Most of the time today, when people say they are on the grind; they overslept, they are laying on the couch and they are eating cereals. That´s what it means to them. That is not what it meant in my day, and that is not what makes people successful.
I have been so blessed to get in the room with some of the most incredible people on the planet. I had lunch the other day with the CEO of AT&T, and we fed for hours and hours talking and interacting with each other and became friends. Last Sunday, I was invited to Oprah`s house as she lunched her book; and I have seen her behind the scenes, and seen how she operates; who she is, and what she does. I have seen people who are on the grind; I have seen Steve Harris on his grind. I have seen people on the grind.
What on the grind really is? Its a work ethics that will blow your mind. I’m sixty years old and everybody who works for me is younger than me and they will tell you I work you up under the table.
My father decided what grinding was. You weren’t grinding, until daddy said you were grinding. Take your hand out of your pocket boy; like you had a million dollars in your pocket. They trained us not to be lazy. They talked about lazy, like it was a disease. Don’t tell me you’re on the grind and you are not really on the grind.
In the morning, he showed up via the praying and in the evening, he showed up via the spoils.
If you don’t devour when you are young, you’ll have nothing to divide when you are old.
I am scared to death of people who are young and say “I just can’t figure it out”; I haven’t made up my mind yet; I tried it I didn’t like it; I don’t know maybe I’ll do that. I think you better hurry. In the morning, devour something. Throw your whole self at something. You’ll never know what you can do or what you can be, till you throw your whole self at it. Devour it, I mean devour it. Don’t try to devouring it, attack it like you’re going to kill it. Devour the prayer; and in the evening, you divide the spoils.
We have it backwards today; we want to divide the spoils in the morning. So we are playing, when we ought to be devouring. See, don’t worry about whose name you’re wearing; when you’re young, worry about your name. There is an old person down inside of you that is depending on you to be smart. Its the person you are going to be thirty-four years from now. Do not disappoint that person by being foolish through the strongest years of your life. And then, when your back is out and your knees are swollen and you cant move around and you are out there moving to get your grind on now? It is a message, you tell yourself. I`m tired, I don’t feel like. What we become, is what we say to ourselves. You will never wonder when kids talk about. Oh no, I don’t fell like working out today, oh no I don’t do this, I`m not into working out. I want to get the trophy, I want the trophy, but I don’t want to go through what it takes to get. You devour in the morning, you divide in the evening and if you try something out and it didn’t work, its OK. Try something else.
My son said to me, my baby boy, he`s finishing up a four year degree in musical engineering he said, daddy, I think this is the thing I want to do but he said at the dinning room table with me, he said, but suppose its not, suppose I throw everything at it and suppose its not the thing. And I`m laying back over the table and i said don’t worry about it son, if it is not the thing, it will be the thing, that leads to the thing.
