In this interview-style video, Dutch DJ/producer Martin Garrix discusses the hard truths behind his rapid rise to fame and shares his personal "top 10 rules" for success, as framed by host Evan Carmichael. Garrix recounts early skepticism he faced for being young, emphasizing the importance of self‑belief and ignoring negative criticism. He stresses focusing on positive feedback, taking creative risks, and constantly experimenting with new sounds rather than playing it safe. Garrix explains the tension between fan expectations and his desire to evolve his style, describing how he balances releasing high‑energy festival tracks with exploring house, pop, and collaborative projects. He reflects on his early studio habits, the joy of making music for its own sake, and how he measures success through fan engagement, live‑show attendance, and streaming numbers rather than money. Advice for aspiring producers includes persisting through label rejections, dedicating studio time, and letting the music find the right platform. Garrix also shares a behind‑the‑scenes story of collaborating with Ed Sheeran, highlighting the learning that comes from cross‑genre collaboration. Throughout, Carmichael prompts viewers to engage, leave inspirational quotes, and consider their own "one word" mantra.
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In the beginning, there were a lot of people like, "Eh, you know, Martin, you're too young, fuck off, it's not gonna work." If I release a new track, there would be 99 good comments and 1 bad one. And I would be like, "Why would someone say that?" If you always play it safe, it's boring. Life would get boring.
He's a Dutch DJ, record producer, and musician. He gained fame through his song "Animals," which became popular in the EDM culture. He's ranked number 1 on DJ Mag's Top 100 DJ list. He's Martin Garrix, and here's my take on his top 10 rules for success. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it in the comments below. Put quotes around it so other people can be inspired as well. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick with you as well. Enjoy.
Yeah, what have you learned from your success so far? Maybe, um, that's all about hard working, I think, and trusting in what you're doing. Because in the beginning, uh, there were a lot of people like, you know, Martin, you're too young, it's not gonna work. And also at my, uh, my soccer team, there I was, I was DJing, they were like and then right now they're like, oh, fuck, dude, you were right. And I think that's the most important thing. If you believe in what you're doing, that's the most important thing. If you don't believe in what you're doing, you can give up. You don't have to put time and effort in because it won't work. My life lesson would be just always focus on the positive stuff. Every time there's like something negative, and I used to like focus on all the negative stuff, And then, like, for example, if there would be like, if I release a new track, there would be 99 good comments and one bad one. And I would be like, why would someone say that? And just only focus on the one bad comment. But for me, what really helped was for me just to like, forget, like, don't even pay attention to the negative stuff. Just always focus on the positive side. I feel like if you're not taking risks, not taking risks, you're doing something wrong. If you always play it safe, it's boring. Life will get boring. And I feel like taking risks is exciting. It's because you don't know what's going to happen. And to me, that feeling is a great feeling. And also, like with anything in life, I feel like if you want something to happen, you need to take a risk. You need to try new things. You don't be scared.
What do you want to say to your fans that are asking like, yo, like, are you still going to make that high BPM, you know, festival music? Are you leaving that for more—
I'm not leaving anything.
Mainstream, or can you explain that transition and what you're doing there?
For me, it's all about trying to find new sounds, reinventing your own sound. I can release a 128 BPM club song every week, but I don't know, I wanna challenge myself in the studio. I wanna try out new things, I wanna experiment, and me trying out something new and doing something like Scared to Be Lonely or Name of Love doesn't mean I'm completely switching my sound. In October I just released 7 very aggressive 128 BPM house songs, and I've got Ultra coming up, I've got Coachella coming up, and I'm gonna also play a lot of old sounding Martin Garrix stuff. But it's a weird situation, 'cause then I release a house song 1 year ago and they're like, "Oh, same repetitive boring stuff. Do something new, be refreshing." And I do something new and they're like, "We miss the old Martin Garrix." And I'm like, "Wait, what do you guys want me to do?" But for me, what I think is most important is just me being myself in the studio, doing what I want, and don't let other people's opinions affect my music. I want to represent what I want to make, and I'm not switching my sound, I'm just having fun. I started focusing more in the studio, just trying to find my own sound. If I had a 1-hour or 2-hour break at school, I would run to my house and then work on something. This is some stuff I did in 2008. Sounds like shit, but pretty funny to hear back. For me, producing music was just my Martijn time. I could spend 12 hours just behind my computer in my room, never really with the mindset of like, "Oh, I want to make money," or "I want to become famous." If I look back at a time, I see a little kid just enjoying everything and doing what he loves. Mark, I'm stuck. Sounds super unprofessional, super bad, makes super bad sounds, but it's funny. It's a timeline through my life. As a producer.
It's pretty cool.
What's my biggest advice is if you're in it for the wrong reasons, don't even try to get famous because very small chances will happen. And in the end, when you're producing music, what I had a lot was I would send my songs to a bunch of labels and get no reply. And would feel like shit for like a couple of weeks and in the studio I would be insecure, like is it that bad? If I put all the time I put sending the songs into the label, if I put all the energy that I put into that into producing, I would have known what I know right now like maybe 2 years ago. But apart from the financial success of the Garrix brand, the 19-year-old still says that it really is just about the music. For me, I don't measure success in money. Money is something which comes along with it. But for me, I measure success in releasing a song and getting like super, super many views, like good feedback about the fans and the fact that you can do shows for more people. And in the end, I'd rather look on like how a show is going or how a tour is selling, like how many people want to see me, how many people visit the shows, how many people watch like the videos online. That means so much more than just a number of money. It sounds so cheesy, but it's like, follow your dreams. For me, I have 100% belief in if somebody really wants something and really has the— really is eager to work hard for it, you can make it happen, or you can at least be very, very close, you know? So yeah, it sounds cheesy, but follow your dreams and spend as much time as you can trying to improve, get better, learn new things. It's never too late to learn new things. For me, still every day I get to learn new things, and that's the fun thing. You never know everything. What I had trouble with was that no label wanted to sign my stuff the first 4 years, 5 years. And every time I had a track, I was like, "Wow, this track is amazing!" And then I sent it to all the labels, and I would get no reply. And as a producer, it's the most frustrating thing ever, especially when you think I was like, oh, this track can be a hit, I just need a good label. But right now, if I listen back to the tracks, I'm like, of course the labels didn't reply. But I was always too, like, stuck up on, like, oh, a label didn't reply and I wouldn't produce for 2 weeks because I felt bad. And then I was like, ah, I'll try it again, I'll open the program. So my advice is definitely, like, try to keep better, get better, get better, spend as much time as you can in studio, and the labels find you instead of you.
For the next top 10 video, please check the description for a link to a video where you can vote for people and put in your suggestions as well. I'd love to know what did you take from this video? What was the most important lesson that you learned that blew your mind that you're going to immediately apply to your life or your business somehow? Please leave it down in the comments below. I'm super curious to find out. I also want to give a quick shout out to Grant from mohoscoffee.com. Grant Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. I really, really appreciate the support and I hope you're enjoying 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.
I'll see you soon. How many hours a day are you busy with music? All the hours that I'm not asleep. It's like, literally, I wake up, but also listening to music. Yeah, music is everything to me. You live and breathe it. Yeah. The collaboration with Ed Sheeran came about, yeah, I was, I met him a couple of times and we were talking about music and I sent him some ideas, some melodies, and then suddenly he recorded a voice note on WhatsApp like, from him like singing Rewind Repeated, like the first super old version of it. Then I liked it, he recorded it, he sent it to me, I made a track around it, then he redid the vocals or changed a little. It was, it's really cool. We've been in the studio 3 times together, 2 times to properly finish a track. We recorded some of his guitar as well, which is also in the track. So it's really a collaboration, and the cool thing is like he comes comes from such a different— he has such a different vision and I got a different vision. So like sometimes we had to like, he's here, he's here, and we had to agree in the middle. And it was super cool. I learned a lot from the process. And it's also interesting as a producer to see how someone else thinks, how someone else works. It's very learnful. It's really nice.
