Don’t Let Your Dreams Die | Steve Harvey's Guide to Transformation

No matter who you are, no matter where you are in life, you can take the lid off of your job. There is nothing bigger than your dream. It's going to take more than a notion to become successful. But like I always say, life is 10% what happens to you, it's 90% what you do about it.

And you got to plant and plant and plant and plant.

Extend yourself beyond your normal levels of comfort and buy your first-class ticket.

Hello, Believe Nation. I'm Evan Carmichael. My one word is believe, and I believe that entrepreneurs are going to solve all of the world's major problems. So to help you on your journey today, we're gonna learn from comedian, TV host, and actor Steve Harvey, and my take on his top 10 rules for success, volume 2. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, as you're listening, if something really resonates with you, if there's a message that really holds true to you, Please leave it down in the comments below and put it in quotes so that other people can be inspired. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick with yourself as well. Enjoy.

No matter who you are, no matter where you are in life, you can take the lid off of your jar. And if If you're wondering if you still have the lid on in your life, here are some clues that's gonna let you know that the lid is still on. If you're not excited about waking up in the morning, if you're sitting around bored outta your mind, if you got time to do everything anybody asks you to do, you probably got the lid on. If when you tell your dreams to all your friends, it makes sense to them, You got your lid on, man. Your dreams should be— should not make sense to everybody. You got to say something that make people go, how you going to do that? That's when you got the lid off. And if I were you, I'd do that. I'd take the lid off. Makes sense to me, don't it? The one thing that I have learned to relate to all of my children is to dream. There is nothing bigger than your dream. Nothing is greater than your dream. Now, as we sit in this great educational institution, I am not saying that your education is not important because it's tied to a lot of your dreams. But let me tell you something, there ain't nothing, nothing bigger than your dream because your dream will propel you to get the education. Don't you ever stop dreaming. Don't you ever stop imagining. And we're going to talk about them two things a lot, but don't you ever stop dreaming. Your Bible says a man without a dream or vision shall perish. That's in your Bible. It ain't just in the one I read. Nowhere in that does it say without an education you perish, but it says without a dream or vision you perish. So if what you are dreaming about requires an education, it is then your dream that propels you to get the education. But the dream is bigger than anything, man. See, if it was an education that caused you to be great or successful, I ain't here today because I don't have one of them. But nobody could outdream me. Your dream is everything, man. It's the biggest part of your life. Look, man, it is that thing that God put in you that don't let you sleep sometimes. It's your dream. It's that thing, that part of you, man, that wakes you up and stirs the very pit of your soul. I've always taught my children to dream. The secret, though, the secret to real success is if you tie your gift to the dream. It's gonna take more than a notion to become successful, because once you get this degree, it's actually just gonna be a piece of paper on the wall.

It's really all it's going to be.

Some people may give you a job with it. The majority of people are going to tell you how much experience you need. So you got to hustle, man.

You got to hustle.

Hustle and grind. Dig, man.

You got to fight.

You got to have a lot of dog in you, man, to be rich. Now, if you just want a job, get yourself a little job. Go ahead and set up a nice little life. Get a little house somewhere. Get yourself a little minivan and station wagon and go and ride your life out. Ain't nothing wrong with that. But if you really, really, really want to be ballin', change some people's lives, get yourself some real money, hire people, get more than one stream of income coming in, you gotta be a hustler, man. You gotta be a hustler. You all in the tech. That shit is money, man. Money can't buy you happiness. They ass don't have no money. Tell you what, go be poor and see how that work out. I lived in a car for 3 years, man, struggling. But I had a dream and a vision and I got there. Hustle, man, hustle. Every man in this room, you blew your 20s, you spend all your 30s trying to make up for your 20s. Yeah, that's the truth. Dog, every dude in this room blew they 20s and at 30 trying to fix what they shoulda did in they 20s. And so, so forth and so on. You turn 40, you trying to recover from the mistakes you made when you 30. Now at 40, man, it's time for you to start. Really at 30, you need to start buckling it on down and just realize, man, everybody make mistakes. And if the mistakes you going through are gonna help you become the person you need to be later on. Steve Harvey. All them mistakes, dog, they cool to make. I needed to mess up every marriage. I needed to get arrested like I did. I needed to get shot. I needed all this, dog. I needed to be homeless. Yeah, well, let's not bring it up because all them people that be talking about, man, you get shot, it don't hurt, it just burn. That's a complete lie. I'm telling you, shot ain't what you want. I needed all them things to happen to turn me into who I am today. So when you're young and you make mistakes, don't let them eat you up because everybody that done made it done You got to fail in order to win. Hey, look, man, to understand how to hit the game-winning shot, you got to miss the game-winning shot. Steve Harvey, best guess. You got to miss it.

Well, I'm stuck in a rut because I can't seem to follow through with anything. I went to college for a year and a half, and I dropped out. Then I went to cosmetology school. I completed that, but I never went back to get my license. Then I was a pharmacy technician, and I recently let that license expire as well. I just see like so many people that are my age and they're already set in their careers. And I just feel like at 29, I'm a people person. So I wanna do something like human resources and I just need help. Like where do I begin?

First of all, you're talking about stuff that I can relate to like so many others can relate to. I mean, you know, everybody got the same story. We just got different details. But like I always say, life is 10% what happens to you, it's 90% what you do about it. See, we're gonna dive into a chapter from my new book, and it's chapter 1, section 1. This is very clear for people. So the first step is getting completely and brutally honest enough to say, I am tired of myself. When you say I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, That's the facilitator of change. That's when you're ready to say these words, no more excuses. No more excuses. I went to Kent State, I dropped out. Well, I didn't drop out, I flunked out. Now that threw my life into a spiral, but because I didn't have a college degree, I could not let that stop me. And like you're doing, where you're saying all my friends at this age are settled in your careers, you don't even know if they happy or not. Stop comparing yourself to others. So the first thing you do is stop focusing on other people. Instead, focus on being the best version of you that you can. Then you'll recognize that you deserve to sit at the big table with everybody else after you become the best that you can be. Now, once you've accepted that you have as much right to success and much right to succeed as anybody else, the next step is learning how to talk to talk. You have to get fluid in the language of success so you speak it with ease. Surround yourself with people who've accomplished their dreams and immerse yourself in the culture of achievement.

I've learned if you're a farmer, a farmer understands better than any other worker in this country. A farmer has an understanding that most people never achieve in their life. I really respect the farmers and their commitment, but I respect also their understanding. My grandfather, my uncle, the thing was to wake up early in the morning Before you start your day, you start your day by feeding all the animals. I never understood that. Why am I feeding slop to these hogs, bailing this hay for these cows, taking food out to the hunting dogs, going to get these mules and horses, walking them down to water? Why am I feeding feeding these chickens, man, all this before I eat. My grandfather set me down, he said, young man, if we don't take care of these animals that we are requiring to take care of us, he said, what's going to happen to us? He said, we dependent on them chickens to lay eggs, to give us meat. We depended on them hogs for meat. We depended depended on them mules to pull the plows so we can plant. We depended on them horses to drag all these wagons around. We depended on these hunting dogs to go out in the woods and uncover the animals for us. He said, "And what I respect about farmers is they understand that everything comes in seasons. There is a planting season." And you got to plant and plant and plant and plant, plow, till, hoe the rows. You got to do all that, seed it, fertilize it in order for a crop to grow. Now, here's what happens some years. Some years it's a drought. Ain't no rain, ain't no crops. Sometimes it's a flood, wipe out all the crops, all the planting. But guess what? You still got to do the planting because what you're banking on is just enough rain, just enough sunshine so you can harvest. And even if they crops get washed out, even if the floods come, even if the drought come, You know what's the beautiful thing about a farmer? They do it all over again because they understand that eventually you'll be able to harvest. And that's what I respect about farmers, and that's my life.

You know, you got to be tough because the road to success is always under construction. It's never a clear path to success. The people who become successful are the people who have a relentless attitude.

To.

And you just got to hang in there through the bad breaks, 'cause the bad breaks is coming, but they usually come right before the big break is about to happen. You get a series of bad breaks and it stumbles up a lot of people. My life and my success is to say to anyone, you can stumble, you can fall, you can get back up again. And like I've said before, we each have a gift But too many people miss out because they refuse to sign the lease on their gift. You keep looking for it outside of you. Stop. Sit with yourself. What is it that you do the absolute best with the least amount of effort? That's your gift. But if you are constantly looking outside of yourself and you don't latch on to your gift, you will never find your purpose. If you If you want to succeed, you must commit to your own gift and embrace it.

Knowledge is necessary to get you to the next level, but after you get to the next level, guess what? All that's out the window. Geometry, history, all that's out the window, man. Sorry. You know, you gotta learn this, and this can only be learned in life, man. What y'all sitting up in here catching firsthand is life lessons that you can use when you, when you 58. You understand? You ain't gonna— hey man, you just can't get this. It's not available. You got to see it. So what you're actually doing is— see, think about knowledge, man. You can Google knowledge. You can go online and get knowledge on anything. You You can press a button and read about this and read about that. You can go and repeat that and people go, "Wow, he's knowledgeable." Okay, cool. But exposure, exposure is totally different. Exposure is when you see it, touch it, feel it, go there, experience it. That's different. Exposure, once you open your mind to exposure, you can never shrink your mind. Mind back down, because exposure don't decrease. Once you've been exposed and your mind expands from exposure, you can't shrink it back down and act like this is okay. See, once you fly in first class, you can't walk past there without feeling some kind of way and watch them people shut that curtain. You can't, because the whole time you back there See, when I flew coach, man, everywhere I went, because that's what I could afford to do, when the plane take off and they close that curtain, the whole time I was wondering, what are they doing on the other side of that curtain? Well, they're denying you the exposure because they can't show you. They can't show you watching them people get a whole can of Coke. They can't show you that they get they nuts wet warmed up in a container. They can't show you that they give all them people a hot scented towel to freshen their face and hands. They can't show that to you because you didn't pay for that. See, you bought the coach ticket. So they closed the curtain. They don't even let you come up there and use their bathroom because they just need to keep these 10 seats available for those people that paid. That's what the curtain is for. 'Cause they know if they expose you to it, then you gonna want, hey, I want a whole can of Coke. Well, we can't do that, you didn't pay. Or I want some hot peanuts. No, no, no, no, no. Now on airplanes, you gotta pay. Now they done figured out you gotta pay for the sandwich. You gotta pay for the meal now. You get a choice, but you got to buy it now. It's crazy. Your first class ticket gets you a free meal. Free food. Get you more than one while you're there. You can get free drinks up there. You don't pay for beer and drinks in first class. It comes with the cost of the ticket. So once you sit in first class and you open your mind and expose your mind to it, see, bruh, you can't go sit in coach no more because you've been exposed. But if you keep walking past first class and let them close close the curtain and never get the experience, you, you can grow your whole life thinking coach is fine. But mess around and buy yourself a first-class ticket, you will forever be changed, and you'll never forget what first class was like. But that's the beauty of exposure. It makes you aim and, and, and perform towards the exposure now. So that's why Dick Gregory said you should always, whenever you can go first class extend yourself beyond your normal levels of comfort and buy your first-class ticket. Get you a first-class suit. Get you a first-class pair of shoes. Because once you put it on, you understand what they charge you for. And now you are forever changed because through exposure, your mind cannot shrink back down. Knowledge, you can forget when Christopher discovered America. You can forget that. You can forget the equation for gravity. You can forget MC squared. You can forget that. You can forget what's the pi root figure. You can forget the square root of 181. You can forget the square root of 81. That's knowledge.

Come on, that's—

This the back?

Yeah, that's the back. There you go. It looks good, man. That looks pretty good. Yeah, I think you look pretty good.

I like that.

You like that. That's a pretty good look.

That's pretty good.

I got that. I got this too in case this is— because this is the next step. If you don't do the green juice, that's the— you end up with that if you don't do the green juice. And then—

Let's go on and do it. Let's go all in.

Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

We're back.

We're back with Steve Harvey, everybody. He's talking about his new book.

Steve, you had a great year.

We ain't gonna talk about a damn thing when we come back.

Get your ass out the way. Hey, hey, hey, old Steve Harvey, calm down there. What can I— can I get you anything? Can we get you a juice or anything?

I don't want no damn juice.

I want a ham sandwich.

I want a ham sandwich and 2 white girls.

No, hey.

No, hey. Hey, old Steve Harvey.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I really hope you enjoyed this video. If there's someone you'd like me to profile in the next top 10, check out the link in the description and go and cast your vote. I'd also love to know what was your favorite message from this video. What did you learn from this video that you're going to immediately apply somehow in your life or in your business? Please leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I also want to give a quick shout out to Cyrus Webb. Cyrus, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and posting it to LinkedIn with your review. I really, really appreciate the support, man, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed the book. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love.

I'll see you soon. How do I keep up my energy level? To be honest with you, I'm very fortunate in that I love what I do. So when I'm hosting Family Feud, I'm on every day. I'm on talk show every day. I got a live radio show, 4 hours every day. I love what I do, and I use humor to keep me alive and young. I'm 58, but I act like I'm 8. And I just keep laughing, man. You ever notice people don't laugh a lot, they look older? Man, just start laughing at some of this stuff.

Come on, man, look at all this shit.

Life is really 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do about it. Look, everybody in this room, everybody watching, everybody got something they got to deal with.

Deal with.

Get to dealing with it. Stop complaining about it. Complaining about it only makes it stay present. Do something about it. So life is 10% what happens to you, is 90% what you do about it. Don't you know that however your life is, that it can be even more wonderful than it really is? And young people, do you know that whatever you write, that's what you're going to be? I was showing somebody my telephones, my iPhone. I got 2 iPhones. You cut them on, you cut my iPad on, you cut my laptop on, you cut every desktop I got in every office I got, the same vision board pop up. Oprah said, I didn't know you had a vision board. You got one? If Oprah got a vision board, why I ain't gonna have no vision board? What, I'm crazy? I've been, I've been studying successful people for a long time. They all do the same thing. They all got visions and dreams and goals. They all written down somewhere. They all wake up excited about their life. They all run out of hours in the day because they just can't get it all done, and they can't wait for tomorrow. Now, if your life ain't like that, it's because you ain't living your life in the fullest, man. Now, whose problem is that?