WATCH THIS BEFORE YOU GIVE UP | Steve Harvey Motivational Speech 2020
“Who do you know on TV?” I said, “nobody.”
She say, “anybody in this school ever been
on TV?” I said, “no ma’am.”
She say, “anybody in your neighbourhood ever
been on TV?” I said “no ma’am.”
She said, “What makes you think you can be
on TV?” And she crushed.
I’m going to try to share with you what I’ve
learned in my lifetime,
all the difficulties, all the ups and downs,
all the mistakes, everything I’ve learned
from it, I’mma just put it in a condensed
package.
6th grade now, 1968. They sittin’ up there
and now standing up.
Brenda wants to be a doctor, Larry wants to
be a lawyer.
So I stood up and I’m thinking to myself,
now this here
This is the day I’ve been waiting on. I’mma
get recognised for the brilliant cat that
I am.
And it’s no doubt in they mind now who the
star student of this school is,
cause I be putting something on my paper that
was unbelievable.
Cause nobody had wrote on they paper, I wanna
be on TV.
I get up in front of the class, she said,
“what did you write on your paper?”
I say “I wanna be on TV!” She said, “why did
you write that on your paper?”
I said, “because that was our assignment for
today!”
She said, “and what made you think you could
write such a thing on your paper?”
“Who do you know on TV?” I said, “nobody.”
She say, “anybody in this school ever been
on TV?” I said, “no, ma’am.”
She say, “anybody in your neighbourhood ever
been on TV?” I said “no, ma’am.”
She said, “what makes you think you can be
on TV?” And she crushed.
I said, “I don’t know, but that’s what I wanna
do.”
She said, “I’m gonna call your house
and I’mma tell your mother that you a smart-aleck.
So when I got home, she on the front porch
and she says,
“what did you do up at that school?” I said,
“momma, I just did what she asked me to do,
she asked me what I wanna be, I wanna be on
TV.”
She said, “why did you write that on the paper?”
I said, “cause momma that’s what I wanna be.”
She said, “when your daddy get home
I’mma tellin’ you been up at the school, being
a smart-aleck.”
So he comes home, he takes his bath and he’s
reading the paper
and afterwards he said, “boy come in here.”
He said, “what is this your momma telling
me you did up at the school?”
And she’s standing there, “tell em’ what you
did!”
and I said, “I wrote on a piece of paper I
wanna be on TV.”
He said, “what you do that for?”
I said, “because that’s what the teacher asked
us daddy, what we wanted to be.”
She said, “and you’re being up there being
smart,
he gon put a smart ass and he wanna be on
TV.”
My father looked at me and said, “well what’s
wrong with that?”
“He was going all slick, he gotta be more
reasonable like the teacher said!”
He said, “well, that make no sense if that’s
what the boy wanna be.”
She said, “he can’t do what he wanna do, gotta
do it like the teacher say it!”
He said, “boy go in your room.”
Coming in the room a little bit later on,
he said,
“boy, what you write on your paper?” I said,
“I wanna be on TV.”
He said, “well what she wants you to put on
the paper?”
I said, “I don’t know daddy, like a policeman
or ball player or something,
what all the rest of the boys put.”
He said, “well put that on the paper and take
it back up to the dream-killing So he said,
“now take that paper and put in your drawer.”
He said, “every night before you go to bed,
read your paper.”
He said, “every morning when you get up to
go to school, read your paper.”
I did it. If you turn on your television set,
7 days a week, I’m on there somewhere.
Because that is a principle of success that
all successful people know.
If it is written, so shall it be. That’s the
deal.
If you don’t have what you want in life, just
check yourself, is it written anywhere?
Have you wrote it down? Have you claimed it?
Have you laid it into faith?
Have you wielded it into existence?
Has it become a law? Did you write it down?
If it ain’t written down, what you want?
And what I learned was, that success, that
all successful people know, we write it down.
It’s a vision board! You’ve got to have vision
boards man!
Y’all to see what’s on my laptop, in my computer.
Even I, I still have visions. A man without
a dream or vision shall pass…
you’ve all heard this, I just try to put it
in a way where it’s real talk.
See, writing it down makes it doable. If you
go through a school zone doing 35mph
and the police stop you and a truck was blocking
the sign that said 20mph, guess what? You
still get the ticket! You know why? Cause
it’s a written law!
They put it into law, they wrote it down!
The fact that you ain’t read? The fact that
you didn’t see the sign?
Tough!
It’s written! 20! You break the law. 20!
You got to write it down. That’s an important
thing.
Here’s a cold thing I’ve learned, you got
to fix your mindset.
You change that, the moment you change your
thought,
your attitude determines your altitude,
the moment you change your thought is the
moment you change your existence.
A flea is the smallest insect. One of the
world’s smallest insects.
Do you know that a flea has a 36in vertical?
That’s pretty high!
The average human being cannot jump 36in.
If you take that insect and capture it and
put it in a jar and put the lid on it,
that insect still has a 36in vertical, you
know what it does?
It jumps 36in, but it hits its head and gets
knocked back down.
So, he makes an adjustment.
“Since I’m getting knocked back down, I’m
not gonna jump my full potential,
I’m gonna jump just enough so I don’t get
knocked back down.”
If you get another flea and capture it, the
flea goes into the jar.
The flea again, another flea, has a 36in vertical,
but because he’s in the jar
and he’s seen what happens when he hits his
head and he gets knocked back down,
he duplicates what he sees the other flee
doing
and he jumps just high enough where he don’t
hit his head.
The sad thing about it is when these fleas
have babies,
these fleas are born with a 36in vertical,
but because they live in the jar with they
momma and they daddy
and they got a 36in vertical, but they see
everybody else jumpin’ just so high,
they duplicate it. Becomes generational. It
gets passed down.
The parent ain’t got enough sense to say,
“hey I’ve messed up my jump, but you don’t,
you can still go 36.”
Your brain is your lid. If you take the lid
off,
the potential in every one of us is expansive,
it’s unbelievable.
Imagination is everything! It’s the preview
to life’s coming attractions!
You know what that means? Everything was once
a thought!
That’s what that means! Let your imagination
go,
open up your mind, trip a little bit, be
The Wright brothers were sitting around one
day and said,
“hey, I want to fly like a bird.”
So people say, “come here man.” Tell me what
you just said,
“I’mma fly like a bird.”
I flew into here today.
If imagination is everything, why not use
yours?
The possibilites in your life are endless
man.
In order to be successful, you have to jump.
You gotta jump.
It’s like you’re standing on the edge of a
cliff,
in order to be successful you gotta jump.
Everybody in here, you got to jump. If you
don’t jump, you can’t be successful.
Problem is when you jump, you don’t know if
the parachute is gonna open.
So fear freezes you. The fear of failure,
you’ve all heard all of this stuff,
I just have a different way of putting it.
The fear of failure is the number one cause
of failure.
It freezes you.
But let me explain something to you, if you
don’t jump,
here’s the one thing that’s guaranteed.
When you jump, you don’t know if you parachute
will open,
but here’s a fact! If you don’t jump, It ain’t
opening for sure.
It don’t open at all, there’s no chance of
you enjoying the ride.
But now here’s the deal when you jump. Listen
to this, I’mma tell you this.
It ain’t gonna open right away. I promise
you that!
When you jump, it’s not opening right away.
Oh, you gonna get cut up. Cause the parachute
is not going to open right away.
But see, and your parachute is success, success!
When you experience success, it opens the
parachute
and now the fall is not a ride, it’s an incredible
ride,
your view is different. You see people on
parachutes in the air all the time.
You see em’ on TMZ, you caught em’ on TV
shows and watch people live their life.
Stop watching people live a life you could
be living.
Jump! Jump! You got to jump! What you waiting
on?!
It’s safe right here, but it ain’t about nothing
right here.
Living is different from existing! If you
wanna live, you got to jump!
Just jump out there! But you got to jump!
You got no life standing on this cliff.
Looking over, looking at everybody fly by,
soar through the air like birds.
You got to jump, man. That’s the core part,
you got to jump!
If you ain’t never jump, you don’t even know
if your shoot work.
You got to jump. You don’t jump? Well, sit
there.
Parachute on your bag, safe. You good? You
existing? I chose to jump.
