If You Want it Bad Enough

Today I would like to share with you a story about two kids from Boston that shared the same dream, a dream so big and so unattainable that alienated them from their classmates.

They were childhood friends and their mothers were long time friends themselves. One of the two kids was two years older than the other, and so they were two years apart in school.

At the school lunch breaks, they were always sitting together and planning their big move to Hollywood when they grow up.

For the rest of their classmates, they were just those two weirdos who were still stuck on their delusional pipe dream.

Every summer, they started taking jobs together to motivate each other to work hard and save money to move to Los Angeles and start going to auditions.

Even at a young age, they preferred to sacrifice their time and effort for their goals.

So it was only a matter of time until they finally moved to L.A.

Alt Text

Moving to L.A was the easy part, because that’s a tough business, casting after casting, and rejection after rejection.

Because despite talent and hard work, nothing is guaranteed in life.

But you know what people say, you just need that one big break.

And then one night on the same roof where they kept planning their future with the same energy as when they were kids, they decided to make their own luck instead of waiting for luck to knock on their door.

They decided to write a movie script and use that as a vehicle to carve their paths in Hollywood.

One of the two friends, the older, had already started writing a story when he was in college so they took that story and turned it into an amazing movie script.

The script in question was so good that it attracted the attention of many film studios that started competing for it.

That script landed them a seat at the Academy Awards Ceremony, and an Oscar for the Best Original Screenplay.

Those were Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

When you look at that video several years later, you cannot help but notice the excitement in their eyes. The genuine happiness of someone who has just realized that they reached their goals while shouting at their moms, and their moms shouting back as if they were in the same neighborhood in Boston.

Priceless.

Thank God they didn’t listen to anyone and fought for what they really wanted.

Of course, between the time the script was done and the time the movie went to production, five years had passed.

As we all know, there is no such thing as an overnight success.

During that time, they did manage to secure some small roles in the business, but it was that screen play that effectively put them on the map and placed them in a position to turn their big ambitions into a solid reality.

“If you’re good enough, if you are good enough… Nobody is stopping you.” ― Gary Vaynerchuk

The script was so good, they were in position to put as a condition that both of them should star in the movie.

They made their own luck.

Here’s just one of the brilliant scenes of that movie:

Good Will Hunting went on to collect TQ nine academy awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, on addition to two Oscars for Robin Williams and of course, the best screenplay.

Needless to say, they were good enough. proof of that is that they went on and made a collection of blockbusters afterwards: The Martian, The Departed, The Town, Armageddon, The Bourne Trilogy, Ocean’s Eleven, and a long list of achievements.

Even as recent last week, while following a recommendation from my friend Gabe @piedpiper I stumbled on a brilliant performance from Ben Affleck in a new movie called The Accountant, a performance that very likely will win him an Oscar nomination.

To this very day, Ben Affleck is still the youngest person to ever win an Oscar for best screenplay.

The moral of the story is that sometimes talent and hard work are not enough, and sometimes, you have got to think outside the box to make your own path.

Alt text

Today, when you look at people working on smart contracts, or new economy systems, or any system really that is set to replace the old one that is counterproductive or in cases oppressive, with something significantly better.

The same phenomenon occurs: "You can't do it". or "It's crazy, it will never happen.".

Or maybe they're are not crazy for wanting something different, maybe they’re just not satisfied with the existing system and they’re looking outside the box to carve their own paths and bring their goals into reality.

That takes a hell lot of resilience, courage, and ingenuity.

That’s what I’d like to call, The Warrior Class.

And you reading this today, you may be one of them. You know you have my respect, and I will never tell you that “You can’t do it!”.

Because if we stop people from inventing before they even start, we would probably be still stuck in the caves today.

Protect the nerds!

Image Sources: 1 – 2 – 3

If You Want it Bad Enough

“If you’re good enough, if you are good enough… Nobody is stopping you.” ― Gary Vaynerchuk

They made their own luck.