How Bad Do You Want It?
There was a young man who wanted to make a lot of money so he went to this guru, right. And he told the guru, “I want to be on the same level you’re on.” So the guru said, “If you want to be on the same level I’m on, I’ll meet you tomorrow at the beach at 4 am.” He was like, “The beach? I said I wanna make money, I don’t wanna swim.” The guru said, “If you wanna make money, I’ll meet you tomorrow, 4 am.”
So the young man got to the beach at 4 am, he all ready to rock and roll. He got on the suit, he should have wore shorts. The old man grabs his hand and says, “How bad do you want to be successful?” and he says, “Real bad.” He says, “Walk on out into the water.” So he walks out into the water, watch this, when he walks out into the water it goes waist deep. So he’s like, “This guy crazy.”
He’s like, “I just want to make money. You got me out here swimming. I didn’t ask to be a lifeguard. I wanna make money.” So he said, “Come out a little further.” Walked out a little further and he was at the shoulder area. So this old man crazy, he making money but he crazy. So he said, “Come on out a little further.” He came out a little further. He was right at his mouth. My man like, “I’m about to go back in. This guy out of his mind.” The old man said, “I thought you said you wanted to be successful.” He said, “I do.” He said, “Walk a little further.” He did. He came, dropped his head in, held him down, holdin’ him down, my man, he was scratching, he had him held him down. Just before my man was about to pass out, he raised him up. He said, “I got a question for you. When you were underwater, what did you want to do?” He said, “I wanted to breathe.” He told the guy, he said, “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.”
I don’t know how many of y’all have asthma in here today, but if you have ever had an asthma attack before, you short of breathe, you wheezing… The only thing you trying to do is get some air. You don’t care about no basketball game, you don’t care what’s on TV, you don’t care about nobody calling you, you don’t care about a party . The only thing you care about when you trying to breathe, is trying to get some fresh air. That’s it. And when you can get to the point where all you want to do is be successful, as bad as you wanna breathe, then you’ll be successful.
And I’m here to tell you, number one, that most of you say 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 to 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. Some of you love sleep more than you love success. And I’m here to tell you today if you’re going to be successful you’ve got to be willing to give up sleep. You’ve got to be willing to work off of 3 hours of sleep, 2 hours. If you really want to be successful, somedays you’re going to have to stay up 3 days in a row. Because if you go to sleep, you might miss the oppurtunity to be successful, that’s how bad you’ve got to want it. You’ve got to want to be successful so bad, that you forget to eat. Beyonce said once she was on set doing her thing, three days had gone by and she forgot to eat. Because she was engaged.
When 50 Cent was doing his movie, I did a little research on 50. And 50 said that when he wasn’t doing the movie, he was doing the soundtrack. And they said, “When do you sleep 50?” “Sleep?” He said, “Sleep, is for those people who are broke. I don’t sleep.” He said, “I got an opportunity to make a dream become a reality.”
Emmitt Smith. There was a commercial, Emmitt Smith had won his first Super Bowl, and he had this commercial where he was lifting weights. When he was lifting, he said, “You know what? I won the Super Bowl, so I can rest now.” He was doing his bench press. So he threw up about 325lbs. and rests for about 2 seconds. Then brings it back down and pushes it a few more times. Did you see that? He had already won a Super Bowl and he said I think I’m going to take a rest, and he rests for how long? A couple of seconds.
Most of you won’t be successful because when you studying and you get tired, you quit. Somebody came out of my office the other day crying. I said, “Hey look, don’t cry to give up, cry to keep going.” Don’t cry to quit. You already in pain, you already hurt, get a reward from it. Don’t go to sleep until you succeed.
Listen to me, I’m here to tell you today, you can come here, you can jump up, you can do flips, you can be excited when we give away money. But listen to me, you will never be successful until I don’t have to give you a dime to do what you do. You won’t be successful until you say I don’t need that money, because I got it in here.
-Eric Thomas
