Steve Harvey - Straight Talk, No Chaser - How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man

Women don’t want to hear excuses for why you didn’t follow through on a promise you made, especially when it concerns the well-being of their children. But the man who says he’s going to protect his lady needs to be ready to do what it takes to make her safe. A man who promises to provide for his lady works hard every day to make a decent enough wage so that she and the family they made together can have what they need, and maybe even a little bit of what they want. A man who promises to love his lady doesn’t step out on her or hit her or wear her out emotionally and mentally; instead he loves her the way a woman wants to be loved-by being faithful and respectful and attending to her needs.

Success in doing all these things is based on that simple tenet of manhood: doing what you said you would do. If you’re not doing this, then everyone around you has the right to think that you’re just a raggedy dude-your woman has the right to say, “Girl, he ain’t worth nothing.”

I learned this the first time in my life when I was thirty, after I got kicked out of college and lost my job at the factory and my marriage hit rock bottom. I was living out of my car, driving up and down the road to comedy gigs, trying to establish myself as a comedian, and talking to myself all the way, from city to city, town to town, club to club. I wrote all my jokes out loud; I talked about life and how I got myself into the position where I didn’t have a home to go back to. When you’re by yourself, you can really get some stuff worked out. I once went for three weeks without having anything more than a quick “Hello, how are you?” conversation with other human beings. I mean, I’d walk into a club, find the manager, and he would say, “Thank you for coming, buddy. You’re on for twenty minutes, you get one drink at the bar,” and then I’d go up there, tell my jokes, then the manager would come over to me after I’d go offstage and say, “Here’s your money, sir-great job,” I’d get back in my car and do it all over again. If I was only making seventy-five dollars per appearance, I couldn’t blow my money on a hotel, and I sure couldn’t waste it on phone calls to anybody, so I would stash my cash and stay in the car and wait for my next gig. You try going even two days without talking to somebody. I’ll bet you can’t do it. But I did that for three weeks and started asking myself some questions and answering those questions too. I found out a lot about myself and recognized that I wasn’t being the kind of husband my wife needed me to be or the kind of provider I needed to be for her and the kids and even for myself. Simply put: I wasn’t doing what I said I was going to do. And until I did that, I couldn’t truly be a man.

I am not the only man who thinks this way. Over and over again while I was on tour with Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man , men stood up and repeated the same ideals and sentiments. I’ll never forget one man who made his way to the microphone at one of my events; he was bald, had a stylish beard, a nice blazer, and a white shirt. The women in the room took notice of him; he spoke about how in his last relationship, he was ashamed because he hadn’t gotten himself together-hadn’t achieved the career and financial status that he wanted to achieve. But, he added, he’d been working on himself and understanding what he was capable of and he was in a good place. “I’m a good guy,” he said, “but I’m a helluva man. I don’t have all the money in the world, but I got all the traits that make for a good husband. If you need protecting, I got you. If you need money, I don’t have much but what I do have, I’ll bring it home. I’ll give you my last name. I can do most anything with my hands, so if you need something fixed around the house, I got you covered there, too. And I do what I say, and say what I mean.” And then he brought it on home: “What I’ve been missing is the right woman. If I had the right, stabilizing force in my home-the right support system-I would be even better.”

That man finally knows what we all eventually come to know: that we have to learn how to be men before we can be anything to anyone who wants to love us-and certainly before we can love them back. But once we get it right? We come to something close to completion, the thing that makes men want to be better, not only for ourselves, but for the people we love. I can’t count the many incredible things that have happened to me as a businessman, a provider, a husband, a father, and a man since the right woman came into my life; I’ve never in my life gotten the kinds of accolades and accomplishments I’ve achieved since Marjorie and I started our journey together. I’ve been on Oprah , Ellen , a correspondent on Good Morning America ; I’ve been invited to speak at a church. A church. In my life nobody has asked me to be the keynote speaker in a house of the Lord. Ever. These things I’ve earned come not only from my deciding to do better, but from somebody seeing that there was better in me. People who’ve known me for years notice it. Hell, I have a picture of myself from 1995 in which I could see it-the physical toll that my lifestyle and choices were taking on my body, from not being the kind of man I needed to be and not having the right woman to complete the cycle of manhood. My face was sagging, I had put on a ton of weight, I just looked done; it was hard to believe I’d been that miserable.

Now I’ve put my house in order. I cleared my life of all its debris so that when the blessings did come, including first and foremost my relationship with God, my discovery of what makes me happy-success in my career and a strong, loving woman by my side-I could receive those blessings and start doing right.

And I’m passing that message on to my sons so that they know the secret too: learn how to be a man first. Then find the right woman who can bring out the best in you-make you better. Marriage is not a death sentence. It’s a completion.

My sons.

Steve and Jason passed those tests and earned the right to apply to college this past spring. With them, we’re going to build a tradition. I was the first one in my family to go to college, but I flunked out. But my sons got accepted into Morehouse. When they got their letters, I sat in the chair in my office and cried; my sons are going to a prestigious college with a rich and proud legacy, and I couldn’t be more pleased. When Jason saw me, he got a quizzical look on his face and asked me why I was upset, what they’d done to make me react in that way.

“You don’t even know what this means for me, son,” I said simply. “I’m not turning out convicts, there are no babies popping out of the woodwork, and the two of you are going to Morehouse. Give me a moment to celebrate getting it right. This isn’t about you.”

I recognize my job isn’t over-that Jason and Wynton and Steve have quite a ways to go before they are full-on men. But they’re on their way.

And I pray that they take the lessons I’m teaching them, and the lessons they’ll learn along the way, and make quick work of being the kind of men capable of making someone-themselves and their intendeds-happy. That said, will they make mistakes? Yes. But my job is to limit them.

A Guide to How Men Feel About Relationships in Their Twenties, Thirties, Forties, Fifties, and Beyond

Itook my daughter Lori to lunch recently-just me and her, one on one-and I’m not going to lie: I was a little bit more than concerned. It was, after all, the first occasion we’d spent any quality time with each other without her mother, Marjorie, there to quarterback the flow of conversation. I mean, when I take my sons to lunch, the fellowship is pretty low-key; I say, “Find yourself something to eat, man,” they order, and we eat. Everybody pushes back from the table happy and satisfied. But the idea of sitting in a restaurant alone with Lori made me come to terms with a couple of things, namely that I haven’t a clue what thirteen-year-old girls like, care about, or have on their minds.