How Tough Times Will Make you More Successful

People who don't pay, don't pay attention. People who don't work hard for something they want don't get the results. Welcome to this episode of Lessons for My Kids. You're basically seeing behind the curtain of something I've been planning for over 10 years. Hundreds of lessons I've learned through my life of miserable failures and accomplishments that I'm only blessed to have to been able to achieve. And I thought for years, how can I package that up? How can I share it with my kids? Should I document it? Will they read books? But the world is changing so fast. I said I wanted to create these lessons and make them bite sized, 10 minutes each lesson that they could utilize as a library anytime they needed them, from their teenage, teenage years to 20s, 30s, 50s, 70s. And when I decided to do this, my team thought it was selfish if I kept it just for them. So you're getting a peek behind the curtain. You're getting to see the lessons that I'm teaching my children, my blood. If you're a parent at this time in your life, you know what it is. They're my world. They're my everything. At the end of my life, if I die and I didn't give them the tools to just be fulfilled, to reach their full potential, then I failed miserably. So you're here today for another lesson. And maybe it's a lesson you want to share with your children, your friends, your family, and you know you can do that. Today I want to talk about the easy button. You know, we're in a world where we want everything overnight, instant gratification. And I don't want to condemn today's world like it's so horrific in the past was great. We live in an amazing time. We live in an abundant time. We live in a time where technology is making things faster and easier, but it's also making it faster and easier. We get to see people that are wealthy and we think it happened overnight. We get to see people who are in love and we think that relationship happened easily. We see people in great shape and we want to be in shape overnight. And when it doesn't happen, we get frustrated because we want the easy button. And here's the thing I want to tell you guys, nothing in my life that was ever valuable, ever worth anything was easy. Being your dad, being a father and trying to be engaged and teach lessons and be your friend while simultaneously being a parent, not just a friend, while having boundaries and creating values in you guys and showing you a self education path, not Just the traditional education and coaching Little League and coaching softball and Sunday dinners and making you breakfast and picking you up from school. None of that was easy. But it was worth all of it. Because I know a lot of people that took the easy path with their kids. And when they were teenagers, they wanted to be close. They wanted to be connected. And it was too late. They missed their window. In my businesses, it's been tough. A lot of times when I tuck you guys into bed or tucked you into bed when you were young, when you went to bed, I stayed up till three in the morning and worked. Because all the time I missed while I was playing baseball, hanging out with you guys. It wasn't easy, but it was worth it. I don't know anything in life that's come to me that's been magnificent and sustainable. That was easy. I'm going to tell you guys a joke that I told my kids. I told you guys when you were little. This man is an obsessive gambler. Maybe even a little on the border of addicted as a gambler. And he's going to the slot machines, and he wins sometimes, and he loses. And he's up and he's down and he's miserable and he's happy. He's got these emotions all over the place. And he does whatever he has to do to gamble. Probably made some bad decisions. So he passes away. He wakes up and he's in Las Vegas. And it's beautiful. And the lights are blinging. The music, the sound of the slot machines. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And all of a sudden, he's got a pocket full of money. So what's he do? Go straight up to the slot machine. He puts the money in. Bam. First pull of the trigger, money comes pouring out all over. He hits the jackpot. And then he hits the jackpot again. And he's like, wow. And by the end of the day, it's like every time he puts his money, it's a jackpot. Now it's the end of day three. Every time he puts his money in a slot machine, he wins. He looks over, he finds somebody who seems to be working there. Seems like they're in. They have an authoritative position in this casino. And he walks up to, he goes, wow. It's not what I expected. I thought heaven would be different than this. And the guy looked at him and said, who says you're in heaven? Think about that. If everything you tried in life, if everything you do went easy, you wouldn't respect it. You wouldn't want it, you wouldn't desire it. Think about. Listen, I'm telling you guys, I'm recording this while you're 10 and 12, you could be watching this at any age or anybody watching. But Bree, Brody, future children, if I gave you your first car, if you know any of your friends. Let's look at if you know any of your friends that got their first car with no work. I made a deal with you guys that you pay half a car, I pay half. If you save up 20 bucks, you can get a $40 car. Save up 10 grand, we can get a $20,000 car. Right, but anyone you know that got their first car for free without working for it, they either crashed it or it's dirty or they don't appreciate it. If you know people who paid for their own college compared to those who their father or their mother paid for it and they never had any repercussions. The ones that paid for it in so many cases fight for it. Because every word, every teacher, every classroom costs them hard earned money. People who don't pay, don't pay attention. People who don't work hard for something they want don't get the results. So don't look for the easy button in life. Because I don't know anybody who's had the easy road. Listen, I'm 50. I had friends that I knew that were trust fund children. You guys aren't going to be trust fund children. You guys can work for opportunity. I have trust fund people that I trust fund kids that I know. I'm sorry. And if you are one and you're successful and happy on the inside, I, I just haven't met you yet. But I have yet to meet a trust fund baby grown into an adult that's fulfilled or found peace. I know a lot of them that are partiers. I know a lot of them throw the best parties on the planet. I know a lot of them that go through drugs, in and out. I know a lot of them that go through relationships in and out. I know a lot of them that throw fundraisers and find God and then they steer away from God and then they find yoga and then they find meditation and they're always searching, always searching because everything was so damn easy. I hope I didn't do you guys a disservice by my making your life too easy. Because if I did, at this phase of your life, you can be mad at me if I made it easy. When you were a kid, you wanted it easy. You didn't want to do the chores, you didn't want to clean your room, you didn't want to do it. But those that are willing to put the work in, those that aren't so soft, those that aren't feeling bad for themselves because they had to work, those that realize if you want it, you got to fight for it. Guys, that's the next level of happiness. Fighting, struggling, going through the hard times is what allow you to appreciate the good times. The reason appreciate you guys, my family, so much is because when I was young, I didn't have that family. The reason I appreciate abundance and wealth so much, because I didn't have any. The reason I love to cook and go grocery shopping still is because there was no groceries in my refrigerator when I was young. So you don't get to appreciate the good unless you fight for the hard. So this is my challenge to you right now. Fight for it. Go the hard route. If there's an easy path and an easy button, it's always, in most cases, it's wrapped with something else. It's wrapped with an agenda, it's wrapped with circumstances, it's wrapped with failure. Because you're looking for the easy way. Be educated about it. Model other people that are already doing it. Don't be overly risky when you can learn from others and take the path, even if it's hard. If at the end of that path is your full potential or next level potential and you on the journey towards discovering who you really are. Again, I'll end with this. I don't know where you are in your journey of life. Maybe I'm not even here anymore as you circle back to watch this, but fight to figure out who you are. Fight to figure out what success means to you. Don't let other people steer your ship. Don't get confused by people giving you guidance that might be well intended, but it doesn't fit your soul. Figure out what makes you happy. Give impact. Make an impact on the world. Give back to others. Fuel your soul, obsess on growth and hand down these same lessons, these same things that you take from me and make even better and give to your children so we can have legacy of graziosis and people that are getting the rules for happiness, abundance and success. All right. I can't wait for the next lesson. What's up? What's up? Hey, before you go, you need to watch these next few videos. They're absolute game changers. Hurry up and click on right over here and watch them and I'll see you there.