Please watch the video above!
It contains valuable lessons on success, confidence, motivation, self esteem, and other topics sure to be of interest to anyone who cares about self improvement.
It also includes interesting stories about the surprising paths that some famous celebrities took on their way to success.
I think you will find their stories to be both illuminating and inspiring.
If you ever worry about your chances to succeed in life or feel less than confident that you will accomplish one of your dream goals, this video is perfect for you.
Enjoy!
Transcript Of “The Path To Success” Motivational Video
PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS TRANSCRIPT BEFORE FIRST WATCHING THE VIDEO
All the words used in this video were specially crafted to be read with dynamic movement as they are seen in the video. They were purposely written to have maximum psychological impact in their dynamic text video form. If I wanted to convey these same messages in a simple blog post, I would have written them quite differently.
That being said, if after watching the video, you want to review the transcript from it for whatever reason, I have included it for you here below:
There are different paths to success. But the most common one, the path that most people who have succeeded took to get there, surprisingly enough, is the one that is taught the least.
I will teach it to you by the end of this video.
This is tragic because it means that many people who are near the path to success will not recognize it because they were never properly taught what it might look like.
And many people who are currently on the path to success will step off of it because it doesn’t feel like the path they’ve been told about.
Why is this so?
It’s because our culture and our so-called “success experts” have been promoting the wrong lessons.
Think about the most popular success advice you usually hear. It goes something like this:
“To succeed, you must have a goal and you must believe whole-heartedly that you will achieve it.”
Or another variation:
“If you want to succeed, you must believe in yourself.”
This. Is. A. Lie.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for you having a healthy amount of confidence and belief in yourself. But believing that they are absolutely necessary ingredients for success is one of the main reasons why people do not succeed.
Let’s look at some successful people and the path they took to get there.
I saw a story about a guy once. He’s a singer. Maybe you’ve heard of him. His name is Jon Bon Jovi.
In the mid-eighties, his band was working on an album. He didn’t like one of the songs they were recording. He didn’t believe it was any good. He seriously doubted it could succeed.
His bandmates convinced him to release it anyway.
That song was Livin’ On A Prayer.
VH1 put in on their list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the 80’s… at #1.
Here’s another story. It’s not about a guy who makes music. It’s about a guy who likes to critique music… and use Botox… and wear tight grey T-shirts.
Yes, Simon Cowell.
When he started filming American Idol, he didn’t believe it would catch on in the U.S. He worried it would be cancelled in no time.
It became the highest rated television show in America, by a mile, for nearly an entire decade.
Some of the greatest accomplishments the world has ever known, maybe most, were done by people who wrestled with self-doubt every step of the way.
Climbing the wall of worry is the path to greatness.
Perhaps Dustin Hoffman can drive this point home.
Every day while filming The Graduate, he worried that he would be fired. “Not only did I not think it was going to be a hit, I thought it would end up starring Robert Redford.”
It was a huge hit. It launched his career. And he was nominated for an Oscar.
On a later movie, three weeks into filming, even though Hoffman by now had an Oscar in his back pocket from Kramer vs. Kramer, he was so worried about his performance that he begged the director to replace him because, “This is the worst work of my life.”
Was that movie Ishtar? Nope.
It was Rain Man.
Dustin Hoffman won his second Academy Award for Best Actor.
There is only one absolutely necessary ingredient to success. Are you ready for it? Here it is in only two words:
Taking. Action.
That’s it. That’s all.
And the sooner you understand this very important concept, the greater your chances are that you will succeed.
If you take action, you have a chance to succeed. If you don’t take action, you have zero chance.
And remember, some of the most successful actions were taken by people who were not certain that their actions would be successful.
They weren’t sure if their book would succeed. They did it anyway.
They weren’t sure if their performance would succeed. They did it anyway.
They weren’t sure if their business would succeed. They did it anyway.
They weren’t sure if their idea would succeed. They did it anyway.
You do not need to have 100% confidence that you will succeed. You can believe your chances of success are 73%, or 42, or 17, or even 1%.
You simply need to believe that you have whatever minimal chance you require to get yourself off the couch.
Thinking you need to wait until you have an idea that you are extremely confident will work is what keeps people on the couch.
Billions of potential endeavors, which could have succeeded, have died on that couch.
Again, I’m not against having confidence. If you can muster some up, by all means, muster away.
But if you can’t, forge forward anyway.
Do it scared.
That is what courage is.
Being fearless is not being courageous.
If you have no fear, you don’t need courage.
Being courageous is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. That is how most people succeed.
Three quick clarifying points: 1) Taking action can include educating yourself.
And for many endeavors, education is extremely important.
But education must never become procrastination.
Once you know enough to make your next move, you must move.
2) Although feeling confident is not required. In some situations, projecting confidence might be.
Don’t ever be unethical. But most of the time, when it comes to projecting confidence, you can fake it until you make it.
Powerful generals have lifted their heads up high and led armies victoriously into battles that didn’t think they would win.
You do not have to be confident to act confident.
3) You must always consider the costs of taking action.
If you must quit your job, drop out of school, spend a large amount of money, or make a huge time commitment before you’ll even know if you’re making progress, then do extensive research and think long and hard before you dive in.
But if your only risks are an affordable amount of time, money, or embarrassment, then be absolutely reckless in your attempts. Be positively promiscuous in taking action.
Listen, if you are trying something new, it’s only natural to feel uncertain about whether you will succeed.
How would you know? You’ve never done this before.
Plus, if you have a creative idea or an artistic expression, it’s extremely difficult to be an objective judge of its merits.
Jon Bon Jovi couldn’t do it. Dustin Hoffman couldn’t do it. You probably can’t either.
So stop wondering and worrying about whether you’re good enough.
The answers you seek are not in your head. They are out in the world. Try it and find out.
If you fail, I promise you, your brain has an entire arsenal of defensive mechanisms at its disposal to help you cope with it.
Scientific research has proven that even after a jarring failure or rejection, in three months max, and usually much sooner than that, you will be exactly as happy as you are today.
The pain from failing is short-lived. Don’t ever forget that.
So let’s sum it all up.
Our culture and our most popular self-help gurus teach us that the prototypical path to success is that of the confident, fearless warrior.
But what if that’s not you?
I say: Who cares? It’s not necessary. You do not need to feel like that to succeed. So get it out of your head.
If you’ve got an idea…
Yes, you. I’m talking specifically to you right now. And you know the idea I’m talking about, don’t you?
If you think maybe, just maybe, it could work. And if it won’t cost you an arm and a leg to try, you must try.
Even though you are worried you will fail.
Because that is how you succeed.
