Unleash Your Inner DRIVE | The Fastest Way to Succeed

Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is "Prove them wrong." Over to you, Guillermo del Toro.

You know when they say, "Oh, I would like you to do this for me," or— and I produce a lot of first-time filmmakers but I don't produce all first-time filmmakers that approach me. And I say, look, if I say no and you give up, I'm sorry to tell you, but it's the wrong job for you because you live with rejection for decades sometimes as a director and you end up making the movie you want to make. So if I say no, that doesn't mean I'm right or I'm wrong. You just say I'll show him later. You know, I'm gonna make it and that fat bastard is gonna have to say, "I was so wrong," and hit himself in the head because he didn't do it. And I think that that's the thing to do is like, show us, don't tell us, you know, do the things. And if you do them wrong, but you do them in your own terms, that's how I define success, failing in your own terms.

So this is an interesting one for me and I'm conflicted. I'm conflicted because early in my career, I was very motivated by the little man, by the haters, by the naysayers, by the non-believers, by the people who told me that I couldn't do something, and I— that was fuel for me to go out and prove them wrong and show it in their face and say, "Look what I went out and did." Whether it was making my Believe By video that the little man told me that would never do well and now is over, or almost, 2 million views. People who didn't believe in my brand, people who told me I was the worst speaker at the agency, and that motivated me to want to get better. And so that helped me in the early days of my career. But I honestly think that it comes from a place of insecurity. And I would love to encourage you guys to get to the point where you're not motivated by what other people think of you, good or bad. Where the self-motivation, the self-confidence is so strong that it doesn't matter what somebody else says about you. That you wanna go out and do that because you want to go out and do that, not because somebody makes you want to do that, right? Like, your motivation needs to come from here and not from out there. And I'm saying this knowingly understanding that earlier in my career, I was very motivated by the little man and the haters, and that actually helped me get some success. And so maybe it's just the mindset and space that I'm in now, having had some success. But I would love to see you guys not care about the people who don't like what you're doing. The people who don't like your work, the people who tell you you're not talented, the people who feel like you're never gonna be a success, the people who look at your product or service and say, "That's the worst thing I've ever seen, you're never gonna make it." If your motivation is only to prove them wrong, then it's not coming from a great place, or I'd much rather you be more powerful and let that negativity just pound off you. The more you get success, the more negativity you're gonna have, by the way, and the thicker skin you need to build, and the less you want to focus on what negative people are saying. We're understanding there's a lot of people— there are a lot of people out there, even if you haven't seen one yet, there's a lot of people out there who badly need what you can give them. Where if you were to unleash your inner talents, your abilities, your confidence, and create and gift that to the world, there's a lot of people who will love it. And focus on them. Focus on the positivity and focus on doing the thing that you want to do as opposed to doing something to proving somebody else wrong. So that's my take. The question of the day today is, are you doing your business to prove somebody else wrong Or is it because you deeply want to make it happen yourself? I'm curious. Do you agree with younger Evan or current Evan? Leave in the comments below. I'm going to join in the discussion. 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. I wake up every morning. Espresso, keep me going. Hey, Believe Nation, we're looking at doing a top 10 rules for success on Guillermo, so here's a sneak peek at some of the clips we're considering including. I hope you enjoy the bonus.

What I strive to is to connect deeply with audiences that like what I do, even if the audience at large does or doesn't. It makes no difference to me. I make weird movies no matter what size the movie is. And they're not for everyone. And a lot of people may be puzzled or say, why did he do this? But I only do things that I hope speak to somebody in the same fetishistic way that I was spoken to by people that got high on their own supply. Because I get high on my own supply. I make the movies because I want them. You know, whether it's robots and monsters duking it out or it's a post-war fable or whatever it is, they're done because I want to see them.

My father bought a few libraries because he won the lottery in Mexico. And he heard or thought that he needed a study. So he built a library in the house and he had a big desk. He never ever sat in it.

Sat on that desk.

And he bought books sort of by the foot. So he bought an encyclopedia, an encyclopedia of art, an encyclopedia of health, and classics from literature. And I read all of them when I was very young. And especially the anatomical sections of the medical encyclopedia proved very useful. But I became— sort of a bookish, disease-obsessed young kid, and I discovered things like, you know, Last of the Mohicans, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre. And Jane Eyre and Frankenstein were two of the books I liked the most. So how'd you make the transition to being a filmmaker? Oh, it was— I started doing films when my father, again, traded— he was a car dealer. He had car agencies, car salesmanship, and he traded a car for some Super 8 equipment and money. And he brought in a Super 8 camera, Super 8 projector. And first of all, I bought some Super 8 films in San Antonio, Texas. One of them was Crimson Altar with Boris Karloff. And I bought a few strange ones, and I was I burned them in the projector from watching them in reverse and forward again and again. And then I— What were you looking for when you were doing that? I was just— I love reverse. Like, the basics of film are always magical. Reverse, slow motion, things like that. They're always beautiful. When you see a balloon pop and then it— it's always beautiful. And there's a great shot in The Red Shoes where the feet come in and the laces tie. That is magical. And it's just reverse photography. So whenever I was watching it in reverse, I was, oh my god, it's so— I watched them backwards and forwards. But then I bought in the pharmacy, back then in the drugstore, I bought a Super 8 cartridge. And I put it on the camera. And I shot a little movie with my dolls, my Planet of the Apes action figures. And I projected it. And it's the most beautiful— no one has ever— No time have I ever had the sense of elation that I had then, because I said, "Ah, I did that and it's on the screen!" And it was fantastic.