Focus on Yourself – Build Inner Strength

0:00United Health Group is simplifying healthcare by investing in tools to help patients know more and pay less. These tools help patients find providers and compare costs and save hundreds of dollars annually. Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com slash commitment. Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports and nothing brings us together quite like team USA at the Olympic Winter Games. From NBC Universal's iconic storytelling to the innovative technology across Xfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to America, sharing every moment with millions. When team USA steps onto the world stage, we're not just watching, we're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team. Comcast, proud partner of Team USA. You may have weaknesses, you made mistakes, we all have, but there's a lot more right with you than there is wrong with you. Dwelling on the negative doesn't help you to do better. Beating yourself up for past mistakes

1:02doesn't move you forward. The better you feel about yourself, the better you'll do. The more you like yourself, the further you'll go. You can't give away what you don't have. If you're in turmoil on the inside, mad at yourself, critical, condemned, that's what you have to get. Love is not something that you do. Love is something that you can become. It's your quality. If your mind is in a certain way, it's joyful. If your emotions are in a certain way, it's loving. This is the quality of sweetness of body. If your body becomes sweet and pleasant, it's called health and pleasure. If your mind becomes very pleasant, it's called peacefulness and joyfulness. If your emotions become pleasant, it's called love and compassion. If your very life and it becomes pleasant, it is called blissfulness and ecstasy. Only if your surroundings become pleasant, it's called success. In Buddhism, they say replace any negative thought immediately with

2:06a positive thought. And the neuroplasticity says the same thing because neuroplasticity is amazing, but it can be bad. If you have a breakup and you obsess about the person, you're wiring that deeply into your brain. So you have to direct your neuroplasticity. And if you do get that voice in your head, which is normal for all of us, you need to override that with a positive statement. So your forebrain is the builder. It's the designer. It's the CEO. And when you begin to speculate possibilities, when you start to think about a better way to do something, or something you want to experience, or something you want to do, or some future event, it's an amazing phenomenon because researchers are beginning to show that not only do we remember a past, but the brain actually can remember a future. And so how do they do that? Well, because the forebrain has connections to all other parts of the brain, it can take a little bit of that knowledge from a specific neural network and a little bit of experience. And another

3:12neural network of knowledge and another neural network of experience. And it can seamlessly piece it together to create a new level of mind. And then your brain gets a picture on image. And then you've transfixed your mind on that image and those neurons string into place that begin to fire and wire together. And every time you remind yourself what you want to experience, you're reinforcing the circuitry in your brain to begin to install the hardware for you to actually experience that future event. In other words, the brain already looks like it's already had the event. Now that's super cool because it really says then that we're remembering a future potential. The imagination is the most marvelous, miraculous, inconceivably powerful force that the world has ever known. And you know, the average individual uses the imagination if they use it at all against themselves. They imagine what they don't want. They imagine problems coming. Let's begin to use our imagination

4:14the way God meant it to be used. It's the greatest creative faculty that we possess. And we can dope anything we want. The mind is very strong. And one of the things the mind does is develop methodologies or ways of thinking that let it interact with life and not get hurt and be more comfortable and is either when we develop a self-concept and we change it through our lives. But in general, there's a self-concept sitting under there saying I was the one that did this and I was the one went to the school. I don't know when I went there and the one that my father left or stayed or whatever it is, excuse me. And basically all of this unfolds and you end up developing patterns of thinking based upon the experiences you've had. And what I'm saying, at least certainly in my experience, is that's not what makes you wake up. That's what keeps you from waking up.

5:14All right. In the fact that you're identifying with these past experiences and saying that's who I am. Well, it's not who you are. You are watching your ego. You see it get upset. You see it fix things. You see it have concepts and views and etc. etc. And even you're obviously very intelligent. You can use your intellect to support the ego, to support that and so on, right? Man's greatest burden is unfulfilled potential. Man's greatest burden is unfulfilled potential. And I say when I look at the audiences and I know that maybe only one percent are going to achieve their potential. Not fully. I still haven't fulfilled my potential. But unfulfilled potential is man's greatest burden. And it breaks my heart because I know what you kids are capable of. I know I've had kids with 80 IQ to 180 IQ that I mentored that have done big, big deals. Actually, the 80 IQ did better than the 180 IQ. And I know what they're capable of. And I know how

6:2110 million or 100 million or whatever the number is changes lives. And then all of a sudden, you know, you believe that you can walk on water. You believe that you can take a loaf of bread and feed however many was supposed to have fed and make water into a wide. And when you believe, let's see, the true test of a leader is when you've trained other people to be leaders. It's in you kids. I mean, you can do it. If you want it bad enough and you stay focused and you're willing to maintain that commitment, I have to go become more confident. I have to go become a person capable of doing these things. I have to change myself to get there. I can't wait for circumstances to change so I can have my dream. Then our dreams will never happen. We have to get to the point of maturity in our lives where we say, okay, two things are going to change my life. Something new is going to come into my life and make me lucky and blessed. And maybe I can't count on that forever. And maybe now instead, I have to consciously design my life and say, okay,

7:26now if I want to change, if I want my dream, something new has to come from me, I'm going to become a better person. I'm going to become a person who is more optimistic, who is more confident, who is more driven. Not because I am that now, but because we can grow, that you can become the type of person who needs to, who you need to be to achieve your ideal life. You can start today living from your highest ideals, your highest sense of self, your strongest sense of self. You don't need permission. You don't need a guy like me to look at the video camera and say, you have now permission. But if you've been waiting for it, you have permission. It's like, at some point in your life, you just say, okay, I have permission to become my best self. And by becoming your best self, you start to achieve your best things. You start to contribute better things. You start to become a better human being. You can do that now today. So next time you're thinking about a big dream. Don't think about the things that, well, I don't know how to do that. And stop. Think, I don't know how. So set it up on your calendar to go learn those things.

8:28I don't have that. Then set it up. Step by step to go build that. I'm not like that. Then set it up. Step by step to go develop those skillsets and those competencies. So you can become that. And ultimately, you can achieve that dream. It's there. It's waiting for you. Don't stop. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. You are your most valuable asset. Your life, your potential, and your possibilities are the most precious things you have. Thus, your great goal in life should be to fulfill that potential and become everything you are capable of becoming. Your ability to learn, grow, and fulfill your potential is unlimited. Today, people are graduating from high school and college in their 70s, learning new subjects and developing new capabilities. Your ability to learn and remember can continue throughout your life if you keep your brain alive, alert, and functioning at its best. Your most precious financial asset is your earning ability. Your ability to work is your primary source of cash

9:32throughout your life. You could lose your home, your car, your bank account, and everything you own, but as long as you have your earning ability, you can earn it all back. And more, in the months and years ahead, your biggest investment, most people don't realize this. They take their earning ability for granted. But it has taken you your entire life to develop your earning ability. Every bit of education, experience, and hard work that you have invested in learning your craft and developing your skills has gone into building this asset. Your earning ability is very much like a muscle. It can increase in strength and power year-by-year as the result of regular exercise. Likewise, the opposite is true too. If left alone or ignored, your earning ability, like your muscles, can become weaker or even decline because you have simply failed to upgrade it, continue. In other words, your earning ability can be either an appreciating or a depreciating asset. What got you here won't get you any further. Some people are actually

10:35losing value each year, declining in earning ability because they are not continually upgrading their knowledge and skill. They don't realize that whatever knowledge and skill they have today is rapidly becoming obsolete. It is being replaced by new knowledge and skills that, if you don't have them and someone else does, you will be in danger of being overtaken by your competition. The achievement of personal excellence is a decision you make or that you fail to make. But in the absence of a commitment to excellence in your chosen field, you automatically default to average performance or even mediocrity. No one becomes excellent accidentally or by just going to work each day. Excellence requires a definite decision and a lifelong commitment. Knowledge and skill are the keys to the 21st century. Becoming the best person you can possibly be and moving to the top of your field requires the application of self-discipline throughout your life. Mental fitness

11:41is like physical fitness. If you want to achieve either, you must work at it all your life. You can never let up. You must be continually learning and growing. Every day, week and month throughout your career and in other areas of your life. If you're going to join the top 20% and stay there, to earn more, you must learn more. Abraham Lincoln once wrote the fact that some have become wealthy is proof that others may do it as well. What others have done, you can do as well. If you learn how, everyone who is at the top was once at the bottom. Many people who come from average or poor families with average incomes or who grow up in average circumstances have gone on to become some of the most prominent people in their fields. And what, hundreds of thousands and even millions of other people have done, you can do as well. Was philosopher Bertrand Russell once

12:42wrote that the very best proof that something can be done is that someone else has already done it. Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports. And nothing brings us together quite like Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games. From NBC Universal's iconic storytelling to the innovative technology across Exfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to America, sharing every moment with millions. When Team USA steps onto the world stage, we're not just watching, we're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team. Comcast proud partner of Team USA. There's an SUV that turns the unthinkable into the unforgettable. The new Nissan Pathfinder built for big adventures in all that family chaos. It's powered by a strong V6 engine with a 9-speed automatic transmission. Inside, it's rugged and capable, but still premium and tech forward. With room for up to eight passengers, it's also available with seven passenger seating and second row captains chairs. With massive hauling capability,

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