And I start thinking about my own life and how much time I had left to do the things that I would like to do. And at that time I wasn’t sure what my life purpose was, what my life’s work was. I wasn’t sure about it at that time. And I thought about it quite a lot. I had some idea but I wasn’t convinced that I don’t think I felt worthy. I didn’t believe that it could be me to do this kind of work that I’m doing right now. And I say to you that if you begin to take a conscious effort to find out what it is that you’re supposed to do, I say that it can literally save your life. I said that it can literally save your life. 85% of the American public, according to recent studies, are going to jobs that they hate, working on jobs that do not challenge them. They get sick thinking about going, because see, when you go to a job and you already know how far you can go, you can already see that proverbial glass ceiling. See, when you’re going someplace and you already know how much you’re going to make, you already know how far you can go, you’re in a dead-end position. It erodes your self-esteem. It lowers your sense of yourself. It creates an inner turmoil. It creates an emptiness in you. So I say that your life is worth finding what it is that you’re supposed to do. And I’m not saying quit your job. I’m saying find it and do just a little bit of it. Just start working at it, just a little bit but do find out what your work is and hold on to it and don’t let your dream go. Don’t let it go. See, and here’s something else I want you to begin to look at: why is it that most people don’t pursue their dreams, or don’t do better than what they’re doing if they’re capable of doing it? I think that many of us don’t go the next step, because we don’t know what to do yet.

And I say that, that the reason that we don’t even explore the possibility of what to do is because subconsciously we don’t believe that it can happen for us, and we don’t believe that we deserve it. So here’s what I’m suggesting: how much time do you spend working on you? How much time do you spend every day working on your dream? In the last 90 days, how many books have you read? In the last year, what new skill or knowledge have you acquired? What kind of investment have you made in you? So I’m saying that as you begin to look at where you want to go, if you want to make it today and things are changing so fast, you have to literally run to standstill. I’m saying that you’ve got to make some conscious effort to begin to work to develop you. Here is something else: most people are not living their dreams because of fear, ladies and gentlemen. Fear, limited vision, and lack of self-esteem is what keep most people doing things they don’t want to do. The same reason that people stay in relationships where they’re abused, they’re unhappy, what’s unfulfilling; they can’t see themselves beyond that relationship. They can’t see themselves enjoying life without that person. They think that this is all that they can do. The same reason that people get stuck at a certain level in life. They can’t see things being better for them and they think that this is it and this is all they deserve. This is all they’ve ever seen, has been passed on to them. And they think that this is it for them. Oh, no, looking what Dr. Blanton - Smiley Blanton - who was a colleague of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, what he said about fear - he said, “Fear is the most subtle and destructive of all human diseases.”

Ladies and gentlemen, fear kills dreams. Fear kills hope. Fear put people in the hospital. Fear can age you. Fear, ladies and gentlemen, can hold you back from doing something that you know within yourself that you’re capable of doing, but it will paralyze you. And it seemed like you’re in a hypnotic spell. And I ask you a question: what is the benefit? What’s the benefit of allowing fear to hold you back? What’s the benefit of giving up on yourself, of not stepping out on life and taking life on? What is the benefit for you? What’s the plus in that? It’s one of the things I had to ask myself. So I didn’t want to make any mistakes. I wanted everybody to like me. I wanted to be perfect the first time I did something. It’s not going to happen. You’re going to make some mistakes. You’re going to hurt some folks’ feelings. You’re going to create some enemies. Whatever you decide that you want to begin to take life on, you’ve got to ask yourself: how long? Am I going to allow this to hold me back? I like what Zig Ziglar says. He said, “Fear is false evidence appearing real.” That is an illusion that we create in our mind. It is a state of mind that can be changed. So let’s look at how we can begin to take some steps to restructure that fear, to begin to expand our visions of ourselves, to begin to increase our self-esteem. Webster said that self-esteem means confidence and satisfaction in one self. Look at your life right now. Whatever you’ve done up to this point in time, your life is working. Whatever you have produced, it came out of you as a result of the kind of person that you have become, as a result of your choices, as a result of your consciousness. Now you have to ask yourself: are you satisfied with what you have produced? Is this what you want? Would you like the things to be better than this? Do you believe that you deserve better than this? Are you content? This is it. You don’t have to do anything else. But you’ve already resigned yourself in life, and say, well I’m happy. I’m not starving like the people in Calcutta. Are you allowing yourself to get off the hook like that? Or do you believe somewhere in the back of your mind or in your heart, that there is some other great work for you to do? There’s something else that life has for you and that’s why you’re here. How do we handle this fear factor? How do we increase our self-esteem? You have to begin to fortify yourself. How do we do that? I believe that you have to begin to consciously monitor your inner conversation and start talking to yourself. Start building yourself up. Sometimes the only good things you will hear about you are the things that you say to you. So I’m saying learn to be your own booster. Stop building yourself up. Start encouraging yourself. Start saying I can do this. I can make this happen. When I started thinking about becoming a speaker, I said yes, I can do this. I can make this happen. When I start trying to convince myself, I can be a businessman after flopping and failing and losing thousands of dollars and feeling stupid and dumb and having people take advantage of me because of what I didn’t know, I had to talk to myself because people say to me that I was done.

And somewhere in the back of my mind I was saying you’re right. Look at what I’ve done. I had to say no no no no no no no Les, hey, hey, come on man, get your self together. You can handle this. You just haven’t figured it out yet. It’s all right, this is your training period. This is the tuition you have to pay for what you don’t know. You can do this. Other people have done it, doesn’t take an Einstein, get you some people that can teach you some stuff that you don’t know, get you some people that have done it successfully and learn from them. Take some seminars, workshops, read some books on how to manage a business. Change the way you see yourself and begin to attend to the personal details. Understand that nobody’s going to take care of your business better than you. And when I start changing that kind of mindset of beating myself up because of my mistakes and start looking at the possibility of my doing better, of my making the adjustment that would enable me to do what I want to do successfully, things begin to change. Now I say stop beating up on yourself. You do do it; I know you do it. I’ve done it. It’s a natural inclination for us to put ourselves down. See, we are born negative I think in a negative consciousness, because we live in a negative world. Here’s some other things ladies and gentlemen. Begin to guard your mind against negative programming, like turn off the television. Don’t watch the news. So you’ve got to guard the kinds of things that you put in your mind. See if you don’t program your mind, your mind will be programmed, because human beings are goal-oriented. That’s why we die of broken hearts early. That’s why we’re running through life too early graves. We’re going through life, ladies and gentlemen, and I think that Henry David Thoreau stated that most men live in quiet desperation. Most of us go through life running scared. So we created this in our minds: false evidence appearing real. We made it real in our minds. That’s why Churchill said there’s nothing to fear but fear itself. That’s the destructive monster. So turn off things that can contribute to your fear. Turn a deaf ear to people that all they can do is talk about how negative things are, because they have bought into the consciousness of the world. Start attending workshops, seminars, listening to tapes on a daily basis to begin to recondition your mind, to retrain your thinking. Faith comes by what? Hearing and hearing and hearing. Listen to things that can empower you, that can enable you to create a new reality for yourself and a new life for yourself. You might appear to be strange around most people. You know most people think you’re strange if you’re happy today. See, these people have not found their purpose in life. That’s why they are grumpy. That’s why they’re miserable. That’s why they’re so negative, they’re hurting and they want to hurt other people. So start practicing using programs for your mind, seminars, books, workshops. Keep a journal. Record your thoughts, what’s happening with you. Every day when you get up, have a journal near you.

See, ladies and gentlemen, we get three to four thoughts a year that if we would act on those thoughts, they could change our lives. What idea are you sitting on? Write your ideas down. And then once you get that idea, take the leap. Take the leap, [indiscernible] the universe. If you don’t take the plunge, I guarantee you somebody else will. Take the plunge. Go into action. And ladies and gentlemen, you will be surprised how things will come together. You’ll be surprised…. Now you’re going to have some difficult challenges. I can tell you that now. Be aware of that. Things are not going to work out exactly right. For time they will, sometimes and that’s when life is just playing the game with you. I want you to feel good and relaxed. But ladies and gentlemen, go into action with your dream. And don’t avoid where the fights are; get in the midst of the fight. Get knocked down, so you can learn how to fight, so you can hold your position. See, most people don’t get out in the arena of life because they don’t want to fight. Most people don’t get out there because they don’t want to get knocked down. They don’t want to be dropped to their knees. But see, you’re going to be dropped whether you’re on the field or whether you’re not just sitting on the sidelines, you’re going to be dropped. So at least get dropped with something. See, that’s how most people are spectators in life. You don’t want to be a spectator. You want to get out in the field where the action is. And you will be amazed after the struggle; there will be a calm period and things will begin to click for you.

Okay