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 MBA Championship.

He's Eric Thomas and here are his top ten rules for success.

- You can't dangle somethin' in front of my face.

I don't want that.

Many of you are taking anything

'cause you don't know what you want.

If I can do one thing for you when you leave this room,

I don't want nothin' 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?

How much money do you want to make a year?

What do you want to drive?

How do you want to live?

Stop just wakin' up like a accident.

What do you want?

And then once you find out what you want

spend the rest of your natural life wakin' up

and goin' after it.

The reason why I speak with so much passion ...

E.T., why do you speak with so much authority?

'Cause I'm talkin' about my life.

Not something that I read.

I ate out of trash cans.

I had no business eatin' out of trash cans.

I lived in abandoned buildings.

I had no business livin' 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 circ, that's not an excuse.

There is no excuse for not livin' up

to your fullest potential.

No excuse.

Worked on my gift.

I realize that all of us are born with a gift,

but you've got to hone it.

You know, you're not going to become great

and we talk about the school of greatness.

We talk about greatness is upon you and I realized

that my gift wasn't goin' to create itself.

My gift wasn't goin' to nurture itself.

My gift wasn't goin' to perfect itself.

That was somethin' 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 turn our passion into our profit.

- Love it man, love it.

- Yeah, we turn our passion into profit.

You know what's so funny?

We want people to make guarantees to us

but we not willin' to make guarantees to ourself.

Now (mumbles) like you, somebody gave you a guarantee,

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 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 never, you're not brave enough.

You want to put it on somebody else.

The reason why I'm not successful is because of my boss.

Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror

and said, "I'm not gettin' up on time.

"I'm not goin' 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, 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 what Glen 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 dollars,

I chose to do that for $300 dollars.

If I chose to speak at a prison for free,

I chose to do that.

And I will not go in there and give those prisoners less

than what somebody pays me $100,000.

Why?

Because I value myself enough to give 120% or don't do it.

That's the problem with some of you.

You always want to blame other people.

You want to hold other people to the fire

but you not holding yourself to the fire.

You just said you givin' 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 workin' out now.

No more alcohol, not right now.

No, I can't handle it right now.

You need to tell you that you owe you something.

You keep going to the mall with the receipt,

this isn't what you all said it was.

Glen, you didn't do what you said you was going to do.

Well, you didn't do what you were supposed to do

so how am I going to do what I'm supposed to do for you?

You walk out of this room, you owe yourself.

I didn't get here makin' excuses.

So what my father wasn't in my life,

the truth of the matter is he ain't never come into my life.

So what, I'm a wait for the rest of my life

for my man to come?

He ain't comin'.

I live in America.

I'm an African-American male.

They don't treat us the same.

There's somethin' called racism.

I ain't going to cry about it.

There's probably going to be racism til the day I die

but I'm not going to cry about it.

I'm still going to be a millionaire.

I'm still going to 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 going to be successful.

I'm still going to get to where they are.

Why?

'Cause 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 two months ago,

he said, "E.T., if there's one mistake you made,

"what's that one mistake you made?"

I said, "I'm going to be honest with you.

"My values are not in alignment with my dreams."

I said, "I want to tell you a story."

I got a good friend of mine, good friend of mine.

He came to me, 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 want that.

"You buy your wife roses regularly,

"you always taking her out to eat.

"I'm watchin' 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 workin'.

"I'm doing exactly what you're doin' but it's not workin'."

He said, "Why isn't it workin?"

I said, "You know why it's not workin'?

"Because your values and your dreams,

"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 while he said, "I'm going to 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 going to be honest Eric.

"When I do that, I feel like a punk."

And I said, "That's why you havin' a hard time doin' 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 says, so you're doing

"one thing but you're going against your own value system.

"The reason why I'm havin' such an easy time

"washin' clothes and cookin' and ironing,

"you know why?

"Because nothing is as important to me as my marriage

"and I'd 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.

(audience applause)

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 moppin' the floor with a towel.

And he said, "E.T., the hip-hop preacher, you on the ground

"and you moppin?"

I said, "Yeah."

He says, "Your wife got you whipped."

I say, "You didn't know?

"You just found it out?"

(audience laughs)

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, those of you that said

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.

And you're spending more money than you're making.

Why?

Because you're a consumer but 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.

If you're going to go to the next level,

your values are going to 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 should grind because that's what you do.

You're passionate about what you do,

so you're wakin' up every day with the 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 six 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.

I'm not sayin' you shouldn't have goals.

I just think that goals for people is too high