All joking (or nonjoking) aside about his legal troubles from a decade past, let’s be clear: Ray Lewis is a better motivational speaker than you. Watch the video above and tell me you didn’t stand up and run through a brick wall. People like Tony Robbins eschew the “motivational speaker” label, and I suppose that’s because some public figures have conferred a tinge of sleaziness on it. For some reason, certain motivational speakers don’t have our trust. However, I like listening to people like Ray Lewis, Tony Robbins and Gary Vaynerchuk. If you hear truth in their powerfully delivered messages, you may be motivated to clear your head and achieve something greater than you ever thought possible.

Note:
1. Ray’s speech is short. It’s not ten minutes of rah-rah. He speaks for a bit longer than a minute and thirty seconds.
2. He didn’t have to curse to make his point. I like cursing, but it is not necessary to be effective.
3. He is speaking to basketball players; he’s a football player. Nevertheless, his message carries across different sports and, for me, even applies to business.
4. His opening sentences cleared their heads. Those young men may have been nervous before this game. He told them to forget everything else, consider that there may be no tomorrow, and asked them what that would mean for today.
5. He then made them believe that, facing a tomorrow that wouldn’t exist, they would actually think about the man beside them and not themselves. TEAMWORK. I thought it was brilliant.

p.s. Stanford won the game, and went on to win the NIT Championship.