Habits and Hustle - Episode 184: Eric Thomas – Critically Acclaimed Author, World-Renowned Speaker, Educator and Pastor
Episode Date: September 13, 2022Pre-order Jen’s New Book: Bigger, Better, Bolder today: https://amzn.to/3hvtqYp Eric Thomas (ET) is a Critically Acclaimed Author, World-Renowned Speaker, Educator and Pastor. From homelessness to... a GED to college to a PHD, and now one of the most powerful and successful speakers in the world, ET is an unstoppable force looking for every new way to improve his game and connect to more people. Every answer feels like a sermon, and every story seems to have been a profound learning experience for him. You can feel his voice in your bones and he’s non-stop for the entire episode. If you’ve been needing a shake-up, or have been looking for a new thing to get you back on your path towards your own success, you won’t be disappointed by this episode. Youtube Link to This Episode ET’s Website – https://etinspires.com/ ET’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/etthehiphoppreacher/ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email habitsandhustlepod@gmail.com 📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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I got this Tony Robbins you're listening to Habits in Hustle, fresh it. Pressure.
Today in the podcast we have the one and only Eric Thomas, otherwise known as ET, and also one of my absolute favorite
motivational speakers on the planet.
There is a reason this guy has not just millions of followers,
but millions upon millions of views on all of his content because his passion
and energy are bar none.
And now he has a new book out and it's called UOU.
And it doesn't disappoint.
It's just as good as all the other stuff that he does.
What's also interesting about Eric is that he has a PhD.
He's a pastor.
He is just a true, overall educator.
And what he's done for the youth
and the younger community is just amazing.
I loved having this conversation with him,
sitting down with him to get to know him,
even on a more personal level.
I really believe that you're gonna love this interview
and this conversation, I should say.
And if you don't know who Eric is,
I really recommend you follow him and just take in and listen to some of his just extremely hard
hitting inspirational content for anybody who wants to succeed or do better or be better, he's your guy.
Enjoy.
We have a big treat today.
Well, for me anyway, we have Eric Thomas, who is otherwise known as ET.
The hip hop preacher, like a sweatshirt says.
This is, I am like a huge, I'm like a fangirl right now because I love your stuff.
Thank you so much.
Really, thank you.
And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you.
This guy has the most inspirational motivational videos.
I think probably one of the best, you know,
in the top three, for sure.
Yeah, I want to debate you.
Yeah, don't debate me on it.
I'm gonna debate you.
I mean, you do everything.
You're like a world-renowned motivational speaker, a pastor, an educator be a baby. I'm gonna be a baby. I mean, you do everything. You're like a world-renowned motivational speaker,
a pastor, an educator, a counselor.
You do so much, and also so much good.
Like you take your superpower,
and you really did harness it in a way
that has helped so many kids and everybody.
So I don't even know where to,
I guess let's begin with your whole thing, like how did you,
you kind of had a rocky background.
Absolutely.
So talk about how, like your background,
how you kind of found that this was your superpower.
So I think my rocky background is what revealed it, right?
So I got-
Let's tell people what was like,
what is your background?
Well, I think, you know,
what they probably need to know
will be interested in is
you have a very unique story in that,
you know, my mother is a teenage mom,
which is not unique.
She was 17 when she got pregnant.
But I'm one of the few kids that wasn't raised
with his father, but was raised with my father's family
and didn't know my father was my father. You that's kind of weird. So it's like my grandma, my aunts, my uncles,
my cousins, I know everybody, but I'm thinking my father is a family friend. And I'm thinking
the person that raised me is my real father. And I'll be honest, I always had this inclination that
he's not my father, from a very young age,
and then there were people who shared with me
in their own special way that he's not your father.
So kind of like, in the back of my mind,
it was always this thing of who spider-man.
That's it.
You know what I'm saying?
Take the mask off.
Like who is spider-man for real, for real?
And so I confronted my mother at about 12,
almost 13 about it, and my mom told me, no, that's not your father. And so I confronted my mother at about 12, almost 13 about it. And my mom
told me, no, that's not your father. And so you can imagine, you know, the person that
you entrust with your whole life, your mom, like, you know, moms don't lie, you know,
moms are people of integrity, whatever, you know, and to find out that my mother lied
to me and kept that from me. And I think the biggest piece too was like,
you know, how does she pull this off? Like how does she get all these people to go with her story?
I'm not telling you. You know, it's unbelievable. But people did kind of tell you here and there, right?
We're not overly. You know what I'm saying? They didn't confront a head on. Yeah. You know,
how did she do that? I don't know.
I still don't know this day.
Never I've seen it.
We never talk about it.
It's one of those things where, you know,
even honestly, when I wrote my first book,
my mom was kind of hurt and I was kind of like,
you know, what do you hurt about?
It's my story.
But I get it, she's kind of like, yeah, but it's mine too.
You know, so I don't know that she ever really wanted
to share it with the world. You
know, it's kind of like she told me, I'm going to tell you when I think you were ready to know.
And I figured out some other kind of way. So I think for her, she was kind of like wanting to
wait to tell it to the world. And she felt she was ready, whatever. And I ended up telling it.
So I think, you know, when you talk about, forget homelessness, yes, I was homeless or ran away from
home when I was 16, lived in the band and buildings, eight out of talk about, forget homelessness, yes, I was homeless or ran away from home
when I was 16, lived in the banded buildings,
eight out of trash cans, all of that.
But I think-
And I thought you'd say it to like matter of fact,
nonchalant, like everybody does that.
Like, eats at a trash can,
lives in a banded building.
Most people, well, depends on where,
or you can tell relative,
but it's not-
Yeah, it's not so, it's not,
it's not that common like where you're staying.
And like, yeah, you brush your teeth
You know you brush your hair you go to yeah, but but to me it's kind of one of those things where's like it happened right you know
And I think how many years were you doing that two or a half years? Yeah, two and a half years
So so you know it happened, but I think where a lot of people go wrong in life is like they actually
Live as if they're experiencing it right now
Like when they talk about their past,
it's almost like you still living it.
It's like, yo, I was homeless.
It was a portion of my life,
but actually when you make a cake,
you know, it's the eggs, it's the flour, it's the salt,
it's the sugar, it's the nutmeg, whatever.
It's all of that that makes the cake.
So for me, homeless was a part of why I made the cake
the way I made the cake in life.
Like why I actually care about people.
Yeah.
Because I've been rock bottom, why I'm so patient?
Because I had nothing and people came in my life
and supported me.
So it's like that homeless period also,
I think one of the biggest things it did,
I'm so grateful for, is it humble me.
Yeah.
It's like I know a lot of people who would be
like top three speakers in the world who
would be arrogant, you know, who would be so self-centered, narcissistic.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm saying, probably are.
Right.
You can feel me, but for me, I feel like had I not been homeless, maybe I would have.
But the homeless thing is what, you know, really has always allowed me to know, like, oh, look
what God brought you from.
And so don't you ever get to the point
where you get so high that you forget how low you were.
And so I just think that's the thing
that makes me empathetic, sympathetic, caring,
connect with people.
Like most people can't connect with a lot of people
because they haven't been that far down.
So I've been so far down, I connect with you,
if you are homeless, I connect with you
if you're the best at what you do. So homeless is really, I connect with you if you are homeless, I connect with you if you're the best at what
you do.
So homelessness really, I feel, has given me a lifelong advantage.
Well, I feel like, and you talk about this also, and you're, by the way, I should say,
he has a book called U-O-U.
I didn't even say that because I was just so excited.
That's okay.
That's okay.
That I was just like just scrambling, but you talk about it in your book.
But a lot of times, like, it is those those negative those bad times that really do build a person's real character
And gives you the empathy and the compassion for later on
But I also think some of it is innate like you are there are people who are naturally much more empathetic and much more connecting like
We'll talk about that after like how you do all that stuff.
But so then like that, you're talking about how that whole process kind of
created who you are.
And then when you started like, you dropped out of school,
I mean, which is interesting because you have a PhD, right?
Yes, yes, yes.
Which is amazing because until I read your book, I didn't,
I didn't know that it took you 12 years
to do a four year degree and that,
you really weren't a school person.
Not at all.
So then how did that happen?
Talk about that a little bit.
Yeah, you know, one of the cool things
about being in the industry, again,
and I'm just sharing it so that people can get the concept.
But do you know what it takes to get to like the top
three motivate, like, you know,
I just said that randomly,
you may be the number one,
I know, but I'm just saying,
that's all relative, right?
It's all relative.
But I'm saying what's not relative
is that I'm considered one of the best.
That's for sure.
Do you understand how hard that is just in life
in general to get to the top of any industry?
Like that is a, that's a feat.
Like that's, that takes a lot to do that.
And one of the cool things about when I got into industry,
and I started studying the zig-zigglers
and the Les Browns and the Tony Robbins is,
I realized who they were and what they were
and what it would take for me to get there.
Like, you know, a lot of people have dreams and goals
and like you ask, and what do you want to do?
I want to be a multi-millionaire,
but when you look at their expectations and their grind,
it's like, well, you're never gonna get there,
like from what your day to day life looks like,
your schedule, your level of execution,
or you're not gonna get anywhere close to where you dreamed up.
I literally looked at the, the, the,
augmentinos of the world.
You know, I looked at all of the,
you know, the people that were in the industry of COVID.
And, you know, and I was like, oh, I can do this.
You know,
What made you know that though?
I just, I just knew since I was a child
that speaking was my thing,
that I loved it and for whatever reason,
okay, this is old, but E.F. Hutton, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
I knew like with the E.F. Hutton boy,
you know, when certain people talk, people listen,
and school and I would,
hey, we're gonna mess up the class
because it's a substitute teacher
or we're gonna go and do something,
we don't have no business doing,
like when I was young, people followed me.
So I always knew that when I speak people here,
people listen.
Who thinks you're a voice now?
I mean, it's so captivating.
You know what, I was watching some videos last night
before, you know, just because I was like trying
to like remind myself of the some of the stuff I've seen.
It literally like, it like, it vibrates in your body.
Oh, yeah.
It's like, it's so like, yes, like when you talk,
it's like, it hits the person viscerally.
So you had, like, so you as a kid, you knew you had this already not that part
What did you but you do people are following you?
Yeah, new people like I would talking people listen and I wasn't an athlete, right?
You know, I wasn't you know six six and I didn't have a certain it was just my voice people follow
Yeah, I knew like yo they're following me because of what I say.
And so at a certain point I realized, wow, this is a thing.
Like Marluth the King had a voice, Garvey Malcolm X,
Sajernatue Rosa Parks, like I would watch TV.
John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, like I'm a kid.
And I would notice that people who had voices
God in opportunity
Lifestyles of the rich and famous like I knew like people are watching this because of his voice
His voice was amazing. It was amazing like forget what he said and the first
You got the right thing baby. Uh-huh, you know, I would listen to singers, because I'm from Motown, and Mike had this voice as a kid.
ABC123, and it's like, they were drawn by his voice.
So I always knew, it's like, wow,
it seems like a lot of people who are successful,
like they have a voice, and people listening,
people wanna be around them.
So I knew at a very young age, but in college, I knew,
okay, they don't wanna go to chapel okay, they don't want to go to chapel
or they don't want to go hear that speaker, but whenever I present people who don't like
to hear speakers, like they hear me speak.
Right.
And I knew then, like, you know, you got something.
And if you want to be, and I never wanted to be among the greats to be honest with you, but I knew if I wanted to be successful
in the arena like they were,
I did not have some of the other things
that I needed to be successful.
And I, what do you call it?
Like when you say to somebody that they need to be refined.
Like I knew, I wasn't refined.
I knew it was just raw talent.
And by going to school and getting
degrees, I knew that that would take the raw talent, refine it and allow me to impact people
in a way that I wanted to impact people.
Well, first of all, I've got so many things to say to that. Number one, the first thing
is you do say this also in your book without you need to have some structure within that
superpower around just like unharmedness, you know, garbage really what happens, right? So then you, it's interesting. So you kind of,
and if you stay, it's true, Robin, Robin Leech, even Tony, Tony Robbins, there is an element
of just the simple voice. Forget about like all the other like the work ethic and the discipline
and all that other stuff, just the actual vessel.
Absolutely.
When you walked in or even when I talked to you on the phone,
your voice is super, it's unique and it's like
so dominating and authoritative.
And so is Tony Robbins.
Absolutely.
You know, so what happens for people
who don't have that like raw talent,
can they, can they, what would would happen so they just wouldn't be able
to be in this space?
No, I think so.
I think one of the speakers that I grew up listening to
that I have a lot of respect for,
but until I understood cadence,
I didn't really realize, Malcolm X doesn't have a good voice.
When I listen to Malcolm X, he doesn't have a command,
he doesn't have a model of the king. I have a dream one day like that you hear that speech over and over and over and people still don't get tired of it today
That's fair. It's still planted in January February so for me
I realized that you can be
But there are other
skills that you have to develop
Around people following you that may not necessarily be
your voice.
But I was like, yo, one of the marquee advantages to being a speaker is a voice.
And I was like, what happened to have one?
So I need to take advantage of it in a way that before the university, I wasn't taking
advantage of it.
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So it's kind of like if you are seven feet or six foot,
not anywhere.
And like you have that like that advantage
via basketball player, if you were like a math mathematician.
So it's basically you were like, you kind of like
figure out very quickly what you're really good at
and then leaned really into it.
And I think what was challenging for me is that one,
there were not a lot of African-American motivational speakers.
Right. A lot of preachers, you know.
That's true, yeah.
But not motivational speakers.
Les Brown was probably the only one.
So with Les doing it, it doesn't necessarily make you feel like
basketball.
Okay, you could cut on TV and see hundreds of thousands of basketball players from
ever football, forever, baseball, forever.
You don't cut on a television or go online and see motivational speakers.
So for me, that was the part that was a little bit challenging was, okay,
how do I do this and do it as a profession?
Like I know I can do it and inspire people, but how do I do this and do it as a profession? Like I know I can do it and inspire people,
but how do I do it in a way?
And that's when I realized,
you got to go to school.
And I didn't go to school for motivational speaking,
not that you thought that I did,
but I actually went to school for teaching, right?
My degrees are an education.
And I, but some kind of way I knew the more educated I was,
the more command I could have of the gift.
And then I studied a little bit of psychology in school.
So I knew that I could command the gift in a way that I could use it to benefit me both
financially and impact in terms of the world.
But also like you said, you already had like all that raw talent.
People were already following you.
You had a good voice.
And then how much time and effort did you put into like
honing it with the, like trying to like practice the cadence
and all that stuff?
And how did you practice?
So what was your...
So in the beginning it was, man, I got all this charisma
but I'm not using it in a way that's productive for me.
You know, everything I touched as a young adult,
it just seemed like I destroyed it.
Like it wasn't the same, like it's not like now.
I tell something now it turns to go, right?
When I was younger, it was like, I've got a gift,
but I don't have the character to go with it.
I don't have the knowledge to go with it.
It was kind of, to some extent,
it was, it wasn't advantageous because it was like,
yo, you can move the crowd,
but you move them the wrong way. You know, it's like, yup, you can move the crowd, but you move them the wrong way.
It's like, yup, you can get people hyped,
but after they get hyped, what to do.
And so for me, it was like, yo, you gotta go to school.
The same way, a Michael Jordan had to have a Phil Jackson
in order for him to win a championship.
You know, the same way Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali
needed a coach.
It's like, yo, you really need a coach
and not just for your mouth. You need
a coach for your mind and for your character. And so I start reading every book I could
get my hands on, you know, how to win friends and influence people. You know, the greatest
salesman in the world, speed of trust. I was like, Eric, you got to work on your character.
Like you got to work on being a person of integrity,
doing what you say you're gonna do,
following through.
Like I already knew the gift is there,
and the gift is gonna take you places
that your character can't keep you,
or your intellect can't keep you.
And so it's like, all right, you gotta go to school.
You gotta learn how to read, you gotta learn how to write,
you gotta learn how to comprehend.
Like you gotta take school serious.
And not just the homework,
like you gotta learn take school series. And not just the homework, like you've got to learn that the process,
like how important, like studying every day,
or studying so many hours a day,
or going in the dictionary,
even though you don't feel like a dictionary,
like going into the source,
even though you're like,
why, you are a speaker.
So the more your vocabulary increases,
like you will be able to go from elementary to middle,
to high school, to middle, to high school,
to college, to corporates, NFL, NBA.
So, for me, it was just like, you need to complete overall, bro.
It's also like what you're good at.
And this is probably what you also practice, I would imagine.
It's not just your voice.
It's also the word combinations.
Absolutely.
You are very good in that, and that's what really hits me.
Very, very deeply.
It's like, it's the combinations that we all kind of know common sense wise.
Absolutely.
But when you put them together, it's like acrobatics, like verbal acrobatics kind of, right?
It's, I told you, when I first met with you like don't be afraid
Don't be upset by the results you did not get for the work you did not do. Yeah, yeah
Yeah, brilliant. Absolutely right or like I have so many of them I can like and go on and on
But like so like how how did you kind of did you model that from somebody else?
How did you kind of for sure? So that from somebody else? How did you kind of?
For sure.
So the first one was grown up at Motown Music.
You know, when you're listening to Marvin Gaye,
and I want you to want me like I want you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know what's like, he's playing on words,
you know, the temptations, you know, the month of May,
you know what I'm saying, when it's cold outside,
I got the month of May.
Like, would you say, what can make you, like, those are, like, that's the word play.
Michael Jackson, you know, Mike would be, got to be there in the morning.
And it's like, he's giving us that little kiddie voice, you know, and it's, but he's
singing about a rap, you know, it's like, is it about a rap, you know, I said, I'm going to hip hop and, you know, LL, you know, my radio, you
know, what was the song? I need love. You know, and so you're listening to all this
Rundi MC, you know, Maya Dieta's and it's like, I'm, I'm as a kid, I'm hip hop. Friends,
how many of us have the ones we can't do it? And so I'm like, okay, I see people are drawn
to music. People are drawn to certain
artists. Okay, good. So I know how to do that. But now I need to up my word vocabulary. I need to read
the one of my favorite books, Chicken Soup Soup for the Soul. I need to learn stories.
That's what your favorite book? Yeah, one of my favorite books. Storytelling, like I love Ziggs
Zinglin because he told a lot of stories. Yeah, so I noticed that
90 I'm sorry less than 20% of the world's population have college degrees
20% so I started saying okay Eric do me a favor let everybody else worry about the 20% like the 80% is much better
What's the 80% they don't go to like I had a friend of mine who said you know that's not proper English
I said what how when you want to succeed is bad as you want to breathe. I was like oh, okay, what is it?
When you want to succeed as badly as you I said that doesn't make sense
That'll be sound right in terms of cadence now of course it sounds right to my academic side
Right, but that's less than 20% of world's population. I'm focused on the 80. The 80 is common people who didn't go to college,
who didn't probably finish high school.
It's way more of them than it is people who went,
got a cause degree, a mass degree,
but matter of fact, the reason why I never talk about my PhD
is because that really separates me from everybody.
I was gonna say that.
And that's exactly what makes you,
it's new, you're very relatable, right?
Like people are, you can relate to people.
And I think you're right.
Like I think that when someone just talks about
or when you know all their accolades,
like, oh, I went to Harvard and did this, it is.
It, it, it, like just even psychologically,
it separates you from the masses of people, right?
So you really kind of, you've learned
and you really figured this out that being like,
just like everybody else, like makes relatable
is really, it works.
Yeah, and we are like everybody else except for a couple little things.
Well, that's what I'm saying, but people don't connect to that stuff.
Right.
Because what I'm saying, like, people don't like me because I did this and I was that.
People think that they need to kind of tell you everything that they've done on one hand
to impress you and to kind of tell you everything that they've done on one hand to impress you
and to kind of connect with you, but it's the opposite.
Absolutely.
Like nobody wants to know that.
Like at the end of the day, if you're a jerk,
I'm not gonna like you anyway.
Right? Like you walk in here and like this,
you're so likable.
Yes, yes, thank you.
But you are, you know, you are on it.
I'm not the only one. Millions of people would have been. But some wins,, thank you. But you are, you know, you are on it. I'm not the only one.
Millions of people would agree.
But some wins, so thank you.
You're the ones that do so, thank you.
But it's like, the people don't care if your English is perfect.
It wouldn't even, it doesn't even, the cadence, like you said,
like if people listen to these videos, I listened to One-of-a-Hole about,
I'm gonna pull it up actually yesterday.
I love it.
Right here, right now.
Right now, it was so good.
I wanted to know where it is now, damn it.
Yeah, it's okay.
It was about, hold on, I gotta find this.
It's like, just tell me, I can probably help you.
I know you probably know it yourself,
but it's like giving, I got so many here,
I don't know where, no, purpose, no, no, no, no, no.
I can't find it now.
It's okay, okay.
I'm gonna talk some more. Next time I talk a long time, you can look for it when I'm telling you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that both that, about the breathing or the- Yeah, when you wanna succeed as bad as you wanna breathe.
Badly, then you'll be successful.
That's the most,
is that the one that kind of like,
was the tipping point where everyone started
to kind of know who you were?
Yeah, so let me say this,
because I think this is important for people to get.
It's almost like, you know, it's a combination.
Okay.
It's a combination of, okay, this person has a hit,
but for some people it's like,
they had a hit, oh, they had one hit wonder.
Yeah.
Like, I don't know, but then you look at it,
the reason why I like Michael Jackson is because,
like, he has a library from when he was five,
six years old to the time he passed, right?
It's a library, Ray Charles, it's a library, right?
A Needabaker, it's a library.
I just saw something when I was driving
by the story of Elvis, like Elvis got a library,
or not only, you know, rock and roll, but gospel.
Like got a library.
So I think what happened was this combination of, wow, who is this guy?
But then you go online because you want to look up Eric Thomas who he is.
And then you see, wow, he's got 10, 11 years of recording.
He's got a library.
So in your mind, you're like, that's what, like if you would have just been one video to be like,
woo, one video, this kid is good.
But the one video then every day,
you're getting two, three videos,
it's like, okay, he's legit, he's a real deal.
100%, that's how I be powerful.
That was the one about like, be powerful, be disciplined.
You take these like one things,
and then you like build, and then you scream and yell and then you like build and then you scream and yell
and then like and then you quiet down.
Like all of that.
Absolutely.
So that's all intentional.
Absolutely, because the attention span
of this generation is 15 seconds.
So I'm going to scream and yell
and be super passionate why?
Because I've got 10 to 15 seconds with you.
Then after that 10 to 15 seconds,
then we can kinda go into, and it's gotten worse.
So when I first started the attention span,
my about to be eight minutes, five minutes now,
I think it's not even like TikTok is,
you get six to six seconds.
Yeah, not even.
So for me, it was, all right,
how do they want information?
Not how do I want to give it?
Cause I used to give, you go back all the way.
It was like 20 minutes worth of stuff, 15 minutes stuff. And it's like, now as we got older in the
industry, because I started in 2007, as we as we start progressing, it's like this generation,
their attention span and so so for me, it was not what do you want and how do you want to give it?
It was what where are they? Because again, like you said, I have a degree.
So if I'm talking to you and you went to college,
we can go there.
But if you didn't, I got a GED, we can go there too.
So I don't feel the need to start the conversation
and let you know, I feel more like you talk.
Let me see where you are.
And then I'm going to meet you where you are.
If you're a Southern, I lived in Alabama for a while.
If you're a Northerner, we can go there.
If you're from Cali, I'm in Cali now.
I can figure that out.
We can go there.
And I find when I connect with people where they are,
it's a deeper connection.
And when you make a deeper connection,
people are more willing to sit down and figure out who you are.
And yeah, I like you more.
I don't like them.
Yeah, that's so true.
So then how does someone, when you,
where do people begin, right?
Like let's say they don't have something so obvious,
like a great voice or their seven feet tall.
How do people really find what their superpower is
and then really lean into it if they don't have it?
Why do people like you?
Yeah.
It's just like, why do people like you?
So if you in kindergarten,
do they like you because you support them?
You know, like every time they're,
they've got like a player, something they're doing
or they got, you know the girl when you getting ready
for the prom, she's not trying to necessarily go to the prom,
she doesn't have a date to the prom,
because she's like, I'll do your makeup,
you know, I'll shop with you.
It's like, yo, that's a gift.
Everybody doesn't support people.
There are a lot of people who are envious and jealous of people.
It's just human nature.
They're making bad people, but some people just every time they see you doing something,
they want to do what you're doing to do.
I can do what you do.
I can do better.
But there are some people who watch you and go, I want to help you.
We just get so caught up in this world of thinking, oh, it's only, I gotta play basketball.
I gotta play football.
It's like, whatever these dominant traits are
where people love you, I gotta be the next top model.
Okay, so you don't even like modeling,
but you're gonna pretend like you like modeling
because you wanna be a firm.
I'm saying you already naturally a firm for something.
There's already a reason why people are drawn to you
and like you.
So whatever that is, like put your energy in that. So people love to hear me talk. So I turn it into
a profession. I turn it into a career. I talk all the like the cool thing about the internet
is there's no limit to talking. Tick tock, I'll let you put up as much as you want, Instagram.
And so we just put stuff up. Everybody doesn't like it, but millions of people do. I think
that one video has over a hundred million hits.
The one that secrets, the secret is,
why do I keep, you know why?
Because I did a talk called
the secret to getting anything you want.
So I always get confused by that one in my life.
That's your association with the secret.
That's right.
So I always like try to say lie, not your title.
And that one has a hundred million views.
Yeah, over a hundred million views.
So I'm saying if you draw, draw, if you talk, talk,
if you write, write.
But I was talked out of, and I talk about it in the book,
I was talked out of playing the violin.
Like I love the violin.
I was on my way here.
I'm listening to the piano in the violin.
I love the violin, but I was talked out of it
because it was like, bro, that's not cool.
Like that's not urban.
Like you can't be, you can't get an urban car
playing the violin, but I was like,
yo, imagine this discipline version of Eric,
if he had a violin and spoke,
what would it be like if I spoke and played the violin
at the same time?
Like my money would triple, double,
I'd be all over the world, the western world.
I would have been, and I know what me,
whenever I touch something, I'm so unique in original,
I would have taken the violin and probably made a new string
that they didn't have.
So stop wanting to be affirmed so much so that you end up
doing something you think people would like you for.
So now you're gonna change your whole personality,
your old character, to be liked by somebody. Guess what? They're not gonna like you because that's
not your authentic self. So when we met the first time, I didn't go, okay, I don't know her. I don't
know if she's recording me. I don't know if she's gonna say what I said to somebody else. I don't
know. I don't care. I'd rather go down being my authentic self than being what I think you want me to be
and then jacking up the whole relationship.
I just wrote a B myself.
And if it doesn't work out, it didn't work out.
But if it works out, man, what could be the mutual benefit
for being too authentic people?
So I would just say there's something,
there's a reason why people like you,
there's something you dress a certain way.
Okay, then become a fashion artist.
If people love you in high school for the way you dress,
get in fashion.
But figure out who your authentic self is and be that.
And I'm telling you, man, when you're yourself,
it's just, I can't explain it,
but it's just so liberating and explosive
and innovative, creative.
Like I just feel so alive
when I get to be Eric Thomas.
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So go, what are you waiting for?
The superpower of whatever it is, it doesn't necessarily have to be your career.
Absolutely, yeah.
It can be in anything.
There's a lot of people who have felt doubt,
even if you were saying, because of all these external forces,
they need validation from whoever
and then they go into that and they're miserable.
There's also people who feel like the world has kind of done them wrong.
And that's another big one, right? The victim mentality. And you talk about that a lot as well,
which is interesting because like that was what I said to you earlier before we started,
because you always have this big smile and you're always like so energetic and happy
except when you're screaming and yelling.
Right, right, right.
It's an internal happiness.
Exactly.
So I thought that you were so way,
but then you talk like, you're not,
like there is a part of you that's still super dark.
Absolutely.
And you have like, is it like a demon or something that is?
I guess it is.
Yeah.
So how do you kind of get yourself out of that place?
How often does it happen?
Yeah. And like talk about the whole victim mentality
and what it does to people.
So I think the reason why our evil or dark side
gets the best of us,
or when it gets the best of us is because we try to pretend
like we don't have one.
So there was a part of my life where I pretend
like I didn't have a dark side because I was
concerned about how people would treat me if they knew I had a dark side, which is why
I love my mom, which is why I love my wife, which is why I love, you know, CJ is because
those people have been introduced to my dark side and they still love me.
Right.
And what we're trying to do is get people to not know our dark side and they still love me. And what we're trying to do is get people
to not know our dark side so they can love us.
And it's like, I'm gonna be honest with you,
if people love you and they figure out who your dark side is
and they don't like your dark side,
they're gonna stop loving you.
So you might as well, I'm not saying day one,
but I'm saying don't be fake.
Like, be authentic.
Be authentic with yourself.
And so there are people who are like,
I can't believe Eric Thomas, and that's why we're
not cool because you can't believe or you didn't like my dark side.
But every human that's in a deep relationship with another human, there's a dark side.
And you have to decide if that dark side is too dark for you or if you can see the light
in the dark side and you willing to work with that person.
So I think the day I no longer was controlled by that demon,
was the day I realized, like, yo Eric,
you are hurt that your father wasn't in your life.
Why are you sitting here lying,
trying to be strong for people to act like you didn't care?
I do care they didn't come.
I do care that when I played sports,
people had their fathers and I didn't have my father.
I did care that my biological father was not in my life.
I did.
To the point where, even though my mom married, I couldn't even let him be my father because
I wanted my real father.
And so I remember tiptoeing around my mom, not wanting to talk about my father because
of how it would make her feel.
And I was like, no, your relationship with him is your relationship.
Like you guys were dating or whatever you was doing.
That's my blood.
That's like half who I am, my DNA.
So I'm not gonna fake it anymore,
so I can make you happy or I don't make you uncomfortable.
But this is my father and I wanna know my dad
and I wanna go get to like meet him one day.
And I want to, even though I know who he is,
when I say meet, I don't mean physically meeting,
but I wanna sit down and figure out what makes him tick.
What do we have in common? But there was a part of my life where I didn't mean physically meeting, but I wanna sit down and figure out what makes him tick. What do we have in common?
But there was a part of my life where I didn't want people
to know that I hurt, that I felt rejection.
And then it was like, oh, not only do I wanna know
who my father is, not only was I hurt,
they wasn't my life.
Here are some of the collateral damage
of not having my, I do have trust issues.
So you need to know coming off the cup.
I got trust issues.
Now, will I give you an opportunity?
I will.
Am I the person who's healthy and will give you three?
Maybe not.
Maybe not.
No, I'm hurt.
So I give it to you and you destroy it.
I may not give you three or four chances.
I may cut you off.
But know that about me and know that because I'm like that, then when I give you a shot,
you probably you probably want to take that opportunity and do right by it and not squander it and think I'm gonna forgive you three times.
So I'm not. So I'm okay with, I got this challenge, I got this like I remember I remember not being able to speak as well as I speak now
because there were words I couldn't read
and I was embarrassed when I would read
and I didn't know the word.
I still have some words, I got a GD.
A PhD doesn't solve all of my fundamental academic challenges,
but now if I don't know a word,
it does bother me that I don't know it
because you may know every word,
but you may not know how to connect with people
like I connect with people.
Right.
So I don't feel bad about my insufficiency
because you have one as well.
Yours may not be as apparent as mine
because I'm not afraid to get on stage
and read something that I can't read or stumble.
And when I got to the point,
it was like, yo, you got demons, okay.
You didn't cause them.
Your mom was 17 years old when she got pregnant with you your father wasn't in your life
Like you didn't ask to be born without a nursery. You didn't ask to be born without you know, believe it to be ver
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So at least you have the self-awareness to know us about yourself.
Absolutely.
First of all all and then also
Recycling your pain right you basically took something that was very painful and you made you made it Plastic
And you read and you repurposed it for something that really benefited you
Absolutely, so it's about what you do with that pain and what you do with those like those those demons
Right, they can work for you or you can make it or against you.
But they're not going anywhere.
People want it like they're going, they're not going anywhere.
Right.
It is what they are too closely related to me.
Right.
We've been together for too long for them just to walk out of my life, but I can't repurpose
those, those, those, those demons and those bad experiences and those screw ups and those decisions that I made
at 19, 2021 that I wouldn't make at 51. That's what I'm grateful for. And I also think that they're
necessary to really be like most successful people I know they have something about what's happened
to them that pushes them and fuels them to be like to kind of prove something to themselves.
Forgive me everybody. Yes, maybe prove it to kind of prove something to themselves. Forgive me everybody.
Yes, maybe prove it to someone else, but to themselves that they are worthy and that they
are good and all these other things.
So like it actually does work for you.
I might in my opinion anyway.
Well, it has worked for us.
Oh, great.
I mean, it has.
Absolutely.
And then the other thing that I find so, like if you don't have that,
like it doesn't build character, right?
Like you become very vanilla and very,
there's nothing there.
That's good.
I've never heard that term use like that before.
That's good.
But it's true.
Like I always gravitate to the people
who have had like the most like kind of
fucked up kind of background because they're interesting.
Or like there's something about them
that's like unique and different. It just works out that way. I never ever-
And so I was gonna say if you're gonna do vanilla do French or homemade?
Yeah that's right that's exactly I like French vanilla.
Yeah I love French vanilla.
I just say nope we're not against you guys just being but spicing up a little bit.
Spicing a little bit. Spicing up a little bit. I do find that though to be like a truism in life
absolutely absolutely. You know when all these people I live here in LA and like I live obviously, we're very
close to a lot of people with tons of money who come from a lot of money.
That's not me at all.
I've worked for every dollar I've ever had.
But I don't relate to these people who've just kind of were born into it a lot or may
read it or whatever it is.
And I think there is something really true to that.
And if you want to get mad at me, people, if that's fine,
but I do believe that to be true.
It just, if you look at challenges the right way,
they just add color.
Yeah.
You know, they add color to your life.
And I always say, it literally puts me in a position
where I'm not fake, I'm not in a fake shallow relationship
with you. I really have struggled.
So I understand struggle when you say you're struggling.
Like I get it. I struggle.
And I'm not afraid to, I'm not afraid to,
I don't have to compartmentalize my failure.
I'm not afraid to keep that failure present
with me at all times and use it to my advantage.
It also makes you, I think because if you struggled in school, for example, right, it
creates more resourcefulness.
Like you have to get really good in dominant and other things.
Like the, you seem to have a really high emotional intelligence, right?
Absolutely.
Like you can pick up on other people.
Absolutely.
IQ.
I keep it here.
It's true though. like, super strong.
I can't.
And again, like, a lot of times people who are really dominant in school don't have a
really, again, not always, this is the, you know, but.
Yeah, there's no definite.
But to your point, I find that, and I would say this to my daughter all the time, who
has a brilliant
mind. You're only going to be in school for so long. And at some point you'll be
in the real world much longer than you in school. And so you got to figure out
when you get out of school how you've been able to navigate in school you got
to do that in the real world. Yeah. Because again school isn't something that
you can do. Like you can't be a career
student. Right. There are some people who are. Yeah. Yeah. Very few, but you can't. I don't know
that that works. You know, I'm saying. But it's like, it's an excuse not to get into the real
world. Right? Like I'll just keep on taking more and more stuff because it keeps me away from
like real life, basically. Right? So we are relationship with your real dad.
How was it now?
Like, how did you, what happened?
I mean, I'm just, now I'm just curious.
Yeah.
How do I say this?
Say it, be authentic.
Yeah, he's watching.
I don't even want to get his feelings.
We have a super healthy relationship.
I think what I did wrong
because I long for it as a kid,
I had expectations that I shouldn't have had.
So in terms of the relationship, healthy relationship,
in terms of what I thought it would be,
it's not necessarily that.
How about with your dad who raised you?
Could you left home?
And then you kind of like lived on the street.
Yeah.
He was the one who actually raised you.
Yeah, yeah, I messed that one up, you know.
And I think the emotional part that you talk about,
I'm super, you know, in tune now,
but as a child when my mom married,
I was like, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't, even though I was still young, I'm like, yo, I don't want this.
Like I didn't, I'm like, I want to be with you. I don't want to be with you in him. And so I never really emotionally, especially when I found out that wasn't my biological father, I did not emotionally let him in or connect.
I did not emotionally let him in or connect. And so you're talking about leaving home,
you're talking about running away from home at 13,
all the way, I ran away from home at 13.
I would come back and forth because I was a child
and I was afraid.
At 16, I was like, yo, I've done this a few times.
I think I'm good.
I'm just like, I think I can handle this.
I think I've tasted it.
I think I'm good.
I think I can handle leaving. I think I've tasted it, I think I'm good. I think I can handle leaving and never coming back again, right?
And so in that process, I was young and ignorant
and I didn't look at challenges the way I look at them now.
And a lot of what happened in my life,
I blamed him because it was easier than blame my mom.
Because we were so close and I loved my mom so much.
It was easy to say, oh, this is all your fault.
When really it was, my mother's fault.
When my mom was the one that decided she's not gonna tell,
matter of fact, as an adult, my father who raised me was like,
yo, I wanted you to know I wasn't your father.
That your mom, that, you know, for whatever reason,
that's how she wanted to do it.
And so of course, that's my wife.
I went along with it.
So, I built up some resistance. And then when I left home, I chronic do it. And so of course that's my wife. I went along with it. So I built up some
resistance. And then when I left home, I chronicled it. I told my father, like if I ever see you in
Detroit, I'll kill you, right? That's how angry and ignorant and hurt I was. And so then as an adult,
I leave home at 16. I go to college. I'm in Alabama. I'm not really home that much. And so I did not allow there to be a relationship
to the point that now as an adult, like, yo, I worship the ground my father walk on. I understand now as a father
What is like to be a father? You know, like it hit me once I start, you know, having children and I'm raising kids
And I'm like, oh, I put you through that. So I'm super
I'm a child and I'm raising kids and I'm like, oh, I put you through that.
So I'm super remorseful, but you can't go back to 12.
You can't fix some of the damage that you cause,
especially when you're not there.
It's like you can fix damage
if you're living with a person every day.
You have opportunities to create new moments.
But like you leave at 16 and you literally disrespect
the person that raised you and threaten
the very person that raised you, like there's going to be some animosity.
So I leave and there's not time in between to repair that.
And so as an adult though, once I started having kids, it's like, yo, it's not not going
to do about my past, but every, he has multiple sclerosis was diagnosed in 85.
I didn't realize that because he wasn't, like he's still walking around or whatever.
So, and because I wasn't involved like that, I didn't really understand it.
But now, any trip with my parents want to spend the winter in California, they want a vehicle
with, they want to, it's like, I got you.
What can I do to support you?
So now as an adult, but I still it's just some stuff
I did as a child that I regret so we have a good relationship, but not the type that he
deserves to have based on what he did. We didn't have that you know, so and they surprised or are they not surprised of your success?
Well, my father who raised me was like, yo, I saw it all along. Right like you had always been able to whatever
It's just your demons that got in the way, you know, it was always you being super emotional and not in control of my emotion
Then like I am now, so I'm still emotional. It's just I have more control on it. I understand it
I've studied I've gone to school. I've studied psychology, I've had coaches, I've had therapists.
So I have a better understanding of how this emotional IQ
thing works versus when I was 12 and I was crying out,
I want my daddy, but didn't really know how to say,
I want my daddy and doing dumb stuff.
Now it's like, okay, you're, you're that same guy
is crying out, but let's be productive
where how we use him. Let's use him to help other kids who are feeling the same way.
So then how did you actually really harness them, what you have? Like, what were your habits
daily? Like, I know we talked about the fact that you did all the practicing the cadence
and watched everything and read a lot of books. But do you still do it? Like what is your day like now?
Are you still, like you are a beast?
Like you work, what, what,
you wake up at what, three o'clock in the morning?
Like what is your day like?
What did you do?
So, so, so, and I don't want people
to get caught up in the routine.
I think you need routines, but also,
but it is your routine, but everyone has to find their own.
And they need to find substance in the routine.
Not just you get up at this time,
you do this at this time, you like a zombie,
just going through the motions.
Like you really need to find things
that are gonna heal you and make you whole
and bring out that superpower.
But for me, and harness that,
harness it, which is important.
Cause that superpower is,
like you remember when you used to watch the Superheroes
when they were kids, there was like they, Superman find out to be doing dumb stuff throwing stuff. It's like that's how we are
So so the first thing that I do people would say you pray. Yeah, okay. Yeah, but it's not
Prayer is not just me talking to God. It's really me talking to God and talking to my inner self
It's like me saying what what's up Eric? It's two of us, which one,
like which one are we gonna be today?
And so I wanna talk to the intelligent Eric,
the Eric is gonna make good decisions,
and I wanna walk him through what he's experiencing.
So when I wake up in the morning,
it's like, okay, what happened yesterday?
What did you screw up?
What did you mess up?
How could you've done that better?
Let's hold each other accountable today.
Let this Eric hold that inner Eric, Let's hold each other accountable today. Let this air hole, that inner air,
let's hold you responsible.
Okay, now what are you playing on doing today?
Did you say something to your wife?
Did your wife say something to you?
Did you process something wrong?
Did you get angry with the police officer?
Like, what did you do wrong?
What did you do right?
So it's almost like a daily,
what do they call it?
Swat analysis.
It's almost a daily, ET is strengths, weakness,
opportunities, threats.
Like every day of yourself, every day I'm waking up
at three o'clock, I'm spending an hour and a half,
two hours with self.
So you still wake up at three o'clock?
You do wake up at three o'clock?
I do, I do, but I don't.
So I do still keep that same routine, if you will,
but because I'm so much older, my wife is like,
yo, you've been doing that since we were,
and you always promise me.
So some weeks, it's like we're going out of town,
and she wants me to stay in the bed at three o'clock.
Yeah.
Come on, let's stay up late.
Yeah, let's stay up late.
What's late, seven am?
Yeah, right, right, right, right,
I know that five, 36, when the sun comes up,
I gotta get out to bed, like I can't sleep while the sun is out. Wait, 7am? Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right like no, you're number one in the world. Like they don't make sense. Like you never won in the world.
I feel like I got a, and so, but I'm finding that balance.
So maybe not three, but if I get up at five, 30 or six,
that same self analysis.
That same swap.
But three earlier, and I only did it because I tell people,
I got up at six, the older people in the neighborhood
who was walking around.
Five o'clock, the animals are walking around. Three o'clock is the only time you can really get up and be by yourself.
By four or four thirty, deer are walking around. Whatever it is in your neighborhood is
walking around. Three o'clock stars are out. The weather is gorgeous. There's no sound.
You don't see TVs on in the house. Cars driving around. So three for me was just because I'm positively ADHD,
any and everything could draw my attention.
Three o'clock was like, yo, I can get some peace.
Nobody's gonna call me.
The phone's not gonna be ringing.
The babies are not gonna be asking me for their homework
or where their shoes are.
Like three was my soul and it was like just me,
myself and my creator.
What time did you go to bed then?
I would go to bed no later than 10.
So like nine, nine, 30.
Well actually in the winter,
I go to bed early because the sun set so early.
So maybe about seven, 38.
But in Michigan, I don't know why.
The sun doesn't go down to 10 o'clock at night.
So I would probably go to bed nine, 30, 10 o'clock.
What were some other like things you did daily or do that you do? Yeah, so I have a group to bed 9.30, 10 o'clock. What were some other things you did daily, or do you do daily?
Yeah, so I have a group of men for the last 30 years
I've been getting on the call with, and we're processing.
My wife said this, my wife did this.
Well, how would you respond?
I'm working and they don't seem to, okay,
why aren't you making it?
Every day.
Every day.
One or two Friday we were doing this.
Then we started doing it on Saturday.
And I wore a more every morning with my bruns.
So I'm doing three to four, 35.
We getting on from five to six, six, 30.
And you're a moderator or you're doing it.
We just all talking.
We just all kicking it.
You know, all right, what's going on?
What happened yesterday?
Give me your testimony.
What did you read?
Some book you're reading.
All right, let's read a book together.
And us just holding each other accountable.
How many of you are there?
So we started probably with about five of us today.
That's probably about 40, 50 getting on the call at any time.
And we're still, it's still going on.
Still that call is still happening.
Men's prayer line is still happening.
And men just holding each other accountable.
Wow.
Yeah.
Every day.
Every day.
That was religious for me for over 20 years.
Is there a time that this happens?
Like is it like 10 o'clock in the morning or? Yeah. Three to five for me for over 20 years. Is there a time that this happens? Like is it like 10 o'clock in the morning?
Or three, three to five for me, five, 30, we would get on.
Some of us go five, 30 to seven.
Some would stay on, depending on where they were.
In the morning?
In the morning.
We're on five.
And you know what's so crazy, it's like imagine,
imagine a person who's struggling with substance.
Right.
And they're going to AA and they got a coach.
We were like our own coaches. Right. You know, we were like,
we were like, you know, on campus. Yeah.
And we were just holding each other kind of where every day.
Eric, you spoke the right of book. When you go write the book, Eric,
I thought you was going to get your PhD. We're going to get your PhD. Okay.
Let me help you. Let me show you how to. So it's just like an accountability group.
That's just out of this world. Who are these people?
Are there just random people? Some people went to college with some people.
We started, you know, we went to school together, we went to church together
and then their friends and then their friends and then people following me online start coming.
So it just made everyone welcome.
Everybody we give out the number 256530570.
People get on no cold, no nut, they get on and some people stay on for a year to get
healthy, get over drugs, start their business. Some people stay for two, some people stay for four weeks,
it's just like a bus.
We just get up same time every day, stop at the stop, you get on, you get off and we
just show up every day and keep doing what we're doing.
You know what I think is really amazing about you is that you do so much stuff like what
you're just saying, like not for money, like a lot of times when you get to be as successful as you are doing this, there's so
many ancillary businesses or that everything is like for profit, right?
Like you're doing this, but there's a thief attached to this.
So you want to get this, you've got to get that.
You give so much free, you give free help, free knowledge.
Most of it's, I feel like everything besides the motivational stuff is actually
free. I mean, is that just because you're a bad business guy or is it because they're
like a pro? Or is there like a pro? Probably vote. But what's his job?
Yeah. So when CJ came in, it's crazy. CJ was 21 in college. And CJ said, CJ heard me speak.
He was there for the speech. Okay.
He worked for me. He was my graduate assistant at some point and we tried to go to a school
the next day and he couldn't get me booked into school. And CJ was like, yo, this is crazy.
Like this doesn't make sense. This guy just gave one of the greatest speeches I've ever
heard of my life. But yet we can't get him to go to a middle school. Like he's like,
this is crazy. I need to ask for money. Like he's like, this is crazy.
I didn't even ask for money.
They just were like, no, the kids in school, whatever.
So CJ said from that point, crazy as thing,
I ever heard in my life,
this is how focused this kid was.
He said, I'm gonna make you a household name.
And I was like, okay, I'm not really sure.
Like, I don't know what you would do
from a day to day basis to do that.
Like, I'm not really sure what that means, but I like I love you solid kid. Let's go and I'll never forget the first time I was in the airport and somebody was like
What up? What up? What up? It's your boy ET bringing for the bottom and I was like, okay, see?
Okay one person and then I remember I can't go out to eat now without people. ET was up and it's so it's so different.
I've never been a celebrity like I don't know what it's like to be an athlete or
entertain or whatever, but people literally come onto me crying.
Like you're my marriage, bro.
Like like my wife and I were about to get a divorce.
You shared intimately about your marriage and some of the struggles you were going
through and you made me as a man feel like
Yo, it's okay to be
To watch dishes. It's okay to be submissive to my wife like it's okay to say I love you
Like it's okay to and I never knew another man who made it okay to my
Float my floor is like yo, I always wanted to support, but I grew up she's supposed to do that I'm not supposed to do that like you made it okay to mop, mop floor, mop floor or is it, like, yo, I always wanted to support, but I grew up, she's supposed to do that.
I'm not supposed to do that.
Like, you made it cool to be transparent, to say you hurt.
Like, and so it was just like, yo, see, you did it.
You know, and so then we put a book out.
We so, we pre-ordered enough, there was enough pre-orders to pay for the
5,000 books that we ordered. It was like, yo, this is crazy.
How many pre-orders did you have?
This is for Secrets to Success.
Yes, and it says we had about 600 pre-orders.
Oh, wow.
So I literally, and it was enough to pay for the five thousand
that we ordered.
Right.
It was self-published.
I literally drove to the bookstore, picked up the books in Ohio,
went to the local post office, and I made a phone call and talked them into let lot of money. I got a lot of money. I got a lot of money. I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money.
I got a lot of money. I got a lot of money. I got a lot of money. I got a lot of money. I got a lot of money. People will know that, you know, this is meaningful. And one day when I die, like you are first,
and I would literally put one of 1000,
two of 1000, three of 1000.
Wow.
I literally kept up with it so that one day you could say,
I remember forget to do Eric.
Eric was the first one.
He bought the first secret to success book, you know,
and so he would have that book one day when I die,
like yo, this is ET.
This the first one. So for me, I've never done anything for money just because I felt like
historically, Martin Luther King didn't do it. Rosa Parks didn't do it. Garvey didn't do it.
Like where we are because those people made sacrifice to the point where Martin Luther King lost
his life. He died for our freedom. So it's like, yo, just the people, mother to Reese is like my idol.
It's like mother to Reese wasn't like, all right, for the healing.
We go 59.99 and I'll come and heal everybody.
But it was just like, yo, Gandhi was just like, yo, I'm going not eat.
He wasn't like, all right, I'm not going to eat for 40 days.
And so we go, we go, we go and do a fundraiser for everyday.
I don't eat.
Let's see if we can raise $5,000.
He's just like, yo, I'm not gonna eat.
And I'm gonna help.
So I grew up under people who just gave,
and I really believed in my heart,
with the same measure that you give,
and she'll be giving unto you.
And here's what I love.
The world has proven that right.
Like the world made me number one.
No advertisements. Like I've never had no sponsors.
I ain't never been on TV.
I've never had no commercials.
I've never had an NFL or NBA team sponsor me.
I've never had anybody like,
yo, we got a free stadium coming speaking to free stadium.
Like you said, we work for everything,
but the people have worked for me for everything.
You know, and so even the
publishing deal with Penguin, their whole thing was, well, what have you done?
How many books have you sold? And so I've been able to show you know, before I've
had to deal with y'all, this how many people bought, like you can go and check.
This how many people bought this particular book. And so the videos, people
watching, they're bringing me to their middle schools and high schools, bringing
me to their college. Like, yo, Cam Newton literally was like yo,
E, I watched his videos,
E practically from the motivational standpoint,
raised me so when he went to the Carolinas,
him and my boy, Thomas is gonna kill me.
He was like,
E, I'll pay for you to come, Thomas Davis, like I'll pay for you to come.
Thomas Davis, like, I'll pay for you to come to the care aligners.
They literally pay and then coach was like,
so the kids that go to Alabama until Nick Savon,
like, yo, we need ET here.
You know, is they follow you?
Do you do that there?
Like, can you, that's, yeah.
I spoke for Alabama three years, like every,
every four of year I would come and do work.
And then the people who leave Alabama
and go to armor and go to cl-
or wherever they go, they call me like,
Eakin, you come.
So the world has rewarded me for all the giving.
You know, that I've done.
My family, we don't want for anything.
And I don't see life as, you work 50 million.
You're worth a billion.
I see life fast.
You know, I wanna win a Nobel Prize
because Desmond Tutu won it.
Nelson Mandela won it.
Martin Luther King won these are my heroes.
And they weren't known because they were billionaires.
It's not wrong with that.
Like that is a path you could take,
but all my heroes were known because they gave to the world
to their very last breath
Went to jail and Nelson Mandela went to jail for a long period of his time for the freedom of South Africa
So for me, it's like, yo, when I went to Nobel Prize like that's my
Symbol of man, I made it where the big boys made it where the big ladies made it
Yes, is that your why then you know? You talk about having to have a why
that's bigger than a house, okay?
Because once you get the house, now what?
Right, because anyone exactly,
buy another house or like a Rolls-Royce, all right?
That's like a very shallow, empty, vapid goal, right?
Why, right?
Because truthfully, anyone can really get that.
You can put money, you can buy that.
Absolutely.
There has to be something bigger. Is that your why, the Nobel Prize?
Yeah, that's not why.
Because it's like if you win, if you're the best and you worked hard in the NBA, you
know, you get to you get the finals.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You are in hockey, you get the lumbar, I mean, you get the Stanley Cup, you football, the
lumbar, the trophy. You know what I'm saying? Like these are the rewards that people get for working hard.
And my feel is the Nobel Peace Prize.
Like that's what I see myself getting.
And why do I do it?
I do it because I was rock bottom.
And there were people who poured into me when I was rock bottom.
Like, did he pour it into me when I was rock bottom?
So I'm like, yo, that's crazy.
Like, if did he was to die today for some crazy reason,
I wouldn't have a problem getting remarried.
I got a bunch of stuff.
Like people know who I am.
Somebody would be out there like, yo, I'm married my man.
You know what I'm saying?
For no other reason, I'm gonna be stable.
You look like he take care of his wife.
What about those people who believed in me when I had,
it was no reason to believe in me.
Right. And so be, be, be, be, sorry, go ahead. So because no one believed in you, you feel you've got
a, that's, that's what I believe. I believe you had nothing. And there were people who had something
who said, we're going to bless you with nothing because we believe in you.
So then see, isn't CJ,
can you have a bunch of people who are on your team?
Okay, I've got two questions actually.
So what is CJ's role then?
He helped get you to the place where like everyone knows you.
How did he do it?
Like what was his,
if you weren't doing ads and you weren't on TV
and you weren't having sponsorships,
what did he do?
He just posted your videos.
Was he a social media manager? And he posted your videos? He said social media manager.
He never posted videos. This is crazy.
Carl posted the videos.
I like that.
Carl posted the videos.
CJ managed every words.
CJ said, listen to me, of that 30 minute speech,
like the best speeches that you see,
see, listen to the whole hour.
He was with me and was like, that part right there.
So cut that part part right there.
So cut that part out right there, put this with that and then get that out.
The world needs to say that.
So the secret to success video, see was like, that was an hour video.
I mean, trust me, I know.
Yeah, well, an hour video.
So see was like, no, we will only take 17 minutes out, but then we'll cut that 17 into three minutes
and then we'll put that out.
Oh, the one I was watching, you were like, you know, blue shirt, you're talking for
the sick part one, there's a whole figure in a classroom.
Yeah, and that was longer than that.
But that's the part that C2D out.
Yeah, it was like, so that's what he did.
Okay.
Literally said, this is what, as a, and still tell you today, I'll steal your number one fan.
So as your number one fan,
I know where other fans wanna hear.
Right.
And I'm going to extract that and put that out with music,
with B-roll.
Now Carl, of course, is a genius from Barbados.
You know, he was one of those kids
where it's two tracks,
what do you call it, vocation or science.
He took science.
His brother was like a PhD,
Kim and Carl did two masters in science. Caucasian or science he took science his brother was like a PhD
Kimmiss Carl did two masters in science so when Carl takes a video into a lab
Like it's not like most people just I want to make money like Carl takes it in like it's his soul and
Like Carl Carl Carl won't say this but when you see
Motivational speaking with B-roll that was Carl that That didn't exist with Les Brown. Les Brown just put up his B-roll.
Tony's fires, these dudes are.
They just put up there, whatever.
Carl was the first one to start putting music
and putting B-roll.
Carl's the first one to do that.
So good.
Now everybody's doing it.
Now everybody's doing it.
Carl was the first one in 2006 to do that.
And so between Carl and CJ, it was,
we're gonna put out the best stuff we think of here.
Then CJ was genius.
He said,
from the algorithm, you have white males from the age of 25
to 40 sales people who are listening to your stuff
to get pumped.
He's like, oh, bump videos.
Let's do a mixtape.
So we take their favorite artist, the favorite music, put your voice in that,
and then boom, and the mixtape skyrocketing. Now, corporations start calling me because they
were coming to work. And instead of playing just music, they were playing my stuff out loud
and going to work. So CEOs was like, yo, who's this dude Eric Tom? He got my staff in here
going to work. So CEOs was like, yo, who's this dude Eric Tom? He got my staff in here on Blaine. They selling more than they've ever sold before. They're more focused than
ever was before. Like, I'm literally going, oh, if this 25 to 40 year white males, let's
go, let's, let's, let's now start talking business and how you work and your work ethic.
And you understand in the culture and building the culture. So I specifically started speaking to that group.
See, they was like, no, use these terms,
you just work, now I'm in Michigan State.
I'm learning the language, the code, the rule.
I grew up in Detroit.
So most of my lingual was not for white males,
25 to 40, but now that I'm in Michigan State
and now my friends are diverse.
Now I'm like, oh, okay, I get the nuance, I get the jokes,
I get what I'm supposed, okay, make sense.
I grew up, you know, one thing I say is,
I grew up, you all over the place with pastors.
I realized when I did corporate,
you had to be more linear.
So it wasn't that I couldn't be linear,
I just didn't know nothing about it.
Now that I know, oh, they much prefer A, B, C, D, then A, D, Z, back to A. It's like,
no problem.
I can do that.
And so we start really changing our videos to meet CEOs, needs.
And then all of a sudden, they start calling them like, yo, how much you charged.
And so she was like, all right, now we got to make you a celebrity because I realized
less and Tony and Z. They don't make their money because of what they say.
It's what they say and their celebrity.
So we got to get your celebrity up and get way more people to know who you are.
Because as your celebrity grow, we can charge you more.
And of course, he starts studying all the other greats and starts saying, okay,
we're going to the real estate.
Like they not just doing motivational speaking, we go, we're going real estate real estate. Like, they not just doing motivational speaking.
We're going real estate.
We're going to open up a solar company, okay.
We're going to start writing books, okay.
We got to start teaching courses.
We got to teach people how to get in real estate, okay.
We got to, and so C start getting,
becoming a genius and saying,
we're not going to necessarily go to these companies
because they'll still own us.
We need to own our own everything. So what we need
to do is figure out how do we start our own real estate and how do we do our own and then once we
got there, it was like, all right, now we can deal with other people because we got our own not
because we don't want for you as you to have to speak to you 60 and 70. He's like, yo, I'm not mad
at other speakers that do that, but we don't want you to put yourself in a position
where you always have to speak.
So we're gonna find investments
for you to put some of the real estate money in.
And so that's what C has done,
and that's what C did.
The book was his idea to say,
hey, you gotta get on a New York Times bestseller.
That's something you have an accomplish
and among the people that do what you do,
that's one of the, that's one of their accolades.
We gotta go after it.
So I'm like, all right, let's go.
Don't know, we'll do it, but we're going after it.
Listen, if anyone could do it,
it's gonna be you.
Yeah, listen, the name is, even that, you, oh you.
Did you come up with that?
I did, that was a speech.
I know, that's the same.
And that one did really well.
And so did you take that title
because it did super well, and it just put it.
And then because I felt like of everything I've ever done,
that's what everybody can relate to.
Yes.
You owe it to yourself to stop whining, crying,
like you know at the end of the day,
this country has its challenges.
Like I'm sure any other country has its challenges.
Well, that's one especially.
But here's the deal.
There is still opportunity in this one.
So I've been to other places that have their challenges, but there's no opportunity.
We have opportunities here.
And so for me, it's like, yo, yo, we got opportunity.
There are other countries that don't, I don't care what time you wake up or what time
you go to bed.
You just can't be a multi-millionaire off the streets.
They don't have the resources in some countries.
It's not even designed for just regular people to be able to do business.
There are places in this country where you can't just get on the internet because you want
to.
You just can't surf the web because you want to.
They got that joke on lockdown.
Now I'm not saying everything we do is right.
But when COVID hit, there are some countries like, you're not coming out the house.
I don't care how you feel, what you think. I don't care how much of an adult you think you are.'re not coming out the house. Yeah. Like I don't care how you feel what you think.
Like you, I don't care how much of an adult you think you are.
You're not leaving the house.
That's kind of, I'm Canadian and that's,
like you weren't allowed to, you're on curfew, 100%.
So I'm saying we have some.
We do have, yes.
What is here is a little democracy here.
So it's like, yo, if you don't take advantage of that,
that's on you.
Right.
And yes, we all have our stories and who wasn't there
and who abused us, where I say this to people all the time
when they say, yo, you try to, you act like you not black.
Like you act like you not African-American in this country.
I said, listen to me, I'm very much black
and I definitely know what the challenges are.
But my wife does not need to live off of what somebody else
is trying to try to do to stop her from.
She all to live, we got a house in San El,
we deserve to have a house.
I fly first class or private about one.
Like there are luxuries in this world.
I deserve to have those and I'm not gonna let any challenge
or trial or any human who feels like,
I don't like air because the color of your skin,
I don't care.
You could close as many doors as you want,
but there are some people who are open and door.
So I'm gonna focus on the people who are open and doors.
I'm gonna focus on the people who gonna let me
on their podcast.
Yeah, some people that won't let me on.
I'm not focusing on them.
I'm focusing on who's letting me on,
and I'm gonna get on there,
and I'm gonna do my thing when I get on there.
Why?
Because Eric owes it to Eric to live the best possible life.
Eric can live and no challenge.
Single parent mom got what had me when she was 18, pregnant 17, my father, not in my life.
South side, she got whatever, whatever the challenges are.
I deserve and this short life that I have, I deserve to live it on my terms. And so you owe you to live life on your terms
and do whatever it takes to actually make that a reality.
And that's why I said, oh, this is simple.
Now I tried to go you owe you,
but the publisher's like, that's just too simple.
But I was like, why are we gotta spell it out?
Just go you owe you.
Oh, I like that actually too, but yeah, I get what you're saying.
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First of all, that was like a sermon right there
that I didn't have to pay for, so thank you.
That was amazing.
Could you do it again?
Do another one, I'm gonna pick a line
and then you just rip off.
Yeah, no, no, no, no.
No, it's amazing. I was like, I was like really in, I'm like, do another one. I'm gonna pick a line and then you just rip off. Yeah, no, no, no. No, it's amazing.
I was like, I was like really in it.
Like, yes, exactly.
Because it's like taking advantage
of the opportunity in front of you,
people don't do that in that.
They have to take advantage,
they're gonna grab it and take advantage of it.
Because if you don't do it,
someone else is gonna do it.
No question.
That's the point.
And then here's my problem.
You're upset that somebody is gonna do it.
Yeah, it's exactly.
Because you're thinking to yourself, I knew Eric,
like he dropped out of school, he was homeless.
So now you feel in some type of way
because you're like, how did he do it?
And I didn't do it.
Now you mad at me, because I took advantage of you.
And I tell people this all the time,
I'm not co-signing because kids watch me.
So I'm not co-signing gambling.
But I used to play cards when I was homeless to make money.
And here's what I tell people.
It doesn't matter if you have a real flush if I know you have one you're not gonna make no money off of me
Because I know you I'm looking at your face and you smiling you excited
So I'm like up they go to three dollars that we put up. I'm out
It doesn't matter if you don't have a good hand if you act like you got a real flush
I know people who have absolutely nothing in their hand and they want the whole
pot with nothing to do. So at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what hand you have in life.
You can have the best hand in the world. You can come from the richest parents in the world and
still get strong out on drugs, still end up in prison somewhere, still hang with the wrong people
and die a young eight, or you can come from poverty and become the next best whatever it does not matter the hand that you're dealt in life
It only matters how you play it. So you owe you to play your hand to the best of your ability
So do I kind of feel like
Man, I don't know that every motivational speaker in the world has a degree
Okay, so what I go I'll get as many degrees as I want to put me in a position to be number one in the world
I don't care. You telling me I go to school and learn you get it get an opportunity to be a meet great people to
Experience walking across the stage and seeing my mom happy and my kids seeing their dad
I graduated from Michigan State my son graduated from Michigan State my daughter walked across the stage like you know
I broke some cycles. So I don't care what it takes to be number one.
I'm willing to do whatever it takes and it's not, well, this person doesn't
have to do that. Why should you?
I don't care their life and my life are two different lives.
But if there is a path, or we're going to figure out what it is and we
going to blaze that joke.
And then what we're going to do is we're going to be fair enough because
this country is built on the backs of so many different people.
We're going to document that trail I blaze
so that everybody else who wants to blaze that trail has a blueprint
in the book you owe you. They have a blueprint now
of how do you play your hands so you can become successful.
That's amazing. First of all, you have to do a video next on I Don't Care.
That should be your tag-loving.
And then just go again.
I don't care.
I don't care.
And then just say that whole thing again.
That was so good.
And I know you weren't doing enough for a thing,
but everything that you're about with is like,
I'm like, yes, I'm actually start doing it for this.
Remember bad business, man.
Exactly. I'm telling you, terrible. I'm gonna talk to CJ, yes. I actually thought gonna put this. Remember bad business man. Exactly.
I'm telling you, terrible.
I mean, I gotta talk to CJ, honestly.
I mean, like, if you're looking at Tony Robbins,
look what he's doing.
I mean, it's like he's investing in everybody's business is,
he's doing this courses, these masterminds,
or like, this everything.
And you kind of say that.
I listen, I'm just saying, you know, CJ, you and I have a talk later.
Okay.
So because I don't know what time it is, oh, I have another thing going on and so do
you.
But I have a 10 of a, one big, one question for you.
When you get hired by companies to do all this stuff, is it not, is it always for motivational
speaking because you do all that other stuff about the about the
personal.
Yeah. So the next level and again, you talked about being a better
businessman. So if you're hiring me to speak to help with
retention and performance, well, then let me give you a tool
that we can give to you so that you can manage your employees
better. So we do have an assessment called a flight assessment.
And again, for me, it was like, yo,
I've seen all these tests where it's like guerrilla,
giraffe, lion, bear.
I'm like, those people didn't even work together.
So we came up with the flight assessment, why?
Because it's a real ecosystem.
It is a pilot needs a flight attendant
that needs a ground crew to the air traffic control.
Like, I don't know if people know,
but a part of the reason why we have so many problems with flights is because we're 56% down on air traffic control. Like, like, I don't know if people know, but a part of the reason why we have so many problems with flights is because we're 56% down on air traffic control.
Imagine flying. And we've seen cases where people have pilots have flown without listening
to the air traffic control. And it's a catastrophe. It's a catastrophe. People have lost their
lives flying when the air traffic control said, don't fly. So you actually need all four
of them.
So what I teach supervisors is, you know,
you're talking to a flight attendant like they're pilot.
Or you're talking to a pilot like they're air traffic control.
They have a total different language.
They have a total different strength.
They have a total different perspective.
So if you really want to retain your people,
first figure out who they are
and then figure out how to use their superpowers
to your advantage as an employer.
Figure out the language.
And then the thing I love about our assessment
is that it's not just their superpower,
but when they adapt, when they're going through life
or when things aren't going well, who do they become?
Because that's the demon we talked about.
If Eric Thomas was always that Eric Thomas,
then nobody would ever have a problem with Eric Thomas.
But it's that other guy who when he feels, uh-oh, my mother lied to me about who my real father
is.
I got a trust issue.
Oh, I think you're lying.
I don't think you being honest.
You need to know who that Eric Thomas is.
Totally.
Because if you can figure out who that Eric Thomas is, you can help him get back up to the
great Eric Thomas that he is.
So a lot of us, we got to hit back over it.
You just expect them to be a say, no, if you look at the assessment, they adapt when they get hit hard.
They adapt when they get a divorce. They adapt when they're kids are struggling in school.
And so you're only hiring the resume person. You don't know the demon person. And you need to
figure out who the demon is so that when the demon shows up to work, you know how
to work with that demon to get the best thing out of that demon.
How long does it take, like when someone hired you?
15 minutes to look at the assessment.
You're going for one day.
Yeah, going for a day and you know, you know a lot, you give me a week, we can change the
world.
Again, I chronicled it in my book, Baylor used it and they won a national title.
That's amazing.
Who else used it?
I mean, everybody.
Name a company that you've gone and done this.
Okay, I just wanna make sure,
because you know, some people are like,
Eric, you work with PrideWatt, Federal Express,
as a company we're working with now to do the same thing.
So I don't, some of the players and stuff,
I don't say cause they don't want,
you know, they don't like,
they don't want it, yeah.
Yeah, name dropping and stuff.
But so you are expanding your business though.
Oh, no question.
I mean, like the fact that, you know, just,, though. Oh, no question. I mean, like-
But I like the fact that, you know, just, you know,
I like to charge you.
I know.
I know.
I know a lot of questions.
CJ, I told you, I still have a lot of it.
There's a lot of like missing pieces here.
Like, I get blind spots.
So I should call it.
That you should be doing.
But we could talk about that later.
I find you to be so amazing
I think you're so inspirational. I have by the way I have so many more I can go on for another hour
But I have
Do promise I want to do a part too
Because like I didn't I want to really dive in deeper with some of these things
But I knew we're kind of like short on time
Well I can go for now, but I have another podcast and you have.
What do you know me doing?
I want to have.
Well, I can depend on the person.
I know you with you.
You would be super extraordinary.
Oh, you're way Danny.
We'll do another hour in a hand.
I can go for another two hours.
We'll get a few with the new one.
The stamina and a different thing.
Never seen, okay?
Hip hop preacher.
Yeah.
So this is like nothing.
I just feel badly because it's other persons here.
So why don't we do this?
This is the end of part one.
Eric, if you don't know,
if you have not yet figured out,
ET, the hip-hop preacher,
he's got bazillions of followers on Instagram,
on YouTube, you have to,
and you also have to get his book, U-O-U,
and of course the first book, Secrets to Success,
his podcast is the same name, Secrets to Success.
Yeah.
And is it anything else you want to add before I-
No more.
That's it.
I just want to, yeah, no more.
No more.
Go ahead.
Just literally go through the videos and just take your time.
And it's like, who knew?
It's like, it's like, I promise you, I promise you,
nobody will ever just look at one video.
It's like ladies, but take it.
It's like ladies, exactly, you can't just teach us one.
You will see one video and that will,
it will take you down a rabbit hole like last night.
I'm exhausted because again,
one turned into like 11 and it's like now like an hour
and 20 minutes and I'm like, I cannot believe this.
Try to dial some of you have a problem with volume.
Yeah, exactly.
He does scream.
Just let me know.
But you're amazing.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Part two, you promise.
It's our own app.
We're starting.
It like, okay.
A in the morning.
I think it looks like three in the morning.
Let's go.
I'm going to talk to GD.
Make sure I can do it.
Yeah.
Three.
Lock it in the morning.
Thank you so much.
Habits and hustle. Time to get it rolling Yeah, thank you so much. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network.
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