Evan Carmichael tells how Jim Henson got his first TV job as a high school student by improvising a puppet from his mother's coat and ping-pong balls. Henson didn't wait for perfect conditions, just took the shot. That first move led to the Muppets, Sesame Street, and a $200 million Disney sale.
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Welcome to another edition of Famous Friday where I look at famous entrepreneurs and how you can model their success to achieve success of your own. Today's lesson is: Take your shot. Too many entrepreneurs, you know, you have this idea, you see an opportunity in front of you and you don't take your shot. You think, "I'm not ready yet. I'm not good enough yet. The competition is too strong. I can't do it. I don't have enough money. I don't have enough resources to go for it yet." And so you don't. One of my favorite stories is of Jim Henson, who created the Muppets and created the characters behind Sesame Street and sold his company to Walt Disney for $200 million, became the most successful puppeteer of all time following his passion. And it started when he was in high school and he had an interest in puppets, and a local TV show put out a call saying, hey, we need a puppeteer to come on board and help us with one of our programs. And there were so many reasons why Jim Henson could have said, "I'm not ready for that." You know, he could have said, "I'm in high school." He could have said, "There's way better puppeteers out there than I am." He could have said, "I don't have enough money to make a real puppet. I don't even have a real puppet to go and demo with." There's so many reasons why it wouldn't work. There's so many reasons for him to tell himself that he's not ready yet, to not take that shot yet. And yet, what did he do? He took his mom's old green coat cut it up, put 2 ping pong balls on it, and went to audition. He took a shot. He said, what's the worst that's going to happen? They say no. But he got that job, and he got another job after, and another job after, and another job after, and it continued to snowball and build momentum for him. But all because it started— it started small. It started with that one act of taking his shot, even when all the odds were stacked against him. So if you've got an opportunity in front of you and you're telling yourself all the reasons why it won't work out, just take your shot. Because remember, as Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots that you never take. Believe. If you guys like this video, you want to see more like it, more like it, subscribe to the channel. I'll see you soon.
