You’re Settling for an Average Life (and You Don’t Even Know It) | Ryan Holiday & Ashton Kutcher

Take big risks.

Take that risk.

Take risks.

Take risk.

Taking risks. Take risks.

Risk-taking.

Risky.

Take risk.

Hello, Believe Nation! Today we're going to talk about how you can take risks. And as always, if you hear something that is really relevant to you, that you love the message of, please leave it in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired as well. Enjoy!

Just because you're doing something and you're successful at it does not mean you have to continue doing it. And in some ways, your willingness to take big risks defines where your life is going. Like, it's like right now, you know, I got a great house, I got this cool stuff. Like, am I willing if the right opportunity opportunity comes up, am I willing to leverage all that to bet again? That— your willingness to take those risks, especially when you're young, is the difference between, like, I think an average life and an extraordinary life.

But I took this, like, big risk and quit school. I quit the one thing that I was like— that was like surefire and went and became a model and got really bored really fast and didn't loved being a coat hanger, and then I became an actor, which was like a coat hanger that talks. And then I ultimately like came full loop and came back around. And by the way, when you talk, you're generally not even speaking your own words, you're speaking somebody else's words and trying to make it sound really real. And then I came full loop around and started looking at technology again. I started getting interested in technology and started getting interested in engineering and started really getting interested in solving problems, solving my own problems and then solving other people's problems and what the value of that is. And so whether it's technology or philanthropy or actually even performing or being an actor, I started to make it about solving problems. And I think that that's the— probably The single biggest thing that as an angel investor I look for in entrepreneurs is people who genuinely want to solve a problem, a real problem, a problem that exists not just for themselves, but sometimes just for themselves, and then it, and then it, then it sort of turns into this wave effect that solves other people's problems. And sometimes by trying to solve your own problem, you're solving everybody else's problems. Because generally, if you want to affect the world, You have to change yourself first. Everybody tries to go out and change the world by changing other people and other things, but the real way to do it is by changing yourself. And sometimes making those really uncomfortable choices to go up against everyone in your life that you look up to and take that risk to go be a model or go do this thing that nobody else is doing.

People told me that Black Swan was an artistic risk, a scary challenge to try to portray a professional ballet dancer. But it didn't feel like courage or daring that drew me to it. I was so oblivious to my own limits that I did things I was woefully unprepared to do. And so the very inexperience that in college had made me feel insecure and made me want to play by others' rules now was making me actually take risks I didn't even realize were risks. When Darren asked me if I could do ballet, I told him that I was basically a ballerina, which, by the way, I wholeheartedly believed. When it quickly became clear in preparing for the film that I was maybe 15 years away from being a ballerina, it made me work a million times harder. And of course, the magic of cinema and body doubles helped the final effect. But the point is, if I had known my own limitations, I never would have taken the risk. And the risk led to one of my greatest artistic and personal experiences, in that I not only felt completely free, I also met my husband during filming.

When I visit students, I also tell them that the greatest risk they take is not taking one, which, by the way, Miss Martinez taught me that, and I use it to this day. Anytime I feel that, should I, I feel nervous, like I feel right now, I take the risk. And for all the students, for all the teachers, and for all the educators here, we have to take risk. If we don't take that risk, I go back to it, it's the biggest risk that we take.

You will have many, many opportunities to reinvent yourself, and so I think it's worthwhile taking risks on trying to do something you're really excited by. If the first attempt you don't do it, you can try again, and things tend to work out in the long run. In Silicon Valley, part of the reason so many people start up a company is starting up a company and even having failed, You know, you can wear it like a badge of honor, right? And I think that's important. You know, culturally, risk is rewarded. I remember when I started working at Google, if I went and people were discussing ideas, the other people who heard the ideas tried to build on those ideas. They encourage you. So it's a culture of optimism. It's a culture of risk-taking. And I think that's really important, so. I think that you have to take risks all the time. If you don't do that, you don't move forward. We are trying to be too conservative in the way that you think life, and the result is that nobody voice out to say, "I don't agree with this, I agree with that." So we have to push somehow our individuality to make sure that our voice can be heard.

There was one time, and I don't even remember, it might have been the Fantastic Four, Some other book. We had a story that I thought wasn't that good. But we were stuck with it. We had to send it out. There was the due date. I didn't have time to do it over. And on the COVID I wrote a little note. Some— I don't remember the exact words, but something like, "Hey kids, I've got to admit this isn't the best story we've ever done. But we've given you so many good ones before, we think you owe it to us to buy this one also." Everybody thought I was crazy, you know. That book sold better than most of the others of that period, and I got a ton of mail saying, "You guys are great.

Nobody else would have written anything like that." I don't know nowadays if rejection is part of your everyday life. So I think a lot of business and doing things is just the idea of having resilience. I'm going to ask y'all a question. If your little 5-year-old comes to you with a painting from school, what are you gonna say?

Good job.

Absolutely the worst thing you can say. Because what you do by saying good job is you teach a child to please others rather than please themselves. What you might wanna say is tell me about the painting and why did you do it. But I think we're producing, I don't know if today, People are risk takers. They want a lot of attaboys. You have to get it from within sooner or later. So I'm not sure. Can I amplify it a little bit? Absolutely, please. Here I am, I'm at USC, and it's really not complicated. I saw these people in line, Xeroxing. What a discovery. If there's Xeroxing at USC, why wouldn't they Xerox at Santa Barbara? Such research. I didn't invent the Xerox machine. They were just in line Xeroxing. And at one point, all the customers could see. I had all the customers in line. My own workers could see how much money I was taking in. And I was in every— we expanded every college in America. What always baffled me is why I didn't have more people across the street competing with me. And I think even back then you weren't risk— we were risk takers. But look back on your grandparents. If your grandparents had seen that I had something good with Customers in Line, you think they would have been out there competing with me in a heartbeat? So I'm not sure risk taking is as rewarded as it should be.

You had pretty ambitious sales targets. Are you going to be able to hit those?

You never know until the last minute. You know, the objective of when you make a long-term plan is not to make sure from the beginning that you're going to hit them, because if you are sure from the beginning you're going to hit all your targets, that means your targets are conservative. That's the only way you can be sure. So you want to maintain a certain stretch inside the company and being innovative and creative and finding new products and new solutions in order to hit the targets. So it's risky, but that's the price to pay. For development.

Almost any accomplishment in the history of the world has come at the hands of people who've taken risks, people who are willing to push the envelope, people who are willing to explore the unknown. Even if you go and you look in the Bible, you know, the people that are held up as the heroes, they're not the ones who were sitting in their tent under an olive tree, you know. They were people who were going out there doing stuff. And, you know, the key thing about taking risk is learning. You know, and if something doesn't work out, learn from it, and then you're able to move further. We have to always recognize that, you know, knowledge frequently comes at a price. You know, Thomas Edison said he knew 999 ways that a light bulb did not work.

Did not work, right.

You know, many of us are familiar with the cleaning formula, 409. Why do they call it that? The first 408 didn't work, you know. But you know, you just put these things into perspective and you learn from them. Walter Dandy, the great neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins many decades ago, was the first one to do operations on the posterior fossa, the back part of the brain. No one thought it could be done. First 13 patients all died. Now can you imagine how devastating that was? I can't even imagine what he said to the 14th patient when they said, "How did the other 13 do?" But the fact of the matter is we now are able to do that operation routinely and safely. I did one last week. And so, you know, we just have to put all these things in perspective and recognize that we will never make progress unless we're willing to take risks. But we have to take them in an appropriate fashion. Right. Because, you know, there's a large group of people who never get anywhere because they're afraid to take a risk. There's another group of people who never get anywhere because they take too many of the wrong risks. They're always getting knocked back into the pond. So that's where this tremendous brain comes in, where you are able to analyze appropriate risks.

And you can choose.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to know what you thought of the video. What was your favorite clip and why? Why? How are you taking risks in your business? Leave in the comments below, I'm gonna join in the discussion. I also wanna give a quick shout out to William Chilton. William, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and for posting the picture. I love it, man, and really, really appreciate it. 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.