and so listen to me very closely I say this to you I never said when you want to succeed as bad as you want to eat but you can go 21 days maybe 30 if you're Gandhi you're Gandhi's mother without eating fast you can fast for 30 days I never said it when you want to succeed as bad as you want water because you can go about 3 days or so without it I said when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe you've probably only got a minute or so then you'll
be successful and so one of the things I want to do for you as an educator today you don't necessarily need better skills per se that's not what you need but what some of you need is to go from 70% to 120 percent someone you need to go from 80% to 120 percent and listen to me I understand I just left Florida I won't say the city or the school and I did a program all day and I just something for parents of the 2,500 kids that go to school only about 50 parents showed up
and some of them were married so it wasn't even just 50 right but it didn't bother me because I said to myself listen to me very closely the reason why I'm giving 120 is because your daddy's not in your life the reason why I'm giving 120 is because your father's in prison the reason why I'm giving 120 is because your mom is working two jobs the reason why I'm giving 120 is because your grandma's raising you the reason why I'm giving 120 is because you live in a community where education is not valued so I
don't care what you do academically when you leave here you can't go and get credit for getting aids that in your neighborhood in your community nobody affirms you for reading at a certain level nobody affirms you for doing well on your a CT or your SAT where you come from education is not affirmed so even if you are a scholar you have to keep it to yourself you have to suppress it so the reason why I give 120 is because your daddy's not there to give 80 and your mom was too tired to give 100
and your grandma washed out so she's given 50 so I don't just want to be an educator I don't want you just changed the trajectory of their lives I want to do it as bad as I want to breathe I don't want to do it as much as I want to eat I don't want to do it as much as I need you I want to be the best educator in the world as bad as I want to breathe I want to be the Michael Jordan of education I want to be the LeBron James of
Education I want to be the Ghandi in the mother Teresa and the Malcolm X and the mother turkey in the Coretta Scott King and the Rosa Parks of Education and I ask you the question I ask you the question today are you giving 120 or are you giving these babies 70 because of what's going on with the state but what's going on locally at your school or what's going on between you and your principal or what's going on between you and your peers no listen to me as we move forward I must ask you the
question how bad do you want it how bad now I'm an ass I'm gonna ask like literally I'm gonna ask a question and I really - raise your hand and I need us to be honest here I need us to be transferred because we have nothing to prove to anybody if you're saying Eric there was a time where I did want it 120 but as an educator just being honest with you I'm a little burnt out let me just see your hands like be honest I'm burnt out to be honest I'm burnt out let me
see your hands let's not we we got to be transparent I'm burnt out good so what I need you to do for me this is important because if you're burnt out listen to me we're the last with the last frontier guys we're and so we're dealing with real life and I get that but we gotta want this as bad as we want to breathe because if we can't get it to them it's over they can't get it and we're not just dealing right now with our local schools and our states right we're competing against other
countries right now and not not only not only the the let's leader teaches long but because of the lack in some countries their students wanted as bad as they want to breathe I want to talk about that today I want to get you first I want to get you back to 120 because we need you at 120 like look guys I'm just gonna be honest with you like I speak back to that place where not only you love education but you're coming in with a hundred and twenty percent because the one thing I know about
you if you are a hundred and twenty percent the outcomes of our babies are going to be totally different right I know that about you how many of you and just be honest with me is you raise your hand and say Eric for me I'm a little burnt out how many you can honestly say that being burnt out affects your instruction let's be honest raise your hand good and what and we're we're here not just to get great information we're here not just to go back you know to our our schools right our communities with
great information literally we're here to go to our schools and take that thing to the next level and we're counting on you and we need you boy hear what I'm saying first you matter the most and I'm here today because I was ignorant ten fifteen years ago and I put all my energy effort on students not realizing that if I change this eating I'm changing one person at a time if I help teachers I'm changing thirty kids at a time times however many classes you teach all right so my goal here today is the first
get you back up so look III need manicures pedicures no no I'm serious I need math like we're not here to talk about instruction first like and and I'm gonna work with John and we're blessed to work with corporations and different instance entities that love Eric Thomas and blessed and so I want I'm gonna find a way to help you right last year we sent through our Delta program we sent teachers on cruises sent them to cities for week hotels right it's so funny I had some of my staff members they're so young and green
you know they were like Eric we're gonna bless the teachers I was like alright cool wait they didn't teach like how do you want to do it we're gonna bless the teachers and they're like we're gonna send them and their students to Disney where I was like what about that do you think is good like there with them all day long they do not want to go to Disney World you know but that's what happens when you've never talked before right it sounds great they're gonna go to Disney Robbie's that will they get back they're
gonna need about a week or two off when they get back like you're not helping anybody right so the first thing I want you to do for real I need you to take care yourself and the way we burnout is that we put everybody else first and then what happens is the plane is crap this is teachers I love us the plane is crashing and we're putting the oxygen taking everybody else and they're taking it and taking theirs they're sucking theirs and they're got they have yours I need you do me a favor number one
when you leave today I need you to take care of yourself right and I need you to know that if you don't take care of every single thing some kind of way will be taken care of but if you burn out we already lost so I need manicures pedicures and I know I got some guys what about us I say a manicure pedicure listen to me like I was against it at first I mean my friend he invited me I was like bruh from Detroit you know say like I don't do that all right he's
like come on he come with me I was like I did my wife went and I went and like after that I was like everything like once a month like sweetheart do you want a manicure pedicure it's like you're not thinking about me I'm like but I am right I need to take care of yourself I need vacation by yourself look I need you I need you I need you just like close your door and don't let kids meet with you in the morning at lunch and at night and your planning session when you're on
your way home like I need you to take care of you because we are only as good as you are and so if you're not taking care of you and you're giving me 70% or 80% I don't have my mom's support my grandma's support my dad's dead in jail I'm being raised by my grandparents I'm gonna single-parent home I'm in the mixed environment like I'm already going through it at home and then I come home and the one person I could count on the one person that gives me attention the one person is trying to
educate me and change my life they're coming in burnt out so I need you to take care of yourself if you need to if you're a person in the room and you overextend yourselves and you do not take care of yourself in the way you should take care of yourself come on I'm telling the truth put your hands together and say Eric and and I want you to say it out loud I need to do better come on I need to do better and I need to put the oxygen on myself first yeah come on
it's okay some of you were hurt he like no I can't put it on myself first like that sounds so selfish to you I can't put it on myself first I must put it on there look when you're on an airplane and make it clear it's gonna come down yeah actually tank is gonna come down and they know that there are teachers on the plane they know you're on the plane so they have to tell you they would think it would be common sense but they have to tell you whatever you do don't give it
to the person sitting next to you they have to tell you that put it on yourself first and then help them I need you to do me a favor when you go back and from this point forward in your profession you're gonna take care of yourself more if that's you and you know you need to do it let me see your hand you know you need to do it good all right next year I'm just gonna see if we could just turn this into a petty manicure station we'll come here all right I'm gonna work
on that next year all right so so whatever that means for you read a book drink a cup of coffee get some tea but I just need you to take care of you because you are phenomenal you're great but if you're at 70 or 80 percent you're no good to us and we need you all right so let's get started um oh I'm so sorry can we pass I know we got a video but let's pass that first video oh I've got my own clicker I love it they're like you do it yourself I love
it I love it I love it all right good so the first thing I want to explain to you guys through school days what I had to learn as a educator is vertical and horizontal communication I realize that as an educator one of the things that we do is that we have so many resources around us and we teach our children we teach our students to you know utilize these resources and we're not utilizing them right so one of the things that I started doing was I start going to the schools that I work for
and I started talking to other teachers and they would just tell me little things like Eric they're gonna misbehave in the month of March but there's nothing personal their grandma died last year in March and that was two years ago and it just seems like every March you know doing that anniversary it's kind of rough on them look guys vertical and horizontal communication I started talking to administrators I started talking to other teachers I started going to schools we started to come together as as instructors we start giving each other tips and strategies where apps
are you using what videos are you using you know what are the kids doing and I learned that I don't have to do it all by myself you're in the room and you struggle a little bit as an educator like yep I'm so smart I'm so gifted that I do find that oftentimes when I'm trying to teach or take my students to another level I do do a lot alone let me see your answer kind of do it alone good one of the things I want to suggest you do and I'm telling you in a
school daze program it's so simple I'm using the college's in ways that I never used colleges before these kids have to do so many practicum hours you know they have to do so much outside the classroom and I'm using those programs at Michigan State University I'm using my social workers I'm using my educators they have to put in hours anyway and I'm allowing them to help me with my programs I'm bringing in the DJ I'm using DJs I'm using music I'm using videos from the internet that these kids look up to messages that I hear
you know an Instagram or it means that I see I'm bringing all that into my work so that I don't have to do it all alone alright now I want to walk you through my journey and this is why you guys are so important all right and here's some of the guys I'm talking about number 29 inky johnson play for the University of Tennessee was supposed to be a number 16 draft got into accident against army almost took his life right but he's a motivational speaker some of these guys are entertainers entrepreneurs and we travel
all over the world together I don't do it alone anymore and I want to encourage you to not only get information here but as you're meeting individuals here let's lighten each other's load guys it's gonna be so important all right so let's get started so what I wanted to share with you is why you are so important now most of you heard my story and you know I started homeless at 16 I found out when I was twelve thirteen years old that my father who was raising me wasn't my biological father my mother married when
I was about five years old I knew something was wrong but I was still young I know I didn't know what was wrong but I knew something was wrong and so I knew something was wrong because I was one of the only kids in the neighborhood that had three grandmothers right you'll catch up to catch up to you sometime right now three grandmas on Christmas is great three grandma's birthday great right but one of these grandmas don't belong right and so I never said anything to my mom somewhere around eleven twelve I asked my mom
and she said you're right son that's not your father she changed my birth certificate changed my last name it's the whole nine and so I was so disappointed in my mom I felt like my whole life was a lie and so I ran away from home at twelve off and on and at 16 I left for good so a lot of times I was in the classrooms and the teachers thought I was a class clown when I really wasn't a class clown but I was trying to I was trying to resolve I was trying to
deal with the fact that my mother who had punished me for lying that my whole life was a lie my own mother lied about it and switched my birth certificate in my whole life to cover this line so I brought it to school and I'm sorry I'm not saying that was the best thing to do but I brought it to school I got counseling I had private counselors they put me through programs and I just couldn't I just I couldn't deal with the anger of my mom life and then we made it so bad I
knew my biological family I knew my grandmom my uncle's my aunts I just my father when I would see him was a friend of the family so it was so complex that finally at 16 I left home ran away from home of course left school and I remember going to church I didn't grow up in church I started going to church I remember the pastor said to me young man if you have any dreams any goals if you don't want to go to jail if you don't want to die in the early age you have
to get your GED and go to college now listen to me very closely my grandma had 14 kids out of the 14 only three finished high school and nobody went to college I grew up in Detroit Michigan culturally College is not important why it does not make sense to go to college whether you finished high school or not you're only going to land up at the plant for GM or Chrysler so culturally I never took school serious and so this man said to me he said to me when I was probably 70 years old looked
every single week did you get your GED and I would say no I didn't get my GED he'd ask me the next week did you get your GED as soon as you get your GED I'm sending you out of Detroit I'm sending you to college I said sir no disrespect but my family does not do college my momma barely finished high school she got pregnant with me her senior in high school my grandma didn't go to school my uncle's didn't fit we don't do school he said I don't care what your family does or does
not do you have a gift you have an anointing on your life young man and let me tell you something I couldn't spare I couldn't spell anointing and neither that I know would admit but listen to me very closely I want you to understand as an educator he did something for me he gave me an aim that I never had before
