I got the new treadmill and it about defeated me. I’m not going to lie. I couldn’t figure the stupid thing out. Then they made me register and then it would turn on, but I couldn’t get the stupid thing to move. I started at 11:00. It’s 4:00, It literally took me three hours and 20 minutes to try to figure the stupid thing out. That literally whooped me mentally, Then when I was on the treadmill, it’s a completely different feeling, once I figured out how to make it work. One, it’s really loud. Two, I’m going to have to wear shoes. I haven’t been wearing shoes on the other treadmill. I don’t know, my feet were gripping it, but this mat on this treadmill, something built differently. I still got through my 10 minutes, but I didn’t do the 20 minutes and I didn’t run backwards. In all aspects it was a massive failure. I still rode the bike this morning for an hour. I still did my pushups, two sets. Still did that kind of good stuff, but like I said, I was mentally worn out after the treadmill basically beat me. I’m using that as an excuse, even though it’s a really shitty excuse, excuse my French. However, tomorrow is a brand new day. Although I was defeated today, in my mind, you can still be like, “Erik, you still rode the bike for an hour. And you still ran your mile, why are you complaining?” Because I didn’t do what I wanted to do. that’s good, right? Because if you remember at the beginning of all this. On all aspects of things, from looking from the outside in, it’s a successful day. But in order to be great and to accomplish great things, what other people think as being successful, you have to look at it as being a failure. Because if I lived my life up to other people’s standards, well, I would only accomplish what other people accomplish. But if you hold yourself to higher standards than you are able to achieve at the moment, then you’re telling your mind, this is what we are going to do and from hell or high water, we’re going to accomplish this. Every day I’m going to be angry if I don’t accomplish what I want to accomplish, because the next morning it gives me more motivation to be like today, I’m not going to fail. I’m going to push myself until I succeed. Today we were supposed to work on our abs a little bit. I wasn’t supposed to fail, but like I said, I got defeated and that’s all I can really say. Tomorrow I will not let myself be defeated. With all you guys out there that sometimes you get defeated in a day, look at it, embrace it and let it piss you all the way off and then forget about it. Forget about it and just know tomorrow you’ve got to work that much harder to accomplish your goal. And then with that, I’m gone.
Category: Uncategorized
I can’t give up, I can’t stop, NEVER NEVER NEVER, Lie for the cause, Die for the cause, Fuck it, Who cares, about me? Nobody so I say it again, And again Fuck You Make Money
When I wrote this I had already been through a lot in my life, however, I did not know how much more was in store for me. By the time I was 22 the struggles I had been through would have broken the strongest minded person, now in my mid 30’s I’m surprised I haven’t given up. At the end of the quote, it says fuck it who cares about me. We have to look inside and understand the thinking I had when I wrote the book and this quote. The fact that nobody cares about me is probably why I’m still alive and why I haven’t given up.
Throughout my life, I’ve been told numerous times how much people love me, but then their actions never support their claims. If what people have been giving me is love, then I don’t really want it. The same people who told me I love you, are the same people who sent me to hell, and when my hell was over, cast me out as a sheep amongst wolves.
I learned at 11 years old I was on this earth by myself and nobody was going to take care of me. The day my mom died is the day everything went to shit. I came up with the theory “fuck you make money” because I was tired of getting hurt by people and I realized that unless you’re trying to make money with me then fuck you, hence the phrase fuck you make money. There are two types of people in this world, people who are willing to crawl through the mud with you and get dirty, then the other type are the people who plot and try and destroy everything you create.
I set out to find other like-minded people that the world forgot about, the people no one cares about. If we take a minute and think about it, almost all of us are or have been forgotten. It is not just Erik and his pity it’s the whole world. We all came into a world where no one cares about anybody but themselves and I’m a prime example. I really don’t give a shit about anything but myself, that’s why I help other people so that I can help myself. When it says nobody cares about me it also should be saying I don’t care about anybody else so I say it, again and again, Fuck You Make Money
Unless you are a part of me, then I don’t care if you care about me. Where it says “I can’t give up” you’re right I can’t give up on the people that do believe in me, that believe in having something better for themselves.The people that no longer want to be a Nigger and want to achieve something in life. The people that have slept under a bridge or have been in a situation where nobody’s been there for them. Those are the people who understand my pain and the struggle I’ve been through. If you haven’t been in a situation where you don’t know what’s going to happen, or you don’t have someone telling you that it’s going to be okay then you don’t understand me. Since I was 11 years old, no one’s told me it’s going to be okay. I don’t remember anyone telling me too much of anything. I remember being sent to programs and then being disowned at age 18.
I can’t give up I can’t stop never never never lie for the cause die for the cause fuck it who cares about me nobody so I say it again and again fuck you make money. Ain’t Life a bitch I have to give my life for this shit, it’ll be worth it as long as every black man’s rich.
The book has numerous quotes about the sacrifices I’m going to have to make and the ones I’ve already made in my life for the cause so lie for the cause die for the cause yes I will. I have died. little pieces of me have died over the years. I can’t sleep, I don’t know how to have a normal relationship, the amount of stress I probably have on me would kill a normal person but I don’t even look at it as stressed I don’t even know what it is.
We have to first analyze our own situations, our own blessings, and our own struggles. When it gets really hard for me, and it does, I’m not perfect as much as I try to be a machine and a robot, have no feelings, and work all day. I go as far as trying to convince myself I don’t need sleep, I don’t need food and I don’t need water to survive. God has a funny way of breaking me down (exhaustion) but if we pay attention God does it in a way that can be motivating. A saying I grew up on is “God will never give you more than you can handle” if that is true then all of our struggles are for a greater purpose. Far too many of us blame God for hardships opposed to thanking him for preparing us for future battles.
Fuck it who cares about me it’s an attitude that I have to have majority of the time in my life in order to survive. When I was younger I was watching the movie “Dead Presidents”. They were in the Vietnam jungle when one marine asked his best marine friend about back home and his daughter. The marine responded, “thinking about going back home will get me killed. I can’t think about it. I don’t want to be a part of it in order for me to survive. I have to live here in the jungle and think of nothing else but this.
While I’m in my jungle and my war zone of accomplishing my goals and building the society I want. I have to have the same mentality as that Marine had, I cannot be buckled down with feelings and emotions, I have to isolate myself in order for me to achieve greatness there is no other way. If I get buckled down with people worrying about me and in turn me worrying about them worrying about me, then I lose mental time & energy. The ultimate sacrifice is to sacrifice oneself, so it would be a great honor to sacrifice myself for the greater good of my people.
Day Twenty Seven FYMM Fitness
Whoa, I’m beyond exhausted. I don’t know, but I think I know what it is. It’s a new treadmill. I can go faster. So you know, faster, faster. Yeah, I really didn’t think riding a bike for an hour in the morning would do anything, but I’m exhausted. I started off running and I was like, “There’s no way I’m going to do 20 minutes.” For the first five minutes, the only thing I was doing was thinking of an excuse. What to tell you guys why I couldn’t do 20 minutes, right? But then once nine minutes came, it was like, well, this is not that bad. And what I was watching on TV was pretty interesting. So I kept going. And then when 15 minutes came, my mind switched. Like, alright only five minutes left three fourths are done. This is nothing. It’s funny how it took 10 minutes on a treadmill to convince myself that I could do 20 minutes. With that being said, your mind is crazy, man. It’s always going to try to convince you it can’t do something. I have no idea why it does that. It seems counterproductive. We have this amazing machine in our head, in our brain. But, it’s like the mind’s number one job is to tell you, you can’t do something. I’m a firm believer I can do anything, I believe I can fly. It’s just my brain hasn’t figured that one out yet :). We have to conquer our minds on a daily basis, it is difficult. It’s really difficult. Water, My intake of just drinking one of the big liter water bottles isn’t enough anymore. I’m still really, really thirsty, and I’m thinking that has a lot to do with riding a bike for an hour in the morning time. because I’m sweating a lot. So, I’m having to rethink that. maybe next week, or the week after that, we’ll start working on my diet. Once I get used to all of this and be able to do this and be like, “Yeah, baby, this is easy!”, but right now I’m far from that. I am more like “Yeah, this is miserable.”, we’re right back where we started about a month ago, but let’s not forget we’re adding a whole hour workout to it. Progress over perfection. Don’t let your mind defeat you because literally its whole job is to try to convince you, you can’t do something, which is counterproductive. But once you figure out that your brain’s sole purpose is to try to convince you to not do something, then your whole job is to be like, “Nah, just shut up.” You know what I’m saying? I’m going to do this no matter how many ways you try to convince me, I’m not going to do it. I’m still going to do it. So figure out how I’m going to do it and stop trying to convince me not to do it. All right, with that being said, hope you’re feeling better. I’m complaining a lot, but I swear to it I’m breathing better, I’m feeling better and I’m glad I did this.
I don’t need to fight you Because in the end, you’ll believe in me too, And fight for me dude
This is a good one, I’ve thought about this, and then been in so many different situations where this is so true. Sometimes, I’ve had to make myself be the “bigger man” so to speak. It is harder to not fight than it is to fight. Especially when it’s a lose-lose situation, the popular cartoon Boondocks calls it a nigga moment. when you are in a situation that seems impossible to get out of because of your pride or whatever it is, gets in the way.
I don’t need to fight you because in the end you’ll believe in me too and fight for me dude. I have to laugh at this because there are so many different situations and so many different times throughout my life where this quote has come true or proved valuable. I’m a very difficult person to deal with, nobody in this entire world has told me I’m an easy person to deal with, besides myself. I like to push people and push people, test their buttons, and see what they’re made out of. I’m an intense person. I don’t like imperfections, I don’t like when people don’t strive to be perfect in everything that they do.
Now it’s impossible for me to be or to tell you to be perfect because that is just an impossible feat, I am never going to be a perfect human being; no matter how many people I help, no matter what I do, no matter how many people follow me, no matter how many people believe in me. I’m never going to be perfect. I do, however, strive for perfection and that’s what I ask all of you to do is just to strive for perfection. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be perfect, just try for it.
I’m a difficult person because I’m going to challenge you, I’m going to push your buttons, I’m going to bring the best out of you, from the best of my ability. Sometimes, I’m a rather annoying person that can crawl under your skin. I won’t give up on you, just like I Won’t Give Up on myself if you become Fuck You Make Money then it’s for life. As it is a mentality change, a paradigm shift.
The message is so powerful, as long as we consistently have the Fuck You Make Money mindset, over the years, and over time we will develop skills, which develop successful habits. This is imperative in order for us to succeed in life. In the beginning, it’s obvious, we don’t have these necessary traits in order to succeed. School and the “dumbing-down” of music help contribute to the problem.
In today’s society, we don’t challenge our peers in a positive manner. If we listen to music, nobody is holding anyone accountable for the future damage these songs will have on our youth and society. It’s always, “I’ll beat you down” or “if you come on my block I’m going to f*** you up” or “I’m going to come to your block and f*** you up” or “I’m going to take your girl” or “Come let’s fuck” or some stupid s*** just like that. None of it’s challenging ourselves or the community to be productive.
Tupac said it best, “If we want to be gangsters and we want to live that lifestyle then let’s start our own country if this is what we want to do then let’s do something about it” I cannot agree more with that mentality and I blame us as a people for what our situation has become.
I’m telling you I don’t need to fight you, as Harriet Tubman would say “she saved thousands of slaves but she would have saved thousands more if she could only convince them that they were a Slave”.
It is very difficult for me to explain we are still slaves, it is so taboo for Black Americans to hear they are still slaves. We have been told repeatedly slavery ended in the 1800s, so that has to be true.
The truth is, we have not changed our mentality as a race, as a race of people what do we aspire to become? But even worse what is expected of us? What is expected of you as being black?
Nothing is expected of you besides going to jail or doing something stupid if you’re a black woman you’re expected to live off of food stamps and have a whole bunch of illiterate stupid kids. If you’re a black male, as I am, we are expected to go to jail. It is not a “maybe I will, maybe I won’t” it is an expectation in America. If you are a black male you’re going to go to jail.
In the United States, it is a great achievement in most black families to graduate college, but it is a commonality a “norm” to have been to jail. Why is it a great achievement to graduate but it is not a great failure to end up in jail? We treat jail as some kind of sick “rights of passage”. Education should be expected not the other way around.
We expect ourselves to go to jail, while we give ourselves cookies for doing what our ancestors died trying to do. Which is learn, why is that an achievement to learn? Learning is more or less a basic necessity, just like you need to drink water, you need to eat, when you’re walking up and down the street you’re exercising your muscles. Our brain is also a muscle. Why would you refuse to exercise that muscle, doesn’t make any sense! Hopefully with better understanding now, we are our own worst enemies.
I say this again
I don’t need to fight you
Because in the end, you’ll believe in me too
And fight for me dude
There’s going to be a lot of people when they read this who are going to disagree with what I am saying. Not because they actually disagree, but because I’m calling them on their own shit and saying that they’re worthless but not just them in a singular form but in a plural, meaning everyone.
If we are not consistently trying to better ourselves on a daily basis, not on a “weekend warrior” basis then the inevitable result will be a deterioration of a person, a race, a nation. There are only two directions, not three, progression and regression. The third option which so many of us fall into is stagnation, however, stagnation is the same as regression.
In order for us to achieve great things we have to change our morals, what’s important to us and why is it important to us. By understanding our past we can predict and understand our spending habits, our morals, our communication skills, or lack thereof and our family dynamics. We have absolutely no identity, we don’t know anything about ourselves and we don’t care that we don’t know anything about ourselves.
The world considers us African Americans, but most of us have never even seen Africa, or ever had the desire to go. So how and why can we be considered something that we have no emotional attachment to? But yet we accept ourselves as being classified or called something because we have no self-identity. We don’t know what we are and if we don’t know what we are then how can we ever achieve anything great as a race, as a culture, as a people?
Until the time we decide to disregard everything we were taught in schools by the conquers and, decide to rediscover our pasts. Yes, some of us have Royal African blood and Royal Indian blood, from vast regions of the native united states, and through the transatlantic slave trade.
We will use me for the example, through my lineage I have royal blood on both my Native American side and on my African side. Most everyone wants to believe they have royal blood and they are a king, but runs at the first sign of trouble and avoids responsibility. As king, you must only think of the empowerment of your people, as a king is ordained by God to provide; food, knowledge, protection, discipline, and structure for his people. Most believe being king is a blessing but it is a curse for a true king is unable to sleep until he knows his kingdom and his people are safe. It was not just the King who was transported, it was his royal court, his soldiers, his doctors, his advisers. Opposed to using our ancient soldier blood of having no fear to destroy each other or using our ancient blood to create belittling music and images. We need to remember when the time is right the King will reappear. The question is will you be ready?
David White says “America Is Ours just as much as there’s, we built this place” We can’t lay dormant and believe what everyone tells us, “that this isn’t our land! we are African, I am not African, I have African blood but my great-grandmother was Native American. So why do we classify ourselves as being African when the majority of us have native blood? So if we have native blood then why are we not taking ownership of our native land? Or our Native language, or culture?
Again
I don’t need to fight you
Because in the end, you’ll believe in me too
And fight for me dude
What I’m writing are just my thoughts that’s it. I’m not right, I’m not wrong. I’m just a person with an opinion. Hopefully, my opinion offends a lot of people because if it offends a lot of people then people will talk about it. if I don’t offend anybody with what I’m saying then nothing’s going to change. The only way things change is when people become offended and get riled up enough that they want to fight me, but then it’s my responsibility to manipulate the situation and convince them of my thinking and of my opinions. I’m not opinionated from selfish thoughts on the contrary I’m opinionated because I want to see growth and I’m sick of seeing people blame everybody but themselves for their own problems. If I can piss everybody off enough to want to fight me because their life is miserable and been blaming everybody in the world for their own situation. then that’s great, that is amazing actually for that split-second I got their undivided attention and if they can sit down for a little bit and actually understand what I’m trying to say. Because in the end you’ll believe in me too And fight for me dude.
Day Twenty-eight FYMM Fitness
I like this new treadmill. I get to run faster, but running faster doesn’t necessarily mean easier, right? It means you’re going to wear yourself out faster, which I am. I’m not going to lie. I am. Whew. I’m tired. Feeling the expansion of my lungs better, I guess, because when you’re running faster, you have to take deeper breaths or at least I take deeper breaths. And I also more forcibly try to get the air out so I don’t get cramps. Running backwards, I almost fell twice, so I’m not going to lie. I slowed down. I was trying to go backwards at four miles per hour, which I’ve been going at three, when my legs are a little bit more jelloy than normal. So running backwards today was not an easy task. I about fumbled a couple of times, but that’s good because my legs are tired. I still rode an hour this morning. I’m not going to lie. Again, a key topic that we talk about throughout this whole journey is the ability for our minds to convince ourselves that we cannot do something, right? Hardly ever does my mind ever be like, “Erik, you can do it.” It’s usually me sitting there like, “I can do it brain, come on, get in line.” Right? Because most of the time my brain is trying to figure out every way for me not to do something. So even this morning I’m waiting, because I’m uploading videos and that takes forever to do and transcribing them. Or waiting for uploads, like I said, it takes forever. So I watch the history channel, to learn more things. Actually I learned some really interesting things today. A couple more books got put on the list, I mean, they’re on the Amazon list that I’m going to buy. I’m up to 35 books right now. Well, what I said is I was like, man, like how I’ve been saying, for multiple times where I’m like, “Just convince yourself, it’s only 10 minutes.” Well now, we’re way past that 10 minute mark, because we’re running for 20 minutes. I was like, look if you’re watching this is really interesting. I can either sit in this chair and complain that my butt hurts or I can get on the Bike and complain that my butt hurts. Because at the end of the day, my butt is still going to hurt regardless, because I don’t have the most comfortable of chairs. I have a little kitchen table chair, one of the Walmart ones. So it’s a metal frame, So it hurts. So sitting on a Bike is just as uncomfortable. I was like, “why don’t I just do something while I’m doing nothing? I might as well sit on the Bike and move my legs. So that’s what I did. And at first, I’m not going to lie, today was a difficult day. I think it’s hump day Wednesday, so I’m going to make my body eval video today. I think it’s just being tired, just normal, being tired. But other than that, I wouldn’t give up being tired for the way that I was feeling. Because even now, my buddy comes over and smokes a cigarette with me. I can’t smoke the whole thing. It’s disgusting. Well hopefully eventually we’ll get it to where I’m like, “Man, I can’t smoke anymore. It’s disgusting.” But we’re not there yet. Before I was like, whoo, yeah, this cigarette’s nice. But now it’s, “Oh this is gross.” And I could taste it in my mouth then the worst part of it is when I’m running, I can breathe the cigarette, which is disgusting. But since I’m doing body eval I’m going to keep this where it is and keep going, man. If you’re still doing this, at this point, pat yourself on the back and two, keep going.
Keep looking into the past You will lose your life fast Look to the future to bring the cash
Only for select things is looking into your past beneficial, on all other things, looking into your past can be very destructive. When you analyze your past it can be very helpful when I say analyze, I mean just that analyze without bias. We all make mistakes, we have all been in situations where we wished we made a different choice than the one we made. It is common to have a sense of pride and embarrassment about our pasts. Analyzing what works and what does not work can be ideal for your future, it allows us to make better-educated decisions to conduct our future in a positive and productive manner. When analyzing our pasts it is imperative to do so in an unbiased constructive way, for our own emotions will cloud our minds, and unconsciously rationalize and justify our destructive behavior. It is human nature to form opinions in all aspects of life so it would only make sense that our minds can form an opinion about our own individual pasts. This can be constructive at times but also and more importantly it can be destructive, our biases and opinions have the ability to create a false perception of our pasts. Whether it is in a past love, money, family, friendship, or it can also go as deep as a past social environment, city, anything that is in our past. Our minds even have the ability to allow us to create a past which we did not even live. This is why it is so important for us to only “unbiasedly” analyze our pasts for insights into our future, as opposed to living in the past.
This quote challenges us to develop skills which allow us to quickly analyze any situation that has happened in the past, and unbiasedly form a healthy decision to positively impact our future, to make our next move our best move. We will see how the mentality of someone living in the past will continue to struggle in life and not understand why. Whereas the person whose mentality is living in the future is able to constructively solve past mistakes and create a more productive future.
It is not a zero-sum game, where you either have one type of mentality or the other, if it were that simple it would not be so hard to spot. Each of us on a daily basis interchange mentalities subconsciously, depending on the particular subject being discussed. We already discussed an array of different topics so let’s examine those in more depth.
Love
We all have the “one that got away” or in some cases the two or three that got away. We dwell in the past, after the initial breakup we might even go into a state of depression,p now how long we stay in that state is purely our own choice driven by our mindset. If we keep looking into the past we will convince ourselves how perfect everything was and how if we had another chance everything would be different and better. We will replay every fight and think “what if”. What if I did this and what if I did that. This disruptive state again will last as long as we allow it to last. The mentality of a person looking to the future will understand that people change and grow over time. Will look over the life of the relationship with gratitude and appreciation, because they understand how to analyze the relationship constructively and absorb the things which worked and will dismiss the negative behavior. Awaiting the next exciting relationship God has for them.
Money
Money is just like a significant other it has the power to activate extreme amounts of emotions. It is most detrimental when the person has had money then lost it. The amount of confidence that is stripped from the person surpasses the amount of confidence one needs in life for basic functionality. The constant thought of past achievements can distract the person from accepting the reality of their immediate situation. The inability to accept one’s life can cause a person to invite uneducated risks, and further hurt the individual financially. We call this “keeping up with the Jones” when a person buys things they cannot afford in order to impress spectators or oneself. A person who focuses on the future accepts the new life they have and analyses their past behavior to dissect the problem and then makes the necessary changes for the future. The person whose mentality is about the future understands that disruptive behavior only compounds into a much larger problem.
Family
Nobody is perfect. We can all strive for perfection but in the end, none of us make the perfect decision all the time. Whether it is your mother, brother, father, or daughter no one is perfect and we all make mistakes. Holding resentments about past events is not a healthy way to deal with anyone much less a family member. I fall victim to this, I am having a hard time forgiving people’s actions from the past, by choosing to hold on to past resentments and grudges. I have not allowed myself to grow into the individual I am supposed to become. Hate is a funny thing when you hate another person or thing it also consumes you, when you think you are punishing someone else you are in turn also punishing yourself.
Friendship
This is the plethora of looking into the past, whenever we encounter a friend from our pasts the first thing we tend to do is tell stories about our pasts. “Remember when, do you remember” and any other catchy overused phrase. I don’t particularly believe in the word friendship, I believe it is overused and has lost its value. At the core friendship can be a beautiful thing, a true friend has your best interest in mind. A true friend does not allow you to wallow in the past about anything they are always encouraging you to better your future. What most of us have are acquaintances, people we have in our life to pass the time. Misery loves company and a person who continues to live in their past is miserable. They need to find like-minded individuals to continue their path of self-destruction. They are miserable because instead of focusing on solutions to their problems they are only focused on their problems and only remember the “good ol days” when life was better for them.
Past social environment
As we get older we adapt to our new lives, for some, that means moving to different cities or schools, it could be as large as a move to a different country and as small as moving across town. With all these changes it is only common for us to think and remember our past lives. This can be healthy in moderation, giving us much-needed motivation, however, when we dwell in the past we forget to focus on what is more important and what is in front of us. Take a moment to think about the different conversations you have with other people and really listen to what is being said. Is the conversation progressive? If it is what are you discussing, take notes when you feel the conversation is not progressing and later review your mental notes and determine what the problem was and in turn what the solutions are. You will find that most of your conversations about the past will become boring because you now understand the conversations are not progressive in other words they are a trap.
Looking to the past will only allow you to repeat the same mistakes, although analyzing your past to help construct your future is imperative. It will be a struggle but every day we have to challenge ourselves to be progressive, to aspire to have the future we all deserve.
My past is always right behind me If I don’t look to the future I’ll get stuck B All I ask is that you follow me Just remember Fuck You Make Money
The past is a funny thing, it is equivalent to our shadow in that it continuously follows us. Every future moment will eventually become a past moment, in our distant memory. With this statement in mind it raises a great question, If every future moment will eventually be a past moment then why do we focus so hard on past events opposed to future events. It goes with this saying if you don’t like your past then change your future. Phrases like “I wish I did this”, “I never have any money”, “if I had just waited” or “I was at the wrong place at the wrong time” are indicative of a person who focuses more time on the past then on the future. To better explain this, imagine a person who always holds a grudge, what is the one thing we all wish they would do? LET IT GO!!! When we hold onto a grudge we think we are “winning” or we have power over the situation, a person with “power and control” issues usually has hard times with letting things go. For some reason people with “power and control” issues feed off of being stubborn and difficult, in their minds letting go is the same as losing. What they don’t see or understand is that always holding that grudge and living in the past they become stagnant and miss out on great opportunities. Sometimes your worst enemy will become your best friend.
A perfect example of how holding a grudge and being stuck in the past can and will be detrimental to any relationship. Four years ago I met the woman of my dreams, she was perfect in every sense of the word. I made a huge mistake, a mistake that most women would have run and never looked back. I broke my goddess’ heart, she did not however run from me she did something that looking back was way worse. She held and still holds a grudge, in her mind, she has won. Everything we dreamed of doing together she did with someone else. She stopped taking pictures with me, (to this day we have no pictures together after the first time we met), she has become non-agreeable, saying no to everything I suggest. One of her dreams was to come to America, so I opened a business for us but she wanted no part of it because of her new boyfriend. I offered to put her name on some of my property so that she would own land in America, but she would not listen to any of it. I tried to show her how to make more money online but again will not listen to anything. The terribly sad thing and the reason I am explaining this is after all the no’s and years of my trying to love her she has grown a bond to me, because we have been able to grow in my perception of the world, But in her world, we are still stagnant and have never progressed.
In the short term holding that grudge and traveling with a different man, made her happy “she was in control” but there is always a downside to always being right and holding onto the past. After the four years the risk she has, has become much greater, if I leave and find someone else then she loses four years of friendship (because I opened my heart to her) but I, on the other hand, lose nothing, because she gave me nothing. So in the end holding on to the grudge fueled her motivation, but since she is still in my life 4 years later. She made a horrible life choice by holding on to the grudge, four years we could have built an amazing relationship and maybe become a family by now. But because of not letting go she has drained all the life out of the relationship. This is a personal experience but think in your life about how not letting go has forced you to become stagnant like the love of my life has become in our relationship, it does not just have to be with a different person. How many times have you not forgiven yourself for a past action, by holding on to the past we only get stuck.
By no means am I perfect at this but I do always try and give chances, people might not change but situations do.
You always remember what you did for a nigga But Do you remember what a nigga did for you
As there are two sides to every coin there are two sides to every story. In one of my programs, it was drilled in our heads to “seek first to understand then to be understood”. Over the course of my life, I have been in numerous situations where this quote and phrase ring true. In conflict resolution, we tend to forget to hear the entire spectrum of a situation. We allow our emotions to cloud our judgment. We as a society have been trained to approach the world differently than my programs drilled into my head at a young age. It is fascinating to see how far we have not gone from being a small child. Let me give an example: if you have observed a 2-year-old, a child just learning to talk, if they make a mistake and called upon their mistake their first response is “no I didn’t do it”. We all get a good laugh at how cute they are and carry on with our day. Well let’s look at the same 2-year-old ten years later now at age twelve the same behavior of avoiding responsibility occurs and we wonder why? Now take an adult, for the most part when we make mistakes we always have an excuse on why we made the mistake, the same behavior that was ingrained to be ok since we were two years old. We try to be understood first then we try and understand. We are always defending ourselves even when we are not being attacked. Quick tip, another thing that was drilled into my head was this “ if a person is able to affect your emotions in any way they now have power over you, why are you giving that person your power?”
You always remember what you did for a nigga
I fall victim to this as well, it is an easy thing to do, with our daily lives it is easy to become narcissistic and only think about ourselves. When we watch old gangster movies we remember the names of Al Capone, John Gotti, Lucky Luciano, even Pablo Escobar. One thing in common with all the movies about these individuals is they are most certainly the boss. They all have a demanding presence and were all ruthless at an instance. When we grow up idolizing these people and repeatedly watching movies based on that lifestyle we begin to implement that way of life to be the reality. Now if this was only on a singular term it would be different but we are talking about a massive amount of people who are watching these movies and falling in love with these movies and video games. Now we have a massive amount of people with the ruthless “dog eat dog” mentality.
But why does this matter?
Hollywood is not giving us the full spectrum of the situation about these people, they create the story based off of one person’s rise to power. A man on an island, so to speak. In these 2 hours of entertainment, we are manipulated to think our idols actually did it on their own, with a narcissistic attitude. So in turn we have the narcissistic attitude, where we want to rape and pillage just because we saw it in the movies and we think our idols would be proud. It is easy to forget Pablo built hospitals, Lucky helped during World War 2. The only way we can survive is if we look past our selfish and narcissistic attitudes and begin to help each other, reach higher dreams and aspirations.
You always remember what you did for a nigga
This is such a regressive way of thinking, I am the first to say no one does anything from the kindness of their heart, we all have a sense of self-preservation, that is normal we are human. However, why people do things is what I am discussing. Do we only do things for narcissistic gratification? Here is an example you help a friend in need; it could be with money, relationship help, homework, anything. What was your purpose in helping your friend? Now since we have the understanding we don’t do anything from the kindness of our heart that only leaves us with a couple of alternatives. We helped our friend in a vindictive way (having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge) or in a benevolent way (well-meaning and kindly). One way of helping is the same as “crabs in a bucket” where we only wish to help as long as it does not allow the friend to progress more than ourselves.
The other way of thinking, the FYMM way of thinking is to give in a benevolent way, as Pablo was when he intended to build hospitals. We first need to take the time to become empathetic to our soundings, as opposed to having the “crabs in the bucket” mentality. If we remember no great man became great off the back of his own labor, but instead became great and built massive empires off the backs of a collective group of people. Not all of us are meant to build empires, but the one common theme is they all will remember the FYMM way of thinking and always remember what a nigga did for them.
Do you remember what a nigga did for you
Think of any great achievement you have had in your life, it might have been your achievement but you did not accomplish it alone. Learning how to crawl, walk, talk, or run. Yes, they are all your achievements but they were not accomplished without the help of others. This however is not as straightforward as one would like. We all agreed that the person we are today is a combination of different interactions with people over the course of our lives. In an unbiased way of thinking of ourselves and our past, we will begin to realize our entire personality and thought process has just been small snippets of different things we saw or encountered during our lives. This is what brings truth to the “I am a product of my environment” statement, If all you know is hell then all you have is one frame of thinking.
This past year as I have gotten older I have done just this, I looked at why I have not accomplished my life goals, I started to analyze my own interactions with different people in my life. When you do this you have to remember it is imperative to be unbiased, in that you can not use emotions. When I stopped remembering what I did for a nigga (crabs in the bucket mentality) and began thinking in a progressive FYMM manner and started remembering what a nigga did for me, it changed my outlook on many things. In one of my programs as an exercise, they would make us look our friends in the eyes and we would have to tell our friends all the ways we choose to hurt them, you would be surprised how vindictive people are. With this in mind, I was able to analyze my past encounters and formulate a solid plan to accomplish my goals and the people I want in my future.
It is very important for us to remember what a nigga has done for us, whether positive or negative. With deeper analysis, we realize we learned a lesson either way. Our life is shaped with two variables, because of and in spite of. I became a drug dealer because of the environment I was raised in or I made it out of the hood in spite of the environment I was raised in. As we take a deeper look at both phrases, we must remember we are the masters of our own destiny. We as individuals have the conscience choice to allow others to manipulate our power or to make the choice to control our own emotions and future by having a better understanding of ourselves, and what a nigga has done for you.
Because of
- Society; The Black Male is feared and depicted as an ignorant beast
- Environment; I have been another status quo and become another statistic
- Family; I have never seen the world or tried new things
- Friends; I am a certain person and expected to continue to be a certain way
In Spite of
- Society; I am intelligent and well mannered
- Environment; I have risen above the expectations of the world and become successful
- Family; I seen the world, met amazing new people and tried thousands of new things
- Friends; I have learned that people grow and friends are perfect for certain times in our life like a revolving door
In order for us to have an FYMM mentality we must, first, acknowledge the “crab in the bucket” way of thinking, “I have done this for a nigga” and transition to a “what has that nigga done for me” mentality, constantly evaluating the individuals in our life, making sure we do not allow people in our lives who have a vindictive way of helping us.
I don’t care about what you did I care about what you’re about to do
“War stories” is what we used to call them at Aspen Achievement Academy. A “war story” is a story about your past, but not just any story; it is a story that you take pride in that does not have much value, a story where you are glori- fying negative destructive behavior. I have been through lots of different adventures in my life, some of my adventures have been dangerous, some have been detrimental, and some have been productive. The common thing has been my ability to constructively learn from my adventures, but having the ability to extract different teachable lessons takes time and practice. Learning how to analyze our pasts and extract teachable lessons is a skill all of us need to practice and strive to perfect. Whether we are using our new found lesson to teach our kids, peers, or even ourselves every ad- venture has its own particular lesson to be learned. “War sto- ries” are obviously different for each person, however i have lived many different lives, and been in hundreds of different social structures and the use of “war stories” to pass time is constant.
How do you know if you are in the middle of a “war story”?
Have you ever listened or told a story where the other person or you don’t know a single person in the story? A sto- ry where it is only funny to one person, but is always fol- lowed by “ I guess you had to be there”, or the best. This is really when you know you have become victim of a “war sto- ry”. When your patience has run out and you have to ask “what is the point of your story”. This gives a very broad ar- ray of examples, but we have all been in conversations just like these. As your mind transitions into having a FYMM mindset, you will begin to realize how painful it is to waste precious time with people who only are concerned with “war stories”. As we have discussed numerous times before, hav- ing a FYMM mindset is about being progressive not stagnant or regressive; being stuck in our “war stories” only keeps us in the past. A friend came to visit recently, as we were talking I asked about their plans. This is after about an hour or so of “catching up”, telling “war stories”. The answer I got was shocking and scary, my friend really did not have any plans at all for their future, it was more or less a “wing it” mentality. That is the problem today we can spend hours talking about what we did but only a few sentences about what we are about to do.
I don’t care about what you did
Everybody has a story and everybody wants their own particular 15 minutes of fame where they are the center of attention. This could be in an argument, trying to persuade your opponent to see things your way. For the most part we all want to win the “influence game” between people. “Influence game”? Yes, if I am listening to you then you are influencing my time with your perspective and mentality, the same is true if you are listening to me. For the brief time you are listening to me, I am in control of the “influence game”. Everything begins with a thought, so if the wrong person is in control of the “influence game” then it can and will have detrimental consequences for the listening party. When you become FYMM you need to pay careful attention to the conversations around, if they are conversations about what people have done, then an alarm should go off, to proceed with caution. If the conversation is a progressive one about one’s past, what they have learned, how to avoid certain pitfalls, common sense or wisdom. Then it is ok to allow that person to control the “influence game” for a while, as we might learn something to benefit ourselves. However if the conversations are about how great someone else is or what great achievements they have accomplished, or discussing a person you do not know and will never meet then run as fast as you can as that is not the type of person we want to be influenced by.
One of the most annoying things in my life is when people talk about my past for me, this has happened more times then I can count, I will be discussing one of my future plans and out of nowhere a friend will blurt out “you know he went to Harvard” or “you know he is a millionaire”. I guess people do this to validate everything that I say, like since I went to Harvard or I am a millionaire my words carry more value or weight.
As we are discussing the “influence game” at first thought the mention of Harvard or the fact of me being a millionaire, would bring value but in actuality what happens is the person’s attention is broken and now are more concerned with what I have done opposed to what I am about to do.
The new winner of the “influence game” is my friend who blurted out my past. The attention is still about me, but now I am no longer in control of how my life influences other people. Years ago in Pacolet, the first season so it was mostly like camping, while sitting by the fire, my cousin from my black family in California started to “war story” and he started talking about my “gangster life” past the people around the fire were listening in disbelief, they would look at me and say “Erik” my cousin started laughing and said “yall dont know shit about this nigga” when asked I just responded “telling those type of stories would not help you, so why would I tell you? I don’t need to impress you”.
I care about what you’re about to do
I tend to be alone more than I would like, not because I like being alone, but because most people refuse to talk about the future. Past this upcoming weekend, most people don’t have much of a plan, they just exist in this world without really living. The special few who actually have goals, if you ask them what happens after they accomplish their goals then they usually give a blank stare, like after the goal is accomplished the end credits are going to roll like in the movies.
Life is influenced by so many different variables it would be irresponsible not to plan different situations and outcomes. Again having a mentality of never settling and always striving for more is not a common trait, so it is understandable if in the beginning it would seem odd. As we all remember, I needed help to get me out of my worst case scenario lifestyle. If it was not for a select few people who never allowed me to settle then maybe I would have also been a victim of only being concerned with what I have done opposed to what I am about to do.
Dreams are huge in life, without dreams life can become grey and stagnant. Nelson Mandela lived 20 some years in a prison camp and then became president of South Africa, if he can stay focused on what he was about to do through all the pain and struggle he had to endure then I challenge us all to follow suit. To stop worrying about what we did and focus solely on what we are about to do.
Obviously, you don’t trust me I know what I’m about Fuck You Make Money!
Trust is a funny thing, it has more to do with our own personal beliefs than it does with another person. Trust has become a blanket statement, we tend to think of trust as black and white when it is grey, there are many different degrees of trust. When we say we trust someone or that we don’t trust someone is not a complete statement, every situation is different, if you say you don’t trust someone to do something one way, you are basically saying you trust a person to do the opposite of that way. Let us explore this a little more.
If I say to my girlfriend I don’t trust you around other men because you might cheat on me, what I am actually saying is I trust you to cheat on me. They are basically saying the same thing but internally they are very different, one causes anxiety the other provides clarity. If she cheats on me she might have broken one trust but now has built a different trust. We have all heard this saying “I knew you were going to…” when we say or hear this it is a confirmation of trust, “we knew something” but most of the time we still get hurt when we already knew the outcome but why? We tend to confuse trust and hope when our instincts are telling us one thing but we still want to believe in a different outcome that is us confusing trust and hope. Our instincts trust the reality of a situation, while our emotions hope for the desired outcome. Hope is a dangerous thing, it has the ability to distort reality. Hope is only a projection of ourselves, when we hold ourselves to a certain standard then we hope others hold themselves equally to our standards. However this is rarely the case, people as individuals have their own perspectives, beliefs, standards, and stories. When we project ourselves onto other people we are setting ourselves up for failure.
Let me take it big picture; If you are Christian then you “trust” Jesus is your prophet, if you are Muslim then you trust Muhammed is your prophet, if you are Bahia then you trust Bahaullah is your prophet, and so on with each religion. If each of us trusts in our own beliefs, perspectives, standards, and stories in regards to religion, does that mean people who do not trust in what we trust in are wrong? I hope our minds are large enough to accept people with different beliefs, perspectives, standards, and stories. As you see I did not use the word “trust” I used the word hope. Unless I can empathize with each individual. I don’t know what their core beliefs are so I can not project my beliefs on to them. I can however trust that each person will have their own beliefs, perspectives, standards, and stories.
We have a hard time accepting new things in life, it could be as large as a new perspective on life or as small as having a different seat in a meeting than you have been accustomed to. We find security in monotonous routines. When we see or hear a phrase like “Fuck You Make Money” it is natural to be transformed into a defensive or curious state, depending on our own beliefs. This quote realizes each individual has their own opinions in life, when you hear a phrase like” Fuck You Make Money” it is normal to not “trust” me or anything I believe in. as the saying goes “don’t judge a book by its cover” it is the same with new or different frames of mind. If we set our bias aside we will allow ourselves to absorb the message being presented. When we choose to disarm ourselves and attempt to empathize with other frames of mind, we realize the commonality of all of our core beliefs. This can only be achieved with the “seek first to understand then to be understood” mentality. This is a difficult task, we have been programmed to talk but not listen, to actually listen to people is a learned skill. When listening to another person, we must pause everything else in our worlds and indulge completely in what the other person is trying to say, when we do this and take this amount of time we are able to identify if the person is someone we want to put our trust in or not. To go a little deeper, we can pick and choose how we want to trust the person, as every situation is different the levels of trust for each person and with each situation should be different.
I know what I’m about Fuck You Make Money
“If you don’t stand for something then you are bound to fall for anything”. It is quick and easy to judge another but first, we must judge ourselves, What do you stand for? I understand the way I think is unique, I also understand the way I think could be construed as being controversial, but FYMM is my belief, perspective, standard, and story. Through the course of the book my mission is to appropriately display my beliefs, perspectives, standards, and stories with the intent to give inspiration, motivation, guidance, and support. As you continue to give FYMM your complete attention, I hope I am able to provide a resource for you to refer to for:
- Inspiration
○ Inspiration can come in many different forms, my hope is through my writings I inspire you to be great and aspire to accomplish amazing things. Where every day you “make the impossible possible” - Motivation
○ Through my work ethic and my endless projects, I hope I motivate the laziest couch potato. Self-motivation is extremely difficult but through my classes and my writing I hope I am able to take some of the burdens most people have of “not being motivated”
● Guidance
○ I have gone down every wrong path imaginable, to have the ability to guide you away from the stupid things I have done in my life would be great, but providing the guidance after we have made a terrible mistake is the key. When we are still at our lowest point is where we need the most guidance but far too often that is when guidance is the hardest to find.
● Support
○ There have been more times than I can count where I wish I had a support system, now I have had small instances or periods of time where I had support but being alone has been constant. I hope my writings help other people just like me who are alone and don’t feel like anyone in the world cares. The world can be a lonely place, my intention is to provide support to those in need. I may not be able to be present in the physical form but in the spiritual form, I hope to provide whatever is needed.