MBA928 Must Read: I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons by Kevin Heart

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Hey O welcome to the $100 MBA show, the business podcast that uploads business skills and ins ears into your brain every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar MBA, a complete business training and community online over at100mba.net and today's episode is a must read episode in our Must Read Episodes. I share with you a book that I've read that has greatly influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights, and why you should read it too. Today's must read is I Can't make this Up. Life Lessons by Kevin Hart. Yes, Kevin Hart the comedian. I was blown away by this book. I heard so much about this book before I read it and then I checked out the reviews on Amazon and it's incredibly well received. Yes, Kevin Hart is not, you know, the typical entrepreneur. He's definitely a business person. He's definitely a hard worker and has built his brand around his talents. And I want to share with you some of the takeaways I got from his book. How he got through his struggles, how his mindset really helped him throughout his life, what mistakes he made that he regrets, and what are some of the great ideas he had and implemented to have a great career. This book was absolutely hilarious as well. Super enjoyable but super insightful. I can't wait to share with you those insights and more. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I Can't make this up by Kevin Hart and Neil Strauss is one of my favorite books I've read so far this year. I know the year just got started, but it's gotta be on the top of my list. It's absolutely hilarious. I actually listened to this book on Audible and I Highly recommend you get the audio version. In fact, later in this episode, I'm gonna show you how you can get it for free. The reason why I recommend the audio version is because Kevin Hart narrates it and he ad libs a bit and it's hilarious. I mean, all his jokes in this book just land so perfectly in the audio version. Now, I have to say, this book is long. I think it's like almost 100 chapters and it is long winded. But it's one of those books that I don't actually mind it being long winded. I enjoyed every moment of it. And that's a lot to do with the fact that Kevin Hart is a great storyteller. So this book really zooms by. Now, Kevin Hart grew up in a very poor neighborhood, in a poor family in Philadelphia. He didn't get anything fed to him. You know, he had no advantages other than the fact that his mom was extremely disciplined and taught him to be a hard worker. And that's really one of the biggest things you learn about Kevin. And that leads me to sharing with you the two things that I find very profound in this book. One, how hardworking he is, and number two, his mindset when it comes to failure. If it was anybody else who had Kevin's journey, they would have quit a long time ago because of the amount of disappointment he actually experienced. But his mindset when it comes to failure or when things don't go his way is really the key to his success. I mean, he calls it shoulder shrugging it off. When things don't go his way, he just kind of says, hey, that's okay, let me make the best of the situation. I mean, he was relentless in becoming a great comedian and it took him a long time to actually get his groove. He talks about that evolution of becoming a creative person, sharing a bit more about himself and his life and being real and, and honest and transparent on the stage when he's actually doing his set of comedy. And I wanna touch on that point. He really didn't start seeing any kind of success until he started just being honest and tell real stories and not make up stories when he was doing his comedy. And I think the same applies to business age, where everything is out in the open, where transparency is king. People wanna know who's behind the company. And I find that when I show my real self, when I open up and just be myself and tell my story, and whether it's in a podcast interview, whether it's in a blog post, whether it's on this podcast, the more people resonate with me, the more I grow as an entrepreneur, the more I grow as a person who's trying to build something. In fact, one of the most popular blog posts on the Hundred Dollar MBA blog has nothing to do with business. It's actually a post titled 16 Things yous Don't Know About Me But Should. And it's just a blog post about who I am as a person. Things like, I really enjoy the company of old people, or my Egyptian heritage, or the fact that I don't drink alcohol. And that blog post gets me so many emails. People reply to me and say, hey, I love that blog post. I'm like that in this way, or I'm not like that, but I really respect the fact that you were open and honest. People need to understand who they're dealing with, who they are actually going to do business with. Heck, there's people that buy Teslas just because they love Elon Musk. They find them inspiring. They're willing to put down 50, 60, 70, $100,000 because they wanna support who he is. So when Kevin Hart started sharing real stories from his real life, we're talking about some deep problems with his parents, with his father, with his wife. But he made jokes around it. People started to feel like, wow, I have those problems too. This person is different. He's actually sharing they're not some silly bits. And it became his signature, being open and honest and having fun with his problems in life. I also mentioned that he was incredibly hardworking. And I should add, he was tenacious. I mean, even when he was really down in the dumps, like really had no money, he would, you know, do gigs for free. He would do gigs for a hamburger. You know, he would try his best just to scrape together $400 to pay his rent. And that didn't last for like a day or two. It lasted for years. And he shares those stories and those takeaways in the book. He also is open and honest about his flaws, whether his flaws as a person or how he is not so great with money or gambling or drinking. But he shares his lessons in hopes that you learn from his life, from his mistakes. And I feel like that's a really a big sacrifice. You know, he's a big time celebrity, you know, and for him to be open and honest about some of these things is pretty risky. But you can't help but feel for him. You kind of help but feel like, wow, you're sharing this with me to help me. That's really thoughtful of You, Kevin. And even if you don't have the same problems as he did, you'll still learn how and how not to deal with problems. And in life, in business, when you don't get that client, when you don't get that gig, when someone promises you a contract and then backs out, that happened several times in his career. How did he deal with that? How did he actually deal with it emotionally? How did he move on and continue to work? He goes into all of that in the book. I also learned how to be an entertaining storyteller just by reading this book. I mean, I don't think I've ever read a book where somebody was so engaging in his storytelling. The amount of details he gave, the inside jokes he would refer to things that he said in earlier chapters. I mean, obviously he's a comedian and that's something that he does. But it made me think in my own writing, in my own communication, how detailed am I when I storytell? I mean, this goes for public speaking. This goes for your blog post. This goes for your sales videos, your sales copy. Are you really painting the picture for the reader or for the listener? I mean, Kevin is a master at that. And I really learned some pretty cool tricks. And by the end of the book, you kind of feel like you just experience being a part of an inside club, like you're his friend or something. I really felt I got to know him and that causes a sense of loyalty. You know, I'm going to see him in a different light when I watch his specials on Netflix. And if he performs in my city, I will definitely want to buy some tickets just because I really got to know who he is and I appreciate the facts he shared so much. It got me thinking, am I doing the same because I want people to feel the same way about me? One of the great things he also shares in this book is all the great advice he gets from others. I don't think I've actually seen this done so much much in a book where he shares with you what Chris Rock told him as a piece of advice when he was starting to become a comedian, or what Eddie Murphy said when it comes to business or the business of comedy, or the advice he got from his business managers. He's so willing to share with you all this great advice that he received that you're not only learning from him, but you're learning from the others that he knew. A little surprise I wasn't expecting, but there were plenty of those types of surprises in this book. I was really surprised it really exceeded my expectations.

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Couple more takeaways before we wrap up today's episode. Now, given the fact this is a biography, it goes in chronological order, right? But the book is all about life lessons. So each chapter is named after a life lesson, something that he learned. And what's great about that is that he builds upon each life lesson. So at one point he thinks he's learned this lesson and this is how things are. Later he discovers, no, it's actually like this. And he refers to those things and refers back to chapters all the time. And you actually see how these lessons helped him become who he is today as a professional and a person. Lastly, I really think that Kevin really communicates how much he cares for the reader. He shares with you why he wrote this book and why he's sharing these things throughout the book. In fact, in the audio version on Audible, he shares, you know, when he's recording this, how busy he actually is. But he makes time to write this book and record it, whether he's in his trailer, whether he's getting ready to get on set, whether he's on the road and traveling. And in fact, you can hear in his voice sometimes he's under the weather, but he still goes and he records and makes sure that he makes it happen. So you get kind of a behind the scenes look at how he actually put this book together even though he's super busy. So that was a cool little plus. Guys, I highly recommend you pick up this book. It's hilarious, it's entertaining, and there's so much to learn about business, about life, about dealing with difficulties. You remind me of the book the Obstacles Away by Ryan Holiday, but a fun version, really. Or maybe a real life version of the manifestation of somebody taking on those philosophies. I can't make this up by Kevin Hart. Definitely pick it up again. You can get it for free on Audible. You can get two free books. Just go to 100mba.net audible all right, that's it for me today, guys. Thank you so much for listening. In tomorrow's episode, I'm gonna share with you my results so far of being off social media for the last four months. I've taken a hiatus. I've quit social media for four months so far. You know, my goal is to make it to the end of 2018 and re evaluate, but I want to share with you what I've experienced so far, what I've learned, what I've gained, what I've done with all my extra time. Hit subscribe right now on the podcast so you can get that episode automatically when it airs tomorrow, when it gets released tomorrow. Thank you so much. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I love biographies. I've really gotten into them because they really help me learn through other people's experiences. It's helped me become a better entrepreneur, it's helped me become a better person, and it gives me more of a worldly view of a broader view of how to deal with issues, problems that occur. So I highly recommend that you get your biography game up. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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