Shadowing Practice: I Asked Will Smith How He Made $350 Million - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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What's up man?
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How you doing Will?
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Man, it's all up.
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Great to meet you.
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How's it going brother?
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Great man, happy to be out there.
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Okay, okay, okay, we got the color vibes.
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Who am I here with today?
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Will Smith in the building.
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Did you come from a lot of money?
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No, no. I came from the opposite.
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So what was your turning point to financial freedom?
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I realized that taking advice from somebody who hasn't done what you want to do is almost insanity.
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Like, listening to people who haven't done the thing that you want to do, that makes you crazy.
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Do you think money buys happiness?
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Hell no. There's an amount of money that once you pass it, it buys misery.
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So what was the most amount of money you made in a single year?
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In a single year.
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Guys, I'm about to interview the legendary Will Smith out in Los Angeles.
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From the Fresh Prince of Bel Air to the box office king.
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Will Smith has done it all and he's become one of the greatest entertainers, one of the greatest actors of not just my generation, but of all time, you guys.
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So this interview is about to be one of the best we've done.
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So make sure you stay tuned from start to finish.
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With that being said, let's go meet Will and go see what he has to say.
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All right, you guys.
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So we just got in the gate of where we're going to be interviewing Will.
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He's going to be coming out at any minute now.
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So we're going to be linking up with him in just a few minutes.
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Come on, you guys.
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What's up, man?
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How you doing, Will?
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Man, it's all love.
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Great to meet you.
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How you feeling, brother?
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Great, man.
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Happy to be out here.
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Okay, okay, we got the color vibes.
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We got the color vibes.
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I'm Jack.
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Nice to meet you.
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What's up, Will?
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I'm Josh.
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Good to meet you.
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Josh, what's the deal?
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Happy to be out here.
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Man, it's all good.
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You on a big run lately.
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A little run right now.
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A little bit of a run.
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For sure, for sure.
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We had a great shoot yesterday with Tom.
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Tom, yeah, I saw that.
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I was telling him it was like three hours, we hit a million on IG, so just trying to keep on going.
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Love that.
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We're excited about this, man.
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We love all that you do, and we're just happy to be here with you right now.
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This is great.
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Who am I here with today?
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Will Smith in the building.
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And for those that don't know, what industry did you decide to pursue a career in?
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Well, I started in music and then I went into television and then into film and ultimately into production and business.
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So you're a little diversified.
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Well, you know, man, I like to have a couple hyphens.
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Do you think people should hyper focus on one thing when they're starting out?
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Or do you like the idea of kind of diversifying your efforts into different ventures?
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How do you feel about diversification?
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Because you wear many hats.
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I think of it like an arrow.
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So if you think about the one thing you do really well at the tip of the arrow, and you gotta do it really specifically and really well,
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and then after the arrow bursts through the universe, then all the other things you do can come through behind it.
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But I think it's really, really important to like master one thing.
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One of my favorite books growing up was The Alchemist, and it says the whole of the universe is contained in a single grain of sand.
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So I took that to be, if you learn how to do one thing really,
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really well, you can expand your knowledge base from the comprehension of that one thing.
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Now you've become one of the greatest entertainers of all time, undoubtedly one of the greatest of all time actors.
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Thank you, thank you.
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What's been the biggest driving factor of your success throughout your career?
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If you can attribute it to one thing, or maybe it's a couple of things, what's really led to your success that separated you apart from 99% of people in one of the most competitive industries?
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One of the things I discovered really early is that the win goes to the most hours committed.
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When I realized that how I spent my time and attention on a daily basis,
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if I do something for 10 hours a day and you only do it for nine hours a day, in a year it's going to be really hard for you to beat me.
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So I realized very, very early, I was probably 18 by the time I knew that the time applied was cumulative.
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And even if you were more talented than me, if I put in more hours than you, it would be really hard for you to beat me.
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Now you've played many roles in the entertainment business.
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As an actor, what's the most interesting thing that you've learned about people throughout your career?
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I guess one of the big things that I've learned is that even what we call people, what you say a person, is not actually a person.
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It's like a personality.
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It's a small constellation of ideas that a person has chosen to live within and say that that's us.
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And I guess the thing I've learned is that we're way bigger than we think we are.
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We're way bigger than we allow ourselves to be.
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We are way more than the little sliver of race, creed, color, city, country, you know,
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that we confine ourselves to and that idea of a person can even become the prison that keeps us from excelling.
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Now you starred in the movie The Pursuit of Happiness.
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It's one of the most perspective shaping movies of all time.
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Did that What changed your perspective when you were filming it?
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One of the big things that I learned from Chris Gardner and working on that movie is that suffering is a gift.
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The universe teaches through difficulty.
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God teaches through suffering and hard times.
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And the shaping of a person, the shaping of a willpower,
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the shaping of your energy is almost always exclusively in adversity.
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And with Chris Gardner, how he talked about the education of his suffering was one of the major lessons
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that I took away from that movie.
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Like to get comfortable being uncomfortable if you want to achieve.
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Do you believe in God?
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Absolutely.
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How important has faith been for you throughout your career?
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The idea of God and people throw different words around and people have different definitions.
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I believe in an energy that is constantly creating in all things that if I cultivate a relationship with,
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I can be more powerful than I am.
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I can do things a hundredfold what Will could do.
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If I tap into the movement and the energy and the flow
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and the creative intelligence that's making the sun and the stars and the trees that we're breathing.
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If I tap into that, I know I can be infinitely more powerful, creative than me with my ego construct.
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Another movie you starred in is Hitch.
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And I think one of the greatest lessons of that, there's a quote that the world is overly cruel to shy men and it rewards the courageous.
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Confidence and belief in oneself is one of the biggest things people that struggle with.
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And it's what prevents them from finding success.
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How did you personally find the self-belief and the confidence within to go out and make tens, hundreds of millions of dollars and be so successful in your industry?
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I think one of the biggest things I learned about confidence was on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
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The confidence is one side of it, but it's built on not being scared to look stupid.
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So it looks like confidence when you're not scared to fail, right?
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It's not actually confidence in its seeds.
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It becomes confidence after you get used to rejection.
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You get used to doing it wrong.
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You get used to being okay when you tell a joke
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and that one's not funny and you get comfortable if you hit three out of ten, you know, you're in the Hall of Fame.
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The comfort to fail in front of people is what is perceived as confidence.
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You stop worrying about what everybody else thinks.
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Taking advice from somebody who hasn't done what you want to do is almost insanity.
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Like, listening to people who haven't done the thing that you want to do and ingesting the poison of their ignorant opinion,
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that makes you crazy.
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It reminds me of the same, never take advice from someone you wouldn't trade places with.
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Right, yes, exactly.
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And it was one, you know, I got that one time, I was going through something and I called Quincy Jones.
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And, you know, I don't even remember what the problem was and I asked him and Quincy was like, he said, man, how the fuck I'm gonna give you advice?
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It was like, he said, I wouldn't have chose none of the shit you chose.
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He said, whatever you're doing, just keep doing that.
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And it was like, that was a real vote of confidence
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that even somebody in his position backed off of giving advice in the understanding
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that everybody knows what they know and only they can know for them.
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Nobody can really know for you.
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And, you know, you'll actually get to a point where you ask for advice less
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and you just sort of watch and listen and let people tell you what they think from their behavior.
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Yeah.
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And you kind of lean on your own intuition.
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Yes, absolutely.
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One time somebody told me that if a bird lands on a branch, does the bird trust the branch or does it trust its wings?
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I've seen many birds land on branches, but what I've never seen is the branch break and the bird fall and die.
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Yes, exactly.
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So guys, listen very carefully because I'm about to drop one of the most insane offers
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that I've ever done for the next 24 hours only.
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So exactly one year ago today, I launched what has now become the number one community for entrepreneurs in the entire world
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and it's called the School of Mentors.
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And inside the School of Mentor, I give you direct access to the hundreds of millionaires
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and billionaires that I interview and give you the opportunity to ask them questions live.
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And now, in order to celebrate our one year anniversary, we are gonna be doing something insane.
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We are giving you the opportunity to join the greatest entrepreneur community on the planet for just $1 a day.
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Guys, you can literally speak with millionaires and billionaires every single week
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and ask them questions live for just one freaking dollar a day.
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Let me be clear, this isn't a course.
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This isn't a mastermind that costs you $25,000.
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This isn't outdated information.
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This is live access to the people that have already built what you're trying to build.
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So if you're in a nine to five and you want to change your life, this is for you.
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If you have a business idea and you want to bring it to life, this is for you.
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And if you're already an entrepreneur and you want to scale to seven, eight and even nine figures, this is for you.
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But here's the thing.
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The only catch is that this offer is only good for 24 hours.
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After that, it's gone and we're raising the price again.
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So if you're watching this right now, you still have time.
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All you have to do is go down
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and click the link in the description of this video to join the School of Mentors, the number one community for business owners in the entire world.
173
I can't wait to see you on the inside of the community.
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But with that being said, let's get back to the interview with Will.
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What is the greatest piece of advice that Will Smith has ever received?
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There's one lesson that a mentor taught you throughout your career, right?
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You've networked with millionaires, you've networked with the most successful people across different industries.
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Give me one piece of advice you could give to somebody who may not have a great mentor.
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That's good.
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There's a couple of them.
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My grandmother, when we were going on tour, as we were getting on the tour bus
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and she were gone away she said hey baby just remember
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everywhere you go one day you're gonna have to go back i didn't get it in that moment
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but as i started to go in my career i started
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to realize like oh shit it's all relationships everything is relationships you never know you meet somebody right now
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and they're 16 but when they're 24 they're going to be running the company
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that you're trying to sell something to Sue and
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when they're 34 your kids go to their kids school
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and all of that right
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and it's like you start to develop a network of friends throughout your life
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and you absolutely never know we have no clue how we're going to cross paths in the future
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and it's critical that even as small as a smile in a moment you recognize
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that every person is going to be a part of the tapestry of your future
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and just taking a minute to connect and to realize
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that what you're going to build there's going to be a necessity for hundreds
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if not thousands of other people to help you people will take you places
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that money can't amen
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so did you come from a lot of money no no i came from the opposite
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so what was your turning point to financial freedom give you
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that turning point in your life i realized that sometimes what you're good at is different than what you like.
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So I love making music.
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I love being on stage, but I'm actually better as an actor.
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And I had to make the choice to go with what I was better at.
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And I tried to mix the music in there.
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But the real turning point for me was realizing
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that my greatest skill set was acting and I chose to master
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that above all things in my career and then finance came behind
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that behind the mastery
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so what was the most amount of money you made in
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a single year oh we don't I don't like to talk about
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that maybe revenue revenue across all the businesses yeah yeah you
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know there was there was plenty of zeros plenty of zeros
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but I don't I don't like to discuss the actual amount maybe an accomplishment financially
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or even from like a box office standpoint
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that you're the most proud of Hancock
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and I am legend were within six months of each other
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that was one of the biggest years of my career and one of the most creative periods.
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I think Hancock was in June, and then I Am Legend was in December.
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Christmas was nice that year.
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Right.
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Do you think money buys happiness?
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Hell no. Actually, there's an amount of money that once you pass it, it buys misery.
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Once you have a certain amount of money, you can change people's lives.
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So it's really all people can think about.
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So it's difficult to make new friendships at certain financial points, right?
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In America, somewhere around a million dollars a year, it starts going the other way, where it's more problems beyond that.
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And you start getting into really an attack zone.
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You broke this down beautifully about Clifftop versus Rock Bottom.
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Yeah, for sure.
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Everybody thinks when you hit Rock Bottom, that's when you change.
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Can you break that down real quick for them?
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The idea of Clifftop, it's like a corresponding place to Rock Bottom.
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And after you've had all the money you've wanted, and you've had all the sex you've wanted, and you've created all the things,
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and all the fame, there's a corresponding abyss
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that you can actually pop off of the top of the material world and you're like, oh shit, there's literally nothing I wanna buy.
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There's literally nobody that I wanna have new sex with.
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There's nothing, and it's a terrifying place when you realize nothing material can actually satisfy you.
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And it's a similar abyss at rock bottom.
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And the realization is that what you're actually looking for is you.
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What you're actually looking for is a comfort that will only come with you totally by yourself with none of this shit.
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And then once you are stable in your place, you were talking about the bird and the branch.
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Once you're comfortable in your wings, the branch can be weak or strong.
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When you get a strong branch, it's great.
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When you get a weak branch, that's cool.
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It's another lesson.
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You'll find another one but there's a certain stability in yourself
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that you trust yourself that you can handle whatever comes
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that is above any kind of false material safety comfort because it's not real.
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There are diseases that are not curable that your money won't be able to fix.
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There are relationships that break up that you can't buy back.
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When loved ones die, there's nothing you can do.
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So there's certain things in this life that only an absolute steadiness in yourself in the face of whatever
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life has to offer.
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That's the only thing that can make this place bearable.
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Your last message to the younger generation in one sentence.
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Recognize the absolute infinite nature of what you could do.
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Consciousness is this crazy gift that literally can do anything.
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You don't have to go to the job you went to today.
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You don't have to live where you live now.
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You don't have to be in the relationship that you're in.
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You literally can do anything that you choose.
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It just takes a certain amount of willingness to suffer.
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But this thing, whatever we are, is a crazy, infinite, magical tool of creation.
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Will, you got amazing advice, my friend.
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Appreciate you, brother.
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Thank you so Thank you, man.
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I appreciate you.
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That was great.
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Guys, we just wrapped up an interview with Will Smith.
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That's one of my favorite interviews I've ever done to you guys.
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He just gave so much incredible advice for people trying to break into any industry, man.
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The life advice there.
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Him talking about not taking advice from people you went to trade places with.
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And the bigger you get, the less you have to listen to other people.
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But guys, like and subscribe for amazing condom we've got coming every single week, guys.
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I'm bringing you guys the most successful, the wealthiest people, the biggest people in every industry directly to you to give you guys the advice on how to change your lives, become the best version of yourselves,
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and create financial freedom and build generational wealth.
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Great interview out here in Los Angeles.
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And one more thing, guys, go down and click the link down in the description of this video to join the School of Mentors, the number one community for business owners in the entire world,
280
where you will get mentorship directly from the eight-figure, the nine-figure, and the billionaire entrepreneurs that I interview, where you can get access to them every single week.
281
Guys, every week, I bring in a different mentor to give you guys personalized one-on-one advice
282
and answer all your questions on how to start, on how to scale your business, on how to sell, how to market and negotiate like millionaires and billionaires do.
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Go down to the link, click it, join the community today.
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I can't wait to see you on the inside.
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With that being said, I'll see you in the next video.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 285 sentences and 3378 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:02. The speaker talks fast, about 198 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 89% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| suffer verb | /ˈsʌfɚ/ | To undergo hardship. |
| entrepreneur noun | /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/ | A person who sets up a business; generally, a person who owns and manages a business and assumes its financial risks. |
| mentor noun | /ˈmɛn.tɔː/ | A wise and trusted counselor or teacher. |
| billionaire noun | /ˌbɪl.jəˈnɛɚ/ | Somebody whose wealth is at least one billion (10⁹) currency units (usually understood to exclude holders of hyperinflated currencies). |
| millionaire noun | /ˌmɪl.i.əˈnɛə(ɹ)/ | Somebody whose wealth is at least one million (10⁶) currency units (usually understood to exclude holders of hyperinflated currencies). |
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| comfort noun | /ˈkʌm.fət/ | Contentment, ease. |
| arrow noun | /ˈæɹəʊ/ | A projectile consisting of a shaft, a point and a tail with stabilizing fins that is shot from a bow. |
| vibe noun | /vaɪb/ | An atmosphere or aura felt to belong to a person, place or thing. |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
| legend noun | /ˈlɛd͡ʒ.ənd/ | The life story of a saint (such stories are often embellished, but any kind is called a legend). |
| insane adjective | /ɪnˈseɪn/ | Exhibiting unsoundness or disorder of mind; not sane; utterly mad. |
| fame noun | /feɪm/ | One's reputation. |
| infinite adjective | /ˈɪnfɪnɪt/ | Indefinably large, countlessly great; immense. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| go down verb | To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one. |
| break up verb | To break or separate into pieces. |
| buy back verb | To purchase (something already sold, misplaced, destroyed, or given away). |
| come through verb | To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway. |
| get back to verb | Return to (an activity) |
| go away verb | To depart or leave a place. |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | hasn't done · haven't done · has done |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being said · is contained · is perceived |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | somebody who hasn · people who haven · somebody who may |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 90 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, you've, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: breathe /bɹiːð/, wealthy /ˈwɛl.θi/, grandmother /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌmʌðɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: friendship /ˈfɹɛn(d)ʃɪp/, consciousness /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/, negotiate /nəˈɡəʊ.ʃi.eɪt/, rejection /ɹɪˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: entrepreneur /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/, millionaire /ˌmɪl.i.əˈnɛə(ɹ)/, insanity /ɪnˈsænɪti/, difficulty /ˈdɪfɪkəlti/, stability /stəˈbɪlɪti/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like lesson, suffer, entrepreneur.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.