January 27, 2025 • 12 mins
One key to success is to have a great plan. Les gives us a way to create a strategy for our lives.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/les-brown-greatness-radio--3467851/support.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/les-brown-greatness-radio--3467851/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
You have something special, you havegreatness in you. Hello, this is
Les Brown. I want to askyou a question and one that my mentor
asked me when I laid out tohim the goals that I wanted to achieve
and the game planned to achieving thosegoals, and in there I had a
(00:32):
list of things I wanted to dofor my mother, I wanted to do
for my children, I wanted todo for my self. And then he
asked me a question that surprised me. He asked me, what's your strategy
for being here? M And Ihad to pause and think because I didn't
(00:56):
have a strategy for being here.And we worked on that. Seeing a
doctor being on top of my health, having various examinations to see that I'm
in good shape, and normalizing myblood pressure, keeping my blood sugar level
(01:19):
at a normal level, the thingsthat I just did not consider because all
the things I wrote down. Hesaid, you can't do those things if
you don't have your health, andif you're not here, what's your strategy
for being here? As we lookin the news and it says now in
many cases that the Corona virus disproportionatelyimpact the number of African Americans who catch
(01:49):
it and die, and the questionis why. Because of type two diabetes,
which is an issue that dealing withright now, cancer and high blood
pressure, we have to begin tobe mindful and be deliberate and have a
(02:14):
priority of taking better care of ourhealth. Being here, living longer,
adding years to our lives and lifeto our years is not a given.
We have to be intentional about that. And so I ask you, what's
(02:34):
your strategy for being here? Fortaking better care of yourself, for strengthening
your immune system. What's your strategyfor being here by making better choices on
how we eat, our diet andan exercise program. What's your strategy for
being here? Our state of mind, the things that we listen to and
(02:57):
how we conduct ourselves and how weact together. That if you look at
our community and look at the activityin that community, one of the things
that we know that every community isa reflection of the state of the mind
of the people who inhabit that community. When we look at the heart attack
(03:22):
rate, the drug rate in ourcommunity, the proliferation of drugs, We
look at the incarceration rate, andwe look at the crime and the dysfunctional
situations that exist in so many areas, and we can point to a lot
of reasons as to why this istaking place, but ultimately we have three
(03:47):
fingers pointing at ourselves. Something thatI heard once, and I truly believe
that the people that make in themas life, they look around for the
circumstance is that they want, andif they can't find them, they create
them. This time more than ever, as we're reflecting on our lives,
(04:09):
as we rethinking who we have been, that we have to take responsibility for
where we are, not settle forwho we have been, and make a
conscious, deliberate, determined effort tocreate a different kind of culture. I'm
(04:29):
often told that I look like veryWhite. And I was reading an article
about him when he was in thehospital and they talked to him about changing
his diet and he said no.He said, you got to die from
something. And I'm saying, comeon, very please, we need you
(04:54):
here, we need that voice ofyours. And he wouldn't change. And
he's gone and he didn't have togo at that time if he was just
willing to change his diet, andhe said no. I hope that we
come to the place that we loveourselves so much that we will say yes.
(05:19):
Yes to changing our behavior, Yesto moving our bodies, Yes to
having a positive state of mind inworking on ourselves and developing ourselves. Yes
to living a life of purpose andknowing that we were created by the Creator
to create. Yes to realizing thatat any point in time we can change.
(05:46):
An alligator can't be anything but analligator. A fraud can't be anything
but a fraud, but a humanbeing. At any point in time,
you and I may in the lacknessand image of God, you and I
had given authority and dominion over everythingon the face of the earth. At
(06:09):
any point in time, we cansay, I'm not going to be this
way anymore. I'm going to changemy life. I had a friend who
was selling drugs for years and liveda criminal life. And I saw him
years later and I said, hey, man, how are you doing?
(06:30):
And he looked dramatically different, andI knew a change had taken place in
him. I said, may,man, what happened to you? He
said, I went to the hospitalat the time my wife was having our
first son, and when he openedhis eyes, I knew that selling drugs,
(07:00):
robbing people, taking advantage of people, living a criminal lifestyle was history
for me when he opened his eyes. When I looked in my son's eyes,
I knew that the life that Ihad been living was history. And
right there, standing there watching him, I said, I'm through with that
(07:27):
life now. He'd been in andout of jail, in and out of
juvenile detention centers, but that wasa transformative moment for him when he looked
in his baby's eyes. At anymoment, we have the power to change.
That's the greatest power that God hasgiven us. We've been given authority
(07:51):
and dominion over everything on the faceof the earth, through the power of
choosing this day whom ye shall serve, and doing it out of a sense
of self love, doing it outof a knowing that life is God's gift
to us, and how we liveour lives is our gift to God.
(08:16):
And doing it because we should,because this thing called life is a gift.
And then how we live our livesis our gift to God. Doing
everything we can every day that wecan to improve ourselves, to bring the
best out of ourselves and the bestout of others, and to leave our
(08:39):
mark and to build a legacy.What's your strategy for being here, for
taking better care of yourself, forgetting the checkups that you need, not
operating out of the thinking what youdon't know can hurt you, what you
don't know can kill you. Knowthat to be true. Taking care of
(09:01):
yourself, loving yourself enough to dowhatever you need to do, getting proper
rests, eating properly, making healthychoices, having healthy relationships, letting go
of those relationships that are toxic andnegative and draining, and we know what
(09:22):
they are. Many times it's familymembers as well as friends. It's better
to have a good friend than abad relative, someone once said, and
I find that to be true,looking at our relationships and asking the question,
is this a healthy relationship? No? If it's not, let it
(09:43):
go, What are you doing tobe here? I think that we can
see these statistics, and it's morethan just reading the statistics. What we
need to decide that we're going tochange our lifestyle so that those st will
not have our name in there,that we will live a different kind of
(10:05):
life, that we will step outof line, not allow our culture in
our environment to dictate the choices thatwe make. We must make a conscious,
deliberate, determined effort to make healthychoices to be the next greatest version
of ourselves, taking care of ourselves, loving ourselves and each other, and
(10:30):
raising the bar on ourselves on whateverwe need to do. To be disciplined,
to be steadfast, to be committed, and to be consistent a living
a life that will outlive us.You have something special, you have greatness
(10:50):
in you. Don't allow negligent behavior, reckless thinking, and choices that don't
rep present the highest that's in you, choices that will cause you to go
to an early grade. No,decide that you're going to live a full
(11:11):
life, Live full and die empty. Make the decision to be happy,
to laugh, and to be joyful, and to live a life that will
transform others and leave the world inbetter shape than how you've found it,
so that God would not regret thathe created you. You a gift to
(11:33):
the world. You brought something herethat was not here before you came.
Yes, you have something special.You're here to do the greater work.
In order for that to happen,you've got to have a strategy for being
here and taking care of yourself sothat when you go, and we all
(11:54):
must go, the words will bespoken, well done, My good and
faithful servant. Well done, youhave something special. You have greatness in
you. That's my story and I'msticking to it. Take care of yourself.
You are listening to Less Brown GreatnessRadio, positive and motivational content curated
(12:18):
by the legendary Less Brown
You have something special, you havegreatness in you. Hello, this is
Les Brown. I want to askyou a question and one that my mentor
asked me when I laid out tohim the goals that I wanted to achieve
and the game planned to achieving thosegoals, and in there I had a
(00:32):
list of things I wanted to dofor my mother, I wanted to do
for my children, I wanted todo for my self. And then he
asked me a question that surprised me. He asked me, what's your strategy
for being here? M And Ihad to pause and think because I didn't
(00:56):
have a strategy for being here.And we worked on that. Seeing a
doctor being on top of my health, having various examinations to see that I'm
in good shape, and normalizing myblood pressure, keeping my blood sugar level
(01:19):
at a normal level, the thingsthat I just did not consider because all
the things I wrote down. Hesaid, you can't do those things if
you don't have your health, andif you're not here, what's your strategy
for being here? As we lookin the news and it says now in
many cases that the Corona virus disproportionatelyimpact the number of African Americans who catch
(01:49):
it and die, and the questionis why. Because of type two diabetes,
which is an issue that dealing withright now, cancer and high blood
pressure, we have to begin tobe mindful and be deliberate and have a
(02:14):
priority of taking better care of ourhealth. Being here, living longer,
adding years to our lives and lifeto our years is not a given.
We have to be intentional about that. And so I ask you, what's
(02:34):
your strategy for being here? Fortaking better care of yourself, for strengthening
your immune system. What's your strategyfor being here by making better choices on
how we eat, our diet andan exercise program. What's your strategy for
being here? Our state of mind, the things that we listen to and
(02:57):
how we conduct ourselves and how weact together. That if you look at
our community and look at the activityin that community, one of the things
that we know that every community isa reflection of the state of the mind
of the people who inhabit that community. When we look at the heart attack
(03:22):
rate, the drug rate in ourcommunity, the proliferation of drugs, We
look at the incarceration rate, andwe look at the crime and the dysfunctional
situations that exist in so many areas, and we can point to a lot
of reasons as to why this istaking place, but ultimately we have three
(03:47):
fingers pointing at ourselves. Something thatI heard once, and I truly believe
that the people that make in themas life, they look around for the
circumstance is that they want, andif they can't find them, they create
them. This time more than ever, as we're reflecting on our lives,
(04:09):
as we rethinking who we have been, that we have to take responsibility for
where we are, not settle forwho we have been, and make a
conscious, deliberate, determined effort tocreate a different kind of culture. I'm
(04:29):
often told that I look like veryWhite. And I was reading an article
about him when he was in thehospital and they talked to him about changing
his diet and he said no.He said, you got to die from
something. And I'm saying, comeon, very please, we need you
(04:54):
here, we need that voice ofyours. And he wouldn't change. And
he's gone and he didn't have togo at that time if he was just
willing to change his diet, andhe said no. I hope that we
come to the place that we loveourselves so much that we will say yes.
(05:19):
Yes to changing our behavior, Yesto moving our bodies, Yes to
having a positive state of mind inworking on ourselves and developing ourselves. Yes
to living a life of purpose andknowing that we were created by the Creator
to create. Yes to realizing thatat any point in time we can change.
(05:46):
An alligator can't be anything but analligator. A fraud can't be anything
but a fraud, but a humanbeing. At any point in time,
you and I may in the lacknessand image of God, you and I
had given authority and dominion over everythingon the face of the earth. At
(06:09):
any point in time, we cansay, I'm not going to be this
way anymore. I'm going to changemy life. I had a friend who
was selling drugs for years and liveda criminal life. And I saw him
years later and I said, hey, man, how are you doing?
(06:30):
And he looked dramatically different, andI knew a change had taken place in
him. I said, may,man, what happened to you? He
said, I went to the hospitalat the time my wife was having our
first son, and when he openedhis eyes, I knew that selling drugs,
(07:00):
robbing people, taking advantage of people, living a criminal lifestyle was history
for me when he opened his eyes. When I looked in my son's eyes,
I knew that the life that Ihad been living was history. And
right there, standing there watching him, I said, I'm through with that
(07:27):
life now. He'd been in andout of jail, in and out of
juvenile detention centers, but that wasa transformative moment for him when he looked
in his baby's eyes. At anymoment, we have the power to change.
That's the greatest power that God hasgiven us. We've been given authority
(07:51):
and dominion over everything on the faceof the earth, through the power of
choosing this day whom ye shall serve, and doing it out of a sense
of self love, doing it outof a knowing that life is God's gift
to us, and how we liveour lives is our gift to God.
(08:16):
And doing it because we should,because this thing called life is a gift.
And then how we live our livesis our gift to God. Doing
everything we can every day that wecan to improve ourselves, to bring the
best out of ourselves and the bestout of others, and to leave our
(08:39):
mark and to build a legacy.What's your strategy for being here, for
taking better care of yourself, forgetting the checkups that you need, not
operating out of the thinking what youdon't know can hurt you, what you
don't know can kill you. Knowthat to be true. Taking care of
(09:01):
yourself, loving yourself enough to dowhatever you need to do, getting proper
rests, eating properly, making healthychoices, having healthy relationships, letting go
of those relationships that are toxic andnegative and draining, and we know what
(09:22):
they are. Many times it's familymembers as well as friends. It's better
to have a good friend than abad relative, someone once said, and
I find that to be true,looking at our relationships and asking the question,
is this a healthy relationship? No? If it's not, let it
(09:43):
go, What are you doing tobe here? I think that we can
see these statistics, and it's morethan just reading the statistics. What we
need to decide that we're going tochange our lifestyle so that those st will
not have our name in there,that we will live a different kind of
(10:05):
life, that we will step outof line, not allow our culture in
our environment to dictate the choices thatwe make. We must make a conscious,
deliberate, determined effort to make healthychoices to be the next greatest version
of ourselves, taking care of ourselves, loving ourselves and each other, and
(10:30):
raising the bar on ourselves on whateverwe need to do. To be disciplined,
to be steadfast, to be committed, and to be consistent a living
a life that will outlive us.You have something special, you have greatness
(10:50):
in you. Don't allow negligent behavior, reckless thinking, and choices that don't
rep present the highest that's in you, choices that will cause you to go
to an early grade. No,decide that you're going to live a full
(11:11):
life, Live full and die empty. Make the decision to be happy,
to laugh, and to be joyful, and to live a life that will
transform others and leave the world inbetter shape than how you've found it,
so that God would not regret thathe created you. You a gift to
(11:33):
the world. You brought something herethat was not here before you came.
Yes, you have something special.You're here to do the greater work.
In order for that to happen,you've got to have a strategy for being
here and taking care of yourself sothat when you go, and we all
(11:54):
must go, the words will bespoken, well done, My good and
faithful servant. Well done, youhave something special. You have greatness in
you. That's my story and I'msticking to it. Take care of yourself.
You are listening to Less Brown GreatnessRadio, positive and motivational content curated
(12:18):
by the legendary Less Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.