Many of you have likely seen this video of a Will Smith interview released on YouTube years ago. I like to watch it every once in a while for some great ‘nuggets’ of inspiration he conveys. Hope it inspires you as it does me!

Some of my favorite quotes from this video:

“We didn’t grow up with the sense that where we were was where we were going to be. We grew up with the sense that where we were almost didn’t matter because we were becoming something greater”.

“Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft. I have never viewed myself as particularly talented. Where I excel is a ridiculous, sickening work ethic. While the other guy is sleeping, I am working. There is no easy way around it”. “You need to dedicate yourself to being better every single day”.

“My dad said ‘Don’t ever tell me that you can’t do something’. You don’t try to build a wall, you don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say ‘I’m going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that’s ever been built’. You don’t start there. You say ‘I am going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid’. You do that every single day and soon you have a wall”.

“I want to do good. I want the world to be better because I was here”. “If you’re not making someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other lives better”.

“I believe that I can create whatever I want to create”.

“The first step before anybody else in the world believes it is that you have to believe it”.

“There is no reason to have a Plan B because it distracts from Plan A”.

“Confucius said, He who says he can and he who says he can’t are both usually right”.

“There is a redemptive power that making a choice has, rather than feeling you are at effect to all the things that are happening. Make a choice. You just decide what is going to be, who you are going to be, how you are going to do it. Just decidel And from that point, the universe is going to get out of your way”.

And one of my favorite quotes from the movie ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’: “Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something, not even me, alright?. You’ve got a dream, you’ve got to protect it. When people can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you that you can’t do. You want something, go get it. Period”.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. As yourself what makes you come alive and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
– Howard Thurman

This seemed like a perfect quote for the new year, when so many commit to making positive changes in their lives. There are a number of things that make me come alive – my faith, my family, my business, the causes of domestic violence and sexual assault, pediatric cancer, education and traveling just to name a few. I’m energized, challenged and inspired by these things and 2010 will involve many activities in each of these areas.

So tell me – what makes you come alive? What issues, causes or situations stir your soul and what will you be doing about them this year? I’m looking forward to reading about how the world will become a better place by each of you being alive!

” You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
– Jack London

Image via Wikipedia

Jack London was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild, White Fang and The Sea Wolf, along with many other popular books. He was one of the first Americans to make a lucrative career exclusively from writing.

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

– Albert Einstein