Transcript for:
Faith, Mentorship, and Personal Growth

I can't believe we're here. When we first started this podcast, I didn't even think we were going to get guests. But the most important part about this podcast is how it's impacted you guys. Watching your podcast has changed my life. I broke down at the altar. I went to my knees. Emily, you couldn't meet your husband tonight. I didn't swear to God. You guys got deep, dude. You guys sit with me every Thursday and tune into these conversations. Well, I think it's time that you guys join the conversation. Who wants to chat with me real quick? You guys want to go the deep route or you guys want to go the fun route? The George Jenko Show is coming to you. Get your tickets at the George Jenko show.com. The man- onwater tour now available. I didn't believe Cat Williams when he talked. What's the real story between you guys? You don't look man. You brought Michael Jackson to church. Me and Mike were friends. We have a lot of similarities. My dad always taught me how to fight. My mother taught me how to pray. Wow. You know that. Yeah. If God had have told everything I was going to go through, I would have turned around. Maybe shouldn't be saying this on the podcast. Phone camera. worst invention made my career. But we'll discuss that one later. I can't even comprehend the way that he's talking or he's moving or he's adjusting the universe. Why are we doing this? Look, ma'am, it takes a while to get that. What happens when I don't have that voice talk back to me? The roughest conversation I've ever had was to walk in there and tell that doctor, "Take my mom off the machine." I just crumble, man. That's lovely, George. I love it for a real gift to be around. That was awesome. I love you guys. You give me something to think about for a while. How long y'all been married? We just got married in September. Jackpot. Yeah. But in July, we'll be together for uh 5 years. Thank God they're going to have a good children because of her. Blue eyes, light skin, you know. We're all part of your bloodline, dog. I have the same Assyrian jeans as you. But but jeez, I mean Yeah, you need Yeah. No, man. Thank you. No, listen. No, listen. You need a bad chick. You need a bad chick. My father's been telling you, we don't we we not that good. Just go make some money. Let them do the rest of it. But my father taught me a valuable lesson. He said, "Son, it's your job to buy the house. It's her job to make it a home. Don't get in the way of that." Amen. If she want to put a pink couch in there, then pink couch it is. Wow. You had a wife's father. She want yellow drapes. The yellow drapes just like it. N I'm I'mma pass on the yellow drapes. No. No. You going to let her put the yellow drapes on cuz cuz in a minute you're not even going to pay attention to it. Yeah. Cuz you know somebody walks in the house and it's not right, they blame her. Did you see her house? Oh my god. What are they doing over there? You a guy don't get blamed for the condition of the house. That's true. You get blamed for where the house is. Also, I'm just not good at that stuff at all. I tell Belle, I was like, I don't know. I I mix colors the wrong way. I do like I'm just not good at I don't even dress myself. Like Belle dresses me like I don't even know how to dress. I'm in the hot seat. Welcome back, guys. Reed, are we ready to roll? Guys, we have an incredible episode. But before we get started, I kind of wanted to explain to you how this episode even came about. And I think it's kind of funny. And I also want to give a little shout out to Christ because it's always about him. And uh of course I'm walking around the neighborhood as you guys know before I have Za on my podcast and I'm just talking to God and I'm like God like I want a a good episode, a powerful episode. Like help me find somebody. I'm have all these rosters and I'm trying to figure out who I should talk to next. As I'm saying this prayer, I get a call from my dad. My dad's like, "Hey, you should have Zya on your podcast." And I was like, "Yeah, okay." And a few weeks later, we had an episode. We have a good time. Like we go to your house, we have dinner. And I'm at my house in Arizona and I'm reflecting over it and I just look up at God and I'm like just in such a thankful attitude. So now I'm outside and I'm walking around the neighborhood and I'm just giving praise to God. I was like, "God, thank you so much. You've been providing so much." As soon as this leaves my mouth, I get a phone call. Now it's Zya. And Zya goes, "Hey man, do you want to have my friend on the podcast?" And I was like, "Who's your friend?" He goes, "Steve Harvey." I go, "Steve Harvey is your friend?" He goes, "Yeah, you want?" I go, "Yeah, today." He goes, "No, no, not today." Hey, he goes, "What?" I'll go, "Anytime, anywhere, we'll do it, bro." So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Steve Harvey. My man, thank you. Appreciate that. That's a good story. I like that. I like that, dude. Uh, it's been such an honor watching you. Um, you know, a lot of people give you like when you start a podcast or show, they'll list all of your credits you've done. And if I had to do that right now, we'd be here until the end of the show. You've been doing this for such a long time at the highest level. But I wanted to share something that meant a lot to me. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an entertainer and I would always practice. The only person I knew of because I was young was Michael Jackson, right? I'd watch him moonwalk, go back in my room, and I would entertain. I entertain my family. But once a week, my mom would call me out of practice out of my room and she goes, "Come here." And she would make me sit and she would rewind you speaking about God. and she goes, "I know you're going to be an entertainer, but when I send you to Hollywood, I want you to be a soldier of God like this man." Good. That when you go out there, that you're a bright light to them and the darkness won't overtake you. And so, there was a moment when I was in my career and I was kind of going back and forth. You know how it is, once you're in the desert, now you're in the palace. Yeah. And I'm like, "God, is this it? We've worked this hard." I go, "And this is it? This is like I don't understand." And then I go on Instagram and I see your video of you talking about how you're going about to get that call when you're filled up with soap. Oh wow. Yeah. And I just thought, man, how many people are like me that you help them just walk out of that desert like how the Jewish people are wandering only to have faith in what God put in front of them. Wow. Do you uh I I guess my first question, I hate to go so deep, but I'm just so excited. I want to get right to it. Which one was it that do you feel impacted you the most? Because when I was watching your life, there was a part where you're in the wilderness. That's you bathing and showering in that room. And there's one where you're at the palace. And I don't think I'm at the palace just yet. So I wanted to know which one affected you and which one still kind of like lingers in your heart. Is it the is it the moment where you were washing yourself waiting for that phone call or was it you in the kingdom when you're performing a special you already like just released your mother just passed and now somebody's chewing you on the radio? Like do these moments feel the same or do they feel Yeah. you know, uh it's it's it's such a powerful thing to understand the journey and you don't really understand the journey till you're on the other side of it. You know, you don't get it when it's in the process because most people including myself, we don't understand the process. I do now. You know, like now when something negative happens, I understand the process because I've learned over the years that everything you're going through is God preparing you for what you ask for. Yeah. And that's critical for you. So the the part that has kept me the most, I guess, is I have such a keen and profound sense of memory of every single one of my steps. I never forgot a single one. You know, somebody told me one time said, "Man, every time I look on on TV, you crying." Well, a a lot of them ain't that ain't Some of a lot of them ain't tears. A lot of them is scars. That's It's like somebody pick a scab and open it back up. Like I'll be sitting somewhere talking about something that happened to me and it's like I picked the scab open again and it's not tears them is scars you know of I can vividly remember the place I was when it happened to me and it causes me to forever be grateful because all of those moments all of those memories are defining moments for me and I don't know if is there's one in particular is such a cluster of things that has to happened to you to get you to where you want to go. And it's just understanding the process that has helped me the most, I would say. You know, so man, when you're sitting there and you're going through it, you don't don't nobody want to go through it now, you know. Nobody wants to go through it. Yeah. But you got to because in that are the valuable lessons that you will need after you get there. Like I, you know, I'm I'm rambling right now it sounds like, but listen to me. There ain't no elevator to the top. You got to take the stairs. If you do catch an elevator to the top, you're not going to stay there. Exactly. Because there are some steps along the way that you had to have stepped on to prepare you to keep you to maintain you. And if you don't step on all the steps, you can't stay what the elevator took you. You going to crumble is a part of a blessing. Is a part that the entire step process is a part of a blessing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And uh when you go through it, you get those scars. You get those experience. Scars are an important part of it. People usually don't see your scars. But every time you brushing your teeth, you washing your face, you see your own scar. And it reminds you the journey and it reminds you the important lessons you learned. Otherwise, you forget this human forget things, right? And and that's that produces tears in you, man. Because you go, "Wow." because I'm so spiritually connected to the journey that God don't allow me to forget the journey. You know, you are I man, you see people win awards and they get up there and they go down this list of all these lawyers and I want to thank my lawyer and I thank my agent and I thank my publicist and I thank Robert Crowns for putting me. Hey man, where you think them people came from? Exactly. God places those people in your path. It ain't them. It's God. I had a manager, former manager one time who was angry with me because he said, "You never mentioned me. You only stood up there and talked about God." I said, "Look, man, if I'm telling you the truth, I can't think of nothing else, man. I I can't think of nothing. It's him. It's him, dog. It's him all day, every day, all the way." Yeah. I'm in. Jessica's calling the giveaway winner. I hope this guy answers the call. George. Hello. Hello. Well, Jess, you kind of interrupted the surprise by saying George. Okay. Okay. No shot. Dude, dude, this was supposed to be way more of a surprise. Chris, congratulations, bro. Thank you so much for entering and I can't wait to hang out with you, dude. This is crazy, man. I can't wait either. So, you're from Tulsa? I live in Tulsa with my wife. We're youth pastors here. Do you want to be flown to Phoenix or LA? Is there one that's like more convenient that you would want to do? How about this? Talk with your wife and then whichever you guys want to go to. You let me know and I'll fly you guys out. Okay, bet. Okay, dude. Chris, it was a pleasure meeting you, bro. Hey, likewise, bro. Thank you guys so much for watching and entering. I'll do some in the future if you guys want to hang out. Or maybe I'll do some giveaways where you guys could come hang out with me backstage on tour or anything cool like that. You guys let me know what actually what the next giveaway should be. I like these things. I'll see you guys later and enjoy the rest of the episode. I uh I'm realizing that my works are only a reflection of the wisdom that God like puts in me. And like I could work all day, but if I don't have the the proper mind or spirit for it, that that rock is not going to move over and that Lazarus is not going to come up. So my question is because we have a lot of similarities. My dad always taught me how to fight. My mother taught me how to pray. I just saw when I was looking at you. You know that. Yeah. That's that's it. It's built in you. So, my one question is, and I never really heard you like talk about this, and I want to really know, did your mom ask you to ask God for wisdom? Yeah. I've only read one book in the Bible, and it's entirely over and over, and that's Proverbs. It's the book of wisdom and understanding. Changed my life. I started that at 15. And I'm I've never read an entire book in the Bible except for Proverbs several times. The book of wisdom and understanding. It is your silver and your gold. M like I'm not I'm not like blessed as a student. I'm not blessed as a scholar. I'm not I don't know a lot of stuff. But man, I got such a cold cold dose of faith for you. You look man, you can outdress me. You can outdance me. This is my father. They can outdress you. They can outdance you. They can out throw you. They can out jump you. They can outrun you. They can out sing you. But don't you let no man outwork you. You ain't going to outwork me, man. I don't care what you do. So, like, even if you know more than me, I'm just going to outlast you. You get up at 5, I'm up at 4:30. You stay up till 11:00, I stay up to midnight. Well, I'm I'm going to just outwork you in every aspect of life. I don't uh I don't know how I without those two. My father taught me to be a fighter. Scrap, man. I teach my sons that. Mom's off limits, bro. The dog in you. Develop dog in. I'm on I'm on the internet this week, right? People take pictures of me and my wife. We're in Paris. And the big comment was, "Look at him. He walks all the way around to the other side of the car to put his wife in the car. And I wait till that door shuts because now I know she's safe inside. Anything pop off, I got this. I'm her protector. I was raised that way by my father. Yeah. Wow. And then my mother was a Sunday school teacher for 40 years. That was all faith. Should pray God the Lord. Prayer of faith. And that's all I've ever known. Even when I was living in the car and and I strayed away from God, you know, I was raised in the church, man. So, but when I went to college, man, the I did a U-turn. Prodal son vibes. Was there ever a moment for you, you know, when you're brought up in the church, you practice because it's a habit and your parents want you to be there, but then there's a moment between you and God where he unlocks a true relationship with him. Was there a specific moment for you where you really felt Jesus's presence and you felt like you had a whole new rebirth with him? Yeah. Because it wasn't the building, the church. It wasn't the building. What I needed was the relationship with him. Amen. Not the building, man. You can go to church. I sung in the choir. I did all of that, man. But when I went to college, there was no building. There was no choir. and and I and I and I kind of strayed away and my darkest moment was when he stripped me of everything and I was homeless and I was living in that car. He needed my undivided attention. That's why you see a lot of guys go to prison and find God, right? Yeah. Cuz he has your undivided attention. Yeah. Interesting. You had to really wrestle with those guys. You you you cuz now you in a place where you you you really do need him. Cuz a lot of people in there ain't thinking about him. And a lot of people found God find God in your I found God in a car in a state of homelessness. You know that I feel like that's out of all of the achievements you've had has to be your greatest like one. Like out of all of the awards, the seven TV shows, the the king of comedy, like all the things when you when you're sitting there your old age, you have to be reflecting about you in the car. So it's crazy how the creator of the universe could make your lowest point your most valuable point. Yeah. because he needs all of us. He gonna get our attention. If he has a purpose for you and a plan for you and you're willing to open yourself up to that plan, he going to get your attention on how to get to that plan. Cuz we don't know. Look, if God had have told me everything I was going to go through to become the global presence that I am today, I would have turned around. I'd have said, "No, I'm gonna be a tomato farmer or something. Let me figure something else out." I You going you wait. You going to take everything I've ever worked for twice? You going to strip me down to nothing twice? You're going to let me get on social media? You're going to let them attack me like that and call me uh coons and jigaboos and stuff that I'm not. You think I'mma let you do that? No, I don't want to be that no more. That's why God never shows us what the requirements are. He lets us have the dream, but he don't show us the route. Cuz if he showed you the route, you turned around. No, good. You you would not be who you are if God has showed you everything you needed to do to get Yeah. And and and in in top of that, uh uh God gives you all of these challenges, but he also give you the strength for you to pull all those challenges. And when you're down, often you feel like somebody took your hand and actually helped you stand up on your feet again. Yeah. And and then you fall again and you question God, right? Look, why you keep doing this to me? Right. Enough is enough, right? I suffer enough. But he knows how much you have to suffer in order to get to that ultimate goal that you want to be. Yeah. Have you seen that thing online? I can't par I'm paraphrasing it, but like, you know, I asked God to make me tough. So, he's sent a lot of people to beat me up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Be careful what you pray for type of thing. Yeah, man. You know, in the Bible when he's teaching you like how to pray, he says, "Lead me away from temptations." And I would sit there and I'll be like, "What? Like, don't you want to be tested so you could grow?" Um, and some people when they're stuck in a chokeold in life, it's because they prayed for something God's going to promise on and deliver, but you don't want to rise to the occasion. So, you're getting smooshed by his weight and then we blame God for it. But I uh I've really I'm starting to realize the pattern. I I mirror my father on earth with my heavenly father. So, for example, if my dad walks into the room and he says, "George, get up. We're going." I'm not going to be like, "Where are we going?" Cuz he's going to fly kick me in the face. I don't tell my dad, "Hey, where we're going?" My dad's like, "Who are you talking to?" You don't ask me where we're going. Get your ass up. We're leaving. Right? So, how am I gonna tell my my God who I can't even comprehend the way that he's talking or he's moving or he's adjusting the universe. Why are we doing this? I can't It's a It's a form of pride, me wanting to know what the king is summoning me for. But, but look, man, but it takes a it takes a while to get that over, right? It takes a while to go along with the with the master plan because we have our own set of ideals. You I got a vision board. This is what I want. The problem, the mistake I used to make was I had the vision board and what I want and I had my own timeline attached to it. That that's that's a lot of lot of sleepless nights. That's a lot of disappointment, man. Because I wanted everything to have a light. Look, I don't understand why I didn't get famous sooner. I didn't understand why I didn't have money sooner. When I was in that car at the sixmonth point, I said, "Okay, God, I got it." He said, "No, a little bit longer." After about a year in that car, I said, "Okay, I got it now. Whatever you trying to tell me, I got it." He said, "I know, man. Just stay a little bit longer." Two years in that car, I was done. Hey, man. I got it. I'm I'm listening to you. I'm paying attention to you guys. Okay. Hey dog, you you tripping. I said I got it. He said, "No, I hear what you said, but I really want you to get it." And at the three-year mark when I was saying, "Okay, I'm done. I'm going home. I'm washing up in this bathroom. I'mma call my dad and just see if I can come stay at the house for 6 months, find a job. I'm through." He said, "Okay, now you got it. Go make a phone call." I called the answering machine and Chuck Sutton said, "Hey, it's Chuck Sutton from Showtime and Depala. I saw a tape. Can you get to New York?" Well, I had $30. I can't get from Pensacola, Florida to New York. And then I hung up and I was crushed cuz the one thing I want to do is be on TV and I got $30 and I got till Sunday to get to New York and it's it's Wednesday and that's no way I can get there. There ain't enough gas. I got no He said, "Pick up the phone again." And I called back and then Tom Sober said, "I had a gig for you in Florida." I went and made $150. I was so funny. The guy said, "Stay the next night. I made $300." Eastern Airline had a ticket for $99. I'm in New York on Sunday. I went on Showtime at the Apollo that night and I've been on TV ever since. Wow. And but I was at the give up moment and we all have a turnback moment. Everybody, all of us, you've had the moment where you thought many times, I can't do this no more. This ain't going to work, man. Let me go do something else. No, man. I just needed you to get to this point so you could see that it's really me that's in control of this whole thing. Ain't got nothing to do with you, your time frame, nothing. This really me, man. I'm really in control of this. Now, watch this. And then he ordered the people in my place and next thing you know it was now it didn't fix everything but at least the dream was coming true. He gave you enough to move on. Man, I uh give us this day our daily bread. Yes. You know, my mom would teach me this and she'd also teach me the Lazarus effect. There's going to be a moment in your life where you think it's dead. It could be a relationship. It could be an opportunity. It could be your work. It could be your friendship. It could actually even be you yourself. But God's waiting to see if you are trusting in him. And so she opens up the Bible verse and she goes, "Why is Jesus weeping at Lazarus's tomb, if he knows that they're going to be shocked in a few minutes?" And I go, "I don't know why." She goes, "Cuz he's weeping because he's feeling their pain, but he's also feeling their faith." Wow. So she said, "That's why he made them move the rock." So sometimes it might feel like I'm dead or I can't move, but that's my feeling. And what I've learned is I cannot just go with the feeling of my heart because my God's greater than my heart. So I have to put my head down and just keep moving forward. But to be honest, it it was men like you that like spoke these things. And so people come up to me and ask me, "Hey, why do you talk so vividly about God and why are you not ashamed?" And the truth is because of people like you that built me up. So my question to you is why did you? Well, look, man. The first time it happened for me was on uh Donnie Mccclurker, the gospel singer, was on um what's the the network? TBNN. He was doing a a show and he asked me to be a guest. Well, I'm in comedy, you know, I'm on TV and we get on this show and uh the people that own the TBN network, I saw them when I was doing a deal with Dr. field a couple of years at uh Merit Street Studios that was opening up and uh they told me your prof your your your clip is the highest rated clips we've ever had in the history of our show and because Donnie Mccclan was the first person since I had been in entertainment who had ever asked me about my soul. Wow. You know man, when you're in comedy man, people bring you on to entertain. He's a funny guy. Here comes this guy. But they didn't know on the inside me I was full of pain because I had this soul that I was deeply concerned about. And I had a relationship with God that nobody really knew about. And they didn't even ask me cuz I was just asked to come and perform. Look, man, I'm a king of comedy. I'm a I'm dude, man. You know, when the Kings was out, man, we was the biggest comedy tour to ever come out at that time. I think it still is up there as one of the greatest. One of the great monumental things, man. I think and we'll go down in history because of that. And I thought that was it. But I was empty because nobody had asked me about my soul. And Donnie Mccclan asked me about my soul. And I broke down so hard on that camera. And I couldn't even talk. I was heaving crying, but I was still trying to convey the message because I wanted people to know, look, man, there's another side of me that y'all don't see. like he was saying, they don't see the the dirt, you know, a lot of people have been throwing dirt on me, man, for years. Nobody knew about it. And they I've been trying to I've been buried on social media. People done things to me, man. It's so crazy. But they didn't know. How do you go about maneuvering that? And obviously, I'm going to tell you how. Because they thought they was burying me, but they didn't know they was planting me. Yeah. You got to have dirt. You ain't a seed. Seeds don't come up out of concrete. They come up when they get dirt on them. But dirt is not only dirt. It's fertilizer. It's nutrients. Everything that grows that's beautiful that God has has pushed through the dirt from a seed that's buried. You don't even see it. And all of a sudden, you see this thing sprout up. You have no idea that this thing right here f to be a oak tree. This f to be a bad boy. But y'all was putting this dirt on him thinking you was burying him. You was planting him. You was putting them nutrients in me, man. Exactly. You You was toughening me. You was making me You was putting I got like dog in me and I needed it to come out. And so as I understood that now, like I appreciate the internet now, the dirt. I appreciate the haters, you know, and like I'm so immune to them now cuz I don't I don't take criticism from people I don't take advice from. M yeah that that takes a long time to like settle into bro you got to you got to get a lot of dirt put on you and you got to come up through that dirt and you got to grow into something. So I'm a tree now. Yeah. If you don't mind me asking and dude like I want you to feel as comfortable on this podcast. So if there's anything I ever ask you you're like hey I don't want to talk about let's move on. I don't care nothing about that. Um, I didn't I didn't believe Cat Williams when he talked it. Out of all the things he said, but when he brought you up, it just I didn't feel authenticity. I felt like more and I could be wrong. I don't know your guys' relationship. It felt like you guys had like a relationship before and then something bitter in between it. What's the real story between you guys? You know, look, man, if if I could sit down with him and talk to him, I just asked him what happened. Were you guys ever friends? Yeah, we was cool. 2005, man. We were cool. And Cat Williams was that guy in 2005 to 2008. Right in there. Cat, we we were looking at Cat like, "Wow, he's so good. This is the dude, man. Yeah, he was brilliantly funny." Yeah. And then something happened and you know I've heard Kevin Hart say certain things and you know I've stayed quiet about it. How do you though? Like how? Because like like this isn't just a comment on an Instagram post. That video got a 100 million plus streams. And then on top of that it's like you don't want to go out there and and dog him because it's not how you were raised and then you have to be patient and wait for God. But do you ever feel that sometimes you want to call him up and be like let's sit down and talk. What's going on? Why are you doing this? Yeah, you know, man. Um, see, the first time it happened was 2009. Oh, so this wasn't the first time you did this thing. Oh, no, no, no, man. The first time it happened was 2009. We performed in uh Detroit for New Year's Eve. Biggest paycheck either one of us had ever had. And it was the two of us. Cat got into a situation a few weeks prior to that in South Carolina. And I was about to go to South Carolina in Colombia and Cat I got a call from my sister say this lawyer wants to talk to you and it was a frat brother of mine who was a lawyer and said I got Cat Williams in my office right now. He says that you know him and I said yeah I know Cat Mary Cool. And so Cat got into a situation. I'm not going to say what it was but it it led up to us not being able to do the show New Year's Eve 2008 going into 2009. Now, just him or both of you guys? Well, it was gonna cause him not to be on the show. Now, I knew what had happened, but I wouldn't tell that to the promoter. Yeah. Because I'm not that guy. Yeah. Of course, I stayed loyal to it. But when we when I got to Detroit and they find and Cat Williams got out of the situation. We were in Detroit that week. He got there early and he was on the radio station talking about I'mma destroy Steve Harvey. And I'm going, wait, we're doing comedy? You know, we're not rappers. This ain't a beef. Comedians don't have beefs. Oh, is this what he was describing when he's like, I tore him up and he doesn't want to do it again? Yeah. What? And so that was So he got You think that you caused the problem that was in his life? Well, no. He had gotten with this promoter and they were going to cut his pay and so they wanted to come up way to to increase sales. The show sold out eventually, but they the promoter who was a dude that was shouldn't have been a promoter. He had some money he was doing something with. So he decided to make to put us in the Joe Lewis arena in a boxing ring and put us in robes like fighter robes. And Cat insisted that I go first. Well, as long as you pay me my money, I don't care when I go up. So I said, "Okay, cool." But when I got to the town the day before, man, Cat said he going to destroy you tomorrow night. And I'm sitting up here going, "For what? What? Destroy us? I'mma tell my jokes. He going to tell his jokes." I didn't know the plan, but I told the promoter, "Hey, man, take that boxing ring stuff down. That's not what I do." Yeah. I'mma go do my set. You He do his set. Yeah. I didn't know it was going to be this beef. So, I did my set. When I'm through, he goes up on stage and he just rips into me. Huh. And I was just I'm in the tunnel looking at this going, "What is happening?" Cuz in my entire comedy career since or before that, that's never happened. You know, we go up, we tell jokes. Our jokes is to make people laugh, entertain people. So, I'm in the tunnel. My wife is with me and she's seeing me and I'm hot. Now, I'm a Christian, but I ain't that good a Christian, [Music] you know? Yeah. I'm slap this cheek, but this cheek's off limit. No, I I I don't even turn the other cheek. I don't I haven't graduated to that level. If Christianity is on the 1 to 10, I'm a level two. I'm an entry- levelvel Christian. I practice that cuz I can do entry level Christianity. Advanced Christianity. Look, so you on stage and you ripping me. So I said, "Okay, when he come off stage, I'mma fix him. I'mma tighten him up. You know, I'm I'm I'mma fold his clothes up, you know. I'mma put some medicine on him. Whatever wrong, I'mma heal him tonight." And my wife said, "No, I want to go home." So, I had gotten paid. So, we go home and we supposed to go to this after party, which was part of the deal. He stood on stage and he had his buddy in the tunnel record the whole thing. So, before I got even to the afterparty, he had released it on Facebook and everything and it was just out there talking about Steve Harvey, what I had on Country Bumpin, blah blah blah blah blah. And I went, "Wow, the guy didn't do that." But the beauty of it is every time he does that, something crazy happens to me. So that happened 2009. It was all over the place. Man, Cat William destroyed Steve Harvey. Well, no, not actually, cuz that month was the same month I released the book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. That book 16 days later entered the New York Times bestseller list and stayed on that list 38 weeks at number one. Wow. Wow. So, thank you. And then two months after that, they saw the trend of the book. Oprah put me on her show twice and everybody saw it. Next thing you know, here comes Family Feud and goes, "This guy's really popular." I got Family Feud in 2009 and the book. The book turned into a $90 million movie. The book stayed number one for 38 weeks. And so I watched that turn into that. Fast forward, Club Shay Shay, he's he's over here ripping me again. Now, here's the other part. At the 25- year reunion of the HBO uh Def Jam, I was about to ask. was there and in Chappelle a a buddy came up to me uh who's a street guy in LA said, "Hey, man. Cat want to talk to you." I said, "I ain't got nothing to say to Cat, man. He cool." He said, "No, he won't apologize." Oh, cool. I said, "All right, cool." So, I sit down with Cat. Cat apologized at the 25th. I said, "Hey, man. Know how I feel?" He said, "Man, I was just young, right off, going through some bad stuff." I said, "Hey, bro, no problem." I said, "Cat, can I say something about that?" Because when I watched it, mind you, I'm an outsider, right? But you could pick up when somebody's putting up something real or putting something not. When I saw Dave Chappelle made that one punch line, we're all wondering, is Cat Williams here? And everybody's dying. I'm seeing everybody pick up the beats, but I'm watching you saying, "Okay, let's move past this. Let's move on." So that was a moment for you to dog him in front of the whole world if you wanted to. I'm not that guy. And you said, "No, I'm going to clean my hands. I'm going to continue with the show." So then you're saying that day you guys sat down. He apologized. I accept it. I figure we cool. No problem. Years go by. He does his thing again. Whatever he does. I don't know if he's I don't know if it's drugs. I don't know. Kevin Hart said a bunch of stuff about it being drugs and stuff. I've never made a comment. Next thing I know, he's on Club Shay Shay. And here he comes again. And I'm sitting there and people just, "Hey man, you what Cat said about you?" And I went, "No." So the clip is everywhere. Yeah, it's the most viral clip ever. Yeah, it's out there on on Club Shay Shay. How'd you feel about that, by the way? That's a big deal, dude. That wasn't like a, you know, it it bugged me. But see, I'm an insider, so I know the truth. I watched that entire podcast just like, man, what's wrong? Because everybody he talked about. Here's what I've learned about haters. You'll never have a hater that's doing better than you. Amen. It was just too many untruths said in that whole thing about Ricky Smiley and you know, you don't have the power to have the man's next role in a dress in Hollywood and a studio accept that from you. You're not that powerful a guy. You don't you don't really turn down $200 million worth of roles. You didn't you didn't really do that. He made it seem like it was like the Illuminati was making you guys do all these things. Yeah. I don't even know what that is. I know Jesus. I've never learned what Illuminati was. I know Christ. Amen. I know the ultimate source. So when you're talking about Illuminati, I'm I'm I'm oblivious to that. I don't even know what you're talking about. Well, how could you be a Christian man and then every chance you get to speak on a microphone, you're not building your kingdom, you're just tearing down everybody else's. You can't blowing out my candle ain't going to make yours brighter, right? So, bro, to sit up there and talk about all these men who are accomplishing stuff, I just felt bad for him. And I just wanted to go, man, what's wrong? What What happened, man? Because like I tell you, man, Cat was one of the coldest comedians I'd ever seen come along in a long time. You know what it is? Like I've realized that and you you by by God, you will know this. The higher God takes you, the more you start to kind of think it's you. Like you could sometimes fall into the prideful of like, you know, I did this. But if you walk with God every step, every fall, you realize when you're up there, it ain't me. But some people really wrestle with the idea. It's like, it's him plus me. And it's like, yeah, well, if it's him plus you, you're going to have a lot of problems. Yeah. Like a lot of problems. You know, man, I would I would easily sit with Cat because I'm at a stage in my life where first of all, nothing you've done has stopped anything God has for me. Amen. Nothing. Nothing, man. I mean, do you think he's hurting? I'm I'm He has to be seems like envy. I don't know if it's even envy because he's he's quite successful. I wouldn't say he's at the level of what you're doing right now, but like he's he's doing he's okay, God forbid, far from now. But when he does pass, he'll go down as a legend in comedy. He's he is outstanding. Even if he keeps going on the path that he's doing where he's burning his bridges or doing whatever, you cannot take away the ability that God gave that man. Uh I would love for you guys to sit down and like just talk it out like manto man where nobody could hide behind a screen and then one's on a microphone and then one's on a Would you if if hypothetically he came to sit down with you right now on this podcast? I wouldn't have a problem at all. I sit down and talk to anybody. Yeah. I would love to watch that cuz look man, I just want peace in my life. I like I'm not It It ticked me off a bit because I'm a human being and you know I've had I've had to work with that one man cuz I've had to forgive two people in my life recently. One of them was a relative and and and it's been him, you know, but I forgave him because look, man, whatever you going through, it ain't cause of me. If we sit down, you can't say one thing I've ever done to you. Nothing. You can't point out one thing. And I'm clear about that. So, whatever's wrong, man. Let's work through it, man. Because the at the end of the day, you know, I look, I stand strong on who I am. you know, what I do for young boys and my wife with the girls and my mentoring camp and kids I've sent to school and the kids' lives I've changed and and and what I do as a motivational like most like young people today, they don't even know I was a comedian. Most young people today think I'm a motivational speaker. Yeah. And I, you know, cuz I stopped in 2015 cuz I said, "Okay, I got this talk show now. I got this I got seven TV shows. man, if I if I go out on that stage and say something crazy and one sponsor pulls, the whole empire crumbles. So, I knew at that point, let me stop the stand up. Plus, I can't work seven days a week. I got some time for my family. So, I made a conscious decision to leave. So, a lot of young people today don't even know the the standup that I was or the career that I have. I got a makeup artist, God bless her. She's 28. I think she was this year was doing my makeup and said, "Mr. Harvey, you used to have hair." You're like, "You used to have a job. Get out." I went, "Wait a minute. You think I was born bald and I just went, "Yeah, I had hair." And she didn't know. And so I realized then I said, "Wow, man." Because she said, "I was watching some clips. you had a TV show, you were a teacher, you had hair. I went, "Wow, how old are you?" And that was I've been on TV over 30 years before she was born. So, yeah, it's kind of a It It kind of reminds me of how long I've been doing this when she said, "You have hair." Have you ever heard of the story of how Zya got El Septima? Yes. Yeah. Can I tell you, I thought about this story so many times. I was like, "Man, this guy would Could you please explain the story for people?" Because like I was so upset. This dude didn't talk about anything about his businesses at all when he was on my show. Hey, can I tell you something, please? This dude right here, man. Um, the reason I came out here was just because of a phone call. We had been talking back and forth, texting and Zoom calls and stuff, but he just made a phone call. I was in Paris. He wasn't planning to come here. No. and he said, "Hey man, I got something I want to talk to you about." He said, "I want to show you something, man, that can be a legacy for your family." He didn't tell me what it was. He didn't tell me nothing. I got on the plane and came because this guy, if you know anything about him, he's spiritual. He This guy is, he does what he says he's going to do. He is what he says he is. and he don't really tell you who he really is. You can get to googling if you want to. You gonna be fascinated, right? But this dude is just that kind of guy. And I've never heard a single person say, "He cheated me. He stole from me. He ripped me off. He stepped on me to get where he is." I've heard not one single story. You don't get at this level. And nobody has those types of stories about you. Think about the famous rich people you know today. Well, he hasn't met Cat yet, so we'll introduce them. You going to do a podcast? No, I don't know if I want to talk to this guy. Could you please tell us the story about how you got the cigar when you were in the hotel room? Oh, yeah. I mean, uh, you know, I've been smoking cigar for 40 years and, uh, Steve's been smoking cigar for a long time, too. 28 years. 28 years, you know, and it's interesting. is a very consistent habit. I mean, when you when you talk to someone, I've been doing this habit for 28 years. I've been doing this habit for 40 years. I mean, it's pretty significant, right? I mean, we don't if you really think about it, right? Because what it does to us, we don't do anything else that long, right? We don't do anything else. We don't eat that long. We don't drink that long, but we do this. And one day I was in uh uh uh Prague, and my wife wanted for us to be at Prague during a new year because it's always snowing out there. is nice and so forth. And uh and there's always snow out there except that year we were there. It just did not snow at all. Right. So my wife said uh you know we want snow. I said well listen I'm close to God but I don't think God's going to send snow out here for us in the next couple hours you know. And then I I I I knew it meant a lot for her for the kids. So I know the closest place to Prague is Berlin. You can go to Berlin in Germany is two and a half hours of beautiful train ride and you have plenty of plenty of snow in there. So, I called a friend of mine who uh who's a president of Dorchester Collection. I said, "Uh, hey, you have a a palace out there. Uh, I want some room in there." He says, "Great. I'll have somebody call you." So, the general manager of the hotel called me and uh he said, "Uh, Mr. Yonan, tomorrow's the new year. You know that, right?" I said, "Yeah." He says, "Well, the after New York, Berlin is the second largest New Year party in the world. 4 million people come right outside of the hotel because of Bannerburg, right? So, they they celebrate New Year there." He says, "So, we don't have any room." I said, "Look, I want five rooms. So, call me back in 15 minutes. Give me the room number." And I hang up on him. So, shortly after he called me back, he says, "Uh, uh, I got your room. Uh, but you have to take 14 rooms." I said, "10 minutes ago you had no rooms. Now you have 14 rooms." And he said, "The royal family, King Abdullah, uh, when he was alive, uh, he passed away. uh him and his son took the entire floor of the hotel for them and for their for their family members and so forth. And uh when he inquired about it, he find out that his son is actually not coming in until after New Year. So he asked the uh uh uh uh people of the king, "Is that okay if I rent it?" They said, "Well, if you rent it for one family is okay, right? But they have to take that entire section because you can't bring more people on the floor." Right? So we went out there and uh um we went out there and you know next morning I get up I had a breakfast and I love to smoke a cigar you know right after breakfast or during the breakfast. So I told my wife, I said, "Let me go out there. Just take a few few puff. I'll be right up." Right? And as I'm going out there, I see a entourage of people walking by, right? And I never take the car key for the rooms because I always knock somebody opens it, right? So I said, "Shit, what am I going to do? I can't get inside. I don't want to get out of this thing." I said, "I'm gonna put my head down. You know, he might think I'm some kind of bellboy or something. Pass by and I'll take the next next elevator." Sure thing. He walks by me and you know people went away. I saw the king right in front of me. He said, "Uh, Mr. Yonan, you know your kids make a lot of noise at night." I said, "Your highness, I'm sorry. I'm blessed with five kids, so obviously they're healthy. They make noise." He says, "Nah, I'm joking. You're going down." I says, "Yeah." He says, "Let's go together." So, we go to elevator together. It's me and him and a couple of his guys. And I have the cigar in my hand, but I'm holding it. I don't want him to see it, right? Because I knew he smoked cigar, but I just didn't. it was unpolite to do that. So he says to me, you know, smoking a bad cigar is bad for you. I said, "I know, but this is the best I can find." And he asked one of his guys to take it away from me. And I said, "Shit, I lost my cigars right now." And his other guy opened a bag, opened a box. He said, "This is a cigar you should smoke." And he gave me El Septimo. Two Elimo, double shot. And that is actually Steve's favorite cigar right now. Yeah. Let's go for Kings, man. Yeah. the god of the kings, right? So, king of the comedy, right? So, anyway, so I went outside and it was snowing cold, you know, and I was wearing just a light jacket like this. So, but it was for a few minutes, right? And then I got mesmerized so much by this cigar. It just never happened to me, right? I mean, I can never eat a food that I say, "Oh my god, this is great food." I can never drink a drink that I say, "Oh my god, this is the greatest drink I ever had." You know, it's just it's nothing to me, right? But this cigar, this cigar did something to me. As I'm smoking it, I suddenly notice my wife screaming at me, "Are you crazy? You're outside and I'm looking, I got snow all over me." And without realizing the time has gone by, right? And u um so anyway, so I I knew I couldn't get a hold of a cigar just to make the story short, right? No, no, don't short it. This is a great story. So then down the street is the oldest cigar store, threetory cigar store, established 1711, right? And I buy cigars from them for for the longest time. So I went to the guy, his name is Albert. I says, "Albert, I want couple boxes of this cigar." And I had one in my hand because he gave me two. He looked at he said, "Where'd you get this?" I said, "Why?" He said, "Where'd you get this cigar?" This cigar people cannot get it called cigar for the kings. Only king smoked the cigar. And he says, "Oh, it was a king Abdullah." Because he knew he was there at the hotel, right? So I says, "Yeah." He says, "Give it to me." And he took it from me. And I said, "Well, give me a couple box." said, "You don't have any boxes, but I'll take the cigar from you. You can pick any cigar you want. Cuban, any cigars you want, but I'm going to keep this because I always wanted to smoke one." And I never smoke. By the way, terrible service for a cigar. So, I went I didn't take any cigar from him. So, I gave it to him and I went to my room and I'm wondering I said, "I'm going to get a hold of my hand some of these cigars." And I walked into my room. My wife says, "Somebody drop you this box." They drop off the box that uh it was full of Elatimo cigars. Right. So, uh, um, so anyway, we started smoking them and there were a lot. There were 10 boxes. Each box had 20 cigars. So, we start smoking it during our trip. We came home, we started smoking it. And I've been smoking with my wife since I married her 34 years. We love smoking together. Great woman, by the way. Yeah. We talk about kids. We talk about life, you know, it's a moment that we can reflect and we our soul is clean. We have patient. We talk, we listen to each other. And um, so we start smoking it. So one day we ran out of them obviously. One day I'm walking outside with two cigars in my hand. My my wife says, "Where's El Septimo?" I said, "Well, I don't have El Septimo, but I have this great Cuban cigar." She says, "No, I don't want to smoke it." I says, "Oh, come on. Stop being bougie. I don't Jesus Christ. We don't have that cigar. So what? Let's smoke this damn Cuban. That's supposed to be the best cigar on the board." She says, "No, thank you. I'll pass." At that time, I realized there's something special about the cigar. I tried to buy it directly but I could have never get get any because they were pre-ordered for years by you know royal family of Saudi Arabia Oman Kuwait UAE uh they only sell it for them right and um uh uh one day I'm in actually in Paris right and I asked my wife I said hey I'm coming home do you want any any any cigars and I mean I mean do you want anything she says no I thought she was going to ask for a purse or something she says no but if you want to bring me something. Bring me some Leptim cigar. I said, "Here it goes again. Elimin." So when we sat in the aircraft, I told the guy, I said, "Go to Geneva." He says, "You can't go to Geneva. We don't have a a tell number." Uh because when you travel, you have to have a tell number before you uh land. All right? They have to schedule the lands. I said, "This is rich boy stuff." Yo yo, when he said this to me, I said, "Don't worry about that." And by the way, I'm I'm kind of You should maybe shouldn't be saying this on the podcast, but you should do it because you can get away with Not only that because as as Steve said in this life we are always afraid of one thing Lord himself not no other human being. So I said to the guy to the pilot I says get on the plane go to Geneva right in the air do a SOS call. He said I will never do that. I said well why? You're on my payroll. Why do you care? He says no I will never do it. I will lose my license. I have to pay the fee. I said take care of your fee. I will lose my license. I said you sit home, you get your pay and you don't have to fly anywhere, right? He says okay but this liability is on you. So anyway, we did the SOS call without without any question they said land you know and when you land you do the SOS call the technician comes in you say I saw this problem this problem you know either he finds it he doesn't find it right so I went to the place that the head office of the cigar company was I sat outside I said look for this guy short guy baldheaded guy nothing personal baldheaded guy wow I said as soon as he comes out I got drugged into the door. I said, "Soon as he comes out, bring him out here." The guy comes in and one of my attorney, which is a French guy for French, he's really tall. This guy is trying to bring this short guy to me and he doesn't want to go. So, I don't want to meet this American guy. Why do I But you skipped the fact that at the restaurant he brought the table and service outside so he could watch when he comes out of the building. Well, it was it was like a psychopath. It was it was it was December and this is a two Michelin star restaurant in Geneva, right? So when we walked in, we said uh uh uh um you know that you couldn't see from the from inside. I says, "Do you mind putting a table outside?" He says, "Sir, this is not a a Taco Bell. This is a mission style restaurant. No table outside." I said, "Call the owner." Owner came in, which was a chef. I you know, he knew who I was. So he immediately said, "Mr. Y, I want to put something. It's cold. I don't have any heat." I said, "Don't worry about it. bring us some champagne. That will heat us up. So, I want to sit outside. I didn't want to miss this guy, right? My wife never asked me for anything, right? Except this. I I would say damn, but it's not a damn. It's a great cigar, right? So, I love this guy so much. No, honest to God, it's a great cigar. So, anyway, the guy came in. I had a dinner with him first. He didn't want to talk to us. He didn't want to associate with us. He thought that we were gang and we want to do something to this guy, right? We made him feel comfortable. I give him a piece of paper. I says, "Tell me what you want. I want the cigar company." He wrote it down. We made a deal. I I I bought the company that night. You know, I had some cash with me. I gave it to him. I said, "Just deposit. Tomorrow we're going to wire transfer the money, be sold." And then after we finish midnight, I said, "Now, let's go back to your office." He said, "Why? Office is closed." I said, "My office should be open for me." I go upstairs. Are you serious? I go upstairs because they had a showroom in there. So, I picked two boxes of every cigar. I told my guy, I says, "Cancel our flight. We'll fly tomorrow afternoon. Upgrade my room to to a room that has a balcony." And I took like a 80 boxes with me. I went to this room. I told the people, I says, "Don't call me for breakfast. Don't call me for lunch. I meet you at 4:00. We're going to go to the airport." Right? I opened the window. I laid all the cigar on the bed. I pulled them out. I touched them. I felt them. I smelled them. I looked at him. And I smoke from 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. the following day these cigars. And then when I went home, I got my wife what she wanted. Elimin cigars. Wow. That is a story. That's a dope story. I mean that that's how I met that's how I met Steve. Steve, you made it outside of his house, too. You go, Steve, I want to talk to you. Steve, one day one day, but he bought the company. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I want the cigar. No, I cannot sell. Okay, cool. Here go a check now. Open my office tomorrow. That's the story I'm living for. You know, it reminds me, it reminds me long time ago when I used to work for GM. I was a president mobile division. I was talking to the chairman Jack Smith back then and uh u the chairman one day told me he says you know one of my dream is to buy Opel. I said why would you want Opel? He says Opel is very wellrespected European car and they have a good market share. it's difficult for us to go establish oursel out there. I said, "Okay." I said, "Uh, hey, brother way. I got to go to uh Germany next week. You need anything?" He says, "No." So, I flew to German. I went to the Opel headquarter, right? So, I went to the Opel headquarter. They knew who I was, so they let me in. I met the chairman, a German guy. I met the chairman. I said, "Um, uh, uh, we want to buy your company." He get up, he opened the door. He said, "Mr. Yonan, as American people say, get the [ __ ] out of here." No way. I said I will, but you got to listen to me. You have two choices. Choice number one, sell oper to me or choice number two, I'm going to flood German market with our Chevy cars and I'm going to price them half the price. I swear to you, you wouldn't sell a single goddamn OpEl. I'll wait for a year, year and a half. Based on your balance sheet and your P&L, you go bankrupt exactly on a 13month. At 13 months, I'm going to come take over your company, have to pay a single penny for it, and you're going to lose your job. So you have a choice of selling it to me or selling it to me. Which one do you want? He closed the door. He can be sat down. He says, "You American, you American. Everything is with the force." I says, "No, it's not with the force. It's with the love." But it comes forcefully, right? So I bought the company anyway. That's the story with Opal. Well, here's the moral to the story. Yeah. And the funny thing is one day I'm sitting in my office. I got it for you. He goes, Steve sometimes goes to this cigar lounge where he lives, right, in Atlanta and he smokes a cigar. So this cigar shop owner always calls me and I always ignore his calls, right? I mean, how much you going to talk to this guy, right? So one day he calls me, I ignored him. I ignored me. He says, "You want to don't ignore me. You're going to pick up the phone. I have Steve Harvey here. He wants to tell you how much he loves your cigar." And I've never met Steve Harvey before that. And apparently Steve Harvey went in there. He gave Steve Harvey El Septimo cigar and he says, "Try it." And Steve Harvey has been smoking cigar for a long time. He smoked the best of the best. He smoked the El Septimo. And he says, "Oh my god, this is a great cigar." And it was Ya Connecticut. And he says, "I want to talk to this guy, right?" And that's your favorite cigar. That's my favorite. Y Connecticut. Everybody, George and Steve Harvey Connecticut. So here's the moral to this story. guy wife wants a cigar. He buys a cigar company. Then he walks in, he buys a car company. You don't think you need to try Christ? Exactly. You don't think you ought to give Christ a shot? He when he speaks about God, he's like all like happy and loving. When he talks about busy, he looks like Daener. Write it down. Your kids in the van. You want to see your kid? Steve, you walked away from uh standup comedy and the last special that you were working on was He Ain't Through With Me Yet. Yeah. What's he going through with you now? Wow. You know, this is the first time in my life over the past year and a half that I finally understood the Lord's Prayer. Wow. Wow. You are a baby Christian. Yeah, man. Well, I mean, you know, it took me to Not only to I've understood it but I didn't apply it. Okay. Give us this day our daily bread. That removed all anxiety from my life. Amen. Anxiety is the loss of control. Concern over two things that you cannot control. This is what anxiety is. The the the worry of the two things you can't control. Your past and your future. that produces anxiety. Once I understood that we are built to live in 24-hour segments, the human mind is not built to live beyond today. You can have your dreams and you can plan, but you lay out your dreams and your plans and you set them down. You got it takes everything to get through today. And you got to let God order your steps on a daily basis. When you do that, it gives you an uncommon peace. I live in a peaceful place now, man, that I've never lived in in my life because first of all, he's going to take care of me tomorrow because he always has. I cannot think of one incident where he left me hanging. Not one. So now I live my life knowing that he got me tomorrow. I live my life knowing that my past belongs to history. That everything I did, all those mistakes I made, I don't got to beat myself up about them. He's either forgiven me, I've learned my mistake, I've moved on, I've become who I need to be. So understanding the Lord's prayer, but then applying it is two different things. A lot of people go to church and memorize scriptures, don't apply none of them. Why are you a Christian and you broke all the time? M why are you a Christian and you always in some type of pain? Why are you a Christian and ain't none of your relationships working? Why are you a Christian and ain't none of your dreams and aspirations coming to fruition? It's because you're you're you're learning you're memorizing scriptures but you're not applying them. Once I applied, give us this day our daily bread, it freed me to live today in complete peace and enjoy the moment. I did something in Paris that I wouldn't have done five years ago. I did something for my wife cuz I I normally, you know, I do stuff if I strike a deal, here's the reward, da da da da da da da. My wife wanted something. It wasn't that big a deal, but it was nobody could find it. and somebody found it, but it had a little premium price on it. So, I did it without the deal or nothing. And she said, "Steve, I thought you were going to wait until you got a deal." He going to give me a deal just for you. He going to give me a deal. When has he not given me a deal? When have we ever just been out completely? You know what they say, ass out. Bro, I can't remember the last time I've been ass out. because he always supplies your needs for this day. And and that coming to that understanding, man, completely put me at peace where like I come down here. He he just told me about this podcast. But I asked God to order my steps. My wife said, "Steve, you going to LA for what?" I said, "I'm going to meet my buddy uh Yonan uh Zad Yon." And she said, "For what?" I said, "I I don't really know. She said, "Foris, you're going to go from Paris to LA. We can go to Atlanta. We can go home. We What are you doing?" I said, "I'm going out there." She said, "Steve, what is it?" I said, "I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. We We've been talking and as we sat then he started revealing it to me. I just told my oldest son to come with me cuz he's my guy. He's my son stays with me, man. He covers my back. He watches stuff for me. You know, he don't let nobody. He watch everybody. My dad cuz I got to move differently. I just bought my son because he he has a a memory. He's he knows technology. He memorized everything. So I bought him with me and to sit down with this man because faith is belief in things that you cannot see. Yeah. And so you ain't got to see everything. You just got to have the belief. I mean, why would God have me come out here? Now, little did I know, I didn't know this until yesterday. He said, "If I get a chance, I want you to do this podcast with me, but it's going to be talking about Christ." Okay, cool. So, bro, we over here at your place, dog. Now, my son knows who you are. He's a fan. Thank you. I appreciate. You understand? So, he said, "Dad, this dude right here is dope. He you going to love him cuz he he talk your language. But this guy is so spiritual, but he's like the combination that I am. It's my mother was a Sunday school teacher for 40 years. She taught me nothing but faith. My father was just a dude, man. He was just a gangster. My father was a man. Fight dog. When they bite you, bite back. They swing at you, swing back. That's why that's why I don't that turn the other cheek thing. It's a hard It's a reflex when you have the jab. If you slap me, I'll turn the other cheek. But when I come around, you really don't need to be there. When I spin back around, I'm coming back with with some more heat for you. You know, Steve and I is going to do something together. And I figure the best way of doing it is by blessing blessing to come here because um I am I'm so inspired by you for a young man your age to have a mission. Yeah. to let us see a light of better life and you that you are probably onethird of my age, you have to educate us about it is a very powerful thing. Yeah. And u um you have a lot in common with Steve. Steve is a a man of uh man of a god, man of a faith. Um uh I mean this is a guy that brings boys and girls that are either dislocated or don't come from a good background or family. He teaches them how to live, how to change themsel. He has done it. How many boys and girls? How many sir? 34 3400 3,400 children. He's been a father to 3,400 kids where he brings them, he pays for the air travel, he prays for the lodging, for the food, he talks to them, he tries to motivate them. He's trying to he's trying to be a father for them, a perfect father for them that unfortunately they didn't have, right? And these kids become teachers, engineers, firemen's, scientists, uh uh servicemen, serves our country, you know, and uh he takes them from the streets and he shows them there is a better life waiting for them. All they have to do is open a door. Yeah. And I thought that whatever we do together, we need to have a blessing of a God, you know. Um uh um um long time ago somebody told me that uh uh when you ate your first meal, a good meal in your life, did you give piece of it to someone? And I remember a very first time that I had my first good meal in my lifetime was when I graduated and I was working for General Motors as I'm fortunate enough invented few things. I went up the scar. So the general motor asked me for the dinner and it was the first time I had steak in my life. I never had steak in my life, right? And I remember back then, which I totally forgot about it. And I saw a family came in and you could tell the family was looking at the menu in this restaurant. It was somebody's birthday or something. And I said to the waitress, I said, "Please, I'll pay their tap." And I says, "Don't bring my food." And we were there before them. I says, "Don't bring my food till you bring theirs." I want them take the first bite before I take my first bite. Wow. Amen. And that's what we're doing today. We're trying to do um uh something that should be done should have been done long time ago. Bring America back to what it was 40, 50, 60 years ago where there was no division. There was brotherhood, sisterhood. Neighbors love each other. Yeah. The house wasn't divided. The house wasn't divided. Right. Uh I remember the incident a couple weeks ago a guy shot another guy because he parked in front of his car, right? You heard about that in California, right? When you know where old days America, you can park anywhere you want and sometimes your neighbor will come clean your car if you have too much snow on it, right? So something happened to us, right? And um uh uh uh uh with this podcast that you're doing, I think we are finding our ways to go back to those and uh changing our ways. So I figure before we do something, we need to be blessed by God. If you're going to be blessed by God, we got to do something good for for for for God, right? Because uh people like you are waste of God. Cuz you know what he's saying about you is right, man. You're special dude, man. because you don't see a lot of cats willing to talk about faith in God, you know, it's like a secondary thing for most people or it's a hidden thing. People ashamed of it, you know. Um like my mom, my mother when I was a little boy, she used to tell me going out the way going out the door to school often times, not every day, but she said, "Boy, remember this. You different." She said, "I don't know what you are, but you different." She said, "God going to give you a big house up on the hill one day. When you get that house up on the hill, you got to show some other people how to get up on that hill, too." Wow. She said, "You have to." Now, ironic. The big house I live in today is on a hill. Wow. I don't think it's ironic at all. And And you know, I It made me cry when I bought this house 5 years ago because it was my I could hear my mother now. My mother's gone, right? But I could hear her saying, "One day God going to give you a big house up on the hill. You can't get up on that hill and don't show nobody else how to get there." What a blessing. She blessed you back then. That's crazy, man. I I And you know what's crazy to me is that you guys said some kind words to me. But like even your son even acknowledging my work is crazy cuz I mean it when my mom used to pull me aside and say that. So you did show me where the hill was and I was like, "Okay, cool. I could be where he's at and not forget about the guy who brought me here." Exactly. And so I was just like honest and I just talked about stuff on stage. If I'm doing standup, I'm telling them like my perspective and I'm not hiding it. And you know, I I think of when you say your mom teaches you remember them when you're at top of the hill. But I also remember the Bible verse where God is so generous and he's telling everybody come to the banquet. Come. And people are like no. And then they'll go to the homeless and say come to the banquet. And he kept saying there's so much room at the table. And so if I truly believe in this God that's filling my cup and and filling my plate, if I believe that he could do it for me, then what kind of man would I be if I couldn't go run to my neighbors and say, "Come eat, come drink." Like it's it's for all of us. It's not just for me. And I think that I just I pray that when I'm your guys' age and I keep moving that I don't forget this and I keep moving in that direction. I guess the question that I have to spit back at you guys is prosperity can get twisted sometimes when you they think that we're just preaching a prosperity gospel that God's going to bless you. You're and then people get upset with this. Usually broken Christians or broke Christians can get angry at this. But the way I think of it is that um that these two hands if I use them right are going to be God's hands on earth. And if he's going to bless me with something and he knows my heart is to give it to my neighbor, I think he's going to give me the opportunity, the wisdom, the faith, the knowledge to be able to do it. I think people that get mad at the prosperity gospel, they don't know God because I can't even think of any place or position in my life that I invited the Lord in and it got darker. I don't I don't I don't see that. So, my argument is where did you bring God that you did not prosper in? I I don't you know man I understand what you're saying because I hear people talk about it all the time like um I was I I got what went viral one time when I was talking about eight hours of sleep and I was just saying if you have plans of becoming rich one day you got to scrap that 8 hours of sleep thing you got to throw that out the window. How much do you sleep? Well, now I can get eight hours, but he didn't before, right? But I But I I don't But I could get eight if I wanted it now, but I still don't. But the reason I said you can't do that because if you sleep eight hours, that's a third of your life. Exactly. And you can't become highly successful functioning and you asleep a third of your life. Look, you dream when you sleep. You make your dreams come true when you awake and you hustling. And I got they ate me up online. There was a Steve Harvey prefers wealth over health. No, man. But I'm going tell you right now, there's a scripture that says money answerth all things. Now, that doesn't it didn't say it was the answer. It just allows you to respond. It don't it don't look if you ain't got no money and you go home and there's an eviction notice on your door and you have no money. You can't respond to that. But if you got a year's salary in the bank, you can go say, "Hey, look, let me fix this eviction notice. I can give you my back rent and I'll pay you two months ahead if you let me stay here." Money allows you to respond. It don't make you happy. It's not the answer to everything, but it allows you to respond. Money, man, makes all emergencies become mere inconveniences. That's what it is. And man, my father told me something so cold when I was young, cuz he was really really poor. He said, "Son, the best thing you could do for poor people is not be one of them." He said, "Cuz you you can't help nobody now. So, you got to find a way to get yourself some money so you can help some people." And me and me me me and Zia was talking earlier, man. And and I was just telling him, man, you you can't you you can't money doesn't change you. Money allows you to be more of who you really are. See, it heightens who you are, bro. If you're a stingy person, be more stingy. When you get a lot of money, you're going to be more stingy. If you're a kind person, when you get a lot of money, you'll be more kind. If you're a generous person, when you're broke, when you get money, you'll become even more generous person. So true. If you're an [ __ ] when you get a lot of money, you going to be a big [ __ ] Is a tool is a money is a tool, right? Uh uh u uh when you are poor and uh you work hard and you have the blessing of the god and you have something, the first thing you do, you you satisfy yourself, right? You eat the food you never ate. You buy yourself a clothes you never have. But at that time, at that time, you know that you have more of it. And as Steve said, if you're generous, you use it as a tool for generosity. If you're kind, use it as a tool for kindness, right? So money is not everything. Money is a tool, right? That's why when people sometimes talks about someone that has money that person prefers people talk to about him about his what kind of human he is what kind of generous person he is what kind of intelligent person he is for some people that label themselves with the money that is a wrong way of thinking about it can I tell you something like of late I've been reading about Jeff Bezos wedding and Jeff Bezos and it's $55 million and how many people are mad add to him for spending $55 million for a wedding. That's a lot of money for a wedding, but that's his money. Now, nobody's mentioning how many jobs that Amazon has created around the world. Nobody mentioned how many people have benefited from the use of Amazon and some of the prices that you can get on Amazon. Nobody nobody cared about that. They just mad at him cuz he spent 50. you know how many people you could have fed. $55 million ain't going to feed everybody. No way. And and like I understand when people but don't don't be upset with Jeff Bezos cuz he took 55 million of his dollars that he worked really hard to acquire. I don't understand the anger in people. Yeah, he could have. 55 million could have built a few homeless shelters, right? But that ain't going to solve the problem. I think, man, when you preach and people are talking about pro prosperity, they're trying to get you to instead of put a band-aid on something, they're trying to get you to look instead of giving them a fish sandwich, teach a person how to fish. You hear that a thousand times? Teach a man how to fish. So, look, man, there's nothing wrong. You don't Look, but also Steve Jeff has given billions of dollars. They don't mention that. Actually, his his first wife, his first wife, uh that's who he gave all that money to first time. No, no, no. I'm kidding. That was his first donation. Yeah. But his first wife uh uh who inherited I mean from the divorce who got $18 billion she gave 16 billion of it away to people over 90 of course over 90% of it for causes for various causes and uh Jeff is actually a great person that he never talks about how much money he has given other people because he has I know he has he has done a lot of it. Well see but he has too. Yeah. This hand shouldn't know what this hand gives. But you can't do that. You know, I don't because you need a tabloid to defend you now. Yeah, man. See, if if you if I open my mouth to tell you everything I've done for everybody, oh, he bragging about this, he bragging about that. It's okay. But you have to wonder though, why does God continue to keep blessing per people with more and more? Exactly. Because you have done so much good with it that the more he gives you, the more you can bless people with. And it's okay, man. And I'm not look and you should celebrate it. You should celebrate the fact that Jeff has that he earned it himself. Nobody gave it to him. What he did I couldn't do. Obviously I didn't think about all the things he thought about. Right. And Jeff went through tremendous tremendous difficult process to be where he is. Like something smart Harvey said, if if God would have told Jeff, hey, I'm going to give you the $200 billion you want. You wanna you have to go through all of this difficulty. He might have said, "No, I don't want to do that. I'm gonna keep being in a garage." Exactly. But but he did it. But I think one advice I always have for people, if someone is wealthy, you should celebrate that. I mean, he didn't inherit that wealth. He created it himself. And the question you need to ask yourself is, how can I be like that person? I used to do that. I used to always say, "How can I be like that person?" Right? I used to study that person and I want to be like them. Right? But wealth should be celebrated. But you're right. Today there's so much negativity, you know. Why is he has that expensive watch or that expensive car? He could be feeding a lot of people with it, you know. Well, why don't you go get a second job and put all that money and feed people, right? Because you could feed people at any element, right? And it's funny that those people that criticize those people, they don't do anything. Not only they don't do anything, I could bet with you that if one day they become billionaire, they wouldn't share a single penny with anybody. But you know, man, look, it it don't take a lot of money to be happy. You know, you can be happy at any level. You don't have to be a millionaire to be happy. I know a lot of rich people who are miserable. Miserable. Yeah. Actually, I know a lot more miserable rich people. Very very miserable people who are who are who are financially well off. So, that's not it. I I found my contentment in what I've been able to do for others so much, whether it's talked about or not. I know. And God knows what I've done. So, I'm okay with it being right there. And I didn't know you impacted 3,400 children. I just did not know that. And I was shocked when your son told me about that. 3,000. I feel bad actually. I'm an age I'm close to his age, right? I feel bad that I haven't done that. Actually, I was I was going to talk to you about this. What's going on? Yeah. I feel bad that I haven't done that. You each have your own different mission, right? But I bet he has How many employees do you have? About 27,000. Hello. You, you know, let's let's let's just back this thing up a minute, man. Oh, you know, my calling is them kids. He got 27,000 people that's got jobs, that's feeding families, bringing a big a big change in a lot of people's life. Let me tell you two very short stories about the program that I have. Two of my favorite stories. kid named Kendall came to the camp. He's 30 now. He came to the camp when he was 16. He was a gang banger. Him and this boy, he was from Atlanta. This other boy from Chicago, black, red, I mean red, blue, they was banging every We broke them up every 15 minutes. They be playing basketball. They go at each other. They start fighting, man. They was battling them cats. So, I sat him down, man. I finally talked to the kids. I said, "So, cuz my camp only covers two things with the boys. the principles of manhood and how to make your dreams come true because I my dream came true and I know how to make a dream come true. I know how you get there. So I teach them how to make your dreams come true and the principles of manhood. That's all the camp is about. Everything so powerful. Everything your mom sent you out to do about the the hill. Everything is based on those two things. So Kendall and this other boy, they they they they thumping, man. So I sat Kendall down. I said, "Look, man, you got to change your life. The camp is over. I'm doing Family Feud. I look out. He's in the audience and this was, you know, long time ago. This is when they first started twisting their hair 15 years ago, 20. And so he said, "Mr. Harvey, I want to come back to the camp and be a junior counselor." I said, "Well, hey, man, junior counselor, you got to get haircut." You know, I was so wrong about dreads back then. I didn't know. So, I'm old dude. Yeah. So, he comes to Family Feud three days later with his mom. He's got a haircut. Good for him. So, I'm talking to the kid. I found out his dreams and everything. I end up sending him to college. I the gangbanger from Chicago. I my talk show moved to Chicago. I sent him to college. Kendall graduated from college and is an engineer today. Oh my god. And never misses the camp. He's at the camp every year organizing, talking with the boys. He's a counselor for me. And the other kid, Torren, runs the camp with my son now. The boy from Chicago, he didn't make it. He's in jail today. I sent him to college. He went to college, got in trouble. He's in jail today. Kendall is an engineer. Five years ago, kid comes to my camp failing in school. I said, "Hey man, what do you want to be? Let's get into these dreams. I want to fly airplanes." I call a buddy of mine, pilot from uh Hartsfield at Delta. He comes down to the camp, talks to the kid, ask him about his grades. He said, "I don't have good grades." He said, "If you want to fly a plane, you got to be good at science and math." He took him up to Atlanta, put him on a flight simulator, showed the kid how to flight simulator. This kid goes back to school, gets all A's and B's. Same kid. Same kid. He need a little fire. Kid says, "Mr. Harvey, I don't have the money to go to I want to flight school. I pay for his flight school." This past year, not this year, but last year, he flew a plane and landed at the Thomasville airport himself. Filmed it and everything. He's a pilot now. He landed, got out, drove, and was one of the keynote speakers at the camp. Wow. Wow. So, that's what this program does. What's the name of the program? Steve Harvey mentoring mentoring camp for boys and this is a program that I think of course we need far more than of it and not only this guy funds of it his own money but he spend lot of times doing it look parenting is difficult I have five kids right and I spend most of my time trying to parent this guy not only parents his own kids he parents all these other kids and I think there should be a government support our government should be supporting this 1 million% exactly Our government sometimes is so obsessed with cutting things, right? Uh you have to know what you cut, right? You you cannot cut something that adds value to the society. Brother, they don't this guy Elen Musk came in here and just started cutting stuff. So, let me tell you what happened to my program. I lost the United States Army has been coming to my camp since I started it because they have the programming. They know how to move that many boys, 250 boys sometimes. I I they know how many they know how to move that many kids and they know how to do team building stuff, create brotherhood and and discipline. So Elen Musk comes in, wipes out the DEI programs. So they considered my program a DEI program. So this year the military was taken from me. The funding that the military was giving me was taken from the program because Elen Musk came and said that's a DEI program. Well, the soldiers that had been helping me for all these years, a lot of them took their vacation. Wow. During the camp and volunteered. So, I had the same amount of military men, but they couldn't wear their, you know, and but they came and then they put their dress uniforms on for the graduation during for uh the ceremony. And then um some some something something else happened. And then I lost uh I lost this program with the USDA, the United States Department of Agriculture. I had an agricultural program going on where they were going to help me build the dormitories cuz I was going to do an agriculture program cuz I got 1,600 acres that I bought to to give to the camp for the kids. They took all of that away. So all of that, the loans and stuff that I had to build the dorms, all of that went away today. But it didn't stop the program. I still had the program. I still housed the boys down the street at the college cuz a college came in and volunteered this year for the housing instead of me putting up tents. And I just told him the story today and he just latched on to it and he just learned what it was about. And you know, man, that's part of the you can't get up on the hill and don't show nobody else how to get there. So having money for me as as uh Zion said has been a tool. Now do I have some nice things? Yes. Have I been blessed to have an incredible lifestyle for my family? Yes. And you should. Have I exposed them to travel and and and stuff like that? Yeah. And you should because I'm trying to leave a legacy of three sons that will take their families from zero to hero. And that's and when I die, I want my sons to take over however they want to do and run a company and a business to take care of their family and their kids. And I have the program on Father's Day week because all the boys I bring into the program are from single parent homes headed up by women. So I have it every Father's Day weekend. I sacrifice my Father's Day with my kids and they understand that. and they go, "We don't have our dad on Father's Day because he's being a father to a couple hundred boys that ain't got no." But they leave here with a mentor from the military. Uh, a lot of uh different fraternities come down and volunteer and all the boys leave with a phone number and a mentor and relationships and we follow the kids with afterare programs. We've turned out engineers, lawyers. We have about eight ministers from this program that have become ministers because we have a spiritual element to this thing too. And it's just been a wonderful program. And this is and this is I'm sorry, Bill, you were going to say something. Don't forget this is really embarrassing for us as a country. This is embarrassing for us as a country, as a most modern nation, most advanced nation, most established nations. We give more than $1 trillion to other countries for various reasons, right? $1 trillion a year we give to other countries for various reason, right? Yet we don't have small amount of that dedicated to the American American who deserve a better life. American who live in this country and this is what bothers us and this is what we talked about in the last show. Yeah. Which is funny. We talked about it in your show and next day Elon Musk got fired. Isn't that funny? Uh, everybody kept telling me like, "Dude, what a time to post this video." I was like, "Damn." So, so Elon, be careful. Don't come after George. I'm his uncle. So, if you have an issue, come talk to me. Right. Yeah. Talk to Uncle. Yeah. Exactly. But and Steve. Steve's like, "What the [ __ ] I just He didn't say anything." Right. But but here's a point. Here's a point. Actually, you know, people should write a letter to some organization. And I there should be letter coming from your audience if they really believe in this beautiful cause. This man fathered 3,400 boys and girls and he spent time on them feeding them educating them. He took time from his own life from his own children from his own family being a father and his wife is also very much involved with this. him being a father to the kids that did not have a father role and his wife being a mother to the kids that didn't have one. So I think you should actually receive these letters from your audiences. It should be a call for action. It should be a call for action. Look pour hope back into this country. Well hope of course we need to do that but also bring something to this cause right something to this cause where people should object. This is our taxpayer government. Those damn politician, right? They didn't earn all of these monies that the budget of this country is running. It's us, we taxpayer, right? So, we should have a right to tell the government how to use that taxpayer. And this is something that has been absent. It's not happening. But for Elon Musk, our government to cut all of these small funding for such a huge contribution is definitely error. It shouldn't be done and we should reverse that, right? Amen. Yeah. Speaking of mentoring, oh, please. You actually question. Sorry. No, I just because I want to point out how beautiful it is what you're doing because I think that you're teaching them fundamental values that we should be learning in school when you think about it, right? How do we go out in society and be able to succeed? You're teaching these men how to be real men. And even hearing you say you have an agriculture program. I mean, for us to be able to tend to and be able to feed ourselves if we need to feed our families. Yes. It's so important, right? That's priceless. So, how did you even when and how did you even come up with the idea to start this organization? Well, my father died when I was 43. So, it's been like, you know, a long time ago. And I was telling uh Yonan when I was sitting at his funeral and that casket was open. I was looking at the coldest dude I ever met and I was just tears. And I got on the jet and I'm flying back to LA and I was sitting on the plane looking out the window and I go, "Man, how would I have ever made it without that dude? There's no way I could have made it without him." And I began to think. I said, "Man, how do boys make it that ain't got that father figure?" Because a young boy without a father figure is like an explorer without a map. You don't know the way, man. Exactly. So, I said, "Hold up, man." So, I had a ranch in Dallas. So, I said, "Wow, you know what? I'mma start I'mma start mentoring these kids. I'm going just" And so, you know, I created the program and it's always been just two things. Dream building and manhood. That's all I need you to do. I don't care what you do, just as long as you turn out to be a good man and understand that real men honor God. Real men respect the law. Real men respect and honor women. Real men take care of their children. And all of these boys who don't have a father, we have a um a service. What's that ceremony called that we do at the end on Saturday night? Conversations with my father. We allow these boys to get out what they feel about their father. It's the most emotional ceremony. It's the night before. Wow. The soldiers are crying. The boys are crying. The mentors are crying because these kids is hurting without this dude. Man, I saw somebody say one time, "A boy without a father has a hole in his soul the shape of his father." Wow. He missed that dude. He never came to my games. He forget my birthday. He don't pick me up when he say he coming. He ain't never bought me a Christmas gift. I ain't got nobody. And these boys is crying and they filling out paperwork. They calling them names. Name one word to describe your father. I mean, man, you hear some vulgar stuff coming out these cats mouth, but they're hurting. They're hurting. And so this program was designed to give them a father figure, a real conversation with men who know the way, a chance to to get a mentor from the program, a chance to link in with other boys and understand cuz a lot of these soldiers didn't have dads in their life for whatever reason. And so now they can understand you can make it without this. It's going to be hard. But here's my number, man. So when you have a problem about these dreams you having at night and you don't understand why this is happening to your body, you can't ask your mother about that. How do I talk to girls? Your mother don't know. A woman can make a boy a good citizen, god-fearing, loyal, respectful, courteous. What she cannot do is turn him into a man. There is nothing she knows about this. And so this program and my wife does girls, but I do boys because we need to turn out better men and that's what the program does. And it was the death of my father that bought this whole program about. Do you have some type of uh uh um uh fund a program that people can contribute toward this program? Yeah, we got that every year. The uh last year Dr. Phil came and did a documentary on it, a two-hour documentary. was the first person that's ever did anything and it was big. And in that whole program we raised 150,000. That's amazing. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's not enough. That's not enough. I was about to say $150,000 is his hourly rate to be there. Man, to build out this camp. I've I've I've figured it all out. 25 million and I can build out the entire camp. The dormitories to sleep 300 boys. I got to put an indoor gymnasium to get them out of this summer heat sometimes. And the gymnasium, you got to have athletics to keep boys attention. Then I need a a 500 seat theater where they can do lectures and and and and listen to lectures and watch movies and stuff. And then I want a STEM center to teach STEM coding and programming. And then the other building, I want to have a a a EAS sports complex because I didn't this gaming stuff that these kids is into that I thought was ridiculous. They're they're millionaires off this. So if I keep them interested with this gaming and sports, I got enough room. I got baseball fields and football fields. I got all that. I got plenty space for that. But I need the buildings where I can put it inside and I I'll get it done, you know. I'll get it. So, I mean, I know you're the mentor, right? And you teach them a lot of things, but what has these boys taught you? That was a fine question. They They taught me purpose. They taught me purpose. And they give you a purpose, too. That's why I'm here because of their need for me and men like me and men like him and men like you. They gave my life purpose. You know, it's the average person dies never knowing what they were born to do. Exactly. I'm clear about that because I have a saying, your career is what you paid for. Your calling is what you made for. God made me famous and well off for this mission. Yeah, that's that's a He didn't make me famous for no other reason. He didn't give me wealth for no other reason but for this this mission right here. And you give that back to the God by saving all these souls which God cares about each and every one of them. Right. You are giving a gift back to the God. Yeah. There's a camp about 45 minutes from me. It's a Christian camp. They're in the soul saving business. Guy named Dave Piedmont. Great guy. And he was helping me. Gave me the plans for the dorms free and stuff. And he was telling me about the camp. He said, "Steve, you got to talk more about Christ." I said, "We have a program for Christ." I said, "But that ain't that ain't what I do, man." I said, "That's what you you in the soul saving business. I'm in the life saving business." I got to I got to stop a kid from killing each other. I got to stop a kid from selling dope. That's what he he designed you to do. Yeah. I got to stop a kid from being wanting to be a shooter, a gangster. I'm in the life saving business. let me save their life first and then you go save their soul. But if if I don't keep them alive, you got no soul to save. And finally, a few years ago, he looked at me, he said, "Wow, yeah, you're in the life saving business. I'm in the soul saving business." Cuz like I say, I'm I'm a Christian. I just ain't that, you know, I I can't teach you all the values of Christianity cuz I I'm still trying to master them myself. Like I'm not in the turn the cheek business. I'm just not that dude, man. But you asked me about Cat. I'm I'm I'm still a warm person. I sit down with him and I I really don't have a problem. I still haven't said anything negative about him. You know, I'm not that dude. That ain't where my head is at. I don't have time to get into this back and forth with you. I'm going somewhere. The the saying is stay on the wall. Stay on the wall, man. When they throwing rocks at you, stay on the wall. Don't come down off the wall cuz now you're slowing your ascend. Yeah. Don't come off the wall and get eye level with a hater. Just let him hate. But you stay on the wall. That's why I never come off the wall to address it. I appreciate you asking me about it, but you ask me, would I sit with him? Would I be willing to? And that's what it is, man. I squash anything with anybody. You're not afraid of it. You'll run with it, but you're not going to run to it if God's putting you in a place to be. And I think he needs to actually sit with the god and come closer to the god before he sits with him, right? Because you because no human can can be fixed by someone else until they want to fix themsel, right? I always wonder what is the reason for hatred, right? What is the reason of of of of people getting our keyboard warriors, right? Uh they're getting and they putting bad comments about if you don't have anything good to say, say nothing, right? Anyway, you put a bad comment, they ignore you, they reject you, right? they're gonna delete you, right? You want to be deleted or you want to be heard. If you want to be heard, you have to say something that people want to be inspired by what you say. Let me ask you something. You know what you're doing. You're trying to do the right thing, but you get haters, man. What is that for you? How do how do you deal with it? My honest thing is before when I used to consume my s like my moments like worrying about it, I learned quickly that if I listen to them, that means I'm taking the time to not listen to God. Exactly. So I I know what God thinks of me and how he feels of me. And God knows that. Here here's the truth. I know sometimes when I look in the mirror, I hate myself because I am failing God. I'm failing my mission. And then there's sometimes I look in the mirror and I love myself. So, I can't be too concerned if God put me in a place where so many people are watching me. There's going to be times that they hate me. There's going to be times that they love me. But it's not my concern. My concern is to finish the job and finish the race. Yeah. But, bro, but let me help you something. You ain't failed in the mission ever. You're in the process. You're processing, man. You ain't there yet. We all fall short of the glory of God. A guy told me a story one day. three three Christians on the boat and they're a thousand yards out and one of them jumps in the water and he starts swimming and he gets about 200 yards away and he sinks and he drowns. The second Christian jumps in the water and he swims and he swims 500 yards close to shore. He sinks and drowns. The other Christian gets in and he swims all the way to the shore, six feet and he sinks and drown drown. Which one was the better Christian? They all sank and drowned. The one you're in the process, brother. No. Can the process, bro? You in the process. There's a riddle. I don't know. No, I mean, look, we all fall short of the glory of God. We are nonperfect. No, not one. You're not f to be proud. I don't care what you do. I don't care how many times you do this podcast. Don't let the devil fool you, man. Make you think you ain't accomplishing the mission. You're doing good, man. Look, my son know who you do. You know how many people you affect that you don't know nothing about? That's why, man, you got to go out sometimes and you got to hear what people really saying about you cuz we sit behind these mics and behind them TV cameras and behind them desk and 27,000 people. I bet you out of them 27,000 people that a lot of people would say, "Hey man, if it wasn't for this guy, my family would be hungry. If it wasn't for this car, I would have never bought a house. If it wasn't for this guy, I never would have found Christ. If it wasn't for this guy, that's who you got to hear. That the haters is the imps. The devil got imps. They work 24/7. And it's just the same shame that some people is just on call 24/7. Yeah. I call them thumb gangsters. They just sitting there. They look they typing stuff. Yeah. But you're not even qualified to talk to me. You know, Jay-Z had a I'm not a hip-hop guy at all. Trust me, I'm a 70s dude. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck, man. I'm already 70s is a vibe, bro. I'm 70s and 80s is like the best times to be around. I'm in my soul. I can't move on. I was that ignorant little dude in 77. I was in college and hip hop the hippity hop. I heard that. I went, man, that ain't going to last. The stupidest thing I've ever said. Hip hop became the biggest music genre in the world. Made more millionaires than anything. How wrong was I? But I heard Jay-Z say something to the effect that C said, "Hey man, you ain't even in my league. We shooting at two different baskets. As a matter of fact, we pay two kind of taxes." I mean, this dude says stuff like that. So, when I'm moving Yeah. It's funny that I' i've learned more about Jay-Z from his like bars that he says, not even in his music, but in like interviews. Like one time he said, "My presence is a present." And I was like, "Oh." I was like, "That is Hey, man. I saw him I saw him at the Louis Vuitton show. Him and be that came up to us when they were walking through and they spoke to us. And it was ironic cuz he only stopped and talked to two people who he sitting next to. And so we were waiting on our cars and we got there late and Jay and B was down there waiting on their cars. And I've known Jay for a long time. I've known Beyonce since she was 14. Oh my god. She used to come and sing at the hiphop comedy stop in Houston. her father, who I knew who was a frat brother, Matthew Nose, used to bring Destiny's Child to this club to perform on amateur night. And I was sitting there going, "That's a wild thing to see Blossom." Yeah, bro. And I'm saying, "Yeah, they cute. They need to get on out the way. I got to go tell these jokes. I'm going to make 250 tonight." So, I don't know. I need to make this 250. Wait, what? You come on, little girls. Hey, hey, hey. This cute. He said, "Hey, man. These girls going to be stars." And I knew they were super talented back then. So I've been knowing him a long time. So I was standing there and uh I put my hand on Jay's shoulder and I said, "Hey man, you know, you know what you need to know right now? How important you are? The way you demonstrating yourself as a father, what you are sending the signal, Jay, as a father, skip your musical career, skip the money you make. what he's doing as a father. Do you know the message that that sends out? He needs to hear stuff like that. You got to get out and hear it from a different perspective. Forget the like Beyonce post stuff on her page. She don't even have a comment section. She could care less. She put her picture up, there's no comments, you know, and she got I how many hundreds of millions of followers. But they've mastered that part. They keep their private life private and everything. You man, you doing tremendous work. Don't ever think you falling short, man. Cuz everybody go The dude that swam six feet from shore, he still ain't going. He ain't Christ. So, dog, we all come up short. Like I I say stuff all the time that ain't Christianlike. You know, I probably said something yesterday. I said something to one of the photographers that was my I was putting my wife in the car. Oh, I was on the red carpet one time with my wife and a guy says, "Hey, Steve, lose the girl." I went, "What did you say to your wife?" He said, "Lose the girl." I let my wife's hand go. She said, "Steve, Steve, no, no, no." I walked up and I said, "Hey, man. This ain't no girl. What you mean lose the girl? This is my wife. This is the reason I'm even here. This is my everything. Don't Don't ever say that to a person." Well, I just want a picture of you. Hey, well, you don't get a picture of me. You you got something I'm in your ass right now. You feel me? And if if you say something negative about it, this this I'mma turn into something else. I have the ability to slap you. I really really do. And I have a strong desire to slap you. You just better be real grateful that I got enough God in me that keeps me from being who I used to be. Cuz who I used to be, man. Oh, dog. I I snatch your lips off your face with my mouth. I spit your bottom lip back on your cheek just like that, bro. Yeah. What a visual. You got that? Yeah, I got that. And we just said we said that on Gospel podcast. So, but speaking of mentoring and bringing people up into the into the the vibrations that we're feeling, what was it like? And was this a as a comedy bit or was this like a true thing when you brought Mike to church? Is this like a real moment or was this a comedy bit? No, that really happened. You brought you brought Michael Jackson to church. Bro, you can go on the internet and pull it up. Me and Mike were friends. When he was in that trouble, he said, "Man, I think I need to go to church." He had ro Ramon Baines was his public said, "Steve, Michael want to know if you'll take him to church." I called Chip Murray at the time who was the pastor of uh AM Christian Church over in uh uh uh over off Krenshaw. I said, "Hey man, Mike want to go to church." He said, "Michael, who?" I said, "Michael Jackson. He wants to go to church." So I went to Mike's hotel. He Mike had the whole Beverly Wilshshire hotel. He bought the whole floor and gutted it and remodeled it. Oh, he lived there. Yeah, cuz he got tired of driving from Neverland to go to court. So he bought the whole top floor, gutted it, and remodeled it and made it his house. Wow. Oh, that's like next level. And so when I came to his house to pick him up, he came to the elevator with a moped. What? He was riding the moped down the hallway. What was he like as a human being? No, he's one of the coolest people I've ever met. He's very smart. Way deeper than people know, man. He understood what they were doing to him. He got it, man. The dude was not not stupid. So, we go inside. This is a really event. And um I'm waiting on him and I said, "So, he came out dressed to go to church and he had this suit on, this naval suit with this one stripe going down the leg." And I looked at Mike, I said, "Hey man, where your suit at? You know, where your shirt, your We going to church. You dress like Captain Crunch." He said, "You're so crazy." My man, the hell you got on, dog? Captain Crunch. And we get in the car and he said, "Steve, I don't want anybody to know I'm coming." My man, we got off the freeway off the 10 on Crrenshaw. People were lined up all over the bridge, all down Crenshaw, turned the corner on Adams, all up at the church. Dog, we were driving 4 miles an hour. It was people everywhere. I don't know who found out he was coming to church, but I didn't tell a soul. And we went in that church and church was packed. Me and Mike sitting there. The choir is up and Mike is just jamming. He's jamming to the church. And so he went to church. So he went down to the kids class cuz he loved kids. He sat down there with the kids who was talking to him. So the reporters are all outside and he says, "Steve, I don't want to talk to anybody. You go and talk for me." I said, "All right, cool." So I go out there. It's 40 mics in front of me. You got all this online. It's 40 mics. Like a press conference. Yeah. It's just this guy to go to church. But Steve, we want to talk to Mike. Mike ain't talking. Steve, we don't want to talk to you. Hey, man. Cool. You ain't got to talk to me. But you can't talk to Mike. He don't want to talk to y'all. Why did he ask you? I don't know. Can we ask him that? You can't ask him nothing. He's not talk. He didn't talk to nobody. And then we got in the car, he had this Bentley and every time you get in his Bentley, he has you sign the sealing or something. His signatures all over this car. I'm going, you've ruined this Bentley. This is the car I want. Who you letting ride on this stuff? And so we're pulling off and Mike, let me speak to the people. Let me wave out. I said, "Mike, you can't put your hand out this window, dog." So Mike leans over me. So I told, I said, "Man, lock his window cuz Mike just friendly." He stick his hand out way, dude. Grabbed his hand, just pulling him out the window. I snatched Mike. I said, "Man, sit your ass down and stop. Act like you famous." And I rolled the window up. But Steve the people and they just mobbed him. That was a true story. He loves like he loves people. But can I ask you a personal question and you don't have to answer this, but this is the I want to make sure I say this out of respect. The what they said about him and what he did, I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it on so many occasions, but the one thing that makes my heart kind of like and I've never told anybody this and I I don't even know how to explain this, but when I was growing up, I was in a choir and I was learning about high teners. And when they were younger in in the olden days when Jackson 5 was definitely around and killing it that they castrated a young boy if he's really good and they want to keep his voice and then now I'm understanding as he's growing up and he's older and he's he still has a like a child's voice. Do you think he was castrated or No, dog. Mike had bad chicks, man. I don't know where y'all been getting. He wasn't all that. So, so he he was dating chicks and doing because there's nothing besides his love life, besides the the the the bad stuff that they talked about. Hey, man, let me tell you something. Here's the one thing I'm really grateful for that when I was out there, man, kings of comedy and all of that, man. There was no social media and no one had invented the phone camera. Yeah. Parties changed immediately after, bro. Let me tell you something, man. Worst brotherway. Worst invention. Invention. Of course, it changed made my career, but we'll discuss that one later. We'll discuss that. We'll just go around that one. Made my career. No, rude. Your guys' parties ruined gave me bread on my table. Ruined our careers. Oh, sorry about that. Because man, Mike was what he did. There's no there's no footage of it. I'm telling you point blank. He had bad chicks, man. bad chicks. I I saw it myself. I was there, you know. We It wasn't a We had a really really cool relationship. I don't think this girl Ramon Baines, who was his publicist, she don't get enough credit for the stuff she did in Michael Jackson's life. And uh she she took care of Mike. Uh he had a great chef named Kai Chase who took care of Mike, who really really loved Mike and took care of a man. I saw that was castrated. That's not true at all, man. This dude had this dude had bad chicks, man. It's just ain't no record of it. Y'all y'all don't know, man. Yeah. And so like Well, I looked up to him growing up. That's why I even got in Entertainment Fields because Moonwalk. He He was He was He was such a cool dude, man. He was smooth, man. He knew he knew how to talk. He was His conversation was deep. The The problem Mike had was he hated that he missed his childhood, right? And so he wanted to make sure the children had their childhood. So man, like that's Neverland was all because he he had a train that went around the whole 3,000 acres. He had all these animals and stuff cuz he never had a chance to see it. So he's just reliving his childhood. Farrakhan told him one time, he said, "Hey man, you don't get to go back." He said, "You sacrificed your childhood because you belong to the world." Farrakhan, Minister Lewis Farrakhan told him that. What is a farrakan? Huh? What is a farrakon? No. Minister Lewis Farrakan, the head of the Nation of Islam. You know, he's very powerful voice in the black community. You know, he gets accused of being anti-semitic. I haven't heard those remarks. I just knew he was very very pro black. Always talked to blacks about doing for themselves, standing on their own, you know. And most black people understood that. He he got beat up for other things, but I was never privy to that. But he he just talked to Michael and told him how it was for him, you know. Did you ever talk to him about the the stuff that he was going through like? Yeah. All the time. See, I never believed it. Now, there are people who I know who say I believe everything about that. I don't take no time to argue with him cuz I didn't see none of that. I saw no signs of it or anything like that. You know, I had a joke one time that I wrote about, "Hey, Mike, you you like I ain't got no eight-year-old buddies." Yeah. Yeah. Great job. You know, I got no 8-year-old that can ring the doorbell talking about, "Ding dong, is Steve home?" You know, I I don't have that. But he he kept kids around him and stuff like that. And people accused him of that. But if you remember that little boy that they had, the father that was a dentist that accused him of all of that. He came out later on and said it wasn't true. My dad made me say it. Yeah. GQ did a whole article, but they squashed that article in GQ, you know, about how it didn't happen. And then Mike paid the money cuz he just didn't want to deal with it, man. I don't want I'm just pay them off so they can leave me alone. 20 million. I'm not giving you 20 million to stop saying nothing. Not like that's that other side of that Christian in me. Yeah. I'll fight you for 20 million, but I'm not handing you 20. You say what you want to say about me. I got no money for you. But I think uh with all the social media and people accessibility to communication, I really think um it's better for people to learn, right? Uh uh not to say anything negative to anybody. If you don't have something nice to say, it's better really for you not to say it. Can you imagine? I sometimes watch people saying negative things constantly and they look like a fool in front of everybody because everybody reads it, right? If you don't have anything good to say, say nothing. You know, it's better to sometimes say words. My wife always tells me words have power. Yeah. Amen. Words have power. So when you say something about someone or you say it in a way to bring someone down, trust me, you will stay down for rest of your life. Yeah. Don't be a babbling fool. Exactly. Exactly. What? What? Speaking of like not saying anything, do you regret going back on the stage and telling people, "Hey, I messed up saying the girl's name at the pageant show." Would you, if you could go back in time, would you be like, "I'm just going to chill and let them Well, that was the way I was raised. Go fix it. The true story behind that was they had changed the way we would do it. They used to go uh third runner up, second runner up, first runner up, and then announced Miss Universe. Well, there's only three women on stage. Yeah, it's antilimactic. So, it's antilimactic. So, they changed it. They had bought it bought it from Donald Trump and they changed it that year. So, that year we said we're going to announce second runner up, then it'll be first runner up and who's going to win Miss Universe standing there. So then we rehearsed it all week like that. So after we did second runner up, it's just the two ladies sitting there. The teleprompter said, "And the new 2015 Miss Universe is where I get that from. It's in the teleprompter." So I read, "And the new 2015 Miss Universe is in my ear." The guy said, "Read the second name on the card, Steve." The second name on the card was Miss Colia. So I read Miss Colia. He said, "Great job. Go to the back." The crowd goes crazy. I go in the back. Two minutes out there at the celebration. My boy comes up stage man Steve. Oh gee, you read the wrong name. I said, "No, I ain't read the wrong name. Look at the card." He said, "Right there." He said, "Look down here. They had put the winner in the corner where your fingers, but when they handed me the card, my thumb is over the no. And that wasn't how we rehearsed it. We only had the names on the card the way it was. So when I announced the second name on the card, that was actually the first runner up, but they had we hadn't rehearsed it like that. Then the winner was in the corner. So I said, "I'm going to go back out here and change it." They said, "No, we'll fix it tomorrow in the paper." I said, "No, I'm going to go out here and do it now. We live. They can't stop me." So, I walked right out there and said, "Folks, there's been a mistake." I said the wrong name. I took the It wasn't on me. It was on the teleprompter and the director, but I took the hit. Yeah, that was one of the worst and best decisions I've ever made in my life. Cuz buddy, let me tell you something, man. on my vision board. I had asked God to increase my global brand and persona. That was on my vision board. God, I want you to create increase my global brand and persona. I wanted to go global. Yeah. After that night, the next morning, be careful what you pray. In 48 hours, the name Steve Harvey had been Googled 4 billion times. Wow. I was the most Googled person on Google for years. I was now the most famous person on planet earth. I was headlines in Italy, Philippines, everywhere. I But man, that was a dark week. That was a dark week, man. Because the Colombians, man, they they wasn't they wasn't happy. Do you still have your security guards because of that? Yeah. It's still this day, bro. Listen to my son. You don't have like you haven't have you you've been able to travel there? No, I'm not going to Colombia. I don't I don't even drink Colombian coffee no more. I think they Yeah, they hand you a cigar. They're like, "It's Colombia." You're like, "I'm fine. I'll A lot of Colombians said, "Steve, we forgot about So, what I did was the next The next week was Christmas. So, a week later was Christmas. So, I've been getting beat up all week. I said, "Okay, enough of this." So, I went on IG and I said, "Hey y'all, this is Steve. Hey y'all. Merry Easter." I just said, "Merry Easter." And they said, "He back. He recovered." And so, I never did an article. I never did an interview or anything about it until I could talk to Miss Colombia myself. I had a talk show at the time. She came in February. In February, she finally cleared her schedule. I apologized to her father cuz I knew I had hurt this girl. Man, she was the most devastated. But her career zoomed after that. Probably one of the most iconic nights ever. And so she came on my talk show and I hugged her. I saw her for the first time and I was able to apologize to it. It's emotional for me because I knew I had hurt this girl. And so then after that, I did articles on it. But that was, you know, that was all your shows, which one do you feel like is the most impactful one? Showtime at the Apollo because it was the first. It was the one that I got when I was fitting to quit when I was with uh with Jamie Fox. Yeah, man. I met Jamie Fox that night. Are is your guys' relationship good right now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. I mean, I we didn't know who each other was. I I love hearing stories like that. I'm going to take you down there to say hello to him. That's such a thing to say. No, seriously. By the way, I own four companies. He he is one of them. And we'll meet him tomorrow. And so, yeah, man. I've always been cool with Jamie Fox. You know, we had TV shows on at the same time after that, the Jamie Fox show, the Steve Harvey show. There's actually a question I've been wanting to ask. I love hearing that story about how like he lost the crowd. They started booing him and then he started singing and he got him right back. Yeah. What was he singing? I don't know. But was it part of his act or is he just like I'm bombing right now. I'm just going to start singing. They started booing him. He started singing and that boy could sing. He's the one of the most talented human beings, bro. Jamie Fox of all of us is the most diversified. Yeah. Him and Eddie Murphy. There's no standup ever been more diversified than those two right there. Jamie Fox can act, play the piano, sing, write, produce, and do comedy. God bless. And Eddie's the same way. Those two. And then I would put next in that group Martin Lawrence because I've never met a better mimic in my life than Martin Lawrence. Death jam was death jam cause of Martin Lawrence. How do you feel about comedy and the temperature is at right now? Well, it's different now. It's not. People are too sensitive. Well, the cancel culture is killing comedy. You can't make fun of nobody no more. The only person that goes about his business the way they want to is two comedians, Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle. Yeah. And that's because they're not sponsorship driven. I mean, they're not sponsorship driven. They're subscription driven. Yeah. You can't cancel Netflix and that's why they make their money. So Dave Chappelle is able to say anything about the gay community, anything. And they they turned on him, but that didn't stop him from saying nothing. I think he's one of those special gifted people, especially in today's times. And I like Bill Burr. Bill Burr is dynamic to me. He says some of the craziest stuff that read him. White boy, he cold. She I love watching him and she goes, "He's so angry. Can we change it?" Stress. You know when someone is like so angry you see their veins and they're red. Like I feel that and it stresses me out. You know, I love it, bro. I love when a dude pops off but he's feeling a certain way, bro. That's him delivering the pain that other people are saying with the bravery to say it. And that's what comedic comedy has always we've been comedians have always allowed us to laugh at oursel and our pain because that's what it is. You know, my specialty was observational humor. When I did uh Don't Trip, he ain't through with me yet uh was close to getting to the end of my career. And my last one I did, I sold out the MGM Gardens in Vegas my last night when I gave it up and I cried for 20 minutes backstage because I was walking away from the one thing I said I would never ever walk away from. But I knew I had to give up something. Bishop Jake taught me something one time. He said, "Everything you want on the next level, you have to break through a glass ceiling. And in order to break through glass, you going to get cut and you going to bleed. And the stuff that's going to bleed is something you care deeply for. So to go to the next level, you got to shed something. Yeah. And standup was the thing I had to let go of. And it was the most painful. That was one of the most painful nights I've ever had with the exception of the loss of my mother, which was I I can't even that. I thought I was going to die. I lost my mom. Man, I didn't know what to do. That was the worst I've ever I didn't think I was going to make it. How did you, if you don't mind me asking, because like and she's my witness to this, like I'll just break down crying like thinking of it. I bought a house. This is the house that I used to shoot, but my main house is right next to my mom. Like I I when I'm done working, that's all I want to do is be next to her. Like we'll sit here talk. Like I'm going to get emotional right now. Like everything that I ever do in my life, including this right here, I just can't wait to go back and throw it at her feet and say, "Mom, look what I did." Yeah. And so like, how how do you continue without those two pillars in your life? It it I wasn't doing well until her funeral and the minister said something that changed my perspective cuz looking at my mom in that box, man, God dog, man. Oh boy. Let me tell you something, man. I wasn't and I'm I'm a tough tough ass dude. My father raised me to be that way. But I was sitting down there looking at that dude, man. I've never seen my father broken ever. except when she they were married 64 years. Wow. He was broken and my mother was on a respirator and when I got to town they kept on the ventilator so I could see her. I collapsed on the bed. 6 hours later my father said your mama said she don't want to live like that. And I got two big brothers and two big sisters. He said come here Steve. Go in there and tell them take your mom off that machine. God though, hold up, man. What? You go in there and tell them, "Let your mama go see Jesus." The roughest conversation I've ever had was to walk in there and tell that doctor, "Take take my mom off the machine." As soon as I said it, I fell. I just crumble, man. I ain't know what to do cuz uh the woman that had taught me everything. I never loved nobody like I loved her. I had told them to pull the machine plug out this wall and I felt guilty about that, you know. But at the funeral, you know, my mom was a Sunday school teacher for 40 years. She taught in the hood. At my mama's funeral, the church was packed. The overflow downstairs was packed. They opened up the windows of the church so people in the parking lot could hear my mama's funeral. Gangsters had come to pay respect to my mother pimps, drug dealers. I'm talking about, man, my mama taught everybody in the hood. I'm talking about, man, it was dudes in my mama's funeral with yellow suits on, pink suits, powder blue pimps, hustlers, dope boys. Everybody came to see my mother. I was sitting there with my two brothers and two sisters and I was crushed. And then the minister said something that changed it for me. He said, "I know y'all in pain, but to Sister Harvey's kids, turn around and look." And he made us turn around and see how big, how full the church was. And then he said, "And downstairs the overflow, the church is packed. We're broadcasting. We got speakers outside. We've never had a funeral where we put speakers outside. Everybody in the hood and came to see y'all's mama. Do you know how many lives she changed? It was this pimp that came around and he viewed my mother's body. His name Sunonny Calhoun. And he was a pimp. And he came and he stopped. He said, "Hey man, sorry about y'all lost it. But y'all mama tried to save me. She ain't get me. But man, she sure tried to save me. She said, "I'm I'm f to go. I'm going to go talk to God now, man, cuz that's what she wanted me to do. And I we was getting all those types of testimonies. And then the minister said joy and pain. He went through this whole list of credits that my mother had did. He was pointing at people. She saved that boy right there. That these I as some tough ass dudes in my mama's funeral, man. I grew up in the hood. I knew these boys. I'm still friends with them. These dudes was these dudes was shooters. These dudes will do something to you, right? Talked about all the changes she had made in the neighborhood. And we began to smile at her accolades. And he said, "I want you all to know something as you feel this way, this pain you feel. Think of everything she's taught you and everything she's ever done for all these thousands of people in this church." He said joy and pain cannot reside in the same space. Joy and depression cannot reside in the same space. He says, "So when you think of her, think of all the great things and the good things that she's done." And that helped me because it helped me get past the pain sometimes. Now, 28 years later, I still cry about her. 28 years later, it'd be days I'm doing good, then I think about it and I'll be smiling, then I just break down cuz that loss for me, that [ __ ] was devastating, man. And I still, you know, so like, you know, I tell people all the time, man, I I was crying about four years after my mom had died. It was her birthday and I was talking to this girl and she said, "Why you crying?" I said, "Uh, I was just thinking about my mama." She said, "How long how long your mama been dead?" I said, "4our years." She said, "You still crying after four years?" I said, "Your mom still living?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Then you don't know. You do not know." And I don't wish that on nobody because I don't care how big of a gangster you are. I don't care how cold you are. I don't care how much money you got. I don't care what you've accomplished. When that woman leave this world, you ain't going to believe this [ __ ] You just ain't going to believe it. I don't care who you are. I was with a partner who was a a straight gangster. His mama died, man. This dude right there, he he went off for 6 months, man. He just went dark. And he was a gangster. He's a real tough dude. So, I I I still have my moments, man. Like, you know, I don't I don't cry as much as I used to, but it's hard to get hard to see some months go by where I don't shed a tear about her or something. Can't even imagine. No, it's Yeah, it's it's nothing to imagine like uh one of my partners lost his mom recently. He said, "Man, tell me something." I said, "I can't tell you nothing, man." I said, "Just in due time, it'll get better. This too shall pass. It'll get better. But right now, I ain't got no words for you. Just hang on. Just ask God for strength because I I'mma tell you, man, you're not gonna believe it. You just ain't going to believe it. It ain't. You know, such a beautiful minister that you had that could bring so much light. I mean, that's there really is no right thing that you can say in a moment like that. So, for him to even give you guys a glimmer of, you know, peace and joy. And I think that's what's so beautiful about our relationship with God. I think that's the one thing that he can give so much peace to us that we know that when our loved ones leave, it's not they're not gone forever. You know, they're in the kingdom. They're with Jesus and they're celebrating. You know what I used to hate though, man, when people say she in a better place now. No, man. Hold up. When she was upstairs in that rocking chair sitting next to that refrigerator, that was the better place for me. You not you're not helping me with this one right now. So I never say that to people. Well, she in a better place now. I don't say that to nobody because what you really want her is back upstairs where you can go talk to her. So I don't say that to people. I tell people it's painful. You going to get through it. Try to remember all the great stuff she did. And that's where you got to sit with it. But everybody handle it different, I guess. But it's a it's I don't know nobody. I was I watched Denzel break. I watched Samuel L. Jackson break. I watched Tyler Perry break. I watch some people with a whole lot of money. Cuz it ain't your money ain't going to fix you on this one. It ain't it ain't nothing. You go. Especially boys, man. This is the first woman we ever loved, right? She's the first woman you ever loved. And that love don't ever go away. That's why you want I want to take I'mma take you to meet my mama. You know, you take the chick the chick of your dreams. You take her to meet your mother. Yeah. Cuz you want her mama. Look Look what I did. She's the only one that's ever met my mother. Yeah, bro. Cuz she the one she the one. You know the reason I I get it gets so tough when I like talk about it or I think about it or like cuz when you when you speak about I could feel it cuz the relationship you have with a good parent. Now, unfortunately, not everybody has that, right? Right. But when you have it, it's remember when you were talking about like you were at school and the teacher said, "You're not going to be a TV star, man. You have a stutter." Yeah. But you go home and it's like all the lies that the devil builds around when you go home to your mom and dad, they breathe life into you. Yeah. That's the paralyzing part for me is like I can't think of a moment that I've dealt with something or an obstacle where I don't run to my mom. A lot of people, oh, he's a mama's boy. It's like, well, I'm proud to be a mama's boy. I run to my mom like, "Yo, this is this is my obstacles. This is this." And she'll breathe life into me and I feel this strength and I'll go out like a lion. I'll de like I'll devour it. But then I'll just have these thoughts in my mind like what happens when I don't have that voice talk back to me? You gonna have to that that that that you went to pull on, you gonna pull on it again cuz she gonna leave you with that. Man, she left me with so many jewels, so many diamonds. You know, like a lot of times, man, when your parents talking to you when you're young, you don't get it. And then you get it later on. I I can't tell you how many times I hear her voice. Like just yesterday, you know, uh they pick me and my wife up on the plane. We go through special services, right? So these people come take us off the plane. I don't go through the airport. They take us down the steps. I get in the car, then they take me to customs in a private room and all like that, right? And these women that are helping us, they want to carry the bag. I don't let a woman carry my bag. And when she's holding the door for me and my wife, no, I get the door, you go through. Because I hear my mom all the time, you don't walk through no door in front of no woman. And and just yesterday I told the lady, she said, "Oh my god, it's so nice of you, but it's my job. You have to go in front of me." I said, "No, no, no. My mama let me do that." Man, my mom will bust me in my head right now. My mama will bust me in my head if I don't let you go through this door in front of me. I That's my mom. I hear my mama all the time. I hear her all the time saying stuff. Her and my dad. My mother is always the good stuff, you know. My dad is is a gangster. He's the right hand. Yeah. Get him. Get him. Go over there and snatch him up. Yeah. Put some fabric on him. Fold his clothes up. I That's my fault. Yeah. Whenever you were hearing this, when we were like debriefing on you, I was laughing so hard cuz the things that he was telling you, my dad, I got in trouble one time cuz this kid punched me in my face and my dad's like, "I will beat your ass if I ever hear another man swung at you." And he didn't do anything. He the next day I went looking for the smoke. I said, "Let me get this straight. If he touches me, I can hit him." He goes, "I I don't even care if your mother's you answer to me. If somebody swings at you," he goes, "You swing back. And if you don't, I'll kick your ass when you get home." I went home. I went to school looking for the smoke. But you need that. Yeah. Because you need you got to be tough. Look, this man right here did not get to where he is cuz he not tough, Doc. you he got a he's got a section in him that's a gangster. You know, you don't get that without being that piece. Every man got to have that in him. You got to have some dog in you. You you you can't Your wife got to lean on your strength a lot of times and you going to have to lean on hers. But man, when it get tough, he got to step out to the front. He'll take a bullet for everybody in his family. You know, like I tell people all the time, a man walk in the room and he got one bullet in the gun, he got to shoot me. I got I got Look, I got seven kids, eight grandkids. You got one bullet. I can promise you that bullet going to go in me cuz I'm not f to let you. I got one bullet. We could stop this conversation. You f to use this thing. I'm going try to talk you out of it, but I'mma be between them and and and that bullet. He the same way. He said to me, "My family is everything to me." Everything? Yeah. Cuz at this age, man, I mean, what else is it? You got He don't need another car. He don't need no more clothes. He don't need You don't really need another watch. You might want some stuff, but it's about that family, man. And what he said too reminds me of this saying that says, "A society becomes great when old men plant trees under the shade of which they know they'll never sit." You got to do something that's going to leave something for somebody else's enjoyment that you know you won't even be there to enjoy. Yes. So you got to plant some trees under which the shade you know you'll never sit. I know that that 1,600 acres I got that them them 90,000 spruce I planted when that hurricane came through and wiped out a big section of my forest and I've had to plant 90,000 trees in there. I know I won't be under that shade, man. I know I won't. But I planted them so my grandkids will be walking through that forest. Man, these some big trees. that tree 50 years old. Your granddaddy, Papa Harvey, put them trees there. And that's what he does. He He lives his life. I learned this from him today about family with this guy. That's why I got on the plane cuz I knew he was he was he was he was one of God's men. You know, we got to come together as God's men. We we got to go to each other. He said, "I want you to come do this podcast for this kid." He talks about Christ. I Okay. Well, I'mma tell him, "No, no, man. I'mma go see the dude." Then my son said, "Dad, this dude is dope. This dude is dope." Cuz I don't watch podcast. I I don't watch nothing. I I don't even watch my own shows. I saw Family Feud one time. I've been on that 16 years. Wait, one time? I watched it one time. Don't feel bad. Which episode? My mom watches it tonight. And that's what he told me. My mom watches the show. She gets up in the morning when she turns on the TV, watch Family Feud up to the minute she sleeps. That's actually why you guys are working together. He waited outside. He goes, "My mother wants you." No. And I always tell her, I said, "Mom, you don't understand English. What do you What do you think about what what do you know about what this guy is saying?" She says, "Something about him I like." I said, "Yeah, what about a guy before him? I don't like the guy. Why? He kiss womans. I said, "Is that part of his show? He has to do that." No, son. I looked at his eyes. This son of a [ __ ] wanted to kiss these women. Yeah, he did. But not Steve Harvey. Not Steve Harvey. And I told him today, Richard Dawson married two of them women. Yeah. Oh, the dude that was kissing everybody. My mom showed me that. I go, "Hey yo, you guys didn't have HR or something. What's going on here?" And she didn't have none of that. Then she's like, "No, he kissed everybody." And then she's trying to go. She goes, "No, no, she kissed. He kissed little girls, bigger girls, older girls." I go, "It's getting worse." I go, "It's getting wor." I go, "First of all, never be a defensive attorney ever. That was the worst that you said to me." But yeah, that guy was weird. She's like, "No, back in the day it was different." Back in the day it was dope what he was doing, but that's not the world we in today. Exactly. That is not They got, you know, penicella used could used to could cure stuff. Yeah. They had a one drug. It was called Penicella. All right. You could, it would cure stuff. It does nothing now. It does nothing. And and the funny thing I said, I says, "How do you know this is a good guy?" She said, "I watch him how he fixed people's clothes." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "This boy, his tie was crooked. He fixed it for him." He said, "He's a good guy. Trust me, he's a good guy." What she doesn't know, we're going to have dinner together. She'd be sitting next to him. No way. Yeah. She doesn't know. Oh, she don't know. You got you got some of the cigar things right here in your teeth. We'll cut around it. It's okay. I'm going to swallow. Don't worry about it. But the funny thing is the best. It's the best form of entertainment. Like he's touching this woman that she sits alone in her house, you know, from morning to night, watches this guy's shows, one after another after another after another. It's unbelievable cuz you make people laugh, you make people cry. You make me cry this whole time. But I almost took your napkin cuz you weren't using it. I was like, I rubble mine up. You speak, you know, so much life into people and you bring them, you minister in a way. When you speak life and you give these stories and you give God's words to them, what is your Bible study like? If you do Bible study or if you meditate and and you learn God's word, what is that like? You know what I do? Sarah Young has a book out called Jesus Calling. That's my daily I've read all 365 days. I just go back and start over because you you can't get it enough. So Jesus Calling is a book by Sarah Young. A lady gave it to me on my show. She's the tech engineer, the sound engineer. It's a Jesus Calling. It's a daily devotional. And you read these daily devotions. It's it's it's it's uh it's from her perspective, a person talking to God about what he or her is missing or needing or wanting. And then it has three or two, three or four scriptures at the bottom in the King James version that you that relates to that exact devotional. That's my daily routine. That's how I do it. And then I have my Bible next to me in case I need to read the scripture before it or after it. But that's my daily devotional. I miss sometimes, you know, because I got to go get a plane, I run out of time, I'm woke up late or something like that. But that's my daily devotional. It's Sarah Young's Jesus. I've given that book to I can't tell you how many people. I give it out as gifts because it was a gamecher for me because it helped me because you know I got to read the uh New Living uh Bible cuz King James too heavy for me. Yeah. You know once you say henceforth there whether whence and you lost me. Yeah. English. English wasn't, you can tell by the way I talked. Even according to Cat Williams, I'm a country bumpkin. So, you know, I couldn't, you know, the King James version a little bit too heavy for me. So, I got to read either the Amplified or the New Living cuz I I need it in English. The key is to understand it and get a takeaway. Yes. It's the relationship behind. Yeah. Not to memorizing the exact way he talked cuz you know, you said something in this podcast. I didn't want to stomp over you because you were on a great flow, but I think people really need to understand it's not the church, it's not the walls, it's not the words, it's the relationship. The word became flesh. John chapter one, right? So when people could know the words like you said, but applying them as two different words. Remember the devil, if me, you, and Zia, and my wife all sat together and across the table is Satan, guess who's going to know the Bible more than us? He is. But he doesn't apply it. You could know the Bible just as much, but if you don't apply it, you're not gonna have that relationship. It's kind of like a wife. You could have a wife, but that doesn't mean you have a relationship with your wife. That's right. Well, let's end that with that. Before I take you guys off, cuz you guys have been here for quite some time. I appreciate your time. I just got married. And uh, you know, thank God we keep God- centered at the beginning of it. And so, we're anytime we have any arguments or any problems, we we just center ourselves. And there's no ego, there's no pride. I run the house. Um, but you know, I think this is something that is very old school. Maybe not a lot of people kind of mesh with, but I like having old school uh, you know, rules because it worked with my parents, it worked with their parents. And, uh, obviously we discuss everything. And it's not, by the way, it's not like I'm calling shots and there's nothing else. Every single shot I ever call is mostly influenced by what she's like giving me wisdom on. And by the way, if you look, it's a blessing that I was on camera for 10 years. You could see the day that she came into my life and how I accelerated as a human being because I loved myself, but I never loved myself as much as I loved this woman. And it made me want to chase God and chase what I need to chase. What uh examples or or pointers do you guys have for me as a man that's trying to be successful, but also I don't ever want to lose my my family over it. Let me let me let him take this one. Yeah. First of all, that's a good start. Took me three times to get it right. That's that's that's a yeah so much. But I've been married to my wife uh 34 years. And when I married you first first real conversation we had I said in this relationship it doesn't matter who's right who's wrong. We always have to listen to common sense. Common sense is a common sense. So when we have an argument it shouldn't be an argument. It should be a discussion to finding what is really right and what is wrong. And it doesn't matter if it comes from me or it doesn't matter if it comes from you. what's right we have to adopt and we have to do the best the best thing is for you to have this loving relationship having faith in your relationship be each other's best friend you know be each other's best friend right and uh because that gets you a se different way of closing together right where you feel you need that person not only because she's your wife you love her but you think you need that person because you connect the most with her than anything else and every time comes the argument about everything anything it could be about the money it could be which house to buy which car to by what food to eat, which restaurants to go to. Always discuss it before argument to say, "Okay, yo, you want Italian?" I was thinking steak, but let's talk about why and why. Which one is more important for which one of us? If it's that important for you to go to eat uh uh Italian, then we'll go eat Italian. No big deal about it. Or how about if we go eat Italian next week, we go eat steak, right? You have to have a conversation. A marriage falls apart when a conversation stops. Yeah. Communication is key. The key is to the kingdom. And you have to let each other talk. When she talks, listen. Don't think about what you're going to say to her as soon as she stops talking because you're not listen. It's funny. We we both did that to each other in the beginning of the relationship and we realize how like it's it goes in a circle cuz we're not listening to each other. Like you're saying something, but I'm waiting to like stump it or find it. And don't talk over each other. Don't talk over each other. Always. She's a brilliant woman, dude. Don't talk. And then because marriage, if the foundation is right, it can never break. Yeah. I mean, I've been married once. I've been married for 34 years. And it's funny. I love my wife every day more than yesterday. And I know no matter how much I love her today, I will love her less than tomorrow. Right? Like my wife now, she's getting at the age. She wants to go with me everywhere. Right? I'm surprised. She wanted to come even here. I says, "Please sit on what are you doing?" But but but the point is the point is that uh you get closer together where where you want to be with each other more. You want to see each other more often. So have a faith and be smart enough to have a common sense. Listen to each other. Never talk over each other. Respect is very important. You must always respect each other. Words have power. I've learned that not age of 62. So don't say anything to her until you have thought about it 100 times before you say it to her. Right? Be careful because you might say something to her when you're angry and then you will regret it for rest of your life. That's not even bad enough as it is she be thinking about it for the rest of her life. Right? So always be careful. Right? Sometimes it's better. You know we were just talking about all those keyboard warrior that get on their computer and they start hurting each other because they have nothing better to say, right? But if they really think about it, what is that achieving? It's achieving nothing. Right? You be blocked and rejected. You have no more voice anymore. Is that what you really want? Right. Yeah. Wow. You know what? Beautiful way of saying that's like um you said something of how you all used to argue because what me and my wife had to understand was she said, I heard. I said, she heard. So when wherever we get into an argument, we stop and go, "Okay, wait a minute. This is what you said, but this is what I heard when you That's not what I meant." Oh, well, what did you mean? Because often times what she says, we hear different cuz we're men. Yeah. Cuz we don't know how to We're not hearing. Yeah. We're just not that deep, dog. We You said that, so you must mean this. No, they could mean something totally different. So you have to go back and Okay. you said this, but let me tell you what I think you meant. And she goes, that's not what I meant at all. That's how we solve the majority of our argument. Yeah. The next point is you that is old school to say you're the head of the family, but that's how it really works. Yeah. But you know what? I'm the head of the family, but my wife is the neck of the family. I say she's the spine. I can't stand up straight. You You try to do this without a neck. Yeah. Yeah. It's a try, bro. This you you just and sometimes, man, a lot of times she's right. Yeah. You know, man, it's a lot of it's a lot of wrestling with pride. Men think that leading means that they're always right. It's always their decision. But a good man listens to a good wife. In Proverbs, if we're talking about he says the greatest gift and is is a he spec specifies it as a favor from God. Now, I don't know about you guys, but a favor is a really good thing to have. it's a favor and if you have a good wife and it's a favor. I used to always tell her um she used to always like thank me like you know you always think about this and her mother and I have a really good relationship so she's like I love the way you are and stuff and I I just tell them straight up I said I know what blessing that he gave me and it would be a damn shame if I wasn't treating it right and he took it away from me and gave it to another man and they watched I'm watching from far away they build this killed I wouldn't be able to do it. Also remember pride is the worst thing a man or a woman should could have or should have. Right? Because when you have pride you shut yourself up because you only listen to yourself. You're not listening to anybody else. Right? And that never have a pride. Pride is a disease. Actually pride is a disease. Uh uh uh often my own family don't know my accomplishment. Right? There are things my sons learn every day about me that you didn't know I had. Right? I've witnessed this by the way. Right? So, so never have pride and there is a saying that behind every successful man there is a woman. I always say in front of every successful man there is a woman because a man can never be successful if he's not inspired by his wife. Never. Amen. Hey man, an old man gave me the best advice I ever heard on marriage. He had been married 70ome years. Wow. I said, "Hey man," I said, "What's the secret?" He said, "You want to know the number one rule of marriage for a man?" I said, 'What is it? He said, 'You can be happy or you can be right. And then and then and then he just looked off. He just looked off and he didn't say nothing else. And he got up and walked away and I went, "Would I be down? You could be happy or you could be right. Worked that out." I love that. Thank you guys so much for coming. Zia, thank you for introducing me. And Steve, thank you so much for coming to my home, bro. Really appreciate it. Thank you guys. That was dope. Wow. Thank you so much. Uh, so we taped for 2 240. Keep it going. Is it how long? We taped for 240. Wow. Yeah. When was the last time you were sitting on the couch for 2 hours 40 minutes? I ain't gave nobody no that kind of time. He sends me a bill. I go, Lord, I don't know how to do this. You don't even understand. Don't worry. I'm going to set him up with the good said, I'm going to go somewhere and we going to spend 2 hours and 40 minutes talking. They said about what? About what? Dog, I'm not going to go talk to I don't know these people.