My Opa and my Oma – you were there for me. Your love and care were infinite and every memory is an unbelievable treasure in my life. I miss you and I will keep missing you until the day when we are reunited. I love you!
All my fans and followers, who send me countless messages of love every day and motivate me to inspire and give more.
My friend Wolfram, who has always been there for me and always manages to tell it like it is without me taking it personally. I am very happy to have you, my friend!
My bro Jad, who lit the spark that made me write this book.
My best friend Natalia, who supplies me with lunch and dinner, without whom I’d have forgotten to eat while I was writing this book, and I am sharing so many incredible fun and lovely moments with. And also big thank you for creating this amazing design for this book.
My buddy Mario, whose advice is filled with lots of energy and awareness and who read through this book with eagle eyes.
My great friend Liz, who never lets me down and is always there for me.
My beloved dog Luna, who has accompanied me for eighteen years through thick and thin and gives me so much love.
Myself: Thanks Bastian, that you didn’t give up back then.
I thank all the people that I have encountered in my life. I was able to learn something from all of you and without other people it would be a damned lonely place on this planet.
So let’s live together with our life’s goal to respect the lives of others and our planet, and to love and make it better!
My online coaching continues on where this book leaves off …
Get yourself a voucher with a value of twenty-five euros for your online coaching session on the topic of
– Money
– Body
– SuperMe
Voucher Code: YottaBible23
Redeemable at www.yotta.university
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I was at rock bottom. Living in dirt.
On the streets.
Fat. Sad. Broke.
I thought about how to kill myself,
with the least amount of pain,
but guaranteed to work.
I just wanted to die, damn it.
I didn’t want to go on.
It was over, I was over, emotionally,
psychologically, physically.
Now I’ve got it all.
My life is like a dream.
I’m famous, rich, healthy
and happy as a pig in shit.
I make my dreams come true
and enjoy my life in California.
WHAT HAPPENED?
WHAT CHANGED THE LOSER
TO WINNER?
WHAT MADE MY SADNESS AND
HOPELESSNESS TURN INTO
HAPPINESS AND OPTIMISM?
HOW DID I GO FROM WANTING
TO DIE TO LIVING THE LIFE?
HOW DID I MAKE ALL OF MY
DREAMS COME TRUE?
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO
TO ACHIEVE ALL OF THIS?
The answers are in this book.
I describe my path to the top, from homeless guy to superstar with his own TV show, from self-hating fat to health and self-love, from the shadows of life to the sunny side of Los Angeles.
My name is Bastian Yotta, and I’ve got something to say to you! Before we begin, there are a couple of rules on how to read this book.
There are three types of people:
Losers are not people who make mistakes, they are people who don’t do anything, who don’t even try. Imagine a football game. The quarterback is running and running, and keeps on passing, but doesn’t make a touchdown. He isn’t a loser, it’s only a question of time before he’s successful, and every time he tries he gets better and gets closer to hitting his target.
The other guy sits on the field and says: Football is stupid, it’s a waste of time, I’ve never won and anyway my knee hurts. That’s the loser!
We laugh at this loser, but unfortunately most people are like him! Many don’t do anything – out of fear of making a mistake or not having any success. Every day they find a new excuse or make up a new alibi. That’s the loser.
He’s out there. He keeps trying. He gets better and better. He’s bigger than his problems and doesn’t make excuses, he finds solutions. He gives his all. Every time. One day he’ll be successful - the quicker he learns from his mistakes, the faster it comes. The winner doesn’t fail, he discovers what doesn’t work and tries another way, until he has reached his goal.
I would like to, but how? A baby might not be motivated to get up and walk, someone has to show him how to walk. You have chosen me to show you how, and I won’t let you down.
Once you’ve read this book, you will know what you need to reach your goals. So you, therefore, belong to group 1 or group 2. Your actions will make the difference!
I will give you the tools and explain how winning works. What you do with this is your decision.
When I spoke to publishers about my book, I was told I should deliver at least one hundred and fourty pages. I decided I would write a book of quality, not of quantity.
The publishers said I should just add a bit of blablabla and a few embellishments here and there.
I said: Auf Wiedersehen, bye-bye, don’t call us, we’ll call you.
It took a while, but I found the right publisher.
I’ll write this book the way I want to, and no one’s going to tell me otherwise.
I respect your time. You have a lot going on. Career, family, hobbies. I want to impart my knowledge to you as concisely as possible.
Here goes:
Every sentence has an impact and a meaning. Focus! Skimming through this book won’t work. It might be the one sentence that changes your life – don’t miss it!
Write down the “aha” moments, make a note in your cell phone. Whether it’s a sentence or just one word, you must bring this book to life by bringing it into your life!
Don’t believe a word I say. Why should you? You don’t know if what I say is wrong or right. All I’m saying is: it worked for me and for hundreds of thousands of students, that I coached personally, or online. Will it work for you? You’ll never know if you don’t give it a try!
And that’s what life is all about. Trial and error. Trying is better than studying. But studying and trying is even better!
I write like I talk. With a lot of energy. If you get off on grammar and complicated structures, you’re in the wrong place. Feel what I’m saying to you. While I’m sitting here, I’m focusing all my energy on my words, which are just coming to you right now. I’m with you, and that’s what counts. Feel this book. Feel my energy. We’re on this path together!
To hell with my rules. I’m not your father or your teacher telling you what to do. From now on we’re going to call the rules tips. When you go on a trip, you should listen to someone who has already made the trip. I’ll be your navigator. You don’t have to listen to me, but if you want to reach your goals, then you should do it.
Stop reading this book. Yeah, you heard me right: stop reading this book right now. Why? Because first I want to know why you are reading. Everything you do in life should have a purpose. So decide what your goal is and why you are reading this book.
Write it here:
I’m reading this book, because
When I’ve read this book to the end, then
With the knowledge I’ve gotten from this book I’m going to
Every pilot has a checklist to go through before he flies. Every single time. He knows the list by heart, but he still follows the protocol. I want you to do the same. Read all seven tips each time you begin to read the book. That is your checklist, and I want you to go through it, whether you read the book for five minutes at a time or for five hours.
1 Focus on each individual sentence,
it can change your life.
2 Write down your “aha” moments,
so you can remember them later.
3 Let my words follow your
actions. Try it out.
4 Be open to what I say and don’t
just read my book, feel it!
5 Rules are tips, because I want
you to be successful.
6 Why are you reading today?
What is your goal?
7 Go through these tips before you
start to read again, every time.
Great. And now a bit about me, so we can get to know each other better and you’ll be able to understand much more in this book. I’m not trying to write a biography. It’s about making certain things that I do now and have done in the past more understandable. I want you to understand me because I will be your loyal companion and best friend on the trip you are about to take. I want you to trust me. That’s why I’m writing to you about myself.
I am Bastian Yotta. I’m a superhero, who wants to change the world …
Okay, maybe we should start from the beginning.
I was born in 1976 in Landshut in Bavaria and made it through a brutal childhood. I was definitely not an easy kid because I was always so full of energy, a real little scoundrel right from the start. Today I still have problems accepting rules that I don’t understand.
When I understand something, I can give my all. If I don’t understand or no one explains it to me, I switch to stubborn pretty fast.
That resulted in regular, massive fights with my father until I was almost sixteen years old. I talked publicly about it for the first time in the TV show Adam sucht Eva1. My body and my soul still bear the scars. These experiences created a desire in me to one day be free and independent, so that no one can ever hurt me or force me to do something ever again.
Oh yeah, I was born Bastian Gillmeier – how I came to the name Yotta, I’ll tell you a bit later.
I was average in school, because I never understood why I had to learn all that crap there. I managed to get my high school diploma with good grades, though. I even learned Latin and Greek because the philosophers of the ancient world always fascinated me.
When I was finished with school, I began studying business and worked part-time for my father. As an insurance salesman! Let’s be honest, kids want to be pilots, secret agents or something like that. Insurance salesman was about the worst job I could imagine. But I wanted to please my father any way I could, and basically worked to win his respect and love.
What I couldn’t see at the time was that my father – as far as I’m concerned – didn’t love or respect himself and was in that way kind of like a bottomless pit – you could pour in as much love as you could, it was gone immediately. It was a fight that I could never win.
I didn’t realize it back then and so I finished my studies and vocational training in only three years with very good grades.
I worked eighteen hours a day and doubled the turnover of my father’s business in only two years, which gave my father the opportunity to retire and move to Italy. From then on I ran the entire company and led it to second place in the national rankings.
I thought, I’ve made it now, my father will be proud of me and finally give me love and respect. I thought wrong! He seemed to always find something to criticize me about. And when things were actually working perfectly, the sucker punch: well, that may seem nice and all, but wait ’til you’re as old as I am. Kaboom! What a stupid thing to say. A son can never become as old as his father. He will never catch up, the father is always older, performance can never be measured in the same year of life.
My striving for love and acknowledgment was so great that I even got married early, because he wanted to be a young grandfather. And I love my kids above all else, but they just came too early for us as a married couple – we weren’t ready. I write and speak very little about my kids because I want to protect them from the public eye, I’ll just say this: I love them no matter whether we have contact or not. I think about my two daughters every day and I am so glad that they are happy!
Then came the day that was bound to come. And it was immediately clear to me back then, that he wanted to bask publicly in my business success and make it seem like the new office and the success of the company was all down to him – I lost my temper.
Could this man not give me the respect and recognition that I had worked so hard for just once in his entire life?
I don’t think children should ever have to work so hard for the love of their parents. They have a birthright to be loved the way they are and want to be. That’s what family is, otherwise it would be a business, a competition. I couldn’t stand it anymore. The work and the relationship to my father was making me sick, so I dropped everything and told him that I was leaving the company.
I wanted to be free. Finally, free of this loveless tyrant! My last words to him were: I just want to be your son – not a business partner, where it’s all about money or power.
The last words of my father were the complete opposite.
Even today, more than ten years later, I have the feeling his poor soul is still not at peace. It seems he just can’t take the fact that his son is successful and happy without him.