DWAYNE JOHNSON | Eye-Opening Speech That Will Inspire You

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1:07And when my back is against this mother, then there's nowhere to go. But that way, that's it. And I don't give a who is in front of me. And I can stop me. When we were 14 years old, we lived in Hawaii. My mom and I came home and there was an eviction notice. My mom started crying and I never forgot in that moment. It was a seminal moment for me because I felt like I never want to be in this position again. I had a dream and that dream was to play professional football. The dream didn't come true. I had to work up in Canada, the Canadian Football League. When I was cut from there, I had my dad had to come pick me up. And I'll never forget we were on I-75. And I'm 23 years old and I said, I wonder how much money I have and I took out my wallet. I had a 501 and some change and at least I rounded up optimistic. So I thought, oh, I have seven bucks. But I thought, God,

2:11I ain't this one. I got seven bucks in my pocket. Where the? Do I go now? What I do? I can't go back to CFL because I, you know, the point comes where you hear that voice, big runs over. At some point, you got to be tired of not being number one. You have to be and you got to play angry and I play angry. Now, I'm cool and calm with my approach. And when I step out on my field, which is a set, there's some, and you're always going to have haters and haters like, well, man, how many movies you're going to make or how many are you going to do? Like you do a lot of and not only that, but in what world do we not work every day? I got work every day. Well, you know, I read that your father, you used to watch him in training and he would say, if I'm going to get up at 6 a.m., you're going to get up at 6 a.m. So what do you think you got the most from him? It was definitely my work ethic. My dad was a man who against the odds made it and but he would get up at usually 5 5 30 in the morning and he would say,

3:13if I get up, you're going to get up to five years old, he would drag me to the gym. Yes. And I would just, I wouldn't work out, but he would just make sure that I was there and be with him. And that was our time that we could spend together. And but I would say my work ethic from my dad, my dad always said to that regardless of what you do in life and where you go, respect is going to be given when it's earned and you have to go out and earn it every single day. So when I first started wrestling, I was 6 years old rolling on the mats with my dad. But before the resting part happened, I was just in the gym putting in the work. At 6 years old, rolling around on the mats. And finally when I could touch weights at 13, that's what I was doing. But the weight part for me and the gym part, getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning every day before anybody else and grounding my thought process is in the no one will outwork me. No one has has always been the anchor. It allows me to keep everything grounded. You call this your anchor and where you actually you find solitude.

4:16I do. Yes. The gym for me and this physical activity for is my anchor. And I always, you know, I would recommend that for all of you guys in the room is for us to find that anchor, whether it's hiking or biking or yoga or meditation or whatever it is. Because for me, the gym, just some sort of physical activity, it anchors my day. And then it allows me to go on and work for the rest of the day. So it is, it is a spiritual practice for you. Well, it's way more than just physicality. It's way more than just picking up a weight. It's just it is my balance. It's my anchor. It's my spiritual anchor. Mental because what it allows me to do, it's the only time for me that and we all need this because this treadmill of life, there's no stop button. So it's so crazy. It just allows me to block out the noise and clear my head. Think about what I need to do or accomplish or think about the things I need to accomplish without the influx of information and people trying to target me and pulling it. Absolutely. People who've been knocked down sometimes in life, everybody, you

5:18know, not in a ring, but have had those moments where you didn't feel the rest of the world saw you for who you needed to be. How are you able to turn that around? So when I first started wrestling, the idea was, well, why don't you call yourself Rocky, my being. I hated the name. The powers that be said, nope, that's your name. I was also told, well, when you go out in your wrestle, you have to smile. You have, I want you to smile big. And I thought, well, what if I lose? Nope. Yes. Exactly. Still got a smile. And it just didn't feel right. That didn't sit right with me. So a few months later, the company made me the intercontinental champion. And then a month later, we go into the annual biggest event. It's like the Super Bowl of Wrestling WrestleMania. And it was WrestleMania 13. By the time I got to Chicago, 16,000 people,

6:21were chanting Rocky socks. I was, I remember laying there in the ring and the referee said to me, don't listen to him. And it was crippling for me. So then at that time, the powers that be thought, this isn't going to work. And for whatever reason, people are not liking you and they're not connecting with you. And so in that moment, I was very defining because I asked them, if I could just be myself, and if I could go out there, and if I can speak to the crowd, and if I could just be myself and be authentic, and if I don't want to smile, I don't smile. But when I laugh, I laugh. I don't want to sing. I sing whatever it is I just want to be me. Can I have that for one minute of live TV time? Powerful was the beat at that time. Vince McMahon said, you got it. So on Raw, live TV, I grabbed

7:25a microphone and I said, I may be a lot of things, but socks isn't one of them. I guess the more of the story is the importance and the power of finding your identity and being true to who you are. Even in that wild world of pro wrestling, it still applies to everyone in the room and how powerful that could be because it was a true shift and click moment. And I never look back and I became fortunately the biggest draw that the business has ever seen. Wow. And didn't, isn't that the moment really that particular moment, the you suck moment, turned into the moment of you becoming the rock and no longer rocky. Yes. So that's why it was rocking my V and I said, you know what, I'm not going to be called that. We're going to shorten it. I'll be called the rock. Something you said there really stuck with me, that the most powerful thing you can ever do is to be yourself. Be yourself. Yeah. That moment that you learned to be authentic is when everything changed. I do. I believe it's

8:26the most powerful thing that we could be. For example, when I got to Hollywood, the very first time I got to Hollywood in the early 2000s, I was told, again, well, if you want to be a star, maybe you shouldn't talk about wrestling, maybe you shouldn't go to the gym as much, maybe you shouldn't raise your silly eyebrow. You know, there was a lot of things like that. When you don't know, you buy into it. Okay. So again, I went through that entire process for years trying to figure out who I was. And then when you look back at my earlier career, the films I was doing, they were good, but just not like, oh, that's how I like to see him because he is his true authentic self. This time when I felt like, okay, I really need to make a change in my career. I need to be me and I want to have the kind of career that is a global career. And I said, I'm not quite too sure how we're going to do it, but I need you to buy into the vision with me. And I'm willing to put in the work of my own two amps. I said, what do you want to accomplish? I said, I want to accomplish the world. I want the world. And I want, I want Will Smith's career. I want to do it bigger and better.

9:29Because they even said to me, well, how do you do it better than him? This was in 2006. I said, I don't know, but I do believe there's a better way to do it and a different way to do it. And they looked at me like I had three heads, but I still stayed focused and I still had these to put in the hard work on my two hands. And then eventually I'd left them and then decided, you know what, my name is the rock and I come from the world of professional wrestling and I look the way I look and I talk the way I talk and I love to work out. And you know what, this is who I'm going to be. And here we go. It's working for you. It's working. So even now with all of the success you stay, you still see every opportunity as kind of a crack in the wall. Tell us what that means for you. I do. So what that means is I still see every opportunity that I have is like a little crack in the wall, a little scratch. And I, it's almost as if like a scratch represents every opportunity. Therefore, the success on the other side of the scratch is the light. Scratching hard, clawing, digging, it's that mentality

10:34to really take advantage of every opportunity I have. My last match in WWE, I wrestled John Cena and I went in, I think it's 2013 and we went in MetLife Stadium, had a record breaking attendant, we accomplished our goal. So I wrestled John Cena and we have 45 minutes planned for the match. At the 15 minute mark, bang! I feel something popping. Blame there. And both of us are out. I said, I was going on. Referee comes over and he's like, Rocky, alright. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I get up, I go to step. I can step. So now in that moment, you're in the game and you're in the thick of things and you got to make a decision. I got to do it. I got 30 minutes left of this match and I have one moment in this moment. It was a defining moment. I could either tell him, no, I'm done. He give the signal, matches on it. Or, let's keep going. We got this decision. I said, no, let's keep going. I said,

11:38how much time is up? He's like 32 minutes. That's the whole match, getting scared because I'm thinking, man, well, what happens when I lose my leg or something like this? If I've just done something to my artery, and I luckily matches everything he pins me, won't you? Rush home to my doctor's down, Florida. And in the MRI, find out that I have completely torn my addoctor, the top of my, my addoctor, and my top of my quad off my pelvis. What I was proud of was to walk out on my own, but not only that, but in this moment where the odds are against you, people are watching, teams depending on you. You either say I'm done. Or this, whatever the fuck is going on, it's temporary, and it may meet up at some point down the road. But I'm not going to let this opportunity go by without giving it my own. Really the two things I want to say are, you got to be the hardest workers in the room.

12:39Don't the opportunity up. As you guys know, there's nothing you can't accomplish. Remember where you came from. Keep that in the front of your mind, and when it goes bad, it goes sideways, a lot of does. You got to keep it in here. And it really has to, it should drive you. It should, it works for me. It should drive you. Oh, look, you just got added to a meeting about coordinating another meeting to prepare for the pre-meeting ahead of the follow-up meeting, which will, of course, require a recap meeting. And then another meeting. It's your booking point. Book with Southwest, and an error play mode. Jimmy Conrad here, and I have something to put on your radar, the core short from Viori,

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