The Resilient Mind - Never Give Up - Steve Harvey

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

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.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to Never Give Up with Steve Harvey. Get access to the Mental Mastery Program and other exclusive episodes by becoming a subscriber. Enjoy. I used to spend the night in hotel parking lots. What was I going to do? I ain't handling where to stay, so I lived in the car. I had $35.

And I said, come on, God. Man, I've been trying to make this dream come true. You don't left me out here like this. And I was crying so hard that he just said, I didn't like hear a voice of nothing, but he spoke to me. And however, he said, if you get up, I'm going to take you places you ain't never been. Now I was fitting to quit. So I said, skip it. I'm going to quit anyway.

So I got my car. I went to a pay phone and I was going to call my dad. You remember back in the day where you could punch you in a code and call your answering machine and get your messages? So I called and I punched in the code and the, it said, doop. He said, hey, Steve, this is Chuck Sutton with Showtime at the Apollo. We saw a tape of you. You're very funny. If you could get here Sunday night, we'd love to put you on television.

Call me back. Let me know if you can make it. So I hung the phone up. I'm crushed because my whole dream of being on TV. and I couldn't get to New York. I got $35. How am I'll get to New York? I can't make it.

So I'm standing there at the phone booth and tears just coming down my face. I said, God, so that must be a sign for me to go home. Because this is, I ain't even got the money to go to the Apollo. My whole thing, I wanted to be on TV, I couldn't even make the dream come true.

I'm just, I'm, I'm, this is the most messed up moment. And so I said, man, let me call this dude back and see if he said this Sunday. Because maybe he said next Sunday and I can hustle up a little bit of money or something. I don't know what I'm going to do, but let me just call him back. So I call him back. Steve, this is Chuck Sutton, Showtime of DePaul. We saw a tape of yours.

You're very, very funny. Look, we have an opening Sunday night at Showtime of DePaul. If you can make it, we'd love to put you on TV. I say, it's this Sunday. Before I hit the button, I heard, doop. You have another message. Now, it wasn't there before. So I punched my code in.

I listened to the second message. He said, Steve Harvey, this is Tom Sober from the Comedy Caravan. This is a Thursday. He said, I have a gig in Jacksonville, Florida on Friday night that pays $150. If you can get there Friday night, you'll make $150. So I called him back and I said, hey, Tom, did you get a gig away? He said, no, it's still available. He said, can you get that?

I said, I'm in Pensacola, Florida. I'm three and a half hours away. So I drive to Jacksonville, Florida, and that night I killed, I made the $150. The club owner said, man, you're funny than the guy we hired. If you stay tomorrow night, I'm going to give you another $150. So now I got $300 now. So I get on the phone. I call Chuck Sutton.

I say, hey, man, is the gig still available? at Showtime at the Apollo. He said, well, we got one opening left. I said, I'll be there. So I called Eastern Airlines, who used to be open back then. They had a special for $99 going from Jacksonville, Florida, the New York round trip.

So I parked my car at the airport. I got on. Got on playing. Flew. Everything I had was in two bags. Got to the Apollo. I said, hey, man, I'm here. I got there at 11 o'clock in the morning.

He said, you can't stay here because you don't come on to the late show tonight. I said, I ain't got nowhere to go. I said, if you just let me stay in this building, man, I ain't going to move around nothing. I ain't got nowhere to go. I'm in Harlem. I can't go back out here.

I got these two bags. I got victim road all over me, man. So he said, all right, if you go upstairs, don't come down. So he put me in the dressing room on the sixth floor. So that's where all the comedians was. So I stayed up there. I got hungry around 3 o'clock, and I couldn't take it no more.

So I went back downstairs, a dude named Alton Liston. I said, hey, man, he said, man, I thought I told you. Don't come down them damn steps. I say, hey, man, I'm just hungry, man. I said, let me go to that KFC I saw in the corner. Just let me get some chicken. I'll come right back. He said, man, if you ain't back in 20 minutes,

you ain't getting in this building. So I went, bought me some chicken, came back. So the comedians started coming in the building. They started coming up on the sixth floor. So I meet this guy named D.L. Huglin. I introduced myself. He introduced his self. I'm sitting there.

Another guy come in named Dwayne Johnson. Then this other dude walked in named Jamie Fox. And I introduced myself. We don't know each other. Ain't none of us famous. It's 1991, man. They gave everybody the lineup. I was on the last show tonight.

I don't go on to 11 at night. I'd have had this four pieces of chicken. I'm starving, man. That chicken didn't wore off. I'm nervous, man. I'm about to throw up. Dior Hughley went downstairs. D.L. Hughley got booed off.

Dwayne Johnson got booed off. Jamie Fox went down there and got booed. They booed Jamie, then Jamie started singing. And then they started clapping. And Jamie had their ass, then he went back to them jokes, and they got his ass. So I'm walking down the steps and I see Jamie sitting on the steps. I said, hey man, hang in there. He said, man, they ain't never happened to me before, man.

This is crazy. This Jamie Fox, man, one of the most talented people in all of comedy. Now, you don't even know how nervous I am, man. I can't even. My breathing is shot, cause these dudes been booed. So I walk out, I had wrote this joke. Mike Tyson had got in a fight in Harlem with this heavyweight named Mitch Green.

Mike Tyson had hit the dude in the eye in the store. Now, he was on the news, his eye was swollen. So the joke I wrote was, they was interviewing Mitch Green, And he was telling everybody what happened, but his eye took over the interview. And I wrote this joke that his eye started talking and was just, I'll tell you what happened.

The heavyweight champ's fist is coming towards my face. I just say, Lord, Lord, Lord. And I wrote this whole joke about this dude's eyeball talking. And when the punch came, wheeh, and all this hill, the Apollo man, they went crazy. lost their mind. I got a standing ovation, man. I walked off stage. I walked off stage, man, just started crying. I couldn't believe it. They paid me. I made $750 for being on TV for one night. I'd never made $750 telejokes in one night. And so that was my first television

appearance a couple weeks later. Sinbad was the host of the show. He got this job at all. on a different world. And so he quit. And so Mark Curry became the host. And then Mark Curry got hanging with Mr. Cooper. And he quit. And they came to me and said, would you come back to New York and host amateur night for us to just try you out?

I ain't no problem. So I went to New York. I hosted amateur night. And I was killing. But every time we went to commercial break, I was supposed to let the warm up. act take over like Ruben does. But I knew not to let the warm-up act do that,

because he would change the attitude of the crowd, because Apollo was a wild play. So I stayed out there. I did the warm-up and the hosting, and I created a bond with that audience. And that's how I got on TV. It was my very first TV show. I hosted Showtime at Apollo.

I ended up being the longest-running host in the history of Showtime Impala. I did that show for eight years. Nobody ever did it for eight years. And that was my turn. turn back moment. See, in your life, everybody has a turn back moment. You have a moment where you can go forward or you can give up. But the thing you have to keep in mind before you give up is that if you give up, the guarantee is it will never happen. That's the guarantee

of quitting, that it will never happen nowhere under the sun. The only way the possibility remains that it can happen is if you never give up no matter what. Because God is always coming. He's never too late. At your worst, look, man, when they told me I had to be in New York, I saw no way I could get there. But that God don't, he made the phone rang. I end up in Florida, I make $300.

Then I go to New York, I make $750. dollar. Almost got a thousand dollars out of nowhere. That's that's what happened to me. That was my moment of never giving up. That's when I first learned that faith was everything that that you have to remain faithful. Thank you for tuning into this episode. If you're enjoying the content, you can access exclusive material by becoming a subscriber. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.