"You Don't Get SUCCESS OVERNIGHT!" - Timbaland (@Timbaland) - Top 10 Rules

Even though when you got a sour face, you gonna find a groove in one of mine, 'cause I got the feeling, I got the soul in my music. It took us a long time to get— we didn't come here overnight. We had to go through levels of agony. See, I wanna educate and give at the same time.

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe in your potential, and I wanna see that thing that you've got inside you explode out into the world to have a big impact for you, your family, and the world. So to help you on your journey today, we're gonna learn from producer, DJ, and singer-songwriter Timbaland and my take on his top 10 rules for success. Rule number 8 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, guys, as you're watching, if you hear something that really, really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick for yourself as well. Enjoy.

Did you ever doubt yourself, Timbo? I doubt myself all the time.

Wow.

Like, I go through it now. Like, I'll be like, man, do I still got it? Because not do I still have the talent, do I still have the brain cells to figure out what's going on today. You know what I'm saying? 'Cause sometimes you can get burnt out and I wanna stay always rejuvenated to know that I can like, nobody can have a one-up on me. I don't want nobody to have a one-up on me. I heard that. I'm always in the competition. I'm more about the music than the money. You know what I'm saying? I like just like, what you got? No. You know, somebody like, no, you don't know about this. I birthed you. Yeah. I know about it. You came from me. I am the music God. I feel like, I feel like where I'm at in life right now, just positive energy, my whole spirit. I feel like I'm at my prime right now. I feel like we haven't even, that's why I put the book out. I feel like I'm now, I feel like the world now gonna see my best work. But to them, they might be like, "Oh, the '90s was better." But to me, with all the technology that's being available and ways you can do things, I'm a big kid. So if I don't get in now, it's like I'm getting in 'cause I know what I always wanted to do when people was like, "Oh, that's whack." Missy might say, "That's whack." But you know, like not whack like it might be too ahead of its time. You know what I'm saying? So now time has caught up to what my thinking was. So I'm just gonna experiment and do what I think is dope. You know, we didn't have Instagram back then, but if one person be like, if I hear like 3 people's like, "Oh man, he got that beat, that double tap." I'm like, "Okay." All I need to hear is too bad. Like, "Man, he do the same beat." Okay, watch this. Then I came with "Can You Get Freaky?" Then I came with the good top arpeggiation. Then everybody wanted to flip their arpeggiation and want to do different things. Then I came with, uh, with the bass line. Try again, mess people up, man. I like— I'm always, I'm always trying something, cuz once I got the stage, I got your attention. I'mma do what I want to do. I'mma show you how it's going to do, even though when you got a sour face, you going to find a groove in one of my— cuz I got the feeling, I got the soul in my music. It's a difference. Like, I don't just do it for It's got swag and it got feeling. So it's like, it's a difference. You can have— we can lose the swag, but if you ain't got that feeling in it, it's over. Me and Jay fell out. I missed his 40th. He missed— he did— he didn't miss mine. He didn't send me a gift, but I missed his. And it was over petty stuff. It was more personal stuff and disagreements, and it was not no industry related. It was more personal, and I was wrong. You know what I'm saying? I was wrong. I came— when I was working on Justin, he said, yo, send me a text, uh, we need to talk, you know, we need to hook back up. I flew down to the Brooklyn when he had them shows, and we looked at each other and we just gave each other a hug, and he was like, what you been doing, man? I said, man, I'm, I'm right, I'm back, I got my mind right. See, when you real friends, you will, you will disagree and not speak and come back together and realize that we better together than apart. We had some energy. It wasn't about doing an album, man. The energy in Jungle Studio was so powerful. The whole point is the old Tim would have been like, yeah, you can't let nobody on this. I only got to be just me. I'll be having a fit. But the new Tim Hey, whatever's gonna better the project, let's go. I'm rocking with all these people, you know what I'm saying? I don't have no animosity with this person. I don't have no animosity with that person. I don't have no, you know what I'm saying? I'm just not that dude. So I'm there, man. Like, I just, I embrace everybody. How much do you hear, and especially just throughout the years, how much do you hear, "Can I rap for you? Can I sing for you?" Like that? I hear it all the time. Does it get tiring at some point? No, I just be like, why don't you? I mean, I break it down to 'em like, look, what makes you different from that person standing beside you that say they can sing? And they was like, you know what, Timbo, you right. So I give advice as they come to me. So I'm like, put it on records 'cause that's how the world's gonna hear it. The world's not gonna hear you a cappella until you at a— But they think it's you though, that, you know what I'm saying? Like you, but you're the connection that gets them to where they're going. It's levels. Right, right, right, right. It's levels. You know that. Right, right. And I just tell people that I don't gotta tell you what the levels are. There's levels. Right. And you know what it is. It took us a long time to get, we didn't come here overnight. We had to go through levels of agony. Right. You know what it is, man. Yeah, boy, we had to go. And people don't realize that. It's levels. People wanna cut the line now too. Exactly. Right. And they want exactly what you have today at today's market price. I know. And it's crazy. And I'm like, no, you have to crawl before you walk. My feeling is whenever the inspiration don't find you, you have to find it. And luckily for me, I've been in this business a minute. I know a couple people, and some of them are just permanently inspired. Let me something. What? You confused? No. Yeah, right. You know, you got bounce? You got no bounce, Nathan. You got no bounce, Nick. You ain't got no bounce, Nick. The bounce coming up. Bye. Oh, that's that. All right, you take your pick. I'm the best there is. You got that? This is on the fly, man. I'mma fuck up a lot. It's like, it's all in memory. I think he's the greatest, you know what I'm saying? The person that can do about 30 raps on his head, no forgetting there one of them. It's ingenious. Uh-huh. One more time. Nicki put up with everything. They, they, they tried to tear her down. How many times they tried to tear down Nicki? I tried myself and failed. She, she, she's the best. She's the best, not because of music, but because of who she is as a woman. Yeah. You're not going to get over on Nicki Minaj. She like, she fits in. She deserves to be on the stage with Beyoncé. She proved that. And it's not about— people understand it's not about your music, it's about your adversity through life. The talent is one thing. Can you, it's the adversity that life throws at you, can you handle? Music is whatever you make it. And I feel like music is the future and it's like, it's changing and people doing their own interpretation of what they think is music. And what we think is music is like, you know, Patti LaBelle, all the great stuff, but that's our era. So is it fair to interfere with your son that could be 19 to say that ain't music? Would you, would, Would you want your parents telling you when we listen to hip hop, the hippity hip hop? Yeah, that's not music, right? So I just look at it as, wow. I don't even look at the music. I'm like, are we really getting old? Like, that's all I be thinking. Like, yo, we really have seen some stuff. So I just be like, how do I reinvent myself in the future and be futuristic Timbo? That's how I look at it. What goals do you feel like you still, besides you said changing the sound, like, is there any specific goals you still have in mind? That's it, man. I just wanna not, and show people that I think I got a big thing when it comes to being a billionaire. Um, I want to provide jobs for the community. Like, I feel like people— what in the world do I possibly need with a billion dollars? What could I possibly go buy in a lifetime? I live comfortably now, so what is that going to be so different? You know what I'm trying to say? So if I go to a neighborhood and I can provoke somebody killing somebody because of money, I'm gonna talk to him and give him the money. I'm like, now, what did you get from this? Now, why were you gonna shoot that dude across the street? Because what? So what is your difference now? See, I want to educate and give at the same time. If I take $100 million and spread throughout a community, I'm like Martin Luther King. How I produce now is like, as I'm on the road, I do a lot on my iPad now. So How I do it now, I just take ideas that I might get each day, and then I go back, and I take her like about the end of the month, and I go in the studio, take all my ideas, and then I start to produce. Then I bring in all my, you know, the team, everybody, and I say, let me hear what you got, what you will say on this. Or then I might say, ooh, that's dope, and I just start piecing. To me now, it's like I piece stuff together. Like I like piecing great quality of stuff, 'cause you get so much bundled of great material, you know, from lyrics to sounds. So you gotta like, for me it's like, all right, I say Blaze, do your part. Okay, we should tweak that. Tweezy, do your part. All right, I'm gonna put— now that they did all their parts, I tweak their stuff and move it around and then play it back for them and be like, nah, it don't sound right, my voice don't sound like this, or don't. So I— it's almost like a learning as I build. So it's like, for me, it's like learning the new generation and being a teacher for the new generation too, but also accepting and being Open to their creativity. Oh yeah, just let them do it. Like, okay, hey man, that's what y'all think is dope. I think it could be this, but guess what? You only 23. You don't— I got to wait till you get 28. Like, with Future's now, you know, from— if you go back to Future music today to him, to him now, it's a difference. And it's going to evolve. It's not going to evolve how Jay and Nas evolved, but that's their world. That's how they evolved. So we got to be acceptable to what music is today and not be so judgmental. And people like, oh, they ain't saying nothing, they ain't talking about— but they are saying stuff to what they see every day in life.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Jada, Bell, and Kiki asked me to. If there's someone you'd like me to cover in a future top 10, check out the link in the description and go and cast your vote. I'd also love to know what did you learn from this video? What lesson really hit home the hardest? What are you going to immediately apply somehow to your life or to your business? Leave it down in the comments below, I'm really curious to find out. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Kaylee and Bradley, thank you guys so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, taking that picture, posting it online. I love the bird tattoo on the arm as well. I really hope you enjoyed the book and you're able to apply it to your life and your business, and thank you again for your support. 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.

I was looking at Expendables one day. No. And I was like, Sylvester Stallone, you had the original crew, then you had the new crew. And I'm like, who do I got that's new? I gotta create a new crew. But what happens is people be afraid to go out once, you know, you make success and you make all the money. So it's like stripping myself down and coming back Tim Mosley again. Oh wow. And finding talent and rebuilding with my crew and just being normal. Is that what you're doing right now? Yeah. Jimmy once said, never, you know, do stuff out of emotions. And a lot of things I'd done was, you know, emotion. Like, you might write something about an artist out of emotion, and I was like, don't do that, right? And, you know, because, because, because he dissed y'all, and, you know, it was a bad conversation, you know, you know how people are. They like, he was an asshole. That's what they said about when we had the listening session and the Village Voice, because I asked Timbaland some questions about what he was working with Dream. And they got mad at me for asking questions. See, that's what I'm saying. And the thing is, like, you gotta like go home, vent to somebody, and just really think about what are we really here for, right? The craft of this person. Yeah. Now personally, you might say I didn't like how he could have had a bad day, but you know, I've learned now that just because stuff don't go right at that moment, I give people the benefit of the doubt versus— or the situation, the benefit of doubt, because What if that was me? Now I do what if that was me. Before, when I was younger, I never say what if. Yeah, I'm like, you know who I am, I'm Timbaland, you better blah blah blah. And that's just not cool to me. I'm always the underdog. I've been that way, you know. Even if I get Producer of the Year this year again or whatever, I, I, they got to give me the— I got to speak because there's a lot I want to say. I'm gonna touch some hearts at the Grammys. I will be the talk. I will speak if I'm nominated and whatever. I have to speak. It's not about winning. I need to speak to the world because when I talk to the world, I will touch the world. And that's all that matters to me is touching somebody. I will save somebody's life if I get to that podium. So let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need to be happy. The most important word. If you had to think of one word that's most important to you, or that sums you up, or that would be kind of like a little beacon—

Hey, Believe Nation! If you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.