This is Why You Are WRONG About SUCCESS | Will Smith's Insight in 22 Minutes

It takes such a desperate, obsessive focus to excel on a certain level that I want to make movies. You have to be able to laugh at everything. He who says he can and he who says he can't are both usually right.

He's an American actor, producer, rapper, and songwriter. He's been ranked as the most bankable movie star worldwide by Forbes. As of 2016, his films have grossed over $7.5 billion worldwide. He's Will Smith, and here's my take on his top 10 rules for success, volume 2. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. Also guys, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired. Also, when you write it down, it's much more likely to lock in for yourself as well. Enjoy.

I realized that when to have the level of success that I want to have, it's difficult to spread it out and do multiple things, you know. It's in order to, to be world-class, and I've made a decision, I want to be world-class, and it just, it takes such a Desperate, obsessive focus to excel on a certain— on the level that I want to make movies. You know, I was— Star Wars. When I was young, I sat in a movie theater and watched Star Wars, and I just couldn't believe that that movie made me feel like that. Just floored and just stunned by the creativity. And just— I'm realizing that in order to move people in that way, in order to touch people in that way, You really gotta focus with all of your fiber and all of your heart and all of your creativity. The concept of improving lives runs through the center of everything I do. And then I realized that the way to improve lives is to continually improve yourself, right? So with that, every morning when I get out of the bed, you know, I haven't fixed everything in the world yet, so there's always something to do. And in this film, I read an interesting quote Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, he said that good people have to get out of the bed every day and try to empty the ocean with a ladle, right? And I thought that was, I knew that was profound and I paused for a second and I said, all right, what the hell is a ladle, right? Right, so then I just touched it on my iPad, it's ladle. Oh, it's like a big spoon, a big spoon, okay. Okay. It's like a soup spoon. Yeah. It's like a soup spoon. I was like, why are you using a soup spoon? So try to empty the ocean with a soup spoon, you know, as the mentality of how you wake up every day to try to do good in the world. So for me, I'm really driven by continually trying to elevate my mind and elevate my spirit and care for my body. To be able to love as many people as effectively as possible with this mystery of life that I've been given. For me, I never did anything for money, right? So it was never about money. My experience has been when people do things for money, you make bad choices. Find what you love, and then you'll learn how to make money doing what you love. When I changed careers, I was never changing to something for money. I always change it to something I love more, right? And that, to me, that's really the only way to keep the passion. If you have two choices and one is playing the piano and another one is, you know, bowling, and you can make more money bowling but you love playing the piano more, you gotta play the piano. It's like you'll tear yourself apart if you're not doing the thing that you love most in life. And you know what it is right now. Right now there's something that you love more than everything. Whatever it is that love crazy has to be the thing that you dedicate your life. You have to be able to be vulnerable in front of anybody. You know, you have to be comfortable looking silly, you have to be comfortable making mistakes, and you have to break the thing inside of you that doesn't want people to see, right? Because as soon as you allow people to see, all of a sudden you get access to things that you didn't realize you had access to. Right? For example, like, a thing I used to do is when I was probably 18 or 19 years old, I got in touch with those blocks. The camera hates emotional blocks. Like, you put a camera in somebody's face and they're uncomfortable about delivering emotion, it looks fake and you feel it. You immediately know it's not real, right? Especially look at the size of this screen, and in a shot that whole screen could be just your eyes. Right? So it's like you can't hide discomfort, uncertainty, so you have to be able to get comfortable, you know, just being anything! Anything that you have to be for the role, you have to be comfortable being it! I'd gotten probably 2 weeks into my preparation for the film and my father was diagnosed with cancer. So we just started talking about love, time, and death. And it was some of the most open and powerful conversations that we'd ever had. And they gave him 6 weeks, and he actually, he lived for 4 months. So about 3 months into the 6 weeks, you know, I go to see him one day and he said, "Man, this shit is embarrassing." And I said, "What, Dad?" He said, "Man, you tell everybody you gonna be dead in 6 weeks, 3 months later you still hanging around." Laughing is the elixir, you know, and that was another thing that my father taught me. He was joking all the way up to the end. Like laughing, you have to be able to laugh at everything. And for me, the beautiful part is that that's my natural color on the spectrum. I naturally go to comedy. And when I'm looking at something, I'm always trying to find why that's funny. And it's been really, really helpful in this experience and even just this point in my life. Keep— remember to laugh. Remember to laugh. And spend time with people that make you laugh. Like, that is hugely important. As a child, my parents always told me, you could be whatever you want to be, you could do whatever you want to do. And you know that, that office, that position, the highest office on the face of the earth, it was something I heard my parents saying it, but I didn't totally believe it yet. I went out in the world and I carried myself and I held my head high. And I stood there and I looked people in their eyes and I talked to people as if I was deserving of everything that this planet has to offer. So I just, I really want to say to children out there and to people who are watching, Confucius said one time, "He who says he can and he who says he can't are both usually right." So I want to stand here before you, and as I hold this award, I want to give love to my wife. And I want you to keep in your heart, just know that you can. Know that you can. And the greatest thing in my, in my career has been the constant commitment to putting something in the world of value, not putting something in the world that makes me look hot. You know?

Yeah.

So I think as long as you can stay focused on delivering your art and delivering yourself and delivering your energy and delivering your ideas for the world to be better. If there was one concept that I would suggest to people to take a daily confrontation with is fear. The problem with fear is that it lies, right? So fear tells you, hey, you know, if you say that to that girl, she's gonna know she has you, you know? And she'll never really be attracted to you if she knows how much you attracted to her. Don't say that, no. How we get her is when she walks by, ignore her. Right, right, it's a sneaky little puppet on your shoulder. Fear tells you dumb shit. Like that, right? You know, so for me, the daily confrontation with fear has become a real practice for me since about 3 years ago, I went skydiving in Dubai, right? And skydiving is a really interesting confront with fear, right? So I got to stand up. I'm sorry. I got to stand up. I got to stand up. All right. So all your friends, what happens? You go out. How you— oh, sorry. Oh, I dropped my thing. So what happens is you go out the night before. And you take a drink with your friends. And somebody says, yeah, we should go skydiving tomorrow. And you go, yeah, we'll go skydiving tomorrow. Yeah, yeah.

And you go, yeah.

And everybody goes, yeah. Right? And you go home. And you're by yourself. You're like, mm.

Right?

You're like, well, I mean, they was drunk too. Right? So maybe they not, maybe, I mean, we don't have to go. We don't have to do it. So then that night you're laying in your bed and you just keep, and you're terrified. You keep imagining over and over again jumping out of an airplane and you can't figure out why you would do that.

Right?

And you're laying there and you have the worst night's sleep of your life, but you still have the hope that your friends were drunk, right? So you wake up the next day and you go down and you stay where you were going to meet and everybody's there. You're like, oh, shit. All right, all right, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, right? So you get in the van and you don't know that your friends had the same night that you had because they're pretending like they didn't. They're like, yeah, man, my uncle's a Navy SEAL. And you know, this is going to be great. I've been looking forward to this. Oh my God, oh my God. And your stomach is terrible, you can't eat and everything, but you don't wanna be the only punk who doesn't jump out of this airplane. So you get there and then you have this safety brief and you're standing there and the guys are telling you, well, if the chute doesn't open, what's gonna happen is you're doing— well, why the hell, what could happen? That the chute wouldn't open, right? So you do a thing and what you do is your first jump, you're attached to a guy. Who is going to walk you out. So you go, and you get there, and there's an airplane, and nobody's stopping. Everybody's still going. So you get onto the airplane, and you're sitting there. And it's extra because you're sitting on some dude's lap, some stranger. You're sitting on his lap. And it's like you're trying to make small talk. Yeah, man. So you'd be jumping with people all the time, huh? Right? So, and then you just want to make sure, you know, you got kids, right? You got people you need to see, right? You just want to make sure he's serious, right? So you get in there. So everything's normal. So you fly and you go up, you go up, you go up, you go up to 14,000 feet and you notice there's a light. It's red and it's yellow and green, right? So right now the light's red. So then you start thinking at some point the light's going to go green, but you don't know what's going to happen, right? And you wait, and it goes yellow, and the light goes green, and somebody opens the door. And in that moment, you realize you've never been in a freaking airplane with the door open. Right? Terror. Oh, sorry. I'm spitting.

I'm sorry.

Oh, sorry. No, terror, terror, terror, terror, right? So you go, and then if you were smart, you sat in the back so you don't go first, right? And then people start going out of the airplane. And you go, and the guy walks you up to the end of the thing, and you're standing, and your toes are on the edge, and you're looking out down to death. And they say, on 3. And they say, 1, 2, and he pushes you on 2 because people grab on 3, right? Right? And you go, "Ahh!" And you fall out of the airplane, and in 1 second, you realize that it's the most blissful experience of your life. You're flying, right? It doesn't feel like falling, right? It's like you actually are kind of held a little bit by the wind, and then you start falling, you're falling, There's zero fear. You realize that the point of maximum danger is the point of minimum fear. It's bliss. It's bliss. And you're flying, right? And you're doing it. And then 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 40 seconds, and you have enough time to just kind of be like, oh, shit, that's that building I saw like that one. Oh, you can see the ocean, right? You start doing all of that. And the lesson for me was, why were you scared in your bed the night before? Why did you, what do you need that fear for? Just don't go. Why are you scared in your bed 16 hours before you jump? Why are you scared in the car? Why could you not enjoy breakfast? What did you need that, the fear is, fear of what? You're nowhere even near the airplane. Everything up to the stepping out, there's actually no reason to be scared. It only just ruins your day. You don't have to jump. And then in that moment, all of a sudden, where you should be terrified is the most blissful experience of your life. And God placed the best things in life on the other side of terror. On the other side of your maximum fear are all of the best things in life. I have to show up at work with the right attitude and with the positive energy. And I actually had a t-shirt made that said, "Positive energy is a part of your job description." Right? So the idea that I want to show up with the right energy, I want to show up, you know, we're all here, you know, even now we're all here, we're trying to feed our families, we're trying to have a good time, we're trying, you know, this is an important part of our lives. Our time is all that we have. So to me, it's hugely important to deliver positive energy in a way because it's viral. So if I come with positive energy, then someone else is going to pick up on the positive energy and you're going to take it home to your families. And, you know, so for me, it's just hugely important to approach everything and everybody at every turn with the, the, the positive loving kindness that I can generate.

I love you. That's got to feel good. Yeah. That's got to feel good, man. Good to see you, man.

You too. Yeah, that was good. That was like— that's a really, really good introduction. But I just— like, they seem excited.

I just—

I think I can do it better.

You can do it better?

Yeah.

They gave you the money. They gave you a standing ovation.

That was fine.

No, no, I just think they deserve a better entrance than that. They just— I'm sorry. Just one more. One more.

Want to do the intro?

Yeah, do one more.

All right. Do one more. I'm sorry. Our first guest this evening is one of the biggest stars on the planet. He's a multiple Grammy Award winner. And multiple Academy and Golden Globe Award nominee. Next Friday, you can see him alongside Margot Robbie and Jared Leto in one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, Suicide Squad. Please welcome the one, the only, Will Smith! Will Smith, everybody. That's it right there. That is how you make an entrance right there. Will Smith.

Yeah. That was pretty good. I felt a little bit better.

Yeah?

That was a little bit better about that one.

A little? That was fantastic. You came out in a hamster, a human hamster ball. That was unbelievable.

That was great. I just think they deserve a little more than that.

Seriously, that was fun.

No, no, just like, just listen, you know? And everybody at home, we've done— I was your first guest ever on this show, man.

I know. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I remember that. Yeah, of course.

All right.

You want to do one more time? One more.

I got to give it to them. All right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Get it.

Get it. Out here. Sure. Our first guest this evening is one of the biggest stars on the planet. He's a multiple Grammy Award winner, multiple Academy Golden Globe Award nominee. Next Friday, you see Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, one of the most anticipated movies of of the summer, Suicide Squad. Please welcome the one, the only, Will Smith!

Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to know, what did you think of this video? And in general, what do you think of our Volume 2 series? Leave it down in the comments below. I'd also love to know, what did you learn from Will's Will Smith in this video that had the biggest impact on you? Which clip was your favorite, and what are you going to take from this video today and immediately apply it to your life, your business somehow? Leave it down in the comments below. I'm super curious to find out. Finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Gaurav Jr. Gaurav, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. It really, really, really, really means a lot to me, and I hope you're enjoying the read. So 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.

The movies that I made while I was making The Fresh Prince, so it was The Fresh Prince during the winter, and then the summers were Bad Boys, Independence Day, Men in Black. So it was like, it really captured a time. So it's very difficult. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love being able to make people smile and cheer over that. But I also am going to boldly go to new creation. Even something like the decision— I had the two screenplays in front of me for the Independence Day 2. And for Suicide Squad. So I had to choose between the two of those, and even the choice of going to Suicide Squad, nothing about the qualities of the movie, but the choice of trying to go forward versus clinging and clawing backwards, you know? So I do want to aggressively go forward and do new things and create and hopefully be able to stumble upon a new heyday.