Hart to Heart with Jay-Z and Kevin Hart. One for the Ages.
Following a workout, I watched a TV show this morning. I usually don’t follow up a workout with a damn tv. But as I listened to a podcast, I recalled an article I read that talked about Jay-Z’s conversation with Warren Buffet. So, one thing led to another. Anyway, Kevin Hart’s show was great. It was great. Lots of life lessons. Lots of wisdom. Wonderful segway into a life well lived from the perspectives of men. Black men. Men who share a common struggle to, “Get into the door behind the door.”.
That last line was the previous sentence is the statement of the year for me. Hell, it’s the statement of the damn decade. There’s a struggle in making it out of the hood and making it through hard times, and it’s generally shared amongst the black community. After one gets out of the hood and overcomes the initial struggle, it’s easy to stay there. Because hell, it’s nicer than anything we’ve ever grown up with and/or experienced! But, even after accomplishing that feat, there’s another struggle: the struggle to get to where the real success is - the success had by our counterparts. That’s the preverbal door behind the door.
And that shit is tough.
That’s also where I am in my life, and I can only imagine that there are others behind the first door, stuck trying to open the second one. What’s interesting about the conversation had by Jay and Kevin is that they spent little time discussing mainstream rationales for the lack of success with that second door, such as education, grit, knowing the right people, etc. They spent more time in discussions involving a more stoic, intellectual, organization-from-within approach, such as moving past the entrapping survival pains of the black past, navigating emotional intelligence, and the unknown gap between knowing and doing. These types of things are hardly ever discussed in the black community.
I’m glad to hear them, especially Jay-Z, share and bring up such significant things. Because, shit, most black fathers, rappers, and successful folk simply ain’t talkin’ about it.
Kudos to them both.