Latest / Motivational Podcast / IT'S TIME TO TAKE ACTION – Stop Waiting, Start Living

Transcript

IT'S TIME TO TAKE ACTION – Stop Waiting, Start Living · Motivational Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Everybody gets hurt, either metaphorically, sabbolically or physically.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: They get hurt.
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: What's the matter with you tomorrow?
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: And you root for that person who gets hurt. Get up, because.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: We all get knocked down. And that's just a credo
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I've followed my whole life. Life is undefeated. You can't
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: beat it. You just have to go on the defense.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: That inspired the line no one punches harder than life.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I felt that, geez, if I was going to go
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: down into professional obscurity, I wanted to at least have
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to say to myself, what you tried. It
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: dawned on me that we basically are in a movie
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: from the time we're born, and then when you get
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to be around eighteen twenty, you're now the director of
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: your movie, which is called Light. And I ask you,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: knowing that if you were in a movie of your
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: own making, would you.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Be proud of the part you're playing?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I certainly wasn't, and I took drastic steps to change
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: all that. The point being, if you're producing this film
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: called you make it the way you want to make it,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and to really progress, old skin must be shed before
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a new skin can grow. I don't know if that
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: makes sense, but that's pretty much the truth. You don't
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: like this skin, rip it off and become a different character.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: I was raised by a.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Very physical father, you know, I mean, so I was
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: no stranger to serious pain, and I think it just
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: became I'm not going to break no matter what he did,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm just not going to break. I had
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: a very tumultuous upbringing, rough father, rough every and I
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: was thin. I just was not genetically you say a mesomorph.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I was an ecdo morph. And I went to see
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a film one day and it altered my life completely.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: It was Steve Reeves and hercules unchained, and when he
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: struck that pose, I had an epiphot of him. That's
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: who I want to be. That's a man. That's oh
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: my god. And I ran out of the theater after
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: that and went the junkyard and started lifting little break
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: drums or anything that I could lift, like thirty pounds whatever.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And I never stopped, and I did build on armor.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: It was like I felt I could really take care
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: of myself. I could inflict punishment rather than take punishment.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: And I never stopped. Always had a hero worship, you know, I.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Wish I could be the guy who saved a bus
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: full of children.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: That's who I want to be. I want to be
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: the guy who saves people.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I think everybody here put under the right circumstances and
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: their children, or their wife or entire trouble.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Put their life on the line. I don't cave you
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: kuld fall in a tire occage. You wouldn't take twise
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: about jumping in.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So everyone has the hero syndrome in them.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: They do. You just have to push the right button.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I used to sit in this little apartment and it
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: was a room. As a matter of fact, the room
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: was so small. I remember I was able to open
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: up the window and close the door while sitting on
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the bed at.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: The same time.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: It was like eight feet by eight feet by nine feet.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But the one thing about that room there was really
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: very little distraction.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And he painted the windows black so he could write.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I did paint them black because I don't know what time.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: But it didn't matter what time was. Oh, it's time
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: for breakfast right away. You've just you derailed yourself. I'll
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: have breakfast On'm hungry. I don't need to know what
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: time is that kind of thing, so I was trying
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to eliminate all the excuses because it's write. So I
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: would sit there propped up in bed, and I go
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: out with my big pen and legal pat and just
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: start writing these stories. And most of them were very,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: very trivial. But there was something about the process of
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: unrealized dreams. I always brought back to this subject because
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I think it's one of the most enduring subjects and
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: one of the most difficult passages for people to accept
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: that they never were realized in the wrong lifetime, that
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: they just didn't get that shot. The more I thought
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: about this kind of street like character that just is
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: totally misrepresented by.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: The way he looks physically.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Just the way he walks down the street was enough
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to say, people, oh, dismissing me, He's kind of looks
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: like a bully.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: It looks like a dark.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Kind of character, and I thought, you know, that's an
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: interesting character because they're always unrealized. Well, that festered in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: my mind for quite a while, and then eventually I
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: decided it was a time to come to call. So
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I went to California and I moved in the valley,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and things weren't going very very well there as a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: matter of fact, I had to try to sell my
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: dog because he would either do that or he just
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: was not going to be very well fed around the house.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I did sell my dog at a seven eleven. It
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: was either that or eat him. And then one night
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I went to see a Muhammad Ali fight and what
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I saw was pretty extraordinary. I saw a man they
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: called the bay Om Leader, who didn't have a chance
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: at all against you know, the greatest fighting machine supposedly
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: that ever lived. And for one brief moment, this supposed
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: stumblebum turned out to be magnificent in the fact that
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: he lasted and knocked the champion down. I said, boy,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: if this isn't a metaphor for life, his entire life
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: crystallized at that moment. He will be remembered for all eternity,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: at least among the fight fans.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: He did something extraordinary. I said, Oh, that.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: That is probably what I need, is a catalyst for
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: an idea, a man who's going to stand up to
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: life and take one shot and maybe go the distance.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I really don't letter if it was just sleep. I
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: really don't know if this guy opens my head again.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: So I wanted to do was distance.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: So I started to write, and it was one of
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: those writing frenzies.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: And three days later and came up with the script
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: of Rocket.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: At that time, I must admit my life was definitely
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: on the way, at least professionally. I was emotionally, spiritually,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: physically bankrupt. Bit about one hundred and six dollars in
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the bank. I had a landlord, was a female landlord.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: But she was so big that when she came to
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: collect the rent, like an entire shadow would cover the building,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's like a total eclipse.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm not a small man.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: But she was a vicious individual, and she would have
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: thought nothing about taking my car and bending it in half.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: And she didn't get her money. And so I had
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: one hundred and six dollars the rent was three hundred
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: out of didn't wipe.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: So you might say I had quite a bit of
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: fuel to sit down and write the script.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I write the script about three and a half days,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and only because I could hear the wolf at the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: door a little like but here's the caveat. I'd say
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: ninety percent was terrible. I believe in getting something done,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: no matter how flawed, just to get to the finish line,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: just to get it out, just to get it out,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: because I find the procrastination and diversion is something that
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: writers reveling. Oh, I hope that phone rings, you know,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I hope someone advice in to the beach because or
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: let me see, what would I rather do? Play golf
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: or sit at this desk continually reminding myself of how
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: stupid I am because I can't come up with an idea.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: So I feel for writing now. The script, by no
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: means was a finished piece of material. It was probably
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: about ninety pages, and maybe ten percent of it remained
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: in the final script, but it was done.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: And I said, how could you doubt me? Mom?
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I'm shocked, And it's like, I really, it just completely
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: came apart, and there's there's so there will never be
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a moment like that ever.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, I truly was over.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I said, is it?
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go back home, take my dog and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: go back into you know, trying to eat, get a living.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: And they were all there and they responded in a way.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: It's like I don't know if that's the way they
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: did things in Hollywood, but they saved it up.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: And I'm never give of that moment.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I just looked at all these people and are planning,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and it's been all downhill since at the very end
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: of our lives, if we can still say, you know,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: we were never humbled. We were knocked down, but we
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: got up, and I can say I lived life with integrity,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and I took all the blows, as the song says,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: and I still prevailed. I think that's that's a good
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: epitaph for anyone. What is healthier to live under the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: illusion and still have a little glimmer of hope that
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: you could have been great or actually have an opportunity
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: to be great, and then you blow it and you
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: realize you're a failure. So I think that the easier
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: route is to live under the illusion. Say, you know,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: if I had had that chance, I would have beaten
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: all of them. Then finally it was being shown that
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the director was killed and this was going to be
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: a test, and there was about nine hundred people invited,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and it was a packed crowd, and the movie was
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: playing terribly. My mother was sitting next to me, and
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: the last weren't coming with us folks too, and the
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: fight itself seemed to be listless. The response was and
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I sat there as everyone filed out of the theater,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: and I couldn't believe it, said, I really blew it.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: It was all late. I know it was nice while
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: it lasted, but I guess when you get down and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: you show it to the big boys, they're just not
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: buying it. Anyway, I sat there and literally there was
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: no one to the theater because I didn't want. I
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: was humiliated and saddened by the whole thing. And even
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: you know, I walked her out and I was walking
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: down the steps and there's three flights down, first flight,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: second flight, and then by the time I turned to
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the third flight, the entire.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: Audience was down there.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: There was nine hundred people waiting, and they started to applaud,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and I mean truly a plud. I was on a
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: casting call, so we're talking a little bit, and I
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: guess I really wasn't right for the acting partner. On
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the way out, I said, Oh, I don't know if
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: it matters, but I do a little bit of writing.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: He goes, really, he says, he say, yeah, I'm writing
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: this story. Is I have a scene about wrestlers and
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I might do some of the boxing wall. He says, well,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: bringing it around and I thought if I hadn't stopped
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: on the way out. You know, that's why I tell
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: all our writers, don't give up.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Keep talking.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Eventually you might hit a nerve somewhere and they go, oh,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: come on back. And if they didn't say come on back,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: or bring it later and let's see what you've developed,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be sitting here.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: So I have to give incredible.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Credit to their insight and their patients, and they're willing
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: to take a chance, which it doesn't exist much anymore.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Originally, when I brought.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: The script to them, they were fairly enthusiastic about it.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: The one thing they were not enthusiastic about was me
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: playing the part.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: And I really can't blame them.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: At the time, Ryan O'Neill was a candidate, Bert Reynolds,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Robert Redford, Jimmy Kahn, and they all were at the
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: top of their game.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And so I could see it.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: But there was something inside of me that, you know,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: this opportunity is never going to come around. And I
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: really wasn't used to money, and I had no idea
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: of what I would be missing, but.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: The temptation started to come forward.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: At first, it was twenty five grands and one hundred
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: I never heard of a hundred thousand.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Because I had like one hundred and six dollars in
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the bank, and like I said, I had to sell
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: my dog and things were not looking very very good.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: My forty dollars car had just blown up, so I
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: was taking a bus to work. I was still it
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: didn't matter. I wanted to stick with it. Then I
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: went up to one hundred and fifty hundred and seventy five thousand,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and went up to two hundred and fifty thousand, and
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: it went up to three hundred and sixty thousand.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Now my head was starting to spend.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Famous stories that you turned down all this money for
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the screenplay to Rocke because they wouldn't let you.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Didn't want you to be in it, right, can you play?
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: It was like, you know, what I've never heard you
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: talk about is what is India to be able to
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: turn right down when you don't have it?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: You broke? I was.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I was flat broke, I really seriously.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: But it depends how well you know yourself.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I knew my personality that if I sold it, that
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: was probably a million plus by today's dollars. The way
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and someone else did it and it was successful, I
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: would have never forgiven myself. I know, in the back
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: of my mind, if I sell the script and it
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: does very very well, I'm gonna jump off a building.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: And if I'm not, there's no doubt about it, I'm
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: gonna leave in front of a train.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna be very, very upset.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: So I would have been a broken, embittered man the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: rest of my life. So I realized we have in
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: our in our entire futures, about three or four serious crossroads,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: and that was my first one. That's a real serious
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: cross road where this is life altered and it's not
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: about money. I know I will be destroyed and I
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: will destroy everyone around me. I'll be such a miserable
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: human being for selling out.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: This is what the whole movie is about. Is not
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: selling now that I know, I just I just know
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: how I work.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I know what my injury will do.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: But I would have been dead because when you're broke,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I actually master at the art of poverty. Well you know,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I figured it out, all right, We have sketty one
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: day a week and listen that I manage. And I
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: still had to blaken optimism. But if I had sold out.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, I knew it. Hey they tried it.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: I mean believe it.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: They tried it.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: So this is one of those things where you just
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: roll the dice and you fly by the proverbial seat
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: of your parts say all.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Right, I gotta try it.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: I gotta just do it.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I may be totally wrong and I'm gonna be taking
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of people down with me, but I just
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: believe in it.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: If nothing else, I had a good home movie. My
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: parents would enjoy it.