I'll tell you what I believe controls our lives more than anything else. Decisions. That's it.
Everyone can have tough conditions. But it's your decisions about what you're going to focus on, what things mean, what you're going to do that shape everything. 95% of all businesses never break a million dollars in revenue.
I'm not even talking about profits, just sales. And now that you hit a million, you got to set your next goal. Cuz it's not about the number, is it?
It's really about your ability to grow and expand and have more impact. And you know, you can work your tail off and get to a million dollars, but if you're going to get to five or 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 or a billion or more, it's going to take a different level of thinking. You can't just do it with hustle.
It requires a little more strategy and it requires you maximizing you at a whole different level. Have you ever gone home to your hometown and seen maybe there's a burger place there that everybody goes to? They still go there 20 years later.
There's a line around the block and the guy's still there. Herbs, burgers, but you know, he's got one place after 30 years and it's still full, but that's it. And there's this guy called How many agree their product sucks?
Make some noise if you think their product sucks. And yet, they're the most dominant force in the entire business. It's cuz they understood there's a business and it isn't burgers.
You have to learn how to run a business. So, I'm here today because I have the privilege of making a few distinctions along the way around business. And my chance to be with you today comes about because early in my life, I was obsessed.
I still am. I've never lost the obsession. And my obsession has been what makes a difference in people's lives.
Why is it some people you can give them everything and they spend their life you give them love, support, education, everything you can imagine, and they spend their life going in out of rehab and then other people life just beats the hell out of, right? Everything is unjust, unfair, they get abused, and they become like Oprah Winfries of the world. People that then contribute.
And I think that there's a common denominator that I found. There's three decisions we're making all the time. I'd like you to jot them down and see if it's true for you even this moment.
Three decisions you're making. Now, when I say you're making it, you may not be making these three decisions consciously because most of us do most of our experience habitually. It's why our lives don't change.
But at any moment, you can wake up and answer these decisions differently and have a different life. The first decision we make every moment is what are you going to focus on? Your business is controlled.
Your life, your joy, happiness, your anger is all controlled by what you focus on. Jot down, I don't experience life. I experience the life I focus on.
Cuz in this moment, how many could think of things to be pissed off about or frustrated about if you wanted to make some noise if you could do it. So what's wrong is always available. So is what's right.
And that isn't about positive thinking. It's about intelligence cuz whatever you focus on, you're going to feel even if it's not true. Have you ever had somebody tell you something that a friend of yours said or did and you're like, "No, they didn't.
They wouldn't do that. " And they go, "Yes, they did. " And if two people tell you they said or did that or three go, "I can't believe it.
I thought they're my friend. " And you get all angry cuz you're really just feeling sad, right? Sense of loss.
How could my friend do this? Have you ever done this and then confronted the friend and found out it was total? Felt like an idiot.
Who's ever had this experience? Say I. Bottom line is our focus controls the way we feel.
And most of us don't control our focus. We let the thing in our pocket control our focus or the television waves or the people around us. And yet your focus controls everything.
But the minute you make a decision about what to focus on, like right now there are a million things you could focus on. You could focus on what I'm saying, what it might mean to you in the future. You might be thinking about later on tonight.
You could be smelling your neighbor after all that jumping up and down, right? The feeling of your skin against your clothing. you weren't thinking till I mentioned it.
There are millions of things you could focus on. Our brain is constantly distorting, deleting, and generalizing so we don't have to think too much. But the problem with that is often times we get thinking patterns that don't help you in your business or in your life.
So the minute we focus on something, here's the second decision your brain has to make. What does this mean? And the first part of your brain is the oldest part of your brain.
It's 2 million years old and it's a survival instinct. And what it's looking for is anything that can harm you. Anything can put you in trouble, get you in pain.
But there's no saber-tooth tiger anymore for us to free ourselves from. That we should freeze so it doesn't notice or fight or flight. Those are the three choices.
But now we react to what somebody wrote about us on social media that way. Or that we think we have enough money. Something that honestly is not survival at this stage, but that's our nervous system response if we're not careful.
So soon as you decide what to focus on, then you decide what does it mean? Is this the end or the beginning? If you think it's the end of a relationship, are you going to behave the same way if you think it's the beginning of a relationship?
Yes or no? Yes or no? Of course not.
If you think it's I often tell people, if you think it's the end of relationship, act like it's the beginning of a relationship and it won't be an end. Cuz in the beginning, you were doing anything for who? For who?
Try this for a second. Make the sound of being totally in love. Go ahead.
Try it. It's been a while for some of you clearly. Let's try it again.
Totally in love and lust. You can't stop thinking about the person. You want to make love to them.
It's unbelievable. Make that sound. Much much better.
We had to add lust than that to get you guys going. I see there. Bottom line is if you're that in love with somebody, what will you do for them?
What? What? Somebody says, "Would you take up the trash?
" You go, "Take up the trash. Here you go. What else can I do for you?
But after seven days or 7 weeks or 7 months or seven years or 70 years, somewhere between 7 days and 70 years, they go, could you take out the trash? You go, what do I look like? Your janitor.
And you I don't know what it was. We used to have so much passion. I don't know what happened.
Cuz when you give a new meaning to your relationship, behave differently. When you're hunting, you have a different way of dealing with your partner than when you think you've established something and you start to take it a little bit for granted. The other meanings, there's all kinds of meanings we can have.
Is this person disrespecting me? Is this person challenging me? Is this person coaching me?
Or is this person loving on me? And we get to decide the meanings, but most of us don't do it consciously. We do it out of habit.
And so, write this down. Meaning equals emotion. And emotion equals life.
Whatever meaning you give something, it's going to create an emotion. And that emotion is going to control the third decision. What are you going to do?
If you're angry, you're going to have a very different response obviously than if you're feeling playful or generous or loved. So those two decisions then shape the third decision. What am I going to do?
And what you do is what shapes your results in your whole life. So how does this relate? Well, my father and I had different lives cuz we answered those three questions differently.
How do I know? because I know what my father thought because he said it out loud, muttering under his breath. His focus was he had not taken care of his family.
He constantly said it. And then the worst part was the meaning he gave it which is I'm worthless. I might as well not be here.
Which eventually that's why he left. And I had a different set of focuses. My focus there was food.
What a concept, right? It's pretty cool. But most important, the reason I'm here today is because of one meaning I chose.
That's why I want you to understand these three decisions. They shape everything. The meaning was strangers care.
Up until that point, I lived in what I thought was a wealthy community. It was lower middle class, but we were on the literally on the other side of the railroad tracks. We were the trash of that community.
And so, we were treated that way. My father said it all the time. It was believable.
But all of a sudden, someone delivered food to my family on Thanksgiving and they didn't even want credit. That shifted my whole life. If strangers care about me and my family, it made me think, I got to care about strangers.
And so I decided someday I'm going to go out and I'm going to do this for at least two other families. So the next year I said I'm going to double it four families and the eight. Then I got my employees involved, a little company that I have bigger companies and I got them involved.
Eventually got to 4 million people a year, 2 million for me, 2 million for my foundation. I'm just telling you cuz I want you to think about how things build cuz most people overestimate what they can do in a year and they underestimate what they can do in a decade or two. Then I thought, what if I did 100 million meals for 10 straight years and provided a billion meals?
Now, that excited the hell out of me. It sounded totally impossible. And I did it in less than the 10 years I said I was going to do with it.
Right. Thank you. So, we created a 100 billion meal challenge.
And I'm proud to tell you, we did 30 billion our first two years already. And we're going to do 30 billion this year for 60 billion. Right.
