2017 will suck for you if.....

Good afternoon, Facebook family! Where y'all at? Where y'all at? Facebook has to gather my Facebook family. Where are you guys? I'll give you a minute to get in here. I gotta tell you something. I gotta tell you something. I hope you had a wonderful, wonderful Christmas, New Year, happy, uh, Christmas holiday, whatever you call it. Okay, I see y'all coming in. I'm doing something wrong. Don't judge me. Hmm, don't judge me. Hey Ron, how you doing, darling? Oh, y'all coming on in there. I see you, I see you. Listen, I just want to drop in. I'm out and about. First of all, this Atlanta, I need you to get your weather right, okay? Because yesterday it was like almost— it's about 80 degrees, was a beautiful Christmas Day. I thought I was back home in California. And now today it's cold and I had to get a jacket, my little trench coat. And all that. Hey y'all, hey hey hey, I see y'all. Terry and Ebony and Nikita and Doe, I see you. Judy, hey y'all, listen, this is what I wanted to say to you right quick about your 2017. I'm hearing all of this 2017 will be my year and it's my season, it's my time, and things are going to be different this year. People are so excited about this upcoming year. And I titled this video, Your 2017 Will Suck If— here's the if. You wanna know what the if is? If you don't change the way that you think, that is what will make your 2017 suck. Okay, so check this out. You ever wonder why people set up these New Year's resolutions and they don't accomplish the goal, it's only because of one thing. And that one thing is you haven't changed the way that you think. So you can't say, I'm going to lose the weight, or I'm going to start the business, or I'm going to get into a relationship— whatever your thing is that you want, you won't be able to do that. And the reason why you've been doing that and saying those things year after year after year and it doesn't seem to work for you is because you're trying to use the same mindset to accomplish a different goal. That doesn't work, baby. It doesn't work. So everything that you say you want, you will never be able to acquire if you don't change the way that you think. And trust me, I know it can be challenging to change the way that you think. I know that because it took me a while to get all of some of this stuff that I've been indoctrinated with from my youth. And I'm a Y girl. I'm going to ask a, um, a a why. Like, you can't just tell me random stuff. Like, I was telling somebody this last night, I said, I can't— you can't just tell me you love me without me asking you why. You— I— because I'm not a vain words kind of person. That there has to be some reasoning behind what you're saying. You can't just say, girl, you know I love you. I'm like, okay, why? If you've never explained to me why you love me, you just cannot just randomly be telling me you love me. I'd be like, okay, girl, you say you love me. No, no, that ain't Mason. Mason gonna say, you love me, baby. So, so why you love me? What is it about me that makes you love me? So you have to give me, um, the why behind it. Now, it's not every time you got to give me the why, but I have to know, uh, from the onset when you say it, why. So because I'm like that, I'm like that in every area of my life. So everything has to make sense. And I've been on this journey over the last 2 years of, um self-discovery as far as finding out why I believe what I believe. Why do I do the things that I do? Were there— are there things that I chose, or were they things that Mama said or Grandmama said, um, we supposed to do those things? So in that, you have to question, why am I not accomplishing the goals that I want? Why am I not starting the business that I want? Why am I not getting into the relationships that I want to get in? And I stay with those three topics because you guys know I talk love, business, and life. So why am I not getting the very things that I say that I want? What's the freaking problem? And I'm telling you, the problem, the only problem that— well, the main problem is your thinking, the way that you think. And it took me a while to change the way that I think. And I am— I'm on it every day, and I listen to certain things. I, um, I don't watch a lot of television. Um, it's so funny, uh, producer asked me, how is it you're about— you're getting ready to do a television show but you don't watch TV? I'm like, I, I just don't really watch a lot of TV because I learned to be very, uh, cautious about what I allow into my spirit because I'm one of those type of people that I can't go to sleep with the TV on or radio on with words or with lyrics on unless they are something classical or just some straight jazz, no words, because I will dream about whatever it is. It could be the last person that I talked to, I'll dream about them. It could be what I'm watching on television. It doesn't matter, doesn't matter what the type of programming is, I'll dream about it, which means it will get into my subconscious, which is why I don't allow my kids from— well, they do what they want now, they're grown, but when they were younger, I would not allow them to go to sleep with hip-hop on. I'm like, if you gonna listen to it, you gonna listen to it. I can't stop you from listening to it because it's everywhere around you, but what I can do is tell you, you won't go to bed listening to that in your ear. Um, so they switched over to classical music. My children like— especially my youngest son, he really likes classical music. So they go to bed listening to that. I go to bed listening to either something classical, or if I— if there's an audiobook that I have— I have about 20 audiobooks on my phone. Um, and they're— I like— I don't read like love novels and all that. I write them, but I don't, I don't really listen to that kind of stuff. And I'll, like I said, I write about love, but I write from a different perspective, not the fantasy part of it. But I will list, have certain books on my phone and from Audible. And what I'll do is if it's something that I'm really, really trying to learn, or as a speaker, for all of those that always ask me, April, how do you become a speaker? One of the things that I do, one of my methods, one of my secret methods, when people say, why aren't you nervous when you step on a stage? Remember this, you will only be nervous when you do something when you're not confident in it. When I hit the stage, I know exactly what I'm doing. I know exactly my mission and my purpose, and I know I am there to help people change the way that they think, redesign their life in their mind. So because I know that, I'm confident when I step on the stage. Now it might be several thousand people in there, and I might be like, oh, it's a lot of people, but April, you know what, you are here for a specific reason and you have no time to be nervous. You're only nervous when you have not done your due diligence and perfected your craft, or you don't know really what you're talking about. That's normally when you get nervous, because when I used to just wing it and someone would book me and I was like, oh, I know this, I know this, and I wasn't perfecting my craft, I was a little nervous. But now you can put me in front of millions and I'm gonna get up there without a nervous bone in my body because I know I'm there to deliver something specific and I've studied and I perfected my craft. So if there— when I— as I was saying, for my speakers, sometimes what I'll do is I will record myself, record of the points that I want, and I would record it just the same way as I would if I was speaking it. And then I'll listen to it over and over and over and over again until it becomes, you know, whatever it is that I needed to become at that moment. So I do that with books. So I have about 20 audiobooks on my phone right now, and I listen to certain things to try to reprogram program my subconscious mind. And I know, you know, when I, when I was younger growing up in church, and when you said subconscious mind, it's like, oh, you are the devil, that's that this, that's that, you know, that, that spooky stuff. And actually, that's really not what it is. Repro— it's reprogramming the mind, because it's all about the terminology that you can accept. Because scripture says that we are to renew our mind. Now, if I say renew our mind, my church folks will say, yeah, that's right. But if I say reprogramming and becoming more aware, you'll be like, oh, wait a minute, you know, what kind of New Age stuff. And it's not New Age, it's the very same thing that the Bible says about we're to renew our mind. You can't even believe in God, and if you, you know, believe in Jesus or whatever you believe, without a certain level of, um, mind renewal to be able to believe in a being you've never seen. So it takes some time, some, some mind renewal. And most people don't really— that say they're believers, they really don't believe anyway because their actions don't line up with what they say they believe. So we— I had to learn how to get out of the spookiness of it and understand that spirit and science actually goes together. I was taught about no science, that, you know, it's just spirit, spirit, spirit. And I was one that was always very inquisitive and asked the why questions. Well, how is it that I can get up every morning and I'm breathing air that I don't see? There's a science to that. I, I didn't know what that was. It was just because God said so. So I was always a why person. Why, why, why, why, why? So Like I said, in order to make sure that your 2017 is not like your 2014, '15, 2008— because some of y'all been going through the same stuff for a very long time— to ensure that it's— your year is not the same, you have to ask the why questions. You have to ask, why do I do what I do? And why am I getting the results that I'm getting by doing what I'm doing? And if what I'm doing, I have no clue of why I'm doing it, because it's in my subconscious mind. Maybe I need to reprogram the 95% of my brain that I normally operate off of, and I really don't understand why I do it. I know that was a lot, right? But that's what I had to do, because, um, I would not have seen my life shift if I would have— if I did not change the way that I thought. And being, being aware— and I think a lot of people, what the problem is Like, ladies, y'all know I always equate stuff to relationships. Have you ever heard a guy say, smile, sweetheart, it can't be that bad, while you're walking down the street and he looking at you and you, and you just got this— your, your whole demeanor is just off, right? And he says, smile, sweetheart, it can't be that bad. The reason why he's saying that is because you're not aware of how you're looking. You're not aware, um, of how what's going on on the inside of you is affecting your outward— um, excuse me— demeanor. You don't realize that because you're not conscious of that. So I had to learn to be conscious of what I was thinking. I had to think about what I'm thinking about. And so many times what'll happen is we say we want something, but we never get it because We're not aware of what's going on in our mind. So I'll give you this, and I taught this all of 2015, and, and when I got invited to churches to speak, I really taught this about the way that we think. Because I always say, if your thinking isn't right, you cannot believe in the God that you say you believe in. Because if you worrying, you don't believe in the God that you say you believe in. If you are pray and then you still complain or worry about the same things that you prayed about, you really don't believe in the God that you say you do. So anytime I go into a church to speak, I have to— I can't just go in and talk about, you know, salvation and all of that stuff. That's not my area. My area is to get you to understand if you are going to a place to worship every single week but your life is not changing and you're constantly dealing with the same stuff. You're only going to a social club every week. And when you realize that, you know, it's not until I say that that a lot of people come up to me after I minister and say, uh, I didn't realize that. I said, yeah, because we're not aware of what's going on, um, from day to day. We're just getting up, doing the same routine every single day, right? And then you wonder why you continue to get the same results. It's because you're not in tune. It wasn't until I became in tune and I actually had to take action and think about what I was thinking about. And it was a little challenge because, you know, we just go day by day. We be in the store and like, I just came out of the store getting some mani-pedi stuff because I'm doing mani-pedi today. I took my nails off, I'm giving a little break, so I'm gonna give myself a mani-pedi. So I'm just in store. And when you think about when you're in the store, your mind is just everywhere. You're not really thinking about what you're thinking about, so you're just accepting whatever thoughts come to your mind. I had to learn how to consciously think about what I'm thinking about. And so you ask— someone asked the question, how do you change what you're thinking. And my first thing to you would be to make it a point to tune in with yourself to see what am I thinking about at this moment. If you ever feel sad and blue and just kind of down, normally it has a lot to do with what you're thinking about. If you want to change your moods, change what you're thinking about. That normally will fix, um, things. And sometimes, you know, we want to just be in a funk. We really do, because sometimes I'm like, I don't— don't encourage me, I don't feel like being encouraged. I want to be right here today. This is where I feel. But I know that it's okay to embrace how you feel, but I also understand that it's not okay to stay there if you're trying to be progressive. So your 2017 will be the same way as your 2016 and any other year that's been the same. Look at your life. Do an evaluation. Are you in the continuous perpetual cycles of the same financial issues, the same relationship issues, the same, uh, you know, family issues? Everything is the same, but yet most of y'all gonna go to New Year's Eve watch night service and get all emotional and declare and decree It's your season, it's your time, and this is my year, and won't he do it, and God's got me, and my haters can hate. Hey, my haters can hate, and, and all y'all gonna do all of that foolishness, right? But what you're not going to do— yes, Bernard, my breakthrough was coming. Okay, sidebar before I give you what you're not gonna do. If somebody else says to you, because I know if they said to me, I'ma punch If not, I'm not even a violent person like that. But if you go to watch night service and somebody tells you, 'Cause God is getting ready to do,' I encourage you to get up and walk on out. The reason why I say that is because when we're always in a perpetual state of almost getting it, a false sense of expectation, because we don't realize God is not doing anything. We it's already done from the foundations of the earth. It's already done, um, that all we have to do is catch up with it. It's not about what God is getting ready to do. So God is never getting ready to do anything. It's already done. And but what happens is it makes people stay in a perpetual state of false, uh, expectation. And it's this expectancy mode because like some people have false sense of loyalty, false sense of humility, and there's a false sense of expectation Because what we're not being taught is God is already doing it. He waiting on your lazy behind to get up and stop playing and do something with what I've already done. Stop praying to me about things that I've given you the authority to change. So majority of people talk about money. Well, Deuteronomy 8:18 says, I've given you the power to get wealth. You just don't want to use your power. Also says, your gift will make room for you. Most folks won't have no idea what their gift is, so their gift will never make room for them because they never use it because they never know what it is. So you, you say these same passages over and over and over and over and over again, right? But you never see how to apply them and make them work in your life, and that's because of your thinking. Your thinking. So you have to make it a point to say I know, I know, I know that I've been taught a certain thing, and I need to write down the things that I've been taught and ask myself, why do I do these? Because it's— do this because it's become rhetoric now. It's become a perpetual state of lack, a perpetual state of fear, a perpetual state of— like, I know my family, it was divorce. I'm like, why is everybody so freaking divorced? Divorced all the time. I had to make a conscious effort after I got a divorce and say, wait, wait, hold on, wait, wait, wait, something ain't it, something— hold my mule, something ain't right. I'm looking at the pattern. Pay attention to the pattern. Look at what's going on. And I had to take— pay attention to the pattern. I didn't— I got divorced almost 10 years ago, but it wasn't until maybe 4 years ago that I looked at the pattern. I was like, wait a minute, I'm seeing something here. I see— I'm seeing a pattern. When it came to lack, I started seeing a pattern. I'm like, okay, but most people just accept what is versus ever challenging the why. So you can go to watch night service, you can say all this, these wonderful affirmations you can do all of that, but if you choose to not change the way that you think, it won't work. That's like some of my male clients. I'll tell— they'll come, you know, they'll come and coach with me, and you know, from a relation— most, most of the men that I coach, they don't come for business, they come for relationship stuff. And I listen, and I would say about 85% of them say the same thing. And what they'll say is, the— every woman that I meet is like this. And I'll, I'll hear the pattern. I said, there's a pattern that you have. It's time for you to change the pattern. So they'll say, but what do you mean? You get low-hanging fruit, women that don't require anything of you, but you have this sense of hope that they'll one day magically turn into these butterflies, right? But instead of just going to raise who you are mentally, raise who you are, um, from a, a mental and an emotional place, you'll keep drawing women in, waiting for someone to come, just waiting on the type of woman that you say you want to just accept you as is. But when they— you can't attract those kind, you go after the low-hanging fruit. And so I had, I had to, um, use an example. I said I'll take myself for an, as an example. I consider myself an asset woman because I've done my work and I'm continuing to do it. Well, an asset woman is not going to deal with a man that won't rise up to be what she needs him to be. So he'll look at her and say she's extra, she, she required too much, but then he'll turn around and still complain about the low-hanging fruit women, wishing those women would just rise up and be like the one up here, the asset woman, versus just become the type of man that an asset woman would want. It's really that simple. What you say, do I coach? Yes, I am. I'm a— I am a life redesign coach. Yes, I do. I help people redesign their life by helping them and showing them how to redesign their thinking first. So yes, I, um, I didn't take really too many clients last year, but I— we get— so I get so many requests, so we— I will start back taking clients at the beginning of the year. Because it's work. So yes, I do. For those that ask, I'm a life, life redesign and business strategist. So to answer that question, so I made that point to say, use that example. You can't expect something in 2017 that you want to change if you're just sitting there waiting on things to accept you being the way that you are. Some things you have to become a different you in order to get. So if you want something amazing, why not be amazing? Why not be amazing? I, like I said, I hear people all the time complain about relationships, and it's like, well, the kind of woman that you want, just become that kind of man to get it. Because you can't expect her to come down to you and she done done all that work. No, we don't do that. And vice versa, you can't expect him to come down and not expect anything of you and he's done all his work. No, we don't do that. So stop complaining. So if you want your 2017 to be an amazing year for you, be conscious about what you're thinking about. And here I'll give you one of my tips that I give my mastermind students. This is how one way that you can start to consciously remind yourself, okay? This is what you do. We all have smartphones. I have an iPhone 7 Plus that I done paid for, right? You got a phone because most of you are watching me on my phone because I looked at my stats and it said 98% of my people that watch me on social media watch my phone, right? So put your phone to use for yourself, okay? So this is what you're gonna do. Program your phone to go off 3 to 5 times a day and identify what it is that you want and put it in your phone to remind you to constantly get back on track, to think about the things that you want versus what you don't want. Because what happens is we always focus on what we don't want and we always get it. And I know when I got married, I focused on how I didn't want a man like my stepfather. I didn't want— I focused so hard on that and I put some conviction and some emotion behind it, but I somehow managed to marry a man exactly like him. And because that's what happens when you focus on the things that you don't— whatever you focus on and put feeling to the most, that's what you always manifest. So I know it can be difficult to change the way that you think and be reminded about what you're thinking about. So I want you to use that phone that you paying that cell phone bill for Put it to good use other than searching on Facebook and looking at that, at entertainment blogs. Make it work for the betterment of you. So my clients, I'll tell them, I said, you know, um, this is what I want you to do our first week of working with each other. And I always start them out with, what is it that you want? And I need you to focus on there. On what you want. I need you to be intentional. I said 2017 is the year of redesigning and being intentional. So I'll tell my clients, program your phone 3 to 5 times to go off, 3 to 5 times every day for 90 days straight to remind you of what you should be thinking about, remind you what you want. Because you gotta remember, it's just like losing weight. I was complaining because I didn't put on about 15 pounds. Sister trying to get it off. But I didn't gain the 15 pounds overnight, so it's not going to come off overnight unless I go get it sucked out. Because I do have the suck out ministry, the, the plastic surgery ministry. I am not above the suck out ministry. So, but I have to learn. I had to say, you know, April, you didn't gain this weight overnight, so you're not going to lose it overnight. So you need to do what you need to do in order to get the weight off, and it takes repetition. The only way to change the way that you think and how you're subconsciously programmed is to focus on what you want. Over in my I'm An Asset Women's Group, I asked the ladies, I said, what do you want for 2017? And be 100% honest, because it's all girls in there. And I looked at everything that they wrote, about, you know, several couple hundred responses, and nobody said— now, a lot of the women that joined the group joined the group because, you know, I talk about femininity and I talk about the importance of, um, you know, I really believe in the dynamic of marriage. I really believe in the dynamic of having a mother and a father in the home, um, and having both you there to provide what the other can't. And so out of about 20, we got about 2,300, 2,400 women in there. Only about 5 of them said they want a significant other, they want a husband. And so I came back after about 2 weeks and I asked the question again in our group, and I said, hey ladies, okay, let's keep it 100. Majority of you join this group because of what I've been sharing about the importance of family, the family structure, and femininity, and being that strong independent woman, and being okay with asking for help. But when I ask you what you want Nobody except out of 2,400 women, only about 5 said a husband. So why is that? And the answer was, because I don't believe that I'm an asset woman yet. I need some healing to do. I need to do this and do that, right? And my response was, I didn't ask you what you needed to become in order to get that. I asked you what you wanted. And the only way to get what you want is knowing what you want. Just because you may not be an asset woman or view yourself as an asset woman just yet doesn't mean you cannot visualize yourself being in a— with an amazing woman. You can still visualize yourself being exactly who you want to be Even though you might know I'm not there yet, because you got to realize 9 times out of 10 when you meet somebody, you're dealing with their representative. Now, the funny thing is I always say, if you know to put the representative face on, why can't you just become that person that you put— that you're putting on so that other person will like you? Just become that. You don't have to be a representative. Most people want to be their representative. They just have a hard time being it because they don't believe that they can be. Change can happen in a day. Anything can happen in a day. The reason why change doesn't happen for most people is because they have a hard time accepting the change that needs to happen, and they don't want to go through the emotional pain that comes with change. Yes. Emotional pain come with change. It's a tearing away. So it's going to be some lonely times, it's going to be some, uh, times where you just feel like screaming, but it's, it's required and it's worth it. And I told my kids, the reason why you guys are not like I was when I was younger, I said, is because I feel like I stood in the middle of a boxing ring And I took all the punches. I said, when I— so I tell my kids, when I say I'm tired, it's not because I'm necessarily physically tired. It's because I did and stood in the gap between my past and all that generational stuff that I was on me. And I stood in the middle between that and my children, and I stood there I stood there and took every blow that I needed to take in order for my children not to have the same mindset that I had, so they would not have the same, uh, look on life as I had. I said, so as a 41-year-old woman, when I'm saying I'm tired, it's from the mental that I put in. It's from the, the determination that I put in so my children would not be like I was, which produced my now 22-year-old daughter. She bought her first home at 20, 21. She has a good job. She, she bought a new car. She's doing her own thing. I wasn't like that, but I had to stand in the gap and take every bruise, every punch, every dragging, every beat down, losing stuff, losing houses, losing cars, being homeless, but but still knowing that there's something on the other side of my thought process. Something has to be greater than this. I stood and I took every blow. So now when I look at my children, they're nothing like me at their age. My kids are in— I got two in their 20s and one getting ready to be 19, my youngest. Nothing like me. Self-esteem is where it needs to be. They make different type of decisions, and it's all because I stood in, into, and took the blows. So I'll say this to you: change is not just for you, it's for those that come after you. Change is not just for you, it's for what, who, those coming after you. So now Like, for me, I could have whatever material thing that I want, right? But I don't trip. Like, because I stood in the gap and, and I broke all of that, whatever that was on my family, I'm okay with me. I'm okay with if I decide to go buy a hybrid car, a little Prius, I'm okay with that and could care less what people say. I'm okay if I want to go buy a Benz. I'm okay if I want to shop at the thrift store, or I can go and, and have a, a designer come to the house and bring me some clothes, or go to Neiman Marcus, whatever. But those things don't matter to me anymore like they did before I stood there and took the blows and saw what really, really mattered. It's not the stuff. That's just an added bonus, but it's not the stuff. So you have to understand that you are supposed to be the catalyst for those coming after you is what you have to do. And for me standing in that gap, when I tell y'all I went through some things emotionally, but it was a breaking that had to happen because there was something on the inside that said, April, you got more in you than this. It's more, it's more than food stamps and EBT cards. It's more to life than, than public housing. It's more to life than being in relationships with a man that will run your face into the wall. And be— and domestic violence is more to life than being mistreated. It's more to that. And I don't know where that glimmer of hope came in, but the hope was there. But the reason why it worked is because I took action and I went through the emotional pain that came with the change that was needed. And everybody will say, I want this, I want that, but they're never really willing to go through the emotional change. And I tell my clients, I said off the rip, and it's in my contract, when you work with April Mason LLC, please be aware, all hell will break loose in your life now. So don't retreat. We got to keep working together because what will happen is when you decide I'm gonna change Everything that can come against you will. I had one of my clients say, Miss April, my house caught on fire. I'm like, I hate that it happened, but we got to be strong in this because you're making changes. You're making changes. Would you say, Demetrius, I'm a man and sitting here in tears you're telling my story. I— you know what, whoever my story can help— that's why I say when I get on a stage, I'm never nervous. And some people would say, oh, that's just being arrogant. No, that's because I know my assignment on my life. And crying is good, but you gotta want more than where you are. So 2017 will be the same freaking year for you if you don't make a conscious, intentional decision to think about what you're thinking about, change what you're thinking about, and do something completely different than what you would do. Start small. That's why I gave you your first assignment. Your first assignment is to program your phone to go off 3 to 5 times a day with whether it's your favorite scripture, um, your affirmation. And when you say your affirmation, you say, I am and I have. So for my ladies that want a husband, I'll say this. You say— you program your phone to say, I'm thankful that I have an amazing husband that loves and supports me, and I do the same for him. I am a woman of virtue. I am an asset woman, and I am so happy that I bring more to the table than my appetite. I am a man that is capable. I am a man that is enough. I am thankful that I am blessed with a woman that accept me as is, and she empowers me to be a better man. Okay, okay, I'm just saying, that's what you say. I am and I have, not I want. Because when you want something, you gonna always have your face pressed up against the glass trying to look for it and you try to get it and window shop. So that's how you write whatever it is that you want and program it in your phone. Phone. Would you say 3 to 5 times a day? Got it. Starts tomorrow. No, start today. Tomorrow ain't promised. Start today. And you can— what time is it here? It's what, 3? It's 3:40 here in Atlanta. You can program your phone to go off at 5 o'clock. I— my phone goes— I'm an early bird, so I get up at like 5:30 in the morning. So my phone goes off 5:30, 8:30, 11:30, and 3:00. Cuz in them times, somebody going to say something to do something to try to piss me off. And even if I do go get off on this little tangent on a whole nother level of pissivity, my phone will go off and it will bring me back. Okay, April, this is what you supposed to be doing. Let— don't let that get to you, cuz you know people going to be people. Bring it back in. And my phone goes off and it reminds me to bring it on back in. Okay, so set your alarm. Before you set your alarm, no, write out what you really want and don't look at the how. And I taught this message last year at a— for organization that booked me to come speak, and I talked about most people don't dream because they don't know how the dream is going to manifest. That's not my problem. That's not my problem. The how is never my problem. My only requirement from the onset is to believe that I can have it and know specifically what I want and know that I'm enough and I'm deserving of it. Most people don't think big because they don't think they're deserving of it. You gotta know that you're deserving of it. So ladies, nobody sees your phone but you. It's okay to write down exactly what it is that you want, because sometimes you'll say, I want it, but I'm— I, I need it, but we'll— but we'll but and cancel out. Don't do that. Write it out, and it might feel a little funny writing out exactly what it is that you want. You're probably gonna feel a little funny, I'm gonna tell you that, because when I started, I'm like, do I really— should I— am I supposed to be wanting that? And the reason why is because I didn't know how it was going to happen. So I was looking at my limited resources, and I often told you guys a story. For those of you that are new to me, hey, uh, but don't know the story, I started my with $50 from a welfare check. I'm homeless, and I started a gift basket business. And I had a dream about the gift basket business, but I just didn't start it right away because I was wondering about the resources. It wasn't until I made the solid decision to say, all right, I'm gonna try this gift basket thing, that the resources I needed came to me. Meaning every day I used to go to the same library so I could log on to Black Planet back in the day, and I never saw anything that, you know, that I needed to change my life or my situation. When I made the decision to say, all right, I'm gonna start this gift basket business, that's what I'm gonna do. The very next time I went into that very same library that I go into every single day, it was a row of gift basket business video VHS, how to start a gift basket business. And there was a magazine called the Gift Basket Review magazine. I was not able to see it before because my blinders were on and I did not know what to look for. I always teach you guys, random thoughts equals random results. It wasn't until I got specific about starting that gift basket business that the resources came to me. So you got to get out of random and get intentional. So write out what you want, be bold with it, make it scare you a little bit, and then from there start changing how you think. Use your phone to help you do that. It's very scary. To think bigger than your means. And then I start to learn that ain't my problem. I said I wanted to travel. Did I always have the money to travel? Nope. That ain't my problem. I just know I want to travel. Then all of a sudden, as a speaker, I started to get to travel all over the place using my gift. My gift made room for me to do the very thing that I wanted to do. Travel and get paid for it. I didn't even put the paid for it part in there. I just said I wanted to travel. So you got to know what you want in this life because we get one. And I always tell my clients, if you already on rock bottom, what the hell do you have to lose? What you got to lose? What do you have to lose by thinking bigger and you already don't have what you want? What, what, what? You already broke. You already driving that raggedy car. You already living in the neighborhood that you don't want to live in. So what more do you have to lose by thinking bigger. And a lot of times it has to do with us not believing we deserve it. And where does that freaking foolishness come from? Where does it come from? The belief that you're not enough. The belief that you can't have what you want. Why? Why don't you believe that you're fantastic and you can have whatever it is that you want? Why not? You already not where you want to be. So you got to remember, majority of fear is a choice. You're choosing to be fearful. Like my grandbaby, about 2 months ago, I guess somebody hit a light pole in our area and all the lights went out suddenly. She and I were playing and she said, sweetie— she calls me sweetie— Sweetie, I'm scared. I said, Leah, why are you scared? She said, because it's dark. I said, who says dark equals scary, being scared? She said, huh? I said, why are you scared of the dark? I said, the dark you don't have to be scared of. I said, let's finish playing. So we started playing in the dark. If I would have went with, ooh, it's scary, she would have embraced that at 4 years old and started to think for the rest of her life that darkness equals scary. I had to say, no, no, no, babes, we gonna play. Let's go. So I picked up my phone and I put the flashlight on. I was like, oh, we about to play. I said, okay, we're in the woods, Leah. We're in the woods and we're on our way. We're on our way somewhere in the woods. Where are we going, babe? And all of a sudden that fear thought she had turned into her using her imagination to create this imaginary place that she and I went. I don't remember where we went, but she didn't create it someplace. She said, okay, we gonna— but she don't say pretend. She said, we gonna pretend. We were gonna pretend, sweetie, that we gonna— we gonna pretend. So it goes back to my original words when I first started this. Why do you believe what you believe? My grandbaby would grow up believing that darkness equals scary if I would not— if I would not have renewed my mind and my thinking. I would have just said, yeah, it's scary, huh, babe? Come on over here so we don't be scared. If I would not have renewed my mind, because that's what most people would say. But because I understand that I was trained to be a certain way, and it didn't— it's not making sense. It wasn't the very way that I was trained wasn't equaling out to what they say. I need to change it. I needed to figure it out. So I don't teach my grandbaby, and I teach my children from a different way. Another day, my— well, that's right, yesterday my daughter's boyfriend was over at the house, and I asked, I said, so why you like my daughter? And I said, don't give me no general answers. And one of the things he said that stuck out that he said was, she's very mature in the way that she thinks, is not like your average 22-year-old. And I smiled inside because I knew it was— a lot of that had to do with me standing in the gap, taking the blows so she wouldn't think the way the average 22-year-old would think, which is why she owns a house with good credit and, and you know, a budding entrepreneur ready to quit her job in the next 6 months to pursue her gift and her dream of— right, well, she's already written 2 books. She's at 21 years old. So I wasn't thinking about that kind of thing. That's not what I was thinking about at 22. I had 3 babies at 23, so I wasn't thinking about that. But in order for her not to be like me at that age I had to stand in the gap. So as I end this, because I gotta go on to the Walmart, um, ask yourself this question: is me making a change worth it for those coming behind me? Do I want my children to go through the same things that I went going through. Because you got to remember, you can only teach your children what you know. So if you don't make a shift, neither will they. I had to make a shift so my family could be better than me. So when I say I'm tired, I'm like, oh y'all, I'm tired. They don't have a problem saying, oh Mama, we bought you a new purse, or we bought you a gift, or, you know, send me all kind of little goodies and stuff, because they know I'm just now being able to woosa just a little bit. Well, a lot of it because I'm just now coming down and being able to see the fruits of my labor and all the blows that I've taken. I'm being able to see that I'm okay now with letting my kids go because of what's been instilled in them. I'm okay. You know, I told my daughter, I said, I'm not sure if I'm going to be living in Atlanta, but it's almost like my good friend, Miquel, she says, April, you're like the Touched by an Angel lady. You'll go from place to place. And she said, I believe God sends you place to place, and you'll go and you go empower people's life, and you go work some things out with people that you never meet. You like this little angel running around, and then you're going about your business. You'll set them up and you're going about your way. And I kind of looked at my life, and, um, it is— I've always, you know, done that, not even realizing that's what I did. So with my children, I said, you know what, You're, you're stable. You got a home, you got a job, you have your business, you have a good man in your life. I feel okay now with leaving because I'm secure in what I placed in you. And so I can go off and do what I want to do. I'll be in San Diego, um, next month, and then right after that I'll be in Houston. So I'm just going to go visit different places and see Okay, April, do you want to live in Atlanta or do you want to live somewhere else? Because I can, you know, at this point in my life, because my— from 18 until, um, well, really like now, I've been a full-time mama taking care of 3 people. Now it's my time to soar, and they're okay with that. And what they've done is said, Ma, please understand, you've already imparted the seeds, we gonna be good. And if they not good, they know to pick up the phone, pick up the phone and call. So with that, your change has everything to do with those coming behind you. Some of you ask, how do you find your gift? A lot of times our gift always involves helping the other people. But if you won't help yourself, you won't be able to help your business. So what business am I in? My name, my company is April Mason LLC, and I'm a life redesign and business strategist is what I do. I help people redesign their lives. So pretty much I'm a life coach, life and business coach is what I do full-time. Okay, y'all keep answering the question, or just look at, look at my, um, my banner at the top of my Facebook page. Look at that up at the top. And it'll tell you exactly what I do. Our website is being redesigned, and I wasn't taking on cloud, kind of chilling out in 2015 and '16. I'm kind of really chilling out, learning what I need to learn, being intentional about what I want. And now I'm ready to— I'm ready to, as the kids say, ooh, kill 'em in 2017, because I know exactly what it is that I want, and I'm intentional about everything. And sometimes you have to look at maybe my surroundings just isn't right. Maybe I need to get away from those that I need to, you know, that I'm around. So just understand that your 2017, darlings, will not be anything like what you about to go to New Year's Eve service and say it's gonna be, unless you make the shift in your mind and your thinking, the people you hang around. I go through my phone often, and you have to have a purpose for being in my phone. Phone. Like, when my phone rings, I know exactly, exactly who it might be. You don't see random people just calling my phone. My phone sometimes goes a day or so without even ringing because I'm around a lot of people, but I don't have a whole lot of close friends. I have— my circle is extremely small, um, for that, for that that close network of people that I have. So you have to just make the adjustments and realize that your change is not just for you, darlings. It's for those coming behind you. And mamas, my single mamas, I know it's hard. I've done it, been there, done that, and I'm still doing it as a single mom. But in order for your kids not to be the way you are, you got to make that adjustment, and it's gonna require something to you. It's gonna require for you to upgrade you, okay? An upgrade is required. So the only thing my daughter did like me that pissed me off was get pregnant. She got— she had a full ride to FAMU, had sex the first time and got pregnant, and I was livid. And, and I probably— I know I was wrong, but I just couldn't bring myself to even really communicate communicate with her her first 8 months of her pregnancy because I was so distraught. Because I'm like, I'm fighting so hard so you don't do what I did. That's the only thing that she did that, um, that was like me that burnt me up. But of course, y'all know I love my grandbaby, my Mookie Mookie. She loved her Christmas gift. I got her an Easy-Bake Oven because I'm all about a woman being domesticated. And I'm not saying that's all you got to do, but know how to do something, okay? No, know how to— know how to do a little something. Um, so she, she got her little Easy Bake Oven, so make sure she, um, she knows how to do a little something-something, you know. She got her some pearl earrings because I'm a pearl girl. Pretty much all my jewelry is pearl because I always tell her, ladies wear pearls, ladies wear pearls. So I wanted to, um, you know, instill feminine qualities and feminine um, ideas inside, you know, my grandbaby. And everybody might not agree with it, and that's fine, but over here in the Mason household, my girls will be ladies at all times. I know, right? Who's angry with all these angry faces? Child, don't even be bothering, because all I look at that is y'all be helping me get my views up. But even with the angry faces, so I don't— it doesn't, um, it doesn't bother me. But like I was saying, getting back to what I said before I end, ladies, my single ladies, please break the cycle with your children. Break it. Go through what you need to go through. And then don't forget to take care of you, okay? Take care of you. And sometimes you got to tell them kids to go sit down, it's about me right now. And be okay with saying no without giving an explanation. So I'm just wanted to share, uh, that piece with you guys. I really hope that you got something out of it. If you didn't watch from the beginning, go back to the beginning, um, and watch it and do your homework. Know what you want. Be laser targeted with what you want. If one of the girls in the group, she wrote, she wrote, well, um, Miss April, I felt a little funny because all the other women, they said they wanted businesses and money and their finances. I wrote that I wanted a husband because honestly, I'm, I have a business, but I would really prefer to be a wife. And I said, own that. Own it. I said, own what you want. I said, I was in the same position. I became successful almost like by default. That was not my initial thing to do what I do. I wanted to be a wife and build an empire with my husband. That was my— and I had to acknowledge that. I kept pushing that away, pushing that away, pushing, pushing that away because no, April, go get your money, girl. Go make your six figures. Do what you got to do. But I wasn't happy with that because how I'm wired and how I am programmed was to be a true helpmate to the man that I'm supposed to be with. But that just didn't happen based upon decisions and choices that I made. So it put me in the leadership position of my household. But like I told her, if you want a husband, own it. So what other women are not saying that? So that's on them. They want one, they do, trust me, they do. But they don't believe that they should— they can have it, or they're in the right position to have it. I gotta get my money right, I gotta get this right now, right? But every man that I know that's married, especially my closest friends, they didn't care if a woman made $10,000 or $5,000 or $100,000. That's not what determined if that made her a good wife. So whatever it is that you want, own it and stop listening to the buts, or I know you want that, but you got to look at statistics, and statistics said that most men are blah blah blah blah blah, black men are— get that out your vocabulary, get that out your mind. When you operate from a place of lack, all you ever see is lack around you, okay? Always believe in the abundance. If you think that there is a lack of anything around you, or you use lack as an excuse, there will never be what you need around you. Operate from a place of abundance and understand that whatever you need is right there. You just gotta believe there's a— but stop listening to what all these these folks are saying, girl, get out, put that Cosmopolitan magazine down, put the Essence down, reading the columns of 5 ways to know if he likes you, 10 ways to seduce your man, 5 ways to get him to play, to play mind games so he don't— that's some crap. Quit that. The man that's for you, the woman that's for you, you ain't got to do all that. You ain't— you can never say the wrong thing to the right man or right woman. Is it what it this. But we get all of these different, uh, things in our minds, and we just— what they say, but, but you got to remember, majority of black men are in jail, but then you got a percentage of this one other gay, and then they're down low, and then you have this percentage of— man, quit it. In your world, if you continue to abide by that, that's just what it will be. But if you create a world that says There's men everywhere. There's good men everywhere. There's good women everywhere. There's amazing business ideas and opportunities for me everywhere. There's money-making opportunities for me everywhere I go. I am loved and appreciated and respected everywhere, everywhere where that I go. When you start speaking from an abundant place versus what you're— what you think the reality is, like, I wanted them people like this. I'll look at the reality of a but I act like I don't see it because I operate from— I had to learn how to project onto myself who I wanted to be, even though I might not have been that. And until— and I had to project those thoughts that I could be that woman because my thing was I always wanted to be this classy, elegant type of woman. I always wanted to be that soft and gentle woman, but because of my my background and what I've gone through, it caused me to be real rough and aggressive. But I never wanted to be in that place. So I start to think of myself as that woman, and I started to look at women that I love. And my two, my two women that's just like I model myself after are Shirley Ralph and Diane Carroll. When I'm out and dressed and all that, people like, oh my God, you remind me of Diane Carroll. My mother is the one that brought it to my attention because I didn't really— I wasn't really thinking about it, um, on that level. And then my mom said— I posted the picture on my Facebook page— my mom said, this is you, and it's always Diane Carroll. She's like, you remind me of her. And it went back to make me think back, April, when you were going through your transition, you had to pick a model for what you wanted to be like, and it was Shirley Ralph was number one and Diane Carroll was number two. And I had to work on the aggression that I had. Why did I have the aggression? Why was I upset? Why was I disappointed? What was it? And when I started identifying those things in my past, that's when I was able to let it go and start to become the woman that I wanted. And I used the examples of those women. People would always say, oh my God, you are so confident, where did you get that from? Um, I got it from Shirley Ralph when she was on It's a Living and Moesha. That's what, that's what I modeled myself after. I watched her mannerisms, I watched how she talked to her husband, or on Moesha. I, I watched her gentle nature and her gentle spirit, and I became that. I talk about that deeper in our women's group though, fellas. I can't let y'all know everything, but I became that. I picked someone that modeled what I wanted to be because I knew I wasn't happy with the person that I had become. My anger, my 12 years of molestation, the domestic violence that I went through, the rape that I went through, the being homeless, the divorce shaped me into a woman that I created that I didn't like. My experiences created me. I didn't want that because I've always been— with all of that trauma moved off the table, I've always been a gentler calmer woman. Now I may have something to say here and there, but I knew when and when not to. But when you just don't care no more, I would just get loose-lipped and say whatever crap I want to say, okay? But now coming back to the middle one and balancing it out, it had everything to do with me making the choice to change and morph into the woman that I wanted to become. And it's the same thing for the fellas. Find somebody Find somebody and say, this is the type of person that I want to be, and then start looking at the characteristics, their personality, their, um, uh, character, integrity, and just start to see what they're doing and start to reprogram who you are. Would you say Cancers rule and win? Is that what that is? I gotta come to Rockford, Illinois, talk to the women's ministry. Well, y'all know y'all can always go to my website, AprilMason.com. I wasn't really taking too many requests this 2016 because I was, I was healing from my surgery and I was really, you know, deciding on what I wanted to do. I wasn't really, wasn't pressed to do much, but now 2017 will probably be a big travel year for me and a lot of speaking engagements, and I'm taking on new clients. I'm ready for that now after I I, you know, went through my surgery, healed from that, so I'm good. So yes, I will always be able— available to come and speak at your women's ministry, your, um, your, uh, events, your whatever you need me to speak for. Keynote. I do a lot of keynotes. I was doing a lot of keynotes. I'm down for that. Just go to my website, aprilmason.com. It's under construction because we're getting ready to launch the new site. But I just wanted to encourage you and share that with you, um, today, the day after Christmas, because I know this the, um, the time that everybody's coming up with their New Year's resolutions. And I don't want you to come up with a resolution that's not going to challenge you and require you to think different. You can't create a new life without creating a new mind. Love y'all. Let me go get— let me go get my mani-pedi. Go do my mani-pedi, uh, at the house because it don't look— it look crazy as all get out, um, here in Georgia. And yesterday it was like a sunny California day. So love y'all. Think about what I said and rewatch this. Please share it. Please, please, please share it. Rewatch it as many times as you need to. If you can watch an hour-long reality show, you can watch this. Okay, bye-bye.