642 Love Versus Ego with Taye Diggs

"CONVINCE YOURSELF YOU ARE WORTH IT.” Have you ever wondered, “What value do I have? Am I good enough? How can I compete against others?” Those thoughts stem from you comparing yourself to others. It’s a natural habit, but it’s one that is going to hold you back. Your value comes from you. From being who you are, and all of the experiences you went through. This world, and finding your place in it, is all about you being you and trusting in your instincts. If you compare yourself to others, you’re always going to feel like you’re coming up short. The truth is, you are great now. Every experience you go through, good or bad, makes you something special. To go further into this, I wanted to dive into a previous episode with Taye Diggs. Taye is an actor and singer who has had an incredible career in film and theatre. He was in the film, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and the TV series Private Practice, among many other career highlights. Listen to all of Taye’s insights, on Episode 642. In This Episode You Will Learn: What Taye struggled with (00:53) The thing you need to convince yourself of (1:14) How to find your inner power (1:47) What guides Taye and his actions (2:26) How you can get the world to open up (3:18) Plus much more. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  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 Tay 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 Tay is, he's got his degree in musical theater 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 on 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.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  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 deal 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 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?"

• 1:35Speaker 01

  And then looking at what you have to offer in terms of intelligence. Because it's not about that, because that can easily be taken away or you cannot 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.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  And in this world that's based on all of that other shit, it's really tough to do.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  We're here and first thing we ask ourselves, you know, what, what do I have to offer? What makes me different? What makes me special? So that's, that's where I think the difficulty comes in. I force myself to think of others and kind of walk, walk a path of trying to, to love, as corny as that sounds, trying, empathy is, is what it is. Every day I'm, I'm, I'm forcing myself to try to see if somebody rubs me the wrong way, if, 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,

• 2:58Speaker 01

  to say something that, that will kind of throw a positive spin on something and, and not go the negative route.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  I feel good about that. I feel good about myself when it comes to that. That's something that I'm, I'm pretty diligent in, I think, doing. So that things mean something, you know, like all the shit that I've been through, I've been through it. So now I know.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  For a minute I was living in great life. I thought I was a good person and kind, but I didn't know shit. You know what I mean? I didn't know what people meant. I didn't know what it was like to, 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, to get addicted to drugs and

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Spend a hundred thousand dollars, you know, at a strip club. But, you know, you know, everybody has their own kind of path. I don't want people to, to end up killing themselves, but I, I think it's good that people experience some friction.

• 3:59Speaker 02

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

• 4:07Speaker 01

  I think people should follow their instincts. You know, I, I, I truly do. I mean, I could sit here and say be focused and stay out of trouble. And I think at a young age, if people can realize that there's something outside of themselves, that there's a, a, a greater energy.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  I don't think you can go wrong there. But, uh, 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.