I believe anything is possible right I
live in the world a possibility and I
also believe that anything we can
accomplish anything with our two hands
and just putting in the work with our
two hands and also you hear this often
but it’s really really true you got to
find something if you love what you do
and find and be passionate about what
you do and find something that you could
be passionate like it really helps you
know it gives you that motivation when
you wake up in the morning big things
that all startups do is they lie to
themselves over and over and over mines
faster mines cheaper mine’s better mines
this mines that no it’s not and the
reason it’s not is because whoever it is
you’re competing with it’s not like
they’re ignoring you it’s not like oh my
goodness this guy just started on
Shopify in the startup competition he’s
doing a million dollars this year what
was me I might as well close up the
doors what are they doing I’m gonna copy
what they’re doing and now you’ve got to
stay ahead and so you know you’ve got to
be very careful as an entrepreneur to be
brutally honest with yourself and those
are some of the things that you’ll hear
from me as a mentor that you know know
what you know know what you don’t know
but you’ve got to know your business
better than anybody on your passion
follow your dreams figure out how you
can make a contribution with your
passion but I get it not everybody can
immediately know what they’re passionate
about there’s so many options there’s an
infinite boundless menu of possibilities
Timothy Leary talks about the vertigo of
freedom there’s so much to do I don’t
know parallel you’re paralyzed I get it
it’s overwhelming the paralysis of
choice open up Netflix how many times
have you spent browsing for 20 minutes
and then it’s like I want to watch
anything no matter what you choose it’s
not gonna be the right thing it’s oh so
you have to figure out this this passion
thing from all the possible ways in
which you could invest yourself Steven
Kotler also from the flow Genome Project
wrote this article in Forbes that I was
like holy Sh he deconstructed passion
here is the formula here’s how you find
your passion if you don’t know it you
make a list
fifteen things that you’re really
curious about right Elizabeth Gilbert
who wrote Eat Pray Love often talks
about the pressure of knowing your
passion and she says if you don’t know
your passion at least chase curiosity
because at least you know things you’re
curious about them you can make a list
so Cutler goes on make a list of 15
things you’re curious about so let’s say
I’m curious about space curious about
existentialism I’m curious about the
singularity like you make a list and
then you have 15 things now what you’re
gonna do is you’re gonna try to sort of
create a Venn diagram and you’re gonna
find out where these things overlap
where do the three to five of those 15
things you’re curious about overlap
right because now they’re spilling into
each other see anything you’re curious
about is squirting dopamine so it’s
already there’s neurobiology there right
but if you have multiple things that
you’re curious about overlapping that’s
a lot of neurobiology right follow the
chemical trail you know like we are
mediated by neuro chemistry our
ecstasy’s and our sadness is all
mediated by neuro chemistry so just
chase that dopamine hit but be smart
about it you know not the slot-machine
style dopamine hit but like here’s a lot
of things I’m curious about here’s where
they overlap that is the way to your
passion clear easy follow along you get
it then he says now you know your
passion or at least the direction of it
find a need in the world that can be
served by your passion right because
then it’s like you have curiosity which
leads to passion the passion that leads
to purpose oh yeah reason to get up in
the morning
eze on Becca a reason for being a reason
for moving a reason for taking action a
reason that matters a reason that makes
you matter curiosity passion purpose and
guess what you know what your flow is so
you can also bring insights from that
right so these are the things that give
me flow these are the things I’m curious
about these are were these things I’m
curious about overlap and they overlap
in ways that if I go this direction I
can also be in flow when those
curiosities overlap wholly and there’s
the purpose that I can serve by being in
flow playing with all the things I’m
curious about and serving and eat in the
world oh my god you’ve figured it out
that’s it done go home bye like that’s
the solution Mandela is a particularly
special case study in the leadership
world because he is universally regarded
as a great leader you can take other
personalities and depending on the
nation you go to we have different
opinions about other personalities but
Nelson Mandela across the world is
universally regarded as a great leader
he was actually the son of a tribal
chief and he was asked one day how did
you learn to be a great leader and he
responded that he would go with his
father to tribal meetings and he
remembers two things when his father
would meet with other elders one they
would always sit in a circle and – his
father was always the last to speak you
will be told your whole life that you
need to learn to listen I would say that
you need to learn to be the last to
speak I see it in boardrooms every day
of the week even people who consider
themselves good leaders who may actually
be decent leaders will walk into a room
and say here’s the problem here’s what I
think but I’m interested in your opinion
let’s go around the room it’s too late
the skill to hold your opinions to
yourself until everyone has spoken does
two things one it gives everybody else
the feeling that they have been heard it
gives everyone else the ability to feel
that they have contributed and two you
get the benefit of hearing what
everybody else has to think before you
render your opinion the skill is really
to keep your opinions to yourself if you
agree with somebody don’t nod yes if you
disagree with somebody don’t not know
simply sit there take it all in and the
only thing you’re allowed to do is ask
questions so that you can understand
what they mean and why they have the
opinion that they have you must
understand from where they are speaking
why they have the opinion they have not
just what they are saying and at the end
you will get your turn
it sounds easy it’s not practice being
the last to speak
that’s what Nelson Mandela did I think
he should be doing something you’re
passionate about so the question is
always you know when I give my younger
self advice you know where I still go to
Stanford little go to Stanford Law
School possibly but I think a lot more
about why I was doing it was is it just
you know and I was on this super tract
myself ended up at a big law firm in New
York in my eighth grade junior high
school year but one of my friends wrote
and I know you’re gonna get into
Stanford in four years I went to
Stanford four years later went to
Stanford Law School ended up at a big
law firm in in New York we’re on the
outside everybody wanted to get in on
the inside everybody wanted to get out
when I left after seven months and three
days one of the one of the people are
down the hall from me said it was you
know really reassuring to see it as
possible to escape from Alcatraz
which you know and only I do is really
just go out the front door but but so
much of our identity gets wrapped up in
the competition’s we win and that and
when you compete and I think a lot of
the credentialing resume building is
this sort of competition when you
compete you do get better at what you’re
competing at if you take lots of SAT
test prep classes you’ll get a better
school on the SAT and when you compete
you get better at beating people on the
narrow things you need to beat them on
but but you often it it often comes at
this very high price of of losing sight
of what’s what’s truly valuable and
important and meaningful which is well I
think passion there’s well there’s sort
of all sorts of other there all sorts of
things that that could be that but but I
think I think it often the
that I think it often ends up being
something that’s a little bit off the
beaten path because I think you know
there’s obviously financial vers where
you get to be have a monopoly like
business there’s a meaningful version I
think is always counterfactual where if
you weren’t doing this would you know
it’s great to be working on problems
where if you weren’t working on them
nobody else would do them you know if
you’re working at the fourth online pet
food company the 10th in film solar
panel company the one thousandth
restaurant in Philadelphia there’s a
sense that if you weren’t doing it
someone else would you know if you’re
working at at something where it’s the
only thing of its kind in the world
that’s very meaningful if we weren’t it
won’t end it to be for profit nonprofit
all sorts of contexts if we weren’t
doing this this problem would absolutely
not be tackled I think that’s the kind
of that that’s what’s that’s what’s
meaningful is it gradually to
entertainment through television through
media through every way possible we are
living in a generation of the dumbing
down of because we have traded
effectiveness for busyness statistics
say somebody ought to clap oh man
we are busier than any other generation
we have seen in the last three to four
hundred years we are so busy where we
are busier than a wall booth than a
one-armed wallpaper hanger richest busy
being you’ll get it later don’t worry
about anything in a hitch in a minute we
are just as busy as we can be and we
think because we’re busy
we’re effective but I want you to
challenge your schedule for a minute and
ask yourself are you are you really
being effective or is your life
cluttered with all kinds of stuff that
demands you and drains you and taxes you
and stops you from being your highest
and best self and are you substituting
busyness and all the chaos that goes
along with business from being effective
let me tell you a bunch of scientists
got together they begin to do some
research and they begin to determine
that 80% of the things we do are busy
things that we do in an area that is not
effective that the average person only
spends 20% of their time doing the thing
that they are really gifted at creative
and passionate about excited to do and
the rest of it is all the dismal dumb
stuff that we all have to do in order to
survive just crazy stuff that we’re
doing wonder what would happen if we
would go from doing 80% of things that
are busy but not effective and 20% of
the things that are really effective if
we would switch those numbers around and
only give 20% of our time to the things
that we have to do and 80% of our time
wonder what would happen to your life
now think about it a minute
I there’s a lot of things you could take
from me and I could make it you could
take my suit I got another one you can
take my car I could get another one you
could take my house I could get another
house but when you take my time you have
taken something from me that is totally
irreplaceable
we take all kind of classes for money
management we know how to manage our
money we know how to repair our houses
we’re working on our hair and our bodies
and all of this kind of stuff we do
everything except the most important
thing is to value or die it takes time
to be creative you were meant to be
creative you were created in the
likeness and the image of a creator and
in that likeness and in that image you
have creativity if you had time you
would be creative but in the absence of
time and with busyness and clutter be
the following baby y’all got music
playing on your front all kinds of stuff
and no matter what kind of song you put
on after why you hate to hear it because
every time you hear that sound you know
it’s somebody else one something else
from you this taking you away from what
you are gifted and creative I don’t know
if you’d agree with me on this but in
many ways one of the key factors to
legendary success isn’t your natural
ability it’s not whether you have the
right product it’s not whether you’re in
the right field it’s not whether you’ve
had a blessed background it’s not
whether you have the right IQ I want you
to really think about and deconstruct
and play with maybe later tonight in
your journal I want you to deconstruct
this idea of confidence and it seems
like a very simple word but just think
about it in your own life when you have
confidence or we could even call it fire
when you have that fire within you that
confidence that interior bravery you
almost have this power to do whatever it
takes to get your brain
vision done you see in this world it’s
not about you know in many ways your
strategy in your business or your
ability in your life it’s about this
thing called confidence and we have all
had these times in our lives when we are
full of confidence and what other people
see is a problem we simply do see as an
opportunity other people see it as a
stumbling block block or a wall and we
see it as a stepping stone or this
solution and so confidence is simp that
you really want to wire in confidence is
something you really want to develop
confidence is a practice confidence is a
muscle and like any muscle the more you
focus on it and practice it and train it
the stronger your confidence is gonna
grow and I just have to say it again
when you are at a place in your life
when there is an ongoing steady-state
stream of confidence moving through your
mindset moving through your heart set
you do the heroic in your business and
you achieve the remarkable in your life
like I’ve had a lot of bad health in the
last year and having to rewrite rule 7
coincided with one of those periods that
lasted about a month and it was was the
hardest chapter by far and it went down
the deepest by far and it was really
hard to get right
it’s called do what is meaningful not
what is expedient and I’ll just tell you
a little bit about the chapter because I
figured something out in it that and
then explained it something that took me
decades to figure out so there’s this
idea it’s a it’s a very deep Christian
idea that the Messiah is the person who
takes the world’s sins upon himself
right that’s a characteristic of Christ
right it’s something the idea is
something like Christ died for your sins
like hell does that mean exactly you
know and partly what it means and I
would say a slightly corrupted form of
Christianity is that you just have to
believe that that happened in the and
you’re redeemed it’s like well that’s we
leave that aside for a second but
there’s an idea there a psychological
idea and you know that because the idea
doesn’t go away it’s lasted for
thousands of years it’s like
so the idea signifies something it has a
psychological reality independent of its
metaphysical reality whatever that might
be and so I’ve thought about that for a
long time it’s like what in the world
does that possibly mean and then I
realized and you knew this Carl Jung
knew this that it was associated with
this idea of the shadow I had this
client once who ha her parents man they
were pieces of work she her parents
taught her I swear to you that this is
the truth
her parents taught her that adults were
angels literally and when I saw her she
was about 30 and she had a lot of
strange symptoms symptoms of sorts I’d
never seen psychosomatic symptoms she
she she had kind of like quasi epileptic
seizures at night and no but she stayed
conscious during them it was very
difficult to understand at night I won’t
walk through it but her parents told her
that adults were angels and and she was
like 28 she had a university degree in
and I said well did you ever wonder
about that I said didn’t you read any
history and she said yeah what I’d read
something about the terrible things that
people did to each other and I would
just compartmentalize it and that was
actually the key that I used to unlock
what was wrong with her which was
eventually fixed and I won’t go into
that but but I said I gave her this book
give her two books I gave her a book
called the terror that comes in the
night which is a book about about sleep
paralysis and nightmares because I
thought that was what might have be
bothering her turned out that wasn’t yet
then I gave her this other book called
ordinary ordinary men and it’s a great
book
it’s a terrible book terrible dark book
about about this police battalion that
was moved into Poland during World War
two after the Nazis had marched through
and it was all made of middle-aged guys
who weren’t like victims of Nazi
totalitarian propaganda when they were
kids they were just you know burgeois
middle class guys kind of like all of us
let’s say and they went to police Poland
and they were going to have to do some
terrible things essentially but their
commander told them quite
rightly that if being involved in
wartime policing was too hard on them if
they felt that it violated the more
psychologically violent that they could
just go back to policing in Germany and
very few of them did be partly because
they didn’t want to abandon their
comrades let’s say they didn’t want them
to have to do the dirty work you know
and they ended up they were normal
policemen they ended up the sorts of
people who could take naked pregnant
women out into the middle of the field
and shoot them in the back of the head
that’s how the book that’s the
culmination of their training it’s very
interesting to read about their training
because they were absolutely sickened by
what they learned to do like physically
sick and vomiting shaking traumatized
but they didn’t stop and and if you want
to know why then you can read the book
and I said look read this book but don’t
bloody well compartmentalize it enough
of that it’s like read it like you’re
one of the damn policemen which is how
you should read history right you read
about Nazi Germany and you think well
I’m Oscar Schindler I’d save the Jews
it’s like no you wouldn’t right you
wouldn’t because people didn’t and the
probability is very high that you
wouldn’t and all you have to do is think
it through you know what Anne Frank it’s
like you’re really gonna put your family
at risk to hide a group of another
family in your attic for like multiple
years while there’s Nazis parading the
street and where if you get exposed you
all die you’re gonna do that are you
it’s like very unlikely and and and no
wonder it’s not surprising that it’s
unlikely but you don’t want to be
inflating yourself with self you know
with with fictional heroism without
actually knowing the facts on the ground
so I told her to read read it and to
understand that the policemen were her
and that’s the thing to understand
let’s say I will never turn down a
challenge so when this challenge came
when it was presented to me I would
never turn down I’m not like many others
where they sit good they have it good
and they know they can perform at top
and they will never change but me I’m
opposite I will take the challenge and I
will and I’ll go for it I will work hard
I will sacrifice them then what outcome
becomes will have to wait and see but
turned down a challenge he doesn’t exist
in my world I’ve been in every country
with England now and and that is what I
find that venture cooled because I came
my one and I went so hopefully I can do
the same era have you ever done a movie
where everything pretty much fell into
place and there were no monumental
battles no anxiety no angst no near
nervous breakdowns which seems to be
actually kind of what your life is about
pretty much in a movie where it just
started and what do we have 45 days
shaving did it like no never never
I mean I’m shooting at 2:00 in the
morning last night and you know you find
yourself in the edge of the seat like
this frozen you know the actors are
moving a certain way what is it maybe I
think it should be more to the left what
do you think Michael Ball house yeah
movie immortus I know I have a problem
left to right so after whenever I say
left together left
you can’t the minute you become also as
you get older to you sometimes it’d be
with the heat on the sudden this week
was very hard you do from time at time
to get that energy midday you need like
15 minutes close your eyes just think
but you you have to keep there’s no such
thing told you love shooting well for me
shooting is is an extraordinarily
stressful situation because it’s not one
moment to relax you know because you
need to push you need to first of all
not only get something wonderful from
the actors and then cinematographer and
everybody but you have to do it on a
schedule and you have to prove that
you’re responsible you have a certain
responsibility in 96 million dollars 100
million dollar you have no
responsibility to do what you can with
that money and you’re presented area you
have to make the deck today means you
get to the end you’ve done the setups
and the pages that’s the way they judges
yes these things and then you usually
feel sometimes well not just reading a
schedule for context making a film but
then you realize well you know at a
certain point if we can sometimes you
slip behind we’ve been able like for
example an aviator that picture came in
on schedule 90 days on schedule would
all that stuff at the airplanes anything
I don’t know how we did it but there
wasn’t one day that we didn’t suffer
kind of the ups and downs of it thinking
in the morning we gonna do this then
about two hours in super desert were
doomed
finishing this film we’re gonna be in
movie Hill for the rest of our lives the
planes Howard use I don’t know what’s
going on where are we
and then to I was like hey yeah and by
the end of the day you resurrect God we
made it you know I suppose or you
slipped over to the next day and cut
down another scene and somehow it all
came together
yeah you know I’m saying we look but
that by the time the dust and settled we
looked around it was 90 days we did it
you know in gangs was if it was a
different thing or it was a much bigger
epic I was like looking around we’re
never day you know we just never got
there you know but that’s the last of
that time that can be done I don’t want
to be an icon I want to be an idea you
know I want to represent an idea i want
to represent possibilities I want to
represent magic right that you’re in a
universe in two plus two equals four 2
plus the only equals four if you accept
that two plus two equals four two plus
two is gonna be what I wanted to be you
know and there’s that there’s a like
there’s that there’s a redemptive power
that making a choice has you know rather
than feeling like you’re at effect to
all the things that are happening make a
choice like you just decide what its
gonna be who you’re gonna be how you’re
gonna do it just decide and then from
that point the universe is going to get
out your way it’s like it’s water it
once it wants to move and go around
stuff you know so for it from me I want
to represent possibilities I want to
represent the idea that you really can
make what you want 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 and put my
head on it right study it learn the
patterns and you know I just I it’s hard
to put into words
metaphysical esoteric nonsense but I
feel very strongly that we are who we
choose to be first of all it’s not
mumbo-jumbo you make sense number one
number two I think sales The Alchemist
just went up sales just went up on the
call you see we know it’s great no
there’s a quick read to yes if you can
spell alchemist that’s a good scrabble
word nobody how come this because it’s
great like but 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 good
hustle 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 to me that’s that’s alchemy
that’s that that’s the same concept
behind the the alchemists
don’t pay attention industry do your own
thing I mean
put it this way you want the work to be
seen but it doesn’t have to be at the
Odeon you know but no more that’s all
different that’s all God’s another
ancient world that type of film or not
even that type of film the the communal
experience is always important you can
make a film on a camera the size of that
doorknob and still show it to 1600
people in an audience it’s still a great
communal experience you know that
doesn’t necessarily mean it has to cost
over a hundred million pounds it comes
like on a TV in your mind you know
there’s a line of I’ve always loved of
limit Cohen he said if I knew where the
good songs came from I would go there
more often absolutely people we want i
we don’t do anything without an idea so
they’re beautiful gifts and I always say
you desiring an idea is like a bait on a
hook
you can pull them in and if you catch an
idea that you love that’s a beautiful
beautiful day and you write that idea
down so you won’t forget it and that
idea that you caught might just be a
fragment of the whole whatever it is
you’re working on but now you have even
more bait thinking about that small
fragment that little fish will bring in
more and they’ll come in and they’ll
hook on and more and more come in and
pretty soon you might have a script or a
chair or a painting or an idea for a
painting but they come as in small more
often than not small fragments I like to
think of it as in the other room the
puzzle is all together but they keep
flipping in just one piece at a time
in the other room over there in a fence
David disorders in another room
somewhere that’s a beautiful thing to
think about genera myself we all felt as
powerfully just had attached to it as as
traded 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 profit or a style like
the Cassavetes or even Kazan to a
certain extent and blending the two and
that was a 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 to make a movie movie every
make a movie again that came from in
here because I realized that I just
couldn’t go to work meaning go to work
like okay here’s the script go there
Monday morning be there at 5:30 and tell
this person and the person get into that
act will have his own ideas or her own
ideas and you don’t agree with them but
you’re gonna have to get him to I don’t
know if I could do that I don’t know if
I had the energy to do it or when he
wanted to do it and so a DeNiro during
the period of making New York New York
and a little earlier actually when I was
doing Alice does live anymore he give me
the book of Raging Bull 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 gone through
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 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 in
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 them
but he wanted to make the film
so come on you could do this you’d be so
greedy 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 that we kind of felt similar
ways about my 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 and my advice is to do what you
truly believe in don’t do something to
impress any studio or some money people
it always seems to backfire as far as
I’ve seen do what you really truly
believe in and learn by the doing it’s
great to go to film school and you can
learn a lot of intellectual knowledge
but learn by doing and now the cost has
come down you can really really go and
then you can see how things go there’s
lots of film festivals you can enter
into and see if you can catch some
distribution or some financial help to
turn out your belief system to destroy
your belief system if you open up a
business if you open up a company one of
the things you have is decent purpose
and goals and you write them down so all
of your staff and all your team and all
your customers can know this is who I am
I am defined by my vision my purpose and
my goals
that’s my playbook that’s my Creed
that’s what I believe as a company as an
institution I never will forget several
years ago I’d toured Nike and if you
ever get a chance to go up there toward
Nike it’s absolutely amazing I could not
find an employee in all of like you
that wasn’t quick to tell me who they
were they’ve ever talked about who they
work individually they talked about who
they were corporately they knew their
history they knew they but their
background they knew who they were as a
company a philosophy had so permeated
the organization but even the janitors
would stop and tell you the philosophy
of Mikey you see the reason that’s
important if you know who you are then
you know who you are not if you don’t
know who you are somebody can ascribe
any identity only you and you will or
friend or whatever they want you to be
and that’s what has happened with the
whole lot of us some of us have been ten
or twelve different people depending
upon who we were with because we don’t
know who we are
we become whoever they want us to be and
then when they leave us we are confused
because we have no real understanding of
who we are you say well I believe in a
god I’m talking about believing God but
I’m also talking about believing in
yourself Paul says I can do all things
through Christ which strengthens me
before he brings up Christ he brings up
him we saw amazing he believes in God
that we overlook the fact that he
believes in himself I can’t do all
things somebody said I can do all things
oh my god just just I’m right there and
say it again I can do all things
wouldn’t it be amazing if you believe
that what do you sleep good tonight if
you believe that wouldn’t you walk
around with your head up and your back
straight if you believe that said again
I can do all things different your job
interview would go if you really believe
imagine if you were top that from the
time you were born into the world I’m
reading the script and I’m feeling
things and I’ve always said that the
film is such a beautiful language it can
it can do abstractions it can do
abstractions and it abstraction are
there the combination of all these
different elements that you have in a
film it can do an abstraction of emotion
and I felt this emotion coming from the
script and that’s what I really that’s
what lit my fire that emotion of what
the emotion coming from a scene from a
word from a look when you read something
we all have the experience we picture it
in our minds and those pictures those
initial things are what guide us from
then on and so as this thing you know I
was picturing it I’m at the same time
I’m feeling things and I’m thinking film
can do this and it could be beautiful
this thing about emotion
you know it’s it’s it’s an intuitive
thing the the the film talks to you and
the story talks to you and so it’s a
little bit action in reaction you know
you’re you’re experimenting as you go to
get the thing to feel correct and and
how come it has to feel correct to me
and so you work and work until until it
does feel correct
I was in South Africa on a safari I was
blessed to be on a safari after I had
taught for a group of black billionaires
a seminar about faith in finances and
they detained me over and gave me the
privilege of staying out at Jay Paul
Gettys place out there in the middle of
the jungle somewhere and and to go on a
safari with my son it was amazing so
there I am in-between a zoologist who is
giving me all of this information about
all the animals their habitats their
mating practices how they live how they
operate and sitting on the edge of the
Jeep with a shotgun to protect us we
weren’t hunting we just watch it was a
Zulu Zulu says nothing at all the
zoologist explains all the animals and
we visited all the different places and
see a lot of the animals about we’d had
my father elephant he explained the
elephant but he could not find him
finally there’s a Zulu stood up and he
put his finger in there and then pointed
up he said the elephant is over there
but he said it to me my head exploded
Larry it exploded because all of us and
I realized I’m sitting the plane
intellect and instinct intellect can
describe it but only instinct can find
it and from the premise of that ideology
I began to go back through all of my
life and begin to see not only me but
others how if they position themselves
between intellect and instinct and no
flame to yield to which one that next
big thing for there’s an elephant and
entrepreneurial pursuit or raising a
family
it is simply over there you have a golf
ball-sized consciousness when you read a
book you’ll have a golf ball-sized
understanding when you look out a golf
ball-sized awareness and when you wake
up in the morning
a golf ball-sized wakefulness but if you
could expand that consciousness then you
read the book more understanding you
look out more awareness and when you
wake up more wakefulness its
consciousness and there’s an ocean
of pure vibrant consciousness inside
each one of us and it’s right at the
source and base of mind right at the
source of thought and it’s also at the source of all matter
live in the world a possibility and I
also believe that anything we can
accomplish anything with our two hands
and just putting in the work with our
two hands and also you hear this often
but it’s really really true you got to
find something if you love what you do
and find and be passionate about what
you do and find something that you could
be passionate like it really helps you
know it gives you that motivation when
you wake up in the morning big things
that all startups do is they lie to
themselves over and over and over mines
faster mines cheaper mine’s better mines
this mines that no it’s not and the
reason it’s not is because whoever it is
you’re competing with it’s not like
they’re ignoring you it’s not like oh my
goodness this guy just started on
Shopify in the startup competition he’s
doing a million dollars this year what
was me I might as well close up the
doors what are they doing I’m gonna copy
what they’re doing and now you’ve got to
stay ahead and so you know you’ve got to
be very careful as an entrepreneur to be
brutally honest with yourself and those
are some of the things that you’ll hear
from me as a mentor that you know know
what you know know what you don’t know
but you’ve got to know your business
better than anybody on your passion
follow your dreams figure out how you
can make a contribution with your
passion but I get it not everybody can
immediately know what they’re passionate
about there’s so many options there’s an
infinite boundless menu of possibilities
Timothy Leary talks about the vertigo of
freedom there’s so much to do I don’t
know parallel you’re paralyzed I get it
it’s overwhelming the paralysis of
choice open up Netflix how many times
have you spent browsing for 20 minutes
and then it’s like I want to watch
anything no matter what you choose it’s
not gonna be the right thing it’s oh so
you have to figure out this this passion
thing from all the possible ways in
which you could invest yourself Steven
Kotler also from the flow Genome Project
wrote this article in Forbes that I was
like holy Sh he deconstructed passion
here is the formula here’s how you find
your passion if you don’t know it you
make a list
fifteen things that you’re really
curious about right Elizabeth Gilbert
who wrote Eat Pray Love often talks
about the pressure of knowing your
passion and she says if you don’t know
your passion at least chase curiosity
because at least you know things you’re
curious about them you can make a list
so Cutler goes on make a list of 15
things you’re curious about so let’s say
I’m curious about space curious about
existentialism I’m curious about the
singularity like you make a list and
then you have 15 things now what you’re
gonna do is you’re gonna try to sort of
create a Venn diagram and you’re gonna
find out where these things overlap
where do the three to five of those 15
things you’re curious about overlap
right because now they’re spilling into
each other see anything you’re curious
about is squirting dopamine so it’s
already there’s neurobiology there right
but if you have multiple things that
you’re curious about overlapping that’s
a lot of neurobiology right follow the
chemical trail you know like we are
mediated by neuro chemistry our
ecstasy’s and our sadness is all
mediated by neuro chemistry so just
chase that dopamine hit but be smart
about it you know not the slot-machine
style dopamine hit but like here’s a lot
of things I’m curious about here’s where
they overlap that is the way to your
passion clear easy follow along you get
it then he says now you know your
passion or at least the direction of it
find a need in the world that can be
served by your passion right because
then it’s like you have curiosity which
leads to passion the passion that leads
to purpose oh yeah reason to get up in
the morning
eze on Becca a reason for being a reason
for moving a reason for taking action a
reason that matters a reason that makes
you matter curiosity passion purpose and
guess what you know what your flow is so
you can also bring insights from that
right so these are the things that give
me flow these are the things I’m curious
about these are were these things I’m
curious about overlap and they overlap
in ways that if I go this direction I
can also be in flow when those
curiosities overlap wholly and there’s
the purpose that I can serve by being in
flow playing with all the things I’m
curious about and serving and eat in the
world oh my god you’ve figured it out
that’s it done go home bye like that’s
the solution Mandela is a particularly
special case study in the leadership
world because he is universally regarded
as a great leader you can take other
personalities and depending on the
nation you go to we have different
opinions about other personalities but
Nelson Mandela across the world is
universally regarded as a great leader
he was actually the son of a tribal
chief and he was asked one day how did
you learn to be a great leader and he
responded that he would go with his
father to tribal meetings and he
remembers two things when his father
would meet with other elders one they
would always sit in a circle and – his
father was always the last to speak you
will be told your whole life that you
need to learn to listen I would say that
you need to learn to be the last to
speak I see it in boardrooms every day
of the week even people who consider
themselves good leaders who may actually
be decent leaders will walk into a room
and say here’s the problem here’s what I
think but I’m interested in your opinion
let’s go around the room it’s too late
the skill to hold your opinions to
yourself until everyone has spoken does
two things one it gives everybody else
the feeling that they have been heard it
gives everyone else the ability to feel
that they have contributed and two you
get the benefit of hearing what
everybody else has to think before you
render your opinion the skill is really
to keep your opinions to yourself if you
agree with somebody don’t nod yes if you
disagree with somebody don’t not know
simply sit there take it all in and the
only thing you’re allowed to do is ask
questions so that you can understand
what they mean and why they have the
opinion that they have you must
understand from where they are speaking
why they have the opinion they have not
just what they are saying and at the end
you will get your turn
it sounds easy it’s not practice being
the last to speak
that’s what Nelson Mandela did I think
he should be doing something you’re
passionate about so the question is
always you know when I give my younger
self advice you know where I still go to
Stanford little go to Stanford Law
School possibly but I think a lot more
about why I was doing it was is it just
you know and I was on this super tract
myself ended up at a big law firm in New
York in my eighth grade junior high
school year but one of my friends wrote
and I know you’re gonna get into
Stanford in four years I went to
Stanford four years later went to
Stanford Law School ended up at a big
law firm in in New York we’re on the
outside everybody wanted to get in on
the inside everybody wanted to get out
when I left after seven months and three
days one of the one of the people are
down the hall from me said it was you
know really reassuring to see it as
possible to escape from Alcatraz
which you know and only I do is really
just go out the front door but but so
much of our identity gets wrapped up in
the competition’s we win and that and
when you compete and I think a lot of
the credentialing resume building is
this sort of competition when you
compete you do get better at what you’re
competing at if you take lots of SAT
test prep classes you’ll get a better
school on the SAT and when you compete
you get better at beating people on the
narrow things you need to beat them on
but but you often it it often comes at
this very high price of of losing sight
of what’s what’s truly valuable and
important and meaningful which is well I
think passion there’s well there’s sort
of all sorts of other there all sorts of
things that that could be that but but I
think I think it often the
that I think it often ends up being
something that’s a little bit off the
beaten path because I think you know
there’s obviously financial vers where
you get to be have a monopoly like
business there’s a meaningful version I
think is always counterfactual where if
you weren’t doing this would you know
it’s great to be working on problems
where if you weren’t working on them
nobody else would do them you know if
you’re working at the fourth online pet
food company the 10th in film solar
panel company the one thousandth
restaurant in Philadelphia there’s a
sense that if you weren’t doing it
someone else would you know if you’re
working at at something where it’s the
only thing of its kind in the world
that’s very meaningful if we weren’t it
won’t end it to be for profit nonprofit
all sorts of contexts if we weren’t
doing this this problem would absolutely
not be tackled I think that’s the kind
of that that’s what’s that’s what’s
meaningful is it gradually to
entertainment through television through
media through every way possible we are
living in a generation of the dumbing
down of because we have traded
effectiveness for busyness statistics
say somebody ought to clap oh man
we are busier than any other generation
we have seen in the last three to four
hundred years we are so busy where we
are busier than a wall booth than a
one-armed wallpaper hanger richest busy
being you’ll get it later don’t worry
about anything in a hitch in a minute we
are just as busy as we can be and we
think because we’re busy
we’re effective but I want you to
challenge your schedule for a minute and
ask yourself are you are you really
being effective or is your life
cluttered with all kinds of stuff that
demands you and drains you and taxes you
and stops you from being your highest
and best self and are you substituting
busyness and all the chaos that goes
along with business from being effective
let me tell you a bunch of scientists
got together they begin to do some
research and they begin to determine
that 80% of the things we do are busy
things that we do in an area that is not
effective that the average person only
spends 20% of their time doing the thing
that they are really gifted at creative
and passionate about excited to do and
the rest of it is all the dismal dumb
stuff that we all have to do in order to
survive just crazy stuff that we’re
doing wonder what would happen if we
would go from doing 80% of things that
are busy but not effective and 20% of
the things that are really effective if
we would switch those numbers around and
only give 20% of our time to the things
that we have to do and 80% of our time
wonder what would happen to your life
now think about it a minute
I there’s a lot of things you could take
from me and I could make it you could
take my suit I got another one you can
take my car I could get another one you
could take my house I could get another
house but when you take my time you have
taken something from me that is totally
irreplaceable
we take all kind of classes for money
management we know how to manage our
money we know how to repair our houses
we’re working on our hair and our bodies
and all of this kind of stuff we do
everything except the most important
thing is to value or die it takes time
to be creative you were meant to be
creative you were created in the
likeness and the image of a creator and
in that likeness and in that image you
have creativity if you had time you
would be creative but in the absence of
time and with busyness and clutter be
the following baby y’all got music
playing on your front all kinds of stuff
and no matter what kind of song you put
on after why you hate to hear it because
every time you hear that sound you know
it’s somebody else one something else
from you this taking you away from what
you are gifted and creative I don’t know
if you’d agree with me on this but in
many ways one of the key factors to
legendary success isn’t your natural
ability it’s not whether you have the
right product it’s not whether you’re in
the right field it’s not whether you’ve
had a blessed background it’s not
whether you have the right IQ I want you
to really think about and deconstruct
and play with maybe later tonight in
your journal I want you to deconstruct
this idea of confidence and it seems
like a very simple word but just think
about it in your own life when you have
confidence or we could even call it fire
when you have that fire within you that
confidence that interior bravery you
almost have this power to do whatever it
takes to get your brain
vision done you see in this world it’s
not about you know in many ways your
strategy in your business or your
ability in your life it’s about this
thing called confidence and we have all
had these times in our lives when we are
full of confidence and what other people
see is a problem we simply do see as an
opportunity other people see it as a
stumbling block block or a wall and we
see it as a stepping stone or this
solution and so confidence is simp that
you really want to wire in confidence is
something you really want to develop
confidence is a practice confidence is a
muscle and like any muscle the more you
focus on it and practice it and train it
the stronger your confidence is gonna
grow and I just have to say it again
when you are at a place in your life
when there is an ongoing steady-state
stream of confidence moving through your
mindset moving through your heart set
you do the heroic in your business and
you achieve the remarkable in your life
like I’ve had a lot of bad health in the
last year and having to rewrite rule 7
coincided with one of those periods that
lasted about a month and it was was the
hardest chapter by far and it went down
the deepest by far and it was really
hard to get right
it’s called do what is meaningful not
what is expedient and I’ll just tell you
a little bit about the chapter because I
figured something out in it that and
then explained it something that took me
decades to figure out so there’s this
idea it’s a it’s a very deep Christian
idea that the Messiah is the person who
takes the world’s sins upon himself
right that’s a characteristic of Christ
right it’s something the idea is
something like Christ died for your sins
like hell does that mean exactly you
know and partly what it means and I
would say a slightly corrupted form of
Christianity is that you just have to
believe that that happened in the and
you’re redeemed it’s like well that’s we
leave that aside for a second but
there’s an idea there a psychological
idea and you know that because the idea
doesn’t go away it’s lasted for
thousands of years it’s like
so the idea signifies something it has a
psychological reality independent of its
metaphysical reality whatever that might
be and so I’ve thought about that for a
long time it’s like what in the world
does that possibly mean and then I
realized and you knew this Carl Jung
knew this that it was associated with
this idea of the shadow I had this
client once who ha her parents man they
were pieces of work she her parents
taught her I swear to you that this is
the truth
her parents taught her that adults were
angels literally and when I saw her she
was about 30 and she had a lot of
strange symptoms symptoms of sorts I’d
never seen psychosomatic symptoms she
she she had kind of like quasi epileptic
seizures at night and no but she stayed
conscious during them it was very
difficult to understand at night I won’t
walk through it but her parents told her
that adults were angels and and she was
like 28 she had a university degree in
and I said well did you ever wonder
about that I said didn’t you read any
history and she said yeah what I’d read
something about the terrible things that
people did to each other and I would
just compartmentalize it and that was
actually the key that I used to unlock
what was wrong with her which was
eventually fixed and I won’t go into
that but but I said I gave her this book
give her two books I gave her a book
called the terror that comes in the
night which is a book about about sleep
paralysis and nightmares because I
thought that was what might have be
bothering her turned out that wasn’t yet
then I gave her this other book called
ordinary ordinary men and it’s a great
book
it’s a terrible book terrible dark book
about about this police battalion that
was moved into Poland during World War
two after the Nazis had marched through
and it was all made of middle-aged guys
who weren’t like victims of Nazi
totalitarian propaganda when they were
kids they were just you know burgeois
middle class guys kind of like all of us
let’s say and they went to police Poland
and they were going to have to do some
terrible things essentially but their
commander told them quite
rightly that if being involved in
wartime policing was too hard on them if
they felt that it violated the more
psychologically violent that they could
just go back to policing in Germany and
very few of them did be partly because
they didn’t want to abandon their
comrades let’s say they didn’t want them
to have to do the dirty work you know
and they ended up they were normal
policemen they ended up the sorts of
people who could take naked pregnant
women out into the middle of the field
and shoot them in the back of the head
that’s how the book that’s the
culmination of their training it’s very
interesting to read about their training
because they were absolutely sickened by
what they learned to do like physically
sick and vomiting shaking traumatized
but they didn’t stop and and if you want
to know why then you can read the book
and I said look read this book but don’t
bloody well compartmentalize it enough
of that it’s like read it like you’re
one of the damn policemen which is how
you should read history right you read
about Nazi Germany and you think well
I’m Oscar Schindler I’d save the Jews
it’s like no you wouldn’t right you
wouldn’t because people didn’t and the
probability is very high that you
wouldn’t and all you have to do is think
it through you know what Anne Frank it’s
like you’re really gonna put your family
at risk to hide a group of another
family in your attic for like multiple
years while there’s Nazis parading the
street and where if you get exposed you
all die you’re gonna do that are you
it’s like very unlikely and and and no
wonder it’s not surprising that it’s
unlikely but you don’t want to be
inflating yourself with self you know
with with fictional heroism without
actually knowing the facts on the ground
so I told her to read read it and to
understand that the policemen were her
and that’s the thing to understand
let’s say I will never turn down a
challenge so when this challenge came
when it was presented to me I would
never turn down I’m not like many others
where they sit good they have it good
and they know they can perform at top
and they will never change but me I’m
opposite I will take the challenge and I
will and I’ll go for it I will work hard
I will sacrifice them then what outcome
becomes will have to wait and see but
turned down a challenge he doesn’t exist
in my world I’ve been in every country
with England now and and that is what I
find that venture cooled because I came
my one and I went so hopefully I can do
the same era have you ever done a movie
where everything pretty much fell into
place and there were no monumental
battles no anxiety no angst no near
nervous breakdowns which seems to be
actually kind of what your life is about
pretty much in a movie where it just
started and what do we have 45 days
shaving did it like no never never
I mean I’m shooting at 2:00 in the
morning last night and you know you find
yourself in the edge of the seat like
this frozen you know the actors are
moving a certain way what is it maybe I
think it should be more to the left what
do you think Michael Ball house yeah
movie immortus I know I have a problem
left to right so after whenever I say
left together left
you can’t the minute you become also as
you get older to you sometimes it’d be
with the heat on the sudden this week
was very hard you do from time at time
to get that energy midday you need like
15 minutes close your eyes just think
but you you have to keep there’s no such
thing told you love shooting well for me
shooting is is an extraordinarily
stressful situation because it’s not one
moment to relax you know because you
need to push you need to first of all
not only get something wonderful from
the actors and then cinematographer and
everybody but you have to do it on a
schedule and you have to prove that
you’re responsible you have a certain
responsibility in 96 million dollars 100
million dollar you have no
responsibility to do what you can with
that money and you’re presented area you
have to make the deck today means you
get to the end you’ve done the setups
and the pages that’s the way they judges
yes these things and then you usually
feel sometimes well not just reading a
schedule for context making a film but
then you realize well you know at a
certain point if we can sometimes you
slip behind we’ve been able like for
example an aviator that picture came in
on schedule 90 days on schedule would
all that stuff at the airplanes anything
I don’t know how we did it but there
wasn’t one day that we didn’t suffer
kind of the ups and downs of it thinking
in the morning we gonna do this then
about two hours in super desert were
doomed
finishing this film we’re gonna be in
movie Hill for the rest of our lives the
planes Howard use I don’t know what’s
going on where are we
and then to I was like hey yeah and by
the end of the day you resurrect God we
made it you know I suppose or you
slipped over to the next day and cut
down another scene and somehow it all
came together
yeah you know I’m saying we look but
that by the time the dust and settled we
looked around it was 90 days we did it
you know in gangs was if it was a
different thing or it was a much bigger
epic I was like looking around we’re
never day you know we just never got
there you know but that’s the last of
that time that can be done I don’t want
to be an icon I want to be an idea you
know I want to represent an idea i want
to represent possibilities I want to
represent magic right that you’re in a
universe in two plus two equals four 2
plus the only equals four if you accept
that two plus two equals four two plus
two is gonna be what I wanted to be you
know and there’s that there’s a like
there’s that there’s a redemptive power
that making a choice has you know rather
than feeling like you’re at effect to
all the things that are happening make a
choice like you just decide what its
gonna be who you’re gonna be how you’re
gonna do it just decide and then from
that point the universe is going to get
out your way it’s like it’s water it
once it wants to move and go around
stuff you know so for it from me I want
to represent possibilities I want to
represent the idea that you really can
make what you want 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 and put my
head on it right study it learn the
patterns and you know I just I it’s hard
to put into words
metaphysical esoteric nonsense but I
feel very strongly that we are who we
choose to be first of all it’s not
mumbo-jumbo you make sense number one
number two I think sales The Alchemist
just went up sales just went up on the
call you see we know it’s great no
there’s a quick read to yes if you can
spell alchemist that’s a good scrabble
word nobody how come this because it’s
great like but 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 good
hustle 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 to me that’s that’s alchemy
that’s that that’s the same concept
behind the the alchemists
don’t pay attention industry do your own
thing I mean
put it this way you want the work to be
seen but it doesn’t have to be at the
Odeon you know but no more that’s all
different that’s all God’s another
ancient world that type of film or not
even that type of film the the communal
experience is always important you can
make a film on a camera the size of that
doorknob and still show it to 1600
people in an audience it’s still a great
communal experience you know that
doesn’t necessarily mean it has to cost
over a hundred million pounds it comes
like on a TV in your mind you know
there’s a line of I’ve always loved of
limit Cohen he said if I knew where the
good songs came from I would go there
more often absolutely people we want i
we don’t do anything without an idea so
they’re beautiful gifts and I always say
you desiring an idea is like a bait on a
hook
you can pull them in and if you catch an
idea that you love that’s a beautiful
beautiful day and you write that idea
down so you won’t forget it and that
idea that you caught might just be a
fragment of the whole whatever it is
you’re working on but now you have even
more bait thinking about that small
fragment that little fish will bring in
more and they’ll come in and they’ll
hook on and more and more come in and
pretty soon you might have a script or a
chair or a painting or an idea for a
painting but they come as in small more
often than not small fragments I like to
think of it as in the other room the
puzzle is all together but they keep
flipping in just one piece at a time
in the other room over there in a fence
David disorders in another room
somewhere that’s a beautiful thing to
think about genera myself we all felt as
powerfully just had attached to it as as
traded 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 profit or a style like
the Cassavetes or even Kazan to a
certain extent and blending the two and
that was a 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 to make a movie movie every
make a movie again that came from in
here because I realized that I just
couldn’t go to work meaning go to work
like okay here’s the script go there
Monday morning be there at 5:30 and tell
this person and the person get into that
act will have his own ideas or her own
ideas and you don’t agree with them but
you’re gonna have to get him to I don’t
know if I could do that I don’t know if
I had the energy to do it or when he
wanted to do it and so a DeNiro during
the period of making New York New York
and a little earlier actually when I was
doing Alice does live anymore he give me
the book of Raging Bull 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 gone through
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 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 in
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 them
but he wanted to make the film
so come on you could do this you’d be so
greedy 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 that we kind of felt similar
ways about my 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 and my advice is to do what you
truly believe in don’t do something to
impress any studio or some money people
it always seems to backfire as far as
I’ve seen do what you really truly
believe in and learn by the doing it’s
great to go to film school and you can
learn a lot of intellectual knowledge
but learn by doing and now the cost has
come down you can really really go and
then you can see how things go there’s
lots of film festivals you can enter
into and see if you can catch some
distribution or some financial help to
turn out your belief system to destroy
your belief system if you open up a
business if you open up a company one of
the things you have is decent purpose
and goals and you write them down so all
of your staff and all your team and all
your customers can know this is who I am
I am defined by my vision my purpose and
my goals
that’s my playbook that’s my Creed
that’s what I believe as a company as an
institution I never will forget several
years ago I’d toured Nike and if you
ever get a chance to go up there toward
Nike it’s absolutely amazing I could not
find an employee in all of like you
that wasn’t quick to tell me who they
were they’ve ever talked about who they
work individually they talked about who
they were corporately they knew their
history they knew they but their
background they knew who they were as a
company a philosophy had so permeated
the organization but even the janitors
would stop and tell you the philosophy
of Mikey you see the reason that’s
important if you know who you are then
you know who you are not if you don’t
know who you are somebody can ascribe
any identity only you and you will or
friend or whatever they want you to be
and that’s what has happened with the
whole lot of us some of us have been ten
or twelve different people depending
upon who we were with because we don’t
know who we are
we become whoever they want us to be and
then when they leave us we are confused
because we have no real understanding of
who we are you say well I believe in a
god I’m talking about believing God but
I’m also talking about believing in
yourself Paul says I can do all things
through Christ which strengthens me
before he brings up Christ he brings up
him we saw amazing he believes in God
that we overlook the fact that he
believes in himself I can’t do all
things somebody said I can do all things
oh my god just just I’m right there and
say it again I can do all things
wouldn’t it be amazing if you believe
that what do you sleep good tonight if
you believe that wouldn’t you walk
around with your head up and your back
straight if you believe that said again
I can do all things different your job
interview would go if you really believe
imagine if you were top that from the
time you were born into the world I’m
reading the script and I’m feeling
things and I’ve always said that the
film is such a beautiful language it can
it can do abstractions it can do
abstractions and it abstraction are
there the combination of all these
different elements that you have in a
film it can do an abstraction of emotion
and I felt this emotion coming from the
script and that’s what I really that’s
what lit my fire that emotion of what
the emotion coming from a scene from a
word from a look when you read something
we all have the experience we picture it
in our minds and those pictures those
initial things are what guide us from
then on and so as this thing you know I
was picturing it I’m at the same time
I’m feeling things and I’m thinking film
can do this and it could be beautiful
this thing about emotion
you know it’s it’s it’s an intuitive
thing the the the film talks to you and
the story talks to you and so it’s a
little bit action in reaction you know
you’re you’re experimenting as you go to
get the thing to feel correct and and
how come it has to feel correct to me
and so you work and work until until it
does feel correct
I was in South Africa on a safari I was
blessed to be on a safari after I had
taught for a group of black billionaires
a seminar about faith in finances and
they detained me over and gave me the
privilege of staying out at Jay Paul
Gettys place out there in the middle of
the jungle somewhere and and to go on a
safari with my son it was amazing so
there I am in-between a zoologist who is
giving me all of this information about
all the animals their habitats their
mating practices how they live how they
operate and sitting on the edge of the
Jeep with a shotgun to protect us we
weren’t hunting we just watch it was a
Zulu Zulu says nothing at all the
zoologist explains all the animals and
we visited all the different places and
see a lot of the animals about we’d had
my father elephant he explained the
elephant but he could not find him
finally there’s a Zulu stood up and he
put his finger in there and then pointed
up he said the elephant is over there
but he said it to me my head exploded
Larry it exploded because all of us and
I realized I’m sitting the plane
intellect and instinct intellect can
describe it but only instinct can find
it and from the premise of that ideology
I began to go back through all of my
life and begin to see not only me but
others how if they position themselves
between intellect and instinct and no
flame to yield to which one that next
big thing for there’s an elephant and
entrepreneurial pursuit or raising a
family
it is simply over there you have a golf
ball-sized consciousness when you read a
book you’ll have a golf ball-sized
understanding when you look out a golf
ball-sized awareness and when you wake
up in the morning
a golf ball-sized wakefulness but if you
could expand that consciousness then you
read the book more understanding you
look out more awareness and when you
wake up more wakefulness its
consciousness and there’s an ocean
of pure vibrant consciousness inside
each one of us and it’s right at the
source and base of mind right at the
source of thought and it’s also at the source of all matter
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