Unleashing the Power of Passion: Eric Thomas's Top 10 Rules for Success

He's an American motivational speaker, author, and minister. His speeches have been widely viewed and are popular on YouTube. LeBron James has credited him as part of his inspiration for winning the 2012 NBA Championship. He's Eric Thomas, and here are his top 10 rules for success.

You can't dangle something in front of my face that I don't want that.

And many of you are taking anything because you don't know what you want. And so if I can do one thing for you when you leave this room, I don't want nothing from you but for you to leave this room and know what you want. What do you want in your marriage? What do you want with your son and your daughter? What do you want in your health? What do you want financially? Like, how much money do you wanna make a year? What do you wanna drive? How do you wanna live? Stop just waking up like an accident. What do you want? And then once you find out what you want, spend the rest of your natural life waking up and going after it. The reason why I speak with so much passion, E.T., why do you speak with so much authority? 'Cause I'm talking about my life. Not something that I read. I ate out of trash cans.

I had no business eating out of trash cans.

I lived in abandoned buildings. I had no business living in abandoned buildings. But E.T., your daddy wasn't in your life. Your mom was a teenage mother. You grew up, come on, E, look at your circle. That's not an excuse. There is no excuse for not living up to your fullest potential.

No excuse.

Worked on my gift.

I realized that all of us are born with a gift, but you gotta hone it. You know, it's just not— you're not going to become great. And we talk about the school of greatness. You know, we talk about, you know, greatness is upon you. And I realized that my gift wasn't going to create itself. My gift wasn't going to nurture itself. My gift wasn't going to perfect itself. That was something I had to do. And so, man, before you know it, we did a video that went viral. I think it's got over 50 million hits now. And we turned our passion into profit.

Yeah, we turned it, man.

Yeah, I love it. Turn our passion into profit. You know what's so funny?

We want people to make guarantees to us, but we're not willing to make guarantees to ourselves. Now, I'm going to say it again, like you— somebody gave you a guarantee, $30, 30-day guarantee. In 30 days, if you don't make what they told you you was going to make, in 30 days you got an attitude, you want your money back. But you've never demanded your money back from yourself. You've never looked at yourself in the mirror and said, you let you down. Until you get to that point, you let you down. You've never, you're not brave enough. You want to put it on somebody else. The reason why I'm not successful is 'cause of my boss. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and said, I'm not getting up on time, I'm not going to work on time, I'm not putting in 120% when I'm at work, I let me down. And when you get to the point where you can say you let you down, I don't care, listen to me, no disrespect, I don't care about Glen. That's not why I do what I do, and I love Glen. I don't come here and do what I do so Glen can affirm me, so he can give me a pat on my back. I care more about me than I care about what Glen Man thinks about me. I have standards. I have values. I don't care how much you pay me. If I speak at an elementary school for $300, I chose to do that for $300. If I chose to speak at a prison for free, I chose to do that, and I will not go in there giving those prisoners less than what somebody pays me $100,000. Why? Because I value myself enough to give 120% or don't do it. And that's the problem with some of you. You always want to blame other people. You always want to hold other people to the fire, but you're not holding yourself to the fire. You just said you're giving 50%. You owe you an explanation. You owe you an explanation. You need to look at yourself in the mirror and say, why are you only giving 50%? What's wrong with you? You need to put yourself on punishment. You need to tell you, no more TV, no more snacks, no more desserts, no more— no, we working out now. No, no more alcohol. Not right now. Not— no, I can't handle it right now. You need to tell you that you owe you something. Stop going back to— you keep going to the mall with the receipt. This is what y'all said it was. Glenn, you didn't do what you said you was gonna I'm gonna do? Well, you didn't do what you were supposed to do, so how am I gonna do what I'm supposed to do for you? You walk out of this room, you owe yourself.

I didn't get here making excuses. So what, my father wasn't in my life? The truth of the matter is he ain't never coming to my life. So what, I'm gonna wait for the rest of my life for my man to come?

He ain't coming. I live in America. I'm an African-American male. They don't treat us the same. It's something called racism. I ain't gonna cry about it. It's probably gonna be racism to the day I die, but I'm not gonna cry about it. I'm still gonna be a millionaire. I'm still gonna be one of the top motivational speakers in the world. No, I didn't grow up on that side of the town. No, my mama don't have no network. No, I don't know a whole lot of people. No, I'm not at a country club. No, I don't play golf and I don't plan on playing no time soon. But I'm still gonna be successful. I'm still gonna get to where they are. Why? Because I owe it to myself and can't nobody stop me but me.

And you need to get rid of them excuses and you need to stop pointing fingers at people. And you need to start pointing fingers at yourself. What did you not do? A guy asked me about 2 months ago, he said, "E.T., if there's one mistake you've made, what's that one mistake you made?" I said, "I'm gonna be honest with you. My values are not in alignment with my dreams." He said, "E.T., what do you mean by that?" I said, "I wanna tell you a story. I got a good friend of mine who, you know, a good friend of mine, he came to me and said, 'Eric, my marriage is not where my marriage needs to be. I need to make some adjustments. I see you and your wife. I see how much time you spend with your wife, how much time you spend with your children, and I just, I want You buy your wife roses regularly, you're always taking her out to eat. Like, E, I'm watching you, you spoil her. E.T., what can I do? And so I told him what to do, and guess what he started doing, God? He started doing the exact same thing I started doing. And he said, Eric, it's not working. Like, I'm doing exactly what you're doing, but it's not working. He said, why isn't it working? I said, you know why it's not working? Because your values and your dream— you say you want a better marriage. "but I told you you need to iron your wife's clothes." You know what he told me? After a while he said, "I'm gonna be honest with you, Eric. I know you told me to iron, you told me to wash, you told me to cook, but where I come from," he said, "I'm gonna be honest, Eric, when I do that, I feel like a punk." And I said, "And that's why you're having a hard time doing it because your value system says a man is not supposed to iron, a man is not supposed to cook, a man is not supposed to wash dishes. That's what your value system said. So you're doing one thing, but you're going against your own value system." The reason why I'm having such an easy time washing clothes and cooking and ironing, you know why? Because nothing is as important to me as my marriage and I would rather be happy. I would rather be happy than to say I ain't no punk.

Make me a punk. I want to be a punk. A happy punk. For real, no. A friend of mine, he came to my house and I didn't have a mop and so I was on the ground and I was mopping the floor with a towel and he says, "E.T. the Hip Hop Preach, you're on the ground and you're mopping?" I said, "Yeah." He says, "Your wife got you whipped." I said, "You didn't know?" You just found that out? I've been doing a terrible job.

I'm sorry, I am whipped. And after 23 years, you should be. And if you're not, it's a problem.

So listen to me, there are those of you saying, I want to be a millionaire, I want to be the best at this company, right? But your value system says you believe in sleep more than you believe in grinding. Your value system says you are a consumer and not a producer, that you're spending more money than you're making. Why? Because you're a consumer. But you're, you're reading all the books and you're saying everything the books are saying But those books are not in alignment with your values. And if you're gonna go to the next level, your values are gonna have to change.

I think what people get confused is, you know, they're grinding with a goal. And I'm not saying you shouldn't have goals, but you should be grinding for grinding's sake. You know, you should grind because that's what you do. You're passionate about what you do, you know, and so you're waking up every day with this concept of, I have 24 hours and they're mine. This 24 hours belongs to me. And whatever I do in this 24 hours, will determine where I'll be tomorrow and the next day. And I think that's what people need to focus on. Like, get off of this, I want to make 6 figures, I want to drive this car, I want to live in this house. I think what people should be focusing on is I have 24 hours. Like, Oprah only has 24. Bill Gates only has 24. Like, Warren Buffett only has 24 hours. And in that 24-hour period, I can either break my life or make my life. And I think And I'm not saying you shouldn't have goals. Don't— I just think that goals for people is too high on the priority list. And I think what should be on the priority list is going to bed so you can wake up the next day and you can grind it out. And I'm just a dude that believes you reap what you sow. So, if you're grinding on Monday, grinding on Tuesday, grinding on Wednesday. If you're grinding 6, 7 days a week for a span of 5 or 6 years, Something's gotta come out of that. But if you're only grinding, you know, on Monday you fired up, Wednesday you back to sleeping in, Thursday you got the funk of the world is on. Like I've heard people say, hump day, hump day. What is hump day? Every day is hump day.

Like what's Wednesday is hump day.

Like Monday hump day, Tuesday is hump day. Like every day is hump day. And I think if we would spend more time on what's my goal, you know, meaning what do I need to accomplish in this day to live this lifestyle and you go after it, then I think, I think more people will be successful.

I just ran across a quote the other day that says education is the great equalizer. And I was like, oh, so no matter where you are, if you feel like you started at the bottom, you know, if you feel like you started at the top but you want to preserve the top because just because you're at the top doesn't mean you're going to be at the top forever. I mean, you look at great football players, you know, great football teams. I mean, you're not, you're not going to automatically win because of your name. You have to keep performing year after year. So if you're at the bottom and you're like, man, I'm at the bottom, Eric, and I want to live life like everybody else. I want to fly first class. Like, I want to see the world. You know, I don't want any limitations. Then reading is not— okay, so I'm using the word reading, but what I'm saying is education, being enlightened, being informed. And I had to realize for myself being a high school dropout, like you can't use that excuse forever. Where I was born and where I was raised, you can't use that forever. And so to me, you liberate yourself. Malcolm, you talked about Malcolm. Malcolm liberated himself, and most people don't know Malcolm was not born wearing glasses. Like Malcolm had 20/20 vision, but it was in prison when Malcolm learned to take reading serious, and he read with a dim light at night That's how he eventually lost his sight, but he lost his sight, but he gained his vision. You know, he lost his sight, but he gained his vision at that point. So I would say to young people who are watching us that it's not optional. The more you read, the more liberated you are, and the more you are educated, um, to me, the more you can experience a life like the people that you're probably looking at and saying, I wish I could live like that person.

What's your why?

Hey, if I don't give y'all nothing else, you better start that. What's your why? You know why I do what I do and I do it so passionately? 'Cause my grandfather was a high school dropout, my father was a high school dropout, I was a high school dropout, and we 'bout to break the cycle. I do what I do so my son won't have to go through what I went through.

When I was at the football game, my old dude wasn't with me. I saw other kids with they father, I said, "That'll never happen to me." I do what I do because my daughter says she going to Harvard. It ain't even about y'all. I'm 'bout to come in here and blaze y'all.

Why?

'Cause I'm trying to get to all the NFL. I ain't about to miss this opportunity. This is the first NFL team I've ever done in my life, and I'm about to lick it. I'm about to give everything I got, and I will know if I don't get another gig, it won't have nothing to do with the fact that I didn't put everything on the field. What's your why?

Why do you wake up in the morning? Why do you put on that jersey? Why do you go out and practice?

Why?

I have a ritual where even if you're my closest friend, I have boundaries.

So just because it's my company, it doesn't mean I can take calls all day, right?

I have boundaries.

So you can't call me at a certain time. Why?

I'm working. So if I'm on the phone all day— just be— and I'm saying this to entrepreneurs because one of the gaps— and we'll talk about this later in the show— but you got to find the gaps. And one of the gaps with entrepreneurs is that they feel like because they own their day, they can spend it like they want to. You cannot spend like you want to. So if you were working for IBM or you're working for Ford, whoever you're working for, you couldn't be on the phone all day at a major corporation talking on the phone. So, so why do you allow yourself to talk on the phone when it's your business? Matter of fact, it's yours.

You should probably—

you should make sure there's no phone calls going on because it's your business.

So one of my rituals is when I get started, there are no interruptions.

When I get started, I don't care if it's my wife, my children, they know that from a certain time frame I'm going all in, and I can't go all in answering the phone. I can't go all in watching TV. I can't go in with the distraction.

And so some entrepreneurs are like, why am I not blowing up?

Because you don't—

you're not in abstraction. You don't have that, that, that moment of your day. I don't care if it's 2 hours, 4 hours, where you shut the entire world out. No Twitter, no Facebook, no, no, no Instagram, which we love the most.

No Instagram. We love that Instagram.

So, but just for 2 I'm going in, and once I come out, then we can do Instagram. And I'll be honest, your content probably would be stronger if you had that, that time of isolation, of solitude, where you give yourself a chance to think, you give yourself a chance to go in, and when you go in, you go 120%. So yeah, I like that.

I think what's so unique about, you know, my presentation is that it comes from the heart. You know, that I speak from the heart and I'm not afraid to be transparent. I'm not afraid to talk about my failures. I'm not afraid to talk about my fears. You know, I'm not afraid to open up my life and give my story to the world.

So if you want to make 6 figures, you can't just be talking about you want to make 6 figures. You hear what I'm saying to you tonight? If you do the 3 things I tell you to do tonight, I guarantee you whatever it is you want to do in life, you'll be able to do. You will be able to accomplish whatever you want to academically, financially, relationally, whatever. So 3 things. All right, I'm gonna tell you this story. I got to get out of here. And the story is about— you guys have probably heard about this before—

it was a young man who, you know, he wanted to make a lot of money, and so he went to this guru, right? And he told the guru, you know, I want to be on the same level you are.

And 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 like, "The beach?" I said, "I wanna make money. I don't wanna swim." Guru said, "If you wanna make money, I'll meet you tomorrow, 4 AM." So the young man got there at 4 AM. He all ready to rock and roll, got on a suit. He should've wore shorts. The old man grabs his hand and said, "How bad do you wanna be successful?" He said, "Real bad." He said, "Walk on out in the water." So he walks out into the water, watch this. When he walks out into the water, it goes waist deep.

So he like, this guy crazy. Adrian, he like, I want to make money. He got me out here swimming. I didn't ask to be a lifeguard.

I want to make money. He got me in. So he said, come out a little further. Walked out a little further.

Then he had it right around this area, the shoulder area. So this old man crazy.

He making money, but he crazy. Said, come on out a little further. Came out a little further.

It was right at his mouth. My man like, I'm about to go back in here. This guy is mine.

So the old man said, "I thought you said you wanted to be successful." He said, "I do." He said, "Walk a little further." He came, dropped his head in, held him down, hold him down. My man getting scratchy, holding him down.

I got you, I know you brushed it out, but I got you.

He had him held down. I need you for an illustration. He had him held down. Just before my man was about to pass out, he raised him up. He said, "I got a question for you. Somebody answer the question for me." He said, "When you were underwater, what did you want to do?" Lip.

I'm looking for a different word though than lip. What's that word? 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 got asthma in here today, but if you ever had an asthma attack before, you short of breath, SOB. Shortness of breath, 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're trying to breathe is to get some fresh air. That's it. And when you get to the point where all you want to do is be successful as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful. And I'm here to tell you, number 1, 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.

You—

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 got to be willing to work off of 3 hours of sleep, 2 hours. If you really want to be successful, some days you will have to stay up 3 days in a row. Because if you go to sleep, you might miss the opportunity to be successful. That's how bad you got to want it. You got to go days without— listen to me, you got to want to be successful so bad that you forget to eat. Beyoncé said once she was on the set doing her thing, 3 days had gone by, she forgot she didn't eat. 'Cause she was engaged. I'll never forget 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? 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." Football players, how many football players I got anybody like football in here, raise your hand. Anybody like football?

Emmitt Smith. I used to be a Cowboy fan before they did my boy Tom Landry wrong.

I used to be a Cowboy fan.

And watch this, there was a commercial. Emmitt Smith had won his first Super Bowl and he had this commercial when he was lifting weights.

I don't know if you saw the commercial when he was lifting and he said, Emmitt said, "You know what? I won the Super Bowl so I can rest now." He was doing his bench press.

So he said, "I won a Super Bowl so I can rest now." So he throws up about 325, boom, and he rests for about 2 seconds. Then he's boom, boom, boom. Did you see that? He'd already won a Super Bowl. He said, "I think I'm gonna take a rest," and he rests for how long? 1 second. Most of you won't be successful because when you're studying and you get tired, you quit. And I'm here to tell you today, if you got it— somebody came in my office the other day crying. I said, 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 that 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'll 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. So listen to me. Emmitt Smith said this at the end of the commercial. Emmitt Smith said, all men are created equal, some work harder in preseason. I'm gonna say it again because you might have missed it. All men are created equal, some work harder in preseason. So that means that there are some people who are going to see the professor Going to see the TA. And even when the professor says, "I don't meet with you, my TA meets with you," you say, "I don't want to talk to your TA. I don't pay the TA. I pay you to teach me. So you're gonna have to find some time to meet me. If I got to meet you at the mall, if I got to meet you at your house, you are going to see me." Listen to me. All men are created equal. Some work hard in preseason.

When I went to college, guys were way smarter than me. 4.0s, 3.0s. They went to the Ivy League high schools, came to Oakwood from these great high schools. Most of them are not doing what I'm doing. Why? Because it's not about where you come from. It's about heart.

You come to a place where, you know, being smart ain't enough. You gotta have heart.

That's number 1.

Watch number 2. Number 2.

Catch number 2.

I wrote it down.

I wanted to make sure you got it.

It says to be— watch this, watch this.

We're talking about sacrifice now.

The important thing is this.

You're writing while I'm saying it. 'Cause I only have about 3 more minutes.

Listen to me. The most important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you will become. That's the number 2 thing.

You gotta catch that one.

To be able to— listen to me— at any moment. Some of you, you can make sacrifices when Monday Night Football is not on. You can make a sacrifice. But when the game come on, for some reason you just attached to it. For some of you, when your favorite show come on, you can be— you can make sacrifices on Sunday when ain't nothing going on, but when your favorite show comes on Monday, bam! Some of you, you focus until the phone ring and then you like, I gotta answer it. If I don't answer the phone, I'm gonna die. I'm saying to you today that there are some of you, if you give up your cell phone, you would be successful. But your cell phone is more important to you than your success.

I'm gonna say it again, I'm gonna hurt somebody. I'm gonna hurt somebody.

Some of you need to give up your cell phone because the time you spend on your cell phone could be used for your success. The time you could be using to be successful, you're using it on the cell, and the cell phone is not bringing you nothing but a bill. and somebody has told you you couldn't live without it. I'm talking about going deep now, giving up stuff.

Watch what it says.

To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could be. I don't do well in math. You're right. You ain't never studied. I'm not good in writing. 'Cause you have never written before.

But I dare you to fail in writing for a whole year to see if you can get to the end.

I dare you to fail. I dare you to take that same class over and over again. I dare you to stop dropping classes like you soft. Always want to give up. I'm dropping. Why you dropping? I'm so grateful that the slaves didn't drop and quit, say, I'm just gonna stop.

I'm a slave.

I'm just gonna be a slave. I'mma quit. Listen to me. The slaves said, we will live because one day we will become.

Thank you so much for watching. I made this video because Sam Mendimasa asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, leave it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of Eric Thomas's top 10 rules hit you the most. Leave it in the comments and I'll join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.

I'm gonna beat you to the spot. I'm gonna beat you to the spot.

That's what it's all about, right? For those of us who play basketball, those of us who play football, Sometimes it's not about being the greatest talent, it's about beating a person to the spot. So if I beat you to the spot and I got an open shot, it doesn't mean I'm the greatest, but I beat you to the spot, right? I created my own shot, I created my own space. That's what the crossover is about. The crossover is about creating your own shot, creating your own space. And the way I have become a millionaire and the way I've become one of the top motivational speakers in the world— nobody knew who I was 6, 7 years ago. It's like created space. I created space. I've given myself an advantage that others don't have. And is it hard? No, not really. You just wake up earlier. You can take naps during the day if you want to, right? So it doesn't mean you have to stay up the entire day, but it does mean you have to get to the spot before everybody else.

Let me tell y'all, I'm, I'm not, I'm not from New Zealand, guys. Come on, listen to me very closely. I'm not from New Zealand, but I know about— let me say it this way so I can help you. I know about what team?

I'm not— I've never seen— I've never seen All Blacks play a day in my life. I've never been to the stadium. Where's the stadium? Help me out, where's the stadium? Okay, I'm going— see, right, you see what I did? I've never been to the stadium.

You're like, Eric, the stadium, that's Hobbit, that way, Eric. That's not the stadium.

The stadium is this way. I've never been there a day in my life. And if you watch some of my videos, I have All Blacks in my video. Why? Because they're what? They're winners. And when you're a winner, you don't even stay in your own little town. When you're a winner, winning spreads. So everybody— I got videos where I'm like, y'all, I don't really know how to show my passion. Somebody said, get the all blacks. Ah, I'm like, yep, that's what I need, all blacks. Yup, yup, I need the All Blacks. I need the All Blacks. Why? Because they say what I'm saying. They just said it in rugby. I don't know nothing.

I'm like, whoo, that's a violent sport. Their passion is all over there.

Why?

Because winners win.

I can't explain it to you. But you better stop making excuses and find a way to win. Because once you start winning, you go from $1,500 to $3,000 to $5,000 to $7,000. You remember, C? From $7,000 to $10,000, nothing changed. We still in the basement. We don't have a building. We still use the garage for all of our products. We don't have business cards. We don't have a 5-year plan. We don't have a 3-year plan. How do you do it then? E, we wake up and grind. Winners win. I focus more on winning than I focus on structure. I focus on winning, and when you become a winner, they start seeing you with winners.