Perception is reality. You’ve got to be ultra cognizant of how people see you, how people perceive you, and once you figure it out you need to adjust how you act and how you present yourself accordingly. If you want to be seen a certain way because it’s going to give you a certain outcome, then you need to start presenting yourself that way. If you want to be seen as a king you can’t carry yourself as present. If you want to be seen as an athlete you can’t afford to be seen just laying on the couch. If you want to be seen as a top level executive at your company you can’t afford to be looked at as the janitor. It’s that simple. The way people look at us DOES matter, so you need to always keep that in mind. You have to tailor the way that you’re seen.

Take this thing seriously. Take your life seriously. It’s the only one you’re going to get. You won’t get a chance to have a repeat performance, you’ve got to work with what you got and make the most of it. And here’s the thing — once you begin taking it all the way seriously, things you thought you could never do will start happening. Things you thought you would never get, you will receive. Songs you thought you never could hear you will sing.

Comparison is the thing you want to avoid. You want to avoid comparing yourself to other people, and you even want to avoid comparing yourself to previous versions of yourself. You have to focus on and deal with the picture in front of you. You can use the past for reference points or for lessons on how to better handle situations you got going on in the present, but you don’t want to live there. You want to live in the present with an eye toward the future.

Spend all of your time thinking about what you have the ability to do, things that you can control and will improve your life. There is no need to think about what other people are doing because you literally have no control over it. You can only focus on what you are doing because that’s the only thing you have control over. It doesn’t matter how many hours of work your competition is putting in, you can only put in what you’re going to put in. So just focus on that.

Be forceful. If you know exactly what it is that you want, then why would you not be going for it? Why wouldn’t you do something today that could make that happen tomorrow? Instead of focusing so much time and attention on the past, wishing that you could change something that you obviously cannot, why wouldn’t you just focus all of that energy on efforts that could eventually create the type of like you really want to live? Use your wanted future as the catalyst to what moves you make today, instead of allowing your past to force you to live the same day of your life over and over again.

Don’t half ass things in life. If you’re going to commit to anything, make sure you commit to it with your full being. Don’t tip toe around, thinking that you’re going to “sneak” your way into getting whatever it is that you want. It’s never going to work that way. You’ve got to be bold and you’ve got to be direct. Not only do you have to go full steam ahead at what you want, you need to LET IT BE KNOWN you’re going to get what you want, getting your Isiah Thomas on. Assert yourself.

Believe in yourself. Don’t worry about what anyone else tells you. Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks about you. No matter who they are, no matter how close they are. Even if it’s your mother, it’s your child. Hell, even if it’s your twin. They don’t even know you like that. You live your life every day. You are yourself ALL OF THE TIME. They only have THOUGHTS about you. They only have OPINIONS about you. So fuck what they think about you, don’t worry about what they think you should do. Follow your OWN process, be your own man, and make things happen. Follow your own path and purpose. God Bless.

You can’t see the opposition. You have to be so focused on the opportunity that the opposition never even surfaces in your mind. You have to have is much focus on, and so much belief in, your ability to win, that losing doesn’t even become a consideration. You have to be so amazing at your craft, so skilled in the game, that you never even worry about what your competition is doing. They’re not even motivating you at that point. You realize and recognize that you’re the best at what you do and that whatever they do, it’s not going to compare to you at your top level. Once your top level reaches a height above everyone else in your category, that’s when you start simply playing the game with yourself.

There is nothing like resilience. Nothing at all. For sure there is nothing that is more important than it. In life, not everything is going to go how you want it to go. That’s a given. It’s not going to be this parade of green lights until you get to the highway. You’ve got to speed through a whole lot of yellow lights, stop at a whole lot of red lights, curve through different stop signs and yield signs, in order to get where you’re ultimately trying to get to.

The grass that’s greener on the other side?? You don’t even give yourself an opportunity to THINK about it. You got to focus on whatever is that you want to happen, and don’t give any level of credence to the idea of it NOT happening, or to having to hit your Plan B. Put it all into your Plan A. If that’s really what you want to do, then you need to do everything that you can to make it happen. That has to be your complete focus. Only worry about that. Only think about that. Only consider that. If you have anything that you’re fully serious about, you got to put everything into seeing that vision come into fruition.