Steve Harvey is everywhere. He hosts Family Feud (including its celebrity and African editions), he stars in his own courtroom comedy show Judge Steve Harvey, and runs a four-hour weekday radio program. Add to that a clothing line, investments, a foundation, and a sprawling resume of other venues, and it’s clear Harvey has built his own personal empire.
But it wasn’t always glitz and success for the now 68-year-old. Long before becoming worth some $200 million, Harvey spent nearly three years homeless—sleeping in his Ford Tempo, keeping food cold in an Igloo cooler, and living on bologna sandwiches from making just $50 a week. The experience, while grueling, proved eye-opening and formative, teaching Harvey the value of never losing sight of the future.
“Because today is temporary; if it all goes right, today will be called yesterday, and if it all goes really right, tomorrow is going to be today,” Harvey told The Pivot Podcast in an interview released last week.
“If you can understand that it can change for you tomorrow, it’ll give you the fortitude to hang in there today because all you got to do is wake up.”
Even after becoming a household name across the globe, Harvey admits staying successful is an everyday struggle.
“It’s hard to make money, man, and it’s hard to make a lot of money and it takes a long time to make a lot of money,” Harvey said. “But if you think it’s hard to make money, it’s way harder to keep it and to add to it.”
For Harvey, financial success is like a physical feat: Doing 100 push-ups might take years of training, but it’s even harder to stay in shape to keep doing it. “To stay successful, guess what you got to do? You got to lock and hold. And after 100, that locking and holding is hard because you’ve done burned everything up getting there.”
From college dropout working odd jobs to multimillionaire
Harvey was born in West Virginia, with his father working as a coal miner to support his five children. After taking classes at both Kent State University and West Virginia University, Harvey dropped out of college and worked a string of odd jobs— mailman, insurance salesman, and auto-plant worker—searching for his footing.
But security was fleeting. One year, he was laid off from General Electric right before Thanksgiving, forced to return home with a 20-pound turkey but no income for his family. Over the years, Harvey said he cycled through 10 or 11 different jobs. His turning point came at 27, when he won $50 at a comedy club and decided he had nothing left to lose. He quit his steady job selling insurance and took a leap into comedy—a gamble that would change his life forever.
Harvey’s desire to find stability is the reason he now says he juggles so many ventures: Losing one gig never leaves him with nothing.
“I’ve been running from poverty so long because I was in it for so long,” he told The Pivot Podcast. “I guess I am kind of afraid of it going bad.”
Harvey’s core advice for young people searching for their own version of success is simple: it’s not about the resources you may have, but rather uncovering your personal gift.
“You gotta get comfortable with being uncomfortable if you ever wanna be successful,” he said in 2018. “Start putting some pressure on yourself.”
You can watch the full Steve Harvey episode of the Pivot Podcast below: