Marlon Wayans Reveals: How Rejection Fueled His Multi-Million Dollar Comedy Empire | EP 777

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11my father taught me the importance of god and the importance of working hard for your family and don't be afraid of hard work if you're gonna clean a toilet nah don't do that no no get up underneath it right get in the ball getting them when i was working in sneaker stores and stuff i was a great employee that's why when it comes to me doing movies i've always had great experiences all my directors love me because you don't have to tell me hey can you learn your lines no no no when i leave a set i don't care we had a 14 hour day i got my acting coach that i paid for this they paid for it i'm like all right let's work we're gonna work three hours in the morning and then we're gonna work an hour before after i work out come back because when i get to set i'm gonna be prepared i'm gonna be prepared so now i'm not sitting there learning lines no I got it all packed in I'm ready I'm ready and you can move me any kind of way and oh and I can adjust because I'm not worried about gathering lines so I do more work than you actually expect or I'm expected to do I don't give less I'll always give more if I'm writing movies if I'm doing I love to do it all on all the meetings I'm there I'm on phone nothing in I do all my writing all my stand-up they're like how did you how are you dropping a new hour of material every year and I'm like because I'm a writer and I don't write it down no more the audience don't even know you're basically coming to watch me write live live you're creating a life live I don't do in town five minutes here five minutes there I don't to i just do a brand i do my special 11 11.

1:5611 17 i was in baltimore i forgot baltimore or somewhere else with a brand new hour wow not one word from the special brand new hour that i'm where i worked through right that i and i and now how how do you do that i'm a writer yeah i know it and i challenge myself. I challenge myself. I already know what my next special is. I know what my next three specials are now. Wow. Now, I haven't worked on all the material, but I know. You have the idea of the journey of where it's going. Yep. I know what the next one, Ugly Baby. Skittles is this one. Next one's Ugly Baby. Ugly Baby's my journey with my brothers and sisters in my household, and then after that, talk about relationships.

2:40I know them. I know them. Because life has been my greatest writer. The journey and now I can apply it to my business right so my last three specials My last two or maybe my three I paid for them myself. I Was like no no no no no no no they were like oh yeah And we don't we don't have the budget for it right now or you know, we're slotted through till 2026 and I'm like, okay, that's cool, but I'm ready to film my special now so I film my special and and then I licensed it to HBO. Interesting. I licensed it to Amazon, and now I still have my special. Wow. Because I know I'm not waiting for somebody or anybody, Hollywood, to tell me I'm ready.

3:25No, no, no, no. I know when I'm ready. I know when I'm making people laugh. Either you're going to bite down, and you're going to give me the budget, go market the hell out of this, and bring people to your site, and this is what it's going to cost. But I'm not waiting on you to tell me I'm ready. I know how good it is. I'm getting sand ovations everywhere I go. Wow. I know how good it is. So I'm going to film it in a place that I desire. I'm going to give it my all. And then I'm going to cut it together and hopefully you like it. And if not, then I got it. I'll sell somewhere else. Or I got a write-off.

3:56You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Or you sell it online or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I'll sell it. I'll create my own website. Everything is God. And they don't want to buy it. They don't want to license it. That's God. God's saying, okay, well, then you got to create your own business. What do you mean everything is God? Whenever you, there's no failure. There's no wrong. Whenever something doesn't go my way, it's because it wasn't supposed to. So when I say everything is God, you trust God. You think of the positives, not the negatives. If it didn't happen, my brother told me, if one door closes, if you sit there and you stare at that one door, you're not looking around.

4:34A thousand other doors have opened. All you got to do is look around. you staring at the door like a dog stares at a tennis ball it's like no no no no no no no no and there's a wall and you're trying to get somewhere sometimes you have to kick a hole through the wall and the door i'm gonna kick a hole through that wall and i'm gonna make my way because that's what i have to do god is telling me not to just open that door and go through it no no no no no no i really want to be masterful i gotta knock my way through there what if you You've spent a million dollars on the production, and you've spent six months on developing the content, and you've had this expectation of launching it into the world, and you put all your heart, your life, your soul into this thing, and then no one wants it.

5:19Cree, not time, really. I learned a lot, though. I learned I could put a movie together for a million dollars. I learned I could put a special together for a million dollars, and I learned about the locations. I learned how much it costs for crew. I've learned about the director do a great job, what crew works, anything is less than this is a positive. I'm not worried about there's gonna come a time where I'm gonna be so big that people want to buy everything I have. There's gonna come a time in my life and and then I'm building a library and then when I'm gone maybe my kids have this thing that dad did that you go wow all these things my dad did that they never saw now the legend of me my kids kids kids will be able to eat off the thing so there's no failure everything is supposed to happen exactly the way it is when i was 19 i got batman i was gonna be the first like black person besides billy d to be in one of these big movies was with tim burton and i was gonna be robin then i got a phone call from Tim Burton and Denise DeNovi in a letter saying that I wasn't.

6:32Really? And see, I was going to be off to the races. Batman, Robin, do you know what my career would have been? But it didn't happen. And immediately I was like, I was hurt. But I said, no. I'm going to start writing these movies. I'm going to start creating my own show. I'm going to start doing things that I know put the ball in my own hand. had that robin happened i would have had a different career where would you be right now had that happened i don't know probably cracked out somewhere because i wouldn't know what to do with that kind of success of money um but god put me on this journey to create look at what i've done look at what i because i took the long route he didn't want me taking the shortcut I had to take the long route because there was a lot I needed to learn.

7:28There was jewels for me to gather all along the way. No, I didn't go straight to it. I went the long way. But look at all that I know now. Look at all this that I know. And I'm going to make my way here. It's taking the long route, the scenic route. I mean, it's been a beautiful scene. Wonderful. full but I'm not sitting there depressed that I didn't get that part when I say everything is God I'm saying everything is not all bad sometimes the things that you think is failure is actually success is how do you interpret not just the business but life there's always good and bad a bad relationship could teach you more than a good relationship and maybe that wasn't the relationship for you because that next relationship you get to apply all this stuff to the perfect woman and now i am successful so i'm grateful for the bad always be grateful for the bad and when i say everything is god you trust god there's a reason to happen so just keep doing the work don't let it discourage you

8:44Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

9:34Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.