PROVE THEM ALL WRONG - The Most Inspiring Speeches from Successful People who Believed in Themselves

If I could get four of you to understand it's just not gonna matter when people, I mean, I love when people- I don't even wanna tell you I'm gonna say it very clear, I just- Stefan get very focused here because I want to really deliver this with all the drama that it deserves and I like when people put me down. I get off on when people put me down. Nothing is more interesting to me than to prove all of you wrong.

I love the people that think I'm a huckster or I've got some hidden agenda or I'm not that good or I won't be that great or I think too big of myself or my dad had a liquor store and that's the only reason I'm successful or I got lucky or that the- that the- that the- that the- that- show me, like please please please, continue to judge me and underestimate me because it's the only driver I have and that's how I'm wired. I think one of my greatest inspirations or things that I would feed off of basically was just obviously people not believing and the cloud of doubt they kind of- I felt hung over my head and wanted to just prove everybody wrong. You know what I mean?

I wanted to make it and I was gonna make it regardless of what anybody said. I mean there's so many people right now that are not doing what they love because they're worried about what other people think or what other people say especially your inner family, we've talked about this at length. I'm very passionate about this.

I'm so grateful that I don't give a crap what anybody thinks of me. When you're- you're 15 now. When you're 51 or when you're 91, you're gonna be stunned how little you care.

How little it mattered and this includes your parents and your siblings and even your children. This is an intense thing. This is a very intense thing and at the end of the day it's not gonna matter and you have to love yourself first and feel good and complete with yourself first so as a 15 year old, I would do what I did as a 15 year old, which is just start building those skills and not listen to your parents and not listen to your teachers and not listen to your friends.

Respect it but don't let anybody, anybody impose their way on you. It's you. You're with yourself and you've got to make yourself happy first.

They said I couldn’t. They said I wouldn’t. They said they didn’t believe in me.

They said I couldn’t because of my circumstances. I couldn’t because of my past… Because it hadn’t been done before. I said: So what.

You can complain and remain the same, or you can DECIDE, COMMIT and work towards becoming someone that NO ONE thought you could be. You can make all the excuses in the world, we’ve heard them all…. but those that get on in life LEAVE the excuses – and LOOK for the possibilities.

You might have had it tough, you might have had it real tough – but it ain't getting any better if you LIVE there. You have to drop the little story and work toward your masterpiece. You see it so often, stories of those with almost identical painful life circumstances: One chooses to live in the pain forever, repeating the reasons why they can’t succeed, why they can’t move on.

The other, uses the pain as their REASON WHY they must change. The use their pain as STRENGTH. They use the people who don’t believe in them as MOTIVATION to succeed, not a reason why they can’t.

When things don’t go their way, they don’t say “WHY ME” They say “SO WHAT” they say “TRY ME! ” When things don’t go their way, they KEEP MOVING FORWARD! Tom Brady's on the downside of his career and- and if you asked me if he'll ever get to another Superbowl, I have one answer.

No way, no how. Does he wow you throwing the ball? No.

There was some other guys that could shoot it and he had just an okay arm. At the Combine when you watched Tom you saw this tall, gangly looking kid looked like he haven't ever seen a weight room, ran a 5-2 something, one of the slowest quarterbacks in the Combine. This is the draft report on you.

Basically it goes: poor build, skinny, lacks great physical stature and strength, lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush, lacks a really strong arm, can't drive the ball downfield, does not throw a really tight spiral, system type player who can get exposed if forced to ad-lib and gets knocked down easy. That kind of gets me fired up because I'm thinking you know, what the hell do these people know? A lot of people don't believe in you.

Has been- is obvious by you know six other quarterbacks taken and 198 other picks and I always felt, you know what? Once I get my shot, I'm gonna be ready. I'm gonna really take advantage of that.

It's gonna be a great comeback guys. It's gonna be a great comeback. Hey!

Take it to another level alright? Michigan is continuing to try to get Henson more and more opportunities to go out there and get experience because his up side is so much higher than Tom Brady's. I never played football until my freshman year and as a freshman, I was the backup quarterback on a team that was 0-8.

He wasn't deemed good enough to play one offensive play as a quarterback. There were seven guys on the Depth Chart when I got there. The only reason why I played my sophomore year was because the kid who was the freshman quarterback stopped playing.

He said I'm not playing football anymore. So I was like I guess I'm gonna play and I always had a decent arm, but I just really took to the game. Against Penn State, Michigan trailed by ten in the final minutes.

Reaches for the touchdown, Michigan and the legend of the Comeback Kid was born. He was skinny, slow right? Too pretty to be a football player but he was smarter than everyone and he studied night and day, day and night.

Nobody works harder than Tom Brady. We were led to believe that he's gonnna be drafted, possibly second round, probably third round. You see, you know so-and-so get picked and then there's nine more picks gone until one team that you think was interested.

. . you know that's- you get pretty anxious.

It was hard. I remember taking a walk with my dad and mom around the block. It was just a tough day you know?

I just remember being there with my mom and dad and- sorry about that. In my estimation, he's the greatest of all time. I said I know who you are, you're our sixth round draft choice and I always remember he looked me, like a laser, eye to eye and he said that's right and I'm the best decision this organization has ever made.

He's not the biggest, he was never the strongest he was never the fastest, he was overlooked, he went in the sixth round, so with that being said, every- all of the intangibles that a quarterback is supposed to have, they overlooked with him because it was burning from the inside of him. He's a winner. He has a big heart and he doesn't like to lose.

Ready, looks, looks, looks. . .

fires down the field, clock 35:30, touchdown. Great job by Tom Brady escaping and then having the presence of mind to look upfield. Like when is this dude gonna give up?

He ain't never gonna quit. Never. So until the triple zero's hit the o'clock you gonna get everything Tom Brady has.

I played against one of the great ones. I'm talking about the greatest of great. I think he's one of the best in the history of this league.

To me, what separates really good players from great players? Executing well under pressure. The biggest games, the greatest stage and I think that's what playing quarterback is all about.

Brady tonight is playing in his seventh Super Bowl, the most of any player in Super Bowl history will be gunning for a record-setting fifth win. I can not believe what I'm witnessing so it is on to overtime. To beat this team and to get down 28:3 there's just a lot of mental toughness by our team and we're all gonna remember this for the rest of our life.

How many times have you heard that you can't do this, you can't do that, and it's never been done before? Just imagine if Bill Gates had quit when people said it can't be done. I hear this all the time.

As a matter of fact, I love it when someone says that no one has ever done this before, because then when I do it that means that I'm the first one that has done it and I said to my family I want to be a bodybuilding champion. Now, you can imagine how that went over in my home in Austria. My parents, they couldn't believe it.

They would have been just happy if I would have become a police officer like my father, or married someone like Heidi, had a a bunch of kids and ran around like the von Trapp family in Sound of Music. That's what my family had in mind for me, but something else burned inside me. Something burned inside me.

I wanted to be different; I was determined to be unique. I was driven to think big and to dream big. Everyone else thought that I was crazy.

My friends said, "If you want to be a champion in a sport, why don't you go and become a bicycle champion or a skiing champion or a soccer champion? Those are the Austrian sports. " But I didn't care.

I wanted to be a bodybuilding champion and use that to come to America, and use that to go into the movies and make millions of dollars. So pay no attention to the people that say it can't be done. After all, I remember that after I was finished with my bodybuilding career I wanted to get into acting and I wanted to be a star in films.

You can imagine what the agents said when I went to meet all those agents. Everyone had the same line, that it can't be done, the rules are different here. They said, "Look at your body.

You have this huge monstrous body, overly developed. That doesn't fit into the movies. You don't understand.

This was 20 years ago, the Hercules movies. Now the little guys are in, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, Jack Nicholson. " And the agents also complained about my accent.

They said, "No one ever became a star with an accent like that, especially not with a German accent. And yes, I can imagine with your name, Arnold Schwartzenschnitzel, or whatever the name, is on a billboard. Yeah, that's going to draw a lot of tickets and sell a lot of tickets.

Yeah, right. " So this is the kind of negative attitude they had. But I didn't listen to those rules, even though they were very nice and they said, "Look, we can get you some bit parts.

We can get you to be playing a wrestler or a bouncer. Oh, maybe with your German accent we can get you to be a Nazi officer in Hogan's Heroes or something like that. " But I didn't listen to all this.

Those were their rules, not my rules. I was convinced I could do it if I worked as hard as I did in bodybuilding, five hours a day. And I started getting to work, I started taking acting classes.

I took English classes, took speech classes, dialogue classes. Accent removal classes I even took. And finally I broke through.

I broke through and I started getting the first parts in TV; Streets of San Francisco, Lucille Ball hired me, I made Pumping Iron, Stay Hungry. And then I got the big break in Conan the Barbarian. And there the director said, "If we wouldn't have Schwarzenegger, we would have to build one.

" Now, think about that. And then, when I did Terminator, "I'll be back," became one of the most famous lines in movie history, all because of my crazy accent. Now, think about it.

The things that the agents said would be totally a detriment and would make it impossible for me to get a job, all of a sudden became an asset for me, all of those things, my accent, my body and everything. So it just shows to you, never listen to that you can't do something. And, "You have to work your way up, of course, run for something else first.

" I mean, it was the same when I ran for governor, the same lines, that you have to work your way up, it can't be done. And then, of course, I ran for governor and the rest, of course, is history. They said you have to start with a small job as mayor and then as assemblyman and then as lieutenant governor and then as governor.

And they said that's the way it works in a political career. I said, "I'm not interested in a political career. I want to be a public servant.

I want to fix California's problems and bring people together and bring the parties together. So, like I said, I said, I decided to run, I didn't pay attention to the rules. And I made it and the rest is history.

People ask me all the time, they say to me, "What is the secret to success? " so many young people are getting so much advice from their parents and from their teachers and from everyone. But what is most important is that you have to dig deep down, dig deep down and ask yourselves, who do you want to be?

Not what, but who. And I'm talking about not what your parents and teachers want you to be, but you. I’m talking about figuring out for yourselves what makes you happy, no matter how crazy it may sound to other people.

I spent a lot of time by myself, so I I could figure out and listen to what is inside my heart and inside my head. Something burned inside me. I wanted to be different; I was determined to be unique.

I was driven to think big and to dream big. I always wanted to be very intense, I always wanted to be number one. I took it very seriously, my career and so this intensity always paid off for me, this commitment always paid off for me.

I didn't want to just be a bodybuilding champion, I wanted to be the best bodybuilder of all time. The same was in the movies. I didn't want to just be a movie star; I wanted to be a great movie star that is the highest paid movie star and have above-the-title billing.

I many times have you heard that you can't do this and you can't do that and it's never been done before? I hear this all the time. I was told that to my face.

. . You are nothing but a giant muscle, you can't act and you have no future and you have an accent that is laughable.

It just shows you again so much for it can't be done. This is why I try to tell you, anything and everything can be done if you can visualize it and if you believe in yourself. You are going to find the naysayers in every turn that you make… Don’t listen!

Just visualize your goal, know exactly where you want to go. Trust yourself. So pay no attention to the people who say it can’t be done.

Trust yourself, no matter how and what anyone else thinks. What is the point of being on this earth if all you want to do is be liked by everyone and avoid trouble? We have so many rules in life about everything.

The only way that I ever got anyplace was by breaking some of the rules. It is impossible to be a maverick or a true original if you're too well behaved and don't want to break the rules. You have to think outside the box.

Now, of course, this journey is not going to be without any setbacks, failures or disappointments. That's just the way life is. Don't be afraid to fail.

You can't always win, but don't afraid of making decisions. You can't be paralyzed by fear of failure or you will never push yourself. You keep pushing because you believe in yourself and in your vision and you know that it is the right thing to do, and success will come.

So don't be afraid to fail. I always believed leaving no stone unturned. That's what makes you a champion.

But when you're out there partying, horsing around, someone out there at the same time is working hard. Someone is getting smarter and someone is winning. You never want to fail because you didn't work hard enough.

But if you want to win, there is absolutely no way around hard, hard work. No pain, no gain. Whatever path that you take in your lives, you must always find time to give something back, something back to your community, give something back to your state or to your country.

Tear down that mirror. Tear down that mirror that makes you always look at yourself, and you will be able to look beyond that mirror and you will see the millions of people that need your help. Reaching out and helping people will bring you more satisfaction than anything else you have ever done.

Trust yourself, Break some rules, Don't be afraid to fail, Ignore the naysayers, Work like hell and give something back, I remember my mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, when she started Special Olympics in 1968 people said that it would not work. The experts, the doctors that specialized in mental disabilities and mental retardation said, "It can't be done. You can't bring people out of their institutions.

You can't make them participate in sports, in jumping and swimming and in running. They will hurt themselves, they will hurt each other, they will drown in the pool. " Now, 40 years later, Special Olympics is one of the greatest in 164 countries, dedicated to people with mental disabilities and that are intellectually challenged.

And she did not take no for an answer. And the same is when you look at Barack Obama. I mean, imagine, if he would have listened.

If he would have listened to the naysayers he would have never run for president. People said it couldn't be done, that he couldn't get elected, that he couldn’t beat Hillary Clinton, that he would never win the general election. But he followed his own heart, he didn’t listen to the "You can't," and he changed the course of American history.

So over and over you see that. If I would have listened to the naysayers I would still be in the Austrian Alps yodeling. I would never have come to America.

I would have never met my wonderful wife Maria Shriver, I would have never had the wonderful four kids, I would have never done Terminator, and I wouldn't be standing here in front of you today as Governor of the greatest state of the greatest country in the world. So I never listen that, "You can't. " I always listen to myself and say, "Yes, you can.

" I was an apprentice plumber I did a year and that and it just, it just wasn't for me you know. It's either - it's either All or Nothing in this, in the game I mean you have to. If you're not training twice a day, if you're not dedicated, you're not gonna go anywhere.

So after that fight when I lost and I'm looking at all these people and they're all celebrating my demise and saying I'm done and this um it certainly lit a fire under my belly. I'm a professional MMA fighter with a record of four and one. I'm an up-and-coming fighter and without a doubt you will see me on the UFC in the near future.

Nobody knows what they're in for. Everybody's writing me off, everyone has these little, you know but they're gonna be in shock, make no mistake about it. Trust me, I’m going to stop Floyd, and you’re all going to eat your words.

The whole world is going to eat their words. Every single person doubted me, every single fighter that doubted me. Doubt me now.

The new interim UFC featherweight champion of the world, the notorious Conor McGregor. Ladies and gentlemen, the reigning, defending, 155 pound champion of the UFC, the notorious Conor McGregor. I believe he'll be unconscious inside one round.

Just throwing this out there which would be a mega fight, what about fighting Floyd Mayweather one day, you and he in a ring together. In a boxing? In a boxing match.

I'm open to discussion, come at me but I hold a kid I hold the key, it's me who holds the key to the fight game. I am open-minded. I'm open to discussion.

I love competition. I love fighting. I recognize the fact that, to make that fight, if the fans were interested and wanted to see it obviously they would.

It would be a billion dollar fight surely. I'm all about them numbers Gareth, so I would certainly do that no problem. When you're chasing your dream and when you're, when you're working hard chasing something you love and completely dedicated it just, it just happens.

You don't, you don't you can't really no - notice it you know. . even still to this day.

I'm in an amazing position in my life but I'm still, I'm still walking like I'm not. I'm still walking like I'm not in this position. Absolutely.

I'm still walking like none of this is even, you know what I mean? Yeah yeah. It's just, it's just something I love to do and I just keep pushing and keep working hard, I can't pinpoint an exact moment for you but - yep if anything, I always felt like it was happening way back then and now it is happening but now I almost feel like it's not happening, you know what I mean and I want to push to something else.

I'm always striving to push forward so. Yeah I don't just knock them out I picked the round John, yeah I said this, I'm sure y'alls a probably all thinking in your head, this guy is talking absolute drivel. He's not gonna do what he says he's gonna do, yalls probably all sitting there thinking that, but now here we are again and I done what I said I was gonna do.

I feed off this. I feed off this. I love this stuff, this is what gives me energy.

Saying I'm gonna do something. Saying - putting it out there for the world to see and then going out there and doing it. There's no better feeling in the world than that and it's as easy as that.

Say what you're gonna do and go and do it. I've been listening to him laugh my whole career. Never laughing.

What, an Irish man win a, win a Cage Warriors World Title, hell no. Are you serious? An Irishman.

An Irishman? Win a fight in the UFC? Hell no.

Laugh. Laughs all around. An Irish - okay, you gotta win!

Now he wants to win a world title? Helll no! He's all talk.

He's all hype. He's a joke. Laughter all around at the Joker.

Then the Joker goes and wins the world tile. Now he wants to win a second world title. Listen, I've - the sound of laughter, and the sound of doubt motivates me.

So, I'm enjoying that. I seek that. I don't feel no doubt or - I don't feel no I don't feel that, going to fight in any of these, or the UFC.

Right now. They need you to rise up. Right now they're down there.

I've got this situation where people are truly doubting me, like they doubted me at the very very beginning and that's motivated me. That's what's gonna drive me to the gym when I need to go to the gym to put in that work to get that win, so, that's where I'm at right now. So you don't think you can?

You don't think you can do it? Think you can! Know you can.

If you haven't done it, keep striving, keep working, don't let up. Things don't come easy You gotta find it, whatever it is, what's in yourself Don't quit. Don't quit.

Don't quit. So just because you fail, don't mean you are a failure. Alright ?

So I just need you to do me a huge favor I just need you keep going, try to make that one different decision to not maybe for my last one. Is don't let the distractions distract you I know real simple but don't let the distractions distract you. Failure is not an option, when you go into it, I want you to go in everything you do, listen to me, as if failure is not an option, alright?

It's not a button, it's not a label, it does not exist! You can do it! Don't let your body steal your dream, I used to ask myself "can I do this?

" And something said within me, "you're the one. " You're the one. If you want to be great, not good, not also grand, not second, not third.

If you want to be great, you're very best at what you do obsession is a necessity. Once you have that magnificent obsession, once you question the impossible then when somebody like that, tells you You can't do something, you have chosen the wrong one. To tell something like that to.

I will show you, I will show you what I can do. I will show you, I will turn your "I can't" "I will never", "I won't", "It's impossible", I will turn it around and I will show you that I can do anything!