Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success: Discovering Your Gift and the Way to Life's Riches Read Free Page B

vision honestly don’t need to go beyond your prayer time with God.
YOU GOTTA PUT YOUR NAME ON THE LEASE
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    So many people are missing their way in life because they are afraid to sign the lease on their gift. You can clearly see your dream, but you are wasting time overthinking the unknown or talking to people who don’t understand your aspirations. I know far too many people in Hollywood who go around saying, “I’m a waitress for now, but I’m really an actress.” Then why aren’t you acting already? If you are committed to making your dream a reality, you gotta put your name on the lease.
    You will miss out on the true blessing of your life if you don’t accept that your gift is your winning ticket and the key to your life’s blessings.
    All you have to do is commit to your gift. Once you commit, the rest of it—the money, the connections, and the opportunities—will start coming to you in ways that you can’t imagine. Let me put it another way: When you put your efforts into your gift, you are giving God something to bless. I never expected to fail at comedy. I only expected to succeed. Even when I faced some of my darkest times, I would just hold on to those little pieces of light along the way until those lights turned into an open field of opportunity.
Success Actions
    I want you to take a few minutes and think about all the excuses you’ve made in the last week. Write them all down in your journal. Now, circle or highlight the ones that you use the most. We’re going to call these your Top 3 Excuses. Write these down. Below your Top 3 Excuses, write down three expectations to replace these excuses. We will name these your Top 3 Expectations.
    Need help defining the two? Here are my definitions:
Excuses
Why I can’t
Expectations
Why I will
    See the difference? Excuses are self-imposed roadblocks, detours, and traffic jams that take you off your road to success. Expectations are wide-open lanes reserved for those people who are willing to pay the price for excellence. What are the new expectations that you can create for your life? What will you begin to tell yourself when life gets hard? You got them? Now write them down in your journal under these three headings:
    My Favorite Excuses
    Top 3 Excuses
    Top 3 Expectations
    If you’re serious about this, I want you to take your new expectations one step further by writing them on a clean sheet of paper and signing it. These new declarations will be your commitment to yourself, marking the beginning of your journey to greatness.

CHAPTER 2
Fear and Failure
    D uring one of my early appearances on Bishop T. D. Jakes’s talk show, I made a bold proclamation: “I am the most fearless person you will ever meet.” I don’t know what made me say it, because I had never said something like that before in my life. I figured that the bishop and his team really liked what I had to say because they used that sound bite in the video promos advertising my appearance on the show.
    But here’s the real deal: I am afraid a lot. I was afraid to pursue my talk show because I thought it might not work out. I was afraid to do syndicated radio because I didn’t know if I would be accepted in enough markets to be successful. I was afraid to take on the Kings of Comedy tour. When Walter Latham came to us and said, “We are going to be playing in basketball arenas,” I was scared. The largest crowd I had ever performed in front of at that point was five thousand people—and that was on a good night. When I interviewed President Obama, I was terrified because I didn’t want to blow it. Before I did Bishop Jakes’s Mega-Fest, I tossed and turned for three nights in a row.
    My biggest moment of fear came when I did my first one-hour HBO special. I had never been more afraid of anything in my entire career. The Bell Auditorium in Augusta, Georgia, was completely sold out, and I was