I waited about 15 minutes. I called him back. I say, ‘Mr. Klein, I can’t find nobody’.
He said, ‘Why don’t you go in there and work the controls until they get there and don’t say nothing here’.
I said ‘Yes sir’.
I couldn’t wait to sit down at that turntable Mustafa. I said, “Look out, this is me, L.B., Triple P, Les Brown, your platter-playin` papa. There were none before me and there will be none after me, therefore that makes me the one and only. Young and single, love to mingle, certified, bonafied, indubitably qualified to bring you satisfaction and a whole lot of action. Look out baby and I am your love man”.
I was hungry!
Shake somebody’s hand on your right and left and say you’ve got to be hungry.
You want to be persistent about what it is that you want to achieve. Alexander Graham Bell said, “What this power is I cannot say. All I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man or a woman is in that state of mind in which he or she knows exactly what he or she wants and is fully determined not to quit until they find it.”
When our children are learning how to walk, how many times will your baby attempt to walk and fall and you just say just sit down. Don’t try any more, you’re falling 20 times. Just sit down somewhere, busting and you’re limping everything, get in folks’ way.
When would a baby walk? It will walk when it walks. That’s when it will walk. Les, when will you be known nationally as the motivator? I will be known when I am known. That’s when I’ll be known. Don’t get caught up in — well, I’ve tried it four or five times and things didn’t work out.
If there’s something that you want and you’re hungry for it, you’ve got to do whatever is necessary until… and when you give the best you can and that’s not enough, you must do what is required.
And don’t give up on yourself. Don’t throw the towel in so quickly. Many people give up on the one-yard line. What if they have the determination just to keep on knocking, there is a funny thing about life. If you are home one day and someone is knocking on the door and you say I don’t want to be bothered today. And if that person just keeps on knocking, can you believe that the fool is still knocking? Pretty soon you say what is it? What do you want? And that’s how you got to be about your dream.
Some people — well I guess ain’t nobody home. I knocked on the door but nobody came. I heard a television on and people were moving around but I guess opportunity probably went out the back door. Oh no no no see, life is not just that simple. It’s not that cut and dry. And that’s why most people never realize their personal greatness. Because they’re casual about life and when you are casual about life you will end up a casualty. Life is serious business.
So I encourage you to be persistent, to not decide that well I’ve done the best I can. I guess I just can’t have it. Don’t make that decision. Many of us make premature decisions about ourselves. Calvin Coolidge said something, man who was a president that was not known for his eloquence on making any historical decisions but something he wrote about persistence. He says, “Press on, nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. The world is full of unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not. Un-rewarded genius is almost the problem. Education alone will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Here is a person that is the embodiment of persistence and determination, a person who decided that some time ago that I am not going to take anything to my grave with me, I am going to use myself up and I am going to give and give and give until my last breath. This summer I am going to be working for her and with her doing training, teaching young people techniques and strategies on how to manifest their personal greatness, teaching them techniques and strategies that will change them at the subconscious level, changing their value systems and let them see the major role they can play in society. Let’s give Mrs Rosa Parks a round of applause if you please.
Here we are in the presence of greatness. Mrs. Parks, people couldn’t see, so would you come up, could you? See such a beautiful person.
I encourage you to see Mrs Parks and Mrs Elaine Steele about the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. If you are interested in your children participating in that, they have some information over here to share with you. It is just a fascinating and just a blessing to have these women when a lot of folks who are giving up and here this year she celebrated her 75th birthday and still has a dream of being an instrument of change. And there is a Rosa Parks in all of us who made a decision at one point in time standing on the platform of oughtness as Immanuel Kant talks about in a book called Critique of Pure Reasoning that there are certain things we know we ought to do, we just know it. We owe to ourselves and those around us.
I don’t know what your dreams are. I don’t know what your goals are but let me leave this with you. Mine is to be the best son that I can to my mother. Mine is to be the best father that I can to my children and to be the best servant that I can to humanity and the best man that I can to the woman that I’ve decided to share my life with. Whatever your goals are, I know that you can achieve them.
Here’s something that I like to leave with you. It says simply that if you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace and your sleep for it, if all that you dream and schemas about it, and life seemed useless and worthless without it, and if you gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it and lose all your terror of the opposition for it, and if you simply go after that things that you want with all of your capacity, strength, and sagacity, faith, hope and confidence and stirred pertinacity, if cold, poverty, famines, or sickness, or pain, can keep you away from the thing that you want.
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