Look BEYOND Rules - Nicolas Cage - #Entspresso

Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is Look Beyond Rules. Over to you, Nicolas Cage. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going. I wake up every morning.

I try to see myself as somebody that is interested in extremes, that is interested in maybe breaking boundaries in terms of what what is considered acceptable or not acceptable to do. I don't like the idea of rules in art. I once said a long time ago—

Well, that's one place where you don't find a lot of rules.

Yeah, and I once said, I think in a magazine, that to be a good actor, you have to be something of a criminal. Of course, they took that as like I wanted to be a criminal, which isn't true. I just think that you need to look beyond rules.

I think this is really, really, really, really, really important. You need to understand that rules are created for people who have below-average skills at something. If you think about a classroom that you went to, maybe you went to university or college or high school and you're sitting in the class, you got 20, 50, 100, 500 people sitting there with you, the material is designed to teach the below-average person at that skill set, right? It's designed so that almost everybody can get it. And as a result, the pace is so slow that if you're really good at that stuff, you're bored. And a lot of you who've been to those classes know what I'm talking about. Where if you went and talked to the professor, the teacher, the person who's teaching the material, and you sat down with them for an hour, you'd learn way, way, way, way more because it's customized to you. And the same principle applies to your life and it applies to your business. Understand that most of the rules that you're paying attention to in your life and your business were designed for the below average person at that skill level. And if all you do is follow the rules, follow the way that everybody else does it, you're gonna have a below average experience. If you just sell the same product for the same price and you do the same marketing, have the same website, if you're just copying somebody else and just following the rules, you're going to have a below average experience. What you need to do— or that example of talking to the professor where you customize the experience— you need to apply that same principle to your life and your business as well. You need to think, how do I customize my life and my business to make it suit me so I can have the greatest value and the greatest impact on the people around me, on my customers, on my community, on the world. You need to figure out ways to customize what you do so that it fits you, your unique talents, your unique gifts. And you can't do it by following the rules. If you look at every successful business in history, go look them up. Whoever you look up to, whatever the company is that you look up to, whatever entrepreneur it is that you look up to, they did not follow the rules. They did things in their own way, and they paved a new path instead of being a sheep and following the existing path. That's what you need to do for yourself. You cannot bring yourself down to the below-average standards. Now, that doesn't mean you have to go and break all the rules, right? Some rules, you know, you're gonna get in trouble if you break, right? If you are speeding, you're gonna get a ticket. You got to deal with that. There are other rules that have much bigger consequences as well. But very few of the rules that you currently feel are important actually are. And what you need to do is think about, how do I take my genius, my talent, what I'm really, really good at, and apply that to this industry in a way that's never been done before? All these people are out selling it this way, this is how they market, this is how they sell, this is how they promote. If you're not good at that, if that's not driving you, if you can't be the best in the world at that, forget that. Who cares that it works in that industry? Who cares if that's the traditional way everybody else is selling? Let them play out here. You're gonna come over here. You're gonna do this thing that only you can do, that you can be the best in the world at, that get people excited about, that nobody's ever done before. That's what you're gonna do. That's how you're gonna stand out. That's how you're gonna win customers. That's how you're gonna feel happy. That's how you're gonna feel fulfilled. It's by being you, bringing your genius, your talent, your abilities, your excitement, your passion to your industry in a way that's never been done before. You have to do it if you want to stand out. You have to do it if you want to have a big impact. You can't just follow the rules. Rules are great guidelines to start with. It's good to know in general how something is working. It's good to know where some of the penalties are. But don't let that shackle you and that this is the only way to do it. You need to understand and then go out and do your own thing. This is why I love modeling success because When you model success, when you look at people in a different industry, look at any entrepreneur that you look up to. If you are in the car business, you can go learn from a Steve Jobs or Oprah Winfrey or Martha Stewart, somebody who's totally outside the industry. You could take something that worked for Howard Schultz, who started Starbucks, and apply it to your chair manufacturing business in a way that nobody's ever done it before. And it feels like you're this pioneer, trailblazer, breaking all the rules, where it's just learning from somebody else who's done it in a different industry. But you're not gonna have success as a chair manufacturer doing what all the other chair manufacturers are doing. It's not gonna work. You're gonna end up with below-average results. Customize your life and your business to the genius that you have inside. Express yourself. Let it come out. Let it fulfill you. Let your audience feel it. Let your customers feel it. Let the media feel it. That's where your success is going to come from. Financial success, emotional success, personal success. That's where it's going to come from. Stop paying attention to the rules. As Steve Jobs famously said, you'll discover at some point that the rules were designed by people who are no smarter than you. And so why are you living your life, running your business according to other people's expectations, according to what other people say you need to do, instead of letting this gift, this art, come out and dominate. So the question of the day today is, I wanna know, what are the rules that you're breaking in your industry or in your life? Super curious to find out, leave in the comments below, I'm gonna join in the discussion. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Sherry from optisourcebook.com. Cheri, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. It really, really, really means a lot to me. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. And I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going. So over the past few months, I've been getting a lot of comments on my videos and people asking me, am I related to Nicolas Cage? I look a lot like Nicolas Cage. And to me, this is just totally ridiculous because everybody looks like Nicolas Cage, and I have the proof to back it up. Pregnant women look like Nicolas Cage. Your rib cage looks like Nicolas Cage. E.T. looks like Nicolas Cage. Gandalf. Yoda. Hillary Clinton. The Little Mermaid. Mona Lisa. Bill Clinton. Albert Einstein. The Statue of Liberty. Biggie, Buzz Lightyear, Princess Leia, the Green Lantern, Miley Cyrus, Barack Obama. Everybody looks like Nicolas Cage. I don't know why you guys would say that, but I'm deeply hurt. I'm taking names, and I'm gonna remember who you are.