Sylvester Stallone Refused a Fortune for Rocky. The Reason Matters to Every Founder With a Vision
Before you chase success, define what it means.
Sylvester Stallone in London, in 1979. Photo:
Half a century ago, an iconic character entered our culture: Rocky Balboa.
Rocky hit theaters in 1976 and won Best Picture at the 1977 Academy Awards. To the world, Sylvester Stallone appeared to become a star overnight. What audiences couldn’t see were all the nights that came before it.
The world sees the breakthrough, not the years spent pursuing a vision that may have been visible only to the one pursuing it. That story will be dramatized this fall in the new movie I Play Rocky. Stallone will also tell it in his upcoming memoir, The Steps.
And it carries a warning for founders: The hardest offers to refuse aren’t the obviously bad ones. They’re the ones that look like success but quietly replace your vision with someone else’s version of it.
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Stallone saw Muhammad Ali fight Chuck Wepner
Stallone saw Muhammad Ali fight Chuck Wepner on March 24, 1975. Wepner was a 10-to-1 underdog, and few expected him to last against one of history’s greatest heavyweight champions.
Ali finally won by technical knockout with only 19 seconds remaining in the 15th round. The fight happened on my 9th birthday. I saw Rocky when I was 10 and have been a Stallone fan ever since.
According to the American Film Institute’s history of the movie, Stallone saw “stifled ambition and broken dreams” in that fight. After reflecting on the idea for months, he wrote a rough first draft of Rocky in three and a half days.
Source: www.inc.com
