Malcom X: No Fear

‎"No, I don't worry, I tell ya. I am a man who believed that I died 20 years ago and I live like a man who is dead already. I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything." -Malcom X

Malcom X was a man of his word and fought for what he believed in. I wish I was more knowledgeable about the man and what he did for the movement. From the small amount of information I know about him, he was a martyr and known as the most influential African American of the 20th century. This quote just tweaked my perspective on life a little bit. I'll give you my perception of the words that he spoke...

Why worry about anything? Everything is constantly changing and no matter what, we're going to be alright. Fear is the BIGGEST restraint of them all, but we are the ones who allow it to restrain. Malcom X decided at one point in his life that he would rather live his life as if he were already dead rather than allowing fear to stop him from doing what he wanted to accomplish. This is coming from a man who has been deemed one of the mot influential persons of an entire century, words of wisdom. He may of been assassinated but that's part of life.

     I would not mind dying at the age of 25 if I knew that I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish in my life. As a 20 year old, I will begin living my life like this. I've already been moving in this direction but now is the time to make the switch. Life is too short to have fear...fear will not be a roadblock in my life. I will accomplish all that I want to accomplish and then some!

Don't contemplate, just do what you want to do and get it done!

Set the bar high!

I devised a quote when I was about 16, it goes :

"You gotta do what you gotta do to get where you gotta get."

This means that you must do whatever it takes to reach the goals you set for yourself. Sometimes you have to do things against your code of ethics, sometimes you got to do things that you might not like doing, and sometimes you've got to sacrifice what you would never want to sacrifice. 

I want my life to be evaluated from how far I've come. I want to be the first person in my family to graduate from college. I want to be the first person in my family with a Bachelors degree. I want to be the first person in my family with a Masters degree. I want to do what others in my family FAILED to do, set the bar HIGH. I want my kids and grand-kids to look at me and wonder how I did it. I want them to question me, ask me for advice, and allow me to lead them through life.

If there's one thing I learned in life, a good role model can impact many lives. A bad role model can ruin many lives.

Have a great day everyone.

Will Smith motivates me, how average are you?

I know who I am, I know what I believe, and that's all I need to know...

And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic. You know, while the other guy's sleeping? I'm working.

The first step, before anyone else believes it, you have to believe it.

Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocracy. It's done the second I decide it's done, we just gotta wait for y'all to see.

-Will Smith

I've recently been watching a motivational Will Smith video that contains various interview clips with his quotes. The first time I even heard that he was such a motivational person, I almost crapped my pants. Will Smith lives his life by the same rules and standard I live mine. I've noticed myself gaining more and more success lately and I think there is a correlation between the two.

My job is to be a student. I also work as a waiter to pay my bills (rent, car insurance, gas, phone, etc). I do as much as I can to be the best possible student I can. I try my hardest to be the best server I can. I don't plan on being a server for much more than one more year but I give it my ALL because it shows who I am.
I want to know, for myself, that I tried my hardest and did MY personal best. It shows who I am to myself and everybody else. People recognize how hard I work, most praise me and some are envious. Either way, I try my hardest at all that I do.

People wonder why others have something and why they do not. They make excuses as to why these people are where they are. Time is the most precious commodity, we are only allotted a certain amount of it and can never buy it back. Successful people know this and use apply hard work to the short amount of time they have. They are MORE productive than the person wondering why that certain person is successful.

Think about it next time you'd rather sit down and watch T.V. or smoke weed or get drunk. Think about how hard I'll be working and how fast I'm going to pass you up. Have a great day everyone.

To party or not to party?

That is the question. Yesterday was Friday. I'm a college student taking 6 classes and working 20-25 hours a week. A good friend of mine has an open house, his grandma is gone and nobody is home. He's my friend that smokes and drinks and a lot of my other friends do as well. I decided to go to the gym right after work, maybe if I was still up for it then I'd go and say "hi" to some old friends.

I got back from the gym around 10:45 PM and decided to go to the party. I got there and EVERYBODY noticed. There were about 15 people there and the party COMPLETELY stopped when I walked in the door. That seems to happen quite often when I go to parties. People notice as I walk in the door (I'm 5'9 185-190 in pretty good shape too haha), but everybody stopped and greeted me. It was very nice, haven't seen a lot of these people for months. They all know me as the "motivated guy". It's nice but kind of weird to think about how much of a 180 turn my life has made over the last couple years.

I went from smoking weed every day and drinking on the weekends and overweight to where I'm at now. Sober as a bird. Everybody was intoxicated in some way, but it was nice seeing people. I was able to talk to a few of them about college and how they were doing. I was able to give my friends 30 year old brother some advice, he's kind of stuck in life. Smoking pot all the time and not taking advantage of his situation.

Another thing I wanted to mention. I achieved a 2 1/2 year goal of obtaining employee of the month for the month of March with my employer. I've always wanted this award and finally got it, there are about 300 people at my work. My manager stopped me yesterday and said "Hey Josh, I said some good things about you at the director meeting yesterday." I questioned his words about me and he said, " I said that I wouldn't be surprised if Josh is a successful self-made millionaire. He's so motivated and works so hard and I really appreciate it and admire him." This is coming from one of the 8 directors (my boss) to all of the others as well as some employee that go to the meeting.

I keep hearing more and more that I WILL be successful. I never had the goal of becoming a millionaire...he just gave me the idea that I can be a millionaire. So, I WILL be a millionaire. I've set a new long-term goal of mine and that is to become a millionaire by the time I'm 35.

Hope this inspires somebody on the day, been spending a lot of the little time I have on this so...please feel free to give your input or ask a question or share this with others. I do this purely as a hobby and part of my life, I don't make any money and I don't want to be paid to do this. My pay is the reaction from my viewers, have a great day everyone. Carpe Diem!

Equation to success!

Hey everybody.

I've been thinking lately about where I am in life and how I got here. Going from a weed smoking, over-weight, 1.81 GPA high school kid to a now 3.07 GPA, clean, and in shape man. I'm 20 years old and in a matter of the last 12 months, I've really changed things. With many lessons along the way, one of the most valuable that I've picked up is that hard work really does pay off. While everybody goes out on the weekends to go to parties, drink, and/or try to pick up girls, I'm usually at the gym, working, or doing school work.

I've made a few VERY specific goals that I'm on my way to achieving, here they are.

1. As far as weightlifting goes, keep the body fat low and enjoy lifting.
2. Graduate from a university with a business degree with a concentration in accounting with a 3.5 GPA or higher. (first person to graduate from college in my family)
3. Obtain a well paying job right after graduation or before.
4. Try and preserve my youth.

Number 4 has really been hard for me. As stated above, I'm constantly working for my goals and a social life really isn't included in them. I'm 20 years old and feel like a 25 year old, doesn't sound like it's too old but you shouldn't feel like that when you're 20 haha.

Fact of the matter, setting goals has really helped me become a more successful individual. I may have only shared 4 goals with you but I have dozens of them and meet goals on a daily basis. This keeps me motivated to continue achieving and excelling in life.

I've kind of found an equation to success...here it is:

Motivation + Hard work + Positive Mental Attitude = Success

With this combination, you can do WHATEVER you want in life. Sounds simple, but staying motivated is very hard...that's why I've created this blog. I find myself losing motivation and I use this to obtain feedback from others and hopefully I can help motivate them. Hard work is learned, the environment we've grown up in shapes our work ethic and we must sometimes have to flip it around and learn a better work ethic.

 Positive mental attitude, this one might be the hardest of all. All we see on T.V. is negativity, death, and tragedy. News stations and newspaper companies seem to be very good at outlining all of the terrible things that go on in the world. I've chosen to look at every situation with a new view. I constantly ask myself, "What do I have to complain about? Honestly? What in life is so bad that I can't reach my set goals?". I find it harder and harder to answer this question as I get older and older. We really have no excuse to reach goals. No matter how bad the situation, you can always find a positive light. A quote I've devised to get me and others through tough times:

"When life hits you hard and it's the darkest time you've seen, the light will shine brightest. Find it."

I hope at least ONE person can take from this post, I constantly spend my time writing these blogs in HOPE that I can help somebody. Please feel free to comment on this with your opinion or share it with others. I don't make any money on this blog, I just want it to reach as many people as possible. Thank you for your time, happy Wednesday!

On the grind!

Hello! So it's 6:37 AM where I'm at and I am already ready for my day of school and work. My alarm went off 5 minutes ago, I woke up at 5:45 and felt hungry...I was physically hungry. Also felt more awake than I've felt in weeks when waking up, with only 5 hours and 45 minutes of sleep in me. While showering, I fell into deep thought. I felt more motivated today, mentally hungry for a challenge. Mentally hungry to do something different or better today. 

Today, I will redefine the grind. I will make today a better and more productive day than I've had in a while. Successful people go with the hours, we only have so many hours in the day to do what we need to do. Time is the most precious commodity of all and it's sickening to see others throw it away. This is our time to move forward, to challenge ourselves, to push ourselves to failure. 

"A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions." -Confucious

5 hours and 45 minutes of sleep sounds pretty good to most of you reading this. I exercise 7 days a week, twice a day when I can, and weight lift 5 days a week AT LEAST. My body "needs" a minimum of 8 hours of sleep to grow at its best. I'm willing to sacrifice that extra 45 minutes that I could have gotten to grind on some homework.

 My education is very important to me and I set a goal of obtaining straight A's this semester as my first semester with straight A's in all of the years I've been in school. This is my 3rd year in community college and I'm transferring to a 4-year university next fall. I graduated high school with a 1.81 academic GPA...what's your excuse? Why aren't you doing something that you should be doing today? Why aren't you pushing yourself to your limits? Maybe it's time to do a little self-reflection and a re-evaluation of yourself. 

Hope everyone has a positive, productive, and overall awesome day! :)

We're all human

Hey everyone, I've been very busy lately and haven't had much time to post. In all honesty, I've kind of been struggling with life. I may have created this blog to be positive and inspirational but I want everyone that reads this to know that we're all human and it's not rainbows and sunshine 100% of the time.

I worked about 20 hours this weekend, worked out 4 or 5 times, and am just pooped. I'm going into this week with a positive outlook though. The quote of my week is:

"If you're going through hell, keep going." by Winston Churchill

This quote is so true, I feel that I've faced some hardships this weekend and have a very tough week ahead of me. I'm going to keep going through it, Hell. Have my first astronomy exam on Thursday as well as a quiz tomorrow in the same class.

As stated in an earlier post, I'm shooting for my first semester in ALL of my school years for straight A's and this semester I just so happen to have 6 classes for 16 units, the toughest semester yet. I'm also transferring to a university next fall so I NEED the GPA boost badly.

All in all, if you're going through something tough then just keep going. You'll get through it, don't accept no
for an answer. Redefine the grind, prove to yourself that you're much stronger than you once thought. This is going to be a great week, I can feel it. Have an awesome day everyone and a great week if I can't get to the computer for another post this week! :)