A speaker tells technical college students to become their own biggest supporter and commit to their dreams through discipline and sacrifice. He asks them to take a selfie and pledge never to give up on themselves, and shares a story about speaking to incarcerated men to show how rare their opportunity is.
Chapters
Always believe in you, always love you, and number 3, always be your best friend. Number 4, give you the support that you need in life. Don't wait for someone else to come and rescue you. Don't wait for someone else to come and discover your talent and discover your gift. If you have a dream, if you have an ambition, if you have goals, I need you to give you the support you need to make your dream become your reality. Nothing great comes without sacrifice. If things are going to happen in your life, it's going to cost you something. Great things are not free. Great accomplishments are not free. You're supposed to earn things by blood, sweat, and tears. Through time, through dedication, through energy, through sacrifice. Yes, sir. And sometimes you gotta have a support system. And when you have a support system, you are guaranteeing yourself that you will be successful, more so than those who have a dream but have no support system. You need to support you. Support yourself. When you say that I wanna graduate at a certain time with a vocational trade so I can go out there and be an electrician or to work in the HVAC, career, industry, then you need to give yourself the support you need to do that. Sometimes it takes more than just coming to school and sitting in a classroom. Sometimes you may need to go down the street to where they're building a house and sit back and watch them and ask if you can volunteer an hour or 2 so that you can continue to give you the support you need. Say it again. Sometimes you may not feel good and you may say, man, I want to stay home today and not come to school, but you need to give you the support you need and get up and push yourself because you're working on something. Grab— stop by the store and grab some BCs or Tylenol and get yourself here. Give you the support you need. Don't stay out late at night when you know it's a school night just because your boys want to party for a birthday. You focus on something. You're going somewhere. You want something. You want more out of life than just to exist. Yeah. You want to be a world changer. So do not go where there is a path. Go where there is no path and leave a trail. Don't walk in the shadows of those who you admire, but discover your own potential and live a life that inspires. There are things that you want out of life, and you got to do what you have to do in order to make it happen. Say this with me: I am— I am— More than enough. More than enough. I am— I am— Capable— Capable— Of living my dream. Of living my dream. I will— I will— Believe in me. Believe in me. I will. Love me. Love me. I will. I will. Be my best friend. Be my best friend. And I will. And I will. Support me. Support me. How many of you mean that when you say it? The next thing I need you to understand is that life is going to get difficult sometimes. It's going to get hard, but I need you to do something. I need you to make a promise to you. What promise? A promise that you owe you. Now I want you to seize this moment. I'm going to ask you to take out your cell phones and take a selfie of yourself. Take a selfie of yourself. Put your— in fact, put your 2 fingers up like this. That's the peace sign, right? Take a selfie of yourself, and I want you to do it because I want you to make a vow, commitment, a promise, ladies and gentlemen, to yourself. That today you're coming into an agreement with you that you owe you, that you would never give up on you. And there are times when things are going to get tough, right? Things are going to get hard. There are times when it's going to get difficult for you. And when it gets difficult for you, I want you to go back to this selfie in your phone and look at that picture and remind yourself that on this day Thursday, August the 22nd, 2024. Whatever today's date is, maybe it's the 21st, but whatever the day's date is, I want you to remind yourself that on this day, I promised me that I will not give up on me. I promised me that I owe me. I promised me that I would do what I need to do in order to get to where I need to get to in life. Because it will get tough, but you understand this. Whatever happens in life, you have what it takes to overcome it. Whatever challenge you have in life, you have what it takes to overcome it. Say this with me: greatness is within me. Greatness is within me. Greatness is within me. I need you to say it like you mean that, like you know that. Greatness is within me. Greatness is within me. You see, when I go into jails— I was just in a prison this past Saturday in Arcadia, Florida, speaking to hundreds of men. Some of them are never coming out again. And you know what? They would love to have the opportunity that you have right here today. Some of them are people from your family, from your neighborhood, maybe some that you grew up with. That are in prison, that are never coming out again. You're not in prison. You're in school. You're in a technical college. You have the opportunity to do big things with your life. I need you to really take this moment serious and consider that it's a blessing for me to be here because I have the opportunity to make something with my life. I have the opportunity to do something with my life. I have the opportunity to realize my dream. I have the opportunity to go where I desire to go in life because I only have one chance to do it. And after a while, life is over. We go to sleep and we never wake up again. And if that's coming to each and every one of us, because it is, Then I need you to wake up now and realize this is my chance. This is my opportunity. There's nothing in life that you can't have. And the truth is, you owe you. You owe you. You owe you. You owe you the opportunity. Rico, you're a legend.
