Steve Harvey’s Speech at 2016 ASU Spring Commencement (Transcript)

You know, my team had to come down here and kind of get into a debate about why I should get.

I didn’t ask for this. But let me tell you to whoever back here didn’t vote, let me just tell you that it’s all right, that I understand. Because, see, this is just a moment of what I come to tell you about.

Grace

See, my life ain’t covered. My life is smothered with grace. That’s all I am. That’s all I am. I’m going to tell you a story about me, and I’m going to use myself as an example all this whole time I’m talking. Because you need to hear from me, about me.

But what I want you all out there to do is see some of you in me. I ain’t telling you nothing. I’m going to tell you the bread. You ain’t got to believe nothing about me. You can Google me. I got net worth. I got all that. You ain’t got to believe now. Piece of it.

But I’m going to tell you how it can happen for you. Now, what people don’t understand when they try not to give me something is what grace really is. And, see, grace ain’t passed out by y’all. Y’all don’t own now piece of it. Y’all don’t divvy it out. Y’all can’t succeed.

You hear old people say it all the time. What God got for you, can’t nobody what? So what are we talking about?

Justice, Mercy and Grace

So now, let me explain to you something I learned. Justice is when you get what you deserve. Mercy is when you don’t get what you deserve. But grace is different, though. Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve. And I’m all right with that.

I might not have done nothing to get these bars. But it ain’t up to you, though. See, this is some more God giving me some more that I probably didn’t deserve. But grace is above all else that you ever asked for or imagined. That’s what grace is. My life full of grace.

You better go get yourself some. I’m going to tell you something. You can’t buy grace. It ain’t for sale. If I could take all the money I have and thank you, Jesus, I got some money. I would take all of it if I could and buy grace with it. But you can’t. It’s free. So I’m not fitting to give this class in front of me a speech.

I’m fitting to give you a lesson. I’m just fitting to give you one more before you get out of here. Let me say this to all y’all out here.

Congratulations

Man, you did it. Yeah, you did. You did it. You did the doggone thing. You did it in spite of the haters, in spite of the naysayers. You done set up in here and messed around and got yourself something that such a small percentage of people do.

You done messed around and got yourself a college degree. Want to do it? Want to do it? Hey, hey, hey, hey. All right. Here it is. I do my best talking when I’m walking around with a microphone. This is what God gives me. I don’t do good behind the podium. Ain’t how I made my money. I’m a stand-up. This is what I’m doing.

So here it is. Congratulations to y’all from the bottom of my heart. What you did is so over the top, so off the chain, so utterly amazing. Don’t you play it short. You done done something, man. You done done something that so many people never do. I ain’t got one. You graduating from college. I ain’t do that.

I ain’t graduate from college. I got no formal education. But look at me, though. I’m finna teach you something now. I’m finna show you something. See, now a large part of this speech is going to be done using improper grammar. Because I don’t have that either. I ain’t never really talked that good. It ain’t really my thing.

Speaking Properly

If you in here and you’re well-spoken, I commend you. And you’re going to need that. In a lot of places you’re going, you can’t be a doctor and talk like this here. You can’t be a professor, a teacher. You can’t be in the society that a lot of y’all are trying to get in. See, they’ve been trying to change me for a long time.

When I first got on TV, me and Sarah, the entertainer, was on the Steve Harvey show. And they hired, I don’t even know what they call it, this lady, white lady came in. And she was a linguist coach.

And when she came in the room, I was confused. Me and Sarah was sitting there because she didn’t have no pots with her or nothing. I thought that that was pasta. So when she came in there with the linguistics, I thought it was a cooking class for pasta. So me and Sarah sitting there looking just as crazy. And the lady started telling me that they’ve decided that you need to speak more properly.

You need to learn how to enunciate your words. I stopped her. I said, do you mean pronunciate? That lady looked so confused. This is a true story. And she said, “No, Mr. Harvey, if you hope to one day be in millions of homes across America, you’re going to have to be more verbally communicative and more understood.”

I said, “That ain’t how I do.” She looked so confused. She said, “You’re going to have to change the way you sound.” I said, “Let me ask you something. Which one of these sound better to you? I am broke or I’m ears rich?”

That lady’s shaking her head. It’s all right. When you leave here, young people, my message is really for everybody in this building.

Be Great, Not Just Successful

I want to challenge you to something today. See, I don’t know what the theme of your graduation is. You go to these places and they have fire and spirit. They have a theme of excellence is worth excelling. I don’t know what your theme is. I didn’t ask nobody.

You know, they might have e-mailed it to me, but I got 2,500 unread e-mails in my e-mail box right now. But I want to challenge you to something. What you’ve done up until now has been an amazing accomplishment. I take my hat off to you. What you’ve accomplished shouldn’t be played short. And you have so far to this point become successful.

But I’m challenging everybody in this graduating class. See, being successful is what everybody wants. Everybody I know want to be two things. They want to be happy and they want to be successful. But I’m going to challenge you today. I want you to go a little bit past successful.

I want somebody in here to go up out of here and be great. There is a difference, you know. There is a difference between success and greatness. Success, you get your degree, that’s successful. You get a job, that’s successful. You raise a family, that’s successful. So far, the success you have has been for yourself. You’re successful. Congratulations.

But you didn’t get this piece of success by yourself. You see these people wrap around this building. You think you proud. Lord, have mercy. There’s some people up there got their chest stuck out so far. You have to understand the sacrifice that these people in here have put so you can be right there.

So you can be successful. Some of y’all first-time graduates in your family. First time ever going to college in your family. Some of y’all trying to continue a legacy of people around here that have been to college and want their kids to graduate too. Whatever the case, though, the people up in here, man, sacrificed for you to get here so you could be successful. You went to college to become successful.

The Difference Between Success and Greatness

But I’m going to ask you something, though. I need 30 of y’all to go out of here and be great. I need just 30 to go be great. You know, there’s a difference, you know. Success is for yourself. You know, they tell me, well, they say, “Man, you know, basketball players get a big contract. He’s successful. He’s great.” No, no, no. He ain’t great. He’s successful. You make $100,000 a year. You ain’t great. You’re successful.

I want you to be great. I want you to go out of here and be great. You know the difference between great and success? Great people change other people’s lives. Great people put other people in front of them. Great people go back to their community and change lives. Great people buy a big house up on the hill and then teach other people how to get up on the hill, too. That’s what great people do. Gandhi was great.

Muhammad Ali was great. Martin Luther King was great. They was great. They made other people great. Muhammad Ali said, “I said I was the greatest before I was the greatest.” You’ve got to claim greatness, man. Or you can just be successful. Go and get your job. Go on and make your money.

But, man, you change somebody’s life, you can be great. We need somebody from ASU to go up out of here and become great, be a life changer, change some boys’ lives, some girls’ lives. Show somebody how you got a college degree. That’s the beginning of greatness. That’s the beginning of greatness. And for the men in here, let me take this off. I’m sorry. I like these. I’m sorry. I got a print in my head.

The Ill-Fitting Hat

I started to get a headache. Hat too small. Man, Jesus, that hat was working me to death. Then that little ding-a-ling was hitting me on my ear. And you know how you think something’s on you. I started to trip out a minute.

It kept hitting me. I thought it was a spider. All right, cool.

A Grandmother’s Wisdom

A long time ago, I was with a friend of mine, and his grandmother was in the hospital dying. And he wanted me to take her and go see her. I was young, and she was dying. She had terminal illness. She knew she was dying. She asked her grandson to come see her.

So I took him. We go in the hospital room, and, you know, she was in bad shape, man. So I was standing behind him. We was at her bed. She said to him, she said, “Do you know your great-grandfather’s name?” My boy said, “No, my dear, I don’t know his name.”

She said, “You know why you don’t know his name? Because he didn’t leave you nothing.” She said, “When you walk away from my bed, you ain’t going to see me no more.”

She said, “Go live your life so your children’s grandchildren will know your name. Go live a life where your children’s grandchildren will know who you was, man.” She said, “They know your name. But they ain’t going to know your name if you wasn’t great. They ain’t going to know your name if you don’t leave them something.” You cannot leave your family your job.

My mom and dad, as great as they were, they left me empty-handed. But, boy, the church she put in me, the God she put in me, my father instilled in me manhood. Do what you say you’re going to do.

Them two things from that Sunday school teacher and that coal miner shaped and formed who you’re standing in front of today. This who in front of you, somebody. But that lesson that that grandmother taught that dude, it wasn’t for him. It was for me. See, God just sent me there that day. But I needed to hear that.

And ever since then, I’ve been trying to make my life so my children’s grandchildren will know who I was when I leave this earth. That’s what you got to do. You ain’t got to clap for me. I don’t really care. Look, man, I’m going to teach you four things real quick. Now, people told me one time, said, “Steve, you missed your calling. You should have been a preacher.” No, I cuss way too much. I’m the last person need to be in a pulpit.

Honoring Requests and Kids

I promised Dr. Boyd I wasn’t going to cuss today. Now, I’ve wanted to three times already. But I haven’t because Dr. Boyd said this is a dignified event. So I’m just going to honor that. Me personally, I don’t see nothing wrong with cussing. Somebody said, “But Steve, his kids in here.”

All your kids have heard cussing. And if they haven’t, I recommend you start because it cuts back on butt-whipping. I am.

Lesson 1: Be Great

Lesson one is live your life so your children’s grandchildren will know who you are. Go be great, y’all. Take this degree and make it more than just a piece of paper hanging on the wall. Take this degree and go change some lives with it. Put pressure on yourself. Go out there and ask God to help make you great. Don’t go be regular. I don’t really care for regular. I never really wanted a regular life.

I wanted an extraordinary life. I’ve been asking God for this my whole life. Now, what he gave me is grace, way more than I ever asked for. I ain’t never thought I’d be. Look, I already know. Y’all could have had a bigger star come down here. Somebody with a bigger name could have. No, no, you couldn’t. No, you couldn’t.

I don’t even know why I said that. I tried to be humble, but let’s quit frontin’. You know good and well I’m all that and a bag of chips. I’m Steve Harvey, man. Dr. Field don’t even know where your school at. Ellen thought ASU was Arizona State. Y’all got who want to be here. I come down here, man, because I want to come down here. Look, and bottom line, it’s a lot.

It’s a diverse people in here. But can I tell you something? I love black people, man. I’ve loved black people my entire life. I ain’t never shunned away from the fact that I was black. I starred on BET. I still go on BET. I know where it come from. Black people made me famous first.

I crossed over, but my crossover was different. I built a bridge, and I let everybody come over here and see how I am. But I didn’t get on the bridge and go over there. Because, see, when the bridge burn down, you got to be able to get back home. I never left home. So I been this here the whole time.

That’s no disrespect to anybody sitting in here. I just got to talk real with you. Now, if you didn’t want real, you should have had somebody else come down here. But this is truth of the matter. Now, second thing I want to teach you. I want you to learn how to fail and win anyway.

You got to learn this one now. I want you to learn how to fail and win anyway. Because this is what you’re going to have to do.

Lesson 2: Fail and Win Anyway

So let me tell you something. As successful as you’ve been up to this point, once again, I congratulate you to the fullest. But let me tell you something. You about to get to failing. Because you finna taste life like it really is. See, them people up here, they tired of buying you laptops and iPhones and sneakers and all that.

They hoping, with everything in them, that this degree flips the script. That you one day buy them a TV and another house. Look, I got seven kids. All seven of my kids, either they graduate or they’re in college now. You know why I send them to school? So they can pay me back.

That’s the only reason. I just want my money back. If they could just give me a ROI, a return on investment. Give me the money I jumped into y’all. Just give it back to me. You know how much paper I don’t spend on these kids of mine? But you gotta learn how to fail though. And win anyway. You got to overcome.

So now here’s the lesson. Behind every moment of adversity, every single moment of adversity in your life, two things are going to happen. There’s going to be a lesson.

And there’s going to be a blessing. You got to wait on both of them. If you let the adversity crumble you, if you focus on the adversity, you will lay there and wallow in the fact that you have failed.

Because failure coming. But life is 10% what happens to you. It’s 90% what you do about it. Man, so what you fail. It’s not really failure though. Every time you fail, it’s a valuable, taught, learned experience that makes you greater for later on.

They didn’t tell you this at ASU. Once again, I can only use me. December 21st, I hosted Miss Universe. What you laughing at? It wasn’t funny then. Everybody, ha, ha, ha. Boy, you ain’t nothing. Do you know in that moment of failure, do you know what really happened to me, man? The biggest mistake on television.

Gratitude Prayer

Do you know one of my prayers, because every morning I have a gratitude prayer. I have a list of 89 things that I read before I start my day. I don’t wake up without reading it.

I don’t go to bed. It’s on my iPhone. It’s under my notes section. I have a gratitude prayer. Because one of the principles of success is the more you’re grateful for, the more he gives you to be grateful for. Look, I don’t know but four or five scriptures.

I done done one of them already, so I ain’t got but three more. But them four or five ones that I know, they’re four or five good ones, though. They got me here today.

So now in gratitude, when you show God gratitude, he gives you more stuff to be grateful for. So I wake up in the morning, I thank him for a list of things. In my gratitude prayer, I put in several requests.

One of my requests, because I have businesses overseas, one of my requests was I was asking God to increase my global persona and reputation. Now, I didn’t appreciate the way he did it. I did not care for the route he took.

Miss Universe Incident

I was really looking upside God’s head. Because the day after, my name on social media was Googled two billion times in 48 hours. I was on the front page of 64 countries’ newspapers.

He had increased my global persona and reputation. But it happened in a moment of adversity. And see, this is how God works, man. This is why you got to grab this for me now. It happened in a moment of adversity. I shamed myself.

Man, it was humiliating. I had death threats. We got security. My wife will tell you. With her fine self sitting over there. What’s up, girl? I see you. Love you back. Stay with me. Thank God for that over there every day. If he ain’t done nothing for me, he gave me that day over there. You feel me?

That was the adversity. We got security at our house now, don’t we? I have guards that come to my house. That’s in my yard behind my gate. We had serious death threats. Columbia was so upset.

You know, them boys, they sell drugs. They got drug cartels over there. You know, when they mad at you, you got to pay attention. You can’t just play them off. You know, there ain’t no skinhead. I had death threats.

I had so many memes done about me. Some of y’all did the memes yourself. I had friends on TV that I thought was my friends just doing memes about me. Man, it was a week of just agonizing humiliation. Every newspaper, every morning show wanted to interview me. I wouldn’t do no interviews.

There was some adversity that hit my life. And as people were trying to make fun of it, my family was in pain. We were suffering.

Lesson and Blessing in Adversity

But what I tell you, though, behind every moment of adversity, there’s two things. There’s a lesson and there’s a blessing. Here was the lesson.

They ain’t going to get me like that no more. What you put in that teleprompter has to match what you put on the card, and it’s got to coordinate with the IVF that I had in my ear. Because everything on that monitor and everything in my ear and on that card, the next name according to the teleprompter was Miss Columbia.

Miss Columbia! Oh, it was a great moment. I went all the way in the back. Two minutes went by. Ain’t nobody said nothing. Then they discovered it was a mistake. And they said, we got to fix this.

The guy in my ear said, we’ll straighten it out in the morning news. I walked out there myself. I decided. I’m walking back out there. The man in my ear said, where you going? What are you going to do?

He said, we got to fix this. So I went out there and took the whole bullet myself. They changed the card from all three days rehearsal. They never did a runner-up because it was a new company. They did it different. They messed up everything.

I took the bullet and the blame because my mama, the Sunday school teacher, and my daddy, the coal miner, was alive in me. Do the right thing. Be a man, own up.

Now, that was the lesson in it for me. Now, the blessing, hang on, because you don’t know what God is going to do. A few weeks later, I have Miss Columbia on my talk show.

Miss Columbia gave me the highest rating I’ve ever had in the history of my four-year-old talk show. Blessing number one. Blessing number two, T-Mobile called and paid me millions of dollars to do a Super Bowl commercial. A trick scene. They paid me so much money, I’d go out there next year and say the wrong name again. You got to wait and see what God got for you.

I told my wife, I said, I always wanted a Super Bowl commercial. Said had one. They never gave me one. He gave me all of that, increased my global persona. We now have villas in 12 countries, free villas that we can go to, eight-bedroom villas. I can come for a month, me and my family absolutely free.

See what God do. You got to work through this. You got to work through the adversity. When adversity hits y’all and it’s coming, remember there’s a lesson and a blessing. You got me? Here’s the thing I need for y’all to know.

Lesson 3: Quit Asking God for an Easy Life

This is the third lesson. Quit asking God to make your life easy because he ain’t going to do that. See, people, y’all go to church, man. Y’all got all these scriptures y’all memorized, don’t apply none of them to your life. God ain’t going to make your life easy. Lord Jesus, Lord, I don’t want this on me.

Sorry. Lord, take away all my worries. That’s you worried. Lord, I don’t want to do this. Lord, I’m so tired. Lord, help. What y’all doing? Quit asking God for that. You got to have some faith.

See, listen to me. Faith don’t make it easy. Faith makes it possible. You got to have faith, man. If you’re going to graduate and whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish, you got to put some faith on it. You can get through with all this.

You’re going to get your degree and, man, I can’t tell you how big this is. But it’s going to be a piece of sheepskin that’s going to hang on your wall. You’ve got to go do something.

You’ve got to get some faith in your life. Lord Jesus, I want my life to be easy. It ain’t fitting to be easy. You’re going to lose some loved ones along the way. You’re going to not get the job you want.

Trials and Tribulations

Somebody on your job one day is going to come in and hand you a slip of paper and tell you they don’t even want you here no more. One of your companies is going to up and relocate, and you ain’t going to have the money or the resources to go with the company. You’re going to go outside the club one day, your car is going to be gone. You know, people steal.

People steal. People steal. I didn’t say repold. I said stole. Your car is going to be gone. You’re going to drive up one day, your house is going to be on fire. Lord, Lord, Lord. Now your house is fully ablaze. What is you asking God to take the fire off your house for? Your house is already on fire. Lord Jesus, have them drive my car back up here. Thieves don’t return cars.

Faith don’t make it easy, man. Faith make it possible. I rode a bike for four hours and a treadmill and a liftable machine for four hours every day for a month to raise money for my family.

Somebody said, “Man, you’re 59 years old.” I know you can’t believe it, but they said, “You’re 59 years old. How you going to do your radio show and ride this bike and treadmill for four hours?” I don’t know. I do not know. They said, “Man, that’s impossible.

Have you ever done that for four hours in a row?” I said, “No.” They said, “Well, how you going to do it?” I said, “I’m going to use some faith.” They said, “What you mean, man? That’s hard.” I got it hard. But faith don’t make it easy. Faith make it possible.

You know what I did? I tried to raise a million dollars for my mentoring camp. I got on that bike, that treadmill, that liftable for four hours every day for a whole month. Didn’t miss a day. Only got off a bathroom break. All I wanted was a million, but here comes God with his grace again.

He be killing me with his grace. I tried to raise a million dollars. You know how much we raised? $1.8 million. That’s that grace. That’s that grace I’m telling you about. He give you above and beyond anything you can think or imagine. We got to put some faith on it. The last thing I’m going to tell you, and I’m going to let you all go because, man, I want you all to come across here and get this paper.

Your Greatness is in Your Imagination

Your greatness is in your imagination. Uh-oh. This is the hard. This is the one. I’m closing with this one. This is the one where ain’t nobody going to be able to follow me.

See, whoever come up here next. I’m a headliner. Hard to go behind the headliner. Listen to this. Your greatness is in your imagination. Don’t get this degree and forget about your imagination.

I’m going to teach you something now. If you don’t get nothing else I say, I need everybody’s attention in here because this is for everybody. At my mama’s church, there was a scripture that they used to read, and every time they read it, the church went crazy.

And the scripture was about faith. The scripture said, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Okay, you’ve all heard it. I heard it around the room. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Boy, when they said that at my mama’s church, everybody in the building stood up and started clapping.

I did, too. But can I be real with you? I didn’t even know what that meant. I just didn’t. You know what I mean? Let’s be real. Come on now. That King James Version, that’s a little rough sometimes. I’ve got to get that Bible with about four different translations in it because the King James. I’m out. I’m out. Man, my reading comprehension ain’t ever been good.

I went to high school, and I hit 695 in my graduating class. I graduated 690. I gave them five people hell every time I saw them, too. I didn’t get that Bible verse until one day I was reading a book. And in this book, there was a quote by Albert Einstein. And he paraphrased that scripture.

You know what I’m saying? He took it and put it in regular English where a dude like me could get it. Do you know what Albert Einstein said? Look at here now. He said, that lady said, “What did he say?” That’s why I like working in front of y’all.

He said, “Imagination is everything. It’s the preview to life’s coming attractions.” You’ve got to get this now. Imagination is everything. It’s the preview to life’s coming attractions. Man, do you know what that means? This was good news for me. I needed to hear this because you know what that meant? That meant everything you’ve ever imagined is real.

But, uh-oh, it’s not only real. It was God showing you a preview of a coming attraction that he has for you. Oh, man, trip me out now. Trip me out. Man, I almost started crying. Do you know how bad I needed that information?

See, you’ve been thinking that your imagination is hocus-pocus. That it’s just some false and random thoughts. But let me trip you out, though. Have you ever tripped on this before? Do you know that it is impossible for you to think an impossible thought? That is impossible.

You ain’t that smart. So how did that imagination get in your head? You want me to tell you? It was God. God put it there. He put it there to show you a preview of a coming attraction he has for you.

This whole time you’ve been imagining stuff. It was God been showing you something he got for you. Your problem is, though, you tell your imagination to the wrong people.

Don’t Tell Your Dreams to the Wrong People

See, if you want to kill your big dreams, tell it to a small-minded person. Oh, ho, ho. Oh, they shoot it down every time, don’t they? Bet you ain’t know I was going to say this, did you? Yeah, see, listen to me. This is what it’s about now.

See, quit telling everything to everybody. See, you go up and you tell it to your friends and your so-called loved ones. And because you think they care about you, you know how many of y’all have had a really wonderful idea?

Something God showed you? A business, a transfer, an opportunity, more education, more training. And, man, this can change your world. You know how many of y’all have had this wonderful idea, and you went in there and took it to that so-called friend and loved one, and they shot it down? And because you thought they loved you, you thought they had your best interest at heart, so you believed them. Man, they was wrong.

They was wrong. If God had wanted it in their head, he’d have put it in their head. He put your imagination in your head. Don’t let this degree mess up your imagination. Your greatness is in your imagination. Now, let me tell you how this works.

Everything you have in here today, everything you are, is simply because you imagined it and you believed it. You said you got a college degree. You’re getting a degree today because you imagined it.

But guess what? You believed it. Guess what? You’re getting a degree today. You see how this works? Let’s make it real simple. How about that hairstyle on your head? How you think it got up there? See, everybody’s hairstyle in here is different.

It’s the one you imagined would look good on your head. You believed it. That’s the one you got. How about that outfit you wore? That’s the one. You know what? That outfit was just on a coat hanger somewhere. It was just dangling on a coat hanger. You imagined it on your body.

You believed it would look good on you. That’s the one you got. That car you drive, anybody make you buy that car? There was a whole lot of cars on that lot. You went in there, you imagined yourself driving off the lot in that car. If you’d imagined the Rolls Royce, he’d have probably gave you that one.

But no, you wanted the Prius. So now, you’re driving off the lot in the Prius. See, I am a product of prayer. I’m a product of grace, mercy, forgiveness. My mama prayed for me all the time. So here I stand, a product of that.

But let me tell you something else, though. I’m also a product of my imagination. Now, imagine some of this.

Steve Harvey’s Story

I was 10 years old, 1968. I was in 11. I was in a school, and we came off summer vacation, and a teacher came into class and said, “I want everybody to write their name on a piece of paper and write on that paper what you want to be when you grow up.”

So I wrote on my paper, “I want to be on TV.” Now, what you don’t know about me is when I was growing up, I had a severe stuttering condition. I couldn’t talk outside my house.

For years, I stuttered severely, laughed at. What you don’t know about me is I flunked out of school. I’m telling it to you now. You also don’t know about me that I’ve lost everything I ever owned twice. I have lost it all twice and had to start over. I didn’t struggle through two marriages to finally get this one right over here.

I’m just telling you about me. You may not know, but I’ve been homeless. I lived in a car for three years. I washed up behind bushes, man. Gas station. Steve Harvey.

I didn’t have nothing. So when I wrote on a piece of paper, “I want to be on TV,” I didn’t know what all was going to happen to me. So when I wrote this on a piece of paper, the teacher had everybody stand up in the classroom, and she read their name and what they wanted to be.

She saved me for last. She called me to the front. I’m thinking, okay, this it. I’ve been in school six years. I ain’t never got a gold star. This it. I’m finna get a gold star. This the moment I’ve been waiting on. Six years, I ain’t never had an A.

I ain’t never had a star, nothing. I’m finna go up here and get this star. So I headed up to the front. I can’t even tell you how wrong I was. That lady didn’t call me up there to give me no gold star. She called me up there to humiliate me, to embarrass me.

First of all, she knew I studied severely. Why would you call me to the front of the class and you know I can’t talk? And she brought me up there, boy, and she lit in on me.

“Why would you write something like this on a piece of paper? Who in this school ever been on TV? Who in this neighborhood ever been on TV? Who in your family done ever been on TV? And look at you standing there. You can’t even talk. How they gonna put somebody like you on TV?” So every Christmas, I send her a flat-screen TV. Because I don’t want her to miss me.

I want her to see that little country boy out of Welch, West Virginia. The one that had a stuttering problem. The one that flunked out of school. Yeah, I was telling you, you gotta learn how to fail and win anyhow. I wanted her to see that little boy that lived in a car for three years. The one who’s been through all them divorces, lost everything.

I wanted her to see me. I wasn’t bragging to her. But I wanted her to see what God had done for me. In spite of everything she said about me. “You ain’t gonna ever be nothing.” You ain’t in my imagination.

You can’t tell me nothing. See, I did not know then what I know now. That imagination is everything. It’s the preview to life’s coming attractive. See, here go the kicker. So you can tie it in if you one of them real churchy folks.

And you gotta have everything put to a scripture. That imagination is the second half of that scripture. Uh-oh. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Your imagination is the evidence of things not seen. Because in your imagination, can’t nobody see it but you.

Never Too Old for Your Dreams

Now if you’re in here and you think you’re too old to hear what I’m saying to you. My best example is Kentucky Fried Chicken. I don’t know if you noticed the picture or the man on the bucket. But he old. He ain’t 30 years old. Colonel old.

Colonel had been telling people his whole life, “I got the best chicken in the world.” Ain’t nobody believe him. They didn’t give him a franchise till he was in his 60s. Kentucky Fried Chicken sell more chicken than anybody in the world. So if you’re sitting in here thinking you’re too old, I’d rather be rich and hit it in my 60s than to die poor and never have hit it at all. Now, last thing and I’m out your way.

Imagination is everything. It’s the preview to life’s coming attraction. Let me ask you a question.

Let me ask you a question. When you go to the movie and you get there real early and you get your popcorn and you sit down. Before the movie starts, what do they show you? A preview of a coming attraction. Have you ever seen a preview and the movie ain’t come out? Oh, the movie coming out.

Whether you go or not, the movie coming out. Whether you like the trailer or not, that movie do a hundred million at the box office. You might not like the actor. That actor get an Oscar for that movie. The moral of the story, the next time your heavenly Father shows you a preview, go to the movie. You’re probably starring in it.

I bet you’ll like it when you get out there. Appreciate y’all having me. Thank y’all. Thank you, Dr. Harvey. Can we give him another round of applause to thank him for the life lesson. We will now have a selection by our university choir. Hold on. Under the direction of Dr. Joel Jones.

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