The video is a motivational round‑table where host Evan Carmichael brings together a group of high‑profile entrepreneurs and performers—including Andy Frisella, Will Smith, Brendon Burchard, Gary Vaynerchuk, Travis Kalanick, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chase Jarvis, Mark Cuban, and Carlos Ghosn—to discuss why ideas alone are insufficient for success. Across the conversation the speakers repeatedly stress that execution, grit, and relentless iteration are the true drivers of achievement. Key points include: ideas must be acted upon; many people stall because they cling to fallback plans or compare themselves to others; entrepreneurship is a curious, problem‑finding mindset; execution accounts for the vast majority of results (cited as 95%); planning must be flexible, with small, accountable milestones; failure is reframed as learning; passion is rooted in suffering and sacrifice; real‑world anecdotes illustrate how execution turned ideas into wealth (e.g., Arnold’s real‑estate flip, Uber’s launch). The video closes with a call‑to‑action for viewers to adopt a “one‑word” focus and continue believing in themselves.
Chapters
Ideas alone are not enough. You are a genius. You have tons of great ideas, but lots of people die geniuses with their ideas never realized. It's not enough to know, you need to do. The world belongs to those who take action and execute.
I knew I wanted to be in show business.
Business, and I just happened to luck out and things happen. I think, you know, you know, you know what you're supposed to do deep down inside. I think everybody does. A lot of people just don't go after it, you know. Like, most people start out, they say, I want to be a this, but I'm gonna get that to make sure I have something to fall back on. And what you're doing is you setting yourself up for failure because you're going, there's a possibility that I'm gonna fall back. And when you put that out there, then you fall back. But if you just say, hey, this is what I want to do, and you go do it, you usually get your stuff the way you want it, man.
It's very easy for people who are in the beginning levels of success, or the beginning levels of their success journey, to tell themselves stories that other people's circumstances are better than theirs. That the other people have, um, rich parents, they've got luck, they've got better circumstances, um, they've got less obstacles. They tell themselves over and over and over again as to why they can't move forward and other people can. Why if they do the work, it still isn't gonna work out. And what ends up happening is, is that they end up going through their life accepting what they're dealt, doing what they're told, and they end up at 50, 60 years old wondering what the fuck happened.
Why me?
What am I supposed to do now?
Am I supposed to feel better that I'm not the only one losing my job?
And this is the way you treat me?
How you sleep at night, man.
Well, I'm gonna tell you what happened. You talked yourself out of going after what you were supposed to go after. You talked yourself out of your purpose.
Gotta have enough guts to go out there and try.
So if you look at the great business builders, you look at any great performer, one thing that makes them great is their grit. One thing that makes them great is their hunger to practice. One thing that makes them great is they are willing to sacrifice. I mean, yes, they're passionate, but did you know the root of the word passion is suffering? You've gotta be willing to suffer for your vision. You've gotta be willing to suffer to reach BIW, best in world. You've gotta be willing to suffer the ridicule and laughter of your critics and your cynics to get to a place called world class.
The way of the entrepreneur is actually about going, looking at the world, and finding problems. Some people think that's a negative mindset, but actually I find it is like a— it's a curious mindset. Is you're out there looking for problems, looking for things that aren't the way they should be or could be.
Ideas can make much more money than actual physical labor. And physical labor is always part of the action. Now you have a great idea, but then you still have to implement it. But Normally, if it is just physical labor, you can never make the money that you can make when you have ideas. So this is why it's important to really think, and you really have to get creative and have a clear vision of where you want to go and what you want to do. And that's what I always had, and that's what I always believed in.
I think we've all observed a lot of people who, they love reading the books, they love showing up at the courses, they do all the online training, and nothing ever changes. And they say, well, you know, I don't know why it doesn't change, why my life doesn't change. Why my thinking doesn't change, why my performance doesn't change, why my relationships don't change. Well, it's because ideas don't work if you don't execute on them.
Everybody's got ideas. Do you know how many fucking ideas we all have here? We could probably sit here for the next 2 hours, draw them all out, record 'em, and predict the next 78 great startups over the next 9 years.
And?
5% of the challenge is strategy, 95% of the execution. This I said it as CEO of Nissan. I said it also as CEO of Renault. And that strategy is fine, it's very important, but it's only 5%. If you don't go to execution after this, the delivery and the performance of the company is going to be very weak. I really, I really believe it. Now, it doesn't mean strategy is not important. But when you establish north and you know exactly where north is for the company, you've done something very important because you're giving the direction. But if you don't start moving north, if you don't start mapping and establishing milestone, you're never gonna be getting there. You're never gonna be getting there.
Okay, everybody has an idea. Not everybody has a good idea, but lots of people have good ideas. Look, Uber is a good idea. You push a button and get a ride. I don't know if we were the first person to ever think of that idea, but we were the first person to do it.
Uber was Magic Cab 3 years earlier. Uber is not an idea. Uber existed. It was called Magic Cab. But the guys that executed it sucked, so they lost. So I think, you know, if there's any level of romance left in this room about your idea, I'd like to suffocate it. Because I think the actual situation is what you actually do with it.
None of us, or at least most of us, are not the smartest people in the world. There are lots and lots of great, great inventors out there. How are we going to be the person who's going to always build a better mousetrap? The business always comes down to block and tackle. It's not about the great vision, it's always about the great execution. And you can always succeed by out-executing your competitors, not necessarily having the best product in the marketplace. And I think Microsoft is a great example where they took a same product that other people may have had, but they executed substantially better, and today they're the market leader in the industry.
This is the wall that Franco and I built in 1971. Remember, we gave them a life time guarantee. So I see some problems up with Franco. Yeah, I remember in 1974 I bought my first apartment building and we bought it for $215,000. That's— it was then a lot of money.
Yeah.
And I put only down like maybe $35,000, $37,000. But within 2 years, the apartment building was worth instead of the $250,000, $350,000 and I sold it. So imagine now how much gain there was. Yeah. I mean, so we made hundreds of percent on my initial investment. So that's what I'm talking about.
Have any of you guys heard of the Media Temple grid server solution? That was my idea a year or two before it came out. And I spent a million bucks on it and it failed miserably because we never launched anything. And if you can't move fast enough, Someone like Media Temple is gonna beat you to the punch, get a ton of customers, and make a lot of money.
Make a plan, work the plan. Make a plan, work the plan. And whenever the plan doesn't work, you change the fucking plan. That's called failure. It's called learning a lesson. It's called adjusting on the run. You are not going to have a perfect plan from start to finish just because you thought of an idea.
Perfection is overrated. Nothing's ever perfect. You're gonna continue to have to iterate, so forth, so on. It's never gonna be perfect. There's always gonna be issues. Just get it out there and start trying to make money.
You need to be very flexible on the details because as you go along pursuing your vision, you'll find that some of your preconceptions were wrong, and you're gonna need to be able to change those things.
You have to set deadlines. People have to be held accountable to them as well, right?
Can—
if they're like milestones, goals, are too big for those deadlines, they're not gonna get met. So make them really small and tangible. That way you can see it really well in advance if they're actually gonna be met or not.
But what if I do all this work and it doesn't work? What if I put in all this time to become an excellent employee and I don't get promoted? What if I put in all this work to become an excellent salesman and I don't sell? What if, what if, what if? And I'll tell you what if. What if you don't do shit? Where are you gonna be? Because it isn't gonna be any better than where you are now.
I believe in making $1 into $2 and having a good time when I pay my taxes. You owe $50 million in taxes, I say, wow, yes, that means you must have made a lot of money.
Thank you guys so much for watching another episode of Believe Films. This is This has been a super fun project to put together. It's a new territory that I'm diving into for the YouTube channel, and I would love, love, love, love, love to get your feedback. What did you think about this video? What do you think about the first video that we put up about Work Ethic? Any thoughts, suggestions, room for improvement that come to mind, please let me know. Please share it with your friends. It's a, again, exciting project that I'm working on, and I want to know how to make it better. Thank you guys again so, so, so much. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.
So let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need to be happy.
The most important word ever.
If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.
Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to know what the most important One Word Is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.
