- He's an actor, screen writer, and director
best known for creating the Rocky and Rambo series.
He was evicted from his apartment and was homeless
for three weeks before getting into the film industry.
He became the third man in history to receive
nominations for Best Original Screenplay
and Best Actor for the same film.
He's Sylvester Stallone, and here's his top 10
rules for success.
- [Interviewer] What in this whole world turns you on?
- Challenge, I really, I just love, I love it.
I love being told no, it just means yes, you know.
- [Interviewer] To you.
- Yeah.
- What turns you off?
- Lack of enthusiasm, that really turns me off.
The point is I'm pursing something and nobody
looks too happy about it.
- But we're just looking out for your interests.
- I appreciate that, but maybe you're looking out
for your interests just a little bit more.
I mean you shouldn't be asking people to come down here
and pay the freight on something they paid,
and still aren't good enough.
I mean you think that's right?
I mean maybe you're doing your job,
but why you got to stop me from doing mine?
Cause if you're willing to go through all the battling
you got to go through to get to where you want to get,
who's got the right to stop you?
I mean maybe some of you guys got something
you never finished, something you really want to do,
something you never said to somebody, something!
And you're told no, even after you paid your dues.
Who's got the right to tell you that?
Who, nobody.
It's your right to listen to your gut,
it ain't nobody's right to say no after you earned
the right to be where you want to be
and do what you want to do.
You know the older I get, the more things
I got to leave behind, that's life.
The only thing I'm asking you guys to leave on the table
is what's right.
We were running behind schedule,
and I had to shoot a montage, oh God.
This montage would have taken like five days.
So what I did is I came in there, brought everyone
into one big room, all the dancers, and had three cameras.
I took one camera and just stayed with John Travolta,
and I worked with him.
And the rest I said to everyone just dance,
and do whatever you want, cart wheels.
I said catch it all, whatever.
And then I sent a camera down when they're making the stage
and just regular light, and just shoot what you can.
Just no sound or nothing, and we put it all together,
and saved four days of filming.
Which none of that, absolutely zero, was choreographed.
Isn't it funny?
I said okay John just do this, cut.
Do this, cut.
(laughter)
I swear to God.
And then the other dancers were just over in the corner,
one was just scratching, doing a somersault,
stretching, and you put it all together.
- It's the magic of a myth.
- Yeah, so there are no rules, it's crazy.
I first met Bob Chartoff and Irwin Winkler,
and I believe I was there on a casting call.
So we're talking a little bit, and I said I really
wasn't right for the acting part.
And on the way out, I said I don't know if it matters,
but I do a little bit of writing.
And he goes, really?
And I says yeah, I'm writing this story,
I have this thing about wrestlers and I might
do something about boxing.
He goes, well bring it around.
And I thought if I hadn't stopped on the way out,
you know that's why I tell all actors or writers,
don't give up, keep talking, eventually you might
hit a nerve somewhere and they go come on back.
And if they didn't say come on back or bring it later
and let's see what you developed,
I wouldn't be sitting here.
What I'll try to do is I write long handed,
so on legal pad I'll go, goes here, sees his mother,
goes to the store, so I'll have like ten things,
of beats where he's going.
Gets on a horse, goes swimming, boom, boom, boom.
And I do that, and I know in my heart, 80 percent of it
will be no good, but you're getting through the screenplay.
You're getting it done because the rewrite
is always more fun and much more enjoyable.
I don't believe people should look for perfection,
or even 50 percent perfection in the first draft.
It's always going to be kind of this like a child
scribbling, but you did it.
And the main thing for me is to once you have
that accomplished, and you can do it in two weeks,
three weeks, again, maybe 10 percent will be good,
but you now have this sense of accomplishment.
You did it, and the rewriting process starts,
and that's when the fun begins.
Originally when I brought the script to them,
they were fairly enthusiastic about it.
The one thing they were not enthusiastic about
was me playing the part, and I really can't blame
them at the time.
Ryan O'Neal was a candidate, Burt Reynolds,
Robert Redford, Jimmy Kahn, and they all were
at the top of their game.
And so I could see it, but there was something inside
of me that you know this opportunity is never
going to come around.
And I really wasn't used to money,
and I had no idea what I would be missing.
But the temptation started to come forward.
First it was 25 grand then $100,000,
and I go I've never heard of 100,000.
Because I had like &160 in the bank,
and like I said I had to sell my dog,
and things were not looking very, very good.
My $40 car I had just blown up,
so I was taking a bus to work.
And still it didn't matter, I wanted to stick with it.
Then it went up to 150,000, 175,000,
then it went up to 250,000.
Now my head was starting to spin.
And it went up to 330,000, and probably I heard
it went to 360,000, and I thought
alright you know you've really managed poverty
very well, you've got this down to a science,
you really don't need much to live on.
I had like sort of figured it out.
So I was not in any way used to the good life.
So you know what, I know in the back of my mind
if I sell this script and it does very, very well,
I'm going to jump off a building if I'm not in it.
There's no doubt about it, I'm going to leap
in front of a train, I'm going to be very, very upset.
So this is one of those things where you just roll the dice,
and you fly by the adverbial seat of your pants,
and say I got to try it, just do it, I may be totally wrong,
and I'm going to be taking a lot of people down with me,
but I just believe in it.
Writing I almost oppose it like exercise.
I get up maybe at 4:30 in the morning,
it takes an hour to get going,
and then I'll start to write about maybe three hours.
And then it becomes repetitive.
The next day I get up, and even if I don't feel inspired,
I'll sit for those three hours until I get the brain
says okay, you must start to produce something.
So try to write quickly, and I follow a pattern
just the way you would if you were in the Army or whatever.
And then that gets me through it quickly.
Some writers will take a year, two years,
everyone has a different process.
But that's what I do.
- [Interviewer] You write better in the morning.
- Much better.
I use to write at night all the time,
but I found that everything, everyone died,
it was dark, kind of creepy.
(laughter)
It was really horrible, very depressing.
Then I realized Edgar Allen Poe used to write at night,
and I figured out why.
If you've never had anything, like today,
I would go okay, I'm selling.
I can't give up the house.
But if you don't have the house,
and you don't have anything,
and you're just sitting there and you go okay,
I wrote this for myself and I don't even know
if it's that good, but obviously someone likes it,
I'll regret it.
I know I'll regret it.
I bet I say it once a week, I walk around and I say,
thank God, all the time.
- Really?
All the time, you did one thing right.
In life you could do 1,000 things wrong,
you just do one thing right, you go whew,
it makes up for the other 999 mistakes sometimes.
Give up something to get something,
and I thought I didn't have any money, so I had no phone.
I painted my windows black, so I didn't know
if the sun was up, the sun was down, all I knew
was I had to write.
And I wrote, and I wrote, it was very bad.
It wasn't good at all, but every day it was getting better
and better, like a machine, like a muscle,
until finally the idea of Rocky came.
So the idea is you must fail 100 times to succeed once,
that's part of it.
No one succeeds the first time.
It's learning how to not get disappointed with failure
to understand failure.
You only learn when you fail,
you don't learn when you succeed.
But when you fail, that's when you learn.
How I learned, lucky I was a failure in New York,
and that is the reason I started writing,
which made me successful.
I had to teach myself early on, expect to fail,
expect it, covet it, welcome it, it's going to happen.
But don't, it's not a permanent state.
- Thank you so much for watching.
I made this video because Daniel "Danny" Frankel
asked me to, so if there is a famous entrepreneur
that you want me to profile next,
leave it in the comments below, and I'll see
what I can do.
I'd also love to know which of Sly Stallone's
10 rules mean the most to you,
is the most applicable to your life and your business.
Leave it in the comments below,
I'm going to join in the discussion.
Thank you so much for watching,
continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.