Will Smith: It's a lonely scary dangerous pursuit and you got to be willing to risk everything to
become that seed of what you believe is in there. You got to be fearless, you got to be relentless.
Will Smith was fearless when he decided he would get into the best shape of his life.
And he was even braver when he decided he would share the complete process with the whole world.
He put the fear of rejection aside.
He put the fear of failing on hold.
He threw away the image he had been crafting for
years of a badass successful man who could handle anything.
At first his project and Youtube series “The best shape of my life”
seemed to be pretty straightforward.
Will set out to lose twenty pounds in twenty weeks and finish writing his memoir.
But soon, it became clear this project was about so much more.
It was about sharing his vulnerabilities with the world and healing his emotional wounds.
It was about getting to know the real man behind the myth.
The one who suffers and makes mistakes.
But who is also incredible because he accomplishes so much through his will.
Will wanted to get into the best shape of his physically,
but he ended up getting in the best shape of his life mentally as well.
He revealed his deepest secrets and
fears and showed the world that anybody can overcome anything.
As long as they have the will to do so.
Will Smith: Daddy-O was one of the greatest blessings of my life and also,
one of my greatest sources of pain. There were two issues. First, he had a brutal temper,
and second his drinking. When he was angry or drunk, he became an idiot. He would break his
own rules, subvert his own objectives destroy his own things. My mom is in many ways the total
opposite of my father. Whereas Daddy-O was the boisterous, charismatic center of attention,
my mom carried a quiet reserved elegance. She loved words, and always chose them carefully.
My mother spoke with an academic sophistication. As much as we all suffered under Daddy-O's
militaristic views of love and family, nobody suffered more than my mother.
Each of my siblings remembers that night in the bedroom with me standing there in
the doorway I watched my father punch my mother so hard that she spit up blood.
That moment probably more than any other moment in my life has defined who I am today. Each of my
siblings responded differently in ways that would go on to define who we were for much of our lives.
If Harry was fight, Ellen was flight, and I became a pleaser. I wanted to please
and placate him because as long as Daddy-O was laughing and smiling I believed we would be safe.
I was the entertainer in the family. I wanted to keep everything light and fun and joyful.
And while this psychological response would later bear artistic and financial fruits,
it also meant that my little nine-year-old brain processed Daddy-O's abusive episodes as somehow
being my fault. I should've been able to keep my father satisfied. I should've been able to
protect my mother. I should've been able to make the family stable and happy. I should've
been able to make everything alright. But that night in the bedroom, watching my father's fists
collide with the woman I love most in the world, watching as she collapsed on the ground, helpless,
I just stood there. I was my mom's oldest son. I was less than ten yards away and I was the only
chance she had for help, yet I did nothing. It was then that my young identity congealed in my mind.
An unshakeable feeling that no matter what I have done, no matter how successful I've become,
no matter how much money I've made or how many number one hits I've had, how many box office
records I've broken, there's that subtle and silent feeling always pulsating in the back of
my mind that I'm a coward... that I failed. That I'm sorry, my mom. I'm so sorry.
https://youtu.be/B2TlsHdpY_4?t=624 (10:24 -13:03)
Will Smith: That... that was the only time in my life that I ever considered suicide.
https://youtu.be/B2TlsHdpY_4?t=892 (14:52 -14:59)
Will Smith:
That's one of the things that I hope people can take away from the book when you see the…
Oprah: That's--that's right.
Will Smith: You know, like that's-- you're not gonna get around that.
You're not gonna get around the rise and fall and the rise and fall of--
Oprah: You just gotta be able to hold on to yourself.
Will Smith: You just gotta be able to hold on, and it's like it's… endure when it's time to endure,
enjoy when it's time to enjoy, you know? But you're not gonna get around the ups
and downs of that. And, you know, took me a few of 'em to realize that it's not because I'm stupid.
It's not because I'm weak. -It's not because I'm a
coward. It's not any of that. It's like that's what life is. That's what it is! You know,
and all of those things are the natural ebb and flow and the natural rise and fall, and… if we can
relax, you know, -and settle into it... Then we can enjoy, you know, when the springtime is there,
and we just buckle down when the winter comes. But we're not gonna be able to get around seasons.
Life has its ups and its downs.
As long as we live expecting life to be otherwise we are doomed to unhappiness.
But when we embrace this truth, we discover the secret.
The secret is being able to hold on.
To stay strong during the hard times.
Endure hardship with resilience and keep moving forward.
And when the rise comes, enjoy the most out of it.
Appreciate the joy, appreciate the excitement, appreciate the opportunities.
But remember that everything is temporary.
And being successful is not having only wins,
but making the most out of every situation, good or bad.
Will Smith: Somehow when my father died I kind of got like free from his rules.
Will Smith: When I started I had, you know, all these grand ambitions of what I wanted to be
and what I wanted to do. And, you know, I'm gonna be the biggest movie star in the world.
So I studied that and I worked out, I got my body crazy and I did, you know, I just got my
head around doing everything I could do to be the biggest movie star in the world, you know.
And then I had a taste of that and I realized that even though I had achieved all those things
on the inside I was still that same insecure little boy
that was trying to prove something you know to, you know girls that he cheated and to my father
and all of that and that you can't achieve your way out of your, you know,
childhood wounds and traumas you can't fake you can't fake it right. So then I made the shift
and what I realized is that the only sustainable mission throughout your whole existence is to
improve lives and as soon as I made the shift in my mind from trying to be big and trying to have
money and trying to be popular to making sure that I improved lives every step
of the way on this earth, then all of a sudden I started experiencing healing.
Will Smith: There's one relationship that you have to maintain and that's the one with you,
right. And it's like if you're not loving you, if you're not taking care of you, everything and
everybody is second to you taking care of you. Haters will hate.
As long as you do things to prove your value to others you will be forever a prisoner.
You can be the biggest movie star, the richest businessman, or the greatest of
all at your work, if you care too much about what others think you will lose your place.
You have to do it for yourself, and only yourself.
Study because you want to.
Work because you want to.
Pursue your passion because you want to.
Only you can find your purpose.
Only you can find your own way to greatness.
Only you can find the path to become the best version of yourself.
Will Smith: For me, I want to, you know, make it okay to not be perfect, you know. It's so much
easier to just live as who you really are and feel bad when you feel bad and
feel good when you feel good and to get into that space where who you are is good enough that you
don't have to be something different than you to be deserving of being loved.
Will Smith: Nobody knows but you. You can't get advice on what you should do with your life,
right. Nobody knows what you are. Like even sometimes you don't really even know
what you are. You got to take your shot. And it's like as much as you want people to agree
and you want the people around you to be supporting your dreams, it's not gonna be like
that all the time. You got to do it alone. And people will help you and winch it when you get
the ball rolling people will jump on. But if you don't believe nobody else is gonna believe.