What do you do when you have been telling yourself you can reach your goal, and you’re losing every day? What do you do when you’ve lost your spirit, you’ve lost your job, you’ve lost everything, life’s been devastating? Once you are defeated in your mind, ladies and gentlemen, it’s all over. Your problem is that your pain has identified you. Your pain has weakened you.
You have a choice how you respond to your pain. And some of you in this room, for real, I’m just gonna be honest with you, you’re getting wimpy on me, you’re getting soft on me. You are not the only person that’s been through a divorce, boo, get over it. You’re not the first one, you won’t be the last one.
You can turn that divorce into something. You’re not the first one to lose your promotion and get fired. You’re not the first one. You’re not the first one they let go of, you won’t be the last one.
The question is, what are you gonna do about it? I know what it is to walk the floor, and you don’t know how you’re gonna make it. When people no longer believe in you. And you’re all you got. And you got to say to yourself, when you fail again and again, they tell you no, sometimes with tears in your eyes, it’s possible.
When life stagger you, the thing that will get you up on your knees, and you get you standing in the center of the ring, and find something from somewhere deep down in, to keep on slugging, and keep on fighting is it’s possible. It’s possible, if I just stand long enough, I can pull this off. When you’re facing defeat and disappointment, seem like life has written you off, and everybody says you can’t do it. You don’t have what it takes.
All you need to affirm, that in-spite of this, it’s possible that I can do it. So what makes ET different than everybody else? Every year, I just kept going. And I kept going, and I kept going, and I kept saying one day gonna be my day. You know what I’m not gonna do? I’m not gonna quit in the process.
I’m not gonna give up, I’m not gonna give in. I invested too much to quit. I made too many sacrifices to give up. I paid too much.
Listen to me, I cannot stop what happens to me, but I can dictate how I respond. So when life happens, I don’t sit there and cry. I buck back. I will greet this day with love in my heart and I will overcome evil.
And the problem with some of you in this room, you will never be great, because every time you go through pain, every time you go through a problem, every time you go through discouragement, you give up and you quit, and you do not understand that at the end of pain is your millions. At the end of pain is your reward. At the end of pain is your productivity. At the end of pain is your promise.
So do me a favor, Stop crying about it, and use your energy to get through it. I’m talking to you, you’re going through a storm right now, and I’m telling you that this too shall pass, like every storm that has come to you. And I’m telling you, whatever you’re going through right now, if you can just muster up enough strength to hold on and hold out, if you do not quit, if you do not give up, it’s coming baby. Hold on.
I don’t care how long it take you to finish school, hold on. I don’t care how long it takes you to pass that bar exam, you keep going. You keep studying. You keep writing.
You keep singing. You keep rapping. You keep boxing. You keep fighting.
You keep dribbling. You just keep on keeping on. And if you persevere, every storm that’s come, it will pass. Recycle your pain.
You can decide the shape, the form, you can decide the product that comes from your pain. Look up, get up and don’t ever give up.