How to Overcome Fear and Achieve Your Dreams | Les Brown Motivation in 20 Minutes

Hello, Believe Nation! I started the Mentor Me series with the goal of trying to learn from people who've done more than us, and hopefully some of their magic pixie dust rubs off on us to help us achieve more, change our mindsets, and achieve our goals. So today we're going to learn from Les Brown on motivation. Clip number 10 is my personal favorite, and I'm curious to know which one you guys like the best.

I do a lot of training for many corporations, and I conduct sales seminars, and I've heard all kind of guys doing tech techniques and training people techniques of how to close sales and how to work with and begin to control the sale and how to ask for the close. Let me share something with you. You can learn all the techniques in the world. If you don't believe in yourself, it won't happen for you. I learned all of it. So that's why I do a training called Focus on the Seller. You've got to focus on you. And as you convince you, as you sell yourself every day, every every day, you will begin to see a difference in the things that you're doing. Selling yourself on your ability to perform a job, to achieve a certain objective, telling yourself every day, "Here I go again, and I got what it takes. This is my day, and nothing out here is going to stop me." There are a lot of people who are biting their fingers in fear that they might lose their jobs. But there are few people who have decided within themselves, "I'm going to make it." Some people aren't waiting to be cut. Some people are moving on their own because they feel within themselves, "I've got what it takes to make it." They're not afraid about tomorrow because of how they see themselves, because of what they feel that they deserve. Because of what they feel that they can create for themselves. Because these people have decided, as they look at the future, as they look at themselves, there's a way. Where there's a will, there's a way for me to begin to create a way out of no way. And when you have that kind of consciousness, when you have that kind of spirit, nothing can stop you. Nothing. What would your life be like as you look toward the future if you decided, "I'm not going to allow my fears to stop me"? What would your life be like? What would your future be like if you decided to, to want that which you desire so strongly that it prepares you past your fears that you experience the fear, as one book says, feel the fear and do it anyway. What would your life be like? And I'm saying to you that all of us who have been entombed by fear have the capacity to resurrect ourselves and to resurrect our dreams. All of us have the capacity to do that. Most people are not accumulating wealth. Most people are living in poverty. Most people are living far below their potential. Not because they don't have the capacity, not because they have not been given authority and dominion over everything on the face of the earth. But most people are living like they're living because of the fact that they don't believe they can have any more than what they now have. In the book called A Miseducation of the Negro, Dr. Carter G. Woodson said, "If you can determine what a man shall think, you never have to concern yourself with what he will do. If you can make a man feel inferior, you never have to compel him to seek an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. And if you can make a man feel justly and outcast. You never have to order him to go to the back door. He'll go without being told. And if there's no door, his very nature will demand one. That's why Scripture reminds us, be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. So every day you have to sell yourself and get out of your mind those old thoughts, that old belief system. Every day you've got to sell yourself on that it's possible that you got to put a new mind in You got to get out of your mind. You got to begin to restructure your thinking every day. You've got to begin to recondition your mind. See, many of us go through life making choices, thinking it's our choices, and it's not. Dr. Howard Thurman, one of the mentors of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Schweitzer and Mahatma Gandhi, he was a very brilliant writer. He wrote some things that really grabbed me. He, he wrote, "Deep is the hunger." The voice of the genuine. The centering moment. During the time after receiving 238 radiation seed implants, I was reflecting on his words, and these words kept me up that night. He said, "The ideal situation for a man or woman to die is to have family members praying with them as they cross over." He said, "But imagine, if you will, being on your deathbed." and standing around your bed, the ghost of the dreams, the ideas, the abilities, the talents given to you by life, and that you, for whatever reason, you never went after that dream, you never acted on those ideas, you never used those talents, you never used those gifts. And there they are standing around your bed looking at you with large angry eyes saying, "We came to you." And only you could have given us life, and now we must die with you forever. And the question is, if you die today, what dreams, what ideas, what talents, what books, what music, what leadership, what voice will die with you. Miles Monroe, great orator and speaker, said the wealthiest place on the planet, it's not in the Far East where there's oil in the ground, it's not in South Africa where there are diamond mines. He said the wealthiest place on the planet is the cemetery, because there you'll find greatness that we've never seen. There you'll find talent and genius and potential never actualized. Perhaps that's why Henry David Thoreau wrote the words, "Oh God, to reach the point of death only to realize that you've never lived. Maybe that's why some unknown writer wrote the words, what if you live your whole life only to discover that it was wrong? That it was wrong, that you were chosen to do something else and you didn't do it. I'm saying this is the time more than ever that you want to begin to inoculate yourself with positive words, coming to conventions, showing up on meetings, being on the calls to make yourself unstoppable, to get out of your mind the polluting negative thoughts that's causing most people to go through life being stuck because they're volunteer victims. Somebody said that many people die at age 25 and don't get buried until they're 65 because they got so much garbage in their minds. You are here because you've got a clear vision of what you want and where you're going. Give yourselves a round of applause. Come on, bring your energy level up. Yes, yes, you want more, you want more. You're different, you're different than everybody else. Don't worry if they don't get it. Don't try and convince people people to do this business. A person convinced against their will is of the same opinion still. You are not like everybody else. You can walk outside and find pigeons, but if you're looking for eagles, it's going to take you a minute. You are different. It's lonely at the top. How many of you know it's lonely at the top? Raise your hands. It's lonely at the top, but you eat better. That's what I'm talking about. You're different. One great entrepreneur said, I choose not to be a common man. It's my right to be uncommon if I can. I seek opportunity, not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to live from hand to mouth. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the still calm of utopia. I will never cower before a master nor bend to any threat. It's my heritage churches to stand erect, proud and unafraid, to face the world boldly and say, "This I have done." You showed up because you're building a business that you can stand and say, "I did this. I did this. This is my dream." Give yourselves a round of applause. Yes, yes, yes, yes. The other thing is take full responsibility for your life. Accept where you are and the responsibility that you're going to take yourself where you want to go. Someone said we have two primary choices in life. We can either accept conditions as they exist, or we can take the responsibility to change them. See, a lot of people want to exempt themselves from taking responsibility. All they want to do is talk about the problem. Every time you see them, they'll tell you their story over and over and over and over again. No, no. You want to take responsibility for your life. I got me here, I can get me out of this. And I'm getting out. I'm not going to be a volunteer victim. George Bernard Shaw said there are two kinds of people in life. You know, he said, "Those that make things happen, those that watch things happen, and those that don't know what happened." And he said the people that get along in this life look around for the circumstances that they want, and if they can't find them, they make them. They create 'em. So part of beginning to get unstuck, you've got to decide that the behavior pattern that you have adopted doesn't work for you. You've got to change your strategies, and changing your strategy means reinventing your life, recreating you. And you have the power to do that. You can decide that you're going to change, that you're not going to be a wimp. You can decide that you're going to stand up to life. You can decide that I'm going to live each day as if it were my last. You can— you have the power to make that decision. You can decide I'm going to work on myself and develop myself. I'm going to empower me, and all of these things that are happening to me right now, they're just temporary inconveniences. They're not stronger than I am. I'm in charge here. See, when you are not filling your life with the things that you are capable of doing— see, we all have some stuff that we've been given, and I don't think that it's optional for us to sit on what we have. See, if you're sitting on what you have, what you've been given— and I think everybody's been given something to bring to the planet. That only you can do that, only you can perform that, only you can initiate that activity. And if you don't do that, if you're not filling in your life with your life work or your mission, then there are gaps in your life. And what we do when we're not living out our true identity, we begin to fill the gaps, we fill the holes with garbage— alcohol, drugs, worry, self-destructive behavior. So when you begin to look at your life and you know that, that you're not doing what you can do because you have allowed yourself to be held captive by your fears— now, when you don't have a true appreciation and acceptance for who you are and you allow yourself to be immobilized by fear, what happens in the process is that you begin to abuse yourself. You begin to sabotage your life. You begin to sabotage your dreams. You begin to unconsciously work against yourself. You become your own worst enemy. So what do you do about that? Well, you, you begin to realize that your dream and your gifts have so much meaning and so much value for you till your hunger for them will begin to push you past the fear. Your hunger to have them will give you a special drive as you work on yourself, as you begin to acknowledge your true identity, the true power that you have, the true capacity you have to bring about change, the miracle-working power that you have within yourself to do the things that you want to do. I don't care how good you are, I don't care how talented you are, I don't care how much you work on yourself, there are some times when things aren't going to go right. They just are not going to go right. There are times when anything that can happen will happen. Murphy's Law will be knocking at your door. Why? I don't know why. That's called life. And you have to deal with it. Sometimes your life will be in a slump. Just like sports. Some of the best shooters can't hit baskets different times in games. They get in a slump. Do they sit on the sideline and say, "You know, I just didn't hit a basket today?" No, they continue to execute. I suggest to you that if you are facing a challenge, don't stop. Stay busy. Work your plan. Continue to do those things that you know that work for you after you have evaluated yourself and the situation. Continue to move. Stay busy, stay busy, stay busy. After having 238 radiation seed implants, I was reading one night some words by Dr. Howard Thurman, who was a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to Albert Schweitzer, to Mahatma Gandhi. He wrote, "Deep is the hunger, the voice of the genuine, the centering moment." As I was reflecting on his words, he said the ideal situation for a man or woman to die is to have family members praying with them as they cross over. He said, but imagine, if you will, being on your deathbed and standing around your bed the ghost of the dreams, the ideas, the abilities, the talents given to you by life, but you, for whatever reason, you never pursued those dreams. You never acted on those ideas. You never used those gifts. You never used those talents. And there they are staring at you as you're lying on your bed with large angry eyes saying, "We came to you. And only you could have given us life. And now we must die with you forever." And the question is, if you die today, what dreams, What talents, what abilities, what gifts, what ideas would die with you? One minister out of the Bahamas said the wealthiest place on the planet, it's not in the Far East where there's oil in the ground, it's not in South Africa where there are diamond mines. He said the wealthiest place on the planet is the cemetery. There you see potential never realized. There you find books never written. There you find ideas never acted on. Maybe that's why Henry David Thoreau said, "Oh God, to reach the point of death only to realize that you've never lived, only to realize that you've never scraped the surface of your potential." It's hard changing your life. It was hard when just over 3 years ago in the Penobscot Building in Detroit, Michigan, where I was operating my business and I fell on some hard times. And I was sleeping in my office. It was hard coming into the lobby, and the security said, 'Excuse me, Mr. Brown, can we see you for a moment?' And I said, 'Yes,' and I walked up to the counter, and he gave me an envelope, and he said, 'Would you mind reading it here?' And I opened the envelope, and the envelope was from management that said, 'This is an office tower. It's not a hotel.' Please do not sleep in your office. And I said, excuse me, sir. I said, I just work long hours in creating my business. I'm an entrepreneur, and right now things are bad for me, but they're not going to be this way always. And I just asked for the opportunity to continue to operate like I'm doing. I'm not trying to make this my home. And it was hard coming through the lobby, and sometimes they would laugh, "There's a guy talking about becoming successful, and look at him, he's bathing in the bathroom upstairs on the 21st floor. He sleeps on the floor, him and two other dreamers up there. Look at him." It was hard, ladies and gentlemen, coming to speak to people, and I was facing financial difficulties in my own life. I was behind on my bills and my dreams, and I'm saying to them, you can live your dream. It was hard, ladies and gentlemen. It was very difficult to pick myself up each day believing that I can do it. There were times that I doubted myself. I said, God, why? Why is this happening to me? I'm just trying to take care of my children and my mother. I'm not trying to steal or rob from anybody. Why does this have to happen to me? It was very hard. And here's what I want to say to you, for those of you that have experienced some hardships: don't give up on your dream. No one could have convinced me by holding on, by continuing to push forward, by continuing to run toward my dream, that one day I would have my own talk show. It's a long shot, ladies and gentlemen, from Liberty City, an abandoned building, on a floor, never knowing my mother or father. It's a long shot being here with you today in this dome in Atlanta. It's a long shot. No college training, labeled educable mentally retarded, but I kept running toward my dream. Don't stop. Don't stop! Don't stop running toward your dream!

Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to know what you think of Les Brown. If you're feeling motivated after this video, I feel like it's hard not to, but let me know what you think. Let me know which clip was your favorite. Leave it in the comments below and I will join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.