This Is How We Do It: A Pep Talk

by Kevin Hart

Here are some of the questions I ask myself: What am I building? What is the endgame? And when I get to the endgame, is it really the end? When I die, what will other people talk about? What will the conversation be like? What is the legacy I’m leaving for my children?

I’ll be damned if I can’t put a great display of life together while I’m here.

You have to risk negativity, risk banishment, risk hatred to have a life worth living.

Kids, family, friends, strangers, whoever. They’ll see it and they’ll understand it, and they’ll make life choices off your example. They’re gonna know what to do and what not to do based off the things you did.

What-is-ness is accepting everything for what it is. When shit inevitably happens: it is what it is. You are at peace with the nature of this new reality.

Go ahead, I’ll wait. Keep walking in circles staring at the ground, foaming at the mouth, spouting off all that negativity. Let’s see how many years of your life you want to spend standing in place, avoiding happiness, and making yourself and everybody around you feel like shit.

Sometimes we’re bitching and complaining about shit we can’t fucking change. Make the best of those moments. Complete those moments. And after completing them, move on rather than sitting there and letting it fuck up your day. That’s my suggestion. Be like water: allow, adapt, and keep moving.

Do the fucking work. Don’t bitch about it along the way. Shortcuts are for suckers.

I’ve said, the only person who can change anything about your life is you. But if you can’t rely on yourself, what hope do you have?

Look, life is all about relationships. These don’t just help you on your path to success—they’re what bring you fulfillment in all the moments along the way.

To truly succeed, you have to be your own power source. Waiting for energy and motivation from the outside is a loser’s strategy.

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.

The smartest person in the room lets everybody talk, and they listen so they can get even smarter.

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.