Before Sylvester Stallone became the Rocky and Rambo that we all know and love, he was dead broke, living in a crummy apartment in New York.

He wanted more than anything to be a movie star.

But no one wanted him.

He went to talent agencies over and over again trying to get any kind of acting role.

They ALL rejected him.

They told him:

“You’re stupid looking.”

“The way you talk is weird.”

“Nobody in the world wants to watch someone like you.”

“Go somewhere else.”

He went to every talent agency in New York. Multiple times.

Never got ANYTHING.

Until finally at one agency, he waited all day, slept at the place overnight, and was there when the agent came in in the morning.

The agent finally relented.

“Fine. We might have something for you.”

And he landed his first gig: a 20-second spot in a movie.

He played a thug…who got beat up.

“People are going to hate you. They’ll like seeing you get beat up!”

He got a few more small parts like that, but nothing ever came of it.

He didn’t have a job and it got harder and harder to pay his bills.

His best friend in the world was his dog.

But he couldn’t afford to feed him anymore.

So…on the single WORST DAY OF HIS LIFE…

…he went down to the liquor store, and tried to sell his dog to people in the parking lot for 50 bucks.

One guy haggled with him, negotiated him down, and bought the dog for 25 dollars.

His best friend in the world, his dog who loved him unconditionally…he sold to some stranger at a liquor store for 25 bucks.

He sat down and cried.

But he didn’t give up. He was all in on his dream of becoming a movie star.

One day it was so cold—because he couldn’t afford heating in his apartment—that he went to a public library just to get warm.

He sat down and saw a book lying on the table.

It was a book of Edgar Allen Poe.

He picked up the book and started reading.

He fell in love with Poe’s writing.

He loved the way the written word could move him. And he decided to start writing.

Since he was still all in on his dream of getting into the movie business, he started with screenplays.

He managed to sell one of his screenplays for $100.

Which when you’re dead broke and everything is going wrong for you, making $100 is a big deal!

One day he was watching a boxing match. Mohammed Ali vs Chuck Wepner.

Wepner was this white guy fighting Mohammed Ali, and he was getting blasted over and over again, but just kept coming forward.

And that gave Stallone the idea for Rocky.

He went home and wrote the entire screenplay for Rocky.

He sat down and wrote for six hours straight. Didn’t stop until it was finished.

And he knew he had something. He knew this was his ticket.

He went around to movie producers trying to sell his screenplay.

Like usual, he got rejection after rejection.

They said it was sappy, it was predictable, it was no good.

(which he wrote down everything they said and later read it in his speech at the Oscars)

But he kept pushing. He believed in the script.

Eventually he found a group that was interested in buying it from him.

They offered him $125,000 for the screenplay.

You can imagine he was over the moon.

$125,000 is like infinity for someone who’s so broke he can’t even buy dog food.

So he said “ok it’s a deal…but under one condition.”

They said “what’s that?”

He said “I have to star in it. I’m Rocky.”

They said “no way. You’re a writer, you’re not an actor.”

He said “I’m an actor!”

And they kept arguing with him. Eventually they offered him double.

$250,000 for him to not star in his own movie.

He said no. He turned them down and walked away from the deal.

A few weeks later the guys called him again.

They said “we really believe in your movie. We’re going to take a chance on you. But we’re only going to pay you $30,000 plus a few percentage points of the movie’s profit.”

Because he was a no-name actor and they were afraid to lose a bunch of money if the movie didn’t succeed.

He took the deal.

The first thing he did was go back to the liquor store where had sold his dog, HOPING that he would run into the guy who he had sold the dog to.

After waiting at the liquor store for THREE DAYS, he saw the guy get out of his car.

He went over and said “I know I sold you the dog, but he’s my best friend in the world and I want to buy him back. I sold him for $25, but I’ll pay you $100 to get him back.”

The guy said “no way, you sold me the dog. He’s mine now.”

“Ok, $500.”

“No. There’s no amount of money in the world that would get me to sell my dog.”

The guy left and went into the store.

But Stallone wasn’t willing to take no for an answer.

When they guy came back out of the store, he kept pushing him.

Eventually he got the guy to agree.

For $15,000 AND a part in the movie.

That’s right, the guy is actually IN Rocky.

And the dog too. The dog Butkus in the movie, that’s really Sylvester Stallone’s dog.

The Secret

I love this story because it shows one of the greatest secrets to success there is:

If you want to succeed at having anything more than a mediocre life…

…you must go ALL IN.

I wasted the first half of my adult life, because I didn’t go all in.

I wanted to be a musician.

That was my dream.

But I never went for it completely.

Never gave it 100%.

I always had a backup plan.

I was always afraid to take risks.

And so I never succeeded.

Like most people, I never went all in. Because going all in is scary.

The problem is: if you never go all in, you get stuck with a mediocre, unsatisfying life:

• You spend YEARS of your life in a job you don’t like

• It’s hard to find a woman (the good ones don’t want you)

• Don’t make much money

• You don’t have freedom. Your life is dictated by other people.

• You don’t feel good about yourself.

• You’re not significant. You’re just another average peon in a sea of average peons.

• You probably don’t have kids. But if you do, they sure don’t want to be like you when they grow up.

• Your health is bad

• And you try to drown out your feelings with distractions…like alcohol, weed, porn, video games, TV, and living vicariously through Luke Skywalker because your own life is such a giant disappointment

Most people are so afraid of the risks of going all in on their dreams that they never stop to consider:

What are the risks of NOT going all in on myself?

How many people have committed suicide or died of drug overdoses because their lives were so miserable and depressing they couldn’t bear it anymore?

The truth is: you can never avoid risk. You just choose which set of risks to take.

And “playing it safe” is often the riskiest thing you can do.

Most people play it safe.

But I have had the good fortune of meeting a select few courageous people who went all in on themselves.

There was a guy I met in Tennessee who wanted to be a chef.

There was a famous chef in San Francisco he wanted to work under.

So got in his car and drove to California.

And lived in his car until he got a job.

Another guy I met spent a year living with hippies in a forest.

Now he gives business seminars.

Another guy from Finland moved to Canada to live with a mentor who taught him to start a marketing agency.

When I met him he was 19 years old and already making six figures.

I always admired people like this.

I always knew they were doing something right.

But I didn’t do it myself.

Until finally I decided enough was enough.

I had to work up the courage and go for it.

I won’t get into the whole story here.

But the short version is: I quit my job, not really knowing what I wanted to do.

I knew I wanted to have my own business.

But that’s about all I knew.

I saved a bit of money, quit my job.

Three months later, I met a millionaire in my hometown and paid him $36,000 to mentor me.

(I went into debt, of course—I didn’t have that kind of money)

I moved to South America and lived there for the rest of the year.

Stuff is cheaper there.

I was working like a 3-legged mule every day trying to make something work.

But nothing was working.

I was going deeper and deeper into debt.

At my lowest point, I had $70,000 worth of debt.

Mostly high-interest credit card debt.

My credit cards were almost maxed out.

When I FINALLY struck gold.

I created an online course for Excel experts to get freelance jobs with their Excel skills.

I made $28,000 that month.

Which is probably more than I made the previous 2 YEARS combined.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Society Is Against You

Some part of you probably already knows that you need to go all in on yourself for you to realistically have a shot at success.

You’ve heard the stories of successful people. You’ve seen the movies.

You know it’s true.

WHY do so few people actually do it?

Well the truth is: everything around you is conspiring to keep you stuck.

Society’s greatest skill is destroying people’s dreams.

Everyone around you EXPECTS you to do the same boring, safe, mediocre thing:

• Go to college

• Get a safe, reliable job

• Work your life away building someone else’s business

• Retire when you get old and “enjoy” the rest of your life sitting in a rocking chair doing crossword puzzles

“STAY SAFE!”

The mantra of the COVID era.

But basically the philosophy of mainstream society in general.

And why most people are totally miserable.

They’re stuck in the tiny little box of what they can do that’s “safe”.

It’s like being stuck in a tiny little prison sell in their minds.

So they’re depressed.

At the same time, the people who believe themselves to be rulers of the world…

(they’re not really. God is always in control.)

…but these people do not want you to be happy and fulfilled.

They want you to be a slave.

A quiet, obedient, predictable cog in a system that brings them wealth and power.

You’re never going to be happy and fulfilled this way.

They know this.

So they sedate you with drugs (both legal and illegal), pornography, and cheap entertainment.

The book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley predicted this perfectly.

Of course, most people refuse to believe such things.

Not because they’re not sufficiently intelligent.

And certainly not because there isn’t enough evidence.

But because they lack courage.

They can’t bear to face the reality.

Like the guy in the Matrix who regrets taking the red pill and wants to go back to his old state of ignorance.

(Here’s the key: EVERYTHING is for your benefit.)

Your Own Mind Is Against You

You’ve been programmed to be a cog in the machine.

Chances are, your family and friends and teachers and the entire propaganda machine have convinced you not to do anything that’s “risky”.

Or “dangerous”.

Or “irresponsible”.

But at the same time, the people you look up to are EXACTLY the people who did the things that were “risky”, “dangerous”, and “irresponsible” to get to where they are.

You might also be afraid to go all in, because you could be disappointed.

Or worse: HUMILIATED.

You would totally pathetic if you REALLY TRIED…and it didn’t work.

(especially if they TOLD YOU not to try in the first place)

Right?

This is why most people never go all in on themselves.

If you try half-heartedly and you fail…

(which you will)

…you have a convenient excuse:

“I wasn’t really trying that hard”

If you give it everything you’ve got and you still fail, well that’s a lot harder to deal with.

So what do you do?

Life Is A Game

Here’s a truth that most people don’t understand:

You’ve never really failed as long as you keep going.

You get INFINITE re-tries.

Like a video game where every time you get killed, you go back to the last checkpoint and try again.

Every way that doesn’t work brings you a little bit closer to the way that does.

As my mentor used to tell me, “you either win…or you learn”.

Every time you try something that doesn’t work, it makes you a little wiser.

You have more information.

Because now you KNOW that it doesn’t work.

Like a maze where you run into dead ends and have to try another route.

You’re going to run into walls.

Over and over again.

But if you learn every time, eventually you’ll come out the other end where the treasure is.

Or if you’re like most people, you can just skip the maze and take the broad path to mediocrity instead.

That way is easy.

It’s Worth It

So why take the hard way?

Well here are a few little reasons:

One: your dreams come true

Two: you’ll have pride in yourself

And not the arrogant, pretentious “pride cometh before a fall” kind of pride.

But the quiet self-assurance of being a competent and fulfilled person.

Three: you’ll be much more attractive to women

Speaking to men here, of course. I am a man obviously, so it’s what I know.

But I also know it doesn’t work in reverse.

Women want men who are strong, daring, and successful.

But that’s not what men look for in women. Men want women who are beautiful, loving, and feminine.

But that doesn’t mean this isn’t relevant to women.

How many women waste away the best years of their lives on a career they don’t even like because they’re afraid to put it all on the line for love?

Because they gave in to all the people pressuring them to do what’s “safe” instead of following their heart?

This goes for everyone.

Four: people look up to you

Five: even if you don’t reach your goal, your life will be MUCH MUCH BETTER than if you didn’t go all in

Here’s the truth: you might not succeed.

Going all in doesn’t guarantee success—it’s just your ticket to the game.

It means you have a shot.

But here’s the cool thing:

Even if you don’t succeed, you will be SO MUCH STRONGER, more competent, more courageous, more skilled…

…BETTER IN EVERY WAY…

…than if you just sat on the sidelines with all the other people wasting their life away with beer and Netflix and Monday night football.

And you WILL be successful eventually.

Maybe in something totally different.

PROBABLY something BETTER than thing you originally thought you wanted to do.

(when you grow as a person, your desires change too)

My brother spent a whole summer in Iowa (he lived in Florida) working 12-hour days knocking on people’s doors trying to sell them encyclopedias or something silly that I’m pretty sure NO ONE would ever buy from a door-to-door salesman…

Sleeping on someone’s floor in a shared room with another guy.

Because he thought he could get rich selling books.

I and everybody else told him not to do it.

We told him it was dumb and he wasn’t going to make any money.

And guess what?

He didn’t make any money.

He made like $400 the whole summer. Not even enough to cover his expenses.

Came home with his tail between his legs, having to listen to us saying “we told you so”.

But here’s the thing:

That experience developed a STRENGTH and SKILL in him that he didn’t have before.

And he’s since gone on to be a very successful mortgage broker.

(who doesn’t have to knock on strangers’ doors to make money)

It’s like a law of the universe:

If you go all in on yourself, you WILL be rewarded.

Maybe not in the way you had in mind.

Maybe it’s something far better.

But if you play it safe, you’re pretty much guaranteed to stay stuck forever.

7 Steps To Going All In (Intelligently)

Ok, so you know you have to go all in on yourself.

The obvious question is: HOW??

Here are the steps:

Step 1: Plan Out What You Really Want

What is the most important thing to you?

Money? Freedom? Love?

Get specific.

How much money?

What does “freedom” mean to you?

What does your ideal romantic relationship look like?

Don’t worry about HOW you’re going to get there. Just get specific on WHAT you want.

Step 2: What’s the big scary thing you have to do to get there?

Do you have to move to another city where you don’t know anyone?

Start recording videos of yourself and put them out there for the world to see (and ridicule)?

What is it?

Chances are you already have an idea.

Step 3: What’s the (realistic) worst case scenario if you do that thing?

Go a few levels deep on this.

For example:

“I’ll run out of money”

What happens then?

“I won’t be able to pay my rent”

What then?

“I’ll have to move in with my parents and get a job”

What then?

“I’ll save up some money and get my own place again”

What then?

“I’ll try again”

…

Whatever it is that you’re afraid to do, chances are when you look at the specifics, you realize it’s really not that scary at all.

Step 4: What’s the best case scenario if you do the big scary thing?

Be specific.

List out all the benefits if you go all in and SUCCEED.

Chances are they are FAR BIGGER and more compelling than the silly little things you’re afraid of.

Step 5: What’s the worst case scenario if you DON’T do the thing?

What happens if you don’t go for it?

What are you NOT going to have that you want?

What kind of regrets are you going to have to live with?

What are you going to have to settle for?

What kind of example are you going to set for your kids?

Take this as deep as you can.

I think you’ll find that the cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action.

Step 6: What’s the best case scenario if you don’t do the thing?

Maybe you make decent money, live in a decent house, get married, retire at 65 (however unlikely that is these days).

You get to spend your spare time drinking beer and playing video games.

Maybe that’s enough for you.

If so, fair enough.

This step is important, because you should make your decisions from a place of balance.

Only focusing on one side or another is what leads people to make unbalanced decisions that they later regret.

Step 7: Make a rational decision

Now you’ve weighed all the pros and cons of both sides.

What’s it going to be?

Action or inaction?

Make a decision.

And then DO SOMETHING THAT COMMITS YOU TO THAT DECISION.

Send the email.

Promise someone you can’t bear to let down.

Put down a deposit.

Tell your landlord you’re not going to renew the lease.

Whatever is the first step that COMMITS you to action.

It’s like insurance against the possibility that you wimp out in the future.

The brave, courageous, strong, decisive version of you just made a decision.

There’s a weak, wimpy, hesitant version of you that’s hiding right now. But you’ll know he’ll come out eventually.

FORCE HIM to come along whether he wants to or not.

(maybe in the future I’ll write a newsletter about dealing with the different versions of yourself)

But for now, if you need a mentor…send me an email ([email protected])

I may or may not be able to help. But at least try to point you in the right direction.

And you’ll be taking action.

A small action, but an action nonetheless.

Talk to you soon.