How to be Successful

If you do these things I tell you to do tonight, I guarantee you, whatever it is you wanna do in life, You'll be able to do.

You will be able to accomplish whatever you want to academically, financially or in any other aspect.

Alright, I'm gonna tell you a story, and the story is about a young man who wanted to make a lot of money and wanted to become successful, so he went to a Guru.

He told the guru "I wanna be on the same level you're on"

And so the guru replied "If you wanna be on the same level I'm on, I'll meet you tomorrow, at the beach, at 4 am."

So the young man got there at 4 am next morning.

The old man grabbed his hand and said "How bad do you want to be successful ?"

He said "Real bad"

Guru said "Walk on out in the water."
So he walked into the water

when he walked out into the water, it went waist deep.

Guru said "Come on,a little further"

He Walked out a little further and water reached his neck.

He said come on out a little further.

He came out a little further and water was right at his mouth

He turned around and got out of water thinking the old man was crazy.

Old man said, "I thought you wanted to be successful ?"

He said "I do",
He said, "Then walk a little further and trust me"

He came into water again.

Guru grabbed his head and held him down in the water.

Just before he was about to pass out, Guru raised him up.

He said "I have a question for you!" "When you were underwater, what did you wanna do ?"

He said "I wanted to breath."

Guru replied "When you want to succeed as bad as you wanna breath, then you'll be successful."

I don't know how many of you got asthma, but if you ever had an asthma attack before, you run short of breath. SOB, shortness of breath, you start wheezing!

The only thing you try to do, is get some air.

You don't care about any football game.
You don't care what's on TV.
You don't care about anyone calling you.
You don't care about a party.

The only thing you care about when you're trying to breathe is to get some fresh air. That's it!

And when you get to the point where all you wanna do is be successful, as bad as you wanna breath, then you'll be successful.

You want to be successful but you
don't want it bad.

You just kind of want it.

You don't want it badder than you want a party.
You don't want it as much as you want to be cool.

Most of you don't want success as
much as you want to sleep.

You got to be willing to work off for three hours of sleep.
If you really want to be successful some days you will have to stay up three days in a row because if you go to sleep you might miss the opportunity to be successful, that's how bad you've got to want it.

People start crying after a failure and they give up.

Don't cry to give up, cry to keep going. Don't cry to quit.

You're already in pain.
You're already hurt, get a reward
from it.
Don't go to sleep until you succeed.

The most important thing is to be able at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you will become.

Some of you focus until the phone rings
and then you're like "I gotta answer it."
"If I don't answer the phone, I'm gonna die!"

I'm saying to you today that there are some of you, If you give up your cell phone, you'll be successful.

But your cell phone is more important to you than your success.

Because the time you spend on your cellphone could be used for your success.

The time you could be using to be successful, you're using on the cell.
And the cellphone is not bringing you anything but a bill!

Students say "I don't do well in Maths!"

You're right because you ain't never studied it.

"I'm not good at writing!"
Because you've never written before.

The problem is you've never felt pain before.
You're soft.
This is a soft generation.
You quit on everything. Our people did not quit.

You quit before you even try anything.
Pain is temporary.

It may last for a minute or an hour or a day or even a year but eventually it will subside.

And something else will take its place.

If you quit however, it will last forever.

You're spoiled.

Some of you're spoiled bottom line.

Your parents have done everything for you.

You've never had to do anything by yourself. You're spoiled.

Every time you ever got in trouble, someone from your house got you out.

And some of you have never learned to grow up.

And every time something gets hard, you quit.

You call your mama.

I dare you to take a little pain.

I dare you.

I dare you not to go home.

Some might say "I've gotta go home, I feel bad"

Go through it. Feel the pain.

You won't die because of it.

At the end of pain there is success.

Once you get there I guarantee you, the world is yours.

-Eric Thomas