Opinion

BOREING: The Unsatisfying Secret To Being A Success

   DailyWire.com

On the March Madness edition of “Daily Wire Backstage,” Daily Wire god-king and co-host Jeremy Boreing talks about getting out and “doing” something in business, the arts, or in your personal life and why this is better than waiting for the next big thing. Video and transcript below.

I think the key to having a successful business is to start wherever you can, and the key to having a successful business is to understand that not all of your businesses will be successful.

Almost everyone who’s successful in business has failed at business. Business is very hard. It is sort of, and I’ve made this joke on the show before, I hate it when guys leave the hospital after having their first child and they’ve got on the “world’s greatest dad” ballcap. I always think, “You’re not even a mediocre father yet. You’ve been a father for literally hours.” There’s got to be more that you’re going to have to learn than what you have acquired at the gift shop in the nearby lobby.

And of course, it is the same with business. You’re going to learn an awful lot when you set out to be in business. You’re going to fail. You’re going to have to get back up. You’re going to have to learn from your mistakes.

Where should you do it? In your garage? Sure, if you have an idea that you can do in your garage. Not every idea can. Some ideas require seat capital. Some require angel investors. They require larger amounts of capital than can be sort of acquired at those levels. You’re not going to take twenty million dollars’ worth of investment capital and start something in your garage. Every business is unique. Every opportunity is unique.

I have a speech that I give to typically young people who move to Hollywood because they want to make it in the movies. Everyone who moves out here is looking for the same wisdom. They want to know: “How do I make it?”

When I moved out here, I had the same thought. If I could meet Steven Spielberg, he could tell me how to make movies. I thought, “I’m a smart guy. He could tell me and then I’ll do it.”

What I came to realize over time was that if I ever got that meeting with Spielberg, I’d go up to him and be like, “Mr. Spielberg, longtime listener, first-time caller. How do I make a movie?”

He would say, “Oh, making a movie is easy. Here’s what I do. I read a book or magazine article that I really respond to, and I call up my lawyer ask if the rights are available for this. They say we’ll ask and kick it around for a little bit. They call me back and say we’ve tracked down the author. The rights are available. They’re going to cost about a million dollars. I say great, let’s pick it up. So, we write a check for a million dollars and we get the rights to the book.

“Then I say, I’m going to need a screenwriter, so I call up my agents over at CAA, and they go look for a good screenwriter. We set up a bunch of meetings. I hire a guy who had a great hit last year. It was a big hit at the box office. I pay him a million dollars to write a draft for the script. He comes back six months later, and I read the screenplay. You know, it wasn’t what I was looking for. So, I go to number two on the list and I pay him a million dollars. He does a page one rewrite of the thing. At the end of the year, I’ve got a script that I’m really happy with.

“So now I call up my partners over at Universal and I say, ‘Hey you know that first look deal where I’m guaranteed 4,400 to 4,500 screens for one movie from me every year because I’m Steven Spielberg.’ They say ‘Yeah,’ and I say, ‘Have I got a movie for you.’ And they okay the film for the forty-five hundred screens.

“Then I call my partners over at Dreamworks and I’m like we’re going to need $180 million to make this and they say, ‘Okay, cool, we’ll architect half of it out of our domestic fund and then we’ll go to a bank in India and put the rest together.’ And before you know it, I’m on a set with 250 employees and I’m making a movie.”

And I respond, “That’s awesome, Steven Spielberg! Now, how do I make a movie?”

He would say, “Oh how do you make a movie? How the hell do I know? I don’t know how you’re going to make a movie. Zero percent of that applies.”

So, I always give a speech to people in Hollywood, and it applies to people in business too. It is this, it is all my accumulated wisdom. It’s about those who do and those who don’t do.

What I have observed, living on this life a fair bit now, gotten a few gray hairs, met a few people who’ve started podcasts in my pool house, and have become the biggest podcasters in the country. I have friends who star in these big superhero movies we talk about.

I have friends who have started businesses worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I have friends who still wait on tables. I have friends who have washed out and moved back home. I have friends who have found other things, like me, to do that weren’t what they originally anticipated, but have gone on and have had successes. I know somebody who has done it all.

What I have discovered is that the difference between those who do and those who don’t do is that those who do, do, and those who don’t do, don’t do. When I give this advice, people are so disappointed because it doesn’t satisfy. Because what you are looking for, the thing that would satisfy you does not exist.

There is only those who do, do and those who don’t, don’t do. The truth is, you usually know those who do long before they have done. I have a pretty good average of sizing someone up and being able to determine will they do. It may be a decade before they do, but they’re doers and they are doing. Those who do, do. What does it mean? It means they do whatever. They are always doing. They are learning from the things they have done and trying to do something else. They’re not just waiting by the phone for an agent to call them. They’re not waiting for someone to discover them down by the soda shop and cast them as the next big thing. They are out there making their way.

Another thing that they do is that they respond to what God brings into their lives. They basically take what opportunities come and don’t try to will the world into complete conformity with their vision. Which by the way, was a vision that formed before they had done anything and therefore before they knew anything.

They are willful people by-in-large, let me say it differently, they are strong-willed people, but they have the humility to let God be God. Those people do.

So, you want to be a successful business person. You want to make it in the movies. You want to be one who does do, and that’s it.

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