The School of Greatness - 642 Love Versus Ego with Taye Diggs

Episode Date: May 17, 2018

"CONVINCE YOURSELF YOU ARE WORTH IT.” Have you ever wondered, “What value do I have? Am I good enough? How can I compete against others?” Those thoughts stem from you comparing yourself to others. It’s a natural habit, but it’s one that is going to hold you back. Your value comes from you. From being who you are, and all of the experiences you went through. This world, and finding your place in it, is all about you being you and trusting in your instincts. If you compare yourself to others, you’re always going to feel like you’re coming up short. The truth is, you are great now. Every experience you go through, good or bad, makes you something special. To go further into this, I wanted to dive into a previous episode with Taye Diggs. Taye is an actor and singer who has had an incredible career in film and theatre. He was in the film, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and the TV series Private Practice, among many other career highlights. Listen to all of Taye’s insights, on Episode 642. In This Episode You Will Learn: What Taye struggled with (00:53) The thing you need to convince yourself of (1:14) How to find your inner power (1:47) What guides Taye and his actions (2:26) How you can get the world to open up (3:18) Plus much more.

This is 5-Minute Friday! Welcome everyone to a special edition of the School of Greatness podcast. I am pumped because we've got an incredible human being. His name is Taye Diggs, and that's right, he's in the Greatness studio today, and boy did we go there. For those that don't know who Tay is, he's got his degree in musical theater from Syracuse University, and he made his show business debut in the ensemble cast of the five-time Tony Award-winning play Carousel. And he's best known for his Broadway musical performance on Rent and in the

film How Stella Got Her Groove Back. That is stella got her groove back that is right getting that groove back as well as his time on tv's hit show private practice for me with talent i didn't have an issue because people were always there telling me how that i had something it had to to deal with deserving the pretty girl or deserving to be in a conversation. So I think at the end of the day, it's tough, man. It's one of the hardest, I think it could be one of the hardest things to do, which is just convince yourself that you are worth it,

just you who you are, and not comparing yourself or putting yourself in a context because it's so easy to say oh am i as intelligent as this person and then looking at what you have to offer in terms of intelligence because it's not about that because that can easily be taken away or you cannot have it so you have to find who you are as a person regardless of everything else and everyone else around you and just be cool with that and let that power you so that no matter how great how handsome how talented no matter how whatever it is you are you consider yourself more than enough yeah and in this world that's based on all of that other shit it's really tough to do because we're here and first thing we ask ourselves you know what what do i have to offer

what makes me different what makes me special so that's that's where i think the difficulty comes in i force myself to think of others and kind of walk walk a path of trying to to love as corny as that sounds trying empathy is is what it is every day i'm i'm forcing myself to try to see if somebody rubs me the wrong way. If, if somebody does something, whether it be to me or to someone else, or if someone comes to me and asks some advice,

I forced myself to try to say something that, that will kind of throw a positive spin on something. And not go the negative route. Yeah. I feel good about that. I feel good about myself when it comes to that. That's something that I'm pretty diligent in, I think, doing. So that things mean something. You know, like all the shit that I've been through.

I've been through it. So now I know. Yeah. For a minute, I was living a great life. I thought I was a good person and kind. But I didn't know shit. You know what I mean? I didn't know what people meant.

I didn't know what it was like to struggle to a certain extent. And until I did, the world didn't open up. You need experiences no matter what. I'm not telling everybody to to get addicted to drugs and right right spend a hundred thousand dollars but you know you know everybody has their own kind of path i don't want people to end up killing themselves but i i think it's good that people experience some friction what does that mean that they should just be constantly going out putting themselves out to bigger roles or bigger opportunities and failing essentially or getting said no to?

I think people should follow their instincts. You know, I truly do. I mean, I could sit here and say, be focused and stay out of trouble. And I think at a young age, if people can realize that there's something outside of themselves, that there's a greater energy. I don't think it can go wrong there. But people living their lives and having their own experiences, I think it bodes well for them. Being selfish, all of that. Thinking of others.

Do you, but think of others and just go for it. Go hard.