Eric Thomas breaks a family cycle of high school dropouts by pushing his kids toward higher aspirations. The conversation explores what gets you out of bed: big whys like helping a billion entrepreneurs, and little whys like audience comments that fuel daily work. What would you do even without pay?
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Good morning, Believe Nation. Today's message is: What is your why?
Over to you, Eric Thomas.
What's your why? 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? Because my grandfather was a high school dropout, my father was a high school dropout, I was a high school dropout, and we about to break the cycle. I 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 about to come in here and blaze y'all. Why? 'Cause I'm trying to get y'all all in 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?
So what do you think?
I think the most incredible thing that any business owner, entrepreneur, or inspiring person can do is understanding what motivates you. What gets you up in the morning? What keeps you up late at night? Meaning not your worry, but what would you be willing to work well through the night doing? What would you show up and do even if you weren't paid for it. And there's all kinds of words for it. There's passion, there's mission, there's everything. But really it comes down to what fires you, what fuels you. And when you find your why, when you find your greater purpose, when you find why it is you do what you do and how it is you do it, it unlocks amazing things for any business or any business person.
I totally agree. For me, I love helping entrepreneurs entrepreneurs, your comments fuel me. When I was down on my YouTube channel and thinking, "Ah, should I keep going? Should I keep doing it or not?" Just waking up every day and seeing your comments and seeing the love you guys have for the channel and how it's helping you, and you guys saying that it's changing your lives and keeping you motivated, that's fuel for me to want to keep doing it, keep doing better, keep improving the channel, keep adding more content. And I think I like to distinguish between little whys and big whys. The big whys, I want to help a billion entrepreneurs. That's the big vision. That's the dream. That's where you're going. And that's awesome and can be motivating. Sometimes it can be a little demotivating too. It can be like, "Oh, that's too big. Who am I to hit that? How am I ever going to reach that goal?" And so the little whys are super important as well. And the little whys are the customer feedback you get, the YouTube comments that you get, just the little daily reminders that, "Hey, what you're doing is really important and is having a positive impact on people." And I think remembering your big whys and your little whys every day helps keep you motivated and keep on producing amazing content.
So the question of the day today is, I'd like to know what it is you would do even if you weren't paid for it.
Good question. Leave it in the comments below. We're gonna join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and we'll see you again tomorrow morning for another Shot of Inspresso. It's getting better, right? Did you see that? He's getting better. Oscar's like, "Yeah, I'm feeling it." I didn't do the whole thing, but I worked on my Spanish. He's getting better.
