Steve Harvey is catching heat over a recent comment he made on his eponymous talk show, which many interpreted him as saying that the wealthy have money because they never get eight hours of sleep.
“Rich people don’t sleep eight hours a day!” the comedian said emphatically to his audience in a clip that has gone viral. “That’s a third of your life. It ain’t but 24 hours in a day. You cannot be sleep eight hours a day. You can’t live in L.A. and wake up at 8 o’ clock in the morning. It’s 11 o ‘clock on the east coast. The stock market [has] been open two hours. They already making decisions about your life and your a-s was sleep.”
Still, The Steve Harvey Show posted his full “sermon” online titled “Get Outside of Your Comfort Zone” that put the clip into context.
In an accompanying tweet, the series said Harvey was reminding his audience that “all of you have extraordinary capabilities, you have to decide if you are willing to get out of your comfort zone to get to the level of success that you aspire.”
“What you got to do to get the life that God wants you to have…expand yourself. Take yourself out your comfort zone,” Harvey said. “If you stay in your comfort zone that’s where you will fail…Success is not a comfortable procedure.”
An example of being uncomfortable to be successful, Harvey gave, was skipping sleep if that’s what it took.
Still, critics on social media were quick to call out his sleeping comments as nonsensical with one social media critic writing, “Lack of sleep is a major cause of death.”
Harvey’s advice also goes against the Centers of Disease Control, which recommends more than seven hours of sleep for an adult between the ages of 18 and 60. Harvey is also pushing against sound sleep advice espoused by moguls such as Arianna Huffington, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, who all promote a proper night’s sleep.
Harvey told the Los Angeles Times previously that his relentless drive — which doesn’t seem to include much sleep –stems from when he was once homeless.
“I’ve been homeless before. I’m running from that — full-gait running from that ever happening to me again,” he said. “That memory is vivid. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t recognize that. That’s why I wake up with such a sense of gratitude — not only for what God has done for me, but what he brought me from.”