Transcript:
If you had just one shot, if you had just one opportunity – to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment – would you capture it, or would you just let it slip?
If you think you know the right answer, let me just say that when I was sitting in your shoes, my palms were sweaty, my knees were weak and my arms were heavy. When I got to the theatre, I almost immediately threw up on my favourite sweater, which sucked because it was my mom’s spaghetti, which I was near going to get back.
Obviously, I was nervous but, on the surface, I looked calm, and ready to drop bombs on the audience. That was my job as an actor after all, to put on an act. As soon as I walked on stage, I opened my mouth, but the playwright’s words were not being spoken. The whole crowd booed so loudly. No words were being said.
I choked. Some people even started laughing. I tried to redeem myself on stage buy I ran out of time. The clock had run out and “BLAM!”. My 15 seconds of possible fame were over and I had to snap back to reality. Gravity brought me back down to Earth. When people saw me on the street, they would say, “Oh, there goes the rabbit from ‘Harvey’ who choked.”
They made me furious, but I wasn’t going to give up that easy. I knew I had the talent to make it, despite the fact that I was broke. When I would go back to my rundown apartment, that’s when I decided to write my own material for the stage. I wrote my own play. My own rhapsody, if you will. Because I decided to capture the moment and not let it pass me, I controlled my own destiny, and allowed myself to achieve massive success, as a stage actor on Broadway.
Here I am today, humbly, so humbly, passing my story down to all of you. If you take away nothing else from what I say, at least take away this:
If you want to succeed in the real world, then you better lose yourself in the music of life. Lose yourself in the moment. You own it and you can never let it go. Most likely, you will only get one shot, and even if you blow it, you better not miss out on your chance to blow it. The opportunity that lies before you comes only once in a lifetime.
Control it, because you can do anything that you set your mind to.
Set Your Mind
