D.L. Hughley’s single-mindedness
D.L. Hughley is an interesting character. One of the first African-American superstar comedians, as part of The Original Kings of Comedy, he also had a political show on CNN and wrote several books that seamlessly blend political commentary and satire. He’s got singular views on life goals too…
D.L Hughley interviews are always a thrill because you never quite know what you’re gonna get: the man can talk about practically anything and his opinions will land. Not always on the right side of the intellectual debate — nobody’s perfect — but they will definitely have an edge to them. And, because he tends to be truthful, many of his arguments speak the truth, at least his.
One interesting topic that came up in a Breakfast Club interview he gave a while back concerned his daughters’ boyfriends. Not entirely surprisingly, when asked what he thought about them, he confessed to quite dislike them — or rather disapprove of them. Not because they were stupid — they were not — or uncool — they were not — or useless — they had jobs. But what they lacked, in his estimation, was that single-mindedness that will stand them apart. He summed it up like this: I want my daughters to be with lions; not savages, lions.
The notion of single-mindedness is an interesting one. The idea here is that you should essentially, and contrary to any financial consultant’s advice, put all of your eggs in one basket, focus solely and wholeheartedly on one thing and one thing only. In the case of D.L. Hughley, that was comedy, and he credits his own single-mindedness for plucking him out of obscurity — and very humble beginnings, growing up in South Central Los Angeles and flirting with gangs — to become one of the world’s foremost comedic voices.
That sentiment is shared over and over by successful people: Kevin Hart has a similar story, so did Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, so does a Michael Jordan — clearly. The point that, in order to be truly successful, you should focus all of your efforts on one singular topic does make a lot of sense: indeed, you are significantly more likely to succeed in anything if you pull all of your resources, talent, attention into it. This proved to be the winning formula in most success stories (if not all), because having above normal success in a given field logically tends to require above normal effort…
There are two main caveats we should add to that theory, however:
There is a debate as to how much of a single-idea guy you should be. And by that we mean, singularly obsessive people can also go overboard, burn out and/or alienate people. Such was also famously the case with a younger Steve Jobs who managed to get himself fired from the company he created for essentially going too far with his idea — until he got older, had other experiences and came back with a somewhat more agile mindset. Time — and experience — tend to have that effect on overly single-minded people, going for jog also works…
There is a key question as to how to find that singular idea that one should solely focus on for years, if not for the remainder of their lives. And that is a fabulous challenge for everyone to face, some having found it, some not and some questioning whether there is indeed a singular idea waiting for them out there.
We posit that there exists one such core idea for every single one of us. But that is a story for another day…