I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons

by Kevin Hart

Life is a story. It’s full of chapters. And the beauty of life is that not only do you get to choose how you interpret each chapter, but your interpretation writes the next chapter. It determines whether it’s comedy or tragedy, fairy tale or horror story, rags-to-riches or riches-to-rags. You can’t control the events that happen to you, but you can control your interpretation of them. So why not choose the story that serves your life the best?

“Don’t quit your day job.” “Stop dreaming.” “Be realistic.” “There’s no money in it.” “It’s not a smart choice.” “There’s too much competition.” “You’re not good enough.” Many people will tell you to ignore these doubters. Others will tell you to listen and then prove them wrong, which worked for me in those first shows. But I’m going to recommend something better that I learned much later: Don’t invite them into the conversation. You already know what you want to dedicate yourself to, so you don’t need to ask for their approval. There’s no need to seek external approval when you already have internal approval.

Less than two months before, these same people had been encouraging me to try comedy because I was so funny. Today, they were telling me to stop doing it. They believed in me then; now, suddenly, they didn’t believe in me? I couldn’t understand it at the time, but later I thought about it. The problem is, many people want you to do things, up to the point where they lose control of you. As long as they’re still your boss or mentor or partner or good friend, it’s fine. But if it starts pulling you away from them or making you more successful than them or keeping you too busy to see them as much, then your dream can become their threat.

When the stakes are higher than what you’re used to, there’s one rule: Go with what you know—don’t change it up. Because when you start performing new stuff instead of polished stuff, you’re more likely to bomb.

It was a Tuesday, which was always a dead night at the Laff House, but it was a chance to get some stage time in and make a little money

If you stay ready, you don’t ever have to worry about getting ready.”

If you wait for certainty, you will spend your whole life standing still. And if you grow discouraged and give up when things get rough, you’ll miss out on your best possible destiny. So the secret is to be excited about what is in your power to control, be accepting of what’s not in your power to control, and then move with certainty into an uncertain future.