The BIGGEST SECRET to Achieving Your Dreams | Camila’s Rule to Success

I definitely didn't think of it as a career. That was literally just like 5 seconds of bravery that changed my life. I wanted it so badly, and they were like, "Honestly, you shouldn't come at all anymore because I don't want to see your family disappointed. If you come tomorrow, there's not going to be any room for you to audition. I honestly think you should just go home and try again next year." Letting the core of who you are and kind of letting all your walls down in front of the world and in front of other people is the bravest thing that you could do.

Need motivation? Watch a top 10 with Believe Nation! What's up, 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 onto the world. So let's get your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's lessons from a woman who went from dropping out of 9th grade in school with dreams of becoming a singer to having her first solo studio album debut at number 1 on the Billboard charts, led by its lead single Havana. She's Camila Cabello, and here's my take on her top 10 rules of success. Enjoy! Alright, let's kick things off with rule number 1: Take a shot.

I initially was not trying to do music at all. I mean, I came to the United States, my family came, and my parents made that choice. My mom, um, came over to Miami and her Her main thing was just like, "We don't have money to get you into college, so you're gonna have to get a scholarship and you're gonna have to study your butt off." And so that was always my main focus was just, I was like a book nerd. I was just like studying, studying, studying. So I didn't really think of it as a plausible thing, even though it was always my escape. You know, I would always sneak off into my room when my parents went to Walmart and I would just like sing. Wow. But yeah, I definitely didn't think of it as a career. That was literally just like 5 seconds of bravery that changed my life where I decided to, you know, try out for a show. We asked Camila, "What do you want for your quinceañera party?" And she told me, "I want you to go with me to an audition." What do you do when you're not singing? I would love to say something interesting, but all I do is sing karaoke and watch, like, One Direction videos.

Rule number 2, my personal favorite: be persistent.

I went to the producer round of The X Factor, and after that, they send you to perform for the actual judges. And so when they wrote me the letter, Basically, they said that I was a— what's that called? Alternate, right, an alternate. An alternate, which means that you're not guaranteed a spot to audition in front of the judges. And if they have time at the end of the show, then you can audition, but that's never guaranteed. So you have to still sit there and wait, wait, wait? So the auditions were all the way in North Carolina, and so my whole family and I traveled to North Carolina to see if maybe I could audition. So the auditions, the judges auditions, are 3 days. The first day I get there and I'm about to go on the stage and sing, and I have my microphone in my hand, and a producer comes and says, "Sorry, we don't have enough time." As you keep going throughout the days, your name keeps going down and down on the list because there's different alternates for every day. So anyway, so then I said, "Okay, like, I'm just gonna try, like, to come the next day." So the next day I come, same Basically the same thing happens and I'm crying backstage. And the producer, like my grandma's there and my grandma's crying 'cause we were all like, "This sucks. I'm not gonna get a chance to audition and I wanted it so badly." And they were like, "Honestly, you shouldn't come at all anymore because I don't wanna see your family disappointed. If you come tomorrow, there's not gonna be any room for you to audition. I honestly think you should just go home and try again next year." Boo! Yeah, and so Simon Cowell luckily walks out like behind the stage, and I was like, was he wearing a really tight white shirt? Yeah, and I was like, I was like, Simon, they won't let me audition, could you please let me audition? Simon and all the judges on the show, they have no idea what the alternate process is actually like. They just see people walk out on stage, give them a yes, whatever. And so he was like, oh yeah, for sure, you can audition. And I turned over to the executive producer and I was like, Don't, like, see? He's Simon Cowell and he's telling me I can audition.

Can I please? I wasn't grasping, but I like that.

Thanks. And I was like, can I please just come back tomorrow? And so basically, to sum up the story, they saw how persistent I was and how much I wanted to be there because I ended up like just crying to the producer and being like, honestly, I don't even have to, you don't even have to put me as an alternate tomorrow. I just want to be in the building to know that I did everything that I could to know that if there maybe is a 1% chance that I'm allowed to audition, that I'm here, that I'm I'm still here for it. And so they saw how persistent I was, and the next day they ended up letting me audition.

Rule number 3, find true success. Obviously when Fifth Harmony started to emerge, and X Factor and the show takes off, and you guys as a group, you know, Better Together, Reflection.

Yeah.

Did you feel like you made it? Was it this feeling of accomplishment? Like, what were you going through as the group started to take off and you were part of that?

It felt really great from a level of, man, we've worked so hard. Our families have sacrificed so much. But I definitely felt like when Work From Home became like a really big song, or when, you know, songs of ours started to get played, I wanted to like feel more when I heard it on the radio, if that makes sense.

Mhm.

I learned so much. I'm so, so grateful for, for that whole experience. I don't even think that I would have felt like that yearning to even start writing to express myself if it weren't for for the fact that, you know, I was singing songs that I didn't really connect to. Like, I did a song with Shawn Mendes. I did— I know we did last summer. That song was not nearly as successful as Work From Home. If it came on in the radio, I was like, whoa, like, this is about something that happened to me. Like, you know what I mean? And even though it wasn't as successful, it just— I just felt more.

Rule number 4 is be yourself.

I think for me, just being yourself and kind of letting the core of who you are and kind of letting all your walls down in front of the world and in front of other people is the bravest thing that you could do. That's also what I try to do with my music as well, is just be as honest as possible and just kind of share the vulnerable parts of myself, 'cause I think that that's very relieving when you can do that, 'cause then you're just yourself. You don't have to try to be anything else.

Rule number 5, push yourself.

I have a lot of moments where I'm like shy and I don't want to be I want to be away from people, but I think certain challenges always make me have to step it up, and so I push myself a lot. Life begins outside of your comfort zone, and sometimes it's good to push yourself and do the unexpected, and you never know what you might find.

Rule #6: Be consumed by passion.

I just feel like advice that I would give is just let yourself be so consumed in your art or whatever your passion is. It's literally the greatest feeling in the world. It's like love. Like, it's, you know, to just let yourself be just like swallowed whole by what makes you feel alive and what connects you to, you know, the universe and that inner voice. There's nothing more, more beautiful than that. And it's such a, it's such a selfless thing to share that, you know, to share that with the world. Because I think I love that there's, um, there's this quote. I can't remember it word for word, but, um, this guy says something like, share your, share your talent and share your dreams with the world because what the world needs is more people who come alive, something, something along those lines. Um, but yeah, because, you know, by you just expressing yourself, you kind of ignite, you can, you know, ignite a fire in somebody else to express themselves in some way, you know, like, and that would just make us all like so much happier. As people, you know what I mean? Like, just do everything, do everything for love and you'll, you'll feel so fulfilled.

Rule number 7: Start small. On your Instagram, you posted about writing music in the hotel room that is totally 100% you.

I would get instrumentals from songs that already existed. So I have these demos where you hear like the music is from like Born to Die by Lana Del Rey. And I wrote like a whole other song over it.

Wow.

And that's how I basically started to develop my voice as a songwriter. When I got into the studio to really, for the first time, to work on this album, which was January, everybody was kind of, they came in with this attitude of like, "Oh, I have an idea for you, like, play it for me." And I was like, "Let's do something from scratch." And they were like, "Oh, you actually write, like, you actually have a point of view, you actually have something that you wanna talk about today." Like, I'm so happy that I started writing those like, demos on the road because if it weren't for that, I wouldn't have even had the confidence to be like, "Oh, I want to do this today, guys," as opposed to just taking something. But I wouldn't have even known where to start.

Rule number 8: Express emotions.

I'm just trying to connect with my heart and with my soul and kind of bare my soul to people. I feel like that's kind of my goal as an artist, whether it's in my music or, you know, in a photo shoot, I want to make sure that I'm able to bring out my emotions, whatever it is that I'm feeling. When I go into the studio, I want to write about the scary places in my heart. I want to write about the feelings that are— can be kind of sad and uncomfortable, like the real human parts of us. When I was younger, I would have never imagined that I could be able to do this for a living. Like, music was always something that I loved to do, and it was my form of escape. Escape. I hopefully can create that form of escapism for other people when they listen to my music. So that's kind of what I'm trying to create.

Rule number 9 is expect the worst. What is that feeling for you, like that solo debut?

It's intense. Heart's racing, hands shaking. My mom has always told me when you make— when I made that decision, she was like, just, you know, don't expect anything. Like expect expect the worst, and, you know, if you still obviously still want to do this, then go ahead and do it. And, you know, I really did expect the worst. I was like, you know what, if nobody cares, if, you know, my first album flops, all my songs flop, I don't care. I'm still gonna do this because I want to do this for me. And so I was perfectly ready for none of it to happen. And I, you know, so it's the fact that, you know, people connected to Havana and that people are connecting to Never Be the Same and people are just connecting to my music is super— it's like the best feeling ever.

And rule number 10, the last one before the bonus clips: have fun.

The next question is for Michelle. She wants to know if you can like rap from the song Bad Things. Rap a few lines. Sure.

I'm gonna let Camila go ahead and take this one.

Nothing's that bad.

Ay.

If it feels good. Uh. You come back.

What?

Like I knew you would.

Ay.

We're both wild. Right? I love how you say wild. Wild. Wild. You say it really cool. I'm like, and we're both wild.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the night's young.

I never even thought about that.

You're my drug.

Say that to my face now.

Drop it down to that bass drum. I got what you dream about.

Nail scratching my back tat.

Eyes closed while you scream. Oh, inappropriate, inappropriate. No, you're good. We're good. We'll hold hands. Hey. Along the sand. I only want to do some kind of bad things to you. Yeah, that's good. Yeah! It's the remix.

Now I've got some special Camila bonus clips for you, but before that, my question of the day is around her rule number 9, expect the worst. Do you expect the worst? Do you expect the best? What's better or worse? I want to know, leave it down in the comments below. Thank you guys so much 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 enjoy the bonus clips. Having your mom travel with you and be here today, and this is the second time I've met your mom, the second time I've met you really face to face, so I know she's with you all the time.

Yeah, she's with me all the time.

That's obviously when you were growing up, a huge part of your upbringing was you can be as talented as you want, but at the end of the day, unless you make an impression on people that is positive, then you're setting yourself up to fail.

Yeah, I mean, for sure. And I feel like it's not even thinking about that with that intention, because I feel like you can't just be nice because, you know, you don't wanna fail or you want people to like you. I feel like she's just always taught me that more important than anything, than being talented, than being, uh, you know, all of these qualities that are great, being brave, being smart, being talented, you know, being, um, you know, independent. Hardworking. Yeah. All of that stuff. Nothing is as important as being kind. Like, I think being kind is the most, important thing you can be. And she's always, you know, told me that's the most important thing in people, period, no matter who they are.

Raise your standard. Apple, at the core, its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance. That's what it means to me. I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

Hey, Believe Nation! If you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.