer, a year longer, whatever. But law of attraction says if you'll just hold the expectancy, like attracts like. If you say, I want to be a millionaire, but I don't know anyone that would ever teach me how to do that. Or I want to buy a car, but I don't have any money. Then what you're doing is saying, it's like calling up Domino's Pizza and saying, send me a pizza. And calling them up a minute later and saying, never mind.

It's like, you know, you've got to create the space mentally to hold this vision that you've got. And that requires expectation and then knowing that the perfect thing is on its way. In the success principles, I write about a woman named Catherine Lonergan. Catherine Lonergan went off to college. She wanted to be a writer and she took her first writing class and she got an F. And she went to see the teacher and said, why did I get an F? She says, because you can't write.

She says, well, I'm on a scholarship, you know, here to be a writer. I came to be in the creative writing program. I was the editor of my yearbook, editor of my school newspaper. I wrote a play that was performed in high school. They told me I was gifted. I said, well, you're not. They said, you know, if you stay in my class, you're going to flunk it. If you flunk my class, you'll lose your scholarship. And she said, well, what do I do? He said, I'll make a deal with you. If you promise never to write again, just, you know, history papers and stuff, but you're not going to try to be a writer, I'll give you a passing grade. You'll keep your scholarship, change your major. So she did. I called it, She Made the Deal with the Devil.

15 years later, she's down in Texas. They're making a movie at the next town over and down where she lived in Texas. You know, people would show up at the gas station after it rained just to see the oil slick. It was kind of boring there. So she said, wow, they're making a movie. Let's go. So everyone drives over and everyone's talking to the movie stars. She's talking to the writers saying, you know, what's going on? What's happening? And why are you interested in us? Why not the movie stars? Well, I always wanted to be a writer. The guy said, BS, if you want to be a writer, you would have written.

She said, I was told on good authority I couldn't write. It was a Harvard professor visiting our campus that year. He said, that's BS. He said, what I want you to do is go write something, send it to me. I'll tell you if you can write. I do it for a living. I know. So she goes and writes a book, sends it in to him. He sends it to an agent in New York and they publish it. Her next book was called Romancing the Stone.

The book after that, Jewel of the Now. Both made into movies with Michael Douglas and Catherine Turner. So what's the deal here? 14, 15 years of her talent wasted because she bought someone else's evaluation of her. My friend Terry Cole Whitaker says, she wrote a book called What You Think of Me is None of My Business. You know? Do not let other people's evaluations of you control you. Okay? It's just an E. Your response is thank you very much. You keep pursuing your passionate dream. Okay?

Sacrifice. You get to pick your damn sacrifice. That's all. You don't get to not make one. You're sacrificial whether you want to be or not. This is the Peter Pan story, roughly speaking. Peter Pan is this magical boy. Pan means... Pan is the god of everything, roughly speaking, right? And so it's not an accident that he has the name Pan. And he's the boy that won't grow up. And he's magical. Well, that's because children are magical. They can be anything. They're nothing but potential.

And Peter Pan doesn't want to give that up. Why? Well, he's got some adults around him, but the main adult is Captain Hook. Well, who the hell wants to grow up to be Captain Hook? First of all, you've got a hook. Second, you're a tyrant. And third, you're chased by the dragon of chaos with a clock in its stomach, right? The crocodile. It's already got a piece of you.

Well, that's what happens when you get older. Time has already got a piece of you and eventually it's got a taste for you and eventually it's going to eat you. And so Hook is so traumatized by that that he can't help but be a tyrant. And then Peter Pan looks at traumatized Hook and says, well, no, I'm not sacrificing my childhood for that. So that's fine. Except he ends up king of the Lost Boys in Neverland. Well, Neverland doesn't exist. And who the hell wants to be king of the Lost Boys?

And he also sacrifices the possibility to have a real relationship with a woman, because that's Wendy, right? And she's kind of conservative, middle class, London dwelling girl. She wants to grow up and have kids and have a life. She accepts her mortality, she accepts her maturity. Peter Pan has to content himself with Tinkerbell. She doesn't even exist. She's like the fairy of porn. She doesn't exist. She's the substitute for the real thing.

And so, but the dichotomy that you're talking about is very tricky because there's a sacrificial element in maturation, right? You have to sacrifice the pluripotentiality of childhood for the actuality of a frame. And the question is, well, why would you do that? Well, one reason is it happens to you whether you do it or not. You can either choose your damn limitation or you can let it take you unaware when you're 30.

or even worse when you're 40 and then that is not a happy day.

I see people like this and I think it's more and more common in our culture because people can put off maturity without suffering an immediate penalty. But all that happens is the penalty accrues. And then when it finally hits, it just wallops you because when you're 25, you could be an idiot. It's no problem. Even when you're out in a job search, it's like, well, you don't have any experience and you're kind of clueless. It's yeah, yeah, you're young. You know, it's no problem. That's what young people are like, but they're full of potential. Okay, well, now you're the same person at 30.

It's like people aren't so thrilled about you at that point. It's like, what the hell have you been doing for the last 10 years? Well, I'm just as clueless as I was when I was 22. Yeah, but you're not 22. You're an old infant, right? And that's an ugly thing, an old infant. So part of the reason you choose your damn sacrifice, because the sacrifice is inevitable, but at least you get to choose it. And then there's something that's even more complex than that, in some sense, is that

The problem with being a child is that all you are is potential and it's really low resolution. You could be anything, but you're not anything. So then you go and you adopt an apprenticeship, roughly speaking, and then you become at least you become something. And when you're something that makes the world open up to you again. You know, like if you're a really good plumber,

then you end up being far more than a plumber, right? You end up being a good employer. Not that plumbers... I'm not putting plumbers down. It's like more power to plumbers. They've saved more lives than doctors. So hygiene, right? So, you know, if you're a really good plumber, well, then you have some employees, you run a business, you train some other people, you enlarge their lives, you're kind of a pillar of the community, you have your family. Once you pass through that narrow...

training period which narrows you and constricts you and develops you at the same time then you can come out the other end with a bunch of new possibility at hand. And Jung talked about that. He thought that the proper part of the proper path of development in the last half of life was to rediscover the child that you left behind as you were apprenticing.

And so then you get to be something and regain that potential at the same time. Very, very smart. Well, he was very, very smart. So that's very wise. Very wise thing to know. Sacrifice. You get to pick your damn sacrifice. That's all. You don't get to not make one. You're sacrificial whether you want to be or not. That's a good thing to know as well.

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