I think you can change the world or you can listen to cynics. You can not do both. So I want you to start being your own greatest fan. I want you to be the hero that you’ve been waiting for. That’s what the world, right now, we’re waiting for, more Mandelas. By the way, I’m in a cottage in South Africa working on my next creative project. And this is the land of Nelson Mandela. This is the land of many great dreamers. But I want you to remember, that Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in incarceration with nothing more than a vision to keep him going until he was released and became president of South Africa. And then people saw the glory of his true powers. So the idea I want to offer to you is to believe in yourself when no one else believes in you. I want you to trust your instinct more than your intellect. Your intellect is nothing more than all the ideas the world has taught you. Your intellect is the mass of knowledge built up from your early teachers and your parents and your friends and peers and society, all the messaging and programming the world has given to you in terms of what’s possible. But to be a visionary, to be a disruptor, to own your domain, to dominate your field, you must be different and unorthodox. You must go where no one else has gone. And that means you’ll be laughed at. That means you’ll be misunderstood. Let me ask you, are you considered a freak in your family? Do most people misunderstand you? If that’s the case, I think you’re on the right track. If you’re not being laughed at a lot, you’re not doing very much. And all of the great people, the Beethovens and the Einsteins, the Mandelas and the Gandhi’s, the Hedy Lamarrs and the great ones, they were all laughed at before they were revered. And I want you to start believing in yourself. I want you to start trusting in yourself. I want you to fall in love with your gifts and your talents. I want you to start honoring your values, even if no one else subscribes to your values.
