Les Brown-You Have Gotta be Hungry

One of the things I have realized and many of us have, that if you want something out of life, if you want to change yourself, if you want to acquire something, if there is some goal that you want to reach, that is really not easy as some people will make us feel, that living your dream, changing your behaviors, overcoming negative habits, it’s challenging. It’s hard. That living alone is just very difficult.

So decide that you’re going to take some time to work on you, that you deserve that from yourself, that your life deserves some prime time, because you are creating your own production, as Michael Todd would say you are the star of your show, you are the director, you’re writing the script and you will determine whether your life is a smash office hit or flop.

I’ve also found, that if you don’t have the courage to act, sometimes and particularly if you have something special to do, life will move on you

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, do it with everything that you have, develop the habit of giving more than what you’ve paid for. Develop the habit of setting standards that others will be measured by someone said do not go where the path may lead but go where there is no path and leave a trail.

The next thing part of what feeds that hunger: you’ve got to develop a sense of urgency. [Marcus] Aurelius said stop living your life like you have a thousand years to live.

Stop wasting valuable time. Knowing that if we begin to live our lives as if each day were our last, our lives will take on a whole new meaning. It’d take on a whole new expression, valuing each moment that we are blessed with

The next thing that begins to nurture that hunger: Honor yourself as your word. Don’t give your word out lightly. When you throw your word out there and you don’t honor it, it makes a statement about you. If you decide to maintain a sense of integrity with yourself, that if I speak it, I’m going to live it.

Another challenging area in terms of nurturing and developing that hunger in yourself is learning the art of becoming single minded, learning how to concentrate, learning how to focus in. And you’ll be surprised at the things that you’re able to do.

Most people don’t know what their fastball is. Most people go through life never discovering what their talents are. Most people never develop their talents. They have skills and abilities but if you don’t nurture them, if you don’t develop them they will never serve you.

The next thing is whatever it is that you want to do, you want to do it massively.That when you have a made-up mind, when you decide that you want to do something — I was reading something the other day, he said the power to hold on in spite of everything, the power to endure, this is the winner’s quality.

The other thing is that, if you want something, you have got to be relentless. You’ve got to learn how to become resourceful. You’ve got to learn how to become creative. When crises strike in your life and in the Chinese language crises mean danger but it also means opportunity

If you have some depressing face looking at you every day, it affects your blood pressure. Keep these damned faces away from you, it’s contagious. This is serious. So you’ve got to watch your consciousness, watch your face, have an uplifted expression, watch your body posture, all of these things affect you psychically. You’ve got to be the kind of person that you are fearless, fearless, folk, leave fearless people alone.

 See the last chapter to your life has not been written yet and it doesn’t matter about what happened yesterday. It doesn’t matter about the things that you’ve done, that you feel guilty about, if you wouldn’t do it today you’re convicting an innocent person.

"Concentrate all of your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus." 

Alexander Graham Bell said, “What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.” Are you concentrating? Are you focusing all of your power on the work at hand? You’ll never know your potential if you don’t focus your power.