It’s just beyond your reach. Frustrating, isn’t it? You work and you toil and you leap on opportunities and you never get any further than right where you are. Success always seems to be a half-inch past your fingertips.
Quitting definitely is the wrong idea, says Eric Thomas, PhD. In his new book, “You Owe You: Ignite You Power, Your Purpose & Your Why” (Rodale, September 2022), Thomas shows that you’ve already got the right gifts to succeed.
Most people at age sixteen are looking for colleges, getting their driver’s license, or planning their next high school event. When he was sixteen, Thomas left home for good and slept in the bushes next to his parents’ house. He’d gotten some news that made him feel as if his entire life was a lie and he acted accordingly, dropping out of school and living in a car his mother bought for him.
He had almost nothing back then. In retrospect, he understands that he caused it all himself.
Lesson One: “Your choices are your own and nobody else’s.” Now he knows that “you don’t need to sabotage your whole life to have your feelings.”
Dubbed “ET the hip hop preacher,” Thomas has become the go-to motivational speaker for NBA players, including some of the basketball league’s biggest stars. To go forward, he says, stop being a victim and “move… toward your purpose.”
Set a standard of self-behavior, don’t accept any excuses, and remember that you’re “alone when you tell yourself you are…”
Pick your support system and your friends carefully. Know your strengths and take care of the “superpower” you have. Don’t “live in potential.” Be the potential. But don’t overdo: “… honor your purpose by giving it boundaries,” says Thomas. Don’t worry about “code-switching’ because, in many ways, you already do it.
Find yourself “in love with learning.” Remember that good is good but great is better. Embrace the unfamiliar; it’s “the most interesting place to be.” Start a business with what you have because that’s “plenty.”
Remember, too, that “you are the only one who can change your life” and “nobody else is in charge of [your] future.”
Unless you need a refresher course, if you’re a CEO of an established company, you can stop here. “You Owe You” is a worthy read, but it’s really not for you. Part memoir, part inspiration, this book is better suited for someone who’s tired of everything and nothing and wants that to change. It’s for the reader who wants more but doesn’t have the first clue how or where to find the energy to make that first step.
Thomas jumpstarts the lessons almost immediately by sharing the unpleasant event that launched his success. From there, advice comes fast and frequent in page after page of guidance that’s generally buried in most memoirs. The book is relentlessly, sometimes excessively, upbeat – even when it advises about discouragement.
There’s really no age limit on readership for this book. If you need a mental hand-up, no matter who you are, you’ll want this book for your own to underline, flag, and quote. When you need inspiration, “You Owe You” is a book you’ll keep reaching for.
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