Steve Jobs, Les Brown, and Jim Carrey on why success demands passion, faith, and patience. Les Brown wrote himself a $10,000 check; Jim Carrey kept a $10 million one for years. The Chinese bamboo tree takes five years of care before it grows fast, a lesson in showing up consistently.
Chapters
People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing, and it's totally true. And the reason is, uh, is because it's so hard that if you don't, any rational person would give up. It's really hard, and you have to do it over a sustained period of time. So if you don't love it, if you're not having fun doing it, you don't really love it, uh, you're gonna give up. The ones that are successful loved what they did so they could persevere when, you know, when it got really tough. And, and the ones that didn't love it quit because they're sane, right? Who would want to put up with this stuff if you don't love it? So it's a lot of hard work and, and it's a lot of worrying constantly. And if you don't love it, you're gonna fail. So you got to love it, you got to have passion.
Make a choice, right? You just decide what is going to be who you're gonna be, how you're gonna do it. Just decide, and then from that point, the universe is gonna get out your way.
You must have faith. You've got to believe in yourself. You've got to believe in your abilities. You've got to believe in your service, your company. I wrote myself a check for $10,000.
$10 million for acting services rendered, and I gave myself, uh, 5 years— or 3 years, maybe. And, uh, and I dated it Thanksgiving 1995, and I put it in my wallet, and I kept it there, and it deteriorated and deteriorated and stuff. And, uh, and, uh, but then just before Thanksgiving 1995, I found out that I was gonna make $10 million on— I think it was Dumb and Dumber.
It takes guts. You gotta dig down deep to cut it out, keep on going again and again and again until you make it happen, because you know that it's possible. Judge not according to appearances. Don't judge your circumstances and the possibilities for your future based upon what you have now and because of what's going on now. No, no, no, no, that's not the real reality there. What you're going through, if you're going through some hard times, it has not come to stay, it has come to pass. It's all right. Now, second thing is, repeat this after me, something you should affirm to yourself every day. Repeat this, please. No matter how bad it is or how bad it gets, I'm going to make it. Say that to yourself every day. As I used to say to myself, I— when I would get up in the Pernod Scott Building and I had to go into the bathroom and bathe in the bathroom sink, I had written on the mirror that I put up there, just pasted up there, and I read, "No matter how bad it is or how bad it gets, I'm going to make it." So you've got to have faith. You talk to yourself, you say that affirmation. The next step is you must have patience and engage in consistent action. Patience, and engage in consistent action. So everything does not always happen, ladies and gentlemen, when we want it to happen. It doesn't happen quickly. So in that process, they have something in the Far East called the Chinese bamboo tree. The Chinese bamboo tree, every day it has to be watered and fertilized. It's a very hard nut, and, and it takes 5 years of, of watering and fertilization every day, according to American Geographic, before it breaks through the ground. At any time, if the watering process and the nurturing and the fertilization process is stopped, the Chinese bamboo tree will die in the ground. Now, once it breaks through in that 5th year, then in 6 weeks it grows 90 feet tall. Now the question is, does it grow 90 feet in 5 years or 6 weeks? The answer is obvious. It takes 5 years. That's how long it took to grow it, to build that foundation, to nurture it, to water it, to build the reputation, to build the credibility, to learn the market, to learn people, to learn yourself, to learn the system, to learn how to do it, to figure it out. That's why you must have patience and engage in consistent action.
If you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace, and your sleep for it, if all that you dream and scheme is about it and life seems useless and worthless without it, and if you gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it and lose all your terror of the opposition for it, and if you simply go after this thing that you want with all of your capacity, strength, and sagacity, faith, hope, and confidence, and stern pertinacity, if neither cold poverty Famish or gulf, sickness or pain of body and brain can keep you away from the thing that you want. If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it, with the help of God you'll get it.
