passion follow my passion passion follow
your passion recognize your passion
passion passion hello believe nation
today we’re going to look at how you can
follow your passion and as always if
someone says something really meaningful
to you please leave in the comments
below and put quotes around it so other
people can be inspired as well enjoy
[Music]
what are your thoughts and what’s your
approach on finding in building upon
passions passion is not an actionable
word it’s correct you know that those
who do the things that they’re
passionate about do better but it’s not
helpful advice and so the question is
where does passion come from passion is
a result passionate as an energy passion
is the feeling you have when you’re
engaged in something that you love
passion is the feeling you have that you
would probably do this for free you know
and you can’t believe somebody pays you
to do it you know and i think we mistake
that passion is something we do in our
private lives but it shouldn’t be done
you know in our careers for example and
i’m a firm believer that you are who you
are and anybody who says i’m different
at home than I am at work and one of
those two places you’re lying and the
goal is to make everything you do in
home and it works something that you
have excitement to do so how do you find
the things that you’re excited to do
well it’s actually easier than you think
what are the things that you love to do
what are the things that you would do
for free you know how can you recreate
that feeling and and be pay for it so
what are the things that I do on the
weekend right I love I’m very involved
in the art world I love to go to museums
and galleries but I love to go see dance
and performances because i want to see
how others are interpreting the world so
that inspires me new ideas new thoughts
new ways of looking at the world are
things that interest me privately and I
seek it out and pay money for it right
so does that mean I have to have a
career in the arts no it means I have to
have a career where new ideas are
explored where people are
and trying things out and I have to
explore new ideas and try things out and
I’m just as excited to go to work every
day as i am just you know go do
something on a Saturday night and so the
idea of finding your passion is
ironically simple because you should be
doing stuff that you enjoy sometimes
what is the stuff that you enjoy and
then what is the stuff that you love who
the people you love and what are those
were they all have in common everybody
around me their parents were lawyers or
investment bankers or entrepreneurs or
they were all laying involved in
business and that actually didn’t seem
very much fun to me growing up so I
thought that being an adult’s kind of a
drag I actually was pretty depressed
when I graduated from college I was
literally depressed for like six months
i woke up at one o’clock in the
afternoon and laid on a couch looked up
at the ceiling just do what i’m going to
do
and so with no inspiration I just
decided you know what
the only thing I can think of to do
right now is going to make me happy is
if I go serving and so I planned a
five-month trip around Australia
Indonesia living out of a backpack in a
van at the time if I didn’t follow my
passion for surfing I would have never
had the idea for gopro how do you choose
what’s interesting to you I mean how do
you decide something I have to feel
passionate about I mean it people don’t
know this but to make a good film has to
be one of the hardest things known to
humankind that make I mean there’s so
many factors that go into making a good
film and like filmmakers who are
passionate about this we kill ourselves
to do this so you spend a year two years
and Malcolm X that took two years that’s
that’s time out of your life and you
have to have that passion for the
subject matter for the store whatever it
is it makes you want to go ahead and
press severe the difference between
people who are successful not although
those who are successful seem to know
from age of seven or eight maybe older
you know they’re very in tune with what
they love they compared to a voice
inside their head not literally a voice
but something saying you you really are
drawn to this subject and they hear it
throughout their lives for me it was it
was writing and books since I was a kid
and you know at any time I deviated from
that love and went into something else I
just was so unhappy I knew that I wasn’t
doing the right thing and so it’s just
like this voice that keeps drawing me
back to what you really really love why
did comedy kind of become your thing do
you think or did comedy kind of pic you
well that’s that’s a nice way of putting
it that’s a nice way of putting it I
would say that the you know I I can’t
under a emphasize how important comedies
been to my life and how Borden’s certain
you know opportunities that came along
to my life and they all many of them
seem sort of accident
for instance like Second City I never
thought of my side iddin think I was
going to be a comedian I had a sort of
secret desire as a high schooler to be a
comedian I didn’t know that meant you
know I didn’t know what I just really
like being funny i’m from one of 11 kids
and were a funny family and being funny
was important like the the king of the
room was whoever was funniest you know
and I remember as a child you know I
seen comedy helping my family had a
tragedy when I was younger my father and
to my brothers died and i remember my
sister making another one of my sister’s
laugh so hard on the way on the the car
away from the cemetery one of my sisters
made the other sister laughed so hard
that she fell on the floor of the limo
was big floors like with a rumble seat
facing each other and she fell on the
floor laughing and I remember thinking I
want to do that and I don’t know whether
it was specifically within the context
of dealing with tragedy because I don’t
think I was always on 10 and but I
remember specially thinking I want that
I’d love to have been able to do that
right now and then I fell asleep every
night for years listening to Bill Cosby
wonderfulness very funny fellow uh David
Frye Richard Nixon a fantasy George
Carlin class clown let’s get small wild
and crazy guy and I would just back when
you could stack albums so many stacks
how many of them the top one
contemplates role as it went around and
and then I went to college to be an
actor but an actor actor i were black
and i had a beard and you know i was
like let me share my misery with you you
know poet / jerk kind of actor and then
I accidentally met some people from
second city and and took some classes
there and got invited to audition and
accidentally just sort of a happy
accident fell in with some great people
and I still with I quit second city four
times in order to go do straight black
box avant-garde kind of theater in
Chicago which is that’s what I was going
to be I was gonna live in a studio
apartment with no furniture and a futon
on the floor that I stuffed myself with
yak fur and
just drained him single and with the
beard and you know sandals and a dashiki
and I was gonna you know drink from a
samovar that was constantly bubbling in
the background and and but then one day
I was backstage I kept on returning to
doing comedy and I was backstage one one
night this is really the thing that made
the decision for me I was backstage with
a guy named Dave Wazowski who does does
a a what’s called a web there’s a lots
of blonde was overawed EO it does a
podcast as a great podcast yeah what are
you kids do your podcasts great guy
we’re backstage somebody was on stage
and they were supposed to do a very
simple black out and a blackout is a
very short it’s got one joke and then
lights go out is the second city it’s a
pace keeper for the show she goes out
there and the blackout is this she goes
you know you’re supposed to say i like
to a song for you now welcome to the no
the no exit cafe like to assam fee right
now a song for the whales and then she
did to make think of you tune up your
guitar for a long time this is the song
for the whales and then you go very
simple you do whistling clicks and
everything it’s fine not a big not a
great laugh but it works every time she
goes out there to do it I like you I
like to a song for you right now that
tooth on fear right now she just goes
into her whistling on her clicking and
we’re backstage waiting to go on for the
next scene me and Dave and what’s not
getting any laughs what’s this is
foolproof no laughs at all what’s going
on something’s wrong and then she goes
oh I forgot its song for whales
[Music]
and we burst into laughter backstage and
we threw our arms around each other in
the agony of her failure and we’re just
laughing we fell like I like at like a
collapsing TP we just fell to the ground
and Dave’s feet went out on to stage
like this as we held each other like
lovers the most intimate joyful
experience at her pain that we all knew
and she could hear it happen in order to
see our feet and she started laughing at
how wonderfully she had just failed and
and I thought at that moment this is
what I want if if failure of this scale
can cause this much joy for anyone then
this is the healthiest thing that I
could do with the rest of my life and I
will do nothing else and I’ve never
looked back from that moment I often say
to people who talk to me about
Shakespeare who never are not actors or
directors I’ve never played it were done
it the actor learns Shakespeare in
another way because he learns it having
to do it having to spend months with it
so he approaches it in that way and
understands it in that way and the
familiarity with the words and the
phrases and what the content is what
it’s saying becomes a part of you and
the revelations keep coming long after
you closed in finna play you know you
you learn things and you hear things in
a way that you could never if you saw
the play or if you read the play no
that’s why act is in a way of lucky that
they get an opportunity to that’s why
some of the great ones that had the
repertoires of placing it so wanted to
do it because it had so much in it it’s
almost I can come close to say say you
were a cello you played the cello or
something and you were playing Bach on
the cello I mean wow imagine that you
know
so so that that that manifestation of
spirit which comes out of it changes you
it lifts your life it does it gives you
so much and once that appealed to me
when I was very young I was a very young
guy when I started to do string Bergen
and and things like that was very
affected by that because I thought here
it is with this material it’s like
playing the cello because I can kind of
just express things in myself and it
made me sort of universally it gave me a
more universal sense of things and
myself because I was doing things that
happen to use years ago II I was out of
the South Bronx I was out of the life I
come from into another world it was
giving me all this stuff it was a gift
and I knew from that point on age 21 I
knew at that point I’d been acting since
I was this big but at that point I
thought this is what I do with my life
and nothing matter being famous being
rich nothing only doing this now at 21
that’s easy to say you know it’s just
you and pizza but it is true that they
did happen follow your passion and and
not chase money and you’ll hear people
say that and it doesn’t make sense
because they think like it sounds like
such a like abstract thing like follow
your passion you know it’s like this
like all positive thinking mantra or
whatever but the reality is is that
business is really really really really
hard and if you’re in business and
you’re doing it just for the money and
you’re not doing it because you really
care what’s going to happen is is when
things get tough it’s going to be easy
for you to quit because the money is not
enough reward no it has to come down to
doing something you’re passionate about
something that you love something that
you that you want to get up and do every
day because that way when you’re not
making money and the money’s not there
you still do it anyway and you get
better anyway so it makes it easier for
you to continue to get better and
improve which is what’s required for you
ultimately reach the goal so I really
think that following a passion is a
requirement of being successful for the
simple fact that it makes it almost
impossible to quit you know so try to
figure out what it is you’re passionate
about what it is that you enjoy and and
you’re a naturally become better you’re
naturally endure the times of when it’s
hard because you love it thank you for
inviting me to celebrate with you today
tish graduates you made it and
[Music]
[Applause]
think about that the graduates from the
College of Nursing they all have jobs
the graduates from the College of
Dentistry fully employed the Leonard and
stern school of business graduates
they’re covered the School of Medicine
graduates each one will get a job the
proud graduates of the NY school of law
they’re covered and if they’re not who
cares they’re lawyers the English majors
are not a factor
they’ll be home writing their novels
teachers they’re all be working three
jobs lousy pay yeah but still working
the graduates in accounting they all
have jobs where does that leave you
envious of those accountants I doubt it
they had a choice maybe they were
passionate about accounting but I think
it’s more likely that they use reason
and logic and common sense to reach for
a career that could give them the
expectation of success and stability
reason logic common sense at the Tisch
School of Arts are you kidding me but
you didn’t have that choice did you you
discovered a talent developed an
ambition and recognized your passion
when you feel that you can’t fight it
you just go with it when it comes to the
arts passion should always trump common
sense you aren’t just following dreams
you’re reaching for your destiny you’re
a dancer a singer a choreographer
musician the filmmaker a writer a
photographer a director or producer and
actor an artist yeah yeah the good news
is that that’s not a bad place to start
now that you’ve made your choice or
rather succumb to it your path is clear
not easy but clear you have to keep
working it’s that simple the power for
me to be successful was not in the
teachers it was not in the educational
system it was not in my culture it was
not in my society it was within me and I
began to think God if you are a good god
why my poor if you are a great God why
are these people better than me if you
make me in your image why are they
special and I’m a monkey and that night
no thunder no lightning no earthquakes
nothing I just heard a voice in my mind
and the voice said I ask you to believe
me
and you will be saved not them and that
night I made a commitment to believe
what God said 13 years was ok believe
that I have the power to experience far
beyond all I can ever ask think or
imagine 13 years old and that’s when my
pursuit of God began when was it that
you realize you wanted to become a
preacher you know I didn’t want to
become a preacher matter of fact today
is still consider myself a preacher I
think it drove me to have a passion to
help everybody who’s been oppressed my
passion is to make sure that no one
should live under what I experienced I
never desired to be a minister I desired
to help people this was Schrader’s
passion in a way and then somehow we
picked up on it and was De Niro myself
and all felt as powerfully just had
attached to it as shredded did a new
york new york came out came came from
something that I wanted to an explorer
genre and I started a fool around mixing
genre with what you might call him
pravas ettore style like the Cassavetes
or even Kazan to a certain extent and
blending the two and that was it that
was a failure at the box office and in
Hollywood and it sort of set me off on a
road feeling I never knew if I’d had the
passion again to do something from
myself we had to make a movie again make
a movie did everything to ever make a
movie again that came for me because I
realized that I just couldn’t go to work
meaning go to work like okay here’s a
script go there monday morning be there
at five-thirty and tell this person the
person get into that actual had his own
ideas or her own ideas and you don’t
agree with them but you’re gonna have to
go to I don’t know if I could do that I
don’t know if I the energy to do it or
really wanted to do it and so a De Niro
during the period of making new york new
york and little earlier actually when i
was doing Alice does liver anymore you
give me the book of raging bullet he
wanted to make this and by that point in
time I wasn’t it seemed to be more
generated from him and as I said sports
films I didn’t get but it’s not a sports
film I didn’t realize that until I’m
gone from my own two or three years of
soul searching and
having some difficult times and finally
winding up in the hospital and i found
that ultimately when i was in the
hospital it was kind of like a and kind
of a strange miracle in a way I couldn’t
I couldn’t go any I couldn’t reach any
further down I was a bottom and when he
came to see me and he just wanted really
to make that film he wanted me to get
out of that hospital bed too but he
wanted me to make me buddy want to make
the film come on you could do this you’d
be so greeted what are you doing with
your life look at you you know you know
come on please you could really do it I
said I said okay it suddenly hit me I
think I understood what it was and
somehow through him we had this
extraordinary collaboration mostly in a
sense of very very collaborative and uh
almost to the point where we didn’t
necessarily have to talk but we kind of
felt similar ways about about life and
about people and and the the process the
artistic process and just living trying
to live being and all these different
emotions we felt we kind of shared and
so I thought that was the film thank you
guys so much for watching I’d love to
know what clip resonated the most with
you what did you learn from this video
that you’re going to apply to your life
or your business please leave it in the
comments below I’m going to join in
discussion I also want to give a quick
shout out to j wang j thank you so much
for picking up ten copies of my book it
really really really means a lot to me
so thank you guys again for watching I
believe in you I hope we continue to
believe in yourself and whatever your
one word is much love I’ll see you soon
your passion recognize your passion
passion passion hello believe nation
today we’re going to look at how you can
follow your passion and as always if
someone says something really meaningful
to you please leave in the comments
below and put quotes around it so other
people can be inspired as well enjoy
[Music]
what are your thoughts and what’s your
approach on finding in building upon
passions passion is not an actionable
word it’s correct you know that those
who do the things that they’re
passionate about do better but it’s not
helpful advice and so the question is
where does passion come from passion is
a result passionate as an energy passion
is the feeling you have when you’re
engaged in something that you love
passion is the feeling you have that you
would probably do this for free you know
and you can’t believe somebody pays you
to do it you know and i think we mistake
that passion is something we do in our
private lives but it shouldn’t be done
you know in our careers for example and
i’m a firm believer that you are who you
are and anybody who says i’m different
at home than I am at work and one of
those two places you’re lying and the
goal is to make everything you do in
home and it works something that you
have excitement to do so how do you find
the things that you’re excited to do
well it’s actually easier than you think
what are the things that you love to do
what are the things that you would do
for free you know how can you recreate
that feeling and and be pay for it so
what are the things that I do on the
weekend right I love I’m very involved
in the art world I love to go to museums
and galleries but I love to go see dance
and performances because i want to see
how others are interpreting the world so
that inspires me new ideas new thoughts
new ways of looking at the world are
things that interest me privately and I
seek it out and pay money for it right
so does that mean I have to have a
career in the arts no it means I have to
have a career where new ideas are
explored where people are
and trying things out and I have to
explore new ideas and try things out and
I’m just as excited to go to work every
day as i am just you know go do
something on a Saturday night and so the
idea of finding your passion is
ironically simple because you should be
doing stuff that you enjoy sometimes
what is the stuff that you enjoy and
then what is the stuff that you love who
the people you love and what are those
were they all have in common everybody
around me their parents were lawyers or
investment bankers or entrepreneurs or
they were all laying involved in
business and that actually didn’t seem
very much fun to me growing up so I
thought that being an adult’s kind of a
drag I actually was pretty depressed
when I graduated from college I was
literally depressed for like six months
i woke up at one o’clock in the
afternoon and laid on a couch looked up
at the ceiling just do what i’m going to
do
and so with no inspiration I just
decided you know what
the only thing I can think of to do
right now is going to make me happy is
if I go serving and so I planned a
five-month trip around Australia
Indonesia living out of a backpack in a
van at the time if I didn’t follow my
passion for surfing I would have never
had the idea for gopro how do you choose
what’s interesting to you I mean how do
you decide something I have to feel
passionate about I mean it people don’t
know this but to make a good film has to
be one of the hardest things known to
humankind that make I mean there’s so
many factors that go into making a good
film and like filmmakers who are
passionate about this we kill ourselves
to do this so you spend a year two years
and Malcolm X that took two years that’s
that’s time out of your life and you
have to have that passion for the
subject matter for the store whatever it
is it makes you want to go ahead and
press severe the difference between
people who are successful not although
those who are successful seem to know
from age of seven or eight maybe older
you know they’re very in tune with what
they love they compared to a voice
inside their head not literally a voice
but something saying you you really are
drawn to this subject and they hear it
throughout their lives for me it was it
was writing and books since I was a kid
and you know at any time I deviated from
that love and went into something else I
just was so unhappy I knew that I wasn’t
doing the right thing and so it’s just
like this voice that keeps drawing me
back to what you really really love why
did comedy kind of become your thing do
you think or did comedy kind of pic you
well that’s that’s a nice way of putting
it that’s a nice way of putting it I
would say that the you know I I can’t
under a emphasize how important comedies
been to my life and how Borden’s certain
you know opportunities that came along
to my life and they all many of them
seem sort of accident
for instance like Second City I never
thought of my side iddin think I was
going to be a comedian I had a sort of
secret desire as a high schooler to be a
comedian I didn’t know that meant you
know I didn’t know what I just really
like being funny i’m from one of 11 kids
and were a funny family and being funny
was important like the the king of the
room was whoever was funniest you know
and I remember as a child you know I
seen comedy helping my family had a
tragedy when I was younger my father and
to my brothers died and i remember my
sister making another one of my sister’s
laugh so hard on the way on the the car
away from the cemetery one of my sisters
made the other sister laughed so hard
that she fell on the floor of the limo
was big floors like with a rumble seat
facing each other and she fell on the
floor laughing and I remember thinking I
want to do that and I don’t know whether
it was specifically within the context
of dealing with tragedy because I don’t
think I was always on 10 and but I
remember specially thinking I want that
I’d love to have been able to do that
right now and then I fell asleep every
night for years listening to Bill Cosby
wonderfulness very funny fellow uh David
Frye Richard Nixon a fantasy George
Carlin class clown let’s get small wild
and crazy guy and I would just back when
you could stack albums so many stacks
how many of them the top one
contemplates role as it went around and
and then I went to college to be an
actor but an actor actor i were black
and i had a beard and you know i was
like let me share my misery with you you
know poet / jerk kind of actor and then
I accidentally met some people from
second city and and took some classes
there and got invited to audition and
accidentally just sort of a happy
accident fell in with some great people
and I still with I quit second city four
times in order to go do straight black
box avant-garde kind of theater in
Chicago which is that’s what I was going
to be I was gonna live in a studio
apartment with no furniture and a futon
on the floor that I stuffed myself with
yak fur and
just drained him single and with the
beard and you know sandals and a dashiki
and I was gonna you know drink from a
samovar that was constantly bubbling in
the background and and but then one day
I was backstage I kept on returning to
doing comedy and I was backstage one one
night this is really the thing that made
the decision for me I was backstage with
a guy named Dave Wazowski who does does
a a what’s called a web there’s a lots
of blonde was overawed EO it does a
podcast as a great podcast yeah what are
you kids do your podcasts great guy
we’re backstage somebody was on stage
and they were supposed to do a very
simple black out and a blackout is a
very short it’s got one joke and then
lights go out is the second city it’s a
pace keeper for the show she goes out
there and the blackout is this she goes
you know you’re supposed to say i like
to a song for you now welcome to the no
the no exit cafe like to assam fee right
now a song for the whales and then she
did to make think of you tune up your
guitar for a long time this is the song
for the whales and then you go very
simple you do whistling clicks and
everything it’s fine not a big not a
great laugh but it works every time she
goes out there to do it I like you I
like to a song for you right now that
tooth on fear right now she just goes
into her whistling on her clicking and
we’re backstage waiting to go on for the
next scene me and Dave and what’s not
getting any laughs what’s this is
foolproof no laughs at all what’s going
on something’s wrong and then she goes
oh I forgot its song for whales
[Music]
and we burst into laughter backstage and
we threw our arms around each other in
the agony of her failure and we’re just
laughing we fell like I like at like a
collapsing TP we just fell to the ground
and Dave’s feet went out on to stage
like this as we held each other like
lovers the most intimate joyful
experience at her pain that we all knew
and she could hear it happen in order to
see our feet and she started laughing at
how wonderfully she had just failed and
and I thought at that moment this is
what I want if if failure of this scale
can cause this much joy for anyone then
this is the healthiest thing that I
could do with the rest of my life and I
will do nothing else and I’ve never
looked back from that moment I often say
to people who talk to me about
Shakespeare who never are not actors or
directors I’ve never played it were done
it the actor learns Shakespeare in
another way because he learns it having
to do it having to spend months with it
so he approaches it in that way and
understands it in that way and the
familiarity with the words and the
phrases and what the content is what
it’s saying becomes a part of you and
the revelations keep coming long after
you closed in finna play you know you
you learn things and you hear things in
a way that you could never if you saw
the play or if you read the play no
that’s why act is in a way of lucky that
they get an opportunity to that’s why
some of the great ones that had the
repertoires of placing it so wanted to
do it because it had so much in it it’s
almost I can come close to say say you
were a cello you played the cello or
something and you were playing Bach on
the cello I mean wow imagine that you
know
so so that that that manifestation of
spirit which comes out of it changes you
it lifts your life it does it gives you
so much and once that appealed to me
when I was very young I was a very young
guy when I started to do string Bergen
and and things like that was very
affected by that because I thought here
it is with this material it’s like
playing the cello because I can kind of
just express things in myself and it
made me sort of universally it gave me a
more universal sense of things and
myself because I was doing things that
happen to use years ago II I was out of
the South Bronx I was out of the life I
come from into another world it was
giving me all this stuff it was a gift
and I knew from that point on age 21 I
knew at that point I’d been acting since
I was this big but at that point I
thought this is what I do with my life
and nothing matter being famous being
rich nothing only doing this now at 21
that’s easy to say you know it’s just
you and pizza but it is true that they
did happen follow your passion and and
not chase money and you’ll hear people
say that and it doesn’t make sense
because they think like it sounds like
such a like abstract thing like follow
your passion you know it’s like this
like all positive thinking mantra or
whatever but the reality is is that
business is really really really really
hard and if you’re in business and
you’re doing it just for the money and
you’re not doing it because you really
care what’s going to happen is is when
things get tough it’s going to be easy
for you to quit because the money is not
enough reward no it has to come down to
doing something you’re passionate about
something that you love something that
you that you want to get up and do every
day because that way when you’re not
making money and the money’s not there
you still do it anyway and you get
better anyway so it makes it easier for
you to continue to get better and
improve which is what’s required for you
ultimately reach the goal so I really
think that following a passion is a
requirement of being successful for the
simple fact that it makes it almost
impossible to quit you know so try to
figure out what it is you’re passionate
about what it is that you enjoy and and
you’re a naturally become better you’re
naturally endure the times of when it’s
hard because you love it thank you for
inviting me to celebrate with you today
tish graduates you made it and
[Music]
[Applause]
think about that the graduates from the
College of Nursing they all have jobs
the graduates from the College of
Dentistry fully employed the Leonard and
stern school of business graduates
they’re covered the School of Medicine
graduates each one will get a job the
proud graduates of the NY school of law
they’re covered and if they’re not who
cares they’re lawyers the English majors
are not a factor
they’ll be home writing their novels
teachers they’re all be working three
jobs lousy pay yeah but still working
the graduates in accounting they all
have jobs where does that leave you
envious of those accountants I doubt it
they had a choice maybe they were
passionate about accounting but I think
it’s more likely that they use reason
and logic and common sense to reach for
a career that could give them the
expectation of success and stability
reason logic common sense at the Tisch
School of Arts are you kidding me but
you didn’t have that choice did you you
discovered a talent developed an
ambition and recognized your passion
when you feel that you can’t fight it
you just go with it when it comes to the
arts passion should always trump common
sense you aren’t just following dreams
you’re reaching for your destiny you’re
a dancer a singer a choreographer
musician the filmmaker a writer a
photographer a director or producer and
actor an artist yeah yeah the good news
is that that’s not a bad place to start
now that you’ve made your choice or
rather succumb to it your path is clear
not easy but clear you have to keep
working it’s that simple the power for
me to be successful was not in the
teachers it was not in the educational
system it was not in my culture it was
not in my society it was within me and I
began to think God if you are a good god
why my poor if you are a great God why
are these people better than me if you
make me in your image why are they
special and I’m a monkey and that night
no thunder no lightning no earthquakes
nothing I just heard a voice in my mind
and the voice said I ask you to believe
me
and you will be saved not them and that
night I made a commitment to believe
what God said 13 years was ok believe
that I have the power to experience far
beyond all I can ever ask think or
imagine 13 years old and that’s when my
pursuit of God began when was it that
you realize you wanted to become a
preacher you know I didn’t want to
become a preacher matter of fact today
is still consider myself a preacher I
think it drove me to have a passion to
help everybody who’s been oppressed my
passion is to make sure that no one
should live under what I experienced I
never desired to be a minister I desired
to help people this was Schrader’s
passion in a way and then somehow we
picked up on it and was De Niro myself
and all felt as powerfully just had
attached to it as shredded did a new
york new york came out came came from
something that I wanted to an explorer
genre and I started a fool around mixing
genre with what you might call him
pravas ettore style like the Cassavetes
or even Kazan to a certain extent and
blending the two and that was it that
was a failure at the box office and in
Hollywood and it sort of set me off on a
road feeling I never knew if I’d had the
passion again to do something from
myself we had to make a movie again make
a movie did everything to ever make a
movie again that came for me because I
realized that I just couldn’t go to work
meaning go to work like okay here’s a
script go there monday morning be there
at five-thirty and tell this person the
person get into that actual had his own
ideas or her own ideas and you don’t
agree with them but you’re gonna have to
go to I don’t know if I could do that I
don’t know if I the energy to do it or
really wanted to do it and so a De Niro
during the period of making new york new
york and little earlier actually when i
was doing Alice does liver anymore you
give me the book of raging bullet he
wanted to make this and by that point in
time I wasn’t it seemed to be more
generated from him and as I said sports
films I didn’t get but it’s not a sports
film I didn’t realize that until I’m
gone from my own two or three years of
soul searching and
having some difficult times and finally
winding up in the hospital and i found
that ultimately when i was in the
hospital it was kind of like a and kind
of a strange miracle in a way I couldn’t
I couldn’t go any I couldn’t reach any
further down I was a bottom and when he
came to see me and he just wanted really
to make that film he wanted me to get
out of that hospital bed too but he
wanted me to make me buddy want to make
the film come on you could do this you’d
be so greeted what are you doing with
your life look at you you know you know
come on please you could really do it I
said I said okay it suddenly hit me I
think I understood what it was and
somehow through him we had this
extraordinary collaboration mostly in a
sense of very very collaborative and uh
almost to the point where we didn’t
necessarily have to talk but we kind of
felt similar ways about about life and
about people and and the the process the
artistic process and just living trying
to live being and all these different
emotions we felt we kind of shared and
so I thought that was the film thank you
guys so much for watching I’d love to
know what clip resonated the most with
you what did you learn from this video
that you’re going to apply to your life
or your business please leave it in the
comments below I’m going to join in
discussion I also want to give a quick
shout out to j wang j thank you so much
for picking up ten copies of my book it
really really really means a lot to me
so thank you guys again for watching I
believe in you I hope we continue to
believe in yourself and whatever your
one word is much love I’ll see you soon
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