Jeff Bezos said, we know from our past experiences that big things start small, the biggest oak starts from an acorn, and you've got to be willing to let that little acorn grow into a little sapling, and then into a small tree, and maybe one day it'll be a huge oak tree standing on its own. You can't skip steps, you've got to put one foot in front of the other, things take time, there are no shortcuts, but you need to take those steps with passion and ferocity.
And you will stand out from the crowd, and your classmates will look at you differently, and your friends will look at you differently, and your parents and teachers will look at you differently. The ambitious should never apologize, for the only people that will criticize you are the people who have already given up on greatness.
The ability to increase and maintain your hunger is the one common denominator amongst the most successful students, those that are getting the highest grades, they're hungrier than the rest. I believe that's a single most important factor that separates the top performing students to the average performing students, it's hunger, it's not just the ability to be hungry, but it's the ability to sustain it over long periods of time.
So you've got to ask yourself, how hungry are you, how bad do you want it, when you achieve the grades that you're aiming for, do you then get comfortable and relaxed. A lot of students when they achieve the grades they're aiming for, they relax, but if you can find within yourself, the part of you that wants more, you want to make a bigger difference, you want to push a bit more, you want your grades a bit higher, you should never be satisfied with the grades that you've got, because the attempt to achieve more makes you into something phenomenal.
As Les Brown said it's necessary that you take responsibility for your education that you make it happen that you don't give up, that you don't take any rejection or disappointments or defeats personally, that you keep on studying.
I remember Joe Rogan said and the best advice I have ever heard is to live your life like you're the hero in a movie. Right now is when the movie starts and your life is a disaster, pretend you are right now you're in a movie and it starts and it shows you as a loser, and just decide that you're not going to be a loser anymore.
Live your life like there's a documentary crew following you around, and there are millions of people watching and analyzing your behavior. Do what you would want to do so that your kids one day would look back at it, and see that documentary, and look at it with pride, and think wow my dad was a badass. He really did what he had to do. Wow, my mom really got her life together, I love a success story, but even more than a success story, I love a guy that messes his life up, then gets it back together again story.
In those days when you're tired and worn out, and just sick of studying, what do you do on those days, just get it done, even if it's just going through the motions, you go through the motions, you don't want to read your textbook, you read your textbook. Don't really want to get up and get out of bed, then get up and get out of bed, you are the only person stopping you from achieving, don't take today off, not today.
You don't decide that you can't make it because you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, that you realize that that's all part of the journey, you must believe in yourself, you must believe in your ability, you must believe in the assignments that you're writing and the exams that you're taking, you must believe in your ideas unquestionably.
It's not going to happen as quickly as you want it to happen, you might not have the money, you might not have the resources or the support you need, but you need to believe it is possible. There are consequences that you pay when you keep seeking comfort and avoiding studying and avoiding hard work, and those consequences are, that you're never going to feel like you've accomplished anything, you're never going to have this feeling of understanding that difficulty and struggle and the ability to push through, it is a muscle, and you have to develop that muscle by doing it. And once you do you develop a high level of self-satisfaction and peace of mind, you gotta wake up and have the drive to get something done, you're the only person that can make it happen.