Words of Wisdom from Ian Brennan

by Scott Edward Walker on June 18th, 2015

To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.”  Each week, we share a favorite video clip of a successful entrepreneur, investor or business leader on a variety of topics.  This week, we present Ian Brennan, best known as the creator of Glee (and a little bit different than some of our other featured speakers).

In this interesting, humorous commencement address from last month, Ian shares some words of wisdom, including the following:

• “Piece of advice number one: work hard, work hard… The one thing you can control in your life is how hard you work. Make it a thing people say about you: ‘Man, he’s ugly, but he sure works hard’.” (at 12:42)
• “If you’ve got the lazy gene, you’re in trouble because there’s literally no successful people in history who people look back on and say: ‘Yeah, she’s a really amazing person – accomplished so much [and] she’s super lazy.” (at 13:08)
• “Piece of advice number two: sounds obvious, but find a job that you love – and don’t stop searching until you do.  Find a career that you can get obsessed with.” (at 13:35)
• “Piece of advice number three: don’t follow money – money is not your friend…  Money is not an end in itself; it will not make you happy.” (at 14:02)
• “Piece of advice number four: foster your creativity and then protect it.  Your creativity is the greatest gift you will ever be given, and it’s the source of the greatest things you will achieve.  It’s the part of you that is the most you.” (at 14:37)
• “My real only advice to you is… don’t quit. Never quit.  If you’ve been blessed to know the thing you want to do, do not give up on it.  It doesn’t matter how hard it is.” (at 17:49)
• “The one way to guarantee that you’re not going to be successful at something is to give up on it.   Yes, some dreams are harder to achieve than others, but there’s not one that is impossible.” (at 18:06)
• “Even the hardest goal is not that hard – the hard part is admitting to yourself that that’s what you really want to do.” (at 18:30)
• “When you’re busting your hump following your dream and someone asks you the question, ‘what do you have to fall back on?’ – slap them.” (at 18:56)

I hope you enjoy it.  Cheers, Scott