Change you Goal and your attitude changes.

…Sunday. Oh, church all day. But you know what? I’m feeling a
little spunky. So, I’m like I’m going to gamble on Jesus. I’m going
to “Come on, Jesus, come on.” All right? And so, I go asked my dad
and I said, “Dad, can I borrow the car?” And what does my dad say?
He says, “No.” Not only does he say no but he gives me a lecture on
top of it. No would have been just enough but he is like knowing…
All these kinds of stuff.
And so, I take all that and so I say my dad has what kind of an
attitude? A bad attitude or a negative attitude. And consequently,
what did he say about my attitude? That I have a negative or bad
attitude. So, what is it that actually determines an attitude?
Perspective? It starts with G and ends in O. Your goal dictates
your attitude.

Think about some of your employees, right? When they have that
attitude, it is clear what? What’s clear? That they’re not… That
work is interfering with their goal. I remember working in a couple
of places and people are like, “Man, if I haven’t had to work
today, I would be doing this or that other thing.” Guess what I
have told him? “Go do it. Quit bugging me and go do what your goal
is because you won’t be happy. As a matter of fact, you make the
rest of us miserable.”

And so, attitude is a symptom. So, if I see someone with attitude
and I deal with kind of a special team in infant, right? Minnesota
family investment program and so I’m dealing with social workers
and they deal with people who have lots of attitude. And so, one of
the things that we know that if we have a person that is giving us
a lot of attitude, it is obvious that they are not what?

Woman 1: Meeting their goal.

Man 1: Meeting their goal. So, when we have someone with an attitude, what
is the first thing we have to find out to be able to be hopefuls in
them? What’s your goal? What’s your goal? And I’m sure we all have
been to a department store and either had a problem with an item or
it didn’t fit or you got a lot of complaints with the warranty or
what not. And you have those people who are not listening to you at
the customer service pieces and we’ll just give you coupons.
No, I don’t want coupons or we’ll just give you 50% off of that.
No, I don’t want 50%. This is funny, right? So, I had a dog that is
a Chow Chow. Is anyone familiar with a Chow Chow? All right. So,
they are really fluffy and they have a black tongue and curly tail
and Cassius, that was my boy. Oh, Cassius, I love my dog Cassius,
right?

So, we go to a… So, Cassius… I forgot what happened but his
hair got a little mad because if you don’t comb it like in on a
regular basis, it will be tangled. So, I decided this is summer
time. Oh, this is… So, it’s summer time and we are going to get
those tangles out. Well, my girlfriend at the time was like, “Well,
I’ll cut his hair.” I’m like “It doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
But she can piss him, right?

So, I come home and I look at my dog and he looks a little
different. And she was like, “Well, I can fix it.” I was like “No,
let’s just take it somewhere. You done way too much work already.
I’m sure it was tiring. Let’s just have somebody else do it,
right?” So, Io take him over to PetSmart. Now, I thought PetSmart
knew what they were doing first of all, right? So, we take him over
to PetSmart and so, I gave him specific instructions.

I say, “Look, obviously, this is a Chow and I’m wanting him to keep
that Mayan look. So, I know, just nick over here and nick over her.
Cut that part down and leave the rest so leave his tail bushy and
leave his head bushy. I know he is going to look goofy but that is
what I want, right?” And so, I leave the dog. That same day, I
actually have dental. I have a dental procedure that was going to
be done, right? So, I dropped the dog off.

I go get my dental procedure done and then, they call me and tell
me that my dog is ready. So, I go in to go pick up my dog and I had
a cavity filled. So, I still had… My mouth was still numb and so,
nothing is working. So, it was easier instead of biting my tongue,
it was easier for me to like this. So, my tongue was contained and
what do you all think? Now, I do not want to be alarmed but I’m
African American.

And there’s something about talking like this as an African
American that is extremely intimidating to white people. So, I’m
already like this and so, I’m looking for my dog and I cannot find
him. And I see this lamb. I see this little lamb running around the
pet store and I’m like… Right? So, I realize that they have
shaved my dog completely. And so, I’m talking to the guy and he’s
like “That would be $74.” No, no $74 here.

So, I’m like talking like this, “What is going…” My girlfriend is
going to kill me because I just put it off on her, right? Because
she is not there and it’s easy to do. “She is going to kill me. I
got to put up with this woman.” So, at this point, I have decided
I’m not paying for this haircut but they are trying to make me pay
for the haircut. And I’m like this is not happening.

And so, finally, the manager comes and he’s like “Sir, I understand
that you are upset.” I’m like “I’m not upset. I’m not upset. All I
just want… I’m not paying for this.” He was like “OK, Sir, well,
how do we work this out?” And so, they brought me like mugs and
cups and all sorts. Everyone is crazy that I walk out with bags,
fancy stuff.

But I was never satisfied because I left specific instructions and
I wanted them to hear that they not follow those instructions. And
so, I had an attitude and guess what? I’ve never gone back to
PetSmart. Right? And I will not go to PetSmart. As a matter of
fact, I might right a Facebook posting about how to boycott, no I
am just kidding.

So, those are some things to remember in terms of how to talk with
people and things that I have learned from my classmates. So, this
is me as a new baby. Wasn’t I cute? And this is… That’s me and
that’s my brother Will and my sister Krystal. And it is really
funny. Krystal has five kids and two girls. Krystal was bald and
her two daughters were also bald which is just like weird.

Her boys have full heads of hair. It’s interesting and then this is
my grandmother and my grandfather. This is my Uncle John and this
is my Uncle Waldo and this is my Dad William. And this is my
family. This is our Cosby years. If you look more closely, you can
see Theo, Vanessa and other staff. And I said that at one thing and
one of the kids, “You were really in the Cosby?” “No.”

And so, OK, I love Facebook and I hate Facebook all at the same
time. Love it and hate it, right? I love it because I have put my
persona on Facebook. And I’m a highly evolved individual, right?
So, I do vermicultures so I have worms that you may compost to in
my kitchen. I eat organic. I do yoga. I do landscaping. I’m highly
evolved. But Facebook… People keep putting up pictures that are
blowing my image.

And so, this is one of those pictures that I have forgotten about
and hope it would just go away. And as a friend of… It’s a
picture of my friend, Samesha, and I at a concert and Samesha is
holding a boozie, a semi automatic weapon in her left hand and I’m
holding a double barrel soft air shotgun to Sharon’s head. Sharon’s
in the middle and Sharon is like “Oh, my goodness” because that is
cute for some reason. I know that could be scary but let me put it
in context because the context will make it equally as scary,
right?

So, we were at a concert and I don’t know if the band sings, it
doesn’t matter but the name of the band kind of give you the spirit
of the event. And we were at the concert by a band called Public
Enemy, right? So, Public Enemy. So, we were fighting the power and
also, I have to apologize because in this picture, I’m also sagging
my pants. We kind of started that in the late 80′s and early 90′s
of the second instinct and I just…

We did not know the… Pandora’s box that we open because now
people… They are showing their boxers. They are showing their
trump stamps. It’s just crazy all the stuff that they are showing
that. And so… But that was it. And I thank God that I don’t have
to be who I used to be.

Anybody out there been around teenagers? Anyone been a teenager?
Attitude, tons of it. I remember as a kid growing up, my parents
would say, “Go to your room and fix your attitude. Go to your room
to learn how to act.” And I go to my room and I’d be there for a
while, and then I step out to the hallway and say, “To be or not to
be!”
Yeah, I spent a lot of time in my room. Attitude. That, obviously,
was not what they were talking about. But oftentimes, when we talk
about attitude, we don’t give a really good definition of what it
means to have an attitude or how to change an attitude. So here are
some things that I’ve learned. So in 19… I think it was in 1983,
I went to New York for the first time and on our… I was going to
NCWP convention. And so, this was like one of my first airplane
rides, and I was just so excited to take this trip.

And so, we’re approaching New York and the pilot gets on the loud
speaker and says, “If you look out your left side window, at 17,000
feet, you will see the Statue of Liberty.” And so, I look out of
the window and I don’t see the Statue of Liberty. But that’s OK,
because I know that we are going to come back. So on the way back,
I will be able to see.

So I go to New York, I had a great time at the convention, just
learn lots of things and meet lots of new folks and all sorts of
stuff. And on the way back, I make sure that I get a seat on the
plane so I can sit by the window, so this time, as we were leaving,
I could see the Statue of Liberty. And the pilot gets on the
loudspeaker, we are leaving and he says, “If you look out your
right side window, you’ll see the Statue of Liberty.”

And so, I look out my window and I don’t see the Statue of Liberty.
I have a bad attitude. OK. We’ll come back to this story in just a
second. So let’s talk about this attitude thing. What is this
attitude thing, and why is this important? All right?

So my father was my pastor. Growing up, church was a big part of
our lives. And I remember an instance where I would ask to borrow
the car from my father and it would be Friday night and I said,
“Dad, can I borrow the car?”

And because my dad loves me, what would my father say to my
request? He would say, “Yes.” And so, he would say yes and I would
say that my father had what kind of an attitude? A good or a
positive attitude. Right? And consequently, what kind of attitude
would my father say that I have? He would say that I also had a
good or a positive attitude. Now, I mentioned that my father was my
pastor. And so, on Sunday, we would go to church from 7:00 am for
Sunday school to about 11:30 pm at the end of night service.

We’d stop at 3:00 for chicken, not because we are black, but
because we thought chicken was delicious. So we went to church all
day. And I recall a particular time when one of my friends, my
friend Dexter, called and said, “Andre, we are going to go to the
movies, can you come pick me up?” Now, I know we have church all
day, but this was a special movie. It was “The Two Jakes,”
featuring Jack Nicholson. Don’t go see it.

At any rate, so I sheepishly walk into my dad and I say, “Dad, can
I use the car?” And what does my father say? “No. You know we have
church.” Yeah, I knew we have church but I thought it was worth a
chance. But I say my dad has what kind of an attitude? A bad or
negative attitude. And consequently, I respond to him and he would
say that I also have a bad or negative attitude.

So what is it that determines the attitude? Now, most popularly,
people will say that an attitude is some kind of an emotional
response. That an attitude is the way you interpret the emotional
environment to your pleasure or not. Rght? That’s what, typically,
people would say. What I like to offer you two ways to think about
an attitude.

First of all, when we talk about aeronautics, right? The study of
flight. There are two concepts that are extremely important to
understand. The first is how high things are from the ground is
called the what? Altitude. Now, altitude has a cousin, and the
cousin’s name is attitude. So altitude is how high you are from the
ground and attitude is the pitch at which a plane is directed. So
that’s the first concept. So it’s the direction that you lean to or
from something. So an attitude is the direction you lean.

Now, the second part of… A new way of thinking about an attitude
is the fact that, when I ask my father for the car, he said yes, I
had a good attitude. When my father said no, I had a bad attitude.
So what is the second part of the definition of an attitude? It is
whether you get what you want or not.

So the first part is a direction that you lean to something or away
from something according to your goal. When you get what you want,
when you reach your goal, you have a good or positive attitude.
When you don’t get what you want, you have a negative or bad
attitude, leaning to or from what your goal is. So all the time
that I was growing up and my parents said and teachers would say,
“Boy, you need to fix your attitude.”

What they were really saying to me was that I need to change my
goal. When you change your goal, you change your attitude. How many
times have you been in situations where you couldn’t change the
situation you were in? You couldn’t change your family. You
couldn’t change your job. You couldn’t change even your physical
body. The one thing that you can change, that changes your whole
outlook on life, is to change your goals.

Attitude: a Transcript

Andre Koen: … like “The Matrix” or there’s some others, “Terminator 2″. Or
there are some other movies that deal with this kind of stuff.
What’s the movie with Robin Williams and he dies?

Audience: Patch Adams?

Andre: “What Dreams May Come”, same story, same story. “The Matrix”, all
these others, same story. Love the story. All right.

[laughter]

Andre: So, what is motivation? What is motivation? What’s that?

Woman: Courage.

Andre: Courage, all right.

Man: Drive.

Andre: What’s that?

Man: Drive.

Andre: Drive. What else?

Woman: Aberration.

Andre: What’s that? Aberration. OK. It is all of those things, but more
importantly it’s the reason why. Motivation is the reason why we do
things.

There is the story of the car which just went over in St. Croix. It
drove off the thing into the water, and the police officer went in,
broke out the window and got the people out. What was his
motivation?

Audience: Saving lives.

Andre: Saving lives. What else? It was his job, right? It was his job to
help save lives. It was his motivation. Why do you go to work?

Man: Pay bills.

Andre: Pay bills. Some people don’t go to work. Why did your parents raise
you? What was their motivation? They were your caretakers. Why did
they invest time and energy?

Woman: To make a difference and to be a stepping stone in your growth.

Andre: To be a stepping stone, that was their motivation. All right. So,
it’s the reason why we do it. So, we’re going to talk about a
couple of forums motivation in just a bit, but I also want to talk
about-well, we’ll just go there.

Can you get those cards out from last week? And you want to grab
the cards, the black card, and if you need to share I’d appreciate
it.

First of all, in number two, what does that say in number two?

Audience: Free water.

Andre: Free water, food sold or free food, water sold. What makes the
difference between saying those two things?

Woman: Totally different.

Andre: They have totally different meanings.

Woman: Either one or the other is free. They both can’t be.

Andre: Either one or the other is free, and it’s impacted by your
paradigm. What’s a paradigm, again? We talked about this last week;
the way you see the world. The way you see the world is your
paradigm. So, both of those are correct, depending on your
paradigm, how you see the world.

So, let’s first just talk about this concept of attitude. Now, what
is an attitude? You know, people always have them. I’ve been told
to fix mine, or that I have a bad one. So, what is an attitude?

Man: How you project yourself?

Andre: How you project yourself. OK. What else? I know you guys have been
teenagers. Somebody told you that you had a bad attitude at some
point, right?

Man: How you react to stimulus?

Andre: How you react to stimulus. All right. Now, I want to say that when
I got hip to this concept, it really changed my life because it
made me think of the world in a different way. It was one of those
“ah ha” moments for me, because I was always confused about what
people were talking about when they said attitude. They said you
have a bad attitude or fix your attitude.

My parents told me-I may well have told this story but I love to
tell it. I remember my parents would say, “Go to your room until
you learn how to act”. I’d be in my room for awhile.

Then, I’d come out to the hall, and I’d say, “To be or not to be”
[laughter] and then they’d tell me to go back in my room, but I’m
made because they’re not Siskel or Ebert or Roderick or Roeper,
some film critics. But, that’s not what they meant. They didn’t
mean that.

So, let me tell you a couple of stories and hopefully this will get
to a new definition of attitude. As I’ve told you before, my father
was my pastor. He was the minister of my church.

In our church on Sunday we have church all day, relentless, all day
until 11 o’clock at night, from 7:50 in the morning, all day. You’d
have a Kentucky Fried Chicken break somewhere in midday, but it was
all day.

Friday night I’d ask my dad. I’d say, “Dad, can I borrow the car to
go to the movies with my friends?” My dad says what? Yes, he says
yes because he loves me. He says yes, and so my dad says I have
what kind of attitude?

Woman: Good.

Andre: A good attitude, and I say my dad has what kind of attitude?

Woman: Great.

Andre: A good attitude or even great attitude. Then, Sunday afternoon my
friends are going to the movie, and I say, “Dad, can I borrow the
car to go to the movies?” My dad says what?

Audience: No.

Andre: No, and I said my dad has what kind of an attitude?

Audience: Bad.

Andre: Bad attitude, and my father says I have what kind of attitude?

Audience: Bad.

Andre: A bad attitude. What determines an attitude?

Woman: Tradition.

Andre: What’s that?

Woman: Tradition.

Andre: Tradition.

Man: Appropriate time.

Andre: Appropriate time.

Woman: Someone else’s perception.

Andre: Someone else’s perception, OK.

When I was 13, I took my first plane rid to New York City. So I am
13 and I am flying with a bunch of people to New York. And my
family was at home, and I am around here with like, you know,
friends and this organization, and it was just really super.

And so, one of things that’s happening is that as we are flying to
New York City, the captain gets on the loudspeaker and he says:
“All right. We are at [17, 000] feet… if you look out your left
side window, you should see the Statue of Liberty.”

So I go to look out my window, and guess what? I can’t see the
Statue of Liberty. So I am like “no problem,” because, guess what,
I will see it on the way back.

So I on the way back, you know, I switch my seat and all that kind
of stuff. And the pilot comes along and just at the same spot he
says: “We are [17, 000] feet. It’s about… if you look at your
right side window, you will see the Statue of Liberty.” I look
outside, and I didn’t see the Statue of Liberty. Why?

Woman: Because you were on the right side of the plane now than on the
left.

Andre: I had a bad attitude. So we should write this down: “An attitude is
the direction you lean according to your goal.”

In aeronautics, an attitude is the pitch at what a plane leans -
that’s the attitude. We all know what the altitude is, right. An
altitude is what?

Woman: How high…

Andre: How high from where?

Woman: The ground.

Andre: The ground. Right. So an attitude is the direction you lean
according to your goal. So what determines an attitude?

Woman: Just how you view things.

Andre: What’s that?

Woman: How you view things.

Andre: How you view things isn’t the definition.

Man: What your goal is.

Andre: What your goal is. When I had a good attitude…. when I said my
father had a good attitude and he said I had a good attitude, we
had the what?

Woman: The same goal.

Andre: The same goal. We were leaning in the same what?

Woman: Direction.

Woman: Direction.

Andre: When we were leaning in opposite directions, I said he had what
kind of an attitude?

Woman: Bad attitude.

Andre: A bad attitude. Have you ever known somebody at work who had a bad
attitude?

Woman: -huh.

Andre: Yeah. Were they getting what their goal was?

Woman: No.

Andre: No. Because usually they are talking about being at some place
else; doing something else. And it’s so funny, when I encountered
those folks guess what I would tell them? Go do it. Because
otherwise they are going to have a bad what… attitude.

So when people were telling me as a teenager that I needed to
adjust or change my attitude, what were they really telling me?

Woman: Change your life.

Woman: Reassess your goals.

Andre: I need to change my goal. Right. I don’t know about you, but I’ve
had jobs that I couldn’t quit… I mean, you know, I could quit but
I would be destitute. But I didn’t want to quit, so I had to change
my attitude because my attitude was affecting what I am doing at
work and so I had to change what…. my goal.

Instead of going to work because of something I loved and enjoyed,
I started going to work because I was getting a paycheck. And I had
to remember that if I want to keep my paycheck, I got to have a
good what?

Woman: Attitude.

Andre: Attitude. All right… attitude. So that is the first concept, so
we will check that out.

If you look at picture three – which of those mules has a good
attitude?

Woman: They both look like… [mumble]

Andre: The first picture, second picture, third picture, fourth picture,
fifth picture and sixth.

Woman: Fifth and sixth.

Andre: Yeah, the fifth and sixth have a good attitude… and why?

Woman: [mumble]

Andre: Because they are getting what they want. Teenagers have good
attitudes when they are getting what they want. When they are not
getting what they want, it’s like having Pepi Le Pew in your house.
Pepi Le Pew is that little skunk you know…

Stop bad habits. What is a habit?

Woman: It’s something that you always do.

Andre: Something that you always do. What purpose does a habit serve?

Man: You don’t have to think about it.

Andre: You don’t have to think about it… you don’t have to think about
it.

So let’s look at the letter ‘A’. And can someone read those words
for me?

Woman: [reads] Yellow, black, blue, orange red, green, purple, yellow,
black, blue, orange, red, green, purple, yellow, black.

Andre: Would you say that was pretty easy?

Woman: Yes.

Andre: No? OK. I personally would say “it was relatively easy”.

[mumble]

Andre: Habits are designed to make your life easy – they really are. They
are designed to make your life easy. It’s called… you know there
are basically two properties of your brain. There is a cognitive
property and the associative property.

The associative properties are all those properties associated with
habits.

For example – I don’t know if this happened to you but it always
happens to me. You know I am driving and a big storm comes in,
right. And I am jamming too. I am like…[makes music sound]. I am
jamming; I have got people in the car, and people are talking and
being loud and all that kind of stuff. The storm rolls in… And
what’s the first thing I do?

Woman: Turn the radio down.

Andre: I tell people to be quite, right. I am like: “BE QUITE!” And then
what will I do?

Woman: Slow down.

Andre: I turn the music down. Now, I can drive but why did I have to turn
down my radio and tell people to be quite. Why am I doing all that?

Man: To concentrate.

Andre: So I can concentrate. And then the storm rolls out and what do I
do?

Woman: Turn the music up?

Andre: I turn the music back up, and I still people to be quite.
[laughter] So the cognitive property says – “I have to think about
this.” And my associative property says -”This is regular, normal,
for me. I don’t have to do this. Right. So I have it. It is a
pattern of one behavior that has become automatic, a pattern of
learned behavior that becomes automatic.

Does anybody know a smoker? The smoker is born with cigarettes
hanging out of their mouths? No. How do smokers become smokers?
They started smoking. They learned it. Now, what the exciting thing
about is this definition of a habit?

[mumble]

Andre: You can break them by what?

Woman: I am learning.

Andre: Unlearning or relearning. Now, it’s really funny because my Uncle
Rick was a smoker. Uncle Rick doesn’t smoke anymore. But you will
never find Uncle Rick without a toothpick in his mouth. Why is
that? Why is it the same with your Uncle Rick?

Woman: [Inaudible 17:18] in his mouth.

Andre: To replace what?

Woman: Cigarettes.

Andre: The cigarette habit. Part of what you know people do. They do
diets. They do these behavior changes and all this kind of stuff.
How many people have ever made a New Years’ Resolution?

How long did that New Years’ Resolution last? [laughter] Nine
months for you? Good. But for most of us, you know, 60 days is
probably the max. At least, I’ll talk for me. If I’m 21 and I’m
done. Why is that?

Man: We’re creatures of habit.

Andre: We’re creatures of habit. What else?

Man: We’re lazy.

Andre: We’re lazy. One of the things that is extremely important to
realize and this is funny. What’s in a hole that is three feet
deep?

Man: Space.

Andre: Nothing or it wouldn’t be a hole. Right? And the funny thing is,
you know, this is pothole season now. What do you find in a
pothole?

Audience: Water.

Andre: You found what? Water. Rocks. What else?

Woman: Damage.

Andre: Damage, what else?

Woman: Garbage.

Andre: Garbage. I mean you got all sorts of other crazy in a pothole. Now,
what is supposed to be in a pothole?

Woman: [mumble]

Andre: Asphalt, tar, concrete, but it’s not there. And why is it not
there?

Audience: [mumble]

Andre: Because there’s a hole. Now, this is something in terms of thinking
about habits that we have to start thinking differently about
ourselves, because these are large things. If there is a whole,
guess what? The universe will fill it with something if you don’t.

The potholes are filled up with all those other things because
what? People haven’t filled them with what they are supposed to be
filled with. Those New Years’ Resolutions typically don’t last
because we take away behavior but we don’t replace it with
something else.

Your Uncle Rick and my Uncle Rick understand that. So when he quit
smoking he picked up toothpicks. Well, we quit doing the bad thing,
we typically don’t pick up a good thing to balance it out. So then
we have an empty hole and what happens? We fall back into our
habits.

Has anybody ever heard somebody say that? I fell back into my
habits. Why? Because you left it open. We have to start filling
those things, habits.

So, when I was seven years old we had this thing called seven at
seven and seven at seven is that me and my brothers and sisters,
I’m the oldest, line up. We would line up for bed. And my mother
would check for three things.

She would check to see if we had washed behind our ears, brushed
our teeth and we had a big spoon of cod liver oil, seven at seven,
cod liver oil, every night because it is important for seven year
olds to be regular.

[laughs]

Andre: Who knew? Seven at seven. Every night, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom. Fast forward 30 years, I’m 37 years old and getting ready for
bed, what do I do? I brush my teeth. I wash behind my ears. And I
do not drink cod liver oil. [laughter]

Well, why do I do that now?

Woman: You grew up with it.

Andre: Because it was a habit I grew up with. It’s a learned behavior that
has become automatic. Before it was a habit what was it?

Woman: A routine?

Andre: It was a routine. It was a routine. So if you want to change your
habits, then you must start with your routines.

[Background noise]

Andre: So a routine is a cognitive set of behaviors that are scheduled.
Cognitive means to think about. There was this new place in town
when I was a teenager. I think I was actually 18. And this new
place opened up in town. It was the hottest spot. It was called
Applebee’s.

And me and my friend we went, my friend Dexter, we would go to
Applebee’s on every Thursday. That was our meeting. It didn’t
matter what was going on in our life, we were meeting at Applebee’s
on Thursday.

At that time I was a young man. As every young man did, then I had
the latest fashions at the time. I had the high top thing, that
went up like this. You know, it looked like a big eraser head. And
I had the, I don’t know if you know, Dwayne Wayne glasses. They
were sunglasses that flipped up like this. All of that.

I had sweater vests and I smoked a tobacco pipe. This was back when
you could smoke inside. So I had my tobacco pipe and my buddy and
I, his cousin was older than us. His cousin was a freshman in
college and we were… No, actually he was a sophomore in college.
He was two years older than us.

We were just graduating so we would hang out with him because he
was a frat guy and he was cool and all this kind of stuff. He
smoked a pipe. So we started smoking our pipes. The problem for me
was I could never remember my pipe. So we would get to Applebee
Thursday and we would have our root beer and our mozzarella sticks
and they’re just going: “Andre, where’s your pipe, man?”

“Dexter, I forgot.” Now it was really funny because Caesar our
friend from college, my best friend and older cousin, never forgot
his pipe. So we do this time and time again, and we meet for
holidays, years have past, and that kind of stuff, and I always
forgot my pipe. So it never became a what?

Audience: Habit.

Andre: Habit. But for Caesar it became a what?

Audience: Habit.

Andre: Habit. Because it was his?

Audience: Routine.

Andre: Routine. So if you want to change a habit, what do you start with?

Audience: Routine.

Andre: A routine. Studying can be a habit only if it’s part of your?

Audience: Routine.

Andre: Routine. Changing how you think about yourself can only become a
habit once it’s a part of your?

Audience: Routine.

Andre: Routine. And it’s really funny because I used to her people talk
about, you know, “Well we’re going to say affirmations about
ourselves and that’s going to make us feel better and blah blah
blah.” What they didn’t tell me was that if I make that part of my
routine, it will then become a habit, and then it will work.

But if I’m just saying these things, and it’s not a part of a
routine, and it’s not something that I’m thinking about, and it’s
not something that I schedule, it will never be a habit.

[pause]

If I walked up to Miss America, no, Tyra Banks, let’s use Tyra
Banks. Everybody knows who Tyra Banks is? If I walked up to Tyra
Banks and said, “Tyra, you are not attractive.”

Woman: Who is she?

Andre: She’s one of the supermodels. She’s like the new Oprah. America’s
most dramatic, whatever. What’s her show?

Audience: A talk show.

Andre: No, she’s got another one.

Woman: Oh, “America’s Next Top Model.”

Andre: “America’s Next Top Model.” So she’s one of those type people. If I
told her that she was not attractive, what would she tell me?

Woman: She’d laugh in your face.

Andre: She’d laugh in my face. She’d call me crazy. She’d probably have me
on her talk show. Why is that? Why would she…

Man: Everybody told her…

Woman: Everybody has always told her she’s pretty. She is good looking.

Andre: This is funny. Both of my grandmothers are from the South, but one
of my grandmothers is from the deep South, and she makes this stuff
called hot water cornbread. And I don’t know if you know about hot
water cornbread, but you need a cast iron skillet. Anybody’s
grandma has a cast iron skillet? What’s unique and special about a
cast iron skillet, for those who have one?

Woman: The way they cook.

Andre: The way they cook. What else? It’s hard, it’s heavy. What else?

Woman: The flavor…

Andre: Yes, what about the flavor?

Woman: The taste, the flavoring, the seasoning.

Andre: Yes, anything you cook in that will taste like the flavoring. Now
the thing about it is, it’s much like a wok, because I messed up a
wok once. I don’t know if you know, but you’re not supposed to wash
a wok. But I was in there soaping, scrubbing all in the wok. Two
days later the wok what?

Woman: Rusted?

Andre: It rusted out, right. What’s wrong with this? You’re not supposed
to wash a wok, that’s a warning. The other thing you’re not
supposed to do is you’re not supposed to wash a cast iron skillet.
My grandmother about broke my neck, because you rub off all the
flavoring. That’s what she used to call it. I used to call it other
stuff and she’d go like “That’s flavoring, baby.”

So you can cook this hot water cornbread in this cast iron skillet.
But you know what? One time I tried to scramble some eggs in the
cast iron skillet. It didn’t go so well. I think I burnt more egg
than I cooked. Because it got all stuck in the crevices, and all
that kind of stuff, blah, blah, blah.

Now, I invited my grandmother over to my house for breakfast. And I
have those saucepans with the Teflon, so I’m like doing this with
pancakes, whoo, all sorts of stuff, and I’m cooking her eggs. Now
what’s the great thing about Teflon?

Man: No stick.

Andre: No stick. So I’m just saucing stuff, I look magic. And Grandma
asked me to cook some hot water cornbread. And I said, “I can’t
Grandma, because I don’t have a cast iron skillet.”

Now the interesting thing about the cast iron skillet versus the
Teflon is that they’re both good for what they’re good for. If you
want stuff to stick, you want the flavor to stick, you use your
cast iron skillet. If you don’t want anything, you do the Teflon.

A belief is very much the same way. A belief is what you agree to,
that is a belief.

If I told Tyra Banks that she wasn’t attractive and she held on to
that, that would become her truth and she would what?

Woman: Believe it.

Andre: Believe it. There are things that you held on to, that somebody
else gave you, and you what?

Audience: Believe it.

Andre: Believe it. And it becomes true for you. The flip side can also
happen, that what? If you stop believing some of that stuff, then
you can have some other truths. So belief is something that you
agree to.

What are expectations?

Man: Results.

Andre: Results.

Woman: Things that are expected.

Andre: Things that are expected of you. What else?

Woman: standards.

Andre: Standards. Expectations are the standards, the level of thought
that you have.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had – I know that I keep
talking about relationship stuff like this, but I’ve had female
friends that, no matter what the guy’s name is, it’s the same guy.
Do you get what I’m saying?

Audience: Yes.

Andre: The guy will have a different name, but he’d act like the guy
before him. He’s got the same bad habits as the guy before him. He
doesn’t treat her like he supposed to, just like the guy before
him. Right?

Part of it is that we collect what we expect! If I think I’m not
good, then what am I going to collect?

Audience: No good.

Andre: No good! Right? And it’s really funny because it sneaks up on us.
It’s not like it just happens overnight, but it sneaks up on us.

Have you ever rented an apartment, and there was something wrong in
the apartment, and you said, “You know what? I’m going to get that
fixed.” And then a month goes by, and you go, “You know what? I’m
going to get that fixed.” And you’re at the end of the lease and
signing out, and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, I was supposed to get that
fixed!”

Has anybody experienced something like that? Yeah. What happened?
What happened?

Man: I was going to say you procrastinated when you said…

Andre: Oh, you think it’s procrastination? Just a second.

Woman: You forgot?

Woman: You lost your dream [mumble].

Man: You expected it not to work?

Andre: Yeah, it became a part of your everyday life. It wasn’t something
you – you didn’t have an expectation for it. It just became
regular.

My grandmother used to say this all the time – “You can marry a
poor man as much as you can a rich man.” She wasn’t talking to me,
particularly.

Audience: [laughter]

Andre: She wasn’t that liberal! But, yes, you rise and fall to your
expectations. So one of the lies that often gets told to us is that
– and people say this a lot – they will say, “I procrastinated.”
Have you ever heard somebody say that? “I’m sorry. I didn’t get
that done because I procrastinated.” Has anybody ever heard
somebody say that? You’ve never heard anybody procrastinated?

Audience: [Muffled] [Affirmative]

Andre: That is a lie! There is no such thing as procrastination. There are
only choices. When people procrastinate, what have they really
done?

Woman: Made a choice…

Andre: They made a choice to do something else. And then they blame it on
what?

Woman: Procrastination.

Andre: One of the things that I’m going to get you to start doing is to
tell the truth on yourself. People say, “Well, I tried.” No, you
didn’t try. Trying is for losers. It’s either do or do not. That’s
what Yoda said.

Audience: [laughter]

Andre: And I’m going to believe the little green man because, in that last
movie, it was bad. It was [acting out a movie scene].

Audience: [laughter]

Andre: I didn’t know that little dude could move like that. Did you? This
is the first day of the rest of your life. Crying… Luke.

Audience: [laughter]

Andre: And why are the Skywalkers crybabies? Have you ever noticed that?
Darth Vader was a crybaby. Luke Skywalker was a crybaby. Princess
Leia was a crybaby.

Woman: They’re not really crybabies. It’s more like whiney babies.

Andre: Yeah, whiney babies. [In high-pitched voice] “Oh, Obi Wan won’t let
me use my superhuman powers!” You know, it’s – I love Star Wars -
the first ones; but the last ones, I could have just yanked the
Skywalker kid.

Anyway, all right, so there is no such thing as procrastination.
And why do you think that I’m sharing that with you. Why am I so
adamant about not talking about procrastination?

Man: You’re making the choice when you’re doing it.

Woman: You understand it.

Andre: It makes you realize that you’ve been making the choice. It starts
to help you get into your cognitive thinking. This is because when
you just said, “Well, I just procrastinated,” that takes away the
responsibility of the thing, the choices that you make.

We constantly make choices. We have tons of choices. All of the
time, they’re bombarding us. Some of them are conscious choices,
and some of them are unconscious choices. If you want to be
successful, you have to start making more cognitive, conscious
choices that lead you in the direction of your vision and goals.
All right?

So you paper is going to be designed to do that – to lead you in
the direction of your visions and goals. And no more
procrastination. It’s about choices. We make choices. All right?

Man: Let’s see, there was one more thing I wanted to do.

Andre: Oh, so on your card, there is a picture of a spaceship, and there
are two planets. All right – a spaceship and two planets. First of
all, which of these two planets would the spaceship be drawn to?

Woman: The bigger one.

Andre: The bigger one. And why is that?

Man: Gravitational field.

Andre: Gravitational field, gravitational pull! What is gravity?

Woman: Something that holds us down.

Andre: It’s the thing that pulls, right? And the basic way to sum that up
is that the bigger the mass – what?

Woman: The greater the pull.

Andre: … The greater the pull. And the lesser the mass – what?

Woman: The less…

Andre: … The lesser the pull. All right, so let’s say that this is the
big planet. Let’s write in there, “Old Behavior.” And let’s write
in this little planet, “New Behavior.”

Now I want you to think about your New Year’s resolution. Why is it
difficult to make that change?

Man: You’re drawn to your old behavior.

Andre: Why are you drawn to your old behavior? Yes, correct! Why are you
drawn to your old behavior?

Woman: Because it’s the easiest way.

Andre: Because that’s what you’re used to. It’s that cave. It’s the
shadow. It’s what you know.

Woman: It’s the habit.

Andre: It’s the habit. And what? Talk to me.

Man: You’re used to it.

Andre: It’s easier. You’re used to it. But why is it easier? We just
talked about the gravitational – what?

Man: It’s the bigger part of your life.

Andre: It’s a bigger part of your life! It has a stronger pull. Now, if
you want to be the master of your own fate, the creator of your
destiny, can you change the direction of this ship without touching
this ship? Tell me how…

Man: Mythology is a bigger part of your life.

Andre: You got to make this big. And, how do you make this big? You change
your attitudes. You change your habits. You change your
expectations. You change your routines. And guess what? You don’t
have to start trying to be different. And guess what’s going to
happen?

Woman: You will be different.

Andre: You will be different. You don’t have to try to walk out the
cave… and guess what? You are going to be out the cave. You are
going to see things differently. You are going to see the sun for
the sun, right. That stuff is going to be crystal clear for you.

Now, the last point. There is an airplane on your [card]. And let’s
say this is north. Then this would be…?

Woman: East.

Andre: East? And this would be west… so this is north. So, I have my
plane on automatic pilot and it is set north. And I get a call. The
tower says: “There is a storm in the north. You need to go east.”
So I grab a hold of the steering wheel, and I start going east.

And then I notice that, you know, the tower says, “Well, you are
clear from the storm,” or whatever, so I let go of the steering
wheel and what happens to the plane?

Man: [mumble]

Andre: When I started out I had it on automatic pilot. I am going north -
I am on automatic pilot. I grab the steering wheel and I start
going east. The tower tells me “you are fine”. I let go of the
steering wheel and what happens to the plane?

Woman: It continues going straight east.

Andre: It starts going north again. Now the interesting thing is people
say: “I can act differently”. I remember I had… my friend Dexter
and I got into a lot of trouble, right. So it’s our freshman year
in college. I am doing this tour with our college choir and we
start this tour in Cincinnati. Now, I lived in Dayton, which is
about 45 minutes away from the Cincinnati.

And we met these girls in Cincinnati. Again, I am from Dayton and I
am on one of those college tours. But for some reason, and, I don’t
know what possessed me, I had a New York accent when I was a
freshman in college. [laughter] I am from Dayton, Ohio, with a New
York accent. I don’t really know what a New York accent sounds
like, right.

But I meet this girls and l am like: “Yo girl! What up? How you
doing? And everything, you know. She loved it… loved the accent.
And she couldn’t help it because of the hair and the mustache. But
she loved it.

What’s the problem with that?

Woman: It was not you.

Andre: It wasn’t me, right. Every time we got together my accent got
worse. But only was my accent bad, I had to pull my buddy in to
back up. So he had a bad New York accent too.

So you had these two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, talking to these
two girls from Cincinnati, Ohio, and these girls think that we are
half Haitian. How long do you think that relationship is going to
last?

Woman: Till the third day.

Andre: Not very long… perhaps, till the third day. And I don’t even
remember if we made it that long. Because I could act differently,
but ultimately what’s going to happen when I stop acting?

Woman: You are back to normal.

Andre: I am going to go back to my regular self. Can I change the
direction of my life without touching my steering wheel?

Woman: No.

[mumble]

Andre: Adjust my autopilot? How do I adjust my autopilot?

Woman: Take the controls, run it…

Woman: By rehab.

Andre: I have to rehab my behaviors. And once I do that, again, I don’t
have to start acting different. And the funny thing is people keep
saying, “Andre! Well do…. I live in the situation where the
people are not helping me out. They are not benefiting me. They are
doing their own thing. Guess what?

You don’t have to say anything to those people. You don’t have to
do anything to those people. You just keep being… you aren’t
changing who you are because then they have decisions to make.

That they will even get in the water, or will they will what?

Woman: Get out.

Andre: Get out. And you don’t have to make any kind of decision, but to
keep doing and living the life that you want to live. Rehab your
own behaviors.

My grandmother used to say… I have met this other man, said he’s
got tons of money. And my grandma did get nothing. But my
grandmother used to say, “Andre, the only thing you run are your
shoes.” What was she saying when she said that?

Woman: The only decisions you can make are own and not other peoples.

Andre: Who I am responsible for?

Woman: You.

Andre: Me. Because I was a bossy little kid, you know: “Lets do this. We
are going to play this. We are going to go over here.” Right. But
the only person I could run is me. The only person that I have
control over is me.

And Dr. William Glasser said: “The only thing….” He has thing
called the “Choice Theory”. We will talk about this later. Well,
the Choice Theory says that “people do what they want when they
want”. And he got paid millions for that. That’s a crime. That’s
cheating. Everybody knows that, right?

I thank you for hanging out with me in lieu of another break. And
so as a reward, I think that we should depart just a little bit
early. Does anyone else feel that way?

Man: [mumble]

[laughter]

Andre: OK. I did have the impact of that, but… So there are a couple of
things that I want you take home for homework, and bring them in.
And I will pass those things out tonight.

One is: Relationship to your visions of goals paper. The other is:
Dealing with motivations. More of this motivation stuff that we
will talk about at the academic [inaudible 47:08] next week, in
class. Go online, but don’t worry about online.

All right. I have to get caught up and make sure that all that
stuff is ready for you. And I will correct all of the orange
crossword puzzle pieces. And I will make sure that the contract is
copied for you next week. All right.

Oh! So let me pass those things out.

[random talking]

Woman: I thought we didn’t have…

Woman: Good plan. I am in too.

Woman: Andre? So if the online things are not relevant…. is it with our
choice?

Andre: Not yet. Because I have to get caught up on the…

Woman: Didn’t you want this?

Andre: Yes, I will take those. If folks have them, l I will take them.
This is how I measure class participation.

Woman: And what is…