Comedian and actor Kevin Hart said on a recent podcast that ego is keeping many, especially the Black community, from financial success.
Hart sat down on The Pivot podcast, hosted by former NFL players Channing Crowder, Fred Taylor & Ryan Clark last week and told the group that Black America has a “warped view” about what it takes to gain financial success.
“Our culture f**s it up more than anybody else, very self-destructive,” Hart said. “When we get to the places where that financial revenue changes” people start comparing salaries “and that’s, that’s a problem.”
Hart continued, saying Black people should work together more and ‘hold each other accountable; we take care of our own but more importantly we grow the data we get into the space of competitiveness.”
The Philadelphia native has recently been seen in Chase commercials, his new Netflix movie The Man From Toronto and co-headlining a five-show standup series with Chris Rock. According to Hart, it’s all a means to an end.
“My hobby is ownership now. My hobby is realizing the rooms that I’ve been able to get into the hands that I shake…around I don’t take that for granted,” Hart told The Pivot. “You are supposed to make more of those moments that’s what we don’t do enough of. Our culture is caught up in the cool. What we don’t realize the reason why the other side has worked so long and why they’re so successful is because they figure out how to hold on to the handshake.
Speaking of collaborations, Hart is also working with his friend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s animated project DC League of Super-Pets. Hart said working with both Rock and The Rock took nothing more than simple conversations because everyone is working towards the same goal.
“These collabs work because there are no egos. We aren’t competing,” Hart added.
Hart is still expanding his business ventures in and out of the entertainment world and earlier this year merged
his two companies Heartbeat Entertainment and Laugh Out Loud, in which NBCUniversal bought an equity stake. If that doesn’t keep Hart busy enough, he is also opening a plant-based fast food restaurant called Hart House.“I’m busting my ass for the benefits of others,” Hart told The Pivot. “I’m trying to create and change something so that other people coming after can go oh f**k, we can either do that same thing or we can go past.”