‘Making Space With Hoda Kotb’: Steve Harvey

foreign [Music] Steve Harvey is arguably one of the most influential entertainers of our time but success for him was far from guaranteed and it didn't come overnight I used to spend the night in hotel parking lots and I said come on God man I've been trying to make this dream come true you don't left me out here like this and I was crying so hard that he just said I didn't like hear a voice or nothing but he spoke to me and however he said if you get up imma take you places you ain't never been you'll rarely find somebody this honest and this transparent about how they got where they are today as I sit with Steve I can't help but admire his perseverance and grit and while he's admittedly a crier like I am he's not afraid to laugh along the way how long have you been on TV Steve Harvey since 1994. okay the Law and Order has that been on that long I mean it's just like you in law in order you guys have been on I feel like that I've been on a lot of shows though you know it ain't been a real consistent run but you know what's funny when you're on a lot people have a chance to get used to it but they also have a chance to get tired of you and that's why people don't last why do you think you've lasted on the air throughout all these different kind of movies my longest run has been Family Feud yeah I think it's authenticity yeah I think people really really enjoy somebody who's honest I mean that's what's kept you on the air this long people know they can tune in and get a real opinion good or bad agree or disagree they're gonna get an honest opinion from a person I think authenticity has kept me will you always authentic Steve or did you do sometimes what the TV business tells you to do be more like that be less like that well you know what happened the first year I got on TV they told me you talk to Country and if you don't change that you won't be able to last on television and uh I didn't know what to do with that because what else was I going to be I mean you know I don't really have a lot of good grammar in me and this is how I am and I've made that's you know my career started as a comedian yeah and my objective was to make people laugh that was it you know I didn't have no no other objective so I didn't understand adjusting for the system and I told the lady I won't I won't be participating in that change they even hired a Linguistics coach but you said no well I didn't know what she because back then I didn't know what Linguistics meant I thought she was in here to teach me how to fix pasta and so I was excited about that and then when I found out she was in there talking about the way I talked and I told her today she said I'm your Linguistics coach and I said well I ain't gonna do all that I don't said excuse me I said I ain't finna do all that she said did you hear what you just said could you repeat it slowly I said I ain't finna do all that she said that's exactly why here I said man I'm not going to change the way I talked she said you keep saying Fitness what is that I said well let me put it to you this way which one of these sounds best to you I am broke or Ami is rich because right now I'm as rich and that's what I'm gonna go with and that was the end of the conversation by the way that's brilliant can I ask you something because to get where you are I'm sure a lot of people have wondered how somehow in the very beginning someone has to look you square in the eye as a little boy and say Steve like you got something special who did that for you who was Davis because I know the exact name he's a psychology teacher in high school his name is Ray Davis it's 1970 four he came to my house at night and I lived in the hood man and it was really I live really in the hood you know I was I'm older so there was no integration I grew up in segregation and uh white guy came to my house at night which was very dangerous to do and he got threatened when he got out the car and he came up to my door and he said my parents down he said your son is something special but if he doesn't stop hanging with these two guys at these hanging winning school he's going to go down the wrong path that was a turning point for my life that was the first time somebody told me I had something special going on he went back to getting his car a group of hoodlums gathered around my father came out on the front porch with his gun and said leave him alone he got in his car he drove off the two dudes that he told me to stop hanging with are inmates today that was the game changer for me he was the first person that told me I was going to be something and then a girl named Ida Knowles in college told me she said you're wasting your time here I don't know why you're here why you should be a star and I wouldn't stop wait what did they see what did what did your teacher see what did she what did Ida see I don't know you know I had a special way with words I had a such a sharp wit even as a child my mother was a Sunday school teacher right she used to take me to church on Friday nights to prayer meeting to get me prayed for because my son it just says whatever's on his mind and it's going to get him in trouble and I stayed in trouble and so I just I've always had a really really quick quit and I I wanted to be on TV since I was 10 you know but I could you couldn't tell nobody you grew up in the hood who are you gonna tell that to I'm gonna be on TV so that was my dream and I I just stayed with it and kept thinking about it well there are you could it sounds like you were imagining it since you're so little but there's imagining which is really dreaming and then there's doing they're two different things because one of them's a dream and one's kind of a plan how did you go from boy I sure want to do it which a lot of people listening want to do something to saying all I need is one just open the door for me one one break you know it was really an accident you know everybody God gives everybody at one point in their life the opportunity everybody gets the shot to make the decision to go left or right everybody gets that shot don't say you don't you can stop that you had it or you're getting it and you chose not to or you chose to and I was um 27 years old I was writing jokes for a comedian named AJ Jamal I had no idea what he was doing with the jokes he told me he was doing Special gigs and stuff and so I would write jokes for him he said hey man Steve what would you say and I tell him what to say and he paid me 10 bucks for a joke I was making an extra thirty dollars a week I thought I was this is 1985. I'm living good and uh one day um I was at his house giving him these jokes on paper I worked at a company called General Electric and this girl came over named Gladys Jacobson she said you the God is writing these jokes for AJ Jamal I said I don't know I don't know what he doing with him she said he's the funniest guy at the comedy club I went what she said he's the funniest guy at the comedy club and I didn't write all of his jokes I just wrote some and I said Comedy Club what's that she said what do you mean you don't know what he's doing with this joke she said why don't you tell the jokes yourself so she said I'm gonna pick you up Tuesday night take you to the comedy club I'd never heard of the Cleveland Comedy Club never heard of hilarities I was 27 years old and she took me to the comedy club and I signed up for the following week somebody got scared that night and didn't go so they had 10 performers that night they got to number nine I was sitting I didn't laugh at anybody I was just sitting there looking at them saying what I thought they should have said and they got to number 10 and they called his name and he wasn't there and they said hey we we're gonna go to next week's list where Steve Harvey and I was eating some chicken wings and drinking grapefruit juice and I turned to the girl Gladys who I was with and I said uh it's a dude in here got the same name I got and they called me up and I ran up on stage and and I won amateur I won fifty dollars holy moly I went to work that was October 8th 1985. holy morning I went to work the next day quit my job told everybody I was a professional comedian at fifty dollars and you just kept at it well I became homeless yeah you end up living in a car for three years and what made you stay with it because I think once here you just said that God gives you an opportunity some people might think if I'm sleeping in my car for three years and I'm not making it God is telling me something he's telling me this isn't your path you either decide this isn't your path or try harder right how did you know what he was telling you to do well for starters I didn't have a plan B I never believed in a plan B everybody that I know that has a plan B has had to use it everybody that I know that had a plan B use the plan B because in order to fix the plan B you can't give your all to a so everybody I know where the plan B uses the plan B I've never had the plan B this was it and it was many days I felt like giving up you know I'm like I'm human you know a lot of days I didn't think I was going to make it it was a lot of days I said man this ain't the best idea but I didn't have another one you know I didn't I had nothing so you know I think a lot of it was really my mother praying for me I think a lot of it was I just didn't want to go back home and say I was a failure because I'd already flunked out of college I'd already messed my marriage up I had already you know lost friends and family members and everybody thought when I said I was gonna go be a comedian this is the stupidest thing you could have ever said I mean you're an idiot I mean I lost people stopped talking to me because of that they thought it was I I don't even want to know a person who just walks away from their job like that but I didn't know any other way to do it I mean you're either gonna jump or you're not I don't know if there's ever a you know or the right time right time is now because if you're waiting on your ducks to get lined up it doesn't happen so people are listening and they you know they've they've got a lot of faith in them too and they want to know what message they're getting how did you know that it was key it was because you said at one point you didn't hear God but you felt you knew what he was telling you or how he was guiding you because sometimes it can be confusing yeah is he telling me to switch is he telling me to stay well but you know here's something a minister told me one time it kind of sticks with me God's voice has no sin in it his voice never has seen it so you know you hear people say well the God told me to go down there and tell them people no he didn't that's not what he told you God told me to fight no God didn't tell you to do that it's so profound his voice has no seeing in it so sometimes when you're listening and you hear the naysayers a naysayer is a negative a naysayer is a hater a naysayer is a is an is a is an impossibility none of that defines God you know you've got to really understand man that at one point in time you've you've got to just rely on faith faith is the belief in things that you cannot see you've got to know that you know it's hard though and I'll be the first to tell you it's hard and you don't know sometimes you you sit up here trying to figure out is that the way to go is that the way to go maybe I should turn back why would God tell you to turn back you know I mean you got to listen I just old people used to say I don't believe he bought me this father leave me old people know a lot got a lot of information man and they sound old corny stuff when you're in church listening to the old people but they coming from years of experience and you've got to understand man if you're going down a path and it feels right and all of a sudden just cause something starts going wrong all of a sudden you don't feel right no more that don't mean it ain't you got to be tested and challenged you know you got to see if you really want it you got a past test and you just got to keep realizing that if you wake up and you pass a test and you and you're still on that path you might as well keep going uh my one of my accountants years ago gave me a plaque that said oh If You're Going Through Hell just keep going keep going I mean this is not a good place to stop in the middle of Hell put the brakes on here you know you are like that was very profound what you just said all of that was very profound it just hit in like a way that I didn't expect I feel like you're constantly evolving and when you have a tough time because obviously being in the spotlight anyone can have a tough time we don't know about it you have a tough time everybody knows about it how do you those potholes how do you like get out of it how do you get back up you know uh it's hard it really is you know it's not it's not like I got this magic trick on Steve Harvey I just get up and keep moving it don't bother me yeah it does man it does everybody Hurts Me it it trips me up it feels real heavy sometimes and like you say when you're in a spotlight you don't get to live your mistakes under the cloak of Darkness you make a mistake holder you you on TV you you can't and they're gonna talk about you without all the information and you know you got to develop a tough skin but the the key is you gotta the older you get the better you should get at this but if if I was a younger person and I could tell myself something I would say what I heard Tom Hanks say one time if I could tell a younger me one thing I would tell myself this too shall pass because man all of it does see you got a trip like this you know listen look at every single thing you've ever gone through every critical moment every bad decision every heartbreak every setback every moment of misery think of all of that that's happened to you your survival rate for surviving hard insurmountable Unthinkable Hard Times your survival rate is 100 everybody is we're batting a thousand every last one of us our survival rate is one one thousand percent we've never not made it so as you get older you become better at that but as you're younger I would say that to younger people this too shall pass trust and believe you're gonna get past that oh it might seem impossible right now and it might seem like it's lasting a lot longer than it should but I mean look man this is going to go away and you just gotta you gotta believe that that it's gonna go away because it is that's beautiful advice by the way beautiful you're gonna get over her yeah yeah yeah I did Wellness is another place you've always been spiritually dealing with all this stuff but now I mean the physical part too yeah um keeping yourself healthy active all of these things and you're kind of putting your money where your mouth is yeah you know look I went through a period I wasn't myself anymore you know I worked so many jobs I was just grinding myself down you know it's a cause for success there's a cost to be successful but there's a cost to not be successful too I'd rather pay the cost for success and but I was grinding myself down man I was wearing myself out and I had low energy brain fogginess all the time you know I was just trying to stay up man I was I was struggling man with my with some issues in my gut I had to go to some holistic doctors I started finding out I had some problems and then one day actually real true story I was in a bean bag in the basement with my kids and uh one of my grandkids came in and said Papa come play and I went okay and I had to get out the bean bag chair and that thing bad was whooping mine and being bad chill was winning it's like I was in a wrestling match on the floor with this bean bag I said wait a minute and when I finally got out the bean bag I looked over and my three sons was laughing and they never laughed at me before oh because I've always been the heavyweight champion right now right you don't you don't laugh at me because you know my even to my to this day my son still can't whoop me no no really not in a real fight they don't have the same thing and and I just got up and I went wow something's wrong and so I said man I got to do something about it so I started uh talking to some holistic doctors because I love a lot of natural approaches right and they told me that I had to feed myself on a cellular level and so I started taking these green drinks and all this stuff and I started feeling better but I couldn't keep it up because I just didn't like them I mean it just yeah some days I just can't gag down this damn green Gene I know it's good for me but it's showing it don't taste good and so I found this company and I started talking to them and I know they had they had released this bone broth that I was drinking and everything and I said hey I got an idea I wish that could find a green drink that did more than the one I was drinking I need for you to help me with this brain fog that I was having I need you to help me with my energy levels and I want to take care of my gut issues and so I met this guy from Harvard who's a formulator and we started talking it over a year and a half he said man that's what I do and he started putting formulas together and I didn't like this one I didn't like that when he came back he said I did this but I didn't add that I said no you got to add this and he put it all together and then I said now here's the deal it's got to taste good because I can't gag down another green drink I said man I need flavor and so he made it in some flavors and then I went to them and I said hey can we Mass produce this and make it affordable so I came out with this product and what I started doing was I started using it myself and I found my energy just started skyrocketing again I felt better you know after after you look I take it for a while you don't drink one glass and all of a sudden you can go run a marathon let's not be stupid here but over the course of a month or so I really noticed a change man in this drink was really yeah you're speaking of the right person brain fog is like a thing man it's real I gotta get up every morning do a radio show from six to ten yes and then I gotta go do TV all day so I found that this green drink man if you do it every day is really really helpful Steve Harvey you are full of beautiful wisdom I love you thank you Steve it's a fast-paced world it is no surprise that according to the CDC nearly 40 percent of Americans say they feel symptoms of anxiety and depression so we decided to do something over the next couple of days we're going to share innovative ways to get calm reduce your stress and anxiety and live happier healthier lives one can be so simple all you have to do is breathe children get to shut their eyes and throw Tantrums when they're stressed out or unhappy but that does not work for adults and according to a recent study by the World Health Organization the pandemic triggered a 25 increase in anxiety and depression globally but if we want to go from here [Applause] to hear we're going to need a collective calm down people are looking for a different way to work and maybe not the same five days a week eight hours a day maybe we're looking for a different way to find peace one solution science suggests just breathe the age-old practice of breathing meditation is not new but it's being looked at in a whole new way neuroscientists say controlled breathing can reduce stress increase alertness and boost our immune systems welcome friends and breathing meditation classes are gaining momentum all across the country with countless tutorials going viral on social media what are you grateful for employers like Nike and even NASA are catching on offering workshops to help employees reduce stress beautiful group of humans hi so Alan I thought we'd try a little deep breathing of our own at New York's frequency breath work so we're bringing really Democratic Mental Health Medicine to the masses like so many of us Viv Rosenthal was once a stressed and anxious former executive but after discovering breath work she vowed to make a change now a teacher herself she spreads the gospel of calm when I wake up in the morning I think about meditation I do 20 minutes each morning I feel like if I do that my day is level set I find that whenever I've done these like guided things whatever I just end up falling asleep so I'll put one hand on the heart and one hand on the belly rounding out our group a few open-minded Today Show staffers tag along we keep talking about anxiety and there's a lot of stress so imagine that breathing is the key to unlocking it it's like a magic trick really just entering the room Without Walls feels both cozy and freeing and the instructions are simple bring a smile to our faith taking two breaths through the mouth we fill our bellies and then our chests before exhaling we continue as Rosenthal talks us through the Journey picture yourself as a little girl or boy yogis have been breathing in caves since the dawn of time we're now rediscovering the power of the breath breath work is the fastest way to create an emotional shift from an emotion that's gripping you to feeling like more present release as we settle into this circular breathing rosenthal's words the sounds and the Kaleidoscope above add to the mood it may look strange but we are on a roller coaster at times our hearts pounding [Applause] [Music] then there are moments of reflection many feel tingling in the limbs and a sense of floating it's what they call a non-ordinary state of consciousness The Experience brings several of us to tears Rosenthal says crying and laughing is common I did both at the same time and I can't explain why [Music] enhancing the moment Rosenthal says music also known as a sound bath helps create new Pathways that rewire your mind the breath opens us up as a sound and sound also has a vibration it has a frequency and it helps shift our mood it's really cathartic the idea that you can breathe in in certain ways and you feel a wave of emotion you're like how is that possible your body itself is taking emotions and stress and stuff you've been stuffing down and by the simple Act of breathing it's like free I feel grounded uh centered and extremely grateful a totally unique and eye-opening lesson and what can happen when we let go and allow ourselves room to breathe hey thanks for watching don't miss the Today show every weekday at 11 A.M Eastern 8 Pacific on our streaming Channel today all day to watch head to today.com all day or click the link right here

Channel: TODAY

Views: 169,581

Keywords: Today, Today Show, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker, Natalie Morales, domestic news, international news, weather, interviews, politics, money, media, entertainment, sports, breaking news, food, health, home, parents, style, concerts, pets, shopping, Hoda Kotb

Id: au9_CWYdWn0

Length: 25min 13sec (1513 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 10 2023