In His Own Words: Mark Wahlberg's Secret to SuccessThe actor and entrepreneur's greatest business asset is his own diligence.

Hollywood movie premieres tend to follow a script: Tons of press and industry VIPs pile into a theater for a private screening and then migrate somewhere nearby for a blowout party. I was part of this scene in 2010, when the Mark Wahlberg movie The Fighter debuted. We watched the film, then went to a hip hotel, where elevators were to take us to a club on the top floor…except the hotel lobby was not equipped to handle all of us at once. Hundreds of people soon overwhelmed the place. We were crushed together, shoulder to shoulder, while a few measly elevators took small bunches of us upward. It took a while. People were annoyed.

Then we heard a booming voice. "Make way!" the voice shouted. "Make way!"

The voice, it turned out, belonged to a very large security man. He was carving a path through the crowd, from the back of the lobby all the way to the elevator in the front. And when he reached the front, he turned to the back of the room and yelled, "Right this way, Mr. Wahlberg."