Will Smith ON: Owning Your Truth and Unlocking the Power of Manifestation
Duration: 01:43:47
Description:
Today, I sit down with Will Smith to talk about his commitment to family, straying away from his father’s military mindset in search of true happiness, and how to live the golden rule - to treat others how you want to be treated.
00:47 Today, Jay Shetty welcomes his dear friend, Will Smith as they reminisce about the happy times and adventures they spent together, and how their friendship flourished as Will studies the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
07:00 Jay asks Will: “Tell us a bit about what you learned from your parents and how you were able to process it positively? It’s not easy to process negative emotions with positive thoughts.
12:02 Jay is curious about how Will continues to achieve success with a loving heart. It’s never easy to live with a military mindset yet even with success and fame it didn’t feel like true happiness.
17:29 Jay asks listeners to put their minds in the middle path while Will suggests learning from an athlete’s mindset and level of discipline to manifest the things that they want in their life.
20:11 Jay mentions how Will’s grandmother had a huge impact in his life. It's all about finding peace by living your life in service. His parents, on the other hand, had different principles and pushed for totally different things, yet they showed him how life should be lived.
25:14 Jay talks about the hard work Will had to do that people don’t really see. A lot of people have not seen the learning accumulated through hard work, the sacrifices made along the way, and the military mindset that Will cradled so deeply within.
32:06 Jay points out that most superheroes get their powers when bad things happen to them. This is also true for everyone, that most of our experiences happen to teach us a lesson. Will then added that there is no such thing as a bad experience.
35:57 Jay taps into Will’s last moments with his father and how he coped with the loss. The lesson learned from the experience is to always be genuine with your every “Hello” and “Goodbye”, who knows it could be the last.
42:51 Jay asks Will about how the tradition to learn new religion every year, how this strengthened his bond with Jada, and the lessons learned while studying these different religions.
49:07 Jay talks to Will about the wisdom within books, how past people had lived through the same problems that most of us are dealing with today. Treating people the way you want to be treated is essential in maintaining peaceful relationships around you.
54:53 Jay explains the Analogy of the Mirror wherein people become so disconnected from nature that everything becomes instant and our mindset has become NOW whereas nature is never instant.
56:29 Jay shares the first time he communicated with Will. It surprised him how Will can be so committed to the things he sets his mind on. And that prompted Jay to relearn and fall back in love with the things he fell in love years ago. Commitment is changing yourself through constant practice.
58:54 Will explains why the central focus of his life is having a successful love relationship. This determination came after his experience with his parents divorce. He continues to seek knowledge on achieving this goal.
01:01:28 Will discusses why the concepts of ignorance and delusion are always the center of problems in every human relationship. All issues within human relations stem from a lack of understanding.
01:07:59 Will retells his unforgettable encounter with Nelson Mandela and how he was offered to be his student about life struggles.
01:13:42 Jay is curious why Will is so moved by the Story of Arjun. Will eagerly explains the story and why it resonated with so much.
01:21:06 Jay explains that most of us are living our life based on the result of our actions, which we think is a sign of success. We shouldn’t be living a life based on the possible results of our actions, instead we should live for ourselves and our own happiness.
01:26:25 Jay and Will agree on this: It's not a problem if you have comprehension of what's happening around you. You don't call things problems that you have complete comprehension of.
01:31:05 Will relives his character as The Genie, a character so similar to his personality, his core. The concept of the sacred clown, the singing, dancing, and joy it brings, is beautiful conduit for the ideas.
01:33:18 Will Smith ON the Fast Five questions
Tags
Willard Carroll "Will" Smith, Jr. (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, comedian, producer, rapper, and songwriter. He has enjoyed success in television, film, and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him "the most powerful actor in Hollywood". Smith has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, and has won four Grammy Awards.In the late 1980s, Smith achieved modest fame as a rapper under the name The Fresh Prince. In 1990, his popularity increased dramatically when he starred in the popular television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show ran for six seasons (1990-96) on NBC and has been syndicated consistently on various networks since then. After the series ended, Smith moved from television to film, and ultimately starred in numerous blockbuster films. He is the only actor to have eight consecutive films gross over $100 million in the domestic box office, eleven consecutive films gross over $150 million internationally, and eight consecutive films in which he starred open at the number one spot in the domestic box office tally.Smith is ranked as the most bankable star worldwide by Forbes. As of 2014, 17 of the 21 films in which he has had leading roles have accumulated worldwide gross earnings of over $100 million each, five taking in over $500 million each in global box office receipts. As of 2014, his films have grossed $6.6 billion at the global box office. He has received Best Actor Oscar nominations for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness.Smith was born in West Philadelphia, the son of Caroline (Bright), a Philadelphia school board administrator, and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr., a refrigeration engineer. He grew up in West Philadelphia's Wynnefield neighborhood, and was raised Baptist. He has three siblings, sister Pamela, who is four years older, and twins Harry and Ellen, who are three years younger. Smith attended Our Lady of Lourdes, a private Catholic elementary school in Philadelphia. His parents separated when he was 13, but did not actually divorce until around 2000.Smith attended Overbrook High School. Though widely reported, it is untrue that Smith turned down a scholarship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); he never applied to college because he "wanted to rap." Smith says he was admitted to a "pre-engineering [summer] program" at MIT for high school students, but he did not attend. According to Smith, "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college."Smith started as the MC of the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, with his childhood friend Jeffrey "DJ Jazzy Jeff" Townes as producer, as well as Ready Rock C (Clarence Holmes) as the human beat box. The trio was known for performing humorous, radio-friendly songs, most notably "Parents Just Don't Understand" and "Summertime". They gained critical acclaim and won the first Grammy awarded in the Rap category (1988).Smith spent money freely around 1988 and 1989 and underpaid his income taxes. The Internal Revenue Service eventually assessed a $2.8 million tax debt against Smith, took many of his possessions, and garnished his income. Smith was nearly bankrupt in 1990, when the NBC television network signed him to a contract and built a sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, around him.
