the number one ingredient is hunger if somebody's got a hunger that doesn't go away not a hunger to lose some weight for the summer I'm talking about Hunger to be more to do more to create more to become something to give something that matters that kind of hunger that doesn't go away that's what you see in like I'm sure you know Richard Branson he's a good friend you know Richard is 74 years old he has the same hunger as he did when he was 16 starting virgin in a crypt you know I mean that's there anybody who has that component that's alive in them is going to succeed and hunger though usually comes from not having things so so well I mean I come from an environment where I had four different fathers and there and the comonomer I thought at that stage was lack of money because we had no money for food but you know someone was interviewing me the other day I I just announced you know I um I started out early on when was 11 years old I had people come to my house on Thanksgiving we had no money and no food no food we had crackers and peanut butter that's what we would have had but you know Thanksgiving we was having a big Feast so it's really makes it pretty daunting and my parents were saying things to each other that you can never take back and I have a younger brother 5 years younger younger sister seven years younger and I'm trying to make sure they don't hear this and this knock comes to the door and I open the door and there's this tall guy holding two giant bags of groceries and then on the floor on the ground he had this uncooked frozen turkey in a pan that he' obviously carried up there first and he said is your father home and I'm like just one moment right and so I run to get my dad they're screaming each other I said the door's for you he goes you answered I said I answered yes speak to who is it I don't know and I'm just as a little boy right 11 years old just like waiting to see his face think it's going to be the happiest moment in our lives and my dad opened the door and he was not a happy man he said we don't take charity and he just went to slam the door in the guy's face and the guy had you know leaned in slightly so it hit his shoulder and bounced off and that made my dad even more frustrated he said sir sir I said I'm just the delivery guy you know everybody has tough times and somebody knows you're having tough times and they want you to have a great Thanksgiving with your family and my father said we don't take charity and went to do it again and this time the guy because he leaned in his foot now got there and his foot hit the door and panted open my Dad's getting madder and then the guy saw my father and and saw me and he said something I thought my father was going to punch him in the face he said sir he said don't make your family suffer because of your ego and I could still see the veins on the side of my father's face I me neck I I thought sure was going to punch him and he took the food didn't say anything threw it on the table and slammed door never said Thank you and I tell you that story because it changed my life because I believe there I didn't know it then I figured out later CU I had to my father left our family about two weeks after that and to me that was he had four fathers but he's the one who adopted me the one whose name I carry he's the one I love the most quite frankly had the most time with it's the most inspirational for me but he left and why' he leave cuz there's three decisions we make every moment of Our Lives the first decision we're making is what are we going to focus on on right now there's millions of things we could focus on people listening can be focused on what they're doing what we're saying whether it matters or not you know a million things right but we only focus on a small band of things and whatever we focus on we experience in life and so the first decision what to focus on I know what he focused on he focused on that he had not fed his family because he kept saying it but then the second decision you make as soon as you focus on something is you give it a meaning is this the end or the beginning if you think it's the end of a relationship you're going to behave very different than the beginning is this person dissing me are they challenging me are they coaching me or are they actually loving me whatever meaning you create produces emotion and those emotions control your third decision which is what are you going to do and I tell you that because he focused on didn't feed his family the worst part was the meaning the meaning for him was you know I'm worthless and he decided to leave our family MH that day I had a very different experience I focused on there was food you know what a concept but then secondly the meaning is what changed my life it's why I'm sitting here right now the meaning I got was wow strangers care my father always said you know we grew up in an environment on the other side of the tracks quite literally and you know I thought it was a wealthy community it was a lower middle class Community but compared to us they were wealthy and my dad would always said no one cares and it's like I had evidence that someone cared so much and they didn't even want credit they fed my family and so it's like if strangers care about me and my family I'm going to care about strangers and I made a decision right then at 11 years old I'm going to feed people when I get older and so when I was 17 I had two families and it was so emotionally rewarding then I went went to four and eight then I got to a million then I got to 4 million 2 million from my Foundation 2 million from me and then in the last uh 10 years about 8 years or 12 10 years ago I started it took me eight years I said I'm going to provide a billion meals here in the United States and we did that in eight years I'm proud to be 100 million meals a year I did through feeding America as my partner and so I decided I met with uh the head of the food program for the UN so he and I joined together and created a 100 billion meals I said how many do we need to bridge the gap he said about 70 billion so let's do a 100 billion meals in 10 years I did a billion I wasn't a billionaire when I started I said so I've grown obviously to make that happen but all we need is 99 people like me and we can do this right and so we went out to do it and we announced a few days ago we had 30 billion meals already in the first two years most people thought it would be totally impossible so we're going to make that happen but here's what I wanted you to get if I was a well-fed child do you think I'd be working this hard I know I you know I'm proud to be a good human being I believe I'm a good human being but I don't think I would have that same drive so I think hunger often comes from having gone through enough pain like I've suffered enough I don't want somebody else to suffer so what what do you say to the kid that right now is Tony okay they they have access to YouTube they're watching this right and they're going through it because for us now I'm 46 you've been around you've done your part we we are now out of it in when you were in it how were you coping with that pain for me it was Sports it was bodybuilding what was your coping mechanism at that time we knew know how to have a lot of money yeah Sports was a big piece but for me it was books um I was was I I decided to take a speed reading course when I was 15 years old and I was going to read a book a day and I didn't do that but I read 700 books in seven years all in the year of human development psychology physiology pre8 pre8 well some well over seven years so starting at that time and what it was was I just got obsessed with wanting to no answers because early on for example I was really small in high school and Junior High School I was 5-1 my sophomore year in high school I'm 67 now I tell people the difference is personal growth 10 inches in a year ride then yeah I had a tumor and didn't know it a pituitary tumor it made me explode in size and when people talk about growth pains I mean your muscles are stretching it's brutal but the point is as I went through that process I found myself in a place where books where I could I could go to another world I could read Emerson's essays and I could feel that sense of autonomy and freedom I could read man search and meaning and say no matter what you went through you know this guy went through you know asht and survived and turned things around how did how can I make my life work and so especially biographies because when you read a biography not an autobiography but a biography written by the actual author you're thinking their thoughts and whatever thoughts you think over and over again develop habits and emotions and meaning in your life right so that became my way between that and sports as how I really managed it but I also early on when I was 17 I went and heard this man named Jim ran a personal Vel speaker I think you probably have heard of incredible and uh he was really amazing he used to do this three and a half hour seminar on how to you know he turned his life around became successful in various ways and I was working for this gentleman I was in high school and I was you know got my little growth spurt and so the guy's like he was successful flipping houses and my family said he used to be such a loser my father said now he's so successful and so one day he called and said listen your son looked to make some extra money and I was always doing that we were poor I had to help support the family so I had two jobs working as a janitor I was like yeah I'll work on the weekend there let's do it so I'm moving all the stuff but I had a goal I really want to know how he became so successful cuz my idea success then is when you're poor is like you've done well in achievement you've done well in economics finance and so one day he took me to lunch and goes you're such a hard worker I'm taking you to lunch and so he asked me a bunch of questions I said I want to ask you some questions he said what do you want to know I said well my father said you used to be such a loser and now you're so successful I wasn't trying to be negative as a kid you don't think right and he started laughing goes your father said what I said well he goes well it's true I said well what changed you he said I went to a seminar I said what's a seminar he said this man comes and he takes 20 30 years of his life and he crunches that down to like three and a half hours and shows you the shortcuts to make your life as successful as it could be I said I'd like to go to that he think he said I think you should I said well how much is it and he said $35 $250 in Teddy's dollars but for me I'm making $40 a week as a janitor so it's a week's worth of pay and I said well can you get me in he said sure I said well will you and he said no I said why not he goes you won't value it if you don't pay for it and I go look man I'm I'm making 40 bucks a week that's a week's pay he goes okay well figure it out on your own take 10 or 20 years and figure out on your own if you want to do that or learn faster through this and make the investment in yourself so it it's like to me the biggest decision of my life at that point it felt like because it's like a week's pay I mean whole and I went to that seminar and I took notes like a crazy person and I was finishing some of Jr statements because I read all these books so it's like I recognize them I was like this wild person in the middle of the event and afterwards I went up and I thought I'm going to I'm going to change the world you know I'm 17 years old I'm going to run for president first all run for Senate before that I do Congress before that I'll do local State Assembly yeah I thought that how i' serve most and then I'll start by my high school I'll run from my student by presid my high school and I was not the most popular kid in school at all and I did it in a real campaign I went and talked to all the groups and found out what they wanted and and told the truth what could be done what I thought couldn't be done and and I won I beat the most popular kid in school and so that taught me that if you're real and raw and you truly serve popularity doesn't matter you'll get through to people and it was a it was a marker in my life to make those things happen but all of these situations stacked and then I was so involved in personal development and I really wanted to learn how to do more and I finally got a chance to go to work for Jim ran at 17 years old and my mom kicked out my father he went back east on Christmas Eve she kicked me out and she kep my 1968 vks wagon I'd worked you know $40 a week to earn and I slept on the hill one night it was raining and then the next day I was like I can't stay on the rain I went to this girlfriend's house a girl that was a friend not a girlfriend and they let me stay in their you know their little uh what called washing machine room and um and then I took the little smony I had and I took these buses and I bought a book I went to Claremont California was about 15 miles away and I bought this book at this bookstore called The Magic of Believing by Claude in Bristol and it talked about how to program your mind and I was writing on the mirror in the laundry room all my goals and I made these posters said only you know only a idiot gets depressed only a loser gets depressed it's not true but that was my way of leveraging myself right and I started to make these changes and then I tried to go to work for Jim rone and it was Christmas so I had to keep working as a janitor and what changed my life was finding that part that's inside of all of us that will not give up and I I was going taking buses now because I had a car to go to San Marino California was about you know about an 18 mile place but the number of buses you had to take took about you know almost two hours 90 minutes to two hours I go clean the banks because I could do two Banks I wasn't paid by the hour it's by performance and I could do an amazing job and I off notes people as if you know I was there I was so connected 2:00 a. m. I was on that bus to get home and 3:30 a.
m. or 4 I was going to bed and getting up four hours later to go to school and be student my president and I was burning out but one night there were I got to the bus stop on time made it there 2:00 a. m.
