This is the time of year when we all hear the same thing over and over again. Everybody is completing the past 12 months and they have high hopes for the coming year. They’re creating New Year’s resolutions to lose weight or make more money.

I want you to do something completely different. This is what I hear year after year. People come up to me and they go, “Hey Bo, this is our year…THIS is our year.” Then comes the next year, and that same person says to me, “Bo, no, not last year. THIS is our year. This is the time we really do the things we want to do.” Year after year, the same people come back and say to me, “Bo, this is my year. This is our year. This is when everything is going to happen.”

Let’s throw out a year. Everyone talks about making the coming year the best year of your life. Everyone wants to teach you how to have the best year of your life. Let’s throw away a year, okay? The reality is it's just too short a time to have any kind of transformation.

People who work with me know that I am obsessed, even haunted, by the term “The Best.” Being the best in the world at a thing. That has been my dream since I was a kid. I wanted to be the best safety in the world, wanted to be the best stage performer in the world, wanted to be the best speaker in the world, wanted to be the best playwright in the world. When you make those kind of declarations, we’re talking about tackling a whole other animal.

Let's talk about that. It's not about your next year. It's about your next 20 years, right? I don’t know why, but when I was a kid, I had an intimate and profound relationship with my future self. I later learned, after all this technology and brain study came into being, the people who are most successful in the world at mastering a thing have a better relationship with their future selves. Way into the future, like 15 or 20 years. Those are the people who really achieve mastery and achieve their dreams; actually make their dreams live in the real world.

I’ve always kind of had that relationship with myself, my future self. In fact, think about this … someone was telling me about this study, I believe it was by Google but I could be wrong. Google created this mirror that could age you 20 years.  So you're looking at yourself 20 years into the future.

When you do that kind of experiment or  study, what happens is your commitment becomes a lot stronger. You’re all in because you’re working toward 20 years. So think about this for a second. People go, “Well, Bo, my kids can’t think 20 years into the future.” Or, “That’s too long a time for me to think about.” That’s not true. I’m going to prove to you today that my kids do this exact same thing, and kids actually do have the stamina to keep things alive and their dreams alive for 20 years. I’m going to show you how. The intimate, profound relationship with your future self is key. How do you see yourself then?

When I got to my 50s, I started working with a trainer named Tim Adams. Tim is an amazing trainer, an amazing guy and knows everything about nutrition and the biochemistry of people’s bodies. He was a speed conditioning coach for the Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Kings. He’s amazing at making you the best athlete you can be.

He and I started working when I had to get ready for a 50-city tour of my play, “Run of the Litter.” I decided that 20 years from now I want to have more vitality on stage and in front of people than I do now. I presented that to him by saying, “I actually want to be in better shape. I want this instrument of expression to be in perfect condition. Can you help me? Can we do that?”

He said, “Yes, we can do it. You can achieve those dreams, but it's going to take all you’ve got. It’s going to take some serious planning and stick-to-itiveness.”  I go, “Cool, that’s how I work; that’s how I like to work.” So we set up a plan.

The first thing we did was look at the first year. Tim goes, “Look, you’re not even ready to do the work that we need to do to get that vitality and that biochemistry pulsating in your body. You’re not ready for that yet. You’re body isn’t strong enough to withstand the kind of heat we’re going to put on it. So the first year you are going to get your body strong enough to come through for the next 19.”  So that when I'm in my 70s, I have the vitality I desire. I have the relationship with my wife and my kids that I want. I’m taking control of my life, but the first year I’m just getting this body ready and sturdy enough to have the capacity to come through for the long distance dream. This is what I want for you. I want you to stop thinking about a year. I want you to go out 20 years so I can see where your life is dedicated. The minute that I know where you are going to hang your hat, now…now I got a whole different animal in front of me. Now I know that your dreams are going to come true.

Let me ask you a question. Say you had little son and said to me, “Bo, I’d like you to train my son to be the best safety in the world. That’s his dream. He wants to be the best safety in the world. Can you do that?” I would say to you, “Yes, you came the right place. I actually achieved that dream so I’m the right guy to come to, to fulfill on that, because I can show you exactly the miles that need to be run.”

YOU are going to want that to be fast, like, “Bo, can you do that in the next year? Bo, can you do that in the next five years? Bo, can you do that in the next eight years? Can he be the best safety in the world in the next eight years?” and I’m going to tell you no. I’m going to tell you no, just like the plans you’re making for the next year. Right now you are making these resolutions and you’re making these plans to make this much money and to lose this much weight and be this in a year. I’m going to say, I’m not going to get enough of you. I’m not going to get enough of what you’ve got coming forward at me. I’m not going to have enough leverage on you to make that happen. BUT, if you bring that same kid to me and I tell you, “OK, you came the right place, let me promise you this: if this kid does exactly what I tell him to do, alright and he puts his heart on the line and he follows exactly what I tell him to do, the promise would be this: In twelve to fifteen right in there years, eighteen years, he will be the best safety in the world.”

So if you’re saying, “Hey, I got a year Bo, I gotta lose this weight, I gotta make this much money.” I’m going to tell you we’re not going to make a difference, right? We’re going to get your body ready to achieve you being the best in the world at something in twenty years. That we can do. In a year, in two, in three, can’t do it. So you tell me, you gotta change your mind set. You gotta quit doing what you’ve been doing and keep coming back to the same person and going “Hey, it’s Christmas time, hey it’s New Year’s THIS is my year, I’m owed this year because I’ve done this and I’ve done that.” You’re owed nothing, right, you’re entitled to nothing. You’re entitled to your labor, but you’re not  even entitled to the fruits of your labor. You want to be the best in the world? Let’s look down the road. That’s how we make this come true.

Everybody understand this. You must get rid of your shortsighted timelines. People who are the best in the world don’t have any timelines. They’re not going I’ve gotta be the best in six months, I’ve gotta make this much money in a year and a half. They don’t operate like that. They hang their hat, they are a lifer. They aren’t going away. Our world, our commitments to our dreams are temporary. Not us. We’re lifers. We commit to our dreams, we never go away. That’s why I want the longevity that’s why I want all the years.

So, quick example I’ll show you how I do this real quick. Most of you know my history. When I was nine years old I drew up a twenty year plan. It was to be the best safety in the whole world. So, it’s very rudimentary, I drew it up, and that’s what it looks like. This paper is forty four years old, forty five years old. So, this is my little Declaration of Independence.

Now, during those years while I was attempting to be the best safety in the whole world, I had many knee surgeries, I was little, I was no good, I was cut from teams, I was too skinny, no college wanted me. All these obstacles come in to bear right? When you make a dream, these obstacles come. But, given twenty years, I can over come those.

This was the next plan. The next plan started, if you look closely there, it stared the first day of writing Runt of the Litter was January 6, 1998. Now, this book is falling apart, you see that, do you see how old these things are? So, that’s January 6, 1998. I’ve never written anything in my life, OK? This was a dream. This isn’t a year. I didn’t go to my friends, “Hey, I’m going to have the best year of my life…Look.” I didn’t do that. I said, I’m going to write a play, I’m going to perform this play for the next twenty years. I even asked people to help me. They were like, I’m not committing to something for twenty years. OK, well I am.

Because then, the success of the play and the success of me being the best stage performer in the world is a guarantee. Because I’m not looking at a year or five years. I’m looking at twenty. You give me twenty, I’ll catch you, I’ll pass you and no one else will ever catch me if you’re given that kind of time line. That’s why I teach my kids this.

Here’s the first day, I said One Man Show. You can see it right there. I drew a picture of the stage, and funny enough this is pretty much what the stage looked like in New York and the fifty city tour, and it still is that stage today, all these years later. So, I just filled these empty pages with my heart, with my story and then I got to perform this story, right?

So that’s the second dream, but that’s very long term, I started that in 1998. Those are the first two dreams. So then I have kids, and they want to do their dreams, they want to create their year. Which is what everyone is telling you to do. So, what we do in my family is we create twenty year plans. So, my kids dreams are twenty years.

This is Lyla’s. She uses the same books that I always use. Which are these, but hers is like this tiny one like this. So, here’s Lyla’s, and Lyla’s five. That’s my daughter and that’s the first page of hers. Axel wrote this for her. That’s her eight year old brother. The Best Ever. He wrote here, how to be the best is to work hard at five or six in the morning every day. Then he wrote The Best right here. Then all these levels, it says levels and that’s Lyla. Then it goes on and on The Best Ballerina. She loves dance, so she wants to be The Best Ballerina. You notice how we always use the word “The Best” we’re always gonna use that term and so are you, and I’ll tell you why.

She drew some kind of cricket or some kind of bug, I don’t know what the heck that is. Then she drew, this, it looks like a ball player of some kind, so he’s got a ball in her hand or his hand, and it says, “You will not out work me.” You will…oh, I love her, she’s the best. Right here, you can be the best, you can be the greatest at…and she put soccer here and I see a little soccer ball down here. So, day to day to day, instead of doing things for a year, she does things on going-ely, like these never stop. Your dreams are never going to stop.

Therefor, you are going to be living the life of your dreams instead of complaining that you’re not living the life of your dreams. So right now, Lyla, she may not be the best soccer player in the world right now, right? She may not be the best ballerina in the world yet, BUT she’s five. So, when she’s fifteen, when she’s twenty one, when she’s twenty five, is this possible? This is completely possible. In fact, it’s almost impossible for it not to happen given that she stays with it.

I always tell my kids, the only way you’re going to get out of your dreams, and I’ll say it to you. The only way you’re going to get out of this dream that I’m promising you if you do what I say, the only way out is, you’re going to have to quit. You’re going to have to quit. It’s the only way out of this. Otherwise, you’ve run the miles, guess what’s happening. Dreams. You’re going to live the life of your dreams, and it doesn’t take twenty years. It doesn’t take twenty years to live the life of your dreams. You’re going to be living it very soon. You can be living it tomorrow if you start running the miles.

So, the day that I said I want to be the best safety in the world, I got on that grass at five am. I started running backwards. I started doing what the best safety in the world has to do, but I was only nine years old I didn’t have the strength or the speed or the where with all to even know what a safety does. But, I was running the miles equivalent to the best safety in the world who was now fifteen, eighteen years older than me. Given the time that I have to run those miles, I will take the mantle from them eventually.

So, that’s Lyla’s plan. Listen, this isn’t one shot deal. We have stacks and stacks and stacks of these. Hers is beginning now, but by the time she’s fifteen, eighteen, twenty one, she’ll have stacks and stacks and stacks of these like I do. Because they never end, they are always evolving.

Here’s another one of the books, similar size that I use. In fact, this is one of my books Personal Story Power here. But, Eloise she’s ten, she decorated hers with duct tape. My dad is rolling over in his grave right now thinking about, there is actually candy corn on duct tape. My dad would use duct tape for anything, right. We’d have a scar that needed stitches, he’d go, “ You’re not going to the god darn doctor, just put some duct tape on that sucker, fix it right…” Imagine him seeing this with cherries on this and little mustaches and goofy stuff like that.

So let’s peek inside Eloise’s. Here’s Eloise. Eloise is a dancer, she wants to be a dancer. Five hours of dance this week. So, five hours of dance, you know, she’s ten. There’s a picture of her. I always encourage you to draw pictures. Be childlike. Use colors, get inside your plan. I always use these books because there’s no lines on them. They’re empty pages. I don’t want to be told boundaries of where I can wrote and where I can’t write. My dreams are so big, and my kids dreams are so vast that they can’t be controlled. You can’t slow down for these things. I like these unlined sketch papers. I always like using colored pens. I love using crayons, anything childlike because that’s what really makes things come true for you. That’s Eloise’s. So, it’s all made, it’s your creation your life is your creation. Not your year, your whole life. Your whole twenty years. OK that’s Lyla’s and Eloise’s.

Now, this is Axels. Axel is really similar to mine. This is his. He started his a few years ago, and that is how he used to draw. So it says Axe here. You can see, over the years he’s got the American flag there. He’s got Axels Power Pack, I don’t know what the heck that is. It evolves through color crayons, color crayons…and we finally get to where he starts to land. He wants to be the first person to ever play in the NBA and also play in the NFL. Now, the odds of that, if I told him the odds of that, it would be very low, wouldn’t it? Because no one has ever done that.

But I got a feeling, he is. Because he’s got the time, he’s eight years old, but he’s been training at this since he was six and a half or so. So, he’s got the time to actually put this bot all this into work and make this dream come true. So there’s a picture of him on the cover of Sport’s Illustrated that he had me draw for him. There’s a stage, he wants to do a stage play. I don’t know why. There is but one degree of commitment…total, and a guy bent over. That is what greatness looks like I teach them. On and on it goes. I think this is so funny. This is very recent, last month. He has a picture of Michael Jordan bent over. I always tell them greatness is actually bent over. Greatness doesn’t look like with your hands up in the air like this. Greatness doesn’t look like I’m on the red carpet, on the cover of People magazine. Greatness looks like this, with your hands on your knees, you bent over and something coming out of your mouth usually.

My kids know that. They know that these twenty years, these dreams they depend on how hard they are going to work. Not that they are entitled to some special life. Not that they are just going to be handed some trophy for being the best. They are going to actually have to work for it. They are going to have to have surgeries and they’re going to have injuries and they’re going to have loneliness and there’a going to have to have heartbreak, but they are also going to get to experience the greatest joys in the world. He says right here just like Lyla’s, “You will not out work me.” and he has Michael Jordan. There is a reason he has Michael Jordan.

Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player to ever play the game. Axel wasn’t even born when Michael Jordan was playing basketball. Most people agree that he is the greatest of all time. Why would we compare ourselves to anybody in second place? So the second or third or fourth place, I don’t want you comparing yourself to them. I want you looking down the road. Who has your life right now? Who’s been the greatest at the occupation that you want your dream to come true in? Who is that person? Choose them the very best. Not second, not third. Go for the gold. Go for the gold medalist. Go after them. Don’t let them out work you.

My son has a relationship with Michael Jordan and he’s never even seen him play. There’s a picture of a Porsche that he wants eventually, when the rewards of being the best in the world at something.

So, your dream is no different than my kid’s dreams. Axel, Lyla, Eloise, mine. Your dream is no different than ours. You’ve got to create it child like ways, not one year, not two years, not five years. I’m talking about where are you going to dedicate your life?

Why, why would we use this term The Best? Why would we use that? There is a reason that we that we use this term The Best. On the next video next week, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about, why do we use the term The Best for our dreams and why do I want YOU to use it. We’ll go over that in the next video. But for now, during this holiday season, during the season of making the shift, the true shift that you really want to make the transformation that you want to make, we got to hang your hat somewhere. You gotta be a lifer for your dream and you gotta have the stamina to come through for yourself. Think out. Who you want to be twenty years from now. The promise is we start running the miles and at seventy two for me, seventy three for me, I’m gonna have it. I’m going to be vital. I’m going to be able to make an impact on people.

I want you to be able to do the same, but it takes everything you got, alright? So quit thinking about next year. That’s only the start, that’s only going to get your body the capacity to go where you really want to go.

Enjoy your holiday season. Start dreaming. Find out what it is, what scares you. We’ll talk next week more about why do we want to use this term The Best. I’ll give you a little tip, because that’s who you are. It’s natural, you’re The Best. OK? We’ll see you next time.