Put God First
Let me, take this moment to wholeheartedly congratulate each and every one of you today. You graduated. You did it. You made it. Congratulations to you.
And you did it all by yourselves. Nobody helped you. No, that's not. That's what, you know, that's what I thought when I was, when I was young.
I starting to really make it as an actor, I came in, I talked to my mother. I said, "Ma, did you think that this was gonna happen? I'd be so big, and I'll be able to take care of everybody, and I can do this, and I can do that, and I can."
She said, "Boy, stop it right there, stop it right there, stop it right there." She said, "If you only knew how many people that have been praying for you." Yeah. How many prayer groups she put together, how many prayer cloths she gave me, how many times she splashed me with holy To save my sorry behind, as she said it.
She said, "Oh, you did it by yourself? I tell you what you can do by yourself. You can go outside, get a mop and bucket and wash them windows.
You can do that by yourself." Superstar. So I'm saying that to say I wanna congratulate all the parents, and friends and family, and aunties, and uncles, and grandmothers, and grandfathers, and teachers, and friends, and enemies.
All the people that helped you to get where you are today, congratulations to you all. I'ma tell about two, three stories. I'ma keep it real short.
I remember my graduation, speaker got up there, went on forever, blah, blah, blah. So I'm gonna keep it short. Number one, put God first.
Put God first in everything you do. Everything that you think you see in me, everything that I've accomplished, everything that you think I have, and I have a few things, everything that I have is by the grace of God. Yeah. Understand that. It's a gift.
40 years ago, March 27th, 1975, it was 40 years ago, just this past March, I was flunking out of college. I had a 1.7 grade point average. I hope none of you can relate.
I had a 1.7 grade point average. I was sitting in my mother's beauty shop. They still call it beauty shops now?
What they call it Yeah. Yeah, I was sit In the beauty parlor.
I was sitting in my mother's beauty parlor, and I'm looking in the mirror, and I see behind me this woman under the dryer, and every time she looked up, she. Every time I looked up, she was looking at me, just looking me in the eye. And I didn't know who she was, and I said, "You know."
She said, "Somebody give me a pen. Give me a pencil. I have a prophecy."
March 27th, 1975, she said, "Boy, you are gonna travel the world and speak to millions of people." Now, mind you I flunked out of college. I'm thinking about joining the Army.
I didn't know what I was gonna do, and she's telling me I'm gonna travel the world and speak to millions of people. Well, I have traveled the world, and I have spoke to millions of people. But that's not the most important thing, the success that I had.
The most important thing is that what she taught me and what she told me that day has stayed with me since. I've been protected, I've been directed, I've been corrected. I've kept God in my life, and it's kept me humble.
I didn't always stick with Him, but He always stuck with me. So stick with Him in everything you do. If you think you wanna do what you think I've done, then do what I've done, and stick with God.
Number two, fail big. Yes. That's right. Fail big. Today's the beginning of the rest of your life, and it can be, it's can be very frightening.
It's a new world out there. It's a mean world out there, and you only live once. So do what you feel passion about, passionate about.
Take chances professionally. Don't be afraid to fail. There's an old IQ test was nine dots, and you had to draw five lines with a pencil within these nine dots without lifting the pencil. The only way to do it was to go outside the box.
So don't be afraid to go outside the box. Don't be afraid to think outside the box. Don't be afraid to fail big, to dream big.
But remember, dreams without goals are just dreams, and they ultimately fuel disappointment. So have dreams, but have goals, life goals, yearly goals, monthly goals, daily goals. I try to give myself a goal every day.
Sometimes just to not curse somebody out. Simple goals, but have goals. And understand that to achieve these goals, you must apply discipline and consistency.
In order to achieve your goals, you must apply discipline, which you have already done, and consistency every day, not just on Tuesday and miss a few days. You have to work at it every day. You have to plan every day.
You've heard the saying, "We don't plan to fail. We fail to plan." Hard work Works. Working really hard is what successful people do.
And in this text, tweet, twerk world that you've grown up in, remember, just because you're doing a lot more, doesn't mean you're getting a lot more done. Remember that. Just because you're doing a lot more, doesn't mean you're getting a lot more done. Don't confuse movement with progress.
My mother told me, she said, "Yeah, 'cause you can run in place all the time and never get anywhere." So continue to strive, continue to have goals, continue to progress. Number three, you'll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse.
I'll say it again. You'll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. I don't care how much money you make, you can't take it with you.
Yeah. The Egyptians tried it. Yep. They got robbed. That's all they got.
You can't take it with you. And it's not how much you have, it's what you do with what you have. We all have different talents.
Some of you will be doctors, some lawyers, some scientists, some educators, some nurses some teachers. Yeah, okay. Some preachers. Woo! Yeah.
The most selfish thing you can do in this world is help someone else. Why is it selfish? Because the gratification, the goodness that comes to you the good feeling, the good feeling that I get from helping others, nothing's better than that.
Well, one of two things, but nothing's better than that. Not jewelry, not big house I have, not the cars, but the, it's the joy.
That's where the joy is, in helping others. That's where the success is, in helping others. Finally, I pray that you put your slippers way under the bed tonight so that when you wake up in the morning, you have to get on your knees
To reach them. And when you and while you're down there, say thank you for grace, thank you for mercy, thank you for understanding, thank you for wisdom, thank you for parents, thank you for love, thank you for kindness, thank you for humility, thank you for peace, thank you for prosperity. Say thank you in advance for what's already yours. It's how I live my life.
That's where I am, one of the reasons why I am today. Say thank you in advance for what is already yours. True desire in the heart for anything good is God's proof to you sent beforehand to indicate that it's yours already.
I'll say it again. True desire in the heart, that itch that you have, whatever it is you wanna do, that thing that you wanna do to help others and to grow and to make money, that desire, that itch, that's God's proof to you sent beforehand already to indicate that it's yours. And anything you want, good, you can have.
So claim it. Work hard to get it. When you get it, reach back, pull someone else up. Each one teach one.
Don't just aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference. Thank you.
