This Is How We Do It: A Pep Talk

by Kevin Hart

Nobody has anything on you unless you give it to them. Your emotions, your response, your anger—those are all things controlled by you.

“You’re not going to hurt my feelings.”

To truly succeed, you have to be your own power source.

A long time ago, I realized there’s no magic current that takes you places in life.

Self-powership means being a self-starter. It’s the ability to pull energy and grit out of yourself at will and decide to keep putting in the work.

Work still has to be done regardless of the people you put around you, because anything that you do, you need to be proud of. You gotta be happy with your effort.

Your future rests on no one else’s shoulders but your own. So learn to carry a bigger load, and you’ll have a bigger life.

If it weren’t for this skill, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It was learning from people smarter than me, who had some shit figured out and already made their own mistakes, that put me in a position to succeed.

You can’t be afraid to learn. Be a sponge and soak up information.

So while you’re on your way up, treat everybody with fucking respect.

Be spongy, people: you don’t know everything. The smartest person in the room never says they’re the smartest person in the room. The smartest person in the room lets everybody talk, and they listen so they can get even smarter. The smartest person in the room is the spongiest. Facts.

Soaking up knowledge from different individuals in different fields not only makes you a more well-rounded and creative thinker, but it also allows you to relate with more people as you move through life, which in turn encourages more personal growth.

Being able to carry conversations and make connections with a greater range of people opens up doors to ideas and opportunities you wouldn’t otherwise have if you stayed narrow minded.

You can’t summon the self-powership and determination necessary to push yourself down the path if you don’t know what the path is leading toward, and feel a burning drive to get there.

But one of the quickest ways to get closer to learning what you authentically want is through the contrast of experiencing what you don’t want and what doesn’t work.

One of the biggest things that takes people’s eyes off their prize is comparison.

Where you look is where you’re going to go.

Because the moment you take your eyes and apply them to something else, you have veered off the road. You’re heading somewhere else.

Just be aware that while you’re on course, things can happen, roadblocks can be thrown, sometimes walls appear out of nowhere. It’s your job to weave, jump, roll, and swerve around them. Because your eyes are on the prize. Nothing should take your eyes off it.

That prize just grew with me, hence the word prize-ness. Prize-ness is a lot of prizes in one, so keep your eyes on the prize-ness.

If you’re going to go any kind of distance and take on the challenge of unleashing everything you’ve got, you’re going to have to put up with a lot of things. Without the capacity for put-up-with-ness, you’re going to fold at the first sign of adversity or give up just before the finish line. Without patience, you also won’t be able to withstand the amount of time it’s really going to take to realize your vision. Nothing will happen overnight.

It takes time for trees to bear fruit. It takes time for plans to come together. It takes time to learn and pivot after each attempt.

Your ability to succeed and accomplish your goals is directly dependent on your ability to deal with adversity and time.

Are you willing to sacrifice a high level of fun and comfort in order to be great?

when you feel comfortable, you relax. When you relax, you get lazy. When you get lazy, life passes you by.

I refuse to allow mediocrity. I refuse to put up with anything less than my best. So anything that I have to withstand in pursuit of my best isn’t even a task. It’s the obvious choice. When the alternative is dying with the regret of knowing I wasted my life and my potential . . . slap some motherfucking Vaseline on my face and get me back in, Coach!

It’s either put-up-with-ness and deciding to stay in the ring, or quitting and sitting for the rest of your life with the knowledge that you gave up on yourself.

Understand that put-up-with-ness is a talent. And I’ve had to showcase this talent a lot. Every time I bring a new person onto my team or my company, there’s a level of put-up-with-ness that has to be displayed. This person may not know what to do or may not fit in at first, so you’re the one who has to shape, mold, and fix. You gotta put up with whatever the BS is or may be before it gets to a place that makes you happy. This is especially true with my team, because we’re friends—and when you mix friendship with business, sometimes those lines get blurred. So I have to be patient and have a high level of put-up-with-ness with the problems that occur. Nothing’s easy. When you understand that, you’re able to move and maneuver better—plain and simple. I wish I could tell you that I didn’t have to use a high level of put-up-with-ness, but I do. You do too.