"Have an UNDERDOG Mentality!" - Eminem (@Eminem) - Top 10 Rules

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you, and I wanna see that great thing that you have inside of you come out so you can help change the world. So to help you on your journey today, we're gonna learn from rapper, record producer, and actor Eminem, and my take on his top 10 rules of success, volume 2. Rule number 4 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, guys, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, Please leave it down in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick with yourself as well. Enjoy.

He was often the only white guy competing in underground clubs like this one. Did you feed off the fact that people maybe underestimated you or didn't respect you early on?

Oh, definitely, definitely. I think that, you know, there was certainly like a rebellious, like youthful rage kind of in me. And there was also, you know, the fact of the no getting away from fact that I am white, you know, and this is predominantly Black music, you know, and people telling me you don't belong, like you're not gonna succeed because you're this color. Then you wanna show those people that, you know, that you can and you will. I want this attention for this music, but then I want to be able to go in public and I want to be able to eat a fucking sandwich. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

And be left alone. So it was like, man, if I could— because I've never been an attention seeker, and that seems like probably a hell of a career choice, you know? But I don't like— like, that's not why I do it, is just to get attention. Like, I don't— I don't like to go in public and walk around and be like, "Here I am." You know what I mean? Like, I don't— it's not what I want. I just wanted— my dream was— my dream was for, like— [SIGH] Fuck, man, to be able to one day, like, hear rappers that I looked up to on the radio and be like, "Yo, what if Jay-Z, whoever, what if they heard of me? What if they thought—" I was dope, you know what I'm saying? Like, that was where my mentality always was, was with it. Well, as far as who's a better freestyler between me and him, I would definitely have to say him. I've never been really good at freestyling. I've always been a writer. Although me at this moment would probably be a little rusty. Like, if somebody had just asked me to freestyle, it might sound like shit, you know? It's one of those things like just picking up a basketball if you haven't picked one up in a year or so. You might be a little rusty dribbling at first, you know what I'm saying? So it's one of those things you got to get back on the horse and ride. That was a good analogy, right? It's like a knife you got to keep sharpening. Yeah, it's like a knife you got to keep sharpening. If the knife goes dull, then you won't even be able to cut butter. Exactly. So I think he's trying to say that he can't cut butter. It's like a wall you got to keep sanding.

He writes his own songs and delights in rhyming words others can't.

—his vomit on his sweater already. Mom's forgetting he's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs. But he keeps on forgetting what he wrote.

So I would start out slow.

We talked to him about how he does it in his private recording studio. I've heard you say that you bend the word.

Yeah. It's just in the enunciation of it. Like, people say that the word orange doesn't rhyme with anything. And that kind of pisses me off, because I can think of a lot of things that rhyme with orange.

What rhymes with orange?

If you're taking the word at face value and you just say orange, nothing is gonna rhyme with it exactly. If you enunciate it and you make it like more than one syllable, orange, you could say like, I put my orange 4-inch door hinge in storage and ate porridge with George. You just have to figure out the science to breaking down words and try to And do you think about this throughout the day?

I mean, driving along, you think about rhyming words? Yeah, all day.

Yeah, I actually drive myself insane with it.

But it's interesting, I mean, for a guy who hated school, who, you know, was in the 9th grade 3 times, you spend all your time thinking about words.

I found that no matter how bad I was at school, like, and no matter how low my grades might have been at some times, I always was good at English.

I heard that you used to read the dictionary.

I just felt like I want to be able to have all these words at my disposal in my vocabulary at all times whenever I need to pull them out. You know, somewhere they'll be stored, like locked away.

His words are stored, but they're not exactly locked away. He actually keeps them in boxes. You store stuff in just boxes like this? Yes. Inside are hundreds of scraps of paper on which he's obsessively scrawled down words and phrases. Wait, this is a pad from a hotel in Paris, looks like. Yeah. And you just scribbled that, you have 4 little words just scribbled there. Yeah. How do you even read this?

This is tiny.

I know what it says, I guess. I don't know, I might use that, actually.

They're not lyrics, really, they're just ideas that he collects. He calls it stacking ammo.

So it's just like when I feel upset.

I've gotten letters from crazy people and they kind of look like this. Yeah? Sometimes, yeah. Either all in capital letters or sort of scrolling on pages like this.

Yeah, well, that's probably because I'm crazy.

But Detroit's close to your heart, isn't it, in every single way? And yet it's a city in America that's going through one of the toughest times, and that must be kind of hard too, man, you know? The place where you grew up is, you know, it's in a bad place.

It's in a bad way. Absolutely. But I think that it's the— It's kind of, you know, the Detroit mentality to, we're kind of the underdog. I feel like we've always been the underdog and that's kind of how, you know, I've always taken that and kept that with me. You know what I'm saying? That, I wanna say, fighting spirit that Detroit has. You know, because Detroit, you know, is so resilient. You know, like, like, like, I feel like our, like, like people there, we, we have this, you know, kind of Detroit versus everybody mentality because I feel like people, the, the way that people look at us, they always count us out. You know what I'm saying? So, uh, I know that that attitude is displayed a lot in my music, but I think that that's where it comes from. Is just from, you know, just feeling like being— like we're being counted out.

I don't have the accolades to connect to the performance of my music. I don't have the trophies that match how big the actual records are. The one Grammy I have is for "Crack a Bottle." I couldn't even have that without him. You know, that's why I have so much value for him, not just in my, uh— in my career, just in my life, because he's a guy that— one of my best friends, because I can trust that he's going to be honest with his constructive criticism. It's time to listen to the music before it goes out. He's the only person that did things that I wanted to do. He had the Marshall Mathers LP with 23 million records sold, with flags all around the actual plaque, and I was like, yo, I want that. I want that kind of success. I know I had to go door to door to get it because I'm not him. See, hip-hop is Black music without question, and unfortunately for some people, it's tough to accept that you got a white artist that does it better than Black artists. It is what it is, you know. And you could put either one— you could get whoever you feel like is the best Black artist and stand them face to face in a room with, with him and he will eat that shit alive. Right now, if you had them prepare themselves in whatever way they would have to prepare themselves to come to battle, and I bet you, I bet what I have, everything I have, that shit is meatloaf. We put you right there. And any other competition that we would put these artists in, he's obviously surpassed them. I'm a father first.

Before anything. I'm a father before I'm a rapper. So, you know, my daughter comes first no matter what. And if there's important things going on in her life that I need to be there for, then I'll drop what I'm doing, or we schedule around it. And a lot of times I take her with me, and, you know, she, she's been on the road with me before, so she's like, like my little homie, man. Like, she's like my little sidekick sometimes. It's hard. Like, I'm not gonna front, like, sometimes it gets hard to try to balance them out, but like I said, before anything, I'm a father. I always write, you know, and I probably always will. I don't know at what point, you know, whatever point I decide, like, I'm gonna put the mic down or whatever happens with that, I do feel like I always want something to do with the music. So whether it's producing or whatever, you know, ends up happening, I think that I just want something to do with it, you know. Music is always going to be in my head, so along with myself that's trapped in it.

Would you like to kind of work in cinema and do more things like that, exec produce?

Listen, it depends on what it is, you know. I'm, I'm, I make music and whatever comes along that seems like it might be interesting or fun, because at this point I just want to have fun with it, you know. Like, I just want to make sure that whatever it is is something that I'm passionate about and that I believe in, you know, because otherwise I'm just going through the motions.

Everybody in here tonight who is an Eminem fan, man, I just want to take a minute out to say thank you for the support that y'all have shown me and for not giving up on me. On some real shit, thank you, man. Especially you, Detroit. I love you. This song is for you. I'm not afraid.

This song His songs are still deeply personal, but some of the hard-edged anger has softened. In his new song, "Not Afraid," he offers a hand to those in need. You say, "Everybody come take my hand, we'll walk this road together." 10 years ago, could you have imagined yourself rapping something like that?

No. Probably not. You know, I don't want to go overboard with it, but I do feel like that if I can help people that have been through a similar situation, Then, you know, why not?

Part Manson, part Hannibal, part mechanical shark throwing animal parts at Scarlett Johansson. Get to my gas chamber, you're gangsta my ass. He's got his fangs to your neck, he's set to strangle your ass. Hater, your face in a task radar. He's chasing your ass, he's got his face in the mask. Your blood stains on his glass table. I'm checking the exposure of photos of me exposing myself locked inside of a cozy hotel posing with and without clothing next to the decomposing bodies eroding while I'm dozing off overdosing. Windows opening, shutting, doors opening, closing. I think there's a ghost, too much hydrocortisone. I was only supposed to swallow a half, I took the whole thing. I'm not joking, I think I just snorted my nose ring. I need a drink, I'm standing over the sink, posing myself, self-loathing 'cause I'm on the brink. Mostly I don't wanna think, this'll make everything rosy. Beverly sings, scream while I'm severing 3 toesies. Totally frozen while I close in, I'm yodeling, Rosie, won't you come out to play? No sense wasting time, cutting and pasting headlines in the papers, making shrines of my crimes and capers. My words are whirlwinds, I murder my girlfriends, go to Europe and put Nerf guns in my pants. Weapons in my syrup and stirred 'em. You never heard 'em like this, so don't encourage 'em. The neurosurgeon. Coke mirrors and lyrics worsen. The kind of person to get Katy Couric to cursin'. 80 spirits of ladies 'cause Shady murdered the virgins. Crazy turn up. Invincidae, he emerged to go for the world and reeled in all the children. Lured them into the building and killed 'em. Buried 'em in the mulch and they'll do what he will. Do what he feels and still can spin. Drawin' the gold like Rumpelstiltskin. Cotton to silk. Munchin' Italian off 3 bills. The real Slim Shady's entered the building. It's nothing but crumble. —and tumbleweeds up in this bitch. Mildred, he's ill with it. He still shouldn't be here. There's no one as sick as him. Caesar, get frickin' seared on the grill then.

Whoa!

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Vitalo Vargas asked me to. If there's a famous entrepreneur that you would like me to profile next, check out the link in the description and go and cast your vote. I'd also love to know what did you learn from this video that had the biggest impact on you? What lesson are you going to take and immediately apply it somehow in your life or in your business? Leave it in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Dante Cores. Dante, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, taking that picture in your living room as you opened up the book. I really appreciate your support and I hope you enjoyed the read. 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.

And I wondered, you know, being someone who is considered one of the greatest of all time, what is it about rap, the art form, if you can even trace it back to when you first discovered it, to how you feel about it now on one of your most rap-heavy records?

You know, just a lot of rap.

A lot of rapping on there, a lot of words. What is it about it that you love, if you could put it into words?

Hmm. I don't know. I, um— I love the fact that you can— I love the expression of it. The fact that you can, you know, just, I don't know. I love the— I love beats and rhymes, and I love the fact that you can express yourself in a rhyme and lay it down and it can be therapeutic, and you've got it off your chest. And then you could go on to the next thing. I don't know. There's so much shit that I love about rap. You know, I'm in it for like, like I love to watch what's going on in the game and keep my finger on the pulse of that, you know? And it's exciting to watch as a fan for me too, you know, just being a fan of hip hop. Um, and watching as it, you know, the evolution of it and, you know, how it moves from each year to year.

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.