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  • - [Mitch] Do you hate to wake up early?

  • Or to go to the gym or to work hard

  • in school or at your job?

  • Do you often postpone the work that you know you should do?

  • Or maybe you just wish that somebody else

  • would do it for you.

  • If you answered yes to any of those questions

  • then the world has probably told you that you are lazy

  • or that you're a procrastinator who lacks motivation.

  • At least, this is what I was personally told.

  • And for a long time I believed them.

  • I bought into their BS and I labeled myself

  • as that lazy procrastinator who would

  • never achieve any great academic success,

  • and I carried this mediocre mindset

  • of getting mediocre grades and putting in mediocre effort

  • all the way up until my college years.

  • But one day I was presented with the opportunity

  • to study abroad in Europe.

  • And this got me really excited,

  • and nothing ever remotely related to school

  • had ever got me excited.

  • And I started to imagine myself laying on the beach in Italy

  • or eating churros in Spain

  • or going to a party in the Czech Republic.

  • And after weeks of research I decided

  • that I wanted to study abroad in Lisbon, Portugal

  • because it had everything that I had wanted.

  • In my mind going to Lisbon was going to be the thing

  • that would make all my academic struggles worthwhile.

  • At that time it was the most important thing in my life.

  • But when I was talking to one of my professors

  • about the exchange program

  • I learned a few interesting things.

  • I learned that Portugal was the number one

  • most popular choice among all the students,

  • so there was going to be some competition.

  • And then I learned that my university chooses

  • where all the students go based on

  • how good their grades are.

  • And at this time mine were okay at best.

  • And then I learned that only four students

  • are selected to go to Portugal,

  • which meant that if I wanted to go to Portugal

  • my grades needed to be in the top 1%

  • of my entire business program.

  • So it was me, the lazy procrastinator,

  • going against all the other kids who had dedicated

  • their entire lives to school.

  • That was my competition.

  • So the next day I started to study really, really hard,

  • way more than I ever had in my entire life.

  • I can still remember walking through the library

  • and seeing the other kids from my class

  • who I knew wanted to go to Portugal,

  • and we would just make eye contact with each other

  • and we would just have this intensity in our eyes

  • because we both knew that we were

  • competing for the same thing.

  • So the stakes were really, really high.

  • As the semester went on my grades got higher and higher

  • and my social life became more and more nonexistent.

  • But one morning near the end of my semester

  • my mom said something to me that was really interesting.

  • She said, "I have never seen you work this hard in school.

  • "Maybe you aren't a procrastinator after all."

  • And this line really got me thinking

  • because during that particular semester

  • no teacher, no student or parent would say that I was lazy.

  • In fact, they would say that I'm a really hard worker

  • who really gets after it.

  • But in the previous semester, just five months ago,

  • those same people would all say that I was a procrastinator

  • and that I was lazy, so which is it?

  • I can't be both, can I?

  • The truth is, is that no human being is just one thing.

  • Nobody here is 100% lazy or 100% not lazy.

  • I first really understood this idea back in the 10th grade

  • where I would do anything to procrastinate doing my homework

  • because I hated school.

  • But I would put everything on hold in order

  • to play a computer game called StarCraft II,

  • which is actually a national sport in South Korea.

  • And I would spend hours just researching

  • how to get better at StarCraft.

  • I would practice my skills, practice different strategies,

  • and at one point I actually beat

  • one of the top 200 players in North America.

  • I'm not saying this to brag.

  • I'm saying this to make a point

  • that when it came to school I was really lazy

  • but when it came to gaming I was the opposite.

  • So the question, how do I stop being lazy

  • isn't actually a great question to ask yourself.

  • A much better question would be why am I feeling lazy?

  • And the reason why I was feeling lazy

  • and why probably most of you are feeling lazy

  • is because we were all doing the wrong thing.

  • Maybe you're studying the wrong stuff

  • or you're working at the wrong job.

  • When you feel lazy you should pay attention and take notes

  • because sometimes that is your intuition or your body

  • or spirit or whatever you wanna call it

  • saying to you, hey, you're doing the wrong thing.

  • Do something else.

  • So when you're feeling lazy and you

  • truly want to feel motivated again,

  • you need to understand these two key things.

  • The first one is to make sure you know the why

  • behind what you are doing.

  • Because if you have this you will always be able

  • to do those things that you don't really want to do,

  • but they are stuff that you need to do.

  • For me, it was being motivated to do well in school

  • in order to go to Europe.

  • And yes, I did actually end up going to Portugal.

  • So the lazy procrastinator won.

  • So there's hope for all of us.

  • And two, and this is the best option in my opinion,

  • is to start doing something that

  • you're actually passionate about,

  • because life is short.

  • If you have not found the thing

  • that you really love to do,

  • then you need to start at the very least looking for it,

  • otherwise, you will wake up at the age of 80

  • and think to yourself, man, I spent my whole life

  • doing the wrong thing.

  • And this image is really scary to me.

  • But Mitch, how do I find something

  • that I'm passionate about?

  • The number one best way to do this is to try new things.

  • Unfortunately, despite what the movies tell you,

  • your passion is not just gonna appear one day.

  • It's not gonna come into your dream

  • or just come into your life.

  • It's something that you will actually

  • have to go and search for.

  • And the best resource that I found to discover your passion

  • is a website called Skillshare.

  • Skillshare is an online learning community

  • that can literally teach you any skill you want.

  • They have over 25,000 classes in design,

  • business, technology.

  • They can even teach you how to become a successful YouTuber

  • or a successful animator or a writer or a photographer.

  • And the first 500 people who sign up

  • using my link in the description will gain access

  • to all of this 100% free for the first two months,

  • and the last time I talked about Skillshare

  • I think like 500 people signed up in the first hour.

  • So, if you click it and it's still there,

  • consider yourself very lucky.

  • Let's make 2020 the year where we finally

  • start doing the things that we love to do.

  • Thank you for watching, and I'll see you soon.

- [Mitch] Do you hate to wake up early?

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