The Resilient Mind - Let go of your old self, so you can step into your greatness - Steve Harvey

Episode Date: August 20, 2022

Broderick Stephen Harvey, Sr. is an American television host, actor, writer, producer, and comedian. He hosts The Steve Harvey Morning Show, Family Feud, Celebrity Family Feud, the Miss Universe competition, Family Feud Africa, and the arbitration-based court comedy Judge Steve Harvey.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you are trying to get to the next level and you can see where you're trying to get to, there is a ceiling that you have to break through. But in order to get to the next level is because you can see what you want to become. But the only reason you can see the next level is because this ceiling is made of glass. In order to get to the next level, you must be willing to break through the glass. Anytime you break through glass, you are going to. get cut, you are going to bleed. And in order to get to the next level, you are going to have to give up something that you care about. You cannot take everything with you. Everybody

come with you can't go with you. So when you go through the glass ceiling, you have to be willing to get cut. The cut is going to put some bruises and bludge. But that's the only way to get to the next level. I understood that. I knew that I could not remain the same and change. You got to grow. You can't hang out with everybody you've been. hanging out with to go to the next level. You can't do everything you used to do. If you do that, you'll never grow. The thing that you want the most of, it's the very same thing that you're going to have to give the most of. I'll say it again, the things that you want the most of, that very same thing is the thing that you're going to have to give the most of. See, there is no theory of

Newton, you know, behind every action as an equal and opposite reaction, you know, behind every There's an equal and opposite reaction. Well, that happens throughout all the principles of success too. I want you to understand something. See, you can't have peace if you're practicing war. Tell me, tell me how that works. You can't have progress in your life. If your business is holding someone else back, it cannot happen.

But if you're climbing a ladder and you're stepping on each rung of the letter, and that's producing progress for you. You're progressing up the ladder. That means every step you step on another rung going up, you are taking another step higher. If you one time stop putting your foot in front of the other to step on the next rung and you look over and you take some time out to push someone off their ladder or you lift your foot to kick them off one of their rungs of the ladder, guess what you have done? You have immediately stopped your problem. You came from you. You can't progress and be in the business of holding anyone back, anybody, because to kick somebody off the ladder, you got to take your foot off of yours, and you got to be careful when you do that, because he

ain't the only one can slip your father. If there is joy you are looking for in your life, you cannot be in the business of passing out pain. You cannot, man. Oh God, I want, I want to have a life, a wonderful life with this person over here, but you steady creating pain in somebody else's life over there. You ain't fint to have no joy. Something I really wanted to say to you because I want to give it to you the way I got it. You know, it kind of just really,

really hit me within the last six months. I kid you not. It just kind of really hit me of late, I guess I'm saying. It's something that I learned, man. I got it a couple ways. I was watching this movie. I was reading this book. I kind of got it a couple of ways, but it came to me. It just dawned on me. How

correct it was and how oftentimes I've shot myself in the foot. How many times I had blocked so many blessings that could have come my way had I just been a little bit more of this. And I learned it and I stopped blocking them, you know, and it's starting to really, really open up the pipeline into my life, the pipeline of blessings. You know, it could be whatever you need. It could be money. It It could be family, it could be relationship, it could be education, it could be peace, it could be relevance, it could be any number of things, whatever you hope for us that you consider success. It don't have to be money, but if that's on your list, you can get some of that too. But listen to me.

Gratitude is the best gift that you can give yourself. What? That don't make no sense, Steve. Yes, it does. Gratitude is the best gift that you can give yourself. It really is, man. gratitude is the best gift that you can give to yourself. See, don't you get it?

If you're grateful for what you have, for whatever it is, you open up the pipeline for more to come in. Let me tell you why, because you're not complaining about what you have. Oftentimes, we can't show gratitude. We don't have time to be thankful or we can't give a full compliment of appreciation because we're complaining. man I don't ever get this I only got this my how my car can only go this far I can't all I got is this right here

every time I turn around something broke on this car while while you complaining suppose you reverse that just suppose I thank you for the house that I do have for a roof over my head I thank you for shelter I thank you for having a home

I thank you for having a mortgage to pay I thank you for being able to come up with this rent to stay here I thank you for all these things. I thank you for I have when things go wrong in my life, you're always there and get it fixing straightened out from it. I thank you. I'm grateful for you.

Okay, now, let me ask you something. If you were a person that was providing these things for someone, let's say you were the person that was providing shelter, heat, roof over your head, a place to stay. Let's say you were the person that was providing that. And the person that was receiving it, who has nothing but. but that was always complaining about it. Every time you turn around, now you didn't gave this to this person.

You didn't let them have it. But every time you look up, they complain and they point in the finger at you, look what I ain't got, I ain't got this, you got it. And you be sitting there with that dog, man. I gave this to them. And they just steady complaining about it. Now, let's say you gave the exact same thing to someone else.

the exact same thing. Shelter, Ruth over your head, house in the same condition. Look just like the house you gave this person that was complained. But every time you turn around it was telling somebody, you know what, I show appreciate this. I show appreciate this place to stay, man. My family, man,

we don't know where we'd be without it. I sure am grateful, man. It was rain another day and didn't the drop get on us, man. We was in this house, man. And, oh man, oh man. You know, some things go wrong with it, but man, I show glad I got this right here because they always make a and somehow.

Sometimes it always works out. Now, if you were the person that was providing these things and this one person that had this house that ain't as sharp or as good as the other houses, was complaining all the time about it. But the other person over here was grateful for it. When it came time to fix up the house, improve the house, add more on to the house, or maybe you had another house to give away, who would you give the house to? I think logically you would give it to the person who has shown the most appreciation for it.

I bet you, man, if I didn't gave somebody to something and all they do is complain about it, I can assure you that if they come back to me for some more, I'm going to be real slow to grant that wish. Because, man, the last time I gave you a place to stay, I know it wasn't a best house on the block, but you didn't have nothing when you came to me. And I gave that to you. That the more gratitude you show, the more grateful you are, the more blessings can come your way. It only makes sense.

So that's why I'm telling you, gratitude is the best gift that you can give yourself. You know, in my book, Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man, I told people that men love three ways. They profess, they provide, they protect. And that's the core essence of a man's love. Well, there's some other peas in life, too. The number one thing you have to understand about trying to be successful, and I guess I call this the four P's. I may come up with five along the way I don't know. I'm just talking as is giving to me.

So I'm going to start by saying these are the four P's of success that you have to get ready for. Number one is pressure, pure pressure. Being successful is just pressure. A lot of it is applied by the circumstance of what you're trying to go for and what you're trying to do. but a lot of it also is self-imposed pressure. It's what you put on yourself to make it. It's a sense of urgency. It's a sense of necessity.

But pressure is the first thing I want you to be ready for. The pressure comes in a lot of different forms, but it's going to be pressure. There's an old saying that pressure buster pipe. See, that's why most people turn around because of the pressure of trying to be successful. I want you to get it in your mind that it is going to be a pressurized situation.

on your rise to the top. Pressure wise. It's going to be pressure. It's going to be difficult to do. It's going to be moments when it seems like it's real heavy. It's going to be moments, man, when it feel like you're going to burst. Us all comes from pressure. Pressure buster pipe.

Pressure. But understand that that is what it is. It's not going to change. That's it. Prepare yourself. Get ready for there to be pressure. The second thing I want you to understand is when you receive this pressure, You have to persist.

You got to stay at it. You got to develop a dog in this. There's a song out that says, Why must I feel like that? Why must I chase the cat? Nothing but the dog in me. That's a funny line in that song because really I was thinking about it one day.

I was humming it and it occurred to me. Said, why must I feel like that? Why must I chase the cat? Nothing but the dog in me. And, you know, now you could take it in the literal sense that cat chases a dog. the dog because it's innately it's in his spirit that cats and dogs are a lot of times enemies now people have pets and have proven that if you show love on both sides they can exist and that happens

too but naturally innately when your cat goes by a dog and your dog don't recognize them there's some barking going on i'm talking about just walking through the neighborhood or something so but the reason that this dog is so persistent towards this cat is just cause it's in him it's innately in him And what I'm saying to you, just using that as an analogy, is that you got to be persistent in that you got to develop some dog in you now. Because pressure takes some fighting back. See, if you don't fight back against pressure, pressure buster pipes are what you think it'll do to you. Pressure crack walls. Pressure cause explosion.

So if you don't fight back to hold it in, you understand pressure does most people in. The simple thing called pressure. The weight of what it feels like to want to be successful every single day over and over and over and over and over. It's just too much pressure. People crack. You got to persist. You have to persist. The thought of giving up can come, but you got to get it out.

You got to persist. I'm a college dropout. I was homeless, lived in a car for three years. I've lost every single thing I had, family included. I've been written off so many times. But today, the person that you're sitting in front of you is a process. I want to talk to you for a moment about the process. Because, see, one way to get a person to really follow you is to be the example of what you're trying to get them to follow.

You know, my daddy used to tell me all the time, he said, son, best thing you can do for poll people is not be one of them because you can't help the cause. Your brain is divided into two halves, positive and negative, good and evil. Each half of your brain has millions of factory workers on each side. You got a million factory workers on the positive side. You got a million factory workers on the negative side. At the forefront of each one of those factories in your brain is a foreman. You got forming positive and you got forming negative. You are in charge. You're the boss of the factory.

So let me show you how this works. You got a remote control. You go to your house tonight and you press that power button and you press it. When you point it out to TV, what do you expect to happen? You expect TV to come on. You press the power button. You expect the TV to come on. If you want to watch HBO and HBO is Channel 300 and you press it, and you press 3-0 and then you press select.

What do you expect to come on that TV? And what comes on that TV? So now, since your brain is in two halves, let me show you how this works. You wake up in the morning and you say, man, I don't feel myself today. I got up on the wrong side of the bed. I'm not a morning person.

Forming negative. He hears that. He steps to the front. He said, what did you say? You said I woke up on the wrong side of the bad day. I'm not myself. I'm not a morning person. He says, you got it right away.

He said, hey, the boss just woke up and said he's not a morning person. He's having a bad day today. And he ain't feeling this self. Let's get to work. The million factory workers start producing thoughts to justify what you just said. So now guess what? Man, I hate my alarm clock went off this morning. I got to get out here in this traffic.

I'm going to drive down here today. I don't even like these people. on my job. I can't stand this car. I'm fin to get in this morning. Shall I wish I had a new car but I'm driving this ragged-ass car and on and on and your day starts tumbling into what you ordered at the top of the day. You could wake up in the morning and you say you know what? Today is going to be a great day today. I expect something really good to happen for me today. Man, thank you Lord for waking me up this morning. He said what did you say? You said I said I'm having a

a great day today. I expect something good to happen today. Thank you Lord for waking me up. Forming positive turns around and goes, all right, let me have your attention. Steve's having a great day today. He's expecting some wonderful things to happen and man, let's get it going. And let's start manufacturing thoughts. Same brain. Man, I can't wait to go to work today. It may not be the job I won't, but at least I got a job. I appreciate the fact that I don't have a car, but at least I can walk to the train. Man, this is going to be great today. That's how your mind works.

24-7. It never turns off. You have got to change the way you think. It is the whole determining factor of where you go in life. We are all where we are today because we thought ourselves to this position. If you don't like the position, think yourself out of it. Change your attitude. You change your altitude.

I'm going to tell you something that every successful person has to do, including you. Believe it or not, every successful person in this world has jumped. I'm going to tell you what I mean by that. Eventually, you are going to have to jump. You cannot just exist in this life. You have got to try to live. If you are waking up thinking that it's got to be more to your life than it is, man, believe that it is. believe in your heart of hearts that it is.

But to get to that life, you're going to have to jump. You see people in life when you're standing on the cliff of life and you see people soaring by, when you see people soaring, going to exotic places. You hear about them doing wonderful things. Maybe you look up the street and your neighbor just gets a car every year, every two years. How is he doing that? Have you ever thought? Maybe this person right here has identified their gift and is living in their gift.

because your Bible says, this is your Bible, says your gift will make room for you. Your gift, not your education. You go get an education, that's nice. But if you don't use your gift, that education only going to take you so far. I know a lot of people got degrees, man. They ain't even using them. It's your gift. But the only way for you to soar is you got to jump.

You got to take that gift that's packed away on your back. You got to jump off that cliff and pull that cord. That gift opens up and provides the soil. If you don't ever use it, you're gonna just go to work. And if you're getting up going to work on a job every day that you hate going to, that ain't living, man. You just existed. At one point in time, you ought to see what living's like.

But the only way to see what living like, you got to jump. And hit a problem. Let me just be real with you. When you first jump, let me tell you something. Your parachute will not open right away. open right away. I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you it did, but it don't. When you jump, it's not going to open right away. You're going to hit them rocks. You're going to get some skin toe off on them cliffs. You're going to get all your clothes tore off. You're going to get some cuts on you.

You're going to be bleeding pretty bad. But eventually, eventually the parachute has to open. That is a promise of God. Here's another thing. You can play. It's safe and deal without the cuts and the tass. And you can stand on that cliff of life forever safe. But if you don't jump, I got another promise I can make you. Your parachute will never open. You'll never know. You'll never know what God really have for you.

I was speaking at a school once. I was talking to the students. The principal was mortified with my message because I was telling the truth. I was telling the kids, your education is important. But your education is not the most important thing in your life. sorry it's not your dream is the most important thing in this world principal came up on the stage while I was speaking don't ever say that to my school again well I'm just telling you dog you could save your kids a lot of pain if

you ever talk to them about their dreams you got to talk to young people about their dreams if you talk to kids about their dreams your dreams can spur you to get the education but if you never find out what a child is dreaming about you can't hold their attention it's the dream man you got a about something so big that it dwarfs all your fears. The way you overcome fear is with your dream. You gotta make your dream so big that nothing matters except that dream. You're willing to do everything that's necessary.

I was listening to Will Smith the other day. Will Smith said, the best things in life is on the other side of fear. It's on the other side of fear. But fear freezes people, man. The fear of failure freezes people. Suppose I don't do it. Well, you might not make it.

But I got news for you. If you don't, Don't do it, you damn sure ain't gonna make it. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. I talk to so many people who get older, like some of us are, and they've lost to faith. Well, faith is really simple, it's the

substance of things hope for. All that mean is in the beginning, you just hope something pop off. You know, you just kind of hope something happened for you. I was hoping I would get on TV. I wrote it on a piece of paper when I was 10 I want to be on TV the problem I had when I wrote it at 10 was I suffered from a severe stuttering problem I could not talk outside of my house so can you imagine when I wrote on a piece of paper I want to be on TV and turn that in the first

thing the little boy next door next to me asked me he did well how long is your TV show gonna be because you do we did did you go for you're gonna be on TV all day but when I wrote it on the paper it wasn't factual I was just hoping You just got to start with the hope. Faith is the substance of things that you hope for. You just hope something, Joe. Then what happened in through grace and favor, he'd give you a couple of them things you hope for,

and then you're supposed to start believing then. Because now it turns into faith. But if you take this scripture, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Albert Einstein said that imagination is everything. It's the preview to life's coming attraction. That's what your imagination is.

Your imagination is actually very, very real. Everything you imagine could be a preview to life's coming attraction. Everything we have today came from somebody's imagination. Somebody was talking on the phone with that cord on the wall and got sick of it and said, you know what, man, if I could just go outside and talk on the phone, we got cell phones. Somebody got tired of driving across the country and said, man, if I could fly over there, boom, we got airplanes.

Imagination is everything, it's a preview to life's coming attractions. Everything you've ever imagined is real. The problem with most people is, you think your imagination is hocus pocus. It's really not. It's a preview of a coming attraction. If you react to your imagination, that's where your real life is. It's just God showing you what he has for you. The problem people have is they tell their imagination to the wrong people. See, if you want to kill a big dream, tell it to you.

tell it to a small-minded person. It's dead. How many times, man, have you had a tremendous idea? Something you thought was the one, and you went and told it to your loved ones and your so-called friends,

and they shot it down. I mean, you was convinced that it was just, oh man, I just came to you. And you told it to them and they shot it down. And you thought since they was your loved ones and their friends, and they got your best interests at heart, you believed them. You was wrong.

You let them talk you out of what God got for you. As a kid, you know, I didn't know, but my gift is that I found out later on. I have the ability to think extremely quick, and I can take any piece of information and transpose it into comedy immediately. Now, when you were a kid and you don't understand that, you get in a lot of trouble. I didn't know what it was until I got older, that this was a gift, that it did make room for me, that I became a stand-up comedian which started with a dream of mine and it led to where I am today. It's a lot of stuff that happened in between that.

But your gift is the thing that you do the absolute best with the least amount of effort. That's your God-given gift, and everybody has one, and God gives it to you at birth. You don't have to go anywhere to discover it. It's not in the water. It's not on the mountain top. It ain't hid under a rock. Your God-given gift is instilled in you at birth. If you pursue that as opposed to your passion, there lies your greatest chance for success. The problem with people is we don't pursue our gift oftentimes.

We try to go get an education and make it think that's going to get us somewhere. If you identify that gift, man, that gift is the thing that can make you great. We're all participating in this thing called life. Life has evan flows, mountaintops, it's got valleys, it's got thunderstorms in it, earthquakes. This life, you stop expecting it to go smooth because it ain't fin to go smooth. The road to success is always under construction. Ain't all. This life ain't set up to be smooth. You combat negativity and you combat discouragement with gratitude.

It's the one way to combat discouragement is with gratitude. What messes you up is you focus on the thing that's not happening. And that causes you to get discouraged. So whenever you get discouraged, you have to change your focus from what's not happening to what has happened. And it straightens you out immediately. Because what causes the downslide is if you get wrapped up into what ain't happening, it'd get ugly, man, and it just snowballed.

But you have to focus on gratitude. People understand how serious gratitude is. You know, it's a serious principle of success. It's hard to be miserable and grateful at the same time. You have to take chances in life. If you don't take chances in life, you'll never have the life God has for you. Life is about risk. If you play it safe in life, you ain't going to have much of a life.

If you play it safe, you won't have much of a life. Life is risk. it takes courage to pursue your dream. I just did it. It cost me everything. But eventually, God is very good, man, when he sees you take a leap of faith. He supplies you everything you need.

Now, it's going to cost you something. But most people, most people are not willing to pay what it costs to go after your dream because you're going to have to hurt a little bit. And most people don't like being uncomfortable. If you don't want to be uncomfortable, please do not pursue success. because success is a very uncomfortable feeling and I just learned to be I learned to be comfortable being uncomfortable. See if you think you're too old to make it let me give you a prime example.

Colonel Sanders. Colonel Sanders has been frying chicken his whole life. He was telling everybody he had the best chicken in the world. Ain't nobody believing. They turned him down everywhere. Colonel Sanders didn't get a franchise till he was in his 60s. Kentucky fried chicken sell more chicken than anybody in the world today. So if you're sitting here thinking cause you got a little gray on you, you're too late, as long as God waking you up in the morning, that's the sign that he ain't through with you. So what you tripping for?

Last year I spoke at the Salt Convention. The Salt Convention is where billionaires from around the world gather. They gather in Vegas once a year to talk about how they're going to change. change the world. Couple hundred billionaires in this world. They all come to Las Vegas once a year to soccer. I was asked last year to be the keynote speaker. And I'm tripping because I'm not a billionaire.

And I asked a guy who asked me to do it. I said, I'm not a billionaire. You do understand that. We said, Mr. Har, we know everything about you. We know your net worth and everything. I said, well, what can you all learn from me? He said, everything. He said, the reason we want to hear your story is because the majority of us that are billionaires, we inherited some money.

And we grew it. A couple of us inherited a billion. We automatically, some of us inherited 300 million, and we turn it into a billion. You come from nothing. What we want to know is how you got to where you are after coming from nothing. How did you live in a car for three years? and wind up on more TV shows than anybody. How did you survive flunking out of school?

How did you survive all of that? We want to know that because in case something happens to us, we don't really have the information that you have, or how to come from the back to the front, or how to come from the bottom to the top. So I get asked oftentimes to speak. And so when I was telling them how I made it, I was telling them about the fortitude that I developed.

I developed and then I told them about the faith that I had and that was really startling to them now a lot of them are people of faith but a lot of people who were born with a lot of money ain't really had to have a lot of faith you understand you have an idea of what it feels like you've seen some kids get put in foster care you've seen child protective services come to somebody's house. You've seen kids come to school with less. You might have been one of the kids that went to school with less. You have struggled to give your kids a better life than the one you have. They don't hear this. But I'm going to tell you something right now. You can be successful without an education. You can be successful without coming from a rich family. You can be successful.

I don't care what color you are, what faith you belong to, your sexual preference. I don't care what's wrong with you. You can be successful. Everybody in your life will have a turn back moment. No matter who you are, you're going to have such a period in your life where it seems like it's not working. You're going to have doubts, you're going to have a lot of trials and tribulations and challenges, and everybody has what's called a turn back moment. You always have a moment in your life where the direction you're going, you will have to make a decision to keep going or you turn back. The sad thing is, the average person turns back.

But think about this, if you're going somewhere and you turn back, you can never get there. If you wake up every day and go get in your car and say, I'm going to the store. And halfway to the store, you turn around. And then the next day, you go to the store and you turn around. You do realize that you'll never get to the store. So whatever you needed from the store, now is even a greater need because you turn back. And every time you turn back, it does not change the need. So what kept me from going was, what kept me going was, I created, I made turning back, giving up, never an option.

And I had really dark moments, man, where I thought I was going. I just didn't think I was going to make it. I mean, where I am today, I didn't see it clearly at all. I had a lot of turn back moments. But you know what it was for me, man? Being successful is so hard, but I realized that not being successful was hard too. The difference between not being successful hard and trying to get successful in hard. If you're trying to get successful, then it's hard. At least there's some payout. There's a payoff. If you hang in there, there's pay off. When you're not successful, it's hard. It's hard not having money. It's hard never knowing how to come up with your mortgage and your

and your bond and your rent. It's hard not knowing that. How are you going to feed your children? How are you going to pay your bills? It's hard, ain't it? So if it's hard that way and it's hard being successful, I might as well deal with how hard it is to be successful because at least one day, that could be a payout.

If you just stay in the hard part of life of not being successful, ain't no payoff. I have failed far more times than I've succeeded. you will never succeed more than you fail. That's not how it works. You know why? Because failure is a wonderful teacher. It's the only way to learn.

You have to fail. Failure is a part of the process to become successful. I tell people this all the time. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player in the world, he took 946 game-winning shots. 946 times since he was in high school, the ball has been in his hand to take the game-winning shot with no time on the clock.

He has only made 146 at those. He has missed over 700 times, but he has made 146. You know what they write about? When he make it. They write about when you make it. So guess what? When you get through failing, failing, failing, failing, failing,

all you got to do is make one. I've had in my career probably a total of, I've been to over 200 pitch meetings to pitch ideas in Hollywood. Out of those 200, they have picked five of them. 200 meetings, 200 show ideas. They've picked five of them. But you know what them five was? Hits.

In 33 years, five ideas got picked. All I need is five hits. Y'all don't even know I was in them other meetings. They don't write a lot. about it. They just write about my hits. You just need a hit, man. So when you fail, it's a part of the process. Keep going. You're supposed to fail. Shit, who you know that gets it right all the time? That's impossible. You have to fail. Matter of fact, when you fail, be glad about it. Every time you fail, you're one step closer. Every time you fail, said, whew, got that out the way. Go to the next one. Fail again? Okay, I got two out the way.

What's going to happen is if you just keep swinging, you're going to get a hit. Through all the things I've gone through in my life, I had a lot of downs. How did I keep the faith? It was a couple of reasons. Number one, I know from living that if you quit whatever you're trying to accomplish, if you quit, whatever you were trying to accomplish can never happen. There's not even a remote possibility. If you quit, there is no chance of it popping back up again,

coming back later, quitting is guaranteed failure. Now, when you're trying, you're going to fail. But quitting, just stopping? That was the number one thing I understand. And then number two, you have to make sure that your dreams, your aspirations and goals are so big that not accomplishing them is not an option. You have to want something so big. that it wakes you up in the middle of the night.

You have to want something so big that you think about it all the time. You have to want something so big that it drives you to wake up when you don't want to. It keeps you up at night when you long been sleepy. It makes you show up, do things

you wouldn't normally do. It requires extra. If you want to be extraordinary and not ordinary, If you want to be ordinary, live your life. But if you want to be extraordinary, you have to be extra. If you put extra on top of ordinary, that word is extraordinary. It requires an extra effort.

Now, if you don't want to do the extra effort, you're going to be regular. It's nothing wrong with being regular. A lot of people are happy being regular. I just wasn't. I ain't want to be regular. If I didn't want no regular house, I didn't want no regular car, I didn't want no regular clothes. I didn't want no regular clothes. I didn't want no regular checking account.

I just didn't want it. I wanted to have an exceptional home. I wanted to have an exceptional bank account. I wanted to travel exceptional places. Now, if you don't want that, it's perfectly fine. You can be really happy being ordinary. But if something's burning in you, you got to deal with it. If you don't deal with it, you're going to be disappointed, man.

See, being right, there's nothing wrong with it. Discipline determines your destiny. not your desire. You've heard me say this how many times on the show? Okay, here we go against you. I got it. Faith without works is dead. But let me tell you something.

To be a hard worker, you've got to be disciplined. That's one of the hardest lessons I'm trying to get through to my sons. That an undisciplined man is headed to a life of just, I can't even tell you, man. You're going to throw yourself down a cliff if you're not a young man or a man that possesses discipline. Because they got something for undisciplined people. They got some street laws for undisciplined people,

and they got some federal laws and state laws for undisciplined people. So that's why them signs are outside on the freeway. We're going to let you go fast, but 70 is the limit. If you're disciplined enough of a person to leave your house at the time you're supposed to leave your house, 70 miles per hour is absolutely enough. But if you're an undisciplined person, if you don't have the wherewithal to leave your house on time, to go where you want to go, see, the desire is where you want to go. The discipline is how you get there. You know, you understand.

You can want to go to see your family in California all you want. But the flight leaves at 118. You leave your house at 1230. They told you you must check in one hour. before your flight. Now, if you ain't got the discipline to get to the airport to check in one hour before your flight, leaving your house 45 minutes before the flight departs, what you think going to happen? Your desire to go see your family in LA is going to be thwarted because you lack the discipline to prepare yourself and get yourself ready to do the things

that you have to do to make your desires come true. I'm telling you, discipline, determine is your destiny, not your desire. You can write down a list of stuff you want to do all day, but if you don't produce and show the discipline necessary to get there, what you think going to happen, huh? Okay, I want to be ready. Okay, I want to make 400,000 a year. Okay, I want to be the best player that there is. Okay, but you don't want practice. See, the cat that's disciplined enough to show up at practice, the shooting jumpers, when everybody going home, that's the guy that's going to be the best. The guy that puts us, that's never late for practice, the guy to study the playbook, that's the guy that's going to make it. That's the guy that's going to make.

Not the guy that's talking crack. I'm talking that smack. I'm going to make the Pro Bowl. I'm going to make the All-Star team. I'm going to be All-American. That's just what you say. But discipline determines your destiny, not your desire. So now let's talk about this discipline. What is that really, Steve? That's your work ethic. That's your hunger. That's your, that's your That's your will. That's what you do. That's how hard you're willing to demonstrate. See, it's a live demonstration now.

Discipline is how hard you're willing to demonstrate the attributes and the traits to be what you want to be. Did you hear me? It is your willingness to conduct yourself in a manner that is above and beyond what they say is necessary. When you have a massive goal, something that's big, you must first make it something that not reaching it is unacceptable. Me not living my dream was unacceptable for me. Now, when you get faced with a challenge like living in your car for three years, what happened was I had a dream that was so big, my dreams were bigger than all my problems. If your dreams aren't really big enough and your problems are bigger than your problems. dreams, then your problems will be bigger than your dreams. But if your dreams are so big,

I had no problem that I was not willing to endure to get to my dream. Now, the key you said it, though, was step by step. Remember this saying inch by inch, anything's a cinch. Each by inch, so you got to set incremental goals along the way. On your way to, let's say you want to be a millionaire, but let's say you only make $5,000 a year right. now but you want to be a millionaire then you have got to take whatever you did to make $5,000 and duplicate it so you can make 10 but when you make 10 that should be a minor celebration then when you make 20 that should be another minor celebration don't stay frustrated because you haven't reached the

million because it take a long time to make a million dollars but let's just say you're making $250,000 there's another celebration you should have So you have to enjoy the journey because the journey is not going to change. If you wait until you reach your goal to celebrate, you're going to be, it's mentally debilitated. So you have to have monumental steps along the way and just make inch by inch anything's essential. Set very doable goals as you're trying to reach the impossible thing. Stress is necessary. So you got to be willing to go get it every day.

There's a story my father told me all the time. Now, I've heard it several different ways, but I'm just telling you the way my daddy gave it to me. He says, son, he said, every morning on the plains of the eastern Saragetty desert, there arises a gazelle that realizes that he was run faster than the fastest lion, or he will be eaten and he would die that day. On that same desert arises in the morning a lion that realizes that he must run faster than the fastest gazelle or he will starve and he will die that day. He says son, the moral of the story is, no matter who you is, when you wake up in the morning,

you need to be running. What he taught me was a work ethic of how to work in order to get to where you want to go. You got to put yourself under some stress though. See, stress is necessary. See, I'm a seed, I really am. But a seed has to be planted. A seed got to have dirt put on top of it. If you take a seed and throw it on the concrete and walk off, the sun just burn it up.

But guess what? Logically, in my mind, it doesn't make sense that to grow something, you should dig a hole, put it down in there, and cover it with dirt. Logically, that don't make no sense to me. But oh, though. See, dirt is necessary for growth and development. If you want to kill a big dream, tell it to a small-minded person. I told everybody at 10 years old I was going to be on TV.

I had a little problem when I said that. I had a severe stuttering problem. I could not talk outside of my house. I went to school, church, Anywhere I locked up. I couldn't go to the store. I just studied profusely, man. It was a horrible experience for me. So when I wrote on that paper, the assignment was write on a piece of paper what you want to be when you grow up. I'm 10. I wrote I want to be on TV That was that faith. The belief in things that you cannot see. I ain't see no way I could be on TV, but I wrote it down. I didn't know no better. I just I'm 10. I wrote it down. Teacher called me to the front of the class.

I thought I'm going to give me a gold star because she had everybody stand and read their paper and their name. She called me to the front. I'm thinking I'm going up here to get a gold star. I ain't never had one before. This must be, my answer must have been really good. I can't tell you how wrong I was. That lady didn't call me up there to give me no gold star. She called me up there to humiliate me. And when I got up there that lady,

And when I got up there, that lady lit into me. She said, why would you write something like this on your paper? First of all, why you called me up there? You know I can't talk. You already know I can't talk. And she just said, why would you write something like this on your paper? And I'm standing out.

I'm trying to get out. She said, who in this school ever been on TV? Who in your family ever been on TV? Who in this neighborhood ever been on TV? She said, look at you standing there. You can't even talk. How are they going to put somebody like you on TV? So every Christmas, I send her a flat screen TV.

I want her to see what God had done for me. I want her to see that no matter what she said about. Attitude determines your altitude. If you're a positive person, positive things happen to you. If you're a negative person, negative things are going to continue to happen for you. If you can put that in your scope this year, just change your attitude. Wake up and smile. How about just wake up and be grateful?

Life is really 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do about it. Look, everybody in this room, everybody watch it. Everybody got something they got to deal with. Get to dealing with it. Stop complaining about it. Complaining about it only makes it stay present. Don't give up when reaching your dream is difficult. Listen, if success were easy, you've heard it a million times.

Everybody would be successful. It requires a grit and a toughness to be successful. But I got news for you. It's something that all of you have in you. Now, whatever you've been through, whatever that is, guess what? You're still here. Whatever you think riches is, that's your definition. There's a survey that says riches and success is being happy.

Well, all you have to do then is determine what is it that makes you happy and start down that path. Now, to find true success, I believe that you've got to do some work, because it's not free. Everybody would love to wake up and just be happy and bubbly, but it requires some work. So I want to share with you something from my book, Chapter 11, there is no self-made man. Now, most of us want to believe that we're independent, that if we set our minds to do something, simply, it can get done. Well, I got news for you. Unless you look to others, you can work twice as hard to get half as much.

Sometimes you need a partner in a deal in order to aid you along the way. There is nothing wrong with asking for what you want. You know, for a long time, I used to think that the path to success was going at it alone. Because I was always busy priding myself on not asking for help. I was homeless. I didn't want to ask for help. I didn't want to ask for help. And I almost missed out.

I didn't realize how many people were willing to have discussions with me about success. You know, most people that are successful, if you ask them for help, they'll give it to you. I'm talking about advice, principles, solutions, not money. Don't walk up to a wealthy person that just asked for money. You know how many times they didn't got that? But if you're interested in learning how to fish,

a lot of people that teach you how to fish, as opposed to giving you a fish sandwich. Because they know if they give you the fish sandwich, you're gonna eat it, you're gonna have to come back. A lot of people have helped me along the way. Magic Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, the president. I've had some conversations with some people who have it together,

and they've taught me many things about succeeding. Now, you might think that requesting help is a huge ask, but it's not. People don't mind sharing knowledge. What is knowledge unless it's shared? If you have knowledge, but you never shared, how we know you got it? And just remember, there is no shame in wanting something.

This whole world is based on wanting something. You know, don't sit up and listen to some group. You know, wanting something is a sin. No, it's not. You got to want something. The scripture says, a man without a dream or vision shall perish. So the day you quit wanting something, you might as well push your chips up to the window.

It's a wrap. So lose the shame and you'll have access to more power. And so here's the key. I want to tell you about success is all about building relationships. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Some people might not step up when you ask them for help. They might not, but guess what? The worst thing can happen to you.

If somebody refuses you, you didn't have it anyway. What are you worrying about that for? Well, they might say no or they might turn me down. Ask people. You never know. Suppose they say yes. that could be the turning factor. But, you know, there are some principles

that will increase your chances of getting a success. Know your worth. Don't let nobody else determine it. And don't assume anything. People aren't mind readers. They don't know what you think. And don't assume they know

unless you ask with specifics. And then recognize that no is not a rejection. Every time you hear no, it moves you one step closer to a yes. everybody can't say no. Now, unless you got a hairbrain idea.

And just remember, that success is about building a world that looks the way you wanted to. Nobody else. Never be afraid to reinvent yourself. My career, my entire career, is a study in reinvention. You know, I started out as a comedian. That was it.

I never planned on hosting a radio show, hosting a game show, or hosting a daytime talk show. I never did. Writing books, none of it. Making movies, none of it. Reinvention happens when you diversify your gift. There lies your greatest secret for success.

You've got to discover your gift, and when you discover it, you got to soak it. You got to wring it out, man. You've got to diversify it. Most of us only have one talent. But do you know that that's all you need? mind happens to be to take information and immediately transfer it into other kinds of platforms. Now, when I was younger, I actually thought that I could only do that with comedy.

But as I've gotten older, I discovered through diversification that it was a little bit more than that. That I could also take information immediately transfer it into inspiration. I could turn it into motivation. I can offer it as guidance. So now, sitting on a talk show, I actually have. something to talk about all the failed marriages. I got something to talk about to being homeless. I got something to talk about. Being dead, broke. I got something to talk about having bad credit, tax problems. I got something to talk about whatever whole you've been in. I'm just about

drug myself through it. But I came out of all of it because I was not afraid to diversify my gift. One of the other tricks for reinventing yourself is not letting your background become a limitation. take that background that you're from and never let it define you but allow it to redefine you all that stuff works for the good do you understand that you needed everything that's happened to you to happen to you in the exact order that has happened in order for you to be the person that you are