I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons

by Kevin Hart

You are somebody. You matter. And no one is allowed to take away your right to your property, your right to your safety, or your right to be yourself. Those are things that should be defended.

It turns out that the things I hated most as a child are the same things that serve me the most as an adult.

It’s easy to complain about your life—how tough it is, how unfair it is, how stressful it is, how everyone else has it much better. But if you step into the life of someone you envy for just a day, you’ll discover that everyone has their own problems, and they’re usually worse than yours. Because your problems are designed specifically for you, with the specific purpose of helping you grow.

Having nothing to prove is the most freeing thing in the world. Rather than constantly defending your ego, you can have a sense of humor about your shortcomings.

It’s having perspective. It’s looking at a bigger picture instead of being reactive.

There is just one thing that tomorrow demands of you to make this happen: that you never stop believing in your power to create a better day.

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.

One of the key factors for success—beyond work, talent, timing, relationships, and all the other qualities I’ve mentioned—is the glue that holds all of these together: commitment. What is commitment? Here’s what it means to me: keeping the promises you make to yourself and to others.

No person succeeds alone. Success is a community effort. The more relationships you have, the better you’ll be able to survive, thrive, and grow.

My mother worked hard to make sure I had a good heart, that I wasn’t an animal, that I didn’t treat other people like objects. No one is above anybody and no one is below anybody, she taught, so if you’re treating people in any other way, you are out of line with reality.

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.

Communication is the key that unlocks a plan. Everyone should know your intentions at all times, as well as any changes to them. A good idea with bad communication is as useful as a phone with a dead battery.

When the time came for Eniko to leave, her eyes started watering. And I thought, You don’t cry about what you don’t care about.

Look at what people make important. Why does anyone give a shit about some comedian’s relationship status? If they have nothing better to do, let ’em talk. I’m going to make the choices that serve my happiness, not their expectations, and that’s all that matters.

Around the time you’re eighteen, nature stops the process of growing in your body. So if you want to keep growing after that, you have no choice but to stretch yourself on your own and increase your thinking, your capabilities, and your accomplishments. It’s a scary thing to take the risks and make the sacrifices necessary to keep growing, but it’s better than living a life in which you don’t fulfill your potential.

How you handle rejection is very similar to how you’ll handle success. If you’re strong enough to handle rejection without taking it personally, without holding a grudge, and without losing your passion and drive, then you’ll be strong enough to reap the rewards. But if you’re too weak to handle failure and disappointment, then you’re too weak to handle success, which will only end up damaging your life and happiness.

One day you won’t be here, but your legacy will. Even if the earth is gone, you contributed to that. If you’d done something different, maybe the planet would have survived another minute, another year, another millennium. Everything you do matters. So treat it like it matters.

Success is not an excuse to stop; it’s a reason to move the goalposts farther out and accelerate. There is no destination, just a journey. And that journey is to keep building on top of what I’m building.

Persistence: More than anything, my willingness to be persistent is responsible for the success I’ve had. My mindset is: It’s okay to fail, but it’s not okay to quit. Struggle, rejection, failure, and doubt break most people. Your goal is to learn from these challenges without letting them diminish your motivation. The secret to accomplishing this is simple: Let yourself be driven by your will to succeed rather than your fear of not succeeding.

Patience: The companion to persistence is patience. It drives away the anger, disappointment, and resentment when success doesn’t happen overnight. Patience is understanding that your moment will come at the right time, and your job is to get ready for that moment. Because if it comes when you’re not prepared, then it vanishes just as quickly. Know that your patience will always be tested, and if you can pass that test, you will be tested again and again, until the rare few left standing reap the rewards.

Class, to me, is having a high level of humility and likability—and knowing that all human beings are equal and worthy of respect, understanding, and consideration. Even if someone has done something that seems harmful to you, you still have the option of handling it in a classy way by responding logically instead of emotionally. Class is an investment that will pay off your whole life, because the people you interact with can become your greatest allies or your greatest foes.

The most important contract of all is your word to others and to yourself. If you do not honor your contractual obligations, then other parties won’t honor theirs either, and you won’t get the results you want.

Learning: The key to learning is to shut your mouth. Observe, listen, evaluate, and then choose. Every experience you have is a gift created to teach you a lesson. If you learn and implement that lesson in your life, then you get to receive the next gift. If you don’t learn from it, then that same lesson will keep coming back to you, over and over, until you die standing in the exact same spot where you started, blaming others for something you should have done yourself long ago.

Positivity: What you put out is what you get back. If you want to achieve positive goals and experience positive relationships, then put out positivity. If someone else is putting out negativity, then maneuver around them like you would a puddle on the ground. If you respond with negativity, you will only get dragged into the mud. It is a talent to stay positive and avoid negativity in the face of a sometimes cruel, unfair, and indifferent world. Cultivate that talent. It’s the secret to living a happy life.

Discomfort: This last quality is specifically for the high achievers. If you want to get far in life, then never get too comfortable. Don’t stop, don’t rest, don’t be satisfied. As soon as you get comfortable, you’re pressing a brake and halting your forward motion. It will be hard to accelerate again afterward.