WEBVTT
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[music fades in near beginning and
continues loudly throughout]
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So if you wanna make six figures,
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you can't just be talkin' about
you wanna make six figures.
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You hear what I'm sayin' here tonight?
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If you do the three things I tell you
to do tonight,
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I guarantee you, whatever it is you wanna
do in life, you'll be able to do.
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You will be able to accomplish whatever
you want to academically, financially,
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relationally, whatever. So three things.
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All right, I'm gonna tell you this story
and I gotta get outta here.
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And the story is about, you guys have
probably heard about this before,
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it was a young man who, y'know,
he wanted to make a lot of money,
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and so he went to this guru, right?
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He told the guru, "I wanna be on
the same level you are."
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So the guru said, "If you wanna be on
the same level I'm on,
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"I'll meet you tomorrow at the beach
at 4 a.m."
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He's like, "The beach? I said I wanna
make money, I don't wanna swim."
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Guru said, "If you wanna make money,
I'll meet you tomorrow. 4 a.m."
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So the young man got there at 4 a.m.,
he all ready to rock and roll,
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he got on a suit, shoulda worn shorts.
The old man grabs his hand and said,
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"How bad do you wanna be successful?"
He said, "Real bad."
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He said, "Walk on out in the water."
So he walks out into the water. Watch this.
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When he walks out into the water,
he goes waist-deep.
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So he like, "This guy crazy. I wanna
make money, he got me out here swimming.
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"I didn't ask to be a life guard.
I wanna make money."
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So he said, "Come out a little further."
Walked out a little further,
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and he had it right around this area.
The shoulder area.
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Said, "This old man crazy.
He makin' money, but he crazy."
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Said, "Come on out a little further."
He came out a little further,
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It was right at his mouth.
My man like,
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"I'm 'bout to go back in here.
This guy's outta his mind."
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So the old man said, "I thought you said
you wanted to be successful!"
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He said, "I do."
He said, "Walk a little further."
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He came, dropped his head in,
held him down, holding him down,
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my man scratching, holdin' him down.
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[Says something to man in class he's
actually holding down -- I got you.]
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He had him held down -- I need you
for illustration -- he had him held down.
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Just before my man was about to pass out,
he raised him up.
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He said, "I got a question for you."
Somebody answer the question for me.
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He said, "When you were underwater,
what did you wanna do?"
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"Leave?" I'm lookin' for a different word,
brother. What's that word?
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He said, "I wanted to breathe."
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He told the guy, he said, "When you want
to succeed as bad as you want to breathe,
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"then you'll be successful."
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I don't know how many of you all
got asthma here today,
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but if you ever had a asthma attack before,
you short of breath.
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SOB. Shortness of Breath.
You wheezin'.
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The only thing you trying to do
is get some air.
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You don't care about no basketball game,
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you don't care what's on TV, you don't
care about nobody calling you,
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you don't care about a party.
The only thing you care about
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when you trying to breathe
is to get some fresh air. That's it.
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And when you get to the point where
all you wanna do is be successful,
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as bad as you wanna breathe,
then you'll be successful.
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And I'm here to tell you, number one, that
most of you say you wanna be successful,
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but you don't want it bad.
You just kinda want it.
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You don't want it badder
than you wanna party.
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You don't want it as much as
you wanna be cool.
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Most of you don't want success
as much as you wanna sleep!
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Some of you love sleep
more than you love success.
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And I'm here to tell you today,
if you're going to be successful,
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you've gotta be willin' to give up sleep.
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You've gotta be willin' to work offa
three hours of sleep, two hours.
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If you really wanna be successful,
some day,
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you'll have to stay up three days in a row.
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Because if you go to sleep, you might
miss the opportunity to be successful.
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That's how bad you gotta want it.
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You gotta go days without -- listen to me.
You gotta wanna be successful so bad
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that you forget to eat.
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Beyonce said, once she was on the set,
doin' her thing, three days had gone by,
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she forgot she didn't eat.
'Cause she was engaged.
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I'll never forget, I went --
50 Cent was doin' his movie,
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I did a little research on 50 --
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and 50 said that when he wasn't doin'
the movie, he was doin' the soundtrack.
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And they said, "When do you sleep, 50?"
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He said, "Sleep is for those
people who are broke.
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"I don't sleep."
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He said, "I got a opportunity
to make a dream become a reality."
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Football players --
how many football players?
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Got anybody like football in here,
raise your hand, anybody like football?
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Emmitt Smith. I used to be a Cowboys fan.
Before they did my boy Tom Landry wrong,
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I used to be a Cowboys fan. And watch
this, there was a commercial.
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Emmitt Smith had won his first Super Bowl,
and he had this commercial,
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and he was liftin' weights.
I don't know if you saw the commercial.
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He was liftin', and he said, Emmitt said,
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"You know what? I won the Super Bowl,
so I can rest now."
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He had been doin' his bench pressing.
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So he said, "I won the Super Bowl,
so I can rest now."
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So he throws on about 325, boom!
And he rests for about two seconds,
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then he -- boom.
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Boom.
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Boom.
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D'you see that?
He'd already won a Super Bowl.
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He said, "I think I'm gonna take a rest,"
and he rests for how long? One second.
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Most of you won't be successful because when
you studying and you get tired, you quit.
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And I'm here to tell you today -- somebody
came to my office the other day crying.
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I said, "Look, don't cry to give up.
Cry to keep going."
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Don't cry to quit! You already in pain,
you already hurt. Get a reward from it!
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Don't go to sleep until you succeed.
Listen to me.
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I'm here to tell you today that you
can come here, you can jump up,
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you can do flips, you can be excited when
we give away money, but listen to me,
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you will never be successful until I don't
have to give you a dime to do what you do.
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You won't be successful until you say,
"I don't need that money,
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"'cause I got it in here."
So listen to me.
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Emmitt Smith said this,
at the end of the commercial:
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Emmitt Smith said, "All men are created
equal. Some work harder in pre-season."
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Ima say it again because
you mighta missed it:
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All men are created equal.
Some work harder in pre-season.
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So that means that there are some people
who are goin' to see the professor,
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goin' to see the TA,
and even when the professor says,
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"I don't meet with you,
my TA meet with you,"
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you say, "I don't wanna talk to your TA.
I don't pay the TA. I pay you to teach me.
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"So you gonna have to find some time to
meet me. If I gotta meet you at the mall,
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"if I gotta meet you at your house,
you are going to see me."
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Listen to me. All men are created equal,
some work harder in pre-season.
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When I went to college,
guys were way smarter than me.
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4.0, 3.0, they went to the Ivy League
high schools,
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came to Oakwood from great high schools.
Most of 'em are not doing what I'm doing.
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Why? 'Cause it's not about
where you come from.
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It's about heart.
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You come to a place where
being smart ain't enough.
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You gotta have heart. That's number one.
What's number two?
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Number two, I wrote it down.
I wanted to make sure you got it.
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It says, watch this, we're talkin'
about sacrifice now.
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The important thing is this.
You're writin' while I'm sayin' it,
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'cause I only have about three
more minutes. Listen to me.
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The most important thing is this:
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To be able, at any moment, to sacrifice
what you are for what you will become.
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That's the number two thing.
You gotta catch that one.
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To be able to -- listen to me.
At any moment, some of you --
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you can make sacrifices when
Monday Night Football is not on.
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You can make a sacrifice. But when
the game come on, for some reason,
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you just attached to it. For some of you,
when your favorite show come on,
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you can make sacrifices on Sunday
when ain't nothin' goin' on,
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but when your favorite show
comes on Monday, bam.
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Some of you,
you focus until the phone rings,
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and you like, "I gotta answer it. If I
don't answer the phone, I'm gonna die."
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I'm sayin' to you today
that there's some of you,
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if you give up your cellphone,
you will be successful.
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But your cellphone is more important
to you than your success.
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Ima say it again. Ima hurt somebody.
Ima hurt somebody.
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Some of you need to give up your cellphone
because the time you spend on your cellphone
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could be used for your success. The time
you could be using to be successful,
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you're using on the cell. The cellphone's
not bringin' you nothin' but a bill.
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And somebody has told you,
you couldn't live without it.
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I'm talkin' about goin' deep now.
Givin' up stuff. That's what it says.
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To be able, at any moment, to sacrifice
what we are for what we could be.
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I don't do well in math. You're right!
You ain't never studied!
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I'm not good at writing!
'Cause you have never written before.
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But I dare you to fail at writing
for a whole year,
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to see if you can get to the end.
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I dare you to fail. I dare you to take that
same class over and over again.
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I dare you to stop droppin' classes,
like you soft.
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Always want to give up. I'm dropping!
Why you droppin'?
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I'm so grateful that the slaves
didn't drop and quit,
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say, "I'm just gon' stop. I'm a slave,
I'm just gon' be a slave, Ima quit."
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Listen to me. The slaves said, "We will
live, because one day we will become.
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"We will always be slaves.
So today, although we're slaves,
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"we gon' act like we free,
and one day our children will be free."
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If the slaves woulda just said,
"We quit. We give up,"
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we woulda died in the middle passage.
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But some slaves said, "I don't care
what we go through, we gon' survive this."
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400 years of slavery.
We gon' get through this.
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And you can't get through a 1825.
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You can't get through a writing class,
and you got tutor after tutor,
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resource after resource. The problem is,
you ain't never felt no pain before.
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You're soft. This is a soft generation.
You quit on everything.
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Our people did not quit.
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Harriet Tubman not only made it,
she went back and got some more.
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She said, "You know what? I'm gon' walk all
-- listen to me, shh -- not ride the bus,
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I'm gon' walk all the way back down to
the South to get some more."
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And you quittin' on 1825?
00:10:15.704 --> 00:10:19.202
Now watch this. You quit after you
-- listen to me, you get a sleeping bag
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and you wait for him. You wait for the
first WIA instructor to come in,
00:10:24.395 --> 00:10:26.583
and you come outta your sleeping bag,
"I need help."
00:10:27.643 --> 00:10:29.698
You quit after you do that.
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You quit after you had, listen to me,
a WIA party.
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I'm havin' a party, everybody come over.
I got food. That's it.
00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:41.600
And let 'em get over there, let it be
all the best writers.
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All right, I fooled y'all.
I wanna have a writing party.
00:10:44.841 --> 00:10:46.511
[class laughs]
00:10:49.353 --> 00:10:50.901
I'm serious.
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You quittin' and you ain't even
tried yet. Last one, I'm sorry.
00:10:53.749 --> 00:10:58.295
Last one. Listen to me.
Pain is temporary.
00:10:58.295 --> 00:11:05.442
It may last for a minute, or an hour,
or a day, or even a year,
00:11:05.442 --> 00:11:09.979
but eventually it will subside,
00:11:09.979 --> 00:11:12.417
and something else will take its place.
00:11:12.417 --> 00:11:16.604
If I quit, however, it will last forever.
00:11:16.604 --> 00:11:18.181
Listen to me, I'm tellin' you as I leave.
00:11:18.181 --> 00:11:21.306
Tellin' you as I leave, I was homeless
for two and a half years,
00:11:21.306 --> 00:11:25.496
and the problem with most of you is you
never felt no pain before. Y'all spoiled.
00:11:25.496 --> 00:11:28.848
Y'all spoiled. Some of you all spoiled.
It's the bottom line.
00:11:28.848 --> 00:11:30.715
Your parents have done everything for you.
00:11:30.715 --> 00:11:33.731
You never had to do nothin' for yourself.
You spoiled. We gonna keep it real tonight.
00:11:33.731 --> 00:11:35.591
Some of you are spoiled brats.
00:11:35.591 --> 00:11:39.756
Every time you ever got in trouble,
somebody in your house got you out of it.
00:11:40.026 --> 00:11:43.258
Every time you done something
you not supposed to do --
00:11:43.258 --> 00:11:45.982
People say, "Eric, your mother's
a tyrant." You're right!
00:11:45.982 --> 00:11:49.610
She kicked me out. You're right.
She mean. But she developed a man,
00:11:49.610 --> 00:11:52.335
because she put me out there and said,
"You gonna have to grow up."
00:11:52.335 --> 00:11:54.721
And some of you have never
learned to grow up,
00:11:54.721 --> 00:11:58.181
and so every time somethin' get hard,
you quit. You call Momma.
00:11:58.181 --> 00:12:01.639
I dare you to take a little pain.
00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:03.254
I dare you.
00:12:03.254 --> 00:12:05.111
I dare you not to go home.
00:12:05.111 --> 00:12:07.159
Somebody said, "I gotta go home,
I feel bad."
00:12:07.159 --> 00:12:08.984
Go through it!
00:12:08.984 --> 00:12:13.250
You ain't gonna die.
At the end of pain is success.
00:12:13.250 --> 00:12:16.246
You're not gonna die
because you feelin' a little pain.
00:12:17.946 --> 00:12:19.951
I'm not eatin' like I eat at home.
00:12:19.951 --> 00:12:22.069
That's why you're about to go through
the next level,
00:12:22.069 --> 00:12:25.591
'cause if you keep eatin' like you ate at
home, you'll keep being a boy or girl.
00:12:25.591 --> 00:12:29.461
It's time to become man, woman.
00:12:30.010 --> 00:12:31.938
So don't worry about a little pain.
00:12:31.938 --> 00:12:34.042
My greatest asset is,
I was homeless,
00:12:34.042 --> 00:12:37.580
so I can't feel a whole lot of pain.
I've already been alone.
00:12:38.050 --> 00:12:43.774
There's not a whole lot of hurt I can feel
on a little paper, or a little test.
00:12:43.774 --> 00:12:46.966
So I leave you, listen to me,
we have gotten to a point
00:12:46.966 --> 00:12:49.077
where it's midterms,
and we movin' forward.
00:12:49.077 --> 00:12:51.961
The days of you gettin' money
-- I'm not sayin' we quittin',
00:12:51.961 --> 00:12:54.941
but I'm sayin' the day has gotta go
from external to internal.
00:12:54.941 --> 00:12:59.384
You have to give it everything you got.
No more TV. No more parties.
00:12:59.384 --> 00:13:03.049
No more playin'. If you don't have a 4.0,
what you need to be doin' is studying.
00:13:03.049 --> 00:13:09.514
Get off the phone! Sorry, I'm not
available until the end of this year.
00:13:09.514 --> 00:13:12.057
[class laughs]
No, I'm for real!
00:13:12.057 --> 00:13:15.166
You've reached the right number,
but you called me at the wrong time.
00:13:15.166 --> 00:13:18.314
Call me back January 1st.
00:13:18.314 --> 00:13:22.178
I'm about to get busy now.
00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:25.740
Huh? I want you to
have a countdown of your own,
00:13:25.740 --> 00:13:29.967
and say when the countdown is over --
Shh, watch me, 'cause when I was homeless
00:13:29.967 --> 00:13:32.605
I knew somethin' was wrong,
I knew that wasn't the best of me,
00:13:32.605 --> 00:13:36.681
and one day I said, "Will the real
Eric Thomas please stand up?"
00:13:36.681 --> 00:13:40.418
Will the real Eric Thomas please stand up?
00:13:40.418 --> 00:13:43.534
Stop bein' this high school dropout.
Stop givin' up.
00:13:43.534 --> 00:13:44.830
Stop sleepin' on the street.
00:13:44.830 --> 00:13:48.140
Stop walkin' up and down [?] Avenue
like you ain't got nothin',
00:13:48.140 --> 00:13:51.840
and get your GED.
Stop bein' afraid to take a test.
00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:54.883
Stop bein' afraid to go to college
'cause your Daddy didn't go,
00:13:54.883 --> 00:13:57.346
and your Momma didn't go.
Stop bein' afraid,
00:13:57.346 --> 00:13:59.530
and be the best Eric Thomas you can be.
00:13:59.530 --> 00:14:01.155
But listen to me, it's gon' be hard.
00:14:01.155 --> 00:14:04.701
It took me 12 years to get a 4-year degree,
but I got it, and guess what?
00:14:04.701 --> 00:14:07.205
On a degree, it don't have dates.
00:14:07.205 --> 00:14:10.506
So if it took you 4 and it took me
12, it don't show up nowhere.
00:14:11.396 --> 00:14:15.051
But I'm exactly where I wanted to be,
because I realized
00:14:15.051 --> 00:14:17.676
I gotta commit my very being to this day.
00:14:17.676 --> 00:14:21.072
I gotta breathe it, I gotta eat it,
I gotta sleep it.
00:14:21.072 --> 00:14:24.354
And until you get there, you will
never be successful in life.
00:14:24.354 --> 00:14:27.701
But once you get there, I guarantee you,
the world is yours.
00:14:27.701 --> 00:14:30.573
So work hard, and you can have
whatever it is you want.
00:14:30.573 --> 00:14:33.749
Thank you guys for your time.
[applause]