Vin Diesel started acting at seven, worked unpaid for years, and didn't land a paid role until age 30 after directing a short film. Evan Carmichael argues you can't wait for opportunities: make something, promote it, build your network. Hustle while you wait or your business stalls.
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Good morning, Believe Nation. Today's message is make product.
Over to you, Vin Diesel.
My advice to people who want to pursue their dream is to find any way that they can to make product. My philosophy is that product is the most important thing. I started acting when I was 7 years old, and I didn't get paid as an actor until I did Saving Private Ryan, and I was 30 at that time. So there were many, many years of unemployment, obviously. Uh, what I learned later was that I had to have something. I had to have product regardless of how big or small it was, and the first thing that I did was direct a short film called Multifacial.
So what do you think?
I think Vin Diesel isn't telling us to necessarily go out and manufacture or create products when he says make products. He's telling us to go promote ourselves, build a brand, and to go and network instead of waiting for the next deal to happen. I can relate this to the first few months of my own practice when I didn't have a lot of real estate deals and I went out and talked with real estate agents and mortgage brokers, talked with friends and family, and created social media accounts to do all of these things.
I think when you're starting a business, you think it's going to be easier than it is. Like, you think it's going to be hard, but you don't think it's going to be that hard to start. You quickly tap out your network. Like, I'm sure when you started your business, you talked to friends and family, and then you realize how quickly that runs dry and you don't have enough business. And that's when the "oh crap" moment hits you that I gotta go do something more. And that's scary, and a lot of people don't want to do it. A lot of people do just sit and wait, hoping for some deal to happen, and then it never does. And so you need to be out there doing stuff. You need to be out there promoting yourself and talking to people, networking. And do you, whether you want to do YouTube videos, or you're better at doing speeches, or you're better at one-on-one meetings, or you're better at setting up partnerships, whatever it is you're out there hustling while you wait, right? You're waiting for the big deal to happen. Until then, you're not just waiting on it, you're hustling to try to get more deals to happen. You're waiting on someone to get back to you? Great, you're hustling to try to get more deals to happen as well. And that has to be your life as an entrepreneur. If you're just waiting on something else to happen, your business is not going to take off. So the question of the day today is—
How do you hustle while you wait?
How do you hustle while you wait? Leave it in the comments below. We will join the discussion. Thank you guys so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and we'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. So what do you think? Okay, means you have to do it. You can't, you can't pull out of it.
