and former television host.

As a motivational speaker, he uses a catch phrase,

"It's possible."

And encourages people to chase their dreams.

He was the host of the Les Brown Show.

He's Les Brown and here are his top 10 rules for success.

(rocket blastoff)

- I do a lot of training for many corporations

and I conduct sales seminars and I've heard all kind of guys

doing techniques and training people techniques

of how to close sales and how to work within

and begin to control the sale and how to ask for the close.

Let me share something with you.

You can learn all the techniques in the world.

If you don't believe in yourself,

it won't happen for you.

I learned all of it.

That's why I do a training called Focus on the Seller.

You've got to focus on you and as you convince you,

as you sell yourself every day, every day, every day,

you will begin to see a difference in the things

that you're doing.

Selling yourself on your ability to perform a job,

to achieve a certain objective, telling yourself every day,

"Here I go again and I got what it takes."

"This is my day and nothing out here is going to stop me."

It's necessary that you be flexible.

That you are always thinking

of how can I improve this better.

This is a customer-driven economy.

It's necessary for you to always explore various ways

in which you can improve the quality of service

that you're providing for the people in your organization.

I remember something a major company had talked about,

the extra value service they were providing

for their customers.

And the lady who had the news conference

summarized it this way.

She said "It's not our intention to satisfy our customers

"or to please our customers.

"Our intention is to amaze them."

It's necessary if you're going to compete today

that you look for ways to amaze your customers

by being one of those individuals that

keep your commitments, that keep your word,

that's relentless.

It's necessary as you work with the people

that you bring into your organization

that they see that you are a good example of a person

to work with because you model integrity, and determination,

and ambition, and truth and honesty

in the way in which you conduct business.

The other thing is take full responsibility for your life.

Accept where you are and the responsibility

that you're going to take yourself where you want to go.

Someone said we have two primary choices in life.

We can either accept conditions as they exist,

or we can take the responsibility to change them.

See a lot of people want to exempt themselves

from taking responsibility.

All they want to do is talk about the problem.

Every time you see them, they'll tell you their story

over and over and over and over again.

No. No.

You want to take responsibility for your life.

I got me here.

I can get me out of this.

And I'm getting out.

I'm not going to be a volunteer victim.

George Bernard Shaw said there are two kinds

of people in life: those that make things happen,

those that watch things happen, and those

that don't know what happened.

And he said the people that get along in this life

look around for the circumstances that they want

and if they can't find 'em, they make 'em.

They create 'em.

So part of beginning to get unstuck,

you've got to decide that the behavior pattern

that you have adopted doesn't work for you.

You've got to change your strategies

and changing your strategy means reinventing your life.

Recreating you and you have the power to do that.

You can decide that you're going to change,

that you're not going to be a wimp.

You can decide that you're going to stand up to life.

You can decide that I'm going to live each day

as if it were my last.

You have the power to make that decision.

You can decide, "I'm going to work on myself

"and develop myself.

"I'm going to empower me."

And all of these things that are happening to me right now,

they're just temporary inconveniences.

They're not stronger than I am.

I'm in charge here.

Overcoming the negative conversation, that inner dialogue

that's going on all the time, all the time.

Even when you don't want it to be there.

You can't stop yourself right now from thinking.

You can't do it. It's going on.

And so learning how to empower yourself,

part of doing that is standing up to yourself.

You've got to stand up inside yourself sometimes

and say, "Shut up."

You've got to do this.

I was going to give a presentation, and this voice

inside of me saying, "You can't do this.

"You don't have everything it takes."

I said, "Shut up."

I'm behind on my bills and you telling me what I can't do.

I have got to do it.

You get scared sometimes.

Your mind will go blank on you.

Some people you will allow to unnerve you.

And you wonder, "What's wrong with me, I'm not crazy."

That's why you've got to learn to make a conscious,

deliberate, determined effort to stand up inside yourself.

Working on yourself, watching that inner dialogue,

it will determine the quality of your life.

Next thing is that you've got

to activate the thinker in you.

Don't allow your emotions to control you.

We are emotional, but you want to begin

to discipline your emotion.

If you don't discipline and contain your emotions,

they will use you.

Your mind goes on automatic, just like a garden.

You know I loved reading the book called

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen.

He uses the analogy of the mind being like a garden.

You know weeds don't have to have any encouragement to grow.

You don't have to water them.

They don't have to get sunshine.

They don't have to have fertile ground.

They will grow through the cracks of a sidewalk.

Am I right?

- [Audience] Yeah.

- But if you want to grow orchids or roses or any kind

of exotic flowers, there are special processes

and procedures you must go through.

By the same token, you don't have to foss yourself

or motivate yourself to think negatively, to be depressed,

to hate somebody, to want revenge,

to want to get back at somebody, to beat yourself up

over the head, to feel loaded with guilt.

You don't have to make any effort to do that.

Your mind is on automatic.

It will do that by itself.

But if you want to begin to move

into your own personal greatness,

if you want to begin to really

enjoy a happy successful healthy life,

you've got to be willing to go against the tide.

You've got to be willing to harness your will.

And say, "In spite of this, I'm in control here.

"I'm not going to let this get me down.

"I'm not going to let this destroy me.

"I'm coming back and I'll be stronger and better

"because of it."

You have got to make a declaration

that this is what you stand for.

You're standing up for your dreams.

You're standing up for peace of mind.

You're standing up for health.

You want it and you're going to go all out to have it.

It's not going to be easy.

When you want a change, it's not easy.

If it were in fact easy, everybody would do it.

But if you're serious, you'll go all out.

I don't care how good you are,

I don't care how talented you are,

I don't care how much you work on yourself,

there's some times when things aren't going to go right.

They just are not going to go right.

There are times when anything that can happen will happen.

Murphy's Law will be knocking at your door.

Why? I don't know why.

That's called life.

And you have to deal with it.

Sometimes your life will be in a slump.

Just like sports.

Some of the best shooters can't hit baskets

different times in games.

They get in a slump.

Do they sit on the sideline and say,

"You know I just didn't hit a basket today."

No.

They continue to execute.

I suggest to you that if you are facing a challenge,

don't stop.

Stay busy. Work your plan.

Continue to do those things that you know that work for you

after you have evaluated yourself from the situation.

Continue to move.

Stay busy, stay busy, stay busy.

I was working on a job and I came home one day.

I was married at the time and I told my former wife,

"That guy Burt I work for is stupid."

She said, "If he's so stupid, why does

he sign your paycheck?"

Now you see why I divorced her, right.

(audience laughing)

I couldn't stand her.

That night I could not sleep well.

Here was a guy that was controlling my life.

I was going through all kind of changes

because this man controlled my paycheck.

And it was Carlisle who said, "Truth crushed to earth

"shall rise again."

Winston Churchill said, "The truth is incontrovertible.

"Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it

"but at the end there it is."

And we know Scripture that says, "Ye shall know the truth

"and the truth shall set you free."

And the truth that I had to come to grips with

that I wasn't in charge of my destiny.

The truth was that I wasn't giving all that I had.

The truth was that there are some things that I wanted to do

but I didn't have the courage to act on those things.

And the truth was that Burt Childs was a blessing to me.

He made life so miserable for me,

I had to start looking at my life differently.

I started going to work earlier.

I started being the last one to leave there.

I started working harder than anybody else.

The other guys could not, "Why would you work so hard, Les?"

I said, "I'm not working for them."

I had been cheating Burt, I thought.

I'd been cheating myself and my family.

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing,

do it with everything that you have.

Develop the habit of giving more than what you're paid for.

Develop the habit of setting standards

that others will be measured by.

Someone said, "Do not go where the path may lead,

"but go where there's no path and leave a trail."

In the process of working on your dreams,

you are going to incur a lot of disappointment,

a lot of failure, a lot of pain, a lot of setbacks,

a lot of defeats.

But in the process of doing that, you will discover

some things about yourself that you don't know right now.