(plane taking off) (bomb bursting)
- Thicken your skin.
- Develop a thick skin.
- You have to have a thick skin.
- Having thick skin.
- What's up Believe Nation?
It's Evan.
My one word is believe
and I believe that you have the ability
to do something special that will change the planet.
To help you on your journey,
today, we're going to learn how to develop a thicker skin.
(soaring orchestral music)
- People always say, "Man, you cuss all the time, why?"
(Tom laughs)
Well, I hate to say it.
The best way for me to get how I feel across,
I can't sit here and say,
"You know what, I went through a hell of a weekend, man.
"It was really hard."
(Tom laughs)
No, that (bleep) takes your damn soul,
rips it inside out, and then they say,
"Now, we're going to (bleep) start."
It allows me to express
where I was at at a point of my life.
If I don't give you all of me,
why the hell am I here?
How will you learn from me?
People take so much offense to me.
You will never learn from people
if we always tap dance around the truth.
- Oh, God, I love that.
- We tap dance around the truth
by finding the right words
so I don't hurt you 'cause you have thin skin.
No,
tighten up people!
It's okay!
Trust me, it's okay!
You might be called nigger one day.
It's okay.
You might be called some Jewish word
or some faggot or gay word.
It's okay.
Let 'em call you that.
What are you going to do now?
They don't own your life.
How are you going to control that now?
How are you going to flip it upside down
and say,"Roger that."
Now I'm going to harness this (bleep),
and you'll read about me years from now.
How?
That's the question.
How are you going to do that?
Thicken your skin,
become more of a human being.
Don't be afraid
of the reflection in the mirror
'cause that's all you can be afraid of.
Once you overcome the reflection in the mirror,
you've done it.
- The best defense to
speech that you don't like about yourself
as a public figure is to develop a thick skin.
It's really the only effective defense
because you can't stop it.
You are going to be misunderstood.
If you're doing anything interesting in the world,
you're going to have critics.
If you absolutely can't tolerate critics,
then don't do anything new or interesting.
(audience laughs)
Then you can insulate yourself,
then think how wonderful your life will be.
- Is that the Bezos' principle?
- Yeah.
- Before I leave your early life,
I also heard that you went to a school
that was out of your initial neighborhood--
- Yeah, I was bused to school.
It was pretty...
Whatever, man.
People were mean and they called you nigger and whatever,
and spit on you, and threw feces, and piss,
and whatever at you.
It is what it is.
It's nothing I can do about it.
It made me stronger.
I'm not here without it.
You can't phase me with meanness because of it.
That was my
grade school experience,
grade school, high school, junior high school.
- Who is an entrepreneur where everything is a smooth ride?
You go through these things and I'll tell you,
and you get criticized, and you have to have a thick skin.
Yeah.
- [Interviewer] You've been there?
- I've been there.
(audience laughs) By the way,
you don't buy a thick skin.
You don't even know you have it
until somebody starts to try to puncture it.
Then you discover what you're made of.
- One of the greatest, and probably the greatest,
rock climbers of this generation,
as you know I've been a climber most of my life,
is actually right now on the side of El Capitan
doing what will probably be the hardest rock climb
certainly ever done in our lifetimes,
trying to free climb a thing called the Dawn Wall,
on the Mescalito side of El Cap.
A young man named Tommy Caldwell who is...
He's in the category of one.
Now I was out climbing with Tommy one day
and I said to him,
"Tommy, what makes you different?"
He has six climbs on El Cap
that have never been repeated.
He is 10X in extreme environments
and he's still alive.
I said, "Tommy, what is it that you have?
"You're not necessarily more physically gifted.
"You're not necessarily stronger.
"All right, you're certainly physically gifted
"and all those things,
"but you're not this incredible athlete
"that just was born this way."
In fact, he had lost a finger in an accident.
He cut a finger off.
So he's doing this minus one of his--
- [Interviewer] An important finger.
- An important finger.
He thought about it for a long moment
and he said,
"I can remain focused on and suffer for
"the big thing longer than anyone else."
The curiosity keeps him going,
but once they get their hands on
what they see as the thing,
they don't let go!
They can stay with it and suffer for it.
- I've been doing this long enough to realize
that no matter what people perceive of me,
I always shine through at the end of the day.
I've had a lot of people try to tear me down,
but I'm here,
and I've always been myself,
and I've always wanted that.
I've been graceful
and I've tried to handle myself with as much class.
It's only because I know how hard I work,
and I'm not going to let any of that get to me.
- First bit of advice came from Tyler Perry,
the famous director, kind of movie producer,
that sort of thing, right?
About two years ago, I had the good fortune
to interview him one-on-one in three different cities
around the country where he got to speak
about his entrepreneurial story to a bunch of
small business owners around the country.
Now, Tyler Perry is the key...
Did his thing.
He was homeless for awhile,
now he's like the highest paid dude in Hollywood,
a really fascinating story.
So I'm interviewing him one-on-one,
start the Q and A,
one woman raises her hand,
stands up, she says, "Mr. Perry,
"we have to always go through these different trials
"and tribulations as entrepreneurs.
"What keeps you going?
"How do you get back up and just go?"
He said the most profound thing that I had ever heard.
He said the minute he realized
that the trials that you go through
and the blessings you receive are the exact same thing,
that freed him as an entrepreneur.
Just think about that for a second.
I kind of stopped the interview
because I had to soak that up for a little bit.
Like every single kind of trial or tribulation
and all that stuff that you go through,
it's just a lesson.
That lesson is just an inherent blessing.
As entrepreneurs,
this entrepreneur thing is hard.
At times it's amazing,
at times it sucks (chuckles).
I have been very blessed and fortunate
to have really good opportunities,
but it's very, very hard.
You don't want to stress yourself out unnecessarily.
What that lesson taught me
was that I didn't have to be as stressed out.
I'm going to go through these issues,
they're just lessons,
let me treat that as a blessing,
we're going to move.
A lot of folks looked at me when I started this company
like, "Tristan, you're way more calm than you should be."
And it's like, "Yeah, because I fundamentally understand
"this lesson that I learned."
- Success has nothing to do with potential.
It's all about the perseverance of somebody.
That'll override any endeavor.
If you throw (bleep) against the wall,
eventually something will stick.
You guys that are "I have this potential"
or "I don't have this potential,"
that (bleep) dies.
What continues to last forever
is the perseverance to always show up.
That's what champions do.
Every single champion is the same as every ordinary person.
The only differential is that they show up
to the event every single day.
They see failure as a learning curve.
They welcome failure.
You learn more from failure
than you ever will from success.
So showing up and getting knocked on your ass,
find the intestinal fortitude, stand back up,
and reface that endeavor.
It's going to be the overriding factor
that makes a difference.
How do you know when you're doing those things?
The small things in life add up
to those big monumental things.
Once you do small things,
it's a character building block
that your name means something.
You hold value to your name.
If you drop trash on the ground, you pick it up
because that's your responsibility.
You hold value to yourself.
When you shake someone's hand,
you look them in the eye, give them a firm handshake
'cause you're here for a purpose.
Everything you do, you do to the best of your ability.
It doesn't matter what you're doing,
it's the fact that you're doing it
so therefore it means something to you.
That's going to build a legacy
'cause the title out there doesn't mean (bleep).
You win the title, fine.
That title will not get you another title.
What you're trying to build is legacy,
footprints behind you that are left as motivation
for someone else to follow.
Legacy is built daily through the character,
and the willpower, the code of conduct within somebody.
That's the perseverance,
showing up every single day.
That will always achieve your goal.
It doesn't matter what you're born with,
it doesn't matter your potential,
how much silver spoon or money you have,
all that can be attained if you show up
and you're willing to risk failure for success.
That's it.
- It could also remind us of success
of Alexander Bell, the inventor of telephone,
who had a stack of notebooks
where he recorded every failed experiment.
So if you work really hard,
you can find
the winning spot even in the midst of your
numerous failures.
I think the ex-Speaker of US House of Representatives,
Newt Gingrich,
hit the right points when he said that,
"Perseverance is the hard work
"you do after you get tired of doing hard work
"you already did."
- When I was 18
or 17, I graduated high school,
and I moved out and became a door-to-door salesman.
- [Interviewer] Selling Kirby vacuum cleaners?
- No, selling much lower priced
items, coupons for businesses in the service industry
for oil changes for $20,
three or four trips
to a day spa for $35. - You were selling a packet?
- The packet? - Yeah, it was just...
- No, just one coupon.
I'd walk up and be like,
"Hi, I'm from Meineke.
"Here you go, four oil changes, $20.
"Pretty great, right?
"Cash, check, or credit card today?
"And we'll take that...
"No?
"Okay.
(laughing) "(bleep) You too, sir."
A couple of "Don't sick your dog on me.
"I'm leaving." (laughs)
- A couple of doors slammed in your face?
- Oh, God, yeah!
Well, I did the job for about a year and a half,
got really good at it,
was Salesman of the Year for the company--
- [Kevin] Shut the (bleep) up.
- And got a free trip to Jamiaca.
- [Kevin] What!
- Yeah, I became a manager within six weeks.
I had a crew.
I was the perfect mixture of
enthusiasm--
- [Kevin] And size.
- And naivete
(men laughing)
to answer an ad that says,
"Do you like rock and roll music,
"do you want to make money?"
I was like,
"Holy (bleep)!
"Yes, I do!"
(men laughing)
"So what's this rock music?
"Okay, you're selling coupons?
"Sweet!
No, no, they don't sell coupons.
"We're in advertising.
"Oh, (chuckles) okay."
So anyways, I opened my own business in Colorado
when I was 19
and just lost my ass.
Point being, high turnover rate
in Seattle. - Wait a minute.
- We went from door-to-door, year and a half,
- [Chris] Yes, year and a half.
- A trip to Jamaica,
- [Chris] Trip to Jamaica.
- How did we get to Colorado?
- The whole point is
if you do well, one day you could have your own office.
- [Kevin] Oh, "We'd like you to run the office in Colorado."
- Yes, which I did but
failed miserably.
They put a lien on my minivan.
Pretty bad. (Kevin laughs)
But backing up to answer how I got into stand-up comedy,
there was a really turnover rate in Seattle
with just like one or two new guys a week
who'd end up quitting by the end of the week.
A lot of the money that you make is just from them like
selling three or four and then leaving
because it's just the (bleep) job anybody's
ever (bleep) done.
It's great prep for being an actor in terms of--
- [Kevin] Lying?
- In terms of lying, walking into a room feeling comfortable
and having thick skin,
there's no better--
- Wow, thick skin for sure!
To face all that rejection.
- People now are like,
"God, I just can't handle all the rejection as an actor."
I'm like, "(bleep) you, dude!
(Kevin laughs) They invite you there
for an audition.
You're not like sneaking in some side door
to try to sell something...
Anyways,
you can tell me I'm as fat as I want or...
You can tell me anything you want
and it's not going to hurt my feelings.
I've got really thick skin
from being a door-to-door salesman.
(bomb bursting)
- Thank you guys for watching.
I'd love to know what did you think?
What was the clip that resonated the most with you?
What was the most important lesson that you learned
and how are you going to apply it to your life
and to your business?
I'd love to hear your thoughts
if you want to leave a comment down below.
I also want to give a quick shout-out to John Carter.
John, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book,
Your One Word, and taking that amazing picture
with the book on the beach.
I really appreciate the support, man,
and I'm so glad you enjoyed 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.
I'll see you soon.
(plane taking off) (bomb bursting)