Hello believe nation
I started the mentor me series
mentor
me series
with the goal
to spend
a little more time with people
with people
[who've] done a lot more than us
And hopefully some of their magic pixie dust rubs off on to us we can absorb their wisdom
Learn how to change our mindset and go for greatness [so] today we're going to learn [from] will Smith on how to stay [motivated]
I
Believe and I [learned] very young from parents from my parents absolutely
That you you don't try to build a wall
You don't set out to build a wall. You don't say I'm gonna bake this build the biggest
Baddest greatest wall that's ever been built you don't start there you say
I'm Gonna Lay this brick
as perfectly as a
Brick can be laid there will not be one
Brick on the face of the Earth that's going to be laid better than this brick then I'm going to lay in this next ten
Minutes, and you do that every single day, and [so] you have a soon you have a wall and I think
Psychologically the advantage that that gives me over over a lot of people that I
Have been in competition with in different situations is
It's difficult to take the first step when you look how big yeah, the task is the task is never huge to me
It's always you mean one brett me, too. I mean it is amazing how if you know people are?
Paralyzed Mm-Hmm from doing anything absolutely because they can't take the first step where you just say look all I'm doing is laying this one
Brick I'm not building the great wall [of] China
solutely putting a brick here
And I'm gonna have the best brick I can [and] your father many [khayrat] absolutely had you and your brother Mm-hmm
Work on a [bottle] oh yeah. Yeah we ate that
We're talking about our figurative wall that comes from work on a literal way, all right my father owned
It actually was an old bakery when I was growing up my my father was a an electrician and a refrigeration man
We would we would install
Supermarkets, you see the long freezer cases in supermarkets. We would install those long freezer cases and all the lights
That's what we that's what we would do every summer
Yeah
so this is one year my father had his shot and
He decided for whatever reason that he wanted a new wall on
The front of his shop. So he tore down probably [about]
you know 16 feet high and probably about
30 feet long he just completely tore the wall down and my brother and I had to dig a six-foot hole
We were the foundation for the foundation. We would mix in the concrete by hand in a
Year, and a half we were building this wall for a year and a half every day after school
We would come in mixing concrete put it in the hole doing it and it was [just] myself and my little brother
And I remember standing back looking at that wall saying there's gonna be a hole here forever
It'll never be big never a hole here. That's right and a year and a half later that many days
I know a year and a half later. We laid
The the final Brick and my father stood back with my brother [nine]
I know he plan as he says he does
He says he didn't but I know he had been planning this and rightness for his endeavor for the past two years
But he we stood back
We looked at the wall
And he looked at me and my brother said don't y'all never tell me that you can't [glue] something and walked into the shop
as a child my parents always told me you could be whatever you want to be you can do whatever you want to do and
You know that that office that position of 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 look 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 two children out [there] and to two people who [are] watching
Confucius say 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 the separation of talent and skill
Is one of the the the greatest?
Misunderstood
Concepts for people who are trying to excel who have dreams that want to do things talent you have naturally?
Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft
[I've] never really viewed myself as
Particularly talented where I excel is
ridiculous
Sickening work ethic you know while the other guys sleeping, I'm working
What other guys eaten? I'm working? There's no easy way around it no matter how [talented]
You are your talent is going to fail you if you're not skilled?
You know if you don't study if you don't work really hard and dedicate yourself [to] being better every single day
You'll never be able to communicate with with people with your artistry the way that you want the only thing that I see
that is
distinctly different
About me is I'm not afraid [to] die on a treadmill [you]
[might] have more talent than me you might be smarter than me, but if we get on the treadmill together, right?
There's two things you're getting off first or I'm going to die
It's really that simple
Everybody who became an actor?
became an actor because they got something [to] say
That's very interesting. I never never intellectualize it that way, but [that] that is very true for me it
it has been the
to be that guy that does
What people say can't be done you know and I think it started [with]?
Trying to please my mother and trying to please
my
grandmother and they always
Wanted higher for me. They always wanted more for me and it got to the point that I?
wanted to be something I wanted to be somebody and
It made me choose certain roles. It made me turn [down] certain roles
there is
More than an image that I want to project
I want to be the person that is the first person there and the last person [to] leave
That's who I want to be because I think that the the road to success is
through
Commitment and
Through the strength to drive through that commitment when it gets hard
and it is going to get hard and you're going to want to quit sometimes, but it'll be colored by who you are and
More who you want to be? I definitely found that
Wanting to be an actor stems from wanting to be?
Somebody and wanting to say something to people. There's a certain
delusional
quality that all successful people
Have to have you have to believe that something different than what has happened
for the last
52 million years of history you have to believe that something different can happen. It's almost a kind of innocence
Absolutely not in other words if you knew how [difficult] it was right you would have never gone down that path absolutely
No, if I was somebody said to [Ollie] no one can beat this guy. He's this much stronger as this much bigger
he's got that much bigger punch than you do and
He believed that he would have said never you gotta have an innocence that somehow
Absolutely no, and I think they [did] that's a huge part
I love of me because and I say to my friends all the [time] and
we laugh about it I
truly honestly
as I sit here before you right now as
Honestly as I can say to you. I truly believe that I could be the president if I wanted to and
As bizarre as that may sound to people that have
Traveled the path before me and to people who actually know how difficult it is
Foolish will Smith honestly believes. It's it anytime. You inject extremes
into the universe you can expect
Extremes to to come back. [I] think that one of the best pieces of advice. I ever got was
Don't [let] your successes. Go to your head and don't let your failures go to your heart. Do you follow that I try?
No, it is it is it's absolutely
A
difficult
Even more so now with my my wife and my children
expanding into it the
The scope of it is actually becoming more difficult
to
manage the things that
Almost in a spiritual sense the things that you attract to yourself
[and]
also, if you [think] about it in terms of altitude the higher you go the harder it is to breathe there's less oxygen and I
think within that phrase what I get from [that] with
Marlon Brando what what happens is if you [think] about it in terms of Mountain climbing?
Mountain climbing the higher and the higher you get [the] less oxygen
There is the harder it is to breathe as you get to this
Successful space and the first thing people want to do is get down and what you do by getting down is
Self-destructive, and I'm just working hard to make [sure] that I don't allow the lack of oxygen
to
Go my appreciation for the gifts. I've been given one of my favorite books is the the alchemist
Paulo Coelho, and
That's just I [just] believe that I believe
that I
can [create] whatever I want to create if I can put put my head on [it] right study it learn the pattern and
You know I just I it's hard to put into words real
Metaphysical Esoteric nonsense, but I feel very strongly that we are who [we] choose to be [I] consider myself
an alchemist an alchemist is basically a
mystical chemist right and one of the great feats that
Alchemists used to do is they would take lead just take a chunk of lead and they could turn lead into gold
right, so
The symbol is a good hustle all right [not]
Exactly you know, but [I'm] so connected to symbolically
Being able to turn lead into gold [you] know my grandmother used to say
You know life get your lemon you go ahead and make lemonade so to me. That's that's alchemy
That's that that's the same concept behind the the alchemists for me
one right about
my experience has been with equal to
And then you'll learn how to make money doing what you love here [with] [us] when I changed careers
I was never changing to something
For money. I was changing to something I've loved
Right and that to me
that's really the [only] way to keep the passion if you have two choices [for] [the] one is playing a piano and
Another one I was here though bowling and we can make more money bullying, but you love playing the piano
Piano, it's like you'll tear yourself apart if you're not doing the thing
You know what it is right now right now. There's something that you love more than everything whatever it
Is that you love crazy [has] to be the thing that you dedicate your life?
It's unrealistic to water the sweat and like that's not realistic
fortunately [Destiny], so
Unrealistic did you invent a piece of metal and [flatten] global ocean in that net that's unrealistic?
but fortunately the wright brothers and others did he didn't believe that and
It just seems. It seems like such a
Ridiculous idea to me to
embrace
The idea that it's not my happen
That's not real for that to happen as soon you say [not] heed your every
fear
is not real
The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future
It is a product of our imagination causing
Us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist
That is near insanity
Qatar I do not misunderstand me danger
Is very real?
But Fear is a choice
We are all telling ourselves a story
Thank you guys so [much] for watching. I love to know what you thought of the clip
I love to know which one resonated the most with you, and why leave it down [in] the comments really appreciate you guys watching
Continue to believe and I'll see you soon
Greatness is not this wonderful
esoteric illusive
Godlike
feature
that only the special
Among us are will ever taste. You know it's something that truly exists in
[all] of us it's very
simple
this is what I believe and
I'm willing to die for it. You know
Period It's that simple. [I] know who I am
I don't know what I believe I know who I am I know who what that's all I need to know that's all I need
To know so from there you do what you need [to] do you know and I think what happens is we make the situation more
Complex than it has to be looking for complexities got to be subtle and complex to understand it it can't be that easy. [oh]
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 realizing that access to right
For example [like] a thing I used to do is when I was in probably [eighteen] or [nineteen] years old
[I] got in touch with those blocked the camera hates emotional blocks
Like you put a camera in somebody's face, and they're uncomfortable about deliberating 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 get 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 any good
For the role you have to be comfortable