"It's Lonely at the Top" - Denzel Washington's Warning About Success

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Patrick Bet-David (0:30)

A clip from Denzel Washington in an interview. He's at a university. He's being asked a question. I love his answer. I think everybody in the world can learn from his answer here. Go forward.

SPEAKER_3 (0:42)

Equality now to see it all so under attack.

SPEAKER_1 (0:45)

Under attack by government forbidding it.

Denzel Washington (0:49)

The hardest thing to do is look in the mirror.

The easiest thing to do is blame someone else. I'm not talking about anybody. I'm talking about everybody.

It's so easy to go, if we could just get them right, if we could just fix her or just fix him, then we don't look in the mirror. That's where it should start. Well, what can I do better? Well, why don't you try being honest with yourself, Denzel? Or whatever your name is. Ask yourself real questions and give yourself honest answers.

Patrick Bet-David (1:22)

Can you go to the part two? There's two of them.

Denzel Washington (1:24)

The last day of your life doesn't matter what you've done.

Who you've lifted up. You can't have more success than I've had. And I'm here to tell you, doesn't mean a daggone thing. It complicates things. It's lonely at the top.

Patrick Bet-David (1:41)

Look at the pyramid you explained.

Denzel Washington (1:42)

Trust me. I've been at the top. It's a pyramid. It's like this.

Right? Like a pyramid. It's very slippery up there. There's not a lot of room. It's easy to slide down, and there's hardly anybody up there.

So be careful of what you ask for, and don't measure it by what the world tells you success is.

SPEAKER_5 (2:07)

What a powerful thing to say. And I love that.

SPEAKER_1 (2:10)

It's slippery at the top.

Patrick Bet-David (2:12)

Left or right? So getting up there is one thing. Staying up there is the second thing. But also always trying to see if the other person can fix themselves, it would be so much better. It's like, well, what if the other guy can fix himself? What if the other guy can do something about it? No, what if you and I can do something about it? It's never been the most exciting message when you give this, when people come up to me and say, that person did this, this person did this, that person did this. Well, what can you do to improve it?

I think a lot of times, well, Democrats this, and Republicans this, and business this, and taxes this, and this state this, and that person this, and my mom this, my dad this, my wife, my husband, my cousin. What role do you play in this?

What role do you and I play? What can we, it's a, it's a, it's a such a unpopular message that whenever you get this message, you don't like that person.

SPEAKER_5 (3:03)

Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David (3:04)

Whenever that person gives you this message, you actually don't want to talk to that person. I remember one time I heard a person say that there's three different types of people that, you know, people speak to. There's those people you speak to that they're ahead of you.

There's those people that speak to you because ahead of you, they give you wisdom and what's to come and they can challenge you. There's those people that you speak to that are at the same level as you because it tells you're not the only person that's going through the challenging season. And then there's those people you speak to that are below you because it shows you that you can give value to everybody.

Sometimes people just want to hang out with people below them because it makes them feel superior instead of making them feel small. You know, and the moment you get to a certain level, you're like, I just want to talk to the people at the same level as me or below me. That was one of the threats I gave to my guys when I sent a message out to them. People don't want to hear the truth. People don't want to hear the message about what you can do to improve this situation. So I saw this message from Denzel. I'm like, man, the world's got to hear what this guy is saying. I wish Denzel would do more of stuff like this. I wish Denzel would share every time you see him, you know, in interviews, he drops gems. He's very good. One time a lady said, so who did you vote for? Have you ever seen this interview when he was asked who did you vote for? You ever seen this? Can you find this? Have you ever seen this? He was outside?