"ONLY DO What You LOVE!" - Damon Dash - #Entspresso

Rise and shine, it's espresso time! Good morning, Believe Nation, it's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out into the world. So grab your coffee and sip on today's message: do what you love. Over to you, Damon Dash. How do you stay motivated and not get burnt out?

I only do what I love. You got to do what you love. You can't get burnt out, and I do get burnt out. You know, once I'm in a business and I don't enjoy it no more, that's the thing. I can't— it's hard for me to stay in the business for a long period of time because the people tend to make me sick. So as soon as I start to get aggravated, you know, it's like I'll be on the block. If the block starts to make me mad, I go to another block. Even if I got the block clicking, it's just like I won't compromise my quality of living, you know what I'm saying? But like right now, what I'm doing is, you know, I'm building things that I could pass to my kids, but only things that I love and my family. So I love making movies, I'm making movies. I love it. I don't think I'm gonna be burnt out with that anytime soon, you know. And then also, when you're in the business of making money off other people, that person could make you sick and you don't want to make money off them no more. So that's the reason why I try to only make money off myself these days and also do things that, you know, my girl or my wife Rocky, if she's inspired, then we'll do that business. And like, some revolving my children, I'll do that business. But I worked hard to put myself in that position.

So doing work that you love is the number one rule, the key keeps coming up over and over and over again on this channel because that's what successful people do. It's in the book, The Top 10 Rules of Success. I looked at 40 of the most popular people we've ever profiled on the channel, and the number one rule they all have in common is doing what you love. I love Dame Dash's approach, and especially when he's talking about stress and burnout, I think it's really, really, really hard to get burnt out doing work that you love. It's possible, but it's really, really, really hard. The work that you love should energize you. It should fill you up, not deplete you. If I think about meeting entrepreneurs to help them with their business, if I think about coming here and making videos for YouTube, if I think about meeting Alex to talk about TDS, or meeting Lily to talk about her business, or if I'm getting ready to speak at an event, if I think about those things, the things that really fill me up, it gives me energy, not take away. I've been filming here all day, and I've had a couple bars to eat, I haven't gone to the bathroom yet. Just thinking about it makes me have to go to the bathroom. But it's like I just go through it because I love this work. This isn't work. It fills me up. Where when you are feeling super stressed out or feeling burnt out, it's typically from work that you're not enjoying. It's from all the crap that you have to deal with in your business. That's what gets you anxious, can lead to depression, can lead to a lot of unhappiness. And so I like to use stress as a good filter. I like to use burnout as a fantastic filter. If you are constantly burning yourself out, then chances are you're doing the wrong work. And I would look at my schedule, look at where I've spent my time today, and how much of that work did I actually love? Probably not a lot if I'm feeling burnt out at the end of the day. And so how can I make a plan to eliminate that work from my life? That may be something that is immediate, like no more, I'm not going to do this anymore, I'm just cutting this off and I'm going to go do something else. Or it still may be required for your business, but you're making a transition plan so you can eliminate yourself from it, whether that's in a year or 6 months or 3 months. You know, as an example for me in making these videos, editing was something that I could burn out on. I liked editing at the beginning, just, just to learn it, just to learn the new skill, the techniques, understand how the software worked, to be able to see a video come up on screen like, I edited that, I made that, felt really nice. Then I got used to it, and then I got bored of it, and then I didn't want to learn anymore in it, and then it felt like a chore. I like making the videos. I didn't like editing the videos. And so I had to make a plan to get an editor on board to help me with this because this was leading to anxiety and stress and unhappiness in my life. Not to the point where I'm burning out, but to the point where I'm not making enough great videos for you guys because I was doing too much work that I didn't like. And you'll never have success doing work that you don't love. You look at the people at the top, they love the work that they're doing. Not every day, again, is amazing, and not every moment of every day is amazing, but net-net, they love what they're doing. And so if you're feeling that burnout, if you're feeling that stress, I highly encourage you to look at how your day was spent. What were the tasks? What were the responsibilities? What were the activities that led to you feeling burnt out? And then how can you either immediately eliminate them from your life or create a transition plan so that in a week, a month, 3 months, 6 months, whatever it is, those things are off your plate and off to somebody else. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, what is the thing that leads to the most burnout in your life or in your business? Leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to see what you have to say. I also want to give a quick shout out to Nick Francis. Nick, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, taking that picture, posting it online. I really, really appreciate the support, man, and I hope you enjoyed the read. 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, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso.

About trying to make what I think people will like, you know.

It—

I think because it doesn't sound like one full album from top to bottom, people disregard it because it's all over the place. People think it's messy or chaotic, but I think it's beautiful chaos and it's perfect, and it's my favorite album to date. Regardless of what anyone says. And, um, I can understand why people don't like it. It's different, and sometimes different doesn't equal good to some people, but I love it. And, um, you know, that's great. That's all that matters in the end. If you, if you make something you 100% love and everyone loves it, that's a win-win. That's great. If you have something that you really love and everyone hates it, at least you love it and you just move on.

I'm a very spiritual person and I follow my spirit and I do what my spirit tells me to do, you know. And I don't have a set, uh, like, oh, I want to play this type of character and I won't play that type of character. I'm receptive to anything, you know. And when the right thing comes along, if it's serious, if it's funny, if it's silly, if it's lowbrow— see, I'm Put it this way, I do— I just do whatever makes me— I get the most gratification from as an artist, you know. I do music albums and nobody buys my records. I do them because I love making music, you know. And that's the same way I'm about movies. I don't make movies because I'm— I don't go into it thinking, let me do this because then people will come, or how much will the movie make, and I'm trying to make the audience do that. I do what feels right for me.

You know, I have tons of things I'd like to do, and life is short, unfortunately, but I hope it will be long enough for me to do, to do some of these. I have known a few writers who have retired. I cannot imagine ever retiring. Writing and being a writer is too much part of my identity and too much part of what I am. I don't know what I would do with all that time if I did stop writing, you know, play video games or something like that, watch a lot more television. It seems unlikely to me. I've always told stories, whether I could make my living from it or even when I was a little kid, just making up stories for the other kids in the neighborhood. And I think I'm going to continue to do that until the end.

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.