Will

by Mark Manson

It’s hard to encapsulate an excellent biography so this is more of a compilation of my favorite lines and moments from the book. I honestly could not put this book down. It was witty and entertaining but also filled with deep wisdom. I wouldn’t of said I was a “fan” of Will Smith before but after reading this and knowing about his struggles I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. 

I had been scared my whole childhood, but this was the first time I had been aware of my own inaction. I was my mom’s oldest son. I was less than ten yards away. I was the only chance she had for help. Yet, I did nothing.

• It was then that my young identity congealed in my mind. It became encased in a hard sediment, an unshakable feeling that no matter what I have done, and no matter how successful I have become, no matter how much money I’ve made or how many #1 hits I’ve had or how many box office records I’ve broken, there is that subtle and silent feeling always pulsating in the back of my mind: that I am a coward; that I have failed; that I am sorry, Mom-Mom, so sorry.
• But I was only playing for one person. And the look on her face . . . I still struggle to describe it. The words “pride” or “approval” are pale and inadequate. I can only say that I have been chasing that look in the eyes of every woman I’ve ever loved ever since. I’ve never felt more certain of someone’s adoration. All my career, my performances, my albums—everything—has been a relentless, unbroken quest to relive the delicious purity I felt when I played “Feelings” at Resurrection Hall for my Gigi.
• I found myself becoming hypnotized by her tranquility.
• She was not quite smiling, but the soft rise in the corners of her mouth betrayed an invincible serenity. I would later come to recognize this look as the look that people have when they know things that the rest of us don’t.
• “Gigi, why you so happy all the time?” I whispered. Now she was fully smiling. She paused, like a gardener preparing to sow essential seeds. She leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I trust God. And I am so thankful for his grace in my life. I know that every single breath I take is a gift. And it’s impossible to be unhappy when you’re grateful. He put the sun in the sky, and the moon. He gave me you. And our whole family. And for all of that, he only gave me one job.” “What’s your job, Gigi?” “To love and care for all his children,” she said. “So everywhere I go, I try to make everything I touch better.”
• With Gigi, there was something majestic and empowering about how she loved me. Whenever I performed for her, I felt like I was plugged into the Force, like I couldn’t lose. She was like the sun to me. If I could just make the world see me the way Gigi saw me when I played “Feelings,” then that was it. That was the mountaintop.
  • What an incredible superpower making someone feel that way. Something to strive for. 

•  I sensed for the first time that I wasn’t weak; in fact, I was infinitely powerful—I just had no control over it. My imagination was running wild with the possibilities. God had indeed blessed me with the gift of words. And that night, I was getting my first glimpse of the power of those words to alter and shape my reality.
• And then I asked myself, If I have this much power, shouldn’t I use it for good? Words can affect how people view themselves, how they treat each other, how they navigate the world. Words can build people up, or they can tear them down. I decided that night that I wanted to use my words to empower others, to help rather than hurt.

Confidence & Work 

• I was invincible—two words: Scorched. Earth. There were some guys who were cleverer than me, who had tighter flows or better voices, or more developed poetic sense. But nobody was as funny as me. Nobody could rock the crowd with a punch line the way I did. What nobody seemed to ever understand was that you can’t beat funny. You can spit all the tough gangster shit you want—you can rip rhymes about all the money and women in the world—but if your pants are just a little bit too far above your shoes, and somebody says, Look at you, homey, pretendin’ you all fly looks like your shoes went to a party and your pants got high
• I practiced incessantly. Unlike the other kids, who were starting to smoke weed and cut class, I spent hours and hours filling notebooks with rhymes every day.
• One day I came running into Miss Brown’s class literally only forty-five seconds after the bell, and, looking at her watch, she said, “His Highness, the Prince, two minutes late . . .” I quickly corrected her. “Nah, Miss Brown, we both know I am barely thirty seconds late. And if you don’t mind, thenceforth and hitherto do I demand to be known as the Fresh Prince.” The classroom burst out laughing. The name stuck.
• In order to feel confident and secure, you need to have something to feel confident and secure about. We all want to feel good about ourselves, but many of us don’t recognize how much work that actually takes. Internal power and confidence are born of insight and proficiency. When you understand something, or you’re good at something, you feel strong, and it makes you feel like you have something to offer.
  • Earned confidence 
• And what I learned from Paul was that being good at something allows you to be calm in a storm, knowing that you can handle whatever comes.
• There is a great Bruce Lee quote that resonates with me. One of Lee’s students once asked him, “Master, you constantly speak to us of peace, yet every day you train us to fight. How do you reconcile these conflicting ideas?” And Bruce Lee responded, “It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.”

“Ninety-nine percent is the same as zero!”

• If two people are in charge, everybody dies.

There are rare moments as an artist that you cannot quantify or measure. As much as you try, you can rarely reproduce them and it’s near impossible to describe them. But every artist knows what I’m talking about—those moments of divine inspiration where creativity flows out of you so brilliantly and effortlessly that somehow you are better than you have ever been before. That night with Jeff was the first time I ever tasted it, the place that athletes call “the zone.” It felt like we already existed as a group and we just had to catch up to ourselves—natural, comfortable, home.

• One of my favorite books describing creativity is The Widening Stream 
• We practiced every day, performed every weekend. 
• He lived in his mother’s basement. It was his sanctuary, his magic workshop. When you entered, it felt like you were getting a sneak peek behind the curtain of the wizard. ( DJ Jazzy Jeff)
• Jeff was the first friend I’d ever had who plain and simple outworked me. I think it would be a misrepresentation to say that he “practiced a lot.” It wasn’t that he was practicing—it was that he didn’t do anything else. You’d never catch Jeff in the kitchen or watching TV. You wouldn’t show up at his house and see him walking up the front steps coming back from the store. He didn’t go to the store; I guess wizards don’t do their own shopping. Jeff was standing in front of his turntables fourteen to eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It’s literally the only image I can conjure of Jeff in his childhood home.
  • To be great requires an olympic level work ethic. Most people think they’re working hard until they see someone of that caliber and what it takes. 

Performing 

• We were intimidated and in awe, but you couldn’t tell it from all the noise we were making—Philly was now officially in the building. (first concert) 
• That night was the first night I realized that the possibilities hip-hop presented me far outstretched anything else I had dared hope for.
  • Transforming Experiences which are common amongst the greats 

Inner Circle 

• There’s a great concept from Jim Rohn: “Look at the five people you spend the most time with because that’s who you are.” This is an idea I’ve always understood innately. Deep down inside, I knew that my dreams would be made or broken by the people I chose to surround myself with.
• Confucius had it right: It’s nearly impossible for the quality of your life to be higher than the quality of your friends. And by the grace of God, there has never been a single moment in my life when I have looked to my left or to my right and not seen an extraordinary friend, someone who believed in me and was down for whatever.

Hope

• Hope sustains life. Hope is the elixir of survival during our darkest times. The ability to envision and imagine a brighter day gives meaning to our suffering and renders it bearable. When we lose hope, we lose our central source of strength and resilience.
  • “I’ve noticed that one of the main factors in my ability to outgrow my circumstances was my increased exposure to hope, and my relentless pursuit of it.” – Quincy Jones 
  • “I can only imagine how many people are out there with undiscovered potential or talent because they’ve never experienced a tangible sense of hope.”- Quincy Jones

• The thing I’ve learned over the years about advice is that no one can accurately predict the future, but we all think we can. So advice at its best is one person’s limited perspective of the infinite possibilities before you.
• People’s advice is based on their fears, their experiences, their prejudices, and at the end of the day, their advice is just that: it’s theirs, not yours. 
  • When people give you advice, they’re basing it on what they would do, what they can perceive, on what they think you can do. But the bottom line is, while yes, it is true that we are all subject to a series of universal laws, patterns, tides, and currents—all of which are somewhat predictable—you are the first time you’ve ever happened. YOU and NOW are a unique occurrence, of which you are the most reliable measure of all the possibilities.

I’ve always loved the scene in The Pursuit of Happyness on the basketball court, in which Jaden’s character shoots the ball and yells, “I’m going pro!” My character, Chris Gardner, discourages him from pursuing basketball but catches himself: “Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something, not even me. . . . You got a dream . . . you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you you can’t do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.”

 

He lived against a ferocious headwind of doubt and discouragement, but he did it all anyway.

• I love this line because EVERYONE experiences doubt and discouragement but it’s those that persist anyway who make it. 

Hearing his song on the radio for the first time 

• It was my voice. That was me. On the radio. Me. My rhymes. My voice! I wanted to call people, but I didn’t want to miss it. I ran outside; I wanted to grab somebody, to tell somebody, “THAT’S ME, Y’ALL, THAT’S ME.” But it was ten o’clock; nobody was out there. I started giggling, a knee-jerk reaction that I still have to this day when I find myself in extreme emotional circumstances. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a joyous, blissful laughter. The pure joy of a child waking up on Christmas morning. The joy of discovery. Of renewed hope. Of a new life. The joy of being right about me.
• He had dreams, too. And in some deep, hidden part of his soul, he knew he was living beneath himself—he had just needed someone to say it out loud.

Grandma’s (Gigi) advice when about to get on his tour bus 

• “Jus’ remember, Lover Boy,” she said, “be nice to everybody you pass on your way up, coz you just might have to pass them again on your way down.”

Complete the mission, or die. 

• When my mind locks onto an idea—when I commit to a system of beliefs—there are only two options: one, I complete my mission. Or two, I’m dead.

 

★But here’s the reality—that’s what life is. Living is the journey from not knowing to knowing. From not understanding to understanding. From confusion to clarity. By universal design you are born into a perplexing situation, bewildered, and you have one job as a human: figure this shit out.

• Life is learning. Period. Overcoming ignorance is the whole point of the journey. You’re not supposed to know at the beginning. The whole point of venturing into uncertainty is to bring light to the darkness of our ignorance.
• Life is like school, with one key difference—in school you get the lesson, and then you take the test. But in life, you get the test, and it’s your job to take the lesson.
• We’re all waiting until we have deep knowledge, wisdom, and a sense of certainty before we venture forth. But we’ve got it backward—venturing forth is how we gain the knowledge.
• Over the next few years, while our ignorance would rain down a deluge of pain and suffering, when I look back, I see clearly it could have been no other way. The universe only teaches through experience. So, even when you haven’t the slightest clue what you’re doing, you just have to take a deep breath and get on the damn bus.

 

I don’t remember JL speaking once in any of those meetings. Instead, he filled legal pads with notes. He studied every single word; he later went back to research the statutes; he met with Public Enemy’s managers; made friends with tour promoters; picked Luke Skyywalker’s brain about major labels versus self-distribution. JL spent less and less time going with us sightseeing, to clubs, or to amusement parks, and more and more time studying the music business from any and every angle. (JL was Will’s friend turned lawyer. Found this part important because EVERYONE who Will was surrounded by knew the importance of full immersion and their pursuit of excellence in whatever their role was.) 

Making Money…. Losing money 

• With my first money, I surprised Gigi with the apartment she’d been saving up for. She had thought we were just going to look at it, but then the real estate agent handed her the keys. “Lover Boy?” she said, with a gasp. “How’d you do this?” “Well, Gigi, see, there’s this thing called rap music . . . ,” I said, putting my arms around her.

• Being on the road can be excruciatingly lonely—it feels almost like it dehydrates your heart.
• She knew her boy. When I saw her eyes, I felt how completely in tune she was to my pain. It wasn’t just mine anymore, it was ours. And like a blast of dynamite demolishing the dam holding back the river of my agony, I collapsed on the sidewalk, ten feet from where the tour bus had borne me away from her. (After Will found out his girlfriend chated on him when he was on the rode and was faithful to her) 
• My concept around shooting pool was to never ponder the shots too long. Line it up, hit it. Line up the next one, hit it. No time to let my mind punish me with doubt or indecision. Charlie Mack always used to say, “Scared money can’t make no money.” That would become a motto for my life. But that night, it was an ice-cold mind-set that made me unbeatable.
  • I’m not keepin’ your car,” I said. “You serious?” he said, looking at me like I had four heads. “Buck, I’m not gonna invite you to my house and then take your car. I’m an asshole, but not that much.” I shoved the keys into his hand. I didn’t recognize it in this moment, but I would see clearly later, that this was a gesture of humanity that was nonexistent in the environment in which Bucky was forced to survive. He noticed it, and he became visibly emotional. “Why you trippin, Buck? It’s not that serious . . . ,” I said. He gathered himself, shook the keys in his hand, and said, “Coz I would have kept your car.” (He won a drug kingpins car in a game of pool. Incredible to see how this moment of human connection was something Bucky never had and brought him to tears (this was the “toughest” guy in Philly at the time) 

• “Boy, why you need three cars?” he said. “You only got one ass.”- Will’s Dad 
• I have since realized the critical importance of environment. Choosing the city you live in is as important as choosing your life partner. 
• JL was the only one of my friends who’d ever seen me cry. On a train ride to New York one day, I’d broken down when I told him the story about Melanie, sobbing into his chest. JL is not an emotional guy, and I was not holding back. (He would later tell me that in that moment, he devoted his life to me. JL said he knew he needed to protect me.)

The thing about money, sex, and success is that when you don’t have them, you can justify your misery—shit, if I had money, sex, and success, I’d feel great! However misguided that may be, it psychologically permeates as hope. But once you are rich, famous, successful—and you’re still insecure and unhappy—the terrifying thought begins to lurk: Maybe the problem is me.

• It is unbelievably painful for me as I write this chapter because these conflicts and misunderstandings had such simple solutions, yet our immaturity demanded that we had to suffer excruciating consequences in order to learn the most basic lessons of human relating.
• In my entire life, few things have been more painful than watching someone I love self-destruct.

Everything changes; it rises, and it falls. Nothing and no one is immune to the entropy of the universe.

• Because of my childhood experiences with Daddio’s destructive streak, I’ve always had very low tolerance when I recognize similar energies within people around me. The funny thing is, it’s always crystal clear to me when I perceive them in others, but I’m blind as a bat to those same energies within myself.
• But if you were lollygagging during training, didn’t really eat right, and let your boy Pookie train you—and then Mike knocks you out in fifteen seconds—now you have to face an unbearable loss. You have to live the rest of your life not knowing what might have happened had you done your best. In the back of your mind, forever, you will know that you didn’t only lose to Mike Tyson, you lost to yourself. The fight wasn’t you versus Mike—it was you and Mike versus you.

It’s respectable to lose to the universe. It’s a tragedy to lose to yourself.

• There’s a strange thing that happens when someone falls: Your demise somehow proves to everyone you’ve ever disagreed with that they were right, and you were wrong. They develop a smugness and seem to get a brutal enjoyment out of the fact that God is finally punishing you.

 

Melanie’s taxi pulled up around 2:00 a.m. I was waiting for her out front. I had collected everything I’d ever bought for her—clothes, shoes, bags. Anything that would burn. I had drenched everything in lighter fluid. Our eyes met. I struck the match. WHOOSH.

As I write this chapter, I have never seen or spoken to Melanie again. I’ve reached out on multiple occasions over the years with no response. She was the victim of one of the lowest points in my life. Yes, we were young, yes, we hurt each other, but she did not deserve how I treated her; she did not deserve how it ended.

• This breakup was important because it sparked him to move to LA which was life changing for him. He entered a deep depression not leaving his apartment for 6 weeks until his new girlfriend told him to get up and just go handout at the Arsenio Hall show to connect with people in the business. 

Arsenio Hall Show 

• As I stood backstage, I felt the electrical currents of possibility pulsing and receding—it was like a lush forest with ripe fruit on every tree. The show was a flashpoint, a nexus, a cosmic garden of opportunity that Arsenio knowingly and purposefully cultivated.
• As a general rule, if someone asks me if I can do something, the answer is always yes.
• The universe is not logical, it’s magical.
  • A major aspect of the pain and mental anguish we experience as humans is that our minds seek, and often demand, logic and order from an illogical universe. Our minds desperately want shit to add up, but the rules of logic do not apply to the laws of possibility. The universe functions under the laws of magic.

• They looked at me in a way that I missed back then, but I understand today—it’s the look that executives have when tens of hours of conversations have gone on about you behind your back. And they still haven’t quite decided if they’re going to roll the dice on you.

Quincy Jones (you HAVE TO READ THIS STORY in the book! This is how he lands Fresh Prince) 

• “OK, yeah, can I have everybody’s attention?” Quincy bellowed. “We gon’ have a audition. Clear the furniture out the living room!” I was looking around, thinking, Oh, wow—an audition at a party, that’s dope! Quincy is the man! I wonder who’s auditioning?
• Reality took hold. Quincy Jones was asking me to do an impromptu audition in front of some of the biggest icons, present and past, in all of entertainment, not to mention the top brass at the National Broadcasting Company, home to The Cosby Show, Cheers, The Golden Girls, L.A. Law, and Seinfeld. My knees buckled. Couches were being moved and someone handed me a script. I grabbed Quincy’s arm, probably a little harder than was respectful. “Quincy, no, wait, no, I can’t do this now,” I whispered in his ear.
• Quincy Jones understands magic. He sees the universe as an infinite playground of magical possibilities. He recognizes miraculous potential in every moment and every thing and everyone around him. His superpower is that he has learned to present himself to the universe as a lightning rod, placing himself perfectly to capture and conduct the ever-present, ever-recurring magical flashes of brilliance surrounding us all.
• Quincy Jones is an intuitive, artistic storm chaser. He can sense the subtle flickerings of the impossible preparing to strike. He prepared himself for decades, studying music, playing thousands of gigs, learning from masters, surrounding himself with the most accomplished performers and artists.
• Quincy used to say, “Things are always impossible, right up until they’re not!” He learned how to prepare the environment and invited the energy in; he saw himself as the “conductor,” both in the electrical sense and the musical definition. His main job was to keep all of us from missing the miracle, from blocking the subtle magical opportunity that was obviously (to him) presenting itself.
• Gigi had a similar idea—she would say, “Don’t block your blessings.” Even though these possibilities are abundantly and perpetually flowing around us, we can miss them, or even worse, block or repel them.
• This was an idea that Quincy understood fully. Magic demands awareness (faith—you have to believe in magic); preparation (move the rock—we must identify and eradicate the poisonous resistances and impediments within ourselves); then, surrender (stay out of the way and trust the magic to do what it does). Quincy helped people get their rocks out of the way of the blessed light that is always trying to shine in. The universe wants you to have the miracle! Move the damn rock! Quincy was moving furniture, but he was trying to get all of us—me, Brandon, Benny, even himself—to move our rocks out of the way.
• Michael Jackson’s Thriller sales plaque loomed over my right—48,000,000 sold. (I could have just written the word “million,” but I wanted you to feel how many zeroes that is.) I felt Michael looking at me on his toes in the classic “Billie Jean” pose, as if he were saying, So what are you gonna do, Will?
• I take a seat. Quincy stands in front of me. He’s been here before. Quincy leaned in, eyes crystal clear, suddenly sharp, totally sober. “But right now, everybody that needs to say yes to this show is sitting out there in that living room waiting for you. And you are about to make a decision that will affect the rest of your life.” I took it in. I looked at Michael, then to Oprah. They looked right back at me. We know baby, it’s hard. “Whatcha gon’ do, Philly?” “Fuck it,” I said. “Gimme ten minutes.”
• “NO PARALYSIS THROUGH ANALYSIS!” Quincy shouted again and again. He would intone this mantra nearly fifty times over the next two hours. It was the answer to every question, it was the response to every stutter, it was the solution to every legal problem. Until, two hours later, when Quincy Jones, Brandon Tartikoff, Benny Medina—and Will Smith—entered into an agreement to shoot a pilot for a television show tentatively titled The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
• Six weeks earlier, I had been curled up in a ball in Marina del Rey, lost, depressed, and terrified. And just like that, the universe had given me a new family: James Avery. Janet Hubert-Whitten. Alfonso Ribeiro. Tatyana Ali. Karyn Parsons. Joseph Marcell.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air hovered on the border of the miraculous. Shows don’t happen this fast. Everything went perfectly. Quincy’s party had been on March 14, 1990; the writing, auditions, final casting, and deal making was completed by the end of April. Staffing, set design, wardrobe, et cetera, were completed, and we were shooting the pilot in mid-May. The show was edited and tested in late July; we promoted in August, and it aired on September 10, 1990. There was no paralysis through analysis.

Acting 

• I found my thing. The world of acting unleashed all the artistic impulses within me. It was the first external canvas that felt big enough to hold the landscapes of my imagination. My musical expression always felt narrow and constrained by the limits of my skills and talents. Making music felt like living in a great neighborhood, whereas acting felt like being set free in an infinite universe. As an actor, I would get to be anybody, go anywhere, and do anything: Acting encompasses all the things that I am—storyteller, performer, comedian, musician, teacher.

Alchemy 

• The Alchemist, a novel by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, was my first literary love affair. The book spoke to my soul, and I just couldn’t put it down. It penetrated me and transformed my way of seeing and being.
  • “What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.’

• The Alchemist is probably the most influential book I’ve ever read. It empowered my dreamer’s spirit and validated my suffering. If Santiago could suffer, survive, and claim his treasure, then so could I. 
• An alchemist is a spiritual chemist, a master of transmutation. The great feat of an alchemist is that they can do the impossible: They can turn lead into gold. This concept erupted in my mind—the ability to take anything that life gives you and turn it into gold.
• Quincy Jones is an alchemist, and he had set my mind on fire; I had never met anybody like him. I wanted to be an alchemist, too. I wanted to be able to transform anything and everything that life gave me into gold. The universe had given me a second chance, and I swore to God that I would not need a third.

Change is Inevitable 

• Change can be scary, but it’s utterly unavoidable. In fact, impermanence is the only thing you can truly rely on. If you are unwilling or unable to pivot and adapt to the incessant, fluctuating tides of life, you will not enjoy being here. 
• Sometimes, people try to play the cards that they wish they had, instead of playing the hand they’ve been dealt. The capacity to adjust and improvise is arguably the single most critical human ability.
  • Adapt or die 

• I was hungry, focused, and excited about the new life I was being blessed to undertake. But my personal and professional crash and burn had taught me a harsh, universal lesson: Nothing lasts forever. Everything rises and falls—no matter how hot the summer gets, the winter is inevitable.
• I decided that my only emotional defense against this brutal cosmic certainty was to outcreate the cycle of destruction. In my mind, I knew I had to be like Tarzan: catching the next vine just as I let go of the old one. If I could grab the new thing, while simultaneously releasing the dying thing, I could avoid and escape the harshest elements of winter and indefinitely sustain the vibrance of springtime bliss.
• I was barely twenty-two years old, and Quincy Jones had just empowered me to say whatever I wanted to say on a network television show. He took my side over producers, writers, executives, advertisers, everybody. He bet on me.
  • Someone you respect betting on you and building up your self-belief is so crucial. 

• It’s amazing how skewed your vision can become when you see the present through the lens of your past.

I quickly grabbed my rhyme book from my backpack, and the next two hours was nothing short of divine intervention. I didn’t write “Summertime” as much as I channeled it. My mind collapsed into the bliss of summertime in Philadelphia. I felt myself floating through my childhood summer memories and my hand was just along for the ride, trying to keep up. “Summertime” is the only song I’ve ever written from beginning straight through to the end and didn’t edit or change a single word. The lyrics, as they appear on the final cut, are exactly as they came through. It was a pure stream of consciousness.

• I studied my lines obsessively. In those early days of the Fresh Prince, I was so terrified of failing that I would memorize the entire screenplay—not just my lines, but everybody’s. It was the only thing that kept my anxieties at bay. 
• If I was going to lose, it was damn sure going to be somebody’s else’s fault.
• He played my father figure on the show and slowly assumed the role in real life. He was demanding and always pushing me to “master my instrument” as an actor.
  • “You can do jokes with your eyes closed,” he’d say. “You have that naturally, and it’s beautiful to watch. But you have deeper talent in there,” he said, tapping on my chest emphatically, “that you can’t even imagine yet. And you’re never going to find it if you don’t reach for it. There’s a difference between talent and skill. Talent comes from God—you’re born with it. Skill comes from sweat and practice and commitment. Don’t just skate through this opportunity. Hone your craft.”

What someone desires is a portal into the essential truth of their personality. If you want to understand why someone did something, you need only answer the question, What did he want?

• (Once you have a foundational comprehension of a character’s central motivation, the real acting fun begins with the second question: Why does he want it?
• The war between desire and obstacle is the heart and soul of dramatic storytelling (sometimes, the obstacles are internal—those are the fun ones). In filmmaking circles, there is a simple axiom that describes the structure of a great character journey: somebody wants something badly, and goes for it, against all odds. (Another variation is, a person falls into a hole, and tries to get out.) If you think about any movie you’ve ever liked, any character you’ve ever rooted for, it’s because they wanted something you could relate to and they struggled, risking life and limb, to achieve it.
• What’s true about movies is also true about life: You tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you who you are. 
• I had held a secret dream for as long as I could remember. I didn’t even feel comfortable dreaming it. I didn’t deserve to dream this big. But in my quietest moments, alone, there was a consistent yearning, an emotional compass that was always trained on the Hollywood sign. I wanted to do what Eddie Murphy was doing. I wanted to make people feel how I felt the first time I saw Star Wars. I wanted to be Eddie Murphy in Star Wars. So, for the first time ever, I said it out loud to JL. “I want to be the biggest movie star in the world.”

Stephen Covey, in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, said there are only two human problems: (1) knowing what you want, but not knowing how to get it; and (2) not knowing what you want.

• Clarity of mission is a powerful cornerstone of success. Knowing what you want gives direction to your life—every word, every action, every association, can be accurately chosen and harnessed to precipitate your desired outcome.
• When you know what you want, it clarifies what you don’t want. And even painful decisions, though not easy, become simple.

Trey’s Birth 

• I couldn’t stop looking at him. I was terrified. I had wanted this my whole life. And here I was, with my son, my wife, my family. My turn. My body was quaking, overwhelmed with the immensity of the responsibility to this tiny human life. I fell to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably, praying to God: “Please, help me do it right. Please help me be a good daddy.” 
• It’s 3:00 a.m. I’m on my knees. I’m just a little boy. I never wanted my daddy so bad. And then, something clicked, deep in a place where nothing had ever clicked before. A decision, an ironclad conviction. I wiped my tears, I stood up, I gently touched Trey’s head. And I knew. There were only two possibilities: (1) I was going to be the best father this planet had ever seen, or (2) I was going to be dead.

Movie Star

• I came up with a way to describe what makes a great movie star character: I call it the three Fs of movie stardom: You have to be able to fight, you have to be funny, and you have to be good at sex. Beneath the three Fs are our deepest human yearnings: fighting equates to safety, security, and physical survival. Being funny equates to joy, happiness, and freedom from all negativity. And being good at sex equates to the promise of love. And encompassing these qualities, the biggest.
• Have you ever seen those National Geographic documentaries on the Alaskan salmon migration? The ones where the hungry brown bears stand in the middle of the river, waiting for a salmon to jump out of the water and directly into their mouths? That’s how Alfonso Ribeiro and I used to stand outside of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air casting office. Every Black actress in Hollywood made the pilgrimage through those hallowed halls. 
• Working while sick, injured, or under difficult conditions became a badge of honor for me. I wanted to thrive where my competition would fold. I wanted my wife to know that I was invincible. Women (and Europeans) always shake their heads or describe this trait negatively. But on a primal level, it’s really hard to not respect a warrior. Friday nights became major networking events
• I will rock with you whatever you decide to do, but I’m advising against it. If you truly want to be the biggest movie star in the world, do not take this movie.” “J. That’s a lot of money, dude.” “Tom Cruise wouldn’t take this role,” JL said. We turned down 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag. JL, as my manager, earned a 15 percent commission. When he advised me to turn down 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, he was walking away from $1.5 million for himself. (Have I mentioned that he was still living in his childhood bedroom at his mother’s house?) He was taking the risk with me, because he believed in the vision—he believed in me. •   •   • (Will turned down $10,000,000 for his first movie) 
• “I’m tellin’ you, this is the one,” he said, punching his fist into his hand. “Word! How much?” “Well, this one’s different. . . .” “I get that, J, but, how much?” I said. I took Six Degrees of Separation for $300,000. (He just turned down $10,000,000 and instead took a movie for $300k because he was playing a long term game. He wanted to be the biggest movie star on the planet and that first role wouldn’t lead him there.)
• JL and I ran the numbers. We realized, for example, a film that might only earn $10 million in Spain could easily earn $15 to $25 million if you go to the country, do a premiere, a day of press, and a couple of fan events. (It doesn’t hurt if you learn a handful of phrases in the local language and say them on the news.) If you multiply that across thirty global territories, actually showing up in the countries could take a $250 million box office global potential north of half a billion dollars.

Character Growth 

• I memorized the words of the entire screenplay, verbatim. I vowed that I would not miss a single line while I was on set. During the months of my preparation, I would spend four or five days at a stretch without breaking character. Not once, not one moment. I would go to a jewelry store or a bakery and try to discern what Paul’s likes and dislikes were. I wanted to get comfortable in real life and real situations, not only thinking as Paul would think, but learning to involuntary feel the way that he would feel.
• We tend to think of our personalities as fixed and solid. We think of our likes and our dislikes, our beliefs, our nationalities, our political affiliations and religious convictions, our mannerisms, our sexual predilections, et cetera, as set, as us. But the reality is, most of the things that we think of as us are learned habits and patterns, and entirely malleable, and the danger when actors venture out to the far ends of our consciousness is that sometimes we lose the bread crumbs marking our way home.
• We realize that the characters we play in a film are no different than the characters we play in life. Will Smith is no more “real” than Paul—they’re both characters that were invented, practiced, and performed, reinforced, and refined by friends, loved ones, and the external world. What you think of as your “self” is a fragile construct.
• Achieving goals requires strict organization and unwavering discipline. I began to lean more into structure and order,

End of 1 relationship, start of another 

• “You know what—maybe one day you’ll be worth something,” I said, slamming down the phone. If God were to give me back one sentence from my entire life, to erase it, to make it so I never said it, and the person never heard it, it would be those seven words. Something broke in our marriage—something we would never get back. (Sheree would later confide that was the most her feelings had been hurt in her adult life.)
• I’m not really a “lounge” guy, but they assured me that I’d be happy I came. A little after 8:00 p.m., I walked through the door, made my way to their table: Duane, Tisha, and Jada Pinkett. And just like that, I was a lounge guy. 😆
• If quitting is an option, you’ll never finish anything hard. The only way an imperfect mind can be forced to achieve is by removing all of its other options. To me, the heart of all successful human interactions is we look at each other and we know we’re about to attempt something that is difficult/impossible. And we look in each other’s eyes, and we shake hands, and we both vow to die before we quit.
• We wouldn’t need to make vows if it was easy. The reason the vows are so extreme—“in sickness and in health, till death do us part”—is because life is so extreme. Nothing else can keep us there. That’s the point of devotion. I’m not against divorce, and I’m not against surrendering in a battle, but it has to be at the end of the battle—not while you’re putting your armor on, not the first scary moment, not the first casualty. In my experience, most people get divorced too soon, before they’ve extracted the lessons that will keep them from doing the exact same things in their next relationships.
• But the heart and soul of our union was then, and is still today, intense, luminescent conversation. Even to the writing of this very sentence, if Jada and I begin a conversation, it is a minimum two-hour endeavor. And it is not uncommon that we talk for five or six hours at a stretch. Our joy of pondering and perusing the mysteries of the universe, through the mirror of each other’s experience, is unbridled ecstasy. Even in the depths of disagreement, there is nothing in this world that either of us more cherishes or enjoys than the opportunity to grow and learn from each other through passionate communication.
• She would say, “A real wedding ceremony should be a marathon—we should have to run an actual marathon together. And if we’re both still there at the finish line, then we’ve earned the right to get married. You gotta know that that person is a survivor.”
• Now, I’m not sayin’ I have all the answers right now, but I promise you, if you ride with me, and support me on this journey, I will die before I allow our family to not flourish.”

Spielberg 

• He listened intently; in retrospect, I recognize his skill set as that of a master director—he spends his life listening to actors, cinematographers, writers, studio executives, producers—determining the problem, and finding a solution to synthesize everyone’s brilliance into a single creation.
• “Ahh, OK, I’m so glad because, you know, I have so much respect for you,” I said. “This whole decision is making my brain hurt.” We share a laugh. “Then don’t use your brain for this decision. Use mine.”

The Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell 

• They gave me a list of movies to watch and things to read and turned me on to what would become the central conceptual framework for how I chose and made movies for the rest of my career: Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth, the hero’s journey as laid out in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
• Published in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces became my second literary love affair. It would not be an overstatement to say that I bet my entire movie career on this book.
• The human mind is a storytelling machine. The creation of narrative is hard-wired into us. What we call “memory” and “imagination” are essentially just stories that we program into our minds as a survival mechanism to protect ourselves and to help us thrive.
• The fundamental narrative pattern of the hero’s journey is as follows: A hero receives a “call to adventure.” Something happens in his life that forces him to embark upon a journey that takes him into a world of danger and wonder. He faces a series of challenges, tests, and trials; he encounters allies and enemies (maybe even falls in love), all culminating in a “supreme ordeal.” And if he proves himself wise enough, and strong enough, to overcome his internal wounds (traumas), and external obstacles, and survive this near-death ordeal, he comes away with a “treasure”—what Campbell calls the “elixir,” a rare wisdom and insight. He is now empowered to “return home” with “the boon” and do the only thing that makes a human life worth living: help others find their way.

The Taj Mahal is a single mausoleum, designed, constructed, and maintained for one woman: Mumtaz Mahal, the favorite wife of Emperor Shah Jahan. The emperor was so distressed by the death of his beloved that he commissioned the construction of the Taj Mahal. He preserved her body for the more than twenty years it took to build (from 1632 to 1653); he spent thirty-two million rupees (nearly a billion dollars in today’s currency), and employed twenty thousand of the world’s greatest artisans, imported Italian marble (which was not an easy thing to do in seventeenth-century India—and not to mention that India had its own makrana marble he could have been using), all to create a private tomb worthy of his lost love.

• I related to Emperor Shah Jahan—I wanted anything I was involved with to stand the test of time. I wanted everything around me to be the grandest and most magnificent that anyone had ever seen. Powered by burning passion, my creative impulses would forge the finest expression of anything I touched: movies, music, family, children, businesses, marriage.

★I have spoken over the years to many artists, musicians, innovators, athletes, thinkers, poets, entrepreneurs, big dreamers from all walks of life, and there is a secret conversation that always seems to arise: How can we fully pursue and realize our visions while at the same time cultivating love, a thriving family, and fulfilling relationships? And here’s the harsh reality for everyone who loves a dreamer: Everything comes second to the dream.

 

“Cut it off now,” Mom-Mom said sharply. “Wait, Mom, just let him finish what he’s saying . . . ,” I said. “I’m not wasting my life away in this bed,” Mom-Mom said. “Cut it off now. I’ve got a cruise I’m planning on in June.” That is the most gangsta sentence I have ever heard. Mom-Mom’s leg was amputated just below the knee. Within seven weeks, she was fitted for her first prosthetic limb. And within four months, she’d set out to finish her cruise with Florence Avery.

• Three days after Mom-Mom had left Turkey, a massive, 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the country, killing twenty thousand people. The doctor treating her in Philadelphia told her that the hospital she’d been in in Turkey had been destroyed. “All I lost was a leg,” Mom-Mom said. And then she bowed her head, and lowered her voice. “Thank you, God.”

Ali

• There are rare individuals among us who just know who they are, they know what they are, and they are crystal clear about what they are here to do—Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela… Each accepted their divine duties and are willing to suffer for what is right and to benefit others. There’s an intoxicating power in their conviction—they are calm, they are decisive, and they are loving, even in the midst of conflict and the worst of storms. Just being in their presence inspires your heart toward higher purpose. You want to follow them; you want to serve them; you want to fight alongside them.
• That’s how Ali was. He was always trying to create something that would make you smile forever. He knew he was Muhammad Ali; he knew what that meant to people; and there was no length he was unwilling to go to in order to autograph your heart with a loving memory.
• “Ninety percent of the people on earth are right-handed,” Darrell said in a voice that seemed to be louder than necessary. “That means that if you’re gon’ get knocked out in the street, most of the time it’s gon’ be with a looping overhand right. In order to deliver that punch, a person’s right foot gotta be set back—that’s how they gon’ get the leverage to throw it. You see that shit in the street all the time when niggas is beefin’. So, when you see them shift their weight, you know what’s comin’. Your rear cranium bone’s the hardest bone in your skull, so all we gon’ practice today: put your left ear down to your shoulder, and we gon’ break their hand on the top of your head. Then you gon’ fire your right hand straight back.”
• Darrell’s style of training is full immersion: He doesn’t ask anybody to do anything that he doesn’t do. Over the next year, he ran every mile, jumped every rope, lifted every weight, sparred as many rounds—every moment of training, right by my side. He ate when I ate; he slept when I slept; he worked when I worked. Often, he would quote Edgar Guest’s poem 
  • “The Sermons We See”: I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day; I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way. The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than the ear, Fine counsel is confusing, but example’s always clear.

• You fight how you train was one of Darrell’s central axioms. “You do everything how you do one thing,”
• His position was: dreams are built on discipline; discipline is built on habits; habits are built on training. And training takes place in every single second and every situation of your life: how you wash the dishes; how you drive a car; how you present a report at school or at work. You either do your best all the time or you don’t; if the behavior has not been trained and practiced, then the switch will not be there when you need it.
• “Training is for the purpose of habituating reactions to extreme circumstances,”
• Michael Mann brought in a brain scientist to help with what he called “burning new neural passages.” The scientist created a twenty-minute loop of the quintessential Ali footwork and jab. I would sit in a pitch-black room, watching the loop twice a day, staring at the repeated movement until it was seared on my brain stem.

 

As I look back on my life, I see funny stories, beautiful experiences, tragic losses, magnificent victories—all held together by a handful of pivotal moments, critical choices that completely altered the trajectory of my journey. In that ring with Michael Bentt, a switch got flipped that would take a decade to get unflipped. The warrior within me took complete command of everything in my life.

• The one year of training and the five months of filming of Ali was the most grueling mental, physical, and emotional test of my entire career, but also the most transformative.
• The film empowered me, it inspired me.” And then he paused, he looked directly into my eyes, and said, “Never underestimate the power of what you do.” (Nelson Mandela told Will this) 
• This fight-camp, support-the-champ mentality became the new law of our group. Everybody had to run five at five; everybody had to work out in the gym; everybody had to eat right; everybody had to read and study and offer new ideas. Everybody had to live a disciplined life, to reach for the best version of themselves, otherwise they had to go the fuck home. The unified mission of telling Muhammad Ali’s story established a new fundamental way of being that would extend within our group far beyond the completion of Ali.
  • I noticed this theme throughout the book that Will has a remarkable ability to get those who surround him to completely buy in and sacrifice towards the bigger mission. 

• Purpose and desire can seem similar, but they are very different, sometimes even opposing forces. Desire is personal, narrow, and pointed, and tends toward self-preservation, self-gratification, and short-term gains and pleasures. Purpose is wider, broader, a longer-term vision encompassing the benefit of others—something outside of yourself you’re willing to fight for. There have been many times in my life where I was acting from a place of desire but I’d fully convinced myself that it was purpose.
• Desire is what you want; purpose is the flowering of what you are. Desire tends to weaken over time, whereas purpose strengthens the more you lean into it. Desire can be depleting because it’s insatiable; purpose is empowering—it’s a stronger engine. Purpose has a way of contextualizing life’s unavoidable sufferings and making them meaningful and worthwhile. As Viktor Frankl wrote, “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
• A noble aim engenders positive feelings. When we pursue what we believe to be a profound and valuable goal, it stirs the best parts of ourselves and others. 
• I am not a man who is prone to regrets. But every year for the rest of his life, Nelson Mandela sent me a message urging me to come spend some time with him. I am an old man, don’t delay. Nelson Mandela died in Johannesburg, South Africa, just before 9:00 p.m. local time. He had been surrounded by his family and closest friends; he was ninety-five years old. Madiba was gone. This was one of the greatest moments of regret in my entire life.
• How could I not have taken him up on his offer? Over the years, I’ve done deep soul-searching around that question. He held me in the purest affection and highest regard. It was scary to me. He saw something in me that I hadn’t yet seen in myself. I think subconsciously I didn’t want to spend extended time with him for fear that I wouldn’t live up to his impression of me. Maybe I thought he’d ask me to do something or change something about my life that I’d be unable or unwilling to change. Madiba thought I was special—I didn’t want to prove him wrong.

Building Greatness 

• For the next ten years, Darrell (his trainer)  never left my side. He pushed me, motivated me, and defended my psychological space for the whole of my cinematic heyday. And he would check anybody.
• During this run, my team was on fire. Nobody moved how we moved. People in Hollywood were trying to figure out how we managed to be so productive and so successful so consistently.
• Everybody embraced the philosophy of the fight camp. We were building our lives, we were striving for perfection, we demanded excellence from each other and everybody around us, and like the Junior Black Mafia, you could either get down, or lay down.
• Everyone had to strive and climb or they couldn’t be here. I am a dreamer, and a builder. I picture grand visions, and then I build the systems to make them real in the world. That is my love language. I want to help the people I love build extraordinary lives for themselves. But it demands that they be willing to grind and sacrifice and most importantly, they have to trust me. And if they don’t, it registers as a complete rejection of my love.
• It’s impossible to build something that is of a higher quality than the quality of the people around you.
• There’s a strange and perturbing success paradox. When you have nothing, you suffer the fear and pain of grinding to achieve your goals. But when you have everything, you suffer the brutal recurring nightmare of losing it all.
• Witnessing my parents’ struggles branded me with the impression that financial stability was an imperative for love and family to have any chance whatsoever to thrive.
• I was on a tear—the biggest winning streak in Hollywood history. I was working seventy to eighty hours a week; holidays, weekends, even “vacations” became a time to advance.
• I was killing it, I was winning at everything, and winning, to me, meant everything else in my life should be perfect and everyone around me should be happy. But it wasn’t, and they weren’t.

 

So, Will, to what do you attribute your meteoric success?” “Well, I consider myself to be fairly average in talent. Where I believe I excel is in my unflinching, unyielding discipline and work ethic. While the other guy is eating, I’m working. While the other guy is sleeping, I’m working. While the other guy is making love . . . well . . . I’m making love, too, but I’m working really hard at it.”

• Reporters used to love that response, and while I was “joking,” the reality of the math was very simple to me: If I could wake up and start an hour earlier than everyone else, and stay an hour later than everyone else, and work through my lunch break, I would be gaining fifteen extra hours every week on the competition. That works out to 780 more productive hours in a year than the next guy—that’s the equivalent of one month. If you give me a one-month headstart on anybody, they’ll never catch me. And if they need their weekends and vacations, so they can get their beauty rest and recover and maintain their little punk-ass “work-life balance,” then they will always be looking at my taillights.
• I had to be perfect at all times. It took me years to realize that Jada wasn’t actually playing Monopoly. She was bonding and connecting and enjoying family time. Apparently, I was the only person who was actually playing Monopoly. I have since upgraded my software and developed a new axiom: Never get caught playing Monopoly.
• General meetings with world-class artists had become standard operating procedure. (Will was constant about exposing himself and family to people who are great at what they do) 
• The studio relented and offered Jaden the role of Christopher Jr. in The Pursuit of Happyness. For me, this was perfection—on the set, at work, with my son. That was how I wanted to parent: on the battlefield of life, real stakes, real outcomes, real hunting. I could correct errors in real time, and I could teach in real-life scenarios. This is how I defined parental love.
• I was unstoppable. It was the greatest streak of smash hits of any movie actor in Hollywood history. I became the highest-grossing film actor ever. And I still wasn’t even forty years old.
• The problem was, I’d conflated being successful with being loved and being happy. These are three separate things. And since I’d conflated them, I ended up suffering from an even more insidious version of the “subtle sickness,” which I can best describe as “more, more, more, more.” If I am more successful, I’ll be happier, and people will love me more.
• I was trying to fill an internal emotional hole with external, material achievements. Ultimately, this kind of obsession is insatiable. The more you get, the more you want, all the time never quite scratching the itch. You end up with a mind consumed by what it doesn’t have and what it didn’t get, and in a spiraling inability to enjoy what it has.
• My mind-set at the time was that there is no reason to do anything unless you are prepared to take a shot at being the best on earth. My belief was, you should always be aiming at the pinnacle, always striving for the very top of the mountain. Nothing should be done half-heartedly.

 

It doesn’t matter to you that I’m done, Daddy? I know it sounds crazy, but Willow’s question put a Liberty Bell–sized crack in my worldview. It was just an innocent question from a daughter to her father, but somehow, I knew that it was more than that: What she was really asking me was, “Don’t you care how I feel?” It was the deepest, existential human question. It may be the most important question that we as humans ever ask each other. Does it matter to you how I feel?

• When people are too worried about how they feel, they’ll never feel how they want to feel.
• “Mommy? “Yes, sweetie?” “It’s so sad,” Willow said. “What is, honey?” “Daddy has a picture of a family in his mind. And it’s not us!”
• I was at the top of the mountain. I was living beyond everything I had ever dreamed. Every goal had been attained, every obstacle conquered. And then some. Yet, everybody around me was miserable. Daddy has a picture of a family in his mind. And it’s not us! Willow looked me in the eye with so much compassion. She genuinely felt bad for me, dulce de leche dripping down her arm. Jada mercifully looked away, pretending she’d seen something of critical importance in the lower freezer. Willow just kept rubbing my face. “It’s OK, Daddy. You’ll be OK.” To this day, dulce de leche ice cream is forbidden in my house.
• And I realized, Oh, shit, there’s no such thing as “just business”—everything is personal.
• Everybody is caught up in their feelings, making all their decisions all the time based only on how they feel. Even my aversion to extreme feelings . . . is based on how I feel about feelings.
• Then the truth hit me like a 90 mph fastball: Nobody gives a shit about anything except how they feel. Feeling good is the most important thing to everyone, everywhere, at all times. We are choosing our words, actions, and behaviors in order to achieve a feeling that we deem positive. There’s nothing more important than feeling how we want to feel. And people determine whether or not you love them by how well they feel you honor their feelings.
• People in my life have consistently complained about feeling unconsidered by me, and when left unaddressed, this has sometimes festered into their feeling unloved. I would walk through fire for the people I love. I am fully prepared to die for my family. But no—I haven’t always focused on their feelings. I don’t trust feelings; feelings come and go and change like the weather. You can’t plan anything around them. And just because somebody feels something, doesn’t make it true; just because your feelings are extreme, doesn’t mean that you’re right—in fact, the more extreme your feelings are, the more likely it is that they’re skewed.
• There are other inherent questions attached to Does it matter to you how I feel? If the answer is yes, then the next unspoken question is How much? And then, What behavior alterations are you willing to make to show me how much? And what parts of your personal agenda are you willing to let go of in order to apply that energy to my agenda? Are you willing to put your thoughts and feelings aside in order to care for mine?

In essence, people want you to behave differently so they can feel better. How much you’re willing to change will prove to them how much you love them.

• And the number one greatest question that I have ever been asked is “What do you worship?” And the second greatest question is “Are you sure?”
• In my mind, the sum total of a happy life is the quality of your memories, so I’m always looking for the most vivid memory that I can create.

Marriage Bumps

• Some aspects of our union were magical. But the structure of the life that we had established was strangling both of us. We’d gotten married in our twenties; we were now in our forties. Our unhealed inner children were choking the shit out of each other. And that had to stop. We both had work to do, and we agreed that this phase would not be together. The painful awakening was to the reality that we were two separate people on two independent, individual journeys. We had simply chosen to walk this portion together. We cried like crazy, hugged, and agreed to let each other go.
•  “What’s true will remain.”
• We had concluded that no one can make a person happy. You can make a person smile; you can compose a moment that helps a person to feel good; you can deliver a joke that makes a person laugh; you can create an environment where a person feels safe. We can and must be helpful and kind and loving, but whether a person is happy or not is utterly out of your control. Every person must wage a solitary internal war for their own contentment.
• We agreed that Jada’s happiness had to be her responsibility, and my happiness had to be my responsibility. We were going to seek our distinct, innermost personal joys, and then we were going to return and present ourselves to the relationship and to each other already happy—not coming to each other begging with empty cups, demanding the other person fulfill our needs. We felt that this vampiric relational model was unfair, unrealistic, destructive—even abusive. To place the responsibility for your happiness on anybody other than yourself is a recipe for misery.