I was miserable in my life. I didn't like wakin' up, I ain't have no purpose, I didn't
know what I was supposed to be doing. On October 8, 1985, I walked in a comedy club for the
first time, signed up for the following week. The following week, a girl took me down there,
she said, "You got to go to comedy club, you the funniest person I've ever met. I'd never
even heard of comedy clubs. I'm 27. I walked into the comedy club, I sign up for the following
week. I'm gonna sit here and learn. I knew I was funny, I just didn't know what to do
with it. They had 10 acts go up. Nine of 'em went up, I didn't laugh at one joke. I was
just sittin' there just, "Man, I wished that was me. Man, they shoulda said this." Every
joke they told, I knew the punch line before they said it, and I wrote a better punch line
in my mind, what they shoulda said. It got to guy number 10, they called his name, he
wasn't there. They said, "Well, he's not here, we gonna go to next week's list. Steve Harvey,
where are you? Long story short, I won amateur night that night. I won $50. It was a 45-minute
drive to my house with this girl named Gladys. I cried 45 minutes. She said, "What you crying
for? It ain't but $50." I said, "No, no, you don't even understand. I was born tonight.
I now know what I'm supposed to do.“ I went to work the next day, October 9th and quit
my job. With $50. I had nothing. I just never gave up. I’mma tell you something that decision
cost me everything I had I lost everything I lost my family I lost friends I lost every
day I became homeless I lived in a car for three years but I just saw this I saw this
I saw this vision I just pursued it I said why I said you have to take chances in life.
Life is about risk. If you play it safe in life you ain't gonna have much of a life.
If you play it safe you won't have much of a life. Life is risk it takes it take courage
to pursue your dreams. now it's gonna cost you something but most people are not willing
to pay what it costs to go after your dream cuz you gonna have to hurt a little bit and
most people don't like being uncomfortable if you don't want to be uncomfortable please
do not pursue success because success is a very uncomfortable feeling and I just learned
to be I learned to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Life is hard. See for every time you have
a plan, a dream, an aspiration or a goal, do you know what happens every time you have
one of those? This thing comes along called life. It happens to everybody. Life has disappointment
it got peaks and valleys. You gonna lose somebody you care about one day. That’s a valley.
Somebody gonna close the plan you thought was gonna stay open so you could retire. That’s
a valley. Somebody gonna fire you for an unjust cause, that’s a valley. The people that
got your credit card, gonna sell their company, gonna sell their business to another credit
card company, your 18% go up to 26%, you don’t even know why now, your minimum didn’t change.
Cause it’s life. You can stop thinking, that life finna be easy cause I got news for
you, it ain’t. That’s a false hope, to think you’re gonna have a wonderfully carefree
life. That’s unthinkable. We all live in this bubble. What you gotta do, you gotta
put more air in your bubble. You got to blow your bubble up. Expand yourself. Take yourself
out of your comfort zone. Do not live in your bubble. Put some more air in your bubble.
If you stay in your comfort zone, that’s where you will fail. You will fail in your
comfort zone. Success is not a comfortable procedure. It is a very uncomfortable thing
to attempt. So you gotta get comfortable being uncomfortable if you ever wanna be successful.
Start putting some pressure on. Put some pressure on yourself. Get out here and get about it.
Look I’d love to sugar coat this thing for you, I’d love to tell you look “you can
go out here and get rich, do a couple of things.” That ain’t happening. You gotta get real
doggish. You gotta get down right funky if you wanna make it. Now like I was telling
you before if you wanna be ordinary, you ain’t even got to listen to me. Just go on about
your business. If you think ordinary is cool, ain’t no problem. It’s some really really
wonderful ordinary people. But if you’re sitting in this room, and you have extraordinary
aspirations, then you gonna have to do extra. You put extra on top of ordinary, and you
come up with extraordinary. It’s no other way. I’m sorry. But here’s the fact. All
of you have extraordinary capabilities. All of you. You have to decide if you are willing
to do the things to put you in that category.