- Good morning Believe Nation, it's Evan.
My one word is believe and I believe that you have something
special, that when you unleash it,
it will be able to change the world.
And so to help you on your journey, today's message
is break the rules.
Over to you Simon Sinek.
(rooster crowing)
(upbeat music) ♫ I wake up every morning
♫ Entspresso keep me goin'.
♫ I wake up every morning.
- Let me tell you a story.
So a friend of mine and I,
we went for a run in Central Park.
The Roadrunners organization, on the weekends,
they host races, and it's very common, at the end
of the race, they'll have a sponsor who will give away
something, apples or bagels or something.
And on this particular day, when we got to the end
of the run, there were some free bagels.
And they had picnic tables set up, and on one side
was a group of volunteers.
On the table were boxes of bagels, and on the other side
was a long line of runners waiting to get their free bagel.
So I said to my friend, "let's get a bagel".
And he looked at me and said, "ah, that line's too long".
And I said, "free bagel".
And he said, " I don't want to wait in line".
And I was like, "free bagel".
And he says, "nah, it's too long".
And that's when I realized that there's two ways
to see the world.
Some people see the thing that they want,
and some people see the thing that prevents them
from getting the thing that they want.
I could only see the bagels.
He could only see the line.
And so, I walked up to the line.
I leaned in between two people,
put my had in the box,
and pulled out two bagels.
And no one got mad at me.
Because, the rule is, you can go after whatever you want,
you just cannot deny anyone else, to go after whatever
they want.
Now I had to sacrifice choice.
I didn't get to choose which bagel I got.
I got whatever I pulled out, but I didn't have
to wait in line.
So the point is, you don't have to wait in line,
you don't have to do it the way everybody else has done it.
You can do it your way.
You can break the rules.
You just can't get in the way of somebody else
getting what they want.
That's rule number one.
- So I'm not necessarily a huge advocate of cutting in line
to get what you want, and I think it's mostly because
it's getting what you want at the expense of somebody else.
Right, like you're cutting in line, and that means somebody
else is losing out.
It's the same thing for me when I'm driving and there's this
really long left turn lane.
I hate when people suggest, like, hey, just drive up
on the right side and at the last second kind of cut in.
Because, to my own benefit, I'm screwing over the people
behind me.
I don't think the world has to be that way.
Like, you can go and see the world as, I'm going
to make things better for myself, and in the process,
help everybody else, instead of hurt everybody else.
So I think that's what entrepreneurs do.
And I think in terms of breaking the rules, anytime
there's a rule that I feel is really holding me back,
I'm frustrated.
Understand that most rules were created by people
who were just like you, who were no smarter than you,
and they're created for the average person, right.
It's like how average people should live their life
and should operate and that could be very frustrating
for somebody who doesn't want to be average at something.
And so it's understanding, what are the rules
that you can break,
and then, from an entrepreneur's perspective,
how do we do that in a way that can serve other people.
I think that's one of the key differences between
entrepreneurs and the rest of the world, is that when we see
something that we don't like.
When we see a rule that is really frustrating,
most people will just complain.
They'll complain, they'll whine, they'll tell their friends,
they'll post on social media.
They'll just get really upset, where entrepreneurs,
we will still get upset, but we'll use that anger
and frustration, and turn it into something positive.
Out of every crisis, out of every negativity, out of every
frustration, there's a positive, there's something
that can be created on the other side that can solve
that frustration, not just for us, but for other
people as well.
And the bigger that frustration is, the more people
complaining about it, the greater the opportunity there is
to create something really really meaningful and special
for the planet.
So I think the key understanding is to figure out
which rules you can break, and which ones you shouldn't.
If you just follow life around and you follow every single
rule, you're never going to create anything amazing
extraordinary, insanely special.
Because you have to be a bit of a rule-breaker to create
something new, otherwise you're just living an average life.
But if you're breaking every single rule that ever exists,
you're probably going to end up dead or in jail, really,
really, really quickly.
And so it's understanding what are the rules you can break,
and again, having that perspective of, I'm going to break
this rule, not just to help myself, but I'm going to help
the people around me as well.
So, the question of the day today, is I'm curious,
what is a rule that you have broken recently, that has
helped you and helped the people around you.
Really curious to find out.
Leave it down in the comments below.
I also want to give a quick shout-out to Tom Bennett.
Tom, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book,
Your One Word.
I really appreciate the support, and I hope you enjoy
the read.
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 guys again
tomorrow morning for another shot of Entspresso.
(upbeat music)
♫ I wake up every morning.
♫ Entspresso keep me goin'.
(typing)
- The people who because the most successful in our society
are people who broke the rules.
You know, there was no presidents for 24 hour news cycles
until Ted Turner did it.
There are so many people who got out of the box.
Look at Apple and the birth of the whole notion of Apple,
or Nike, I talk about in the book of the birthing
of that corporation.
How they did something with the tennis shoe that had never
been done before.
If you only base your decisions on empirical data,
you can only repeat what somebody else already did.
If you follow your instincts and your own God-given
creativity, we could go where we have not been before.
And our nation used to do that.
- We have so many rules in life about everything.
I say, "break the rules, not the law, but break the rules".
My wife has a t-shirt that says, "well-behaved women
rarely make history".
Well you know, I don't want to burst a bubble, but the same
is true with man.
It is impossible to be a maverick, or true original,
if you're too well-behaved and don't want
to break the rules.
You have to think outside the box.
That's what I believe after all.
What is the point of being on this earth, if all you want
to do is be liked by everyone and avoid trouble.
The only way that I ever got anyplace was to breaking
some of the rules.
After all, I remember that after I was finished with
my body-building career, I wanted to get into acting,
and I wanted to be a star in films.
You can imagine what the agents said when I went to meet
all those agents.
Everyone had the same line, that it can't be done.
The rules are different here.
He says, "look at your body, you have this huge, monstrous
body, you're overly developed, it doesn't fit
into the movies".
You don't understand.
This was 20 years ago, the Hercules movies.
Now, there is the little guys, to name, Dustin Hoffman,
Woody Allen, Jack Nicholson, before he gained weight
of course, that is.
But anyway, those are the guys that win.
And the agent also complained about my accent.
He says, "no one ever became a star
with an accent like that, especially not
with a German accent."
And yes, I can imagine with your name Arnold Schwarzen,
Schnitzle or whatever the name is, on the billboard.
Yeah, that's going to draw a lot of tickets and sell
a lot of tickets, yeah, right.
So this is the kind of negative attitude they had.
But I didn't listen to those rules.
Even though there were very nice, and they said, "look,
we can get you some bit parts.
We can get you to be a, playing a wrestler, or a bouncer.
Or maybe with your German accent we can get you to be
a Nazi officer in Hogan's Heroes or something like that."
But I didn't listen to all this.
Those were their rules, not my rules.
I was convinced I could do it.
That if I worked this hard as I did in body-building,
five hours a day.
And I started getting to work.
I started taking acting classes.
I took English classes.
I took speech classes, dialogue classes, accent-removal
classes, I even took.
I remember running around, "a fine wine grows on the vine."
Is it because Germans have difficulties with the 'F'
and the 'W' and the 'V'.
So, "a fine wine grows on the vine".
I know what some of you now say, is the hope
that Arnold got his money back.
But let me tell you something,
I had a good time doing those things and it really
helped me.
Finally I broke through.
I broke through and I started getting the first parts
in tv, Streets of San Francisco.
Lucille Ball hired me.
I made Pumping Iron, Stay Hungry.
And then I got the big break in Conan the Barbarian.
(audience cheering)
And there, the Director said, "if we wouldn't have
Schwarzenegger, we would have to build one".
Now think about that.
And then, when I did Terminator, "I'll be back",
(audience cheering)
became one of the most famous lines in movie history.
All because of my crazy accent.
Now think about it, the things that the agent said,
would be totally a detriment and would be impossible
for me to get a job, all of a sudden became an asset for me.
All of those things, my accent, my body and everything.
So, it just shows to you, never listen to that you can't
do something.
And,"you have to work your way up, of course, run for
something else first".
I mean, it was the same when I ran for Govenor, the same
lines, "you have to work your way up, it can't be done".
And then, of course, I ran for gGovenor, and the rest,
of course is history.
They said you have to start with the small job as Mayor,
and then as Assemblyman, and then Lieutenant Govenor,
and then as Govenor.
And they said that's the way it works in a political career.
I said, "I'm not interested in a political career. I want
to be a public servant. I want to fix California's problems
and bring people together and bring the parties together".
So, like I said, I decided to run.
I didn't pay attention to the rules, and I made it,
and the rest is history.