Will Smith’s inspiration kind of snuck up on me.

I went from laughing at him on the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” to seeing his other layers years later through the way he carried himself, how he was able to make a joke about himself, and how he could take a joke.

He had a way of keeping life light through humor, but he also had a profound way of reminding me about the good in life.

Here are little pieces of Will to inspire us all into our own goodness and greatness:

1. “Greatness is not this wonderful, esoteric, elusive, godlike feature that only the special among us will have. It is something that truly exists in all of us.”

2. “The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is that I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. You might have more talent than me or you might be smarter than me, but when we get on the treadmill together, there are two things: you’re getting off first or I’m going to die.”

3. “I want my life, my work, my family…I want it all to move something. If you’re not making someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time.”

4. “There is a certain delusional quality that all successful people have to have. You have to believe in something different than what has happened.”

5. “There’s no reason to have a ‘Plan B’ because it distracts from ‘Plan A.'”

6. “If you’re trying to build a wall, you don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say I’m going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that has ever been built. You don’t start there. You say I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid, and you do that every single day. And soon you have a wall.”

7. “Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity.”

~