I like simple words and here are some simple words that the great men and women of the world used to live by: bravery; sincerity; industry, which is hard work; integrity; and possibility. If you look at the great ones, I always go back to my heroes: Nelson Mandela; Mother Teresa, who said, “If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole world would be clean”. About 10 years ago, I actually went to Mother Teresa’s mission in Kolkata. At the time, it was called Calcutta then, I believe. The guy brought me up to her room where she used to live. Here’s what I saw: I saw one window; I saw a Spartan room about not more than a few arm lengths in size; I saw a bed that was this sparse metal frame with a very thin mattress over it and a simple sheet; and I saw a writing desk.
All I’m saying is if you look at Nelson Mandela, if you look at Mother Teresa, if you look at Mahatma Gandhi who died with under 10 possessions, these people were world changers. These people were radical optimists. These people believed in a cause that were so frightening to the status quo that it changed the world. These people suffered because the root of the word passion means to suffer. They suffered for their dream. They suffered for their values. They suffered for their cause. They suffered for their followers. They suffered for their greatness.
But if you want to go even deeper, and you wouldn’t be with me if you weren’t about deep, these people only had a few things because they had done the interior work to fill any holes of not enoughness. I guess what I’m trying to suggest to you with great love and respect, the great women and men of the world became who they were because they got to a higher level of maturity than most people. They got to a level of maturity where they were not defined by their things. Their self-identity was not based on their income and net worth, and handbag or their shoes, or their car, or their number of social media followers. These Titans of humanity and these icons of society, these people with these radical optimistic mindsets who were willing to die for their vision of freedom and justice, got to a level of maturity where they didn’t care about things. They cared about people. They didn’t care about net worth. They cared about lifting up other individuals.