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Today I want to talk with you
about a subject

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that many people have been talking
about for a very long time.

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And that subject is called "success."

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Success means different things
to different people,

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but what is success might mean to me
is different than what it may mean to you.

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And what it may mean to you,

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is different than what it means
to a kindergartner

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who is just trying to get a star
on his homework assignment.

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Or perhaps to a housewife,

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who has been trying
to get her five kids in bed be 9pm.

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Or maybe even a corporate executive

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who's been working for his
or her corporation for 20-plus years,

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and only wants to become
the CEO of their organization.

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As you could tell,

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we have so many different definitions
of this word success,

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but the greatest definition
I can give you today is this,

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"Success is all about self-expression."

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It's about being who you want to be,

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doing what you want to do,

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going where you want to go.

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Because when it comes to your life,

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you are the boss, and you have a choice.

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In fact, you are who you are today

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because of all the choices
that you've made in your entire life.

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But as we are growing up
we have a lot of people

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who try to tell us
how to make these choices;

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our parents, our teachers, our bosses,
our friends, even our neighbors.

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They try to tell us how to live our lives,

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what we should do, where we should go,

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how we should walk, how we should talk.

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But my question for you is this,

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"If you're trying to be
what other people want you to be,

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then who will be you?"

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So the key to success is to stop
conforming to other people expectations,

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and start performing
to your own level of expectations.

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Is to believe in yourself.

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Is to know that what you want
will eventually come to fruition,

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as long as you believe it.

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You see, you have to have faith,

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and faith is knowing that what you want
will eventually come to fruition

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as long as you believe it.

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And if you feed your faith,

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you will find often times
that your fears will starve to death,

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because if you believe in yourself,

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everyone else in the world
will believe in you.

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Fortunately, for a long time,
I didn't quite believe in myself.

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Actually, I used to be the kind of person

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that mothers would often
warn their daughters about,

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and fathers would tell their sons,

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"If you keep doing
what Daniel Ally is doing,

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you are going to end up
where Daniel Ally is going."

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They had some credence
to what they were saying,

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because as you can imagine,

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your reputation really is
your best advertisement.

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I really didn't have a good reputation,

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because I was living
so far below my potential,

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I was actually living
in my mother's basement.

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By the age of 21,
I'd worked over 40 different jobs.

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I got fired from more jobs
than more people had.

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In high school,
I graduated second to last,

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the last guy; well, he was in jail.

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I was on drugs for eight years,
and I was confused.

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I was broke, busted, and disgusted,

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and I knew that I wanted to change;

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the only problem was I didn't know how.

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Can I see a show of hands
if you've ever been in a situation

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where you wanted to change,
but you just didn't know what to do?

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Well, we all have been there,

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maybe we are there right now.

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I discovered there are only three ways
that I can make a change in my life.

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Three ideas I wanted
to share with you today

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that can absolutely revolutionize
your life from today.

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I know these steps work
because I've been able to do them myself.

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By the age of 24,
I became a self-made millionaire.

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I have been able to write three books
and travel to dozens of countries.

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I now reach millions
of people with my work.

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I believe that these three key principles
can change your life,

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no matter how do you define success

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whether you want to live to age 100
or even have a dozen kids,

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or just have a house on the mountaintop
somewhere no one knows about.

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These three key principles will help you
to realize the success in your life.

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The first one is to read more books.

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All the books in the world can help us
to solve all the problems in the world.

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But the truth is that we don't have
to read all the books in the world,

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because we don't have
all the problems in the world,

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but we do have to read the books
that help us to solve our problems.

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So, for instance, if you wanted
to learn about money,

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you better be reading books
that talk about money.

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Or if you wanted to learn
how to manage your relationships,

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or to become a better communicator,
there are a lot of books on that.

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What I am saying basically,

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is there are libraries that are paved
with gold, and library cards are free.

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Books are the tools
that release the heavens of your mind.

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And leaders are readers.

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If you want to succeed,
you have to read.

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Most people in the world
read about one book every single year,

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that book, I would suppose,
would be Facebook.

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And before people even get up
and do their things,

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before they drink their coffee
or read their paper, they read Facebook.

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But the truth is that if you study
miscellaneous things,

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you get miscellaneous results;

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you become what you study.

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What do you study,
and where is it taking you?

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A lot of people come up to me,
and they say,

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"Daniel, I don't really have time to read.
I have kids, I have work, I am student.

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I already have so many textbooks,
I am doing so many things, I am too busy."

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But if you don't have 10 minutes a day,

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you're basically saying
you don't have a life.

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We all have time to read,

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we all have time to pick up a good book

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and read for ourselves
so that we can learn.

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Look! If you read 10 minutes a day,
for 30 straight days,

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that is one book a month.

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One book a month, in 12 months,
is 12 books a year.

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You can do in one year
what most people do in five years.

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Talk about not having time.

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We all have time to read.

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Remember, readers are leaders,

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and the only way
you can succeed is if you read.

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My second suggestion

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is about getting around
the best individuals you can.

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We're the sum total of five people

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in which we surround ourselves
with the most.

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We earn the same income,
we go to the same places,

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we do the same things,
we think the same thoughts.

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And if you were to look
at your five closest friends,

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you've got to ask yourself
this one question,

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"Who are my leaders,
and where are they taking me?"

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In other words,

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"Are my leaders taking me
to the place I'd most likely want to be?"

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If the answer is no,
then you need new leaders.

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You need people who are inspiring,
people that can help you,

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lift you up to the goals that transcend
your own possibility and your thinking.

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You have to realize your goals,

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and you can only do that
by getting around the right people.

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Many of us have what I like
to call "defult friends".

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Default friends are basically people
that we see around the neighborhood,

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people at the grocery store, the gym,
the mall, at church, at work,

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everywhere we go.

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These are people
that we naturally befriend

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as we start to gain
their trust and acceptance.

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And what tends to happen is,
if you are a highly ambitious person,

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and you have really high goals,

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a lot of these people
can help you reach your goals.

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So you have to look outside,
you have to search for people.

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I'll give you an example,

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I had a friend, his name was John,
and he was actually a plumber,

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and his father and him
had a pretty successful business,

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at least it seemed like it.

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So I asked John,

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"I want to start a business,
what exactly do you think I should do?"

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John pulled me to the corner and said,

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"Daniel, I don't think
you want to start a business,

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98% of businesses fail
within the first three years."

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Then he proceeded to tell me about
all the reasons why I couldn't do it,

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and why it won't work.

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He told me how was so hard
working over 100 hours a week,

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how hard it was to manage payroll,

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and why the recession was holding him back
from getting more clients.

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As he told me this, I became
a little discouraged, a little dejected,

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and I went home, and I thought about it.

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When I get to my journal,
I usually reflect,

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and I wrote down in my journal,
"The 98% of statistics are made up."

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Including that one.

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You have to realize that no one's opinion
of you can become your reality.

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And in order to change your reality,
you've to change your mentality

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and the people you surround yourself with.

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You have to get yourself
around people who can help you,

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people that are smarter than you,
people who have gone further than you;

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people who know what you need to do
to get to that next level.

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The truth is that the people
that you are looking for

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are also looking for you,
but you have to find them.

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Sometimes, we surround ourselves
with strangers and family members

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who tell us what we can't do,
they limit us.

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A lot of people have the right intentions,

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but often times,
they provide the wrong directions.

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In other words, they want to help us,
but they just don't know how.

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So get around people who can.

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A lot of people ask me,
"Daniel, how do you find these people?"

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It is easy.

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If you flow step one,
which is to read more books,

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you'll find that in the back of the book
there is the "About the Author" section.

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What I used to do
is I used to reach out to the authors.

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Thankfully, we live in a new millennium

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which allows us to get on
their social media, their websites,

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and so we can have
a conversation with them.

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We can change by actually understanding
what it is that they teach.

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And if we ask enough questions,
we can make great progress in our life.

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Remember that people you're looking for
are also looking for you,

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so get yourself around those people.

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My last and final suggestion
is to set higher goals,

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because goals make you stretch,

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they help you to become
more of who you are.

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And in this enormity of conformity,

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so many people don't know
how to set goals,

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they get confused about the process.

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A lot of people use
New Year's resolutions,

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but the problem
with New Year's resolutions

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is that the person often
tries to do too much, too fast.

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Let's say Doug wants to stop smoking.

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On December 31st, he says, "I'm done."

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January 1st, "I'm clean, never again."

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He hasn't created a plan of action
to achieve his goals,

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and therefore, it isn't reasonable.

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Bucket list is something else
that people do,

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and usually, when someone
creates a bucket list,

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they're giving themselves too much time.

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There is no urgency, and most of the time,
they don't write their goals down.

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So, "What do you suggest?"

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Well, I am glad you asked.

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What I do suggest for you
is to write your goals down.

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I believe that a dull pencil
is better than a sharp mind,

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and to impress your subconscious mind,
you have to write your goals down,

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so that you can hold this steadfastly
to who you are.

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I have this method
I teach all around the world,

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that's called, "The 20 Idea Method".

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Basically, what you do,

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is you select one overarching goal
that you would like to accomplish,

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analyze 20 ideas
correspond with that particular goal.

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Let's say, for instance,
you wanted to be a better public speaker.

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What are some things you can do?

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Well, you could watch TED talks,
like you are now,

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you could practice your speech,
look in the mirror to challenge yourself,

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you could read the dictionary every day.

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There are so many things you can do,
but could I come up with 20 ideas?

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The answer is, "Yes,
I can come up with a 100 if wanted to."

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Imagine if you did this
in every area in your life:

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financially, for promotions,
for your family,

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and you wrote your goals on every day.

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You would be able to accomplish
so many things in your life.

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We have everything we need
in order to succeed,

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but we have to take the things we have
to get more of the things that we want;

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from the cars that we drive,
to the clothes that we wear,

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to the food that we eat,
and the people that we meet.

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In this depository of diversity, we have
everything we need in order to succeed,

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But we have to believe.

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When you believe in yourself,

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you will find that everyone in the world
will believe in you.

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And you also have to think big.

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When you think big,
you will do big, and you will win big.

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Well, B-I-G is actually is the 3 ideas
that I want to share with you today:

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B -- the books that you read,

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I -- the individuals that you meet,

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and G -- the goals
that you set for yourself.

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Books, individuals, and goals:
that's all you need to accomplish success,

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because when you think big,
you will do big,

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and you will win big, my friends.

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Thank you.

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(Applause).