NEVER Give Up! #OneRule

– Never gave up.

– We didn’t give up.

– Continued to move forward.

– Never ever ever give up.

– Never give up.

– Never give up.

– Never ever ever give up.

– Hello Believe nation.

Today we’re going to talk about how to never give up.

And as always guys as you’re watching,

if you hear something that really resonates with you,

please write it down in the comments below.

Put quotes around it as well,

so others could be inspired.

And when you write something down,

you’re much more likely to remember it, so it helps you too.

(slow music)

– Essentially and I would say this to anybody,

is that you know it’s really,

it’s easy to embrace hopelessness

when things seem insurmountable.

And yet, it’s actually just a matter of time

until all of the elements come together

for things to be alright.

I mean, I believe that, most difficult situations

will resolve themselves if you are persistent

and if you don’t give up entirely.

And that’s what I never did, I never gave up.

– We were forced in the beginning.

I wish I could say we were geniuses

and say we’re going to start our own company.

That’s not what happened.

In the beginning we went to every single label

and every single label shut they door on us.

The genius thing that we did was we didn’t give up.

We didn’t say, because these guys, we used that

what do they know approach.

We didn’t give up at that point.

I think that was the genius thing we did.

We started selling our own CDs

and we built our own buzz and then

the record company came back to us.

So now we had a different negotiation.

It wasn’t the same artist label relationship.

Now we retain ownership in our own company.

And it was the best thing for us.

– [Stephen] The decline in my health

was this dark reminder that time was against me.

Yet despite the pressures in my family,

I was determined to realize a life long ambition,

by writing a popular book about how the universe had begun.

I wanted the book to be read by millions

of people around the world,

like the best selling airport novel.

– I did not think it would work.

I did not think it would work

because basically if you look at all

the other books in airports,

there are none like that, you know?

– [Stephen] However, I felt sure

that the mass market would want to know

about how the universe began.

By 1984, I had completed the first chapter.

I signed up with Peter and set to work

completing my first draft of my book.

I tried to simplify the physics

as best I could and by the end

I was pleased and felt it was in really good shape.

But Peter wasn’t convinced.

– I was pretty disappointed, yeah.

I thought this is going to be really difficult.

– [Stephen] Lightning did indeed strike,

but not in the way that Peter and I were hoping.

That summer I had taken a break from rewriting,

to travel to Switzerland on holiday.

But while I was there, I caught a chest infection

that developed into pneumonia

and quickly became very serious.

I was put into a drug induced coma

and onto a life support machine.

The doctors thought I was so far gone

they offered (mumbles) to turn off the machine.

But she refused.

Finally, Shane insisted that I was flown back to Cambridge.

The weeks of intensive care were the darkest of my life.

I felt I had always fought my illness so hard

that I was not prepared to give in so easily.

Slowly the drugs began to work and the infection passed.

But the surgeons had to perform

a tracheotomy to allow me to breathe,

which made a small incision in my wind pipe

and connected me to a ventilator via the hole in my throat.

As a result, I was now robbed of the ability to talk.

I faced a life unable to properly communicate.

All hopes of finishing my book

and perhaps even my career, seemed to be over.

I had enough movement in my right hand

to be able to click the computer system

and write the words I wanted.

Finally I was free to communicate again.

I was keen to make up the lost time

that my illness had forced upon me.

I had a stack of notes from Peter Guzzardi

suggesting changes and clarifications to my book.

But I needed practical help with

the rewrite at my end, someone who could act

as a go between.

After months of work, the rewrite was complete.

None of us really knew whether

the book would be liked and would sell as we all hoped for.

All we could do now was give it a title,

A Brief History of Time, send it off to the printers

and wait.

(fast paced music)

But to everyone’s surprise,

the book sold copy after copy.

And very quickly book shops were selling out.

– When it hit the best seller list,

you’re obviously surprised.

It was a pleasant surprise and it certainly

was a surprise I don’t (mumbles),

maybe I’m wrong, we’ll say oh yes we knew all along

this was going to be a major hit.

– I had no expectations it would be

the number one best selling book in the world.

I mean, not just here but Germany, Slovenia,

France, Italy, everywhere in the world

there was the hope that someone

had found the mystery of life.

– And from them on it was just a race

to keep the book in print and marching towards

a million copies sold.

– It was very gratifying.

In the 38 years that I’ve been in this business,

I don’t think I have ever had a book

that stayed at the top of the best sell list that long.

– I was amazing at how well it did.

I think it worked, he inspired people.

He gave people some overall sense

of the birth of the universe.

And it made this subject become

a subject of conversation among

people in all walks of life.

– [News Reporter] (mumbles) the Stephen Hawkings book,

The Brief History of Time, an unlikely

but successful publishing, phenomenal.

– [News Reporter 2] A Brief History of Time has sold

about eight million copies.

– [News Reporter 3] A popular book about his theories

is already topping the American best sellers list.

– [News Reporter 4] The hugely successful,

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

– [Stephen] A Brief History of Time

stayed in the best seller list for over four years

and entered into the Guinness book of records

for dong so.

To date, over 10 million copies had been sold worldwide.

Over the next few years,

a lot of fuss was made about my book.

I became famous nationally and around the world

as it was translated into 40 different languages.

– One of the greatest pieces of advice

I’ve ever gotten in my life was from my mom

when I was a little kid.

There was a kid who was bugging me in school.

And she said, okay I’m going to tell you what to do.

She said the kid’s bugging you,

he puts his hands on you, you pick up the nearest rock

or whatever you can get your hands on

and you lay him out.

(laughing)

Then I did.

(laughing)

And I felt better.

And it worked.

(laughing)

So for me, that was a great lesson

because someone had invaded my space,

invaded my being and was doing something against

me that I didn’t want to be done.

So I took control of the situation and I ran with it.

And many years later after being

turned into a product by a very huge corporation

that had their hands all over me

and I couldn’t escape it.

I promised myself that I would continue to move forward

and do my best not to compromise in any way what so ever,

not allow any one to put their hands on me

and effect me in that way.

So that’s the best advice I think I could give,

is just to keep moving forward

and don’t give a (beep) about what anybody thinks.

Just keep moving forward and do what you have to do for you.

– Practice faithful persistence

means never ever ever give up.

Chicken Soup for the Soul was rejected by 144 publishers.

144 publishers said we don’t want to publish

a collection of short stories,

the title is stupid, Chicken Soup for the Soul,

what does that mean?

People don’t buy collections of short stories,

there’s never been successful chain of doing that.

So literally we spent 14 months

trying to find a publisher.

And we go to New York with our agent

and eventually our agent gave us

the book back and said I can’t sell this.

So we went to the National Book Sellers Association

convention down in Anaheim.

We went from booth to booth to booth for three days.

And there were 4000 publishers represented there.

And we go, would you publish our book,

would you publish our book,

would you publish our book?

And we got no no no no no.

It was late on the third day,

that a little publisher from Florida,

after we’ve gotten over 144 rejections,

said we’ll read it.

And then we said, well how many copies

do you think we’ll sell, after they said

yeah we’ll buy it a couple weeks later,

they said we’ll publish it.

And they said, maybe 20,000 if we’re lucky.

And we said, our goal is to sell

a million and a half in a year and a half.

Now have you ever told someone your dream

and had them laugh out loud at you.

(laughing)

He laughed out loud.

Now if we had given up after 100 publishers had said no,

I wouldn’t be standing here today.

It wouldn’t have happened.

And so you’ve got to be willing to persevere.

Because we didn’t take no.

See when the world says no, you say next.

Let’s practice that, if i say no, you say …

– [Audience] Next.

– Absolutely.

There’s only five or six billion people out there

you can go and ask, right?.

There’s over 4000 publishers just here

in the state of California.

So what we have is this endless possibility,

but you have to persevere.

It’s as if the universe tests our commitment.

And so today we have 147 titles in print,

we’ve sold over 115 million copies,

we’re in 47 languages and over

a billion dollars worth of Chicken Soup for the Soul

books have been sold worldwide.

So if you’re willing to decide what you want,

believe it’s possible, consciously envision the future,

feel the feelings of what it would feel like

if you would achieve this goal.

You could have anything and then you take action.

Both obvious actions and aspired action,

you can do anything.

– If you’re convinced that you’re going to fail

or fall or get hurt, that will come to fruition

because that’s what you’re visualizing.

I was willing to get hurt along the way,

but I didn’t visualize myself getting hurt along the way.

And I think that’s what stops a lot of people

and that’s really what separates a lot of people

from being world champions or from being

as good as they can

because they stop at some point

in saying, oh no I am not capable of this,

or I’ll probably get hurt doing this.

And if you approach anything with that hesitation,

you’re going to fail.

I always approached it like, this is going to work,

I’m going to figure this out,

even if it takes me hundreds of attempts.

The idea of falling, getting back up again

that didn’t really bother me at all.

– Unfortunately there are people with

the talent that don’t have the money.

I kind of look at it like if any of you

have seen Cool Run Ins, when they try to raise

money to go above sand and all the people

that they approached just laughed at them.

And it’s the same for us, you know,

when my dad would say, my son’s going to be

the first Platform one driver,

everyone kind of thought, yeah right.

But you know you kept going and it happened,

we got there so never give up.

– It’s Tyler and DJ Ski.

And that was the carnival.

– The carnival was tight.

– How do you feel?

It’s the fourth one?

– Mhmm.

– Do you think that it would grow

to be something this massive?

– No we was going to cancel it this year but we didn’t.

We was literally like (beep) it and then we did it

and then a lot of people came.

– Why were you going to cancel it?

– I don’t know.

We couldn’t find anyone to perform.

It was just such like a,

’cause we’re specific on who we wanted there,

things like that.

And we couldn’t come up with the perfect thing

and it was just a depressing time.

And we was about to say (beep) it,

until we was like (beep) it, what are we doing?

Where’s our spirit?

And we ran it back and it was our biggest,

we dummy doubled up since last year.

It was crazy.

– Good question.

At what age should one give up on their dream?

Never.

(mumbles) said this, Henry Ford said this,

Rockefeller said this, you’re only as young

or as old as your dreams.

And as long as you still have dreams

and visions and goals, they keep you young.

It’s the most amazing darn thing.

One of the great stories is

the story of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Harland

and Harland was taught by his mother

a special recipe down south in the United States,

on how to make chicken.

When he grew up he got a job as

a short order cook in a small cafe.

And he asked his boss if his boss

would be interested in this chicken recipe.

And his boss said, sure throw it together,

see what the people say.

Turned out that everybody liked

this special chicken recipe with all

these secret herbs and spices.

Well for the rest of his career,

right up ’til he was 65 years old,

he either worked in little cafes

or sometimes he owned a little cafe.

When he was 65 he had a little cafe

and he was making his chicken

and he had people coming from all around to eat his chicken.

And the highways department built a highway

past his little restaurant, his little chicken place

and put him out of business.

They cut off the road so nobody could get to it.

About the same time he received

a social security check, his first social security check

at the age of 65.

And he became angry.

He said, I’m 65 years old but I’m not ready

to give up on my dreams.

What do I have to sell?

And he realized the one thing

that had kept him going all those years,

the main stay of his little career

was his mothers recipe of 17 or 18 herbs and spices.

So he put them together in little bags.

One bag per chicken.

And he put his pots and pans in

the back of his old car and he started driving

up and down the Eastern seaboard,

going from cafe to cafe to cafe,

to ask them if they would pay him five cents a bag

for his magical combination of herbs and spices.

He called on more than 1000 restaurants,

sleeping in his car, week after week,

and finally he came across a little restaurant in Toronto

that agreed to pay him five cents a bag,

for his herbs and spices.

This is back in the 60s.

And because of exchange controls,

they had to give the money to the Red Cross.

That was the beginning of the Kentucky Fried Chicken empire.

He began to sell this recipe more and more,

people began to put it on their signs,

a major corporation came along

and said we could make a real business of this.

So they embraced him, they built the franchise

that made him one of the best known people in the world.

When he died seven years later,

he was worth more than 50 million dollars,

because he never gave up on his dreams.

So I don’t know if you’re 65 and broke and living

in your car with pots and pans with no money,

but wherever you are, you never give up on your dreams.

– Stay in front of the competition,

because there’s two ways in this industry.

You move it or it moves you.

And I’ve seen so many sad stories

across the decade where chefs have just got lazy.

Got lazy, given up and lost that hunger to be competitive,

because it’s the best job in the world.

That’s not really a job, it’s a passion,

because when you’re rubbing shoulders.

And here we are now, 10 years later,

and I’ve got a restaurant next door to Jamie Oliver’s

and we’re both literally two meters apart.

Phenomenal chef …

And we keep each other on our toes.

So that’s exciting for me and that’s been

the one key issue across the 10 years

of filming Kitchen Nightmares,

never ever ever give up.

– Thank you guys so much for watching.

I’d love to know what did you think.

What was the biggest most important lesson

that you learned from this video

that you are going to apply immediately

to your life or your business.

Leave it down in the comments below

and I’m going to join in the discussion.

I’m also curious, what are some of the strategies

that you use to never give up?

What do you want to add to this video

that might help other entrepreneurs

who are considering giving up in their business?

Please leave it in the comments.

And finally I want to give a quick shout out

to the Auckland Council Library.

Thank you so much for picking up

a copy of my book, Your One Word

and having it in your library.

I really really really appreciate it.

So thank you guys again for watching.

I believe in you.

I hope you continue to believe in yourself

and whatever your one word is.

Much love, I’ll see you soon.