Episode 13 – I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons from Kevin Hart

I had zero interest in this book when I picked it up on an audible recommendation.

I haven’t really heard of Kevin Hart. Or seen his comedy. As the cost of sounding snobbish, my previous three memoirs are Educated by Tara WestOver, Becoming by Michelle Obama and Shoe Dog by Phil Knight.

But. BUT
I didn’t expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. Post this 12 hour, 99 chapter soliloquy, I felt like I knew the man behind the memoir. Kevin Hart. Superstar American comedian and Hollywood box office star Kevin Hart turns shares like life lessons in this hilarious, endearing memoir – ‘I can’t make this up’.
I almost miss listening to him each morning now – it almost feels like I know the person.

Hart is so imperfectly perfect. One cant read this book – you ought to listen to him on Audible. He doesn’t just narrate the story of his life but he has conversations with you like you were in the room with him.

He talks about how it took him only 16 years to become an ‘overnight success.’ In this inspirational and entertaining memoir – Hart talks about his life, career, family, and friends – a journey from the broken family – the trope of a drug addicted dad and raised by a mother who sacrificed a lot in her life to raise her two boys.. It was poignant to walk through the journey of Hart who grows up from being a Shoe salesman wanting to be a Nike rep one day to partner with Nike to create his own products a decade later.

It just takes one person to say one thing, and your whole life can change. If success happens in part by chance, then the more you expose yourself to it, the luckier you will be. I worked hard in order to get lucky. It may seem to others like it is a smooth trajectory upwards, but Hart outlines every pivotal step in his career that is relevant to any one seeking success.

He talks of how he had to choose between the ‘uncomfortable dictatorship’ of his moms’ home to the ‘comfortable anarchy’ that was his dad. About how the discipline and values his mom instilled in his stood with his trysts with failure.

I’ve learned so many valuable lessons in my life, and this was one of the most important: Do your best, always. Because you never know who’s watching.

The volume is peppered by life incidents that are hilarious and of the ‘does this even happen’ kinds. If there are critical life skills one could pick out resonating across the entire volume it is probably his positive attitude’ or what he calls, ‘the shoulder shrug’ – his ability to see the big picture and not complain or hold onto negative emotions.

It’s easy to complain about your life—how tough it is, how unfair it is, how stressful it is, how everyone else has it much better. But if you step into the life of someone you envy for just a day, you’ll discover that everyone has their own problems, and they’re usually worse than yours. Because your problems are designed specifically for you, with the specific purpose of helping you grow.

Here is a funny incident from the book

– When he was financially strapped early in his career, Kevin maxed out an American Express card…..and couldn’t pay the bill. The company never forgot, and – even when Kevin was a huge success – denied him a card. In the book’s acknowledgements, Kevin writes: “American Express, if you’re reading this, please run my credit again. I wrote this entire book just to send a message to you: I’m now ready to handle the responsibility of a credit card.”

It is a roller coaster ride – of lessons one can learn – of failed marriages from committing before you are ready, of grit in the face of disaster, constant learning and faith in self, of winning and then losing it all, of listening to yourself and if you are still unsure – ask a mentor.

This may not be revolutionary. Or philosophical, Or Behavioral economics. Or anything like the other books I read. But nonetheless, it is a book by a doer.

And like he concludes –
Success is not an excuse to stop; it’s a reason to move the goalposts farther out and accelerate. There is no destination, just a journey. And that journey is to keep building on top of what I’m building.

And I am glad I listened to this.