Eric Thomas Motivation | Top 10 Rules

I am the greatest that has ever done this. Not because I'm comparing myself to them, but ain't nobody like me.

I am.

And your problem is you hadn't got to the I am yet. When I left home and said I don't want to be controlled no more, like, I meant that. Like, I don't want nothing to control me but me. And so I got to put myself under extreme discipline to make sure I'm free. Find out who you are, what your gift is, what you love. Like, eat what you like to eat, go where you like to go. Like, be you.

Need motivation? Watch the top 10 of Believe Nation. What's up? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. So let's get your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's lessons from a man who went from dropping out of high school and being homeless on the streets of Detroit to being one of the best and most well-known motivational speakers on the planet. He's Eric Thomas, and here's my take on his Top 10 Rules of Success, Volume 4.

Enjoy.

All right, let's kick things off with rule number 1, my personal favorite: belief.

I am— come on, I am— come on, I am an entrepreneur. Yeah, you could clap if you want to. I am— come on, I am— come on, I will never search for wealth, I will procure it for I I am. I am an entrepreneur. Listen to me, listen to me, don't say nothing, don't say nothing. I am wealth, therefore I will not search for what I already am. I will not search for what's already inside of me. I am success. I can, I will, I must break all barriers on my way, on my journey to wealth and success. I must break all barriers, not most, not most, all barriers. Everything that's before, my mama, my daddy, all barriers, my past. I am, I am the greatest that has ever done this. Not because I'm comparing myself to them, but ain't nobody like me.

I am.

And your problem is you hadn't got to the I am yet. You hadn't even bought into it. And what I want to do before you leave is buy into it 120%. That's why you follow me. That's why you watch me. Because when I get up and talk, it's 120%. When I talk, you don't feel like, "E might not believe what he's saying." You don't listen to me in the morning when you on that treadmill because you think I kind of think I know what I'm talking about. You are 100% clear like, "Yo, E, E got some confidence." Like, "E walking with another spirit." Like, "E on something different. What is he on?" I woke up one day when America said I can't wear a hat and shoes and I just had to say, "I am." You're trying to get information first. You reading books, you haven't convinced you that you should be doing this. You haven't convinced you that you need to put the money in so you can get where you're trying to get to. You don't believe that you are. And the very first thing the Creator said was, tell them I am.

Rule number 2: Surround yourself with the greats.

I gotta take y'all back. Somebody show them real quick Lion and Gazelle, right? Y'all know I'm on that Lion and Gazelle, boy. The lion is the king of the jungle. But I gotta be honest with you guys, I gotta tell you the truth, right? In actuality, the tiger be. Yep, the tiger should be the king of the jungle, y'all. And I'm just gonna break down how I got to where I am and how I'm about to get to where I wanna go. So the tiger, ET, what do you mean by that? Well, do your homework in terms of pound for pound, mano a mano. The tiger is ferocious. The tiger can take out the lion. Now go back and look at the tiger. I'm talking about structurally massive. When you look at a tiger, you don't see nothing but I'm talking about muscle. That's all you see. I'm talking about muscle. But guess what? Even though a tiger probably could beat a lion one-on-one, mano a mano, you know what the problem is? The reason why the lion is the king of the jungle is not because he's stronger, but he's the king of the jungle because some call it pride. Watch this. Tigers run alone. And even though they ferocious, they don't run in a pride. They're by themselves, right? And that's some of you right now. You sweet. I'm not going to lie. You sweet. But you will be your same sweet for the rest of your life because you're by yourself. You are alone. You're not with a pride. And that's the problem with some of you. You're a tiger. You're a tiger all day. We not debating how sweet you are. We not debating how skilled you are. We not debating you the one. But the problem is you run alone, right? You do everything by yourself. You do everything alone. And you're only as strong as you can be by yourself. Look, I'm on that Voltron board. I'm on that Voltron board that when we come together, we can do more together than I can do alone. Ah, it's your boy E.T. Come on, son. It ain't gonna be easy to do what I'm telling you to do, but you have what it takes. To surround yourself with other greats. To get in a community where you're not the best of the best, but to get in a community where other people can stretch you, save you, and support you. right, and lift you up.

Rule number 3: Discipline yourself.

And so I was like, yo, E, you got to discipline yourself. I started looking at Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and I was like, yo, bro, Gandhi would go fast from sex, and he was married. He would fast from talking. You know, I just started watching these great people and was like, yo, these people fast. And not about fasting, like, that's not the piece, but they were very disciplined people, and they would not allow their exterior world to dominate or destroy their internal world. I just like, yo, I want to get to a place where I can control me. My family members have grown. I lost an uncle, cirrhosis of the liver, brilliant man, but just drinking, drinking, drinking. And I was like, yo, I do not want to. My father was a substance abuser for years. I was like, yo, I don't want a life where something else is controlling me. You know, like for real, when I left home and said I don't want to be controlled no more, like I meant that. Like I don't want nothing to control me but me. And so I gotta put myself under extreme discipline to make sure I'm free. So when people see me, you get up at 3, you don't drink, you don't smoke. I'm not doing that because I think I'm better than nobody else, or I think you're gonna go to hell because you had a drink. I just want— I want to control. I want freedom. And for me, disciplining myself means more freedom. And the less I— you discipline yourself, people who I told my son the other day, I was like, yo son, I don't not want you to have fun. I've just seen a history of people who just have fun. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Year's. They're the people who— Thursday night, Friday night. Oh man, every night. They're the people who end up in their 20s having a great deal of fun, but in their 40s and 50s, they working for somebody. And I'm not saying nothing wrong with cleaning toilets, but they doing something they don't want to do for the rest of their life, and they can't retire because they played so much. So for me, I just look at Venus and Serena, Michael Jackson when he used to like 5 and 6, just dancing all night. I just think the more a man disciplined himself, the greater— it don't mean it's going to happen, but the greater the probability that he has this sense of freedom.

Rule number 4: Find your inner drive.

What makes Brady want to win a 5th? What makes Jordan— 39. At 39, what makes Jordan say, okay, I got 4? Like, it's not even a new season. He said, we're gonna buy— we got to get the 5th one. What makes Serena get 23 and still going? Like, what What makes Venus, who was sick and should have been gone, now she's 36 years old, what makes her fight to get to the Australian Open? And I'm telling you, it's not the money, the network, it's not, you know, the vision board. It's, I believe, for those of us who are where we are, it's something within, you know? And you can't go buy that, you know? I can't give it to you, Lewis can't. Like, you've gotta go within and find that and pull that stuff out.

Rule number 5, have wild thoughts.

So this is what I want y'all to do tonight. Tonight, I wanna go somewhere 'Cause I told you, you know, like, I don't know if you, maybe because you're a human and you've gotten so accustomed to human that maybe you don't know what you're capable of doing as a human, right? Anybody get a new phone? When you get a new phone, with the iPhone 7, 8, right? The iPhone or you went to the Galaxy. When you get that on Christmas or you get that gadget, when you first open up that gadget, what are you happy about? What it can do, all the stuff it can do, right? If you like a geek— I'm not a geek, right? But I imagine if you're a geek, you're going through like, I only use the stuff I need, like I'm not even interested in the other stuff, right? But the geeks know everything you can do. Listen to me very closely. I believe that some of us have gotten so caught up with school and work, you forgot what you could do as a human. Like, for real, you just forgot. Like, you so caught up on life and problems, you're so caught up on paying bills, you're You forgot you human. You forgot you the one made up the phone. You made up the TV. You made up cars. You made up flying. Like, they're human. We flying. 100 years ago, if they would've told me I could, like, we could fly to Australia and watch TV. We watching TV, y'all. We watching TV on the way to Australia. This is what happens when you have wild thoughts. And that's what I wanna talk about tonight. Like, wild thoughts. Like, wild thoughts. Like, I don't want you to be in school for grades because I told y'all we passed that. And that's why school is so hard for some of you. That's why life is so hard for some of you because that's all you're doing is life. You don't have no wild thoughts no more. You don't dream crazy no more. You kind of settled into like whatever little life they gave you, whatever paycheck they gave you, whatever they told you to do for 40 hours. Like you locked in on that. And I just want you to do yourself a favor. Maybe the weekend when you're not busy, I just want you to start touching the buttons and see what you're capable of. I want you to get out of the average thinking And look, I— okay, I'm gonna give you a secret. I want you to start having wild thoughts, because here's the deal: if you have wild thoughts and they don't work out, you can always go back to average thoughts. There's a whole bunch of people waiting for you when you come back. I promise you, they waiting. Average is going to be there. So just do me a favor, just start thinking crazy and wild. I want to own multiple homes and multiple cars, and I want to have that nonprofit, and I want to have that profit, and I want to be able to travel the world, I want whatever. Okay, raise your hand if I'm telling the truth. You are crazy stupid talented. You know you are, but you get stuck on average not using your full potential. Let me see your hand. Just some stuff you know you could be doing that you ain't doing. Let me see your hand. You know you could be doing it, hands down. Listen to me real quick. Eric Thomas, I don't really know who I am, but you here tonight, right? So I'm telling you, I'm giving you full permission to start having wildest dreams, to be yourself. I'm giving you permission. Stop waiting on It's the weirdest thing. I meet some of the most talented, smartest people in the world who stuck because they waiting for— I give you permission. I give you permission to be yourself. Like, I'm giving you— and why do I have the authority? Because I'm myself. I'm in full Eric Thomas permission. I ain't asked no other motivational speaker, was it all right to go hip-hop? I'm just doing what I know I've been called to do unapologetically. I want to make sure I say that. I didn't even know if I could say it. I just tried to see if I could say it. It was in my head. I was like, can I say that word? I just said it. It came out. You don't have to apologize to anybody to be great. You don't owe it to anybody else to play little no more. Come on. Don't play little no more. Like you don't want your brother to feel bad or you don't want your cousin to— look, you have full permission. You don't want your parents to think you a know-it-all. You have full permission to be your greatness right now. You have full permission to be your greatness. Whoever you— whatever your greatness is, you have full permission to be that right this second.

Rule number 6: Focus on your losses.

So I need y'all to do me a favor, for real. Listen to me very closely. I'm gonna show you how to be successful. You have to understand that your losses— and this is why I want you to look at them every day— because your losses fuel you in a way The way that you're winning can never fuel you. When you take an L, you take a— you take the right L, you like, I'm gonna be very cautious on that next move I make, if you're smart. So number 1, every single day I want you to go to bed at night, stop playing games, and be honest about the wins and the losses. So I always remember where I came from. I remember all the L's I took, because when you forget the L's, that's when you like, you big and bad. I remember Those are the ones, man. Those are the ones that humble me. Those are the ones that when I get on stage and there's 10,000 people and I think about what I did to my mom and my father who raised me, I think about how I disappointed myself, I think about disappointing my wife, I think about disappointing my kids. Like, I got a story with my daughter where, you know what I'm saying, I disciplined my daughter about 3 years ago. And I don't know that I wish I could get it back, but I wish I could get get the experience back because it was one of those things where for a year or so you could tell she was like, yo, I can't believe you. I was just like, man, that was a loss for me. And it took us a while to repair our relationship. I took a loss. So when I think about those losses, it humbles me. And I can't be like floating with the smoke at the event. You know what I'm saying? Smoke at the event, the music is playing and the dude, coming from Lansing, Michigan. Dr. Eric, number one motivational speaker in the world. I don't run out like, ah, I run out like, man, I hope me and my daughter can get out, man, I hope that don't kill us. I hope she don't take that into her relationship with her husband. Man, me and my son, man, I should have, ah, okay, ah, my wife, ah, E.T., you let yourself, ah. When I'm running on stage, I'm running on stage with the losses. I'm trying to help somebody out. You wondering why you can't get to the next level? You're not humble enough. To get to the next level. You focus on your wins and not your losses. I need you to switch that.

Rule number 7: Take small steps.

Small steps, great distances. You heard what I said. I'm going to say it slower because I need you to embrace it and feel it. And this is about to take us to a whole other level, y'all. Look, I'm gonna say it again. I'm gonna say it slow. This year This year we gonna take small steps, but we will eventually get great distances. Small steps, great distances. Are you hearing what I'm telling you? Small steps, great distances. So I'm gonna give you 4 principles for the next 90 days. This is what we on for the next 90 days. Listen to me, principle number 1. We're gonna start with the minuscule. Are you hearing me? Put my steps up there, Carl. Put my steps up. I need to see them. We're going to literally do small steps together, right? So every day, get your Fitbit, get your phone, and we're literally going to take steps together. Small steps, not big steps. And then I'm going to keep my phone with me, and as I travel the world, I'm going to give you principles throughout the week so we can make it happen. Minuscule first. All right, that, that's, that's the stuff you doing. Small, small steps. Steps that we're going to do together that you not even going— nobody's going— you go do some stuff with your boy E.T., nobody's even gonna know you doing it, right? But that's where we're gonna start. That's like the GED, right? Minuscule. No, I didn't have a graduation. I didn't march across the stage. A whole lot of people didn't come and see your boy when I got the GED. The GED was something they put in the mail and it came to my crib, right? We didn't do no celebration, but it was that minuscule, it was that small thing that I did that eventually kept your boy ET in the game. All right, then mediocre, right? That's like below average. That ain't even deep. Me getting to college took me 12 years to get a 4-year degree. Mediocre, guys. That wasn't even average. Like, 12 years, that ain't even average. But that 12 years, getting that, getting that degree in 12 years still kept me in the game. Yep, yep. And then the measurable measurable. Yep, that's the stuff you should be doing, right? Then, yep, then I got the master's degree. Yep, the measurable. We gonna work on the measurable. We taking our time. Minuscule, mediocre. Some of y'all trying to go straight to measurable, straight off the cuff. And then we going to miracle. We gonna get the miracle territory, baby. That's the PhD. That's the book. That's being number one of the number one motivational speakers in the world. And where did it start? It started with the minuscule. So you're doing too much. You're doing absolutely too much. And we're going to take our time. Small steps, small steps, great distances.

Rule number 8, hold your own weight.

I need you to be honest, do an honest assessment. I want you to write down what it is you're trying to do, and I need you to be very honest about where you are in terms of what you're trying to do. Like, where are you? So for those of you who like, I want to be a millionaire, I just need you to really be like think through where are you financially? Like in terms of financial literacy, where are you? In terms of financial discipline, where are you? And in your past, where are you? Do you spend money you don't have? So I heard somebody say this the other day, I thought it was funny, right? Somebody was talking about, and at this I'm talking about mentality, I need y'all to hear me. Can you lift your own weight, right? Can you lift your own weight? So somebody was saying like, yo, I don't know why y'all on the phone, all proud of the fact that you could change your own oil. Like, why would you want to change your oil anyway if that's not your job, right? And somebody was like, well, I save $140. And he like, save $140? But what if you make $250 an hour? No, hear what I'm saying. Why would you change your own oil to save $140 when it took you 3 hours to do it? And somebody like, yo, so you saying you always— I said, look, let me jump in. Like, I ain't trying to be disrespectful, but First of all, I didn't go to school to change oil. That ain't my job. That's somebody else's job. Let my man do his job. Somebody else said that when he changed your oil, because he went to school, there's some other stuff under the engine that he see that you don't see when you changing your oil. So while you saved $140, you missed something else that he would help you catch so that the life of your car So you changed your oil, but you didn't notice the 3 or 4 other things that was missing. I said, look, let's not talk about you saving $140. Here's the challenge. You can't pull your own weight. The challenge is you shouldn't have a car that costs you $140 to change the oil when you ain't got $140 to change the oil. You shouldn't have that car in the first place. Why do you have a vehicle that your oil oil costs $140 and you can't afford it. Why would you buy something that you gotta change the oil? That's not your job. And you know why you're doing it? Because it's no longer a car to you, now it's a status symbol. And so we're dealing with something deeper. You can't hold your own weight. You bought something you can't afford. Why? The deeper issue is because you got a self-esteem problem. And so you got shortcuts. So you drive a car to make it look like you somewhere you are. But when you actually there, you ain't gotta have a car that look like you there, 'cause you there. No, hear what I just said. When you're there, you don't have to look like you there, 'cause you there. But when you not there, you can't pick your own weight up, you have to do stuff, and now you done messed up your whole credit 'cause you bought a car so that people can think you somewhere that you not, and you destroyed your whole future. That if you could hold your own weight, you could drive around in a Ford Fusion and be— I'm talking about comfort, like a Range Rover. You getting out that joint like a Range Rover. You getting out the Ford Fusion like what? Like you in a 745 Li, like what? Why? Because you ready. Are you hearing me? You ready.

Rule number 9, be you.

Be true to yourself, you know? You know, especially being in LA, you know, it's so superficial. You know, some people can be so superficial, you know, there's no depth, you know, it's so dense, you know. And so I would say, you know, to your own self be true. Find out who you are, what your gift is, what you love. Like, eat what you like to eat, go where you like to go, like be you. And you'll find out that when you're you, you will attract you, you know. You will attract all the happiness, the wealth that you can by being you. But if you're fake, you know, you can't do it.

And rule number 10, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is push your way to success.

Let's go to this last one real quick. I got a message from a kid today. I want you to read it. Hey ET, this is what he texted me. How do you— how have you balanced school and stayed with a routine? You came to my school. I've re-listened to your speech, but I'm struggling in school and working at the same time. I have to stay working to pay bills. I go to tutoring. I hold a lot of scholarships that I have to maintain. Therefore, it usually means meetings and extracurriculum stuff. I'm struggling, man. So he asked me, E.T., what should I do? I said, what year are you? He said, I'm a junior. I got a year and a half to go. I said, keep struggling. What you want me to tell you? What you want me to tell you? Stop? Quit? Give up? Okay, on the next one, he said, E, I had a meltdown. Meltdown in class. My teacher pulled me to the side. I said, you might have a couple more before success. It's a part of the game. You can't be successful without some meltdowns. Struggle for another year and a half and be free for the rest of your life. Or you can say, I'm tired of struggling, and stop struggling, and struggle for the next 20, 30 years. Press past it. Come on, press past. Stop whining and crying and give it up. Press past it. It's going to hurt. Yes. Ask any mother that's had a child, it probably feel like they gonna die. But guess what? They get through it, and on the other side, when that child comes out, they forget all about the pain. Your dream counting on you. Push. Ain't nobody about to give you no cookies and ice cream. Push. It's alive. It's inside. How do you know? You feel it. You dream about it. You eat it, sleep it every day. When people talk to you, tell them, this is what I'm gonna do. So push. Just push past the pain. Push. Don't quit, don't give up, push! And you push your way to success. You push yourself to that 4.0. You push yourself to that scholarship. You push yourself to the next level.

Now I've got two very special ET Bonus Clips around working while you wait and going and getting it, but before that, I want to know what did you learn? Eric has so many pearls of wisdom. Hopefully you learned something that you're going to apply apply to your life or to your business, share it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. See you soon and enjoy the bonus clips.

Work while you wait. Yup, I said it. For real, for real. You don't know how long it's going to take, right? But, but, but if you stop now, If you quit now, the one thing I can tell you is for certain it's never going to happen. So, the first thing I need you to do is like you cannot stop. Like you, you, you, you, you, okay, all right, rest if you must, but you cannot stop and question life. Like you cannot stop and question your circumstance and situation so much so that while you could be working, while you could be further along the road, less travel, you sitting there contemplate, like you're sitting there moaning about it, you're sitting there complaining about it, and I get it. I'm not minimizing your struggle. I get it. I understand, but you gotta work. You gotta work, 'cause what happens if you wake up 30 days later and you there? What happens if you wake up 60 days later and the change is coming? You know what's gonna happen? You're gonna wake up 60 days later, 90 days later, and everything's gonna change but you, and you're gonna get the same results you got before it happened because you're the exact same person. So work, work while you wait. When I was growing up, it was a long, long time ago, but when we used to fight, we used to get in a circle. We'd get in a circle and then 2 people would get in the middle and then you'd fight, right? And I got smart because I ain't really like to fight. So I got smart and I started telling guys who said they wanted to fight me, I'd say, look, let's do this. Let's not fight in front of nobody. If you really want to fight, let's go in the back, just me and you. Like, I don't know why you clowning in front of everybody, why you gotta try to be the big man. Let's just, me and you, go to the back and let's just fight. And don't nobody got— if you really want to fight. And I learned, E.T., if you want to get out of fights in the D, the more you run, the more they gonna want to fight you. But the more you step up and say, yo, you want— you— so I'm telling you, in life, you start running from a class, you start running from a subject that you don't like, it will haunt you for the rest of your natural life. It ain't going nowhere. But if you go after the fight, if you approach the challenge, you have a much better chance of winning. There are those of you who are— you are like those dogs. You have the potential, you could possibly take him down, you kind of You kind of, you know, like, I think I can get him. I think, I'm not sure, I think I can. And then you watch the pit bull come. When the pit bull came, notice it was no— the first, the dogs hitting the back, they get the tail, they going on the side, they going, coming to the front. When the pit bull came, he just came right, boom, boom, came right to the face. Oh, and so I'm challenging you before you leave, it's gonna be a fight. You can't keep doing this for maybe your freshman year, maybe your sophomore year, but at some point you gotta go take the life out of it. At some point you just gotta— I was on the— took me 12 years to get the 4-year degree and then the master's. I was like— and somebody said, get the PhD. And I was like, no. It was like, come on, E, get the PhD. And when I just started going after life and taking it by its throat, not getting to the— some of y'all get to the line, they got to the dogs, got to the wild boar, they got to— you get, you get real close. The pit bulls was like endgame. They started with the endgame. There was no going back and forth. They came in, boom. And all that time he was standing up, all that time he would chase. But when the pit bull came and boom, locked down. You gotta take that thing out. Like, you gotta take the breath out. So some of y'all are afraid of math. Go after it. Go get it. Don't run from it no more. Go get it. So let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need to be happy. The most important word ever. If you had to think of one word that's most important to you, or that sums you up, or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation! If you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.