Weekly Motivation by Ben Lionel Scott - YOU NEED TO KEEP GRINDING

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Become a Member for early access, ad-free listening, video versions and exclusive content: https://benlionelscott.com/subscribe — You can't always control the environment you're in. But you can always control the level of effort you put in. Spoken by: Eric Thomas instagram.com/etthehiphoppreacher Ray Lewis instagram.com/raylewis David Goggins instagram.com/davidgoggins Ed Mylett instagram.com/edmylett Music: Audiomachine - Ninurta Audiomachine twitter.com/audiomachine Hans Zimmer - Flight Hans Zimmer instagram.com/hanszimmer

You don't have to be born in a certain neighborhood. You don't have to be born in a certain family. You don't have to have a certain socioeconomic status. It only takes one thing to get what you see other people have that you want. And it's called effort. Effort, nobody can judge effort. Because effort is between you and you. Effort ain't got nothing to do with nobody else.

Effort is isolated. The reason why effort is isolated because nobody is. can dictate it. Effort is 100% in the mind. No coach, no player, nobody else can make you run to the ball. Nobody else can make you finish your tackle. Nobody else can do it. That's why it's the most isolated things in this earth right now, it's effort. There's so much in you that you have not unlocked that you walk around. You're like, God, I feel like I'm missing son. Yeah, because it's about 75% of you is still fucking in there, still chained up. Because you just didn't want to find your willpower, didn't want to find your soul, your will, your heart, your determination, your guts, your courage.

You find it in the suck, and you find it repeatedly in the suck, to the point where you know exactly who you are. I hear it all the time. Gagas has a great message, but you don't want to end up like him. His body's all fucked up. You're not afraid of having the f*** up body. You're afraid of the fucking effort. See, what you understand is this. We're all being tested.

And that road is success. It's a bumpy-ass road. Has potholes. Nails. Detourges. A lot of you are going to die with a nicely preserved body. No plates. No bad knees.

No bruises, no scars. You're also an empty resume. Don't be afraid to get scars. The scars show your willingness to get to the other side. They show your failures. They show your awareness to start from scratch. They show what you're willing to do to go to the dars. distance to see what you're careful of.

Kobe Bryant says his entire life playing ball. He spent all his money, all his time, all his energy, all his capital, all his effort, everything in mastering what other people never mastered. You have to be unstoppable and be the top 1% in your industry and put yourself in that bracket where you're so good at what you do when you run into somebody, you make him look like an amateur. If you want to build something big, you're going to have to catch on fire. You're not going to be casual and build this big life. You're going to have to get psycho.

You're gonna have to become insane. You're gonna have to get crazy. You're gonna have to get obsessed if you want to build that lifestyle in that life. You gotta quit negotiating the price you're paying. Aren't you doing that all the time? It's too much. It costs this.

I'm losing this time. I got this, this sacrifice. Everyone around you, so the price is too big. The price is too big. You have to stop negotiating the price. That's what poor people do. See, when I was poor and I'd walk in the store, everything was not what I wanted.

It was what's it cost. What's the price tag? What's the price tag? What's the price tag? I was always flipping price tags over. It's costing you, the time, the effort, the energy, the pain, the money. You consume yourself with the cost. At some point, you have to negotiate and say, my will to win is not for sale.

I may not be the fastest, the smartest, but I'm not quitting. That is a freeing thing. A total commitment. People think, man, when you make a total commitment, you lose all freedom, completely backwards. A total commitment to something is total and complete freedom. Because now you just execute. When you spend your time negotiating the price all the time, it's a diversion, it's a distract. It's a poverty mindset.

will to win cannot be for sale and here's the truth most people's will is for sale eventually they'll relent with enough failure enough setbacks enough hurt eventually they just go nah I surrender they don't say it that way they say it like ah it just wasn't for me timing wasn't right and they relent so they didn't have the guts to keep going and that is the difference between winners and losers winners look at the results being produced losers concern themselves with how much time they were spending. They think that there's some sort of an award for talking about how tired they are and how exhausted they are to have tired. No shit. That's a prerequisite success. Every single thing that has ever been built. Every single thing that is worth mentioning

in the history of earth was built by people who were tired. Every single thing. You're supposed to be tired. Can you execute when you're tired? That's the question that you need to be answering. 90% of winning in lights is being a good person and having the skills to do it. The last 10% is a dog fight. That 10% at the top is a dog fight. It's a slug fest. It's inches. It's millimeters to win. It's a tactic. It's a strategy. It's the extra hour. It's the one more rep at the gym. The one more phone call. You start fighting for those inches. You start getting addicted to those inches. Those millimeters, that's the separator. And you stack up enough for those over time. You're going to win. There are things that come to workers that don't come to people who just wish. I mean, I have money. I mean, I have

connections with the one thing I do have, is I have the ability to get up and work. It wouldn't be fair if just anybody and everybody could just get a degree and not have to work. Because guess what it would mean? It would mean your degree is worth. Nothing.

If other people didn't have to work hard, didn't have to sweat, didn't have to stay up all night, didn't have to do research, didn't have to go to the library, didn't have to sacrifice sleep, didn't have to make sacrifices in life. If everybody just threw out degrees, they wouldn't be worth anything. And there are people who say, I want to do what you do,

I say you don't. You want what I have, but you don't want to do what I do. You just think you don't go through nothing, you go straight to the top, patiently endure. Your problem is you don't know how to patiently endure. You want the reward that comes with being patient, but you ain't patient. No will, no reward. I had to fight for this. I had to wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning for this. I had to get multiple degrees of this.

I had to go through stuff in my personal life for this. Guess what? I was willing to pay the price. Everything I've been through, it was worth it. So if you want the rewards, go through the work. Ain't nobody gonna hand you nothing. Anybody going to hand you no championship. Anybody going to hand you no title.

It's your dream. If you wanted to happen, get your butt up and make it happen. If you wanted to have it, rise and grind. You've been given the freedom of choice, and you can choose. If you want something that you've never had before, you have to do something that you've never done before. If you're going to be successful, if you're going to make it happen. If you really want the reward,

want the reward, put in the work, put in the reps. It might take 10 reps, 20 reps, 100 reps, it might take 1,000, it may take 10,000. Who cares? Just put in the rep, put in the rep, put in the rep, and keep putting in the rep, and after you keep putting the rest, put in some more rep, then give me another rep, give me a rep, give me a rep, give me a rep. If you put it in the reps, and you put it in the reps in the right way, and you put in enough reps, and you make the sacrifices, you will wake up one day, and that rep will turn into a reward. I'm I don't care what's going on around you. What kind of day it is, if it's raining, if it's sunny, if it's snow,

because it's not what happens around you that determines your success. It's what happens inside you. Don't cry about it. Don't give up. Don't trip. Just make the adjustment. You can't control the elements. You spending so much time on what you can control that you ain't got time for the stuff

that you can't control. What you can control is putting your gym shoes on and going for a run. What you can control is what you get from the grocery store. What you can control is what time you go to bed. What you can control is what time you wake up. What you can control is what you watch on TV. What you can control is how you use your schedule. What you can control, you can control.

And that's what I want you to focus on. And there are those of you and because of what you've been through, you are quitting, you're giving up, you are surrendering. EIA had a meltdown in class. I said you might have a couple more before success. It's your part of the game. You can't be successful without some meltouts. Struggle for another year and a half and be three for the rest of your life.

Or you can say, I'm tired of struggling and stop struggle and struggle for the next 20-30 years. Don't you run from your calling. Don't you run from your Kip? Don't you run from the struggle. That struggle is meant to make you strong. Every single day you wake up, I'll press toward tomorrow. Every day when you wake up, you strive for that. I don't care what today looks like.

Don't be talking about what didn't work yesterday or the day before I. I don't care about that. I forget those things which are behind. And I press. I press. Press past it. Come on, press past, stop whining and crying and give it up. Press past it.

It's going to hurt. Yes. Ask any mother that's had a child. It's probably feel like they're going to die. But guess what? They get through it. And on the other side, when that child comes up, they forget all about the pain.