Through all the things I've gone through

in my life, I had a lot of a lot of

downs. How did I keep the faith?

It was a couple of reasons.

Number one,

I know from living

that if you quit

whatever you're trying to accomplish, if

you quit

whatever you were trying to accomplish

can never happen.

There's not even a remote possibility.

If you quit,

there is no chance of it popping back up

again, coming back later. Quitting

is guaranteed failure.

Now, when you're trying, you're going to

fail.

But quitting,

just stopping,

that was the number one thing I

understood.

And then number two,

you have to make sure that your dreams,

your aspirations and goals

are so big that not accomplishing them

is not an option.

It's just not an option.

You have to want something so big

that it wakes you up in the middle of

the night.

You have to want something so big that

you think about it all the time.

You have to want something so big that

it drives you to wake up when you don't

want to. It keeps you up at night when

you long been sleepy. It makes you show

up, do things you wouldn't normally do.

It requires extra.

If you want to be extraordinary and not

ordinary. If you want to be ordinary,

live your life. But if you want to be

extraordinary, you have to be extra. If

you put extra on top of ordinary,

that word is extraordinary.

It requires an extra effort. If Now, if

you don't want to do the extra effort,

you finna be regular. It's nothing wrong

with being regular.

If you don't deal with it, you're going

to be disappointed, man.

So, being regular is cool. It's nothing

wrong with it.

You get a regular job, regular house,

regular car,

you get regular money,

you have regular hours.

You can dress regular.

You can just go to the family reunion,

take your ass back home. You just travel

regular. You go on vacation once a year.

That's cool. No problem.

You can get to get you a coach ticket,

regular economy ticket, regular.

You want to fly first class?

You want to sit in the front of the

plane?

So, let me tell you something. You know

what you ought to do? Save your money

and buy a first class ticket.

This is how you train yourself to be

successful.

Save your money. Get a upgrade. Buy a

first class ticket.

Cuz when you sit in first class,

you're going to understand something.

The seats are wider.

You get a choice of meals, chicken,

beef, or fish.

You get a bowl of warm nuts. They give

you a hot towel to wipe your hands.

Why do you think when the plane take

off, they close the curtain

to first class? Cuz they can't let these

regular people

They cannot let you see what the is

going on up there. Because you're going

to want it back there, but you didn't

pay to get it.

Hey, what are they doing? They're

serving warm nuts. Where's our nuts?

Wait a minute.

They didn't get charged for the food.

Their food was free. They didn't pay for

the headsets. They're watching all the

movies.

Why don't we have that? Cuz you didn't

pay for that. So, they close the curtain

so they don't have to deal with your

regular ass

wondering what's going on in first

class.

Once you buy a first class ticket,

it becomes very difficult now for you to

walk past those seats.

Cuz now you're going to know what's

going on.

So, when you treat yourself first class,

you are conditioning your mind

to now behave

and do the things that produce first

class results. So, if you ever sit in

first class,

you'll never you'll coach. Coach is

the little tight ass chairs.

You in the middle seat. You back there

by the bathroom. The chair don't

recline.

It's horrible. First class, big seats.

That's why Dick Gregory said, "Whenever

you can treat yourself first class, you

should, because it conditions the mind.

Once you fly first class, you never go

back." Once you get a private jet,

you don't even want to fly first class

no more.

Cuz you're on a private jet.

You ain't got to take your shoes off at

the airport. They ain't going to open

your bags. Your car pull around, they

open the door, you walk up the steps.

They take you right to where you're

going. Then there's another car. When

you walk down the steps, you don't even

go baggage claim. They put your bags

straight off the plane in the car. You

don't go through none of that.

You fly private, you'll never want to

fly first class again, cuz you get

conditioned.

All you got to do is you can condition

yourself.

Once you buy a really nice dress, you

don't want a cheap dress no more. You

want another nice dress.

Once you buy some Christian Louboutins

with the red bottoms, you want all your

shoes to have red bottoms on them.

Cuz you know men like

that red on the bottom of that shoe. I

don't know what it is, but when you

walking away,

and we see that red bottle.

Telling you, man,

being successful is a mental condition.

You can all mentally condition yourself

to being successful.

All you got is your mind.

You in control of it.

Today was my 222nd COVID test.

I've taken 212 COVID tests since August

1.

Oh, it's 222.

Oh, something good going to happen for

me today. That's the number I see on my

telephone all the time, 222.

You know, you know, you can look numbers

up. Numerology has it.

They say angelic memories angelic

meanings, but

222 of God releases angels of

prosperity.

So, something great's going to happen

for me today. Today was my 222nd COVID

test. Wow.

>> [applause]

>> I knew I was having a good day today. I

don't know what God going to do for me,

but I'm One thing about me, I stay

watchful when it come to God. I'm always

looking to see what he got for me today.

Cuz God, man, he he he laid me out.

Even

even when I have a tough day,

I hang in there

cuz I know it's something behind it.

Behind every moment of adversity,

there's always a lesson and a blessing.

But what messes people up is y'all have

these moments of adversity and you act

like it's final. No, man, it's going

Something's going to happen behind that.

So, you just have to learn how to wait

it out. I've waited out a lot of stuff

in my life, man.

>> [applause]

>> But God is good, man. Woo.

He delayed me out.

I was driving in today, man, and my

driver was talking to me saying, "Mr. H,

did you ever see all this?" I said, "No,

I really didn't, man. I just I'll be

honest with you. You know, it kills me

when people do award shows and they go,

'You know, I always knew this was going

to be my life.' Really? How?

How? How did you know this was going to

be your life? How did you know something

was going to happen that you didn't even

know existed?

This life wasn't even in my imagination.

You know, the what I what I had imagined

my life was going to be

God didn't

He took this thing to a whole 'nother

level, man. That's why I tell people,

you know,

>> [applause]

>> like you know, like I told them

yesterday, I ain't the best Christian.

You understand? I ain't finna be the

best Christian, but I'm a good enough

one.

>> [laughter]

>> I'm in the game.

You you quit You can quit talking all

that perfect Christian mess anyway, cuz

you ain't.

You tell that lie to somebody else.

One lady was in the audience one day I

said, "Ma'am, seem like you're not

having a good time. I'm so disappointed

in you."

And you know, I said, "You're

disappointed? You're not having a good

time?" Well, I was. And I

I've heard you've been cursing.

I said, "Excuse me?" She said, "You've

been cussing."

I thought you were a Christian.

Well, I'm I'm A CUSSING CHRISTIAN.

>> [cheering]

[applause]

>> I JUST I I CUSS. YOU KNOW, WHAT YOU what

you want me to tell you?

Well, if you're a Christian, you're not

supposed to cuss. Well, you're

Christian, you're not supposed to do a

whole lot of stuff.

But what you think grace and mercy for?

You ever heard people say, "If you want

something bad enough, it'll happen"?

That's not true.

That's not true. You can want something

that's not for you, and you're not going

to get it. That's You can want something

in a Like I love golf,

but I can't be a professional golfer.

Give it how hard I want it. I can't

play.

I can't get the ball

to go where I'm aiming it.

It just don't go over there. It goes

somewhere around there, but it ain't

close enough.

So, you know, you got to make sure

you're gifted at it first, young people.

Identify your gift, man. All of you are

gifted. It's the thing that you do the

absolute best with the least amount of

effort. You got to identify that.

Nothing else matters in your life except

your gift. You got to identify your

gift. God gave all of you a gift.

I'm not the only gifted person in this

room.

God never created a soul he didn't give

a gift to.

Ruben's gift is

Ruben has the ability to make people

happy. Now, you think, "Well, how's that

a gift?" Well,

he's the number one warm-up act in ALL

OF HOLLYWOOD.

>> [applause]

>> HE'S THE WARM-UP ACT ON more shows than

anybody in this business. No one is the

warm-up act for more shows than Ruben.

No one.

He's the absolute best.

>> [applause]

>> Because he's non-offensive, he's

non-abrasive, and he gives you a good

time. He plays music, he gets out here,

makes you do

You know, even when you don't want to.

Put your hands up. Put your own hands

up. You know, like that.

And next thing you know, you're having a

good ass time.

Well, he's turned that into a living.

Feeds his family like that.

Cuz once again, the Bible says your gift

will make room for you.

It'll spread you out. It'll allow you to

do things. That's your gift.

There's two ways to make money in this

world, sales and service. You're going

to have to do one of them.

People be trying to act like there's

another way. It's sales and service. You

you got to do one of them to make money.

You know, I'm not selling nothing and I

ain't providing no service.

Excuse me. What?

>> [laughter]

>> Well, you ain't in sales, Steve. I'm in

sales and service.

I'm in the happy business.

I entertain people. But also provide a

service.

You know, I work for several companies.

I hire myself out for several companies.

So it's a service, too.

>> [music]

[music]