How to Stop Doubting Yourself & Get Anything You Want in Life

Will Packer 0:00 (instrumental music plays) There is not a person on this planet that is more deserving of success than you are. Stop saying, "What if I fail?" and start saying, "What if I succeed?" You gotta be a doer, not a talker. This is the life of a movie producer. (dramatic music plays)

Mel Robbins 0:29 Will is a record-breaking Hollywood filmmaker and producer. His movies, they've grossed more than a billion dollars at the box office. He has had 10 number one releases, including Straight Outta Compton, Girls Trip, Think Like a Man, Stomp the Yard, Night School, and Ride Along. What he's learned over the years is how to cultivate an unstoppable mindset.

Will Packer 0:53 You are the main thing. You deserve to give 110%. Your dream deserves it. Beyoncé said no to me five times. Don't take a me-versus-them mentality. Take a we and an us. That's how you're gonna be successful.

Mel Robbins 1:11 What is the most important thing, you think, for somebody to do?

Will Packer 1:15 One of my secrets is that... (clock ticks)

Mel Robbins 1:20 Will Packer in the house. (instrumental music plays) I am so excited you're here. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making the trip.

Will Packer 1:25 Are you kidding me?

Mel Robbins 1:26 (laughs)

Will Packer 1:26 I'm excited to be here. This is awesome. This is so very cool, just sitting here, being able to vibe with you. Your team is amazing. And just, I'm looking forward to conversations, what we can share with folks.

Mel Robbins 1:37 Well, and I also can't wait to hear what happens in the person's life who's listening and to the people who they share this with because, Will, I gotta tell you, I devoured your book. I cannot wait to unpack the stories and the lessons. And I'd like to start by having you speak directly to the person who's listening.

Will Packer 2:00 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 2:01 And tell them how their life might be different if they take everything that you're about to share with us-

Will Packer 2:08 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 2:08 ... that you have learned, oftentimes the hard way-

Will Packer 2:10 Yep.

Mel Robbins 2:12 ... if they really take it to heart and they apply it to their life, what could change?

Will Packer 2:15 I'm so glad you asked that 'cause it's why I wrote the book. I have so many people coming and saying, "Will you mentor me?" Right? "Will you do a master class? Will you come and talk to my students?" And I try to do it as much as possible, but I can't talk to everybody. So I said, "You know what? What's the mentorship I wish I had? What are the secrets that I now know that I can't go and sit with every single person, but I can go out, and I can put it out in a book that I can share with as many people as possible?" It's one of the reasons I wrote it, to pour back into the community of people that have supported me. I wanted people to feel like they could be seen and heard in a very different way, not just listened to, but, like, present. I wanted them to walk into a room and not feel like they had to justify why they were in that room. I wanted them to figure out how better to prioritize themselves in a world where it's all about balance. Everything's crazy. You're trying to balance everything. We could all use some help prioritizing the main things, and sometimes you are the main thing. And then asking, "Who better than me?" Because the reality is that it helps to unlock you beyond your paycheck or your circumstance or the things around you that are constraining you. When you say, "Who better than me to work past this, to get past this? Who better than me to accomplish something that feels like it's beyond my current situation?" That's a question you gotta constantly ask yourself over and over every day, and then learn how to answer that the right way.

Mel Robbins 3:44 Okay, let's just start right there.

Will Packer 3:45 Okay.

Mel Robbins 3:45 Four words, "Who better than me?"

Will Packer 3:48 Yes.

Mel Robbins 3:49 As I was listening to you say that, "Who better than me?" I thought, "What a genius thing to ask yourself." Because that question by design, "Who better than me?"

Will Packer 4:03 Yes.

Mel Robbins 4:04 ... actually presumes the answer-

Will Packer 4:06 Yes, yes.

Mel Robbins 4:06 ... which is, you are the person that is in the best position to do whatever is necessary-

Will Packer 4:14 Yes.

Mel Robbins 4:15 ... to solve this problem, seize this opportunity-

Will Packer 4:18 Yes.

Mel Robbins 4:18 ... make this change.

Will Packer 4:19 Yes, and the question itself is a challenge. It is a challenge to yourself 'cause you're not asking someone else, "Tell me, do I deserve it? Tell me, am I important enough? Tell me, have I impressed you?" No, no, no, no, no, you're asking the most important person to give that answer. You're asking yourself, "Who's better than me?" You're challenging yourself to name somebody else that deserves it more than you. And then once you realize that you deserve success, the most successful people I've been around, it's not that they're just so amazing. It's not that they have some talent that you or I or the person watching us don't have. What they have is this mentality that they deserve success. That's the key, deserve success, and that it's coming, because a lot of times, and I've been there, you think, "I haven't been successful to this point. I don't know if it's coming. It didn't come today. It didn't come yesterday, might not come tomorrow." The most successful people feel like, "It's coming. I don't know when, but it's coming." You can't let go of that. You gotta believe it's coming. Success is coming.

Mel Robbins 5:24 I 1,000% agree with you, and one of the other reasons why I like this question, the title of the book, of course, is Who Better Than You? Which, as I see that, I'm like, "Huh, who better than you? He's talking to me." And then you start to ask yourself, "Well, who better than me?" You also recognize that oftentimes you're sitting around waiting for somebody to pick you-

Will Packer 5:43 Yes.

Mel Robbins 5:43 ... waiting for somebody to make the opportunity, waiting for somebody else to see what you hope people recognize-

Will Packer 5:48 Yes.

Mel Robbins 5:48 ... but you gotta see it in yourself first.

Will Packer 5:50 Yes.

Mel Robbins 5:50 In fact, you write about this, Will. I'm reading from your New York Times bestseller, Who Better Than You? And I love what you wrote in the introduction.Too often, we're waiting for someone else to hand us the keys that open the doors to our goals, and we want that person to not just give us the keys, but to also show us how to use them. You will already be closer to obtaining your personal level of greatness when you understand that you are the key, you are the secret sauce, you are the person you've been waiting on to give you the leg up that will make all the difference. Who better than you? By realizing that you already have access to that power, you are closer to unlocking it, closer to producing a blockbuster life, embarking on an extraordinary career path, or maybe, maybe just having the audacity to put on your own blowout affair celebrating who else? You. You. I love this.

Will Packer 6:50 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 6:50 And just remember one thing. This much I know to be true, Oprah ain't coming.

Will Packer 6:54 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 6:55 That's a nod to a story you're going to tell us.

Will Packer 6:57 Yes, it is.

Mel Robbins 6:58 But for the person who's listening, who's like, "Yes, Will. Yes," but they hear produce a blockbuster life-

Will Packer 7:08 Yeah. Yeah.

Mel Robbins 7:09 ... you are an acclaimed producer. What actually is a producer? You know what I mean?

Will Packer 7:17 That's a good question. Yeah.

Mel Robbins 7:17 Like, I think, like-

Will Packer 7:18 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 7:18 ... a director versus producer.

Will Packer 7:20 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 7:20 Like, what do you do?

Will Packer 7:21 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 7:21 Because it is a direct connection to producing your life.

Will Packer 7:27 Yes. Yes. And it's interesting because producing is actually the transferable skill that most people, whether you're in Hollywood or not, can actually use, right?

Mel Robbins 7:37 Okay.

Will Packer 7:37 So what I tell people is that when you watch the Academy Awards, you've got all these different categories, right? You got the best actor, you got best sound, you got best director. At the very end of the night, the final award goes to best picture and the producer wins that award because they were responsible for putting all those other people in the positions that they were in. So the producer is a big project manager. They're responsible for getting the money and hiring the director and hiring the sound person, hiring the actors. That's what a producer does. That's why I say you can produce a blockbuster life, and producing is putting all the things in place that create the ultimate thing, which is this life we all want to live.

Mel Robbins 8:17 For somebody that's listening who's like, "It's too late for me." You know?

Will Packer 8:21 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 8:21 "It's just too late."

Will Packer 8:22 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 8:22 "I- I screwed up. I missed the window."

Will Packer 8:24 Yeah. Yeah.

Mel Robbins 8:25 What would you say to that person?

Will Packer 8:26 I hear that so often. I was talking to somebody the other day, an incredible woman who is trying to figure out how to get her business off the ground, and she was like, "Will, I'm not in my 20s. I ain't in my 30s. I got... I'm not going to tell you my age, but I'm at a big age."

Mel Robbins 8:38 (laughs)

Will Packer 8:38 And I said, "Listen, in Hollywood, we have a saying that how they feel at the end is how they felt about the movie." Okay? What that means is that, and you've been there, right? You ever seen a movie and it's kind of slow and it's like, "Okay, I'm going to stick through it, but it's taking a long time-"

Mel Robbins 8:56 Yes.

Will Packer 8:56 "... to get there? And what is all this exposition and all this plot?" But then at the end, something amazing happens and you go, "Oh, now I see why all that other stuff happened." And you call and tell all your friends like, "Yo, this movie is great. You got to see this. It's good. It's got a hook, it's got a thing. I don't want to tell. You got to go see it." Right? Because the third act, and movies are broken down by acts, the first act is what gets everybody's attention. That's why you come. It's starring so-and-so, it's about this, it's a rom-com, it's a horror, it's a comedy, right? That's the first act. The second act is when you get invested in the characters, right? That's when you get to learn the story. But the third act, that's when you bring it home. That's when you really determine whether or not you love that movie or not. Everybody in Hollywood knows that. The way you leave them feeling. So many of us are in our second, third, and even beyond acts, but we're judging ourselves on what we did in act one. That doesn't even matter, right? The third act, that's how you leave people feeling. That's the value that people are going to attribute to you, right? You can't judge Mel Robbins on the first act of her life. I know that. You're very open and honest about that. Same with Will Packer. So whether you're in the first, second, or even third act, it's not over. You got to remember, it's the way you end it. It is the way you leave people feeling about what your most recent accomplishments are. So it's never too late.

Mel Robbins 10:16 What I also love about this is if you don't like how it feels, we know you're not in the third act yet.

Will Packer 10:21 There you go. That's right.

Mel Robbins 10:23 Right?

Will Packer 10:23 You're not at the end. You're not at the end. You still got more acts to go. You still got an opportunity to change and create a blockbuster life. It's never too late to pivot. The power of the pivot. I'm a big believer in embracing that power. Your movie's not over. Your story is not over being told.

Mel Robbins 10:41 I absolutely love this. I- I love it because it allows you to think about where you are as if you're in a scene-

Will Packer 10:47 Yes.

Mel Robbins 10:47 ... but this is not how it ends. If you're going to produce your life, you get to decide how it ends.

Will Packer 10:52 That's right. That's right.

Mel Robbins 10:53 You know, in

Mel Robbins 10:54 your book, you have this tool that you call healthy arrogance, but I don't want to be considered arrogant. So what do you mean by that?

Will Packer 11:01 Healthy arrogance is the feeling that you belong in any room that you're in, no matter who else is in that room. Okay? Not to be confused with toxic arrogance which says, "When I walk into a room, I'm better than everybody."

Mel Robbins 11:16 Mm-hmm.

Will Packer 11:16 Right? "I'm a winner. You're a loser. I'm good. You're bad." That's not what we're talking about.

Mel Robbins 11:21 Yep.

Will Packer 11:22 What it is is the belief that no matter who's in that room, you belong there because you have something that you're bringing. You have a confidence, because that's really what it is. Healthy arrogance is an outside confidence in the uniqueness of you. The most successful people are confident. Not loud. You don't have to walk into a room and announce it, but you got to know it. You got to know, "I'm doing something and bringing something to this room that nobody else in here has. Nobody else in here can do the way that I do it." And so when you walk in with that level of confidence, now you also realize that this room, not only do you deserve to be there, but the room is better because you're in it. And then you start thinking about, "How can I help to bring up the other people in this room to prove my worth and make the room better because of the thing that I do?"

Mel Robbins 12:16 I love something you just said.Because it's a framing that you can hold onto. Because I, I do think that if I really unpack this healthy arrogance, right? 'Cause I was really thinking, okay, so for somebody who's, like, super insecure and doesn't have a lot of confidence.

Will Packer 12:34 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 12:35 A lot of people struggle with imposter syndrome-

Will Packer 12:37 Yes.

Mel Robbins 12:37 ... you walk into a room, you think you have nothing to offer.

Will Packer 12:39 Yes.

Mel Robbins 12:40 I love this framing, "The room is better because I'm in it."

Will Packer 12:44 Yes.

Mel Robbins 12:45 That has nothing to do with intelligence or skill. It has to do with just your presence as a human being-

Will Packer 12:50 Yes.

Mel Robbins 12:50 ... and knowing that that in and of itself is a value.

Will Packer 12:53 Yes.

Mel Robbins 12:54 Is it fair to say, 'cause I was thinking about this concept of healthy arrogance, if somebody struggles with self-doubt and this inability to really see something positive about themselves, right?

Will Packer 13:08 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 13:09 Is the arrogance actually what it takes to be bigger than that self-doubt?

Will Packer 13:17 Healthy arrogance is internal.

Mel Robbins 13:19 Okay.

Will Packer 13:19 Not external, right?

Mel Robbins 13:21 Got it.

Will Packer 13:21 It is not about walking in and everybody going-

Mel Robbins 13:23 Oh, look at that Mel Robbins.

Will Packer 13:25 " Oh, look at that Mel Robbins."

Mel Robbins 13:25 "Boy, does she think she's the shit."

Will Packer 13:26 "Boy, does she think she's the shit."

Mel Robbins 13:26 (laughs) I hope they don't-

Will Packer 13:27 Right?

Mel Robbins 13:27 ... say that.

Will Packer 13:28 That's not what it's about.

Mel Robbins 13:30 Okay.

Will Packer 13:30 What it's about is Mel Robbins walking into that room and feeling like, "I've got an importance. I've got something. I got self-doubt 'cause everybody has it-"

Mel Robbins 13:39 Right.

Will Packer 13:40 "... I got that little doubt devil on my shoulder telling me what I'm not, what I can't be, what I don't have." Healthy arrogance is the other, the angel.

Mel Robbins 13:48 Tell me how that angel talks, 'cause a lot-

Will Packer 13:50 That angel-

Mel Robbins 13:50 ... a lot of that... That angel's not very loud.

Will Packer 13:52 You know what? That angel, that's what it is. We gotta make it louder.

Mel Robbins 13:54 Okay.

Will Packer 13:54 That angel's going, "Go, Mel."

Mel Robbins 13:55 (laughs)

Will Packer 13:56 "Go, Mel. Go, Will. Go..." Like, "Go. You got this. You can do it." Mel, I literally tell myself this. You talk about affirmations, I am the king of self-affirmations.

Mel Robbins 14:06 Let's hear it.

Will Packer 14:06 I look in the mirror every morning-

Mel Robbins 14:08 Yep.

Will Packer 14:08 ... and I do a Will Packer pep rally. I have my own little pep rally telling myself, "You got this. You got this. You have the skills. You have what it takes. You're prepared for the day. You're prepared for whatever's gonna come that you don't even know. You got it, Will. You're prepared for it." I do that for two reasons. One is because it's the last time I want to hear it today, right? Because we just don't walk around with a bunch of people, you know-

Mel Robbins 14:34 No.

Will Packer 14:34 ... unless you, you got a marching band following you around telling you how great you are. The second reason I do it is because my voice is the most important voice.

Mel Robbins 14:41 Mmm.

Will Packer 14:41 'Cause I hear it from the most important person I need to hear it from. That is one of the ways that you can build that confidence muscle, even if you're not that person, because none of us are born thinking, "Oh, I'm great. I have what it takes to be successful. I deserve success." That's not something we're born with. You have to build it.

Mel Robbins 15:01 Wait, so you did not... 'Cause, 'cause I... Being around you, Will, there's this just contagious, just kind, effervescent possibility. Like, I believe everything you're saying. I'm like, this dude must have literally entered the world-

Will Packer 15:21 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 15:21 ... with this wiring, because it is so woven into your DNA. Is this how you've always been or did you-

Will Packer 15:27 No.

Mel Robbins 15:28 Okay, well take me back-

Will Packer 15:29 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 15:29 ... to the beginning.

Will Packer 15:30 I always had a dream of being, like, really successful, and I didn't know what that looked like. I didn't know how to define it. But there was nothing about me or my life or my upbringing that said to me that, like, that was in the cards for me. It just wasn't. And for me, it was like the possibility of success outweighed the fear of failure, and that's where I'm trying to pull people to and get them to see that, like, the fear of failure is real. I get it. I understand it. I know depression and anxiety is something that all of us, at different levels, have to deal with. For me, I have this outsize desire for success. The what if I'm successful is what I listen to and what drives me, and it's louder than the what if I fail.

Mel Robbins 16:24 I love that you were able to teach yourself to say, "What if this works?"

Will Packer 16:29 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 16:29 "What if I am successful?"

Will Packer 16:31 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 16:31 "What if I just keep going a little bit longer and it actually freaking happens?"

Will Packer 16:34 Yes, yes.

Mel Robbins 16:35 How would you recommend to the person listening-

Will Packer 16:38 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 16:40 ... that you cultivate this?

Will Packer 16:41 It's a muscle.

Mel Robbins 16:42 Okay.

Will Packer 16:42 It's a muscle like any other muscle that you have to build, right? One of my secrets is that I will fabricate momentum.

Mel Robbins 16:51 O- Okay, fabricate momentum?

Will Packer 16:53 Yes.

Mel Robbins 16:54 Tell me.

Will Packer 16:54 Here's how I do.

Mel Robbins 16:55 Teach me, Will.

Will Packer 16:55 Yes. Too many times, we're so hard on ourselves in thinking, "What if I fail? What if I fail?" Because we feel like, "But Mel, Will, I haven't done anything," right? "I want to go out and climb the mountain. That's my goal. I want to climb the mountain. I can't. I haven't climbed the mountain yet." Well, first of all, that goal is too lofty, right? The first thing to do is not climb the mountain. That's not step one. Step one is buy mountain climbing shoes. That's it.

Mel Robbins 17:21 (laughs)

Will Packer 17:21 Step two, go drive by the mountain. Look at it, you know? Take a picture. Think about it. Go home. You know what you've done? You've done two things. You've completed two steps. You gotta tell yourself that, right? "I did one, I did two." Slow progress is still progress. I'll never forget, the first movie I ever made after I graduated from college, I set a goal for myself for how much money we were trying to raise.

Mel Robbins 17:44 Okay.

Will Packer 17:44 We were gonna raise $750,000.

Mel Robbins 17:46 Okay.

Will Packer 17:46 That was the goal. I couldn't raise it for the life of me. I didn't know anybody rich. I didn't have any money. That was the budget of the film, and I could not raise it. So what I did was instead of a monetary goal, I set a date goal. I said, "Okay, whatever I'm able to raise in the next three months, right? By the end of June, when that comes, that's the budget of the film." Mel Robbins, by the end of June, I had raised 75,000 whopping American dollars.

Mel Robbins 18:10 (laughs) Okay.

Will Packer 18:11 A long way away (laughs) and not enough money, especially back then, to make a movie.

Mel Robbins 18:15 Okay.

Will Packer 18:16 But guess what?

Mel Robbins 18:17 What?

Will Packer 18:17 I shot a tiny, a tiny little $75,000 movie.That did two things. The first thing it did was it gave me something to show people that I could do. I was saying I was a filmmaker, but now I could actually show them I'm a filmmaker. The second thing and the most important thing was that it showed me I could do it. It showed me, because I was like, "You know what? I didn't make it the way I wanted to make it, I didn't have the big budget, I didn't have the big stars, but I made something. I did something." Too many times we're setting a goal and we're saying, "If I don't accomplish that," or, "I don't know how I'm going to accomplish that," fabricate some momentum. Get it going, right? Get started. Do something you can accomplish and then another thing and then another thing. Before you know it, you've got a little momentum. It's another way to trick our brains into saying, "You know what? I'm not in a cycle of failure. I'm in a cycle of positivity." All you did was buy some mountain climbing shoes and drive by that mountain three times, but you're on your way. You're closer than you were sitting at home going, "I'll never be able to climb a mountain." You're a little bit closer. That's the key, whatever your mountain is. For me, it was literally going out and making a tiny little movie so that I could prove to myself I could make

Will Packer 19:32 something.

Mel Robbins 19:32 I love that you're proving to yourself. Now, did anybody see it?

Will Packer 19:35 Yeah, a couple people. Yeah.

Mel Robbins 19:37 A couple people?

Will Packer 19:37 It came out. It did. And you know what? I actually had success with that film. We actually went out because we hustled it. The other thing I believe is that you gotta be willing to do what others aren't, right?

Mel Robbins 19:48 Oh.

Will Packer 19:48 If you want to have what others want, you gotta be willing to do what others don't.

Mel Robbins 19:50 What? Say that again. That was really good.

Will Packer 19:52 Yes. It is- is a m- my mantra of my family, right? It's my wife and I have got four kids, so it's six of us. We're the Six Pack. The Six Pack mantra is, if you want to have what others want, you gotta be willing to do what others don't. And so with that movie, we drove our little tiny movie city to city to city to city. We drove and stayed in little Motel 6, Super 8 motel, where whoever would have us, and we would pass out flyers. We would pass out flyers at nightclubs. We'd pass out flyers in churches. We were in the South, so a lot of times it was the same people at the nightclub that were at the church the next morning, right?

Mel Robbins 20:30 (laughs)

Will Packer 20:30 It didn't matter. We were hustling. Nobody else was doing that at that time. So that's why we had success they didn't have. If you're doing what everybody else is doing, you're going to have the same sphere of success that they have. So you gotta be willing to step outside your comfort zone and step outside the comfort zone of other people.

Mel Robbins 20:46 In that story, I'm sure there were a million lessons doing it that way, and relationships-

Will Packer 20:51 Right. Yes.

Mel Robbins 20:51 ... and everything else that you don't think about.

Will Packer 20:52 I still use it to this day. That's why I sit where I sit, because of what I went out and drove my little tiny movie, you know, city to city to city, and that's how I ended up getting on Hollywood's radar.

Mel Robbins 21:03 Yeah, there's so many incredible stories in your New York Times bestseller, Who Better Than You, and one of the first ones that I loved, and it touches on this idea of healthy arrogance, is the story about your student film, Chocolate City.

Will Packer 21:18 Yes.

Mel Robbins 21:18 I love this story-

Will Packer 21:20 Yeah. Yeah.

Mel Robbins 21:21 ... for so many reasons.

Will Packer 21:22 Very first film I ever made, I was still a student. I was in college at Florida A&M University, and we made this tiny little movie. Literally, we just borrowed money. We used, you know, film that was sitting in a warehouse that nobody else was using. I mean, we had nothing to make this little movie, right? It starred us. It starred the kids on that campus. We were so audacious, and this is where the Who Better Than You and the healthy arrogance comes in, that after we finished this little tiny nothing of a movie, we're in Tallahassee, Florida. We said, "Well, we made a movie, okay? We gotta have a premiere." That's what you have when you have a movie, you have a big premiere. We couldn't make it to Hollywood. We didn't have any money for that. So we did a premiere right on our campus, right? Use the resources available to you.

Mel Robbins 22:08 Yep.

Will Packer 22:08 Right on our campus at our student auditorium, and we invited all the students, right? But you had to dress up. You had to wear black tie. Mel Robbins, these are broke college students. The audacity was a little mean now that I go back and think about it, because they all went out and did it. They went and rented tuxes and gowns because we said, "To get in, you gotta be... wear formal wear." What it did was it told them, "Okay, you know what? They're taking this very seriously. So I guess we should too. It's kind of crazy, but we'll do it," right? The other thing we did, we invited all of Hollywood. We invited all the major Hollywood studios. You name a studio, Sony, Warner Brothers, Paramount, we invited the heads of the studio. My mom, I'll never forget, my mother goes, "Well, baby, you should invite Oprah Winfrey." I said, "Mom, I don't know Oprah Winfrey." She said, "You don't know all those other people. You invited them."

Mel Robbins 22:59 (laughs)

Will Packer 22:59 "You invited this chairman of Sony Pictures. You don't know them? You invited them. You should invite Oprah." I said, "Okay, mom, I'll invite Oprah." I said, "But Oprah can only get a plus one, okay? 'Cause I don't have that many seats." So I invited Oprah. I gave her a plus one. She could have brought Stedman or Gail. Didn't matter to me, right? I'll never forget, Mel. I am standing in the student auditorium of my first little film, Chocolate City, and I'm introducing it to a room full of students who are all dressed to the nines, who took it serious 'cause I said they needed to, 'cause I said it was that important. And the entire front row is empty. Nobody's in the front row, because I saved it for all those fancy Hollywood folks. Mind you, nobody told me they were coming. Nobody responded at all. But Mel, what if a fleet of private jets showed up at the Tallahassee Regional Airport the night of my premiere? I had to be prepared. I'm standing there. The front row is completely empty. But there is not another empty seat in the house. It is standing room only for everybody else in that auditorium. And that's when I realized, "You know what? I'm not making my movies for the front row. I'm making it for everybody else who showed up and rented those tuxes and ball gowns and sat there, some stood, and loved that movie." They loved that student film because they saw themselves on screen. Hollywood couldn't be bothered to show up.... I realized I was stepping over the people that were actually in my corner ready to validate me-

Mel Robbins 24:27 Mm-hmm.

Will Packer 24:28 ... looking for the validation of people who had brands and names and money and titles. I was looking for that external validation. How many times do we do that? How many times do we ignore the people that are around us, that are in our corner that would support us because we're trying to get validation from people that we don't even know? Because we think their validation matters, because we think they're so important and we ignore the folks that we actually should be pouring into.

Mel Robbins 24:58 I love this story for so many reasons and one of the things-

Will Packer 25:01 (smacks lips)

Mel Robbins 25:01 ... I wanna hover on and make sure that as you're listening is how important it is to understand, especially in life if you're gonna put yourself out there or you're gonna put your art out there, or you're going to build a business, or you're gonna use social media for a different purpose than just sharing photos of your vacation and of your kids, we're often focused on getting a person in some C-Suite or some influence or some somebody to see it.

Will Packer 25:29 Yes.

Mel Robbins 25:30 And you're missing the fact that it's just everyday people-

Will Packer 25:34 Yes.

Mel Robbins 25:34 ... who are looking for your art-

Will Packer 25:36 Yes.

Mel Robbins 25:37 ... who you need to be talking to.

Will Packer 25:38 Yes.

Mel Robbins 25:39 And if you can focus on the people that are meant to find you and the, and, and expressing yourself-

Will Packer 25:46 Yes.

Mel Robbins 25:46 ... and then welcoming in the people that come-

Will Packer 25:48 Yes.

Mel Robbins 25:48 ... instead of wishing other people were there-

Will Packer 25:50 Yes.

Mel Robbins 25:51 ... you win.

Will Packer 25:51 Yes.

Mel Robbins 25:52 That's number one, but there's a second thing that I wanna make sure that we unpack. I believe that by reserving that row-

Will Packer 26:01 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 26:02 ... and actually extending the invitation and having, in your words, Will, a healthy level of arrogance, which means how dare you actually believe in yourself.

Will Packer 26:14 Yes.

Mel Robbins 26:15 Right? How dare you hold the space that maybe, just maybe somebody will show up. I believe that in acting as if you actually laid the foundation for them to be sitting there years later.

Will Packer 26:30 Yes. Yes, no question.

Mel Robbins 26:31 Can you talk a little bit about that, please?

Will Packer 26:33 Yes, because so many times we say, "The front row people aren't coming. They're not gonna support me. I'm not gonna get the deal. I'm not gonna... Nobody's gonna watch my video. The right people aren't gonna watch it. I'm not gonna create the content." You make yourself small because you think that the possibility of success feels so far away. But if you don't even open the door to that, now as I sit here, Oprah Winfrey is a friend. She didn't come to my Chocolate City premiere-

Mel Robbins 27:04 (laughs)

Will Packer 27:05 ... but I've got multiple shows on her network now. The reason that I sit where I sit is because I believed in myself enough to say, "Whether she comes or not, she should come, because what I'm doing is important enough." And I acted like it was important enough.

Mel Robbins 27:22 Mm-hmm.

Will Packer 27:22 Because if I had just said, "Ah, I got a little movie coming. I got a little premiere. Come wear your jeans and T-shirts and check it out and let me know what you think," people would've come, right? But they wouldn't have felt it was important. Too many times we're making ourselves small and not forcing others to realize how important our dreams and our endeavors are, but it starts with you. They're not gonna believe it if you don't. Why should I ever believe that what you're doing is important if you don't believe it? And I don't mean just believe it, I mean believe it so clearly and wholeheartedly that it's contagious. That's the other thing. The healthy arrogance is internal, but it also manifests itself in a way that you walk into a room differently and people wanna be around successful people. People wanna be around people that believe in themselves. And you can be one of those people that other people then gravitate to. Changing your mentality will make people gravitate to you that you're not even thinking about.

Mel Robbins 28:18 I just had this huge epiphany listening to you. You ready? And I think I can translate this into a question, uh, that you can ask yourself, kinda like one of these gut checks. You've already given us who better than me. I'm gonna give you another one. If this were really important to me, how would I show up differently than I am right now?

Will Packer 28:40 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 28:40 See, I think in life oftentimes f- we feel that something's important, and it could be something like you're a real estate agent. You have an open house this weekend. What does it look like if this open house is the most important open house you've ever done?

Will Packer 28:55 Yep.

Mel Robbins 28:55 You know, you are a person who really wants to get into, like, YouTube and creating a YouTube channel. Okay. Well, what does the video you're going to post look like and sound like and feel like if it's important to you?

Will Packer 29:10 Yep.

Mel Robbins 29:10 And I think a lot of times what we do is we put in, I can just say this for myself, we don't go all in because we're kind of afraid it's not gonna work.

Will Packer 29:20 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 29:20 And secretly you know if you kinda half-ass it a little-

Will Packer 29:26 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 29:26 ... and you don't go all in-

Will Packer 29:28 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 29:28 ... you can kinda blame that, but it was a-

Will Packer 29:30 That's an excuse. "I didn't really try."

Mel Robbins 29:32 Yeah.

Will Packer 29:32 "It's okay that it didn't work, you know."

Mel Robbins 29:34 But, but-

Will Packer 29:34 "I didn't go all out."

Mel Robbins 29:36 But what I love about what you're saying, this core principle around healthy arrogance is cultivating belief in self. And so you can do that and you can call yourself out by saying, "All right, if this actually were really important to me, how would I show up differently-"

Will Packer 29:56 Yes.

Mel Robbins 29:56 "... to communicate that to other people?"

Will Packer 29:59 Yes.

Mel Robbins 29:59 And you talked about passing out the flyers and going around.

Will Packer 30:02 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 30:02 That film, your first film for $75,000 was clearly important to you.

Will Packer 30:07 Yes.

Mel Robbins 30:07 And so you demonstrated that it was important by doing things that most people won't do.

Will Packer 30:12 Yes.

Mel Robbins 30:13 And that's a simple tool...... that I think can help you really check yourself, am I operating with a level of healthy arrogance here?

Will Packer 30:20 Yes.

Mel Robbins 30:21 Am I acting as if this is actually important to me and am I demonstrating that to people? Am I demanding that of people? I love that, Will.

Will Packer 30:28 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 30:29 It's such a nuanced thing, but it is so important.

Will Packer 30:33 The way you said it is so good, because you have to go all out and show up for yourself, that's really the key there. You deserve to give 110% to whatever the thing is. Your dream deserves it, the endeavor deserves it, you deserve it.

Mel Robbins 30:55 How does somebody listening start to apply this to their life? Like, you know, you're working your job, you're paying your bills, you're taking care of kids, you still have big dreams-

Will Packer 31:06 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 31:06 ... maybe you want to write a book, maybe you want to figure out how to make a million dollars and be financially inab- maybe you want to go back to school.

Will Packer 31:12 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 31:12 You've already talked about so many different tools that you use.

Will Packer 31:18 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 31:19 And this is clearly the way you move through life.

Will Packer 31:21 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 31:22 How can somebody begin where they are-

Will Packer 31:25 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 31:25 ... to start to live this way?

Will Packer 31:27 Yeah. The first thing is the balance of life, because life is so loud, right? So the first thing you have to do is you have to start to parse, you have to start to weed out some of the noise that's stopping you, right?

Mel Robbins 31:44 Hmm.

Will Packer 31:44 Because there's so many people, they can kind of see the dream, but it's fuzzy, because

Will Packer 31:49 the job is in the way, the family's in the way, the kids, money problems, there's stuff in the way. So I, I know the dream is down there, but I, I got to deal with this stuff around me first, right?

Mel Robbins 31:58 Yes.

Will Packer 31:59 And I understand that, because as a movie producer, you're always balancing multiple projects and everything's always going wrong. This is the life of a movie producer. I never get a call with people calling and saying, "Hey, just wanted you to know, everything's going great on set. We're on time, we're on bu- all the actors showed up, everything's great. I just wanted to call and let you know." I never... I've been producing movies for 30 years, I've never gotten that call, not once. Every call is some five alarm fire that's burning that is a disaster, right? So I'm dealing with all these disasters. That's how people feel in life, "My life is just a disaster, a disaster, disaster, disaster," right? So here's the thing, I believe you got to make the main thing the main thing. You got to keep the main thing the main thing, okay? And what that means is that when I am getting all these calls about things going wrong with various projects, I focus on the thing that needs my attention the most. I can't put out three fires at once, I just can't. So I have to focus on the one that's burning the brightest or that is the most timely, and while I'm putting out that fire, I already know they're going to be calling going, "You're not over here. We need you, we need you." I can't do that. I got to focus on this. Then once I do that, then I can switch and deal with something else. You have to compartmentalize that. You have to do that in your life. But here's the key, Mel...

Mel Robbins 33:22 Tell me.

Will Packer 33:22 ... sometimes the main thing is you. Sometimes the fire that's burning the brightest is you.

Mel Robbins 33:30 What does that mean?

Will Packer 33:31 If you're not okay, you can't help other people. And so one of the ways that you can kind of start to weed out-

Mel Robbins 33:38 Mmm.

Will Packer 33:39 ... all the noise is to keep the main thing at that moment the thing that you're focused on the most. So we have to protect our energy circle. Then you can start to say, "You know what? At a certain point, my dream, my long-term endeavor, that's the main thing that I got to pour into today." And you got to know the kids, the house, the job, they're going to be going, "What about me? What about me? What about me?" Uh-uh, 'cause today my main thing is my dream, is what I'm focused on, my endeavor, my next level, my third act. That's what I'm focused on today.

Mel Robbins 34:14 You know, one of the things that was a huge takeaway for me in your book, Who Better Than You?, is this notion of energy. It's a big thing that you talk about, keeping your energy locked on your vision. How do you keep your energy locked on your vision and what you want? Because you seem to be a master at it.

Will Packer 34:35 Yeah. You know, it's interesting, you talk about negative energy. We all have this, "I'm going to prove them wrong," right? "I am going to show them. I'm going to show the doubters and the haters and the people that didn't help me, I'm going to show them." Right?

Mel Robbins 34:50 Right.

Will Packer 34:50 That's superficial. That only lasts so long, right? Accomplishing anything worth accomplishing is gonna be really hard. It's gonna be hard. Life is hard. It means that you have to have a drive that's sustainable beyond just, "I'm gonna show you," right?

Mel Robbins 35:10 Yes.

Will Packer 35:11 Because, "I'm gonna show you," that ain't lasting. What will last though is, "This is something that speaks to me that I want and I deserve and I'm not gonna stop until I get it and I'm going to get it." That's sustainable. That's not me versus them. That is you pushing and cheering your own self on towards that goal. So that's how I do it. It's not about, "Let me prove all my haters wrong. Let me show them..." That's not it. It is, "Will Packer deserves to have this thing that I'm going after and I'm not going to stop until I get it, but I also am confident it's going to happen." I never let myself say, "Tsk, it ain't gonna

Will Packer 35:56 happen."

Mel Robbins 35:56 You also talk about this skill of enrolling people in your dream. So how do you enroll other people in your dream not by bragging-

Will Packer 36:04 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 36:05 ... but by showing your success and why it helps everyone? What does that even mean?

Will Packer 36:10 You enroll other people into your dream by listening to them and their dreams. The most successful people and the most successful leaders get everybody in the room to row in the same direction.People's favorite thing to talk about is themselves. Everybody, right?

Mel Robbins 36:28 So true.

Will Packer 36:29 Their favorite topic of conversation is yourself. And too many times, we can't listen to what other people are telling us about themselves 'cause we're too busy talking about our own favorite topic of conversation, our own selves, right? I have found so much success by listening to people and listening to what's really important to them. And when I find out what's important to them, oftentimes, there's a commonality. There's a synergy in what they're trying to do and what my ultimate goal is. And you got to know that your likelihood of success is far more likely if you have other people also working towards the same goal. Don't take a me-versus-them mentality. Take a we and an us. That's how you're going to be successful, is getting other people to buy into the common definition of success.

Mel Robbins 37:28 Do you have a story of, like, when you had to flip from me-versus-how-I-enroll-this-and-make-this-us?

Will Packer 37:37 Every movie that I have made, I've had to walk into a studio, and I'm pitching them my idea for a movie that I want to make, right?

Mel Robbins 37:47 Okay.

Will Packer 37:48 One example is a movie I made called Stomp the Yard. Stomp the Yard was a dance movie. It was about fraternities and sororities that step. It was a stepping movie-

Mel Robbins 38:00 Mm-hmm.

Will Packer 38:00 ... took place in college, and it was a big dance battle. Nobody in Hollywood wanted to make this movie, Mel. The way I got the movie made was by listening to the studios and hearing what they needed, and every studio told me no, and I went back again because that's just how dogged I was. Most of them told me no twice. They walked... I walked in the room, and they said, "Weren't you just in here? We said no bef- like, nothing's changed. What are you... Like, no. No again. What do you want us to do? Write it down?" All it takes is one yes, though. And there was one studio that had a dance movie that had worked for them the year prior. So I came in and I pitched my original college stepping movie as a sequel to their movie.

Mel Robbins 38:44 Brilliant.

Will Packer 38:46 That's what I pitched, and they loved it. It got me in the door. They said, "Oh. We've been thinking about a way to do a sequel. How would you do it?" I said, "Well, we'll take one of your stars from that movie, and then he'll go and dance in a whole nother environment, and then he'll teach his style of dance to these other folks, you'll have a big dance battle, and then..." And that's what became Stomp the Yard. It wasn't a sequel. It became its own movie, but I had to get in the door by listening to them and what they wanted. Everybody's focused on, "What's in it for me?" So you use that to figure out how to line that up with what you're trying to do. That's what I did. I had to be malleable, right? I couldn't be rigid and say, "This is the only way that this particular thing can work that I'm trying to do." You got to be malleable. But if you get other people saying, "You know what? I'm trying to do this," and you go, "Well, you know what? I'm trying to do that, and if we do it together, we can all win," that's literally what I did. I told... It was Sony Pictures. I said, "Sony, we can win together because you're looking for another dance movie, and I'm looking to make a movie that's set in a world of dance, right? Even though it's on a college campus. Let's combine these." And they said, "Yeah. Let's do it." Started off as a sequel. It ended up being Stomp the Yard. That was my first number one movie in Hollywood.

Mel Robbins 39:55 You know, this leads right into one of the other things that you teach in your book, that rejection is just data, and what I love about this story is that you now could look at every single no as the ability to listen and learn-

Will Packer 40:10 Yes.

Mel Robbins 40:11 ... about what the person that you're selling to or you're trying to convince of something, what actually matters to them, because you're going to hear it in the no.

Will Packer 40:19 Yes.

Mel Robbins 40:19 And then you just pivoted. You write a lot about pivoting. I want to read you from your book. This is page 31, New York Times Bestseller, Who Better Than You? "One of the worst sounds in the world is someone telling you no. And I don't mean let you down easy, it's not you, it's me, maybe next time soft declines. I'm talking in-your-face, no-holds-barred repudiation. 'Why me, Lord?' you might say, to the heavens. Or pivot, because rejection forces you to do one of two things, crawl into a ball of self-loathing and despair while crying, 'Why me, Lord?' to the heavens, or pivot. Do something else that just might ultimately be the right path forward. Getting turned down stings and can make it hard to see anything but the pain of the rejection, but if you can put aside your sensitivities and your ego and focus on regrouping, a no could be one of the best things that ever happen to you."

Will Packer 41:18 Yes. Yes.

Mel Robbins 41:20 It seems like this has happened over and over and over again. How has all these nos fueled your success? Like, "No." I know Beyoncé said no to you a lot.

Will Packer 41:29 Beyoncé said no to me five times. So I call that the fortuitous no, right? A no that actually has value.

Mel Robbins 41:39 Can I ask a question?

Will Packer 41:40 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 41:40 Doesn't every no have value, Will?

Will Packer 41:43 That's it. That is literally what I want to teach people. That is what I'm trying to teach people, Mel. Every no has value, but in order to find it, you got to get past the fact that you were told no, the fact that you were rejected, the fact that somebody said, "You're not enough, you're not good enough. Your project, your idea, your contract, whatever it is, we're not doing it. We're not making it. We're not investing. We're not buying your product." You got to get past that.

Mel Robbins 42:12 How?

Will Packer 42:13 By focusing on the why. By realizing that there's value in it if you realize why you got the no. I had a movie. It was called Obsessed.And my good friend, Idris Elba, was a star. I already had my male lead. I needed my female lead. We heard Beyonce was looking for a thriller. We sent it to Beyonce. Beyonce read it, but she said, "Thank you for sending it. I'm not doing the movie. It's not the movie for me." That hurt. I mean, one of the biggest stars in the world, I mean, if they tell you no, it's like, "Well, I must not be good at this." She told me no, but here is the key. She was gracious enough to tell me why. She could have just said no, right? And, "Get out of my face. I'm not telling you why."

Mel Robbins 42:59 Yep.

Will Packer 43:00 But I said, "What's holding you back? Tell me why. What's the thing that's making this movie not for you?" And she told me. And she told me what the elements were in the script and some of the elements of the story and some of the other production things that were holding her back. And I said, "Okay. Thank you. Got it." And then I went and I adjusted my movie. And I came back to Beyonce (laughs) and she said no again.

Mel Robbins 43:31 (laughs)

Will Packer 43:32 (laughs) And she was very sweet. And she said, "Listen. I appreciate you making changes to your project, but I'm not promising you if you make all the changes that I'm ever going to do it. So don't do it for me. Do it for you." And I told her, I said, "I am doing it for me." I said, "Because you're giving me actually really valuable feedback, because from your perspective as a big star who's considering this, like I, I may end up with somebody else, but hearing why you won't do it is helping me to adjust my project and it's actually making it better." And it did make it better. And I took it back to her, and she was nice enough to consider the project five times. By the sixth time, I had removed all the elements that stopped her from saying no. And I wish I could say I just wore her down. You don't wear Beyonce down. Beyonce is going to outwork anybody that you or I know or have ever met. Nobody works harder than her. So she would have said no 1,000 times, right? Or just said, "Stop coming back." But she considered it, and on that sixth time, she said yes. And what I realized was that I had a better project because I had gone through the process. I got Beyonce on the sixth time. I could have got Beyonce on the first time, but it wouldn't have been the same movie. Whatever your Beyonce is, your Beyonce may never say yes. However, if your project, your endeavor, if your thing is better by going through that process, then it was fortuitous. Then it was good. You're better for it. Now, I had to do a cost-benefit analysis. I had to make sure the changes I was making were making it better and were worth it for what I was going after. Beyonce was worth it. We all have to do that cost-benefit analysis, right? Sometimes somebody may tell you no, and you may say, "Okay, they're not the person for me," right? It's not worth it to make the changes that they want. But it's valuable to hear why they said they're not going to renew my contract, why they said they're not going to buy my product, why they said they're not going to hire me.

Mel Robbins 45:26 Or date you. Or...

Will Packer 45:28 Or... Absolutely. Or date you. If somebody says they're not going to date you, you know what? That's valuable information. Rejection is data. Take it as data. Be a computer, right? Just be unemotional, analytical for a second. Take it all in. They don't want to date you? Fine. We'll never date them. But what is it about that person, that interaction, the way that you came off? What is it that we can glean from that that will make us better when we find the right person out there who we will date?

Mel Robbins 45:58 You know what I find fascinating about that story? That you actually went back five times. (laughs) No, I, I just want to hover on this, because first of all, Beyonce was gracious in giving you the feedback, right?

Will Packer 46:11 Yes.

Mel Robbins 46:11 And so, clearly, that says a lot about you and your reputation. But I think a lot of us, I think if we were in that, that situation-

Will Packer 46:22 Oh, yeah.

Mel Robbins 46:22 ... I might start to feel cringey-

Will Packer 46:24 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 46:25 ... at, at the third time.

Will Packer 46:26 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 46:27 So, what is it about the way you framed the request for feedback-

Will Packer 46:33 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 46:34 ... that might make the rest of us mere mortals successful when we hit that moment where it's like, "Well, I couldn't go back again"?

Will Packer 46:42 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 46:43 Or like, uh, "I'm really getting really annoying now."

Will Packer 46:45 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 46:45 Or, "That person, like, I, I, I've, I've shown this person a house 15 times. I can't call them again, because..." You, you know what I'm saying? Like, we stop-

Will Packer 46:53 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 46:53 ... ourselves-

Will Packer 46:54 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 46:55 ... from seeking it.

Will Packer 46:56 It goes back to what we talked about when we realize when we treat something as so important-

Mel Robbins 47:02 Mm.

Will Packer 47:02 ... it forces other people to acknowledge that importance and to perceive it the way you're perceiving it, right? You're showing the house for the 15th time because you really, really, really believe this house is right for that customer. I really believe, Beyonce, that this project has got a lot of potential. I really believe in it. So, I'm not... It's okay if you say no. I always made it clear, like, "It's fine. I just want you to look at it one more time. I just want you to read it. I adjusted the schedule. I changed some elements. I adjusted the scre-... I just want you to look at it. Would you please look at it?" And she was like, "You know what? This guy is determined. He's dogged, but also, he really is passionate about this project," right? When the realtor is saying, "I really do want you to loo-... I know the kitchen's not perfect, but have you looked at the laundry room? Like, this is a one-of one. Like, the master on main, the hardwood floors." Like, when you are impressing upon other people how important it is, they have to at least acknowledge that.

Mel Robbins 48:04 You know what I love about this too? We get so focused on people saying yes. And what you're saying is, "No, no, no, no, no."

Will Packer 48:10 Right.

Mel Robbins 48:11 "Put your attention on what's actually important to you, and really show up in a way that demonstrates that this is important." And then every time you're talking to people, whether it's at work or in your community or in your family or your friend group, trying to get people on board...You're just focused on how important this is, and any piece of feedback actually can make it better.

Will Packer 48:36 It's good. It's good feedback. That yes is more likely because you learned from the no.

Mel Robbins 48:41 I love your stories, and so where I want to go next is, is how Kevin Hart almost ruined your career when you were-

Will Packer 48:47 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 48:47 ... producing the blockbuster hit Ride Along.

Will Packer 48:50 Yes.

Mel Robbins 48:51 What happened?

Will Packer 48:51 Oh, my God. Kevin Hart, we're each other's most frequent collaborators. Okay? He hasn't worked with another producer, director as much as he's worked with me, and sadly, Mel, I have not worked with another actor as much as I have worked-

Mel Robbins 49:04 (laughs)

Will Packer 49:04 ... with my short little evil friend. And I say that with all sincerity, but of course with the love that I have for the guy. We're making this movie Ride Along, it was like the first time for Kevin Hart to show that he was a star. We were coming off an ensemble picture that we had made that had, that had done well called Think Like a Man based on Steve Harvey's book.

Mel Robbins 49:26 Mm-hmm.

Will Packer 49:26 It was him and it was Ice Cube. Ice Cube's a consummate straight man, right? Kevin was the sole comedic driver in this movie. Everything's going great. We're there, we're shooting the movie, it's the biggest budget either of us had had in our careers. We are focused on this movie, right? One would think. Kevin comes to me, he goes, "Hey, by the way, next Friday I gotta go do a little comedy show, so I was just wondering if, uh, I could get off a little early 'cause I got the show Friday night." And I said, "All right, I'll check the schedule." I check the schedule and I'm going, "Well wait, Kevin, we shoot on Friday, we got a late night, and we shoot Saturdays. You know it's a big day because we can only get that location on Saturday, we talked about this." He goes, "Was that that day? Was that?" I go, "Kevin, you know it was that day. For a good actor, you're a bad actor. What are you doing? What are you telling me?" He goes, "Listen. I gotta go do a show out of town." "Out of town? Where?" "It's in New York." "New York? Kevin, no. You can't do the show in New York. We're in the middle of shooting." He goes, "Okay, I'ma level with you. It's my big comedy show in Madison Square Garden. It's the first time, it's a special, they're filming it." I go, "What? You have a huge comedy show in the middle of our shoot and you're just now telling me?" I realize he was telling me so that it would be so late that I couldn't-

Mel Robbins 50:45 (laughs)

Will Packer 50:45 ... cancel the Madison Square Garden show. And I had no choice but to adjust my schedule. Now, I, I had to shoot Saturday. I could not change the Saturday shoot, it was just that important. So I said, "Okay, oh my God." He could tell I was freaking out. He goes, "Will, don't worry about it. I tell you what, let's wrap early Friday. If you can get me out Friday, we'll go to New York and I'll go do the show, I'll fly right back, I'll be here for Saturday." I said, "Wait, we? What do you mean we?" He goes, "Yeah, it's important enough I want you to be there, it's a big show for me. By the way, you'll be there to make sure I get back on time." I was like, "You know what? He's got a point. If I'm there, I can make sure he doesn't get lost in New York, right?" I can go up, see the show and come back. Mel Robbins, we fly to New York, he does the show, the show was amazing. After the show, all of a sudden, I'm like, "Okay guys, time to get back, we gotta get on the jet, time to go." Somebody goes, "Well yeah, you know Kevin's already committed to the afterparty." What, what afterparty?

Mel Robbins 51:38 (laughs)

Will Packer 51:38 What are we talking about? What are we talking about? I gotta be on set at 6:00 AM back in Atlanta, we're, we're in New York, we gotta go home. Kevin goes, "Ah, it's just a small thing. I gotta, I gotta just walk through this afterparty. They're making me do it." Who is they that are not Kevin Hart or Will Packer, right? I end up in a nightclub with Kevin Hart, bottles are being popped all around us, the DJ is going, "Kevin Hart just sold out Madison Square Gar-" People are going crazy. I'm going, "Kevin, we gotta get out of here, what are you doing?" He's like, "Okay, let's go." Right when it's time to go, Carmelo Anthony, legendary New York Knick, walks in with a bunch of tall dudes, bottles in tow, the waitresses got sparklers and everything. Carmelo walks right up to Kevin Hart he goes, (claps hands) "You killed it at Madison Square Garden, we gonna die tonight."

Mel Robbins 52:25 (laughs)

Will Packer 52:25 "That's how hard we're gonna party." I go, "Oh my God, oh my God. My career is flashing before my eyes. Carmelo, we can't die tonight. (laughs) Let's die tomorrow. Let's die after I shoot the movie, not tonight. What is happening?" Literally, I end up in a nightclub with Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Hart, and Kevin goes, "Well, we tried, Will." And I said, "I will kill you. I will strangle you in this club." What I realized, this is why I call him an evil genius, is because he got me to go to New York with him because if we don't show back up in time for that shoot and it's just him, the studio's gonna be really mad at Kevin Hart and he's gonna be in trouble and he's gonna be on the hook for that money. But if the producer is there, Mel, if I'm there with him in New York, I allowed him to go, I'm complicit in this plan, it's all on me. So when Kevin goes, "Well, we tried," I realized right then, I said, "You mother... You planned this shit. You did this." I literally, I beg Carmelo Anthony, Carmelo is freaking 6'10", I am not. I'm jumping up in the club begging him to let us off the hook to get out, I gotta get him to the airport, I gotta... Carmelo goes, "All right. I'ma give you a rain check, okay? But next time, we're turning up, Kevin. We're gonna party. Get out of here." I had to get a police escort to take us from this nightclub to the private airfield at Teterboro and I literally, because I had to get there within a certain window or the pilots-

Mel Robbins 53:52 Oh, would time out.

Will Packer 53:54 ... would have timed out, right? There's only a certain number of time, amount of time they can be on the clock. I'm trying to get on a plane at like 3:00 in the morning, and so I'm like, "Guys, we gotta get there in 20 minutes." It's a hour drive. Police escort, I begged these cops, we're screaming through the streets of New York, get on the plane, fly back, we finish the scene, and the movie opened number one. You can't make this up.

Mel Robbins 54:15 Like you always seem to have the ability, which I think is a very unique ability, but it's a skill that you're teaching us-

Will Packer 54:25 Yes.

Mel Robbins 54:26 ... to be clear about the bigger picture-

Will Packer 54:28 Right.

Mel Robbins 54:29 ... and to be able to produce an outcome.

Will Packer 54:33 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 54:33 Right?

Will Packer 54:34 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 54:34 And, you know, th- you had another very public experience...... at the 2022 Oscars-

Will Packer 54:41 Yes.

Mel Robbins 54:41 ... where you were producing the show where that shocking situation happened-

Will Packer 54:47 Yes.

Mel Robbins 54:47 ... with Will Smith-

Will Packer 54:48 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 54:48 ... slapping, you know, Chris Rock.

Will Packer 54:50 Yeah. Yeah.

Mel Robbins 54:51 Can you put us at the scene of just, for you, you're running this thing, it's live, you've got a live audience, you've got social media, you got the (laughs) televised audience, you've got a show to put on-

Will Packer 55:05 Yes.

Mel Robbins 55:05 ... and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, something happens that you weren't expecting.

Will Packer 55:13 Right. Right.

Mel Robbins 55:14 What was that like for you?

Will Packer 55:15 Oh, my gosh. It was easily the most challenging moment of my career, easily. In the book I talk about, uh, Rudyard Kipling has a poem called If, and one of the lines is, "If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same." And what Rudyard is saying is that triumph and disaster are both imposters. Don't buy into abject failure. Don't buy into the perfection of success, right? None of that's real. You gotta keep an even keel. So when you ask about being in these tough moments, I always realize, if I panic then I am no good to anybody and there's no way I'm gonna get through the moment. I can't panic. I produced those Oscars, and the thing you gotta know about the Oscars is that it is a year of work before anybody ever sees the show, right? You are working, working, working, you're trying to get all the actors and the, the sets and the performances. It's a big, massive show.

Mel Robbins 56:21 And have you ever produced a big live show, or are you-

Will Packer 56:24 No. First one.

Mel Robbins 56:24 ... only had been producing movies-

Will Packer 56:26 Movies.

Mel Robbins 56:26 ... where you film and then cut it together-

Will Packer 56:28 You got it.

Mel Robbins 56:28 ... and so there's more control?

Will Packer 56:29 I had never done a live show on that scale.

Mel Robbins 56:32 And weren't you also one of the first Black producers-

Will Packer 56:34 Yes.

Mel Robbins 56:34 ... who actually produced the Oscars?

Will Packer 56:36 Absolutely. Myself and, uh, an incredible woman named Shala Cowan, she was my producing partner, we were the first all-Black producing team to produce the Oscars. So there's a lot of pride in that-

Mel Robbins 56:48 Yeah.

Will Packer 56:48 Right?

Mel Robbins 56:48 And a year leading up to this.

Will Packer 56:50 Year leading up to it, I think I got it all under control, I know what's gonna happen, 'cause the Oscars are so big, you're planning out every second of the show. So I knew what was gonna happen every second of the show, right?

Mel Robbins 57:02 Now, are you behind... Do you have, like, one of those big walkie-talkie things NFL sets on?

Will Packer 57:07 You got it.

Mel Robbins 57:07 You're not sitting in the audience like-

Will Packer 57:08 No.

Mel Robbins 57:08 ... "Oh, I did a good job."

Will Packer 57:09 I wish.

Mel Robbins 57:10 Okay.

Will Packer 57:10 No.

Mel Robbins 57:11 Okay.

Will Packer 57:11 So when you produce the Oscars, you're literally just off stage, right?

Mel Robbins 57:15 And are you wearing a tux?

Will Packer 57:16 I, oh, yeah.

Mel Robbins 57:17 Okay.

Will Packer 57:17 You dress up, yeah.

Mel Robbins 57:18 Okay.

Will Packer 57:18 So you're wearing a tux and you're just off stage with the headset, you're talking to your camera people, you know, they're doing live editing, there's a director telling people where to, to look, where the cameras are go.

Mel Robbins 57:30 Wow.

Will Packer 57:30 And so, and you got the f- you got all this paper in front of you, right? So that's me, I'm just off stage. When Chris goes on stage, and we had rehearsed the show, I mean, to within an inch of its life, so I knew everything that was supposed to happen, he immediately went off script.

Mel Robbins 57:44 (laughs)

Will Packer 57:45 Immediately, right? But it's Chris Rock, so if anybody's gonna go off script and you figure, like, "You know what? Let's see what happens, it's okay." It's Chris Rock. He's amazing at improv. So, he immediately goes off script, and I'm not sure where he's going, right? He tells a joke about some other actors and he tells a joke about Jada, Will's wife. And the first time I knew that something was amiss was that he told the joke and Jada didn't laugh.

Mel Robbins 58:13 Hmm.

Will Packer 58:14 And the camera was right there on Jada, and you gotta remember, I'm in the back and people are in my ear and I'm hearing, "Okay, we're gonna cut here, cut here." 'Cause we know where everybody's seating.

Mel Robbins 58:23 Mm-hmm.

Will Packer 58:23 So whatever Chris said, we were just gonna cut to that person, right, even on the fly. He said, made a joke about Jada, we cut to Jada, you can see Jada's reaction on the screen, it's not good. That's when Will goes up on stage. And I thought like everybody else, that it was a joke. I didn't think it was real. I was like, "Okay, that wasn't that funny, so these guys who clearly know each other, they have history, like, they gotta play this off somehow," right? I'm still thinking as a producer, I'm thinking, "Okay, how can we make a joke out of this? How is this gonna be funny?" It wasn't until he, Will went back to his seat and he does the famous line where he says, "Keep my wife's name out of your effing mouth," right? And people asked me, like, "Well, why did you show that on TV? You know, you knew Will was mad." And I try to tell people, "When you're doing a live show, it's like a tennis match. You just follow the ball," right? And so Chris made the joke, we cut to Jada, we cut back to Chris, Will walks up, we're just following him, we don't know what's gonna happen. When he sat back down and yelled it out, the camera had no place else to go. Every other actor in the theater that night at the Oscars was doing this. Everybody was aghast, right? I couldn't go to, like, Charlize Theron, she looked like she had seen a ghost. Like, nobody looked normal. So I had no... I would've had to cut to a palm tree on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Mel Robbins 59:45 (laughs)

Will Packer 59:45 Like, I had nowhere to go, Mel. So the cameras cut to Will, he says that, that's when everybody knew it wasn't a joke. He was clearly upset, and that's the moment where I said, "Oh, shit." And I immediately went into damage control and conflict mitigation. I immediately, as a producer, said, "Okay. I gotta finish the show." That's where I went, because when you're in a high pressure situation, whatever it might be, you might not be producing the Oscars with, you know, hundreds of millions of people watching, but when you go into a situation you can't control, if you're gonna get through it, you gotta keep your wits about you.

Mel Robbins 1:00:28 How did you do that? Because I- I, one of the reasons why I was really curious about this moment in your life-

Will Packer 1:00:33 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:00:34 ... is that, you're right, I'm not gonna be producing the Oscars, the person listening may never do that-

Will Packer 1:00:39 Right.

Mel Robbins 1:00:39 ... but we might be at a wedding...... or somebody's mother-in-law gets drunk.

Will Packer 1:00:44 That's right.

Mel Robbins 1:00:44 And sounds off.

Will Packer 1:00:46 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:00:46 You might be in a big pitch at work and-

Will Packer 1:00:49 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:00:49 ... somebody blows it.

Will Packer 1:00:50 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:00:51 You might be at a family dinner-

Will Packer 1:00:52 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:00:53 ... or on a date-

Will Packer 1:00:54 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:00:54 ... and somebody goes off script-

Will Packer 1:00:56 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:00:57 ... and you're sitting there with that just pit in the stomach.

Will Packer 1:01:00 And especially if it's something you've worked so hard, right? It's your-

Mel Robbins 1:01:03 Yes.

Will Packer 1:01:03 ... wedding, and the mother-in-law gets drunk and goes off the rails, or it's your pitch and you've worked so hard on it for months, and then somebody comes in and totally messes it up, right? If you're in that situation, you immediately have to say, "What can I control?" When you're in a situation and the unexpected happens, immediately ask yourself, "What can I control right now in this situation? I can't control what just happened." I couldn't control what happened with Will and Chris.

Mel Robbins 1:01:29 Right.

Will Packer 1:01:30 Right?

Mel Robbins 1:01:30 Over. It's already happened.

Will Packer 1:01:31 Happened.

Mel Robbins 1:01:32 Yep.

Will Packer 1:01:32 What can I control? And I immediately went to a place of, "I need to finish the show."

Mel Robbins 1:01:40 You know what I love about this, is that it's actually applying what you've already taught us, which is you said you have to stay focused on the vision and the biggest fire.

Will Packer 1:01:51 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:01:51 And the biggest fire and dream and thing that you have in that moment-

Will Packer 1:01:55 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:01:56 ... is, "I gotta finish the show."

Will Packer 1:01:58 That's right.

Mel Robbins 1:01:58 That is what I can control.

Will Packer 1:02:00 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:02:00 And in the conversation about the wedding-

Will Packer 1:02:03 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:02:03 ... I, I want to get through this day and have a great day-

Will Packer 1:02:07 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:02:08 ... and that's what I'm gonna focus on.

Will Packer 1:02:09 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:02:09 And so you picked the thing you were gonna focus on, which is, "I gotta get through that show."

Will Packer 1:02:13 Finish the show.

Mel Robbins 1:02:14 Does that help you settle?

Will Packer 1:02:16 Yes. In the book, I write about this, and I say, "Every disaster isn't a failure," right? And so it was a disaster in the moment, but it wasn't a failure. It took time later for me to say, "You know what? There were a lot of great things about that show that I accomplished." It was the most diverse show in Oscar history, right? I had legendary winners. It was the first time a deaf actor won, the first time you had a queer Latina actress win. We had things at that show that you typically don't have because I had put my stamp on it, and none of that had anything to do with that moment. And so if you can get past the moment that feels like, "Oh my God, this is unmitigated disaster, everything is gone, it, the world has exploded," if you can survive it, I promise you, your work will not have been in vain if, in the moment, gather yourself, breathe, let go of the things you can't control, focus on, "What's the main thing? Okay, this is the fire burning the brightest. I gotta get through..." For me, it was, "I gotta finish the show. I gotta make sure that I've got... I, I can't let this derail the show, right? Everybody, stay focused, guys. Okay? Who's next up? Make sure that other actor is ready to come up, present the award. We'll go to commercial break. When we come back, make sure you're ready, right?" Amy Schumer made a great joke about it. If you go back and watch the show, I talked to her about it, "Give me something, give me some levity on this, Amy." She was great in the moment. Like, "That's what you have to do." We got past it and we finished the show. That was my job. So whether it's that or it's that family reunion and the drunk uncle who you told not to come. You said, "Do not come, Uncle Jeff."

Mel Robbins 1:03:55 (laughs) Here he comes.

Will Packer 1:03:56 And here he comes with a bottle of, of Jim Beam, and you know what he's on, right? When that happens, you gotta say, "What can I control? Can I remove him? If I can't remove him, how can I mitigate how much damage he's gonna cause?"

Mel Robbins 1:04:11 Mm-hmm.

Will Packer 1:04:12 "Because I gotta get through this situation." That's what I was thinking.

Mel Robbins 1:04:16 Well, I love that 'cause it's also bigger. Like, I think what happens in life when you have a situation where other people have something going on and it impacts the way that you think things are gonna go, you can't control the other people.

Will Packer 1:04:30 Right.

Mel Robbins 1:04:31 And we tend to get sucked into that-

Will Packer 1:04:33 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:04:34 ... and then we lose sight of the bigger picture and the impact to everybody else that's around. And so I think it's a really amazing reminder to all of us that it's very easy to get hijacked by what's happening between people-

Will Packer 1:04:49 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:04:50 ... or with one person-

Will Packer 1:04:51 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:04:52 ... and lose sight of the bigger picture of steering yourself past it, knowing that you'll figure out what just happened-

Will Packer 1:04:58 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:04:58 ... later.

Will Packer 1:04:59 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:04:59 What I love about this is that it also teaches us that you need to act like the thing that you're focused on is important.

Will Packer 1:05:10 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:05:11 Because-

Will Packer 1:05:12 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:05:12 ... when you take your eye off the ball, let's say you're out to dinner and you got a little drama with some friends over here, when you turn toward that drama and you join in, that now becomes important.

Will Packer 1:05:22 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:05:23 When you are grounded enough and have a healthy level of arrogance-

Will Packer 1:05:29 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:05:29 ... that you know what is actually the higher priority-

Will Packer 1:05:32 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:05:32 ... that's where you keep your focus.

Will Packer 1:05:35 Yes. It all goes back to prioritizing you and knowing that you deserve something that is above and beyond that conflict that's happening.

Mel Robbins 1:05:45 "But who better than me-

Will Packer 1:05:47 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:05:47 ... to stay focused on what's important here and steer us through this thing?" I love that. I love that.

Mel Robbins 1:05:52 Um, you know, one of the things that you write about a lot in the book, and I believe in this but I can't wait to hear you talk about, which is, do the work when no one's watching.

Will Packer 1:06:01 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 1:06:02 What does that mean?

Will Packer 1:06:03 Hmm. We live in an age where we all are looking for immediate validation, and social media gives that to us, right? People tell you a great story and it's like, "Well, where's the pics? Let me s- You didn't post about it, right? Pics or it didn't happen." It is the work you put in when nobody is watching that makes everybody pay attention later. You're gonna get the attention, but you gotta wait.

Mel Robbins 1:06:30 Well, you have a great story in the book about being an intern on a movie set. Could you tell that story and why it's so important to do the work when no one's watching?

Will Packer 1:06:41 Absolutely. My very first movie, that movie I made, Chocolate City, when the front row was empty, I finished the movie-... I had it done, right? I'm on the set of another movie, the movie is called Ride. It was being produced by the Hudlin brothers, famed movie producers, they produced Boomerang and House Party and other stuff. And I'm interning on the set, and I walk up to Warrington Hudlin, and I have my movie, right? And I say, "Mr. Hudlin, I'm a filmmaker, and I just wanted to see if I could pick your brain." You can see his eyes just glaze over.

Mel Robbins 1:07:16 "Here we go," is what he's thinking, right?

Will Packer 1:07:18 You, you could tell. Every... And now I know what that's like because I get a lot of people that approach me like that, and I know he's thinking, "Here's another filmmaker, I don't have time for this," or, "I'm not in the mood in the moment," until I pulled out my movie. And it was a little shrink-wrapped VHS copy of the first movie I ever made, Chocolate City. And I handed it to him, and as soon as he saw that movie, he immediately changed. And he said, "Oh, you've already done something." He said, "Oh, you've produced a movie." And I said, "Yeah, that's what I was trying to say, when I was in college," and he said, "Stop." He said, "In Hollywood, everybody's talking about what they're about to do, what they're going to do, what they're planning to do." He said, "You've got to be a doer, not a talker." He said, "This shows me that you've actually done something." Social media applauds the talkers. It gives validation to people who are going, "Well, just you wait, I'm working on this," you know, "New, new chapter loading," right? "New business on the way. Just you wait, I'm working on it." Stop talking about it. Don't be a talker. Be a doer. Everybody's talking.

Mel Robbins 1:08:27 Do things-

Will Packer 1:08:28 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:08:28 ... and show me what they're doing.

Will Packer 1:08:30 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:08:30 And so, what would you say is the most important thing for anybody as... particularly early in their career-

Will Packer 1:08:39 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 1:08:39 ... or somebody that wants to have a creative job?

Will Packer 1:08:44 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 1:08:45 What would you say is the single most important thing that they need to be doing right now?

Will Packer 1:08:52 Yes. So, I ran a marathon last year.

Mel Robbins 1:08:56 You did?

Will Packer 1:08:57 I did. I turned 50 last year, and it was on my bucket list. I said, "I've been talking about running a marathon, I'm gonna finally do it."

Mel Robbins 1:09:05 Okay.

Will Packer 1:09:05 It damn near killed me.

Mel Robbins 1:09:06 (laughs)

Will Packer 1:09:07 But I finished that thing, okay? I ran a marathon and I realized that a marathon is such an incredible metaphor for life. Because life is all about execution, especially if you are going into a challenging industry or a creative industry. Life is all about execution. When I stood at the starting line of that marathon, Mel Robbins, I had the perfect shoes.

Mel Robbins 1:09:39 (laughs)

Will Packer 1:09:40 They fit so good. I had gone, I had tried them out, I went to a custom shoe shop, I had the right socks, I had a headband, I had the right dry-fit, you know, moisture-wicking T-shirt on. I had all the things that I needed. I was so prepared, right? Being prepared at the starting line is like having a great idea. Nothing matters until you run the 26.2 miles. Having a great idea is like having the perfect shoes at the beginning of a marathon. It doesn't matter until you actually go out and execute it, till you actually go out and do it. Everybody's trying to make sure they got the right Instagram-worthy hat and shoes and tank top and sweatbands and all of that. When all that matters is, are you gonna finish the race? Are you gonna execute? That's the advice I give to people. Execution is the key. Go out and do it. And remember, it's okay if you don't start great, right? It's okay if the first act, eh, it's not as great as you wanted it to be. Even the second act, ah, could use some improvement. What are people gonna remember? How you finish. Right? When I tell people I ran a marathon, they go, "Oh, my gosh. Wow." They don't say, "Well, what'd it feel like at mile three and a half?" They don't say, "Hey, were you sweating a lot at mile 19?" Nobody says that. They go, "You ran a marathon? You finished?" And I go, "You're damn right I did," because that's what matters. The execution. We get too caught up in everything else that doesn't matter. Focus on the execution.

Mel Robbins 1:11:23 I love that.

Will Packer 1:11:25 And remember, preparation paralysis-

Mel Robbins 1:11:29 What does that mean?

Will Packer 1:11:29 ... is real. What that means is, oftentimes we feel like, "I'm not ready to do the thing, 'cause I'm not prepared. I don't have everything lined up, so I can't take the step, I can't cross the starting line, 'cause I don't have every last element." You'll never have everything. Ever. Sometimes you gotta take the leap. You get as prepared as you can, and then you gotta go. Because, we talked about climbing the mountain, you can have the right shoes, you can have the water canteen, you can have the rope, but until you get on the mountain and you grab hold of a spot and the rocks slip, right, until you feel the cold air on your face, you don't know. You'll never be prepared enough to not take some form of risk. There will always be unknown. Some people get paralyzed in the preparation stage. That's preparation paralysis.

Mel Robbins 1:12:35 'Cause it feels like you're doing something.

Will Packer 1:12:37 Feels like you're doing something-

Mel Robbins 1:12:37 Like, you're just getting ready to do something.

Will Packer 1:12:39 Getting ready is fine, but at some point, you gotta do something. Right? There are people that have been preparing to do the thing for 10 years.

Mel Robbins 1:12:47 What I love about that story is this. I think oftentimes, we get so paralyzed with thinking that, "Oh...It's gotta be perfect, it's gotta be a hit, it's gotta be the best thing I've ever done.

Will Packer 1:13:01 Right.

Mel Robbins 1:13:02 And, we're focused on, like let's just take Chocolate City. It's a student film, right? But I think we often get to that moment, and then Chocolate City doesn't become the blockbuster that you want it to become, 'cause it's not going to, it's just your student film.

Will Packer 1:13:21 Right.

Mel Robbins 1:13:22 But it is in service of something that is to come later.

Will Packer 1:13:27 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:13:28 It is in service of that moment when you hand over the tape.

Will Packer 1:13:32 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:13:32 And perhaps as you're listening, you're working very hard at something and you're not getting the result, or you're not getting the accolade, or you're not getting the yeses that you deserve. I think having this mindset that maybe this is your Chocolate City, maybe this thing you're working on now is in service of something greater that's yet to come.

Will Packer 1:13:57 Absolutely. Leading to another level of success. Somebody listening/watching right now feels like they're not successful and they couldn't be more wrong. They couldn't be more wrong.

Mel Robbins 1:14:06 Mm-hmm.

Will Packer 1:14:06 Because you have to define success for yourself, and too often we allow everybody else to define success. What is success? Well,

Will Packer 1:14:15 it has to make X amount of dollars. Well, it has to get this number of views. No. You define success. You define success for yourself. Sometimes the fact that you got it done, damn it, that's the success, and there's nothing wrong with that. Define it for you.

Mel Robbins 1:14:33 I love this. You, as a producer, put together all the pieces for these huge blockbuster movies, and one of the things that you have to choose is the cast.

Will Packer 1:14:42 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:14:42 And you say choose your cast in a movie and in life wisely.

Will Packer 1:14:47 Wisely. So what that means is that you have to constantly be looking at and evaluating your circle. I believe that people are either augmenting your energy, making it better, or they're draining it. I think it's binary. I think there is no in between. The folks around you, you have to pay attention to them, because the ones closest to you are those that can help get you to the next level or make sure that you'll be stuck in the same rut. And part of the reason I wrote this book is because when you understand that you deserve success, you understand that you deserve to be around people that also are contributing to your success, and also have a successful mindset.

Mel Robbins 1:15:35 Well, I'd love to hear, how has community and having a community of supportive cast members around you-

Will Packer 1:15:44 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 1:15:45 ... played a role in the way that you move through life, played a role in the way that you do business, and your success overall?

Will Packer 1:15:51 Yeah, it, it means everything. I am only as successful as I am because of the people around me, because of that community of which you speak. It's my family. It's my incredible wife. She is my rock. My support system is everything. And so to the extent you can control it, you gotta know its important.

Mel Robbins 1:16:12 You know, one other thing about your career that I find incredibly inspiring, because Boston is not exactly a media town, right? Not exactly the home of podcasting.

Will Packer 1:16:22 Right.

Mel Robbins 1:16:23 I love the impact that you and many of your friends have had on the city of Atlanta-

Will Packer 1:16:30 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:16:31 ... and really creating an epicenter for creators, for filmmakers, for producers, directors, actors, basically an entire industry-

Will Packer 1:16:44 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:16:45 ... outside of Hollywood, based in Atlanta.

Will Packer 1:16:47 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:16:47 Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think a lot of people, like and you may, as you're listening to Will, feel this way, "Well, I don't live in LA. I don't live in New York. I don't live in London. I can't possibly do that thing." So talk a little bit about just breaking apart that excuse.

Will Packer 1:17:04 Yeah. Start where you are, period, full stop. Start where you are. Atlanta, right now today, is the busiest on-location production hub in the United States.

Mel Robbins 1:17:19 Wow. I didn't know that.

Will Packer 1:17:20 It was absolutely true. Yes. It was not like that when I started off, when I moved to Atlanta some 30 years ago now. It was not. Start where you are. You don't have to move to a place that has traditionally been a place where whatever it is you're trying to do works. You don't have to. Especially now, when you can get the word out digitally in ways that you couldn't before. Start where you are. Don't let the fact that you're not in a location that is conducive to the traditional version of what you're doing, don't let that be an excuse.

Mel Robbins 1:17:56 In fact-

Will Packer 1:17:56 Start where you are.

Mel Robbins 1:17:56 ... I think it's the biggest opportunity-

Will Packer 1:17:59 Absolutely.

Mel Robbins 1:17:59 ... is to not be where everybody else is.

Will Packer 1:18:01 I couldn't agree more.

Mel Robbins 1:18:02 I love it. Start where you are, be a doer not a talker.

Will Packer 1:18:05 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:18:05 Let's get going.

Will Packer 1:18:06 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:18:06 Will, I'd love to have you speak directly to the person that's been with us, soaking up everything that you're sharing with us.

Will Packer 1:18:13 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:18:14 What is the most important thing you think, for somebody to do?

Will Packer 1:18:18 Adjust your mindset so that you realize there is not a person on this planet that is more deserving of success than you are. Not one person. I don't care how big they are, how famous they are, how rich they are, there's not a person on the planet who deserves success more than you.

Mel Robbins 1:18:41 Wow.

Will Packer 1:18:42 And you gotta mean it. You gotta believe it. You gotta believe you're the most important person on the planet to achieve the success. And I don't mean sort of successful, a little bit succ- I mean outsized success, right? Life is hard and life is short. Let's dream. Let's dream in color. Let's go for it. What if you get it?What if you get it? Stop saying, "What if I fail?" and start saying, "What if I succeed? How cool would that be?" You deserve to succeed.

Mel Robbins 1:19:12 Will Packer, what's your parting words?

Will Packer 1:19:14 Oh, I think my parting words would be, don't let your current situation define you. Don't walk into a room and question whether or not you deserve to be there. The room's better because you're in it. When you adjust your mentality to one that says, "There's no one better than me," you will be seen and heard, not just listened to. And when you ask that question, "Who's better than you?" you will realize that you can then supersede your paycheck, your circumstances, and your environment because you deserve to.

Mel Robbins 1:19:59 I want to hang out with you all the time.

Will Packer 1:20:00 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:20:01 You have super-sized, outdone any expec- I knew you were going to be amazing. I am so blown away by your conviction, by the takeaway, by the teaching, the life lessons, and the passion and confidence that you have in our ability to create a blockbuster life. I, I believe you. I do believe you.

Will Packer 1:20:32 You make it easy. Mel, you are one of one. I am telling you now. I get it, I see why. The people that are gravitating to you, don't you ever leave? Stick with Mel Robbins. She sees