What Chuck Does

How Bad Do You Want It?

Here are excerpts from my brother’s response to My Brother is Tony Robbins

i come from a place where i can relate to wanting something but not having the conviction of going out to get it. i wrote songs for 11-12 years and liked to share my creations with my friends. did i want to go into commercial pop music, not particularly, but of course i WANTED to… everyone ‘wants’ to have those kinds of opportunities and successes but was i willing to do the work… my answer to that, in retrospect is, i believe i did not truly, deep down to my bones, want it with my heart and soul. actually… i meet a lot of people that see what i’m doing and they ‘want’ to get into the biz too but are not ready to do the work because they, like how i was before, are not ready or willing to pay the price.

the entertainment industry i believe is one of the toughest industries to work in… i believe this is the case because it’s completely a HOW BADLY DO YOU WANT IT? industry… or i suppose how strong is your belief in yourself in the face of rejection and setbacks? everyone in this industry is ‘talented’ in one way or another, so that’s why it’s not about talent. look at Jolin. is she the greatest singer? no. the prettiest girl? no. the best dancer? not quite…. now why is Jolin one of the top female entertainers out there and HOW DID SHE MAKE HERSELF INTO WHO SHE IS (from her humble beginings for those who can recall)… she did it by having an uncrushable self-belief that she could become the best. I would say the say for Jay Chou… both artists I respect profoundly for their tremendous power of will.

so, the final word is that… struggle and failure… you should be thankful to ever know them intimately… they are the best (if not only TRUE teachers) and they truly bring out what it is that we are truly capable of… the way i see it… the longer i DON”T succeed, the more training i’m getting to be the best i can be (there’s an assumption/ a deep belief that i WILL succeed). so then the question i love to ask myself is HOW HARD DO I WANT TO TRAIN?

The truth is I think Jolin sold her soul to the devil to get where she is today. Yes she’s now filthy rich and the top female Chinese artist in Taiwan but she sold her soul to do it. She has forsaken relationships (has she even had a boyfriend in the last 10 years?) and desecrated her body in order to get “there” (plastic surgery). In my opinion, she has failed tremendously in life.

This is my judgment of her life if I had to make one. You may or may not agree. Maybe she’s completely happy with her life. Maybe she rolls around in $20 dollar bills (or in Taiwan probably $1,000NT bills). Who knows? Maybe she’s truly happy with her new face, breasts, and whatever else she’s had done. Maybe she’s truly happy with all the sacrifices she’s had to make along the way… maybe she’s not.

I believe that people who become wildly successful typically get “there” by selling a part of themselves along the way. They become their “dream” and as a result their perspective becomes clouded by what they want. Like Scrooge McDuck in the episode “Gold Fever” these people are swallowed by their desires to become whatever they believe they are destined to be. Perspectives are lost and nothing is sacred. Knives come out and relationships are botched.

So while most people simply don’t want it badly enough (let’s say 99%), there are those in the 1% that want it “enough”. Of those 1% who want it “enough” 99% of them do it wrong. They do it without boundaries. They do so by sacrificing everything. You must realize that those who are that successful in life are usually means driven by some incredible imbalance that provides you with some advantage and compels you to keep going. While this imbalance provides the ability/potential to reach unimaginable success, it also has the power to drives you to madness and doom. It’s a double-edged sword that when wielded incorrectly can destroy the very person holding it; just like Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe in The Last Samurai) committing hari-kiri with the same sword with which he killed hundreds/thousands.

I’ll end with this final warning. It’s very easy to get drunk off of success. Be successful but don’t sell your soul.