Since then I’ve never been afraid to try new things. I’ve never been afraid of the unknown, because I didn’t understand most of the stuff around me. I didn’t know what was going on in my life and it removed that fear. When you’re desperate to get out of your situation, you’ll pretty much do anything to change or improve your circumstances. My upbringing and what I was exposed to removed that fear of rejection. I pray for you that you’re not in a situation like the one I was growing up in. But as I’ve said before, sometimes you’ve got to go through the fire to realize what you’re in and get to that better place, whatever that may be for you.
Don’t concern yourself with somebody else’s opinion of what you’re supposed to do with your life and how you’re supposed to dress and how you’re supposed to go about your life. Some of the most successful people in the world are some of the weirdest, the oddest—the opposite of whatever “cool” is—because they’re very into their own thing and their comfort zone and their world. Look at Bill Gates. He doesn’t remind me of a guy who has danced on top of tables, spraying champagne, wilding out like a star football player. He’s a geeky guy, but he’s still cool as hell because he discovered his love, he discovered his passion, he discovered the things that moved him and intrigued him, and he was comfortable with being weird, comfortable with being different.
Get comfortable in your weird. Get comfortable in your different thoughts. Get comfortable in who you are and the things that you’re into. Just because other people out there might not connect and they might call you weird and spooky and kooky, that’s all right! Think of it this way: You could transform yourself into a happier, more positive person. You could be the next CEO of a Fortune 500 company because you decided to stay comfortable in your different thoughts, and all these other dudes are going to be begging to work for you. Just ask Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.
If you don’t believe in yourself it may be because you’re surrounding yourself with negative people who make you think you couldn’t be any of those things or make those changes in your life. You need to find your own direction, be your own person, and not be ashamed of who you are. The only reason to not do it is if you’re afraid of the unknown. I decided I was going to spread my wings and try everything possible because I didn’t know if only one thing would get me to the top. So do your own thing. Elevate yourself to the top.
As soon as you decide what you want to do with your life, your family and your friends and the people in your immediate life may be the first people to try and talk you out of your goals. It doesn’t always happen that you’ll tell someone how you want to change your life and they get into a full-on display of support, enthusiasm, and encouragement for you to keep going, even helping you with the execution of your thoughts. It does happen, but in most cases, as soon as you decide, or God sends you a confirmation that this is what you’re supposed to do and this is a new chapter that you’re supposed to begin, the people in your immediate circle, the people who are in your life, are the first ones to try and discourage you out of that plan.
Ideas Are Blessings
When these ideas and these messages and this game plan is sent to you, it is sent to you for a reason. Every time you get an idea it’s a blessing from God.
I believe the two closest experiences to God are water and ideas. Think of it this way: Your body is made of 90 percent water. Most of the world is made of water. The liquid in your body is red, but it’s still liquid. Liquid in your eyes helps you blink, the liquid in your mouth helps you break down food. When you have a child, your baby starts out as a form of liquid. And when you get an idea, you’re closer to God, because like Him, you’re creating something for the world and for yourself. You’re channeling God’s idea, something that He sent to you. And God would never give you something somebody else is supposed to have.
Don’t rob the world of what you’re thinking. Don’t rob the world of your ideas and your plans, because everything in your life, every material and physical thing, every building, every piece of furniture, every new technology, everything that you see, was somebody’s thoughts. And these people decided to execute those thoughts and get them out and allow their thoughts to be materialized, and that’s why we are now experiencing what somebody else thought. I was at a restaurant one night having a business meeting, and the restaurant was so beautiful—its design and architecture, everything from the food to the outfits the servers were wearing—and then it hit me: I was sitting inside somebody’s idea! My brain started going further and I started looking at every little thing, realizing that every aspect of this restaurant was first in someone’s mind and then it became physical, something real. And I wondered if I was tripping—because I don’t drink and I don’t smoke, so the stuff I come up with kind of hits me throughout the day. But this was valuable to me. We are always experiencing someone else’s idea. Since then I have never looked at the things around me the same way.
I want you to stop for a quick second and look around. Are you reading this book at a table or sitting on a train? Are you on an airplane? Wherever you are, you’re sitting at or sitting inside somebody’s thoughts while you’re reading this book. If you’re in a car, somebody thought of how to make the car, and design the car. But if they had kept those ideas in their mind, you would have never been able to purchase the car.
When you walk around a city and you look at the architecture, and you’re thinking how beautiful the buildings are, you’re looking at somebody’s thoughts. That building, as big as it is, was inside of somebody’s mind and they were able to get it out and make it physical—and now you’re standing in someone’s idea. People are working or living inside somebody’s thoughts. So don’t rob the world of what you’re thinking. Get it out. You don’t have to be a brainiac. If you ever want to create something, just go for it. I want to experience what you’re thinking. You can make the world better with your ideas.
So my question becomes, What are your designs? What are your ideas? Why wouldn’t you want the world to experience your thoughts and ideas? Haven’t there been times when you had an idea to do something or invent something and then a couple years go by and some product comes out and you think, Damn, I thought of that forever ago! The thing is, you didn’t execute. So what happens is—and this is my own theory: God sends you the idea first, but you’re lazy. You may tell people about it, you may write it down, but you don’t execute it to the point of bringing this thought and idea to life, and so He sends it to somebody else. It could be an idea for anything—to invent something, design something, a way you can change your life.
If you don’t have a high school diploma, or you never went to college, or you dropped out, you may feel discouraged when you want to get your ideas out. There are plenty of multimillionaires who didn’t graduate from high school or college. Now, I’m not encouraging you to drop out of school, because school brings education, opportunities, and connections. I’m just saying that you don’t need to have degrees in order to execute your ideas and plans. Experience is your highest truth. To me, experience is the highest level of education. Are you a singer, songwriter, or music producer? Do you have film ideas, or want to write screenplays, or become a film director? I’ve learned that if I surround myself with people who are the things I want to become, at some point I will become them.
Don’t rob the world of what you’re thinking. Get it out. Execute. When you have an idea, stop telling people all your business, because in most cases people are not happy for you. Stop telling people your business, stop talking so much. Be a silent force. Stop talking and looking for affirmation from everybody. We all get excited about our ideas and we want to share them with our friends and family, our circle. But not everybody is going to see what you see and if they don’t, they may try and talk you out of executing your ideas. If the Wright brothers told their friends about their idea for an airplane and people laughed at them, if they had kept that idea in their minds, we wouldn’t be flying around the world on airplanes. If Dr. King
had kept his interpretation of the way he saw the world in his mind, then we wouldn’t be living in the country that we live in, in the world we live in now. He had an idea of how the world should be and was determined to make it happen, even if it killed him. And then slowly but surely it started happening.
Salvador Dali said, “Geniuses must never die. The progress of mankind depends on us.” The first time I heard that quote it messed me up because it’s true. We won’t progress without genius or ideas. Everything you do, and everywhere you go, you’re experiencing somebody’s thoughts. Everything is somebody’s idea. So the questions become, What do you think? What do you want for yourself? What are your ideas? What is your purpose? You are so important to the progress of mankind, so much more important than you think. You have thoughts and ideas running in your mind.
Most people believe you have to be famous to change the world, but I disagree with that. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of people that I know whose lives are miserable because of fame. They feel isolated, like they have to hide from the world. They can’t just wake up and decide to go to the mall because they’ll never make it through one store. There have been a few moments where I’ve personally hated fame because my privacy was violated, or certain rumors were spread about me. There have been a few different occasions when I’ve walked down the street with guys worth millions; one time, people walked up to us, asked me for my autograph and then asked the billionaire I was with to take the picture! I was smiling while my friend took the picture and the whole time I was thinking, Wow, I wish I were on the other side of this camera. This guy is able to walk down the street in peace. He’s a multimillionaire, he’s a game changer, running a successful business, but he doesn’t have paparazzi following him home or any of the issues that come with being a celeb. Of course this guy is famous within his own world and circle, but the average Joe wouldn’t know who he was. I’ll never forget one time my former manager Greg Parks, who discovered me, told me, “Tyrese, I wouldn’t want to be you. I got the best of both worlds. I can be around you and all this madness, screams, and energy, and then two days later I can be in the mall shopping and be completely ignored and anonymous. You can’t cut it off and decide tomorrow you don’t want to be famous anymore, but I can. All I have to do is decide to not hang out with you and nobody will give me that attention.”
Even if you don’t have fame and fortune you can still execute because there is value in your relationships—more value than what you may have in the bank. I am sure President Obama still has some friends that grew up with him who may only have a couple thousand dollars in their bank account, but they have the president’s cell phone number. I wouldn’t think anything less of President Obama’s friend because of the amount of money he doesn’t have because he has the relationship and direct access to the president of the United States. There is more value in every relationship you have. Whether you’re rich or poor, if you maintain your relationships, you can still execute your ideas.
I can’t tell you enough: You are that genius. There doesn’t have to be any difference between you and Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama. Obama had an idea of how he saw himself, that he could be president, and he stopped at nothing until he was able to make that thought and idea that God put in his heart a reality. I want you to understand that you have that power, you have that force, you have that idea waiting to materialize, but you must be in a positive frame of mind to transform your thoughts from just an idea into a physical reality.
You should expect a lot of people to say no. But don’t get discouraged, because when one door closes, it means that that door wasn’t for you, or that could mean that the timing for your idea wasn’t right. Sean Diddy Combs told me that Benny Medina, who used to manage him, had at least twelve to fifteen different meetings about getting Diddy’s clothing line off the ground. At first nobody got it. They met with all the heavyweights, but they weren’t feeling it. Years later, we know that hundreds of millions of dollars were made from Sean John clothing. And now, people will meet with any new client that Benny Medina brings to the table. In that world, money and revenue are what’s associated with being successful. There was something about what Benny and Diddy saw from the beginning that these other folks didn’t see. But they kept at it and became a huge success. So don’t rob the world of what you’re thinking.
Fall in Love with Your Ideas
At the beginning of this book, I told you about how I had to fall in love with myself and the idea of what I wanted to become. Well, the same should apply to you. People used to always say to me, “Where do you come up with all of this stuff, man?” At some point I started thinking I was a weirdo when it came to some of my ideas and my perspective on life. I had to fall in love with who I was all over again, so that I could be more comfortable with who I am and not feel like I needed to go out of my way to try and impress somebody or be on the same page as everybody I met. With more self-love I was able to achieve the impossible.
I’ve never been competitive, I’ve never been motivated to outdo, be bigger than, or be better than others. I’ve always wanted to be the best version of me. When other people are doing really well, and they’re maximizing their area of expertise, they motivate me and inspire me, but I’m not on a mission to take them out. I think when people are on a mission to take someone out, or outdo them, or beat them, there is always a level of condescension connected with competition. Your insecurity can make you think negatively, and that negativity infests everything. If you’re saying They’re not better than me, that’s degrading and condescending in its own way. You just have to remember that God would never give you something somebody else is supposed to have. If you’re competing with someone, like in a boxing match, and you both have the same gloves and both trained your asses off, at the end of the day, whoever is going to win this match is who God had intended to win the match. You gave it your all, I gave it my all. It’s in God’s hands. But that doesn’t mean you should not try.
You want to be inspired to reach for more because you’ve been exposed to someone doing it on a higher level. In the same way, like my friend Brandy Norwood once told me, You’ll never know who you are till you discover who you’re not. You have to be secure with who you are and what you’ve done and what you’re doing so that you can be happy for other people to have what they have. In the same way, if you don’t achieve something—for whatever reason—you know more about yourself and you can overcome other hurdles once you have clarity on that.
Get your self-confidence together, in order to focus on what you really want to do. The first thing that you have to do is to fall in love with yourself. If you’re going to be depressed and full of self-hatred, then you’re not going to get anything accomplished.
You have to not only fall in love with yourself, you also have to fall in love with your own ideas. Because when you do, no one will be able to talk you out of them. Fall in love with your idea—whatever it is. An idea is something that you want to create for yourself. It could be an idea of yourself.
I have a friend from the United Arab Emirates. There are a lot of restrictions in her culture, they have all of these laws and rules for women because it’s a very strict traditional country. But she decided that she wanted to reinvent the wheel and not be like a lot of the other women in her community. She wanted to go and actually see the world, to see what’s out there. Even though she knew she was going to bump her head a few times here and there, she wanted to get out there and really see what the world is about, because she knew there had to be so much more than what was in her own country. She wanted to experience the freedom of being able to do what she wants, when she wants, where she wants, and with whom she wants. She had to fall in love with her idea of how she sees her life and what she wanted to do with her life. And the day that she fell in love with her idea, no one could talk her out of what she wanted to do. Even though she made some bad choices along the way and she sounded regretful at times, overall she has no regrets about leaving her
country and seeing what the world is about. The concept of falling in love with yourself and falling in love with your own ideas can also mean falling in love with the way you decide how you want to live your life.
See the Impossible
Blindness is a handicap that some are born with and others get along the way. Ray Charles was blind and Stevie Wonder is blind—these are geniuses of our time who literally can’t see. And yet, we can consider them visionaries when it comes to music! On several occasions I had the honor of hanging out with Stevie Wonder. One night in his dressing room after a show, I asked him, “If you had your choice, would you want to see?” And he told me that he didn’t want to see because his life is as amazing as it is even without seeing the things that people are able to see with their eyes. He doesn’t have any mental pictures in his mind, all he has is his experience and his own thoughts. Stevie can’t be distracted by visual images streaming in front of him. What he experiences physically is the only memory he has. He doesn’t know what I look like but he told me he enjoyed my energy and presence and I was honored when he told me he considers me a friend.
Stevie’s discernment and his instincts and his intuition as a man who can’t see is a different experience and makes me wonder how most of us have been blessed to be able to see and use our eyes physically, but we can’t envision better lives for ourselves. We have the physical ability to see, but we’re still blind. A lot of our bad choices are considered blind choices. When your people get mad and disgusted with you and your actions and your choices they always make reference to vision and the visual—You had to be blind to not see that that dude was not good for you. You had to be blind to not see that what you’re putting yourself through is not good. Some people can’t see that they should want better for themselves. They have the convenience of being able to see with their own eyes, but they decide to stay blind. I want you to take the blinders off and try to see the invisible. I want you to dream with your eyes open.
How to Get Out of Your Own Way Page 19