10 Rules That Will Make You UNSTOPPABLE - Sylvester Stallone's Plan

I couldn't even get cast as an Italian. I'll never forget where there's a party scene. Is it 300 guests? I said no.

But the fear is the fuel that we use for overachievement. If I wasn't afraid at times, I wouldn't work as hard.

You've got to take chances. You've got to gamble. And if you win 51% of the time, you got it made.

He's an American actor, filmmaker, and screenwriter. He's best known for his roles as Rocky Balboa and John Rambo. Philadelphia also has a statue of his Rocky character permanently placed by the the Museum of Art. He's Sylvester Stallone, and here's my take on his top 10 rules for success, volume 2. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it in the comments below, put quotes around it so other people can be inspired as well, and when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick with you as well.

Enjoy.

I truly believe, and people throw the word around, dreams. It's all about dreams, you know. And by the way, dreams cost nothing. They're free. The hard part is just keeping them going. And please keep them going because we're here for one simple reason. He believed in the dream. I believed in the dream. And our dreams come true. And there's no reason Every one of yours can't either. Thank you very much.

Let's start from the beginning. Was there ever a time that you doubted yourself?

Yeah, you know, I thought when I— you know, I live in basically this flop house. It's $26 a week, very transient, and you share the floor with 10 people. You don't know anybody on the planet, literally no one.

I think I recall you saying your acting low point, "The Godfather," and you said you couldn't even get in the—

I couldn't even get cast as an Italian. I'll never forget where there's a party scene. There's 300 guys. I said, "No." I go, "What part of me didn't make it past the Italian identification aspect?" They go, "I don't know, you just don't fit in." I went, "Wow, God's telling me something." That's gotta play with your psyche a little bit.

A little bit.

I know.

Yeah.

But it didn't, and you decided to take matters into your own hands by writing Rocky.

You know, I've been coming here for 6 years, and 6 years you've been sticking it to me. I wanna know how I'm called.

You wanna know?

I wanna know! Hey, I'm gonna tell ya! 'Cause you had the talent to become a good fighter, and instead of that, you became a leg breaker!

You were able to write Rocky in 3 and a half days. The movie that went on to be Best Picture, you wrote in 3 and a half days?

Yes.

Was it just flowing out of you?

In a way it was. I knew that this was going to be very flawed, but if I could get from the beginning to the end with some semblance of a character, then I'll repair the rest along the way.

And you want to star in it, and you're told, "No." I mean, you were even offered $250,000.

$360,000.

$360,000. You're a struggling actor.

Ooh.

You can't make ends meet. You're getting offered all this money, but you didn't take it.

No.

I just didn't understand how the rules of life were played at that point. But this character, I understood.

If I had to rewind the clock 10 years, I would have insisted, uh, by people that are close to me that please push me into very unsafe projects at least every other year. The one. I think it's professionally responsible to not continue to remake the same film over and over again.

What's tonight?

Turkey TV dinner. Turkey TV dinner. There's always fear, and I even put it in Rocky III that, you know, he said, "I'm afraid. I'm afraid." The fear is— but the fear is the fuel that we use for overachievement. If I wasn't afraid at times, I wouldn't work as hard. And because the fear is I don't want to slip back into mediocrity. I don't want to just say, "Okay, I want to rest on my laurels." So I'm— I hear footsteps all the time, and I know that I only have a certain amount of time, and I don't want to waste it because it's gone so quickly. I mean, since Rocky, it's been almost 7 and a half, 8 years. And I think that Dolly and I are just overachievers because we know that there's only a certain amount of productivity in a day, and we don't waste it.

I am at the whims of the characters I play. That's who people think I am, not Sylvester Stallone. Most people When I go around the world, it's like, "Hey Rocky, hey Rambo." It's not you. In one way, it's very flattering. You know, it's like you've come up with something that they enjoy. But I know that if I gave them another Rocky, another Rambo all the time, they would sour on it. You know, even though I do things that aren't successful, the main thing in my work ethic is you've got to take chances, you've got to gamble. And if you win 51% of the time, you got it made.

What you mean don't think about this?

When you startin' treatment?

I'm not doin' no chemotherapy.

I'm not crazy at all. If I could take everything that was good and put it into a bowl or somethin' and say, "Hey, here, I'd like to buy one more day with my wife," I'd do it. Everything I got is moved on, and I'm here.

I never wanted to do this movie. I thought sick Rocky is so crazy. Counterintuitive to what Rocky really is designed for. I just laid there. I said, "Can someone else be sick in the movie and not me?" 'Cause I've never done that. My wife goes, "You're a coward." I went, "You know, that's kind of a harsh word." He goes, "No, no, it's— You're a yellow, basically. You're a coward." It goes against every undeclared artistic rule. If you're afraid of something, that's the commitment of the artist. That's his duty. To pursue the unknown, to go someplace where he's literally at odds with himself.

All right there, old man?

Yeah. You know, if you look hard enough, you can see your whole life from up here.

How does it look?

Not bad at all.

Stallone wrote a screenplay for a boxing film called Rocky with himself as the lead. The studio loved the script but wanted Sly to step aside for a big-name actor. Despite intense pressure, Stallone refused to give in.

You have to try. You have to see if you really are what you think you are. And by that I mean, I wanted one chance to prove whether I was a good actor or a lousy actor, or whether I should go get a Dairy Queen stand in Pacoima, or what I should do for a living. Maybe I should get out of acting. And I just needed one vehicle to prove it. I had to be up there just, just enough to say, Jesus, you stink, Stallone.

Or not bad.

The studio finally agreed. Sly gave it 100%.

I started about, uh, 5 months into training, and I— the regime of abstaining from, uh, from hanky-panky and eating a lot of meat and developing a Tyrannosaurus Rex type mentality, running and sparring and taking the bruises. But I felt that that came out in the film. I didn't one. I knew this was my one shot, and I wasn't about to cheat on it. I wasn't about to come in there and look like Tinkerbell for an hour and a half. I had to— I said, oh God, if I stink, at least let me stink with class.

Something.

And, uh, geez, it was so great.

In arm wrestling rules, if you lift out of the cup like this, that does disqualify.

A disqualifier. You cheated.

Well, let's just say we— I lost by Australian rules.

Well, let's have a quick look at it again and just see how rough it really was.

All right, now, are you here? Arm wrestling, the elbow must remain on the table.

Yeah, am I right?

Leaving up there.

Yeah.

Okay, now this man, here we go. And he's very strong. This guy is strong.

All right, here we go.

He is heading south. The match is over. And now he is going north, up, up, up.

Excuse me, uh, so he's using his hand, using his arm to lift his arm.

I mean, I'm pointing.

Thank you.

End of match.

Now we should cut the tape at this point.

Yeah, not bad.

But okay, even at a time like that, okay, I gotta say, this guy is strong.

But do you like—

you hate losing? No, you see, I don't— I don't— that's my philosophy, you know. You go out, you try. Sometimes, you know, you get bad breaks. Sometimes people don't play with the rules, whatever it is. But no, I'm not one of these people that are obsessed with it.

I'm competitive.

Oh yeah, I'm real competitive. But I, you know, I've never been like obsessed with, I must go back. I like to try until the end. Like if I'm working on a character, I want to push and push and push into the breaking point. But I've never been like in sports where I have to go out. Matter of fact, I played on a football team. We had a 10-game season. We were 0-10 for the season.

0-10.

And I was the captain.

You know what I mean?

It's like, how do you give, you know, so I'm used to it.

Whenever you're saying Rocky, I always feel as though we're giving a vote of confidence for these great athletes. For real, you know, it's— I, I've never pretended to be a boxer. I don't possess those skills. But what I do think I have is an understanding of what goes on outside the ring. Outside the ring is sometimes maybe even a bigger struggle than what goes on inside the ring. And if I was able to capture that, then I believe you could identify more with the fighter. But more than that, we also realize that our life is a constant battle. Sometimes I write things in Rocky that may seem a little precious, as they say, or a little sentimental, but I truly believe, you know, it's not how hard you can hit, it's how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. Because that's really what does make the difference in your life. You know, it really does. He does. You're all fantastic. These men here have always been held in special reverence for me. Greatest athletes in the world, but more than that, they are our connection to the past and our way to the future. They are the guys that go there and take the blows and show that if you really put it out there on the line, you are a champion. You may not be the champion of the world, but you'll be the champion of your life. And yo, Adrian, I did it!

I think that personal ambition is worth fighting for. It really is something that if you don't fight for, you're going to regret it for the rest of your life. And if you regret it, you can be an unhappy person. If you're an unhappy person, it's going to affect your family. So you can see the chain of command all the way down, that it can be pretty devastating. We, you know, the common answer is we fight for a family. Yeah, but fighting for family starts with you. So you gotta fight for peace of mind. That's what I think you have to go for, you know. What makes you, uh, happy enough in your life that you want to make other people happy?

I don't know about anyone else, but I really feel it's a privilege to be here tonight, and I'm going to try my best to—

but you stole my script! You stole my script! No, I saw it. I watched the movie. You stole my script. All that was me. I'm the Apollo. You can put me on Show me what you can really do. Show me what you can really do. You know my real name, don't you? No, show me.

Kid Salami.

Show the world what you can do. Come on, show me. Show me. There you go. All right, man. Nice.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I'd love to know, what did you take from this video? What was the most important lesson? That you learned that blew your mind, that you're going to immediately apply to your life or your business somehow, please leave it down in the comments below. I'm super curious to find out. Also, if you want to nominate someone for the next top 10 video, please check the description for a link to a video where you can vote for people and put in your suggestions as well. I also want to give a quick shout out to Bailey Cooper. Thank you so much, Bailey, for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and putting it in your YouTube video. I really appreciate the support, man, and I'm glad you're enjoying the read.

Your One Word by Evan Carmichael, and I strongly recommend this book.

So thank you guys again for watching. 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.

If I didn't make it as an actor, writer, painter, I would have gone into something in the physical vein, something where I would like to have been a coach of some sorts because I enjoy motivating a great deal. I really do.

I like to motivate everybody around you.

Yes, I do. I've been discovered. I've been around for a while. All I want to do is get a certain kind of momentum going and do films that I'm not ashamed of or really disappoint my audience. I, you know, to be the high— I'm not the new young kid on the block by any means. I mean, I've been around quite a while. That's all. I just want to pick up. I feel like George Foreman, you know, he kind of left on a dubious note. I want to come back and do the things that I do best and really push it as far as humanly possible that I can do. I like the challenge, that's all. If people were to say that the money at a certain point is not important, I think they would be, I think they would be reveling in a serious case of mendacity. I believe that when you get to a certain level and you see one performer is getting a number, right away you feel as though, okay, to be respected, it becomes a numbers game. I think more importantly it is to the agent than quite often it is to the actor. For example, And the film I've just completed, I was paid nothing, zero.

It's a cop-out.

Absolutely nothing.

I mean, you got some back-end profit if it does well.

If it does, you take a gamble.

But see, that to me is, I've never been, quote, a mercenary. At one time I thought I was, but it's not about money, otherwise I wouldn't waive this and I would take the safe route.

And it's not about buying more art or buying more cars or buying more homes. Or any of that stuff. You're way beyond that.

No, really, I have all the material comforts one needs. Now it's all about the library of memories you leave behind.

The body of work.

Exactly right.