This Is How We Do It

Have you ever wondered what separates people who crumble under life’s pressure from those who transform challenges into fuel? In This Is How We Do It, Kevin Hart argues that the answer isn’t luck, talent, or background—it’s mental toughness. Hart, known for his relentless drive and humor, lays out a personal blueprint for mastering your mind through what he calls “Mental Boot Camp.” His mission is simple but profound: to help you stop being reduced by life’s chaos and start using it to build something extraordinary.

Hart contends that success doesn’t come from external validation or perfect circumstances but from a mindset built on radical self-accountability, discipline, and optimism. Drawing on his own life—from growing up in North Philadelphia to becoming one of the world’s highest-earning entertainers—Hart explains how developing a few key mental tools can help anyone “do it their way” and build a life they’re proud of.

The Mind as a Muscle

To Hart, your mind is no different from your body—it needs regular training. Just as an athlete strengthens physical endurance through repetition, personal growth comes from mental repetitions: facing setbacks, owning failures, staying consistent, and reprogramming the way you react to your environment. He sees modern culture—saturated with negativity, comparison, and distraction—as an added weight you must train against. By mastering the 15 tools he describes, you develop not only resilience but freedom from external noise.

Positivity as a Power Source

Hart’s philosophy starts with a positive mindset. He doesn’t mean blind optimism; he means the ability to extract lessons and purpose from anything that happens. He flips negative experiences into “temporary defeats” (a phrase borrowed from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich) rather than final failures. When you change your internal story about what’s possible, your reality shifts to match. For Hart, negativity is mental gravity. Positivity isn’t naïveté—it’s propulsion.

From Acceptance to Action

After mindset comes what-is-ness—a practice of radical acceptance. Hart insists that fighting reality is a waste of time. When something happens, your only job is to accept it fully and decide what you’ll do next. “You don’t have a time machine,” he jokes; so complaining only intensifies pain. This philosophy echoes stoic thinkers like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, who believed peace comes from focusing only on what you can control. Acceptance isn’t giving up; it’s taking back the energy you waste on resistance.

The Compound Effect of Daily Effort

Another cornerstone is consistency. For Hart, effort trumps inspiration. Just as he spent years performing unpaid gigs before his big breaks, you must commit to daily repetition even when no one is watching. Each rep, habit, or promise you keep builds evidence for your own power. Consistency creates confidence—and confidence fuels more consistency. As author James Clear (in Atomic Habits) similarly argues, true transformation is the compound interest of small choices made daily.

Owning Every Outcome

Hart’s humor hides his uncompromising honesty about accountability. “Cowboying up,” as he calls it, means taking full responsibility for your life—the wins, the losses, and the messy in-betweens. Whether it’s admitting personal mistakes or owning a failed project, this tool transforms shame into strength. People respect those who “take the bull by the horns,” he says, because self-ownership shows maturity and leadership. It’s also the gateway to change: you can’t fix what you won’t own.

From Inner Power to Outer Connection

Surprisingly, Hart’s toughness also includes warmth. “Teddy bearing” is his playful name for maintaining likability and kindness, not from neediness but from inner stability. Instead of chasing approval, you radiate ease and empathy, making you magnetic. Combined with traits like reliability, sponginess (learning from others), and relatability, Hart paints a picture of strength balanced with humility—a leader who’s approachable, not arrogant.

Evolving Beyond Comfort

Hart’s journey rests heavily on dissatisfaction—the belief that “good enough” isn’t good enough if you’ve still got potential. His success in films like The Upside came because he refused to coast. Each project became a push beyond his prior limits. But he also warns against confusing healthy dissatisfaction with toxic self-criticism. Growth, he says, should come from excitement, not self-loathing.

Eyes on Legacy

Ultimately, Hart anchors everything in a long-term vision: keeping your eyes on the prize. Life constantly distracts you—by negativity, comfort, other people’s opinions—but the mentally strong stay rooted in purpose. The prize evolves with you, just as his did: from local comedy clubs to a global platform for laughter, leadership, and legacy. What matters is not chasing someone else’s dream but walking your own path with determination, consistency, humility, and humor.

“Whether you want to change the world or just your world—it’s the same thing,” Hart writes. The question isn’t whether life will test you; it’s whether you’ll use those tests to build yourself up. His answer is unflinching: turn every hit into a rep, every challenge into a tool, and every setback into the next step of your evolution.

Hart opens his toolkit with the foundation of everything: mindset. In a cultural moment filled with negativity, he argues that protecting your mind from toxic influence is the most radical act of power you can take. Whether on social media or in everyday conversation, negativity spreads faster than truth—which means you must consciously decide where to aim your energy. “Energy flows where attention goes,” he reminds you.

Why Negativity is Easy—and Dangerous

Negativity is the human default. Online outrage and gossip trigger survival instincts—tribal fear of rejection and the desire to belong. But indulging in these emotions traps you in place; it’s a mental treadmill of complaint without creation. Hart calls this the habit of “speed bumps turned into mountains.” In other words, most people let minor inconveniences weigh like catastrophes. Changing that reflex is the mark of mental mastery.

Transforming Failure Through Language

Hart shares a reframing strategy borrowed from success writer Napoleon Hill: calling failures “temporary defeats.” A “failure” ends the story; a “temporary defeat” invites the next chapter. When Hart lost film roles, bombed performances, or faced public controversy, he chose to see it as education, not condemnation. He learned to ask, “What can I take from this moment to make me stronger?”—a question that puts you back in control.

Positivity as Movement

For Hart, positivity is not forced cheerfulness; it’s creative motion. “Positivity creates options,” he says. It keeps you moving forward while negativity freezes potential. When you decide to interpret every situation as an opportunity for growth, you become unshakable. His metaphor for this resilience is clear: “The dopest thing in the world is getting up after you’ve been knocked down, because so many people stay down.”

That decision—to rise again—isn’t theoretical for Hart. Coming from poverty, lacking formal education, and facing rejection repeatedly, he still became a global brand and film star. His life proves what he teaches: you can’t be stopped when your mind is set to see obstacles as fuel. Your mindset quite literally becomes the compass for your destiny.

“Be like water,” Bruce Lee said—and Hart agrees. What-is-ness, his second tool, is all about accepting reality as it is before deciding what to do about it. When life throws you a curveball, your suffering comes not from the event itself but from your resistance to it. Hart’s humor serves as a wake-up call: since you can’t time-travel to “unf**k” the situation, why waste energy wishing it were different?

Dropping the Story

Hart distinguishes between stimulus and response—and the “story” we create in between. Most misery, he notes, lives in that story: the explanations, judgments, and blame that inflate panic or self-pity. But if you can stay in direct contact with reality—seeing things simply as they are—you free your mind to act. As he tells his daughter, who “hates” school: hate doesn’t change the requirement to show up. Acceptance, however, makes showing up lighter.

Being Water in Life’s River

For Hart, flexibility is strength. When you’re rigid—clinging to comfort or expectations—you break under stress. Water, however, adapts to any container. Living with what-is-ness means adjusting, learning, and moving forward instead of looping in resentment. He’s quick to note this doesn’t mean staying in harmful situations. Acceptance applies to necessary discomforts—the effort, grind, or patience required to reach your goals. Complaining about work you must do, he says, only multiplies misery.

“Make the best of those moments. Complete those moments. Then move on.”

That line embodies what-is-ness: accept the assignment, learn the lesson, finish strong, and let it go. It is, as mindfulness teachers like Jon Kabat-Zinn would call it, “nonjudgmental awareness in action”—and it’s your gateway to peace and progress.

Consistency and reliability form the backbone of Hart’s philosophy. Consistency builds proof that you’re capable of growth; reliability proves that you respect yourself and others. Together, they turn good intentions into tangible change.

Building Strength Through Repetition

Hart compares the mind to a muscle: consistency is its training regimen. Whether in fitness or comedy, repetition creates transformation. He shares stories of years spent driving to tiny gigs, performing for peanuts, relentlessly sharpening his craft. “Shortcuts are for suckers,” he says. True success takes time, and those small daily victories build outsize results over years. This echoes the habit philosophy of Darren Hardy’s The Compound Effect: small, smart choices consistently applied create massive impact.

Reliability as Respect

Reliability, for Hart, means doing what you said you would do—every time. It’s about honoring your word and others’ time. He insists that punctuality and follow-through aren’t minor niceties; they’re declarations of character. He tells his team, “You got one time to mess up my time.” This discipline not only earns trust from others but reinforces your own belief that you can count on yourself. The payoff, he says, is immeasurable confidence: you become someone others can depend on—and someone you can depend on too.

Consistency and reliability are simple ideas, but they create compounding results: credibility, network strength, and peace of mind. In Hart’s world, bombs don’t destroy you when your consistency builds armor and your reliability earns allies.

If the first tools help you build stability, determination and cowboying up ignite motion. They’re Hart’s mental equivalents of grit and ownership—the attitude that keeps you in the ring no matter how many hits life throws.

Determination: Fuel from Self-Respect

Determination, Hart explains, comes from pride in your grind. He defines it as “the respect and admiration you have for your own blood, sweat, and tears.” When you value your individuality and purpose, quitting becomes unacceptable. In Hart’s story, determination turned setbacks into steppingstones—from being booed off stage early in his career to headlining stadiums years later. He insists that determination can be learned through small wins; each promise you keep to yourself deepens your resolve.

Cowboying Up: Radical Ownership

“Cowboying up,” he says, means taking full responsibility for your life—your words, actions, and results. When something goes wrong, weak people blame; strong people own it. Hart even points to his own public mistakes, like personal scandals, as chances to live this principle: admit fault, apologize, do better. By embracing ownership rather than deflection, you gain power over your evolution. He praises athletes like Tom Brady and Michael Jordan as examples of leaders who take responsibility publicly, win or lose.

“You can’t change shit until you own it.”

Determination gives you endurance; cowboying up gives you control. Combined, they forge unbreakable momentum. When paired with the humility to learn, they become the engine of lifelong improvement.

Hart refines positivity into actionable social tools: Teddy Bearing and Sponginess. Where teddy bearing cultivates connection, sponginess fosters continuous learning. Together, they shift tough-minded growth into warm-hearted influence.

Teddy Bearing: Strength with Warmth

Teddy bearing, a quintessential Hart phrase, means being pleasant and open—not to manipulate but to connect. The goal isn’t to be universally liked (as Oprah Winfrey herself warns is impossible) but to be likable: kind, authentic, and steady under pressure. In practice, this means not letting others’ negativity dictate your mood. “Be un-messable-with,” Hart says. By projecting calm positivity, you become an oasis people naturally gravitate toward. It’s charisma powered by internal confidence, not external approval.

Sponginess: The Discipline of Learning

Sponginess is curiosity turned into strategy. Hart attributes much of his success to absorbing knowledge from others—Chris Rock taught him comedy is global, Will Smith modeled worldwide promotion, and Oprah and Tyler Perry inspired him to build personal brands. “The smartest person in the room,” he writes, “is the spongiest.” That humility to listen makes you dynamic, well-rounded, and perpetually advancing. It also guards against ego, reminding you that growth comes from openness, not superiority.

Both tools reflect Hart’s belief that mental toughness shouldn’t harden you—it should expand you. Success built on kindness and curiosity is both sustainable and contagious.

Dissatisfaction, Nonreactivity, and Self-generating power form a trilogy of inner mastery: the will to grow, the composure to stay calm, and the spark to keep moving when motivation fades.

Healthy Dissatisfaction

Hart urges you to be “constructively dissatisfied”—content with progress but hungry for more. Growth, like nature, requires constant motion. He describes turning down a major film role that would’ve been comfortable but not challenging, opting instead for a dramatic part in The Upside. The result? Artistic evolution and renewed inspiration. Real happiness, he explains, isn’t comfort—it’s knowing there’s more in you to give.

Nonreactivity: Staying Cool in the Chaos

In today’s outrage culture, Hart’s advice feels revolutionary: don’t take the bait. People (and algorithms) profit from emotional overreaction. When you stay calm, you stay in control. Hart models this with humor: when trolls attack him online, his response is a simple “Sorry.” Disarming, funny, and effective. “Nobody has anything on you unless you give it to them,” he says. Nonreactivity is emotional security in action.

Self-Generating Power: Becoming Your Own Engine

Motivation is fleeting; self-discipline is forever. Hart calls this self-powership—the internal drive to keep moving no matter what. He tells the story of running the New York City Marathon, hitting “the wall” at mile twenty when his body shut down. Instead of quitting, he pushed through six more agonizing miles using his mind. That finish, he says, was one of his proudest moments, because it proved his strength wasn’t external—it came from within. “Be your own tow truck,” he advises. Depending on others for power is the surest way to stall.

Together, these tools ensure that your hunger, calm, and drive all flow from steady self-mastery—what Hart calls being “mentally unbreakable.”

In his final triad of tools—Eyes-on-the-Prize-ness, Put-up-with-ness, and Humility—Hart weaves together vision, endurance, and groundedness. They represent the long game: how to stay clear, patient, and real once success arrives.

Eyes on the Prize

Hart insists that clarity is everything. You can’t stay motivated if you don’t know what you’re aiming for. He warns against chasing other people’s dreams or confusing comparison for ambition: “Nobody can define your prize but you.” For him, the prize evolved—from getting on stage to making movies to becoming a legacy-builder for his children. The key isn’t that the goal changes, but that your focus never wavers. Obstacles and temptations mean nothing when your eyes remain locked on purpose.

Put-Up-With-Ness: Turning Endurance into Art

Every great story involves endurance, and Hart reframes tolerance as skill. “Legends are made,” he writes, “because they’re willing to put up with more discomfort than others.” He defines put-up-with-ness as refusing to quit—even when tired, frustrated, or unacknowledged. He treats life like an endless boxing match against your own mind. Each round you endure expands your strength. “Refusing to put up with comfort,” he says, is just as vital as putting up with pain, because comfort breeds complacency.

Humility: Staying Human in Success

Finally, humility protects you from success’s drug-like side effects. Once fame and wealth accumulate, it’s easy to lose yourself. Hart pokes fun at celebrity entitlement (nonsensical snack demands included) to illustrate how absurd ego can get. “No matter what you achieve,” he says, “you’re not better than anyone.” True confidence means staying grounded in your values and relationships. Humility reconnects you with gratitude, keeps your mind open, and ensures you never forget the humanity behind the hustle.

Hart closes the book with a challenge: master these tools, pass them on, and use them to build your best self—and by extension, a better world. “Whether it’s your kids, your neighbors, or your barista,” he writes, “share these lessons.” Because mastering your mental isn’t just personal—it’s contagious.