- I'm going to react to that Rocky speech
with the famous line.
- The movie is Rocky Balboa.
His son has it in his head that Rocky's fame
and success is holding him back.
In response,
Rocky gives what really is a mini persuasive speech.
In a persuasive speech,
your goal is to change people's minds or behaviors.
Rocky's trying to change the way his son thinks,
because his current way of thinking
is the real thing that's holding him back.
And I hope you'll see ways that you can apply these lessons
to your own communication and public speaking.
Most versions of this clip start in the middle.
But we'll start it from where his son gets upset at Rocky.
And what Rocky says is a direct response
to what his son is going through.
But feel free to skip ahead
if you already know the setup.
- So you nervous about the fight?
- Yeah, scared to death.
- You don't look scared.
- Well, you ain't supposed to.
- Then you don't have to do it.
- Yeah, well, I think I do.
- You know, living with you, it hasn't been easy.
People see me, but they think of you.
Now with all this going on,
this is gonna be worse than ever.
- It don't have to be. - No. Sure it does!
- Why? You got a lot going on, kid.
- Well, my last name! That's the reason I got a decent job.
That's the reason why people deal
with me in the first place.
Now I start to get a little ahead.
I start to get a little something for myself.
And this happens.
Now I'm asking you as a favor,
not to go through with this, okay?
This is only gonna end up bad for you
and it's gonna end up bad for me.
- You think I'm hurting you?
- Yeah, in a way you are.
- That's the last thing I ever wanted to do.
- I know that's not what you want to do,
but that's just the way that it is.
Don't you care what people think?
Doesn't it bother you that people
are making you out to be a joke
and that I'm gonna be included in that?
Do you think that's right? Do you?
- You ain't gonna believe this.
But you used to fit right here.
I'd hold you up to say to your mother,
"This kid's gonna be the best kid in the world.
This kid's gonna be somebody better than anybody ever knew."
And you grew up good and wonderful.
It was great just watching. Every day was like a privilege.
Then the time come for you to be your own man
and take on the world?
And you did.
But somewhere along the line, you changed.
You stopped being you.
You let people stick a finger in your face
and tell you you're no good.
And when things got hard,
you started looking for something to blame,
like a big shadow.
Let me tell you something you already know.
The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows.
It's a very mean and nasty place,
and I don't care how tough you are,
it will beat you to your knees
and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.
But it ain't about how hard you hit.
It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
How much you can take and keep moving forward.
That's how winning is done!
Now, if you know what you're worth,
then go out and get what you're worth.
But you gotta be willing to take the hits.
And not pointing fingers,
saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her,
or anybody!
Cowards do that. And that ain't you!
You're better than that!
I'm always gonna love you no matter what.
No matter what happens, you're my son and you're my blood.
You're the best thing in my life.
But until you start believing in yourself,
you ain't gonna have a life.
Don't forget to visit your mother.
- There are four reasons I believe this monologue
is so powerful.
So be sure to let me know if I've missed anything.
First, Rocky's monologue is effective
because he uses the arc of a chronological story
to shape his message.
It has a beginning, middle, and end.
The first thing he does is take us back to the beginning.
- You ain't gonna believe this.
Well, you used to fit right here.
- That beginning signals to our brain,
"Oh, he's taking us on a journey."
That opening and the rest of the storytelling structure
transports us into Rocky's world.
And within that story,
he makes his son's situation the key struggle.
The problem in the story is that his son
has made the mistake of believing that he's the victim.
He's adopted a cowardly view of himself.
The solution Rocky offers is to reject
that self-defeating identity
and remember who his son really is.
Remember who he was born to be, in Rocky's eyes.
That's why Rocky starts with a reminder
of how he sees his own son.
- I'd hold you up to say to your mother,
"This kid's gonna be the best kid in the world."
- Most of the rest of the message is about how Rocky
says his son can overcome his wrong way of thinking
and become who he was born to be.
Now, I've probably said it 100 times on my channel.
If you want to be a more compelling communicator,
start telling stories.
Second, Rocky's message is powerful
because of his own ethos.
That's a term we use to talk about personal credibility.
Believability.
We cannot separate this message from the fact
that he is Rocky.
He's a living example of the message he's expressing.
His own life is the evidence of the truth
of what he's sharing.
In an interview,
Stallone was talking about an experience he had
hanging out on the set of Creed between scenes.
He was dressed up like Rocky
and there was a group of fans nearby.
And he started talking to the fans as himself.
But the crowd wanted him to talk like Rocky.
He said about the experience, something like,
"If I say it as Sylvester Stallone, it's just words.
If Rocky says it, it's truth."
And that's how I feel when I watch this scene.
If Rocky's saying it,
then that stamps the message with legitimacy.
His journey has always been about
how he's kept moving forward in the ring and his life,
no matter how hard he's been hit.
You might be saying,
"Well, that's great for him, but I'm not Rocky.
How can I use this tip?"
Well, there's a rule in writing. Write what you know.
And it's the same for speaking. Talk about what you know.
Share a message that you have lived.
That's the secret to ethos.
You have the most credibility
when you're talking about your own journey.
The third reason this monologue works so well
is that Rocky is appealing to his son's
and our rational side.
He's not purely getting by on his ethos.
Rocky appeals to his son using what we call logos.
Appeal to rationality.
His son is blaming Rocky
for being an obstacle to his success.
So Rocky gives him another very compelling rationale.
A new way of thinking about what it means to be successful.
And he defines success really clearly.
- It ain't about how hard you hit.
It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
How much you can take and keep moving forward.
- This standard clarifies the rules of the game.
It's not about becoming more successful than your father.
It's about not letting the world keep you down.
That's the compelling rationale Rocky's speech offers,
and it's a way out of his son's self-defeating spin cycle.
And moviegoers obviously relate to this as well.
The fourth reason this works so well is the heart behind it.
We call this pathos.
Rocky is appealing to his son's emotions
and our emotions as viewers in a few overlapping ways.
One obvious way is that he delivers this message
with passion.
This isn't a dry academic lecture.
Rocky's putting his heart into it
like he does with everything.
His voice, his body, they're all animated.
He believes it and that helps us believe it.
He also appeals to our emotions by reminding us about
how it all started.
He's reminding his son with love,
who he was when he was born,
and still is, in his father's eyes.
- This kid's gonna be somebody better
than anybody ever knew.
- Now, I don't care who you are.
Parent, child, mother, father.
We can all relate to the purity of that love
between a parent and a young child.
He also uses vivid language to appeal
to our emotions throughout his message.
That famous line,
- The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows.
- Is literally colorful language
that engages our imagination.
And it sets up a nice contrast with what he says next
about how the world -
- Will beat you to your knees
and keep you there permanently if you let it.
- That's a very visual, emotional contrast.
And I can picture myself down on my knees.
Almost every sentence is packed with emotional delivery.
Reminders of his son's true identity
and that vivid language.
And it's right down to that last couple of lines
where he yells -
- Cowards do that! And that ain't you!
You're better than that!
- He tells him he loves him.
He's the best thing that ever happened to him.
And that last line,
- Don't forget to visit your mother.
- That last line creates an emotional full circle
because he started his monologue talking about his mother.
"I'd hold you up and say to your mother,
This kid's gonna be the best kid in the world."
He's talking about visiting his mother's grave,
which we see Rocky do in the movie.
And that just adds a whole another layer of everything
to what he just said.
So big picture, whoo!
I mean, my goodness, when I was young,
there were the superheroes in the comic books
and just about an inch below that was Rocky.
And re-watching this renewed my appreciation
for the writing of this scene
and offers lots of lessons to us
as communicators more generally.
But here's the question, what did I miss?
And please, for the love of God,
don't say that I missed that this is only a movie.
Everybody watching knows this is a movie,
and not real life speech.
And all the differences that that includes.
So what did I miss that you'd like to add
to the conversation?
I look forward to reading those comments below.
I'm doing a series on great movie speeches.
Let me know what other speeches I should react to.
And be sure to download the free PDF of the
"Seven Instant Tips to Make You a More Confident Speaker."
Links to that are also below.
God bless, and I will see you soon.