Taye Diggs

Lewis Howes:              This is 5-Minute Friday!!

Welcome, everyone, to a special edition of The School of Greatness Podcast. I am pumped, because we’ve got an incredible human being, his name is Taye Diggs, and that’s right, he’s in the Greatness Studio today and boy, did we go there!

For those that don’t know who Taye is, he’s got his degree in Musical Theatre from Syracuse University and he made his show business debut in the ensemble cast of the five time Tony Award winning play, Carousel, and he’s best known for his Broadway musical performance in Rent, and in the film, How Stella Got Her Groove Back. That is right! Getting that groove back! As well as his time on TV’s hit show, Private Practice.

Taye Diggs:                   For me, with talent, I didn’t have an issue, because people were always there, telling me how, that I had something. It had to do with deserving the pretty girl, or deserving to be in a conversation.

So, I think, at the end of the day, it’s tough, man. It’s one of the hardest, I think it could be one of the hardest things to do, which is to just convince yourself that you are worth it, just you, who you are, and not comparing yourself, or putting yourself in a context.

Because it’s so easy to say, “Oh, am I as intelligent as this person?” and then looking at what you have to offer in terms of intelligence, because that’s not about that. Because that can easily be taken away, or you can not have it.

So, you have to find who you are as a person, regardless of everything else and everyone else around you and just be cool with that, and let that power you, so that no matter how great, how handsome, how talented, no matter how, whatever it is you are, you consider yourself more than enough.

And in this world, that’s based on all of that other s**t, that’s really tough to do, because we’re here and first thing we ask ourselves is, “What do I have to offer? What makes me different? What makes me special?” So that’s where I think the difficulty comes in.

I force myself to think of others and kind of walk a path of trying to love. As corny as that sounds. Empathy is what it is. Every day I’m forcing myself to try to see, if somebody rubs me the wrong way, if somebody does something, whether it be to me or to someone else, or if someone comes to me and asks some advice, I force myself to try to say something that will kind of throw a positive spin on something and not go the negative route.

I feel good about that. I feel good about myself when it comes to that. That’s something that I’m pretty diligent in, I think, doing. So that things mean something, you know? Like, all the s**t that I’ve been through, I’ve been through it, so now I know.

For a minute I was living a great life, I thought I was a good person and kind, but I didn’t know s**t. You know what I mean? I didn’t know what people meant. I didn’t know what it was like to struggle, to a certain extent. And until I did, the world didn’t open up.

You need experiences, no matter what. I’m not telling everybody to get addicted to drugs and spend $100,000 at a strip club, but you know, everybody has their own kind of path. I don’t want people to end up killing themselves, but I think it’s good that people experience some friction.

Lewis Howes:               What does that mean? That they should just be constantly going out and putting themselves out to bigger roles and bigger opportunities and failing, essentially, or getting said no to?

Taye Diggs:                   I think people should follow their instincts, you know? I truly do. I mean, I could sit here and say, “Be focused and stay out of trouble.” I think, at a young age, people can realise that there is something outside of themselves, that there’s a greater energy. I don’t think you can go wrong there.

But people living their lives and having their own experiences, I think it bodes well for them. Being selfish, all of that; thinking of others, you know what I mean? Do you, but think of others and just go for it, go hard.

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