Challenge Your Mind Part 1 - Coffee with Chrystal #alittleQC

Good morning, y'all. Good morning. Hey, Jesse! Jesse's watching. Good morning, good morning! I see you, Iowa and Florida, Oklahoma, Chicago. Um, y'all, my computer is frozen, so I'm sitting here waiting on it to unfreeze so that I can put myself on screen. So, okay, I think I'm about there. I'm almost there. Here I come, here I come. I'm trying new things, y'all. This is what happens when you try new things. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, it's always something. Come on, Jesus, I need to take this off the screen. Okay, yay! I think I got it. I think I got it. Okay, so here's what I'm trying new because I'm a geeky girl, and I'm going to go ahead and tell y'all what's up with my situation today. I'm raising this up, y'all. Okay, okay, so for those of y'all who are slightly attentive You will realize that my camera looks different this morning, and that's because I'm trying something new. I'm trying a new camera situation, but I think the new camera situation might be overloading my CPU on my computer. Y'all, good morning, good morning, good morning. I'm trying to get myself situated. Oh, oh my goodness. Okay, Lord help me, Jesus. Okay, if you've never been here before, my name is Chrystal Evans Hurst. You can find out more about me at chrystalevanshurst.com. Yes, I see you, South Carolina, Austin. Good morning, good morning, Pittsburgh in the house. You— hey y'all, see you jumping on on Instagram. And there's a few of you, few hundred of you on YouTube and, and Periscope and all the things. I'm gonna have to train myself. I've been looking at my laptop for all this time and I have to look at a camera. Trying to, I'm trying to get myself together. I've got my coffee. Hi Houston, Canada, Montreal, Massachusetts. I say coffee, it's tea. I have tea. I'm drinking hibiscus again this morning. Why don't you tell me what you're drinking? And while you wait for you to put those things in the comments— listen, Israel, I see you. Awesome. While I'm waiting for you to share what you're drinking this morning, maybe you're just drinking, you know, bottled water. That works too. I am here again today. I had plans about what I was going to talk about, and then I thought Maybe I should just continue what I didn't finish yesterday because I think I went off on a tangent yesterday. Thank you. You said you look beautiful. Thank you, y'all. That's what happens when you take a bath. Somebody say glory for the, for the hot water. I see y'all drinking iced coffee and detox tea, um, from Guyana. That's where my mother's from. Yay! French roast. Franklin, Tennessee. I see you drinking black tea. Cinnamon dolce coffee pot. Come on, somebody! Fresh juiced celery. Yes, I love it. Turmeric latte. Y'all are healthy. Y'all are healthy people. Super strong coffee. Whole Foods is out of hibiscus. You better order some from Amazon. It may take them a while. May take them a while to get it to you, but they get it to you eventually. Let me see if I can fix my camera here. I'm gonna do that, back up just a little bit. My eyes are watering, they're always watering. So y'all, good morning. I love seeing what you're drinking, you're eating cereal, lean shake, going through Starbucks, in the Starbucks line. Be careful. So yesterday on the live, y'all, Let me take this gum out of my mouth. Yesterday on the live, um, I was talking about Challenging Your Mind, and I ran out of— well, I didn't run out of time, I just had too much to say apparently. And so, um, if you missed that one yesterday, it was Challenging Your Mind, and I talked only about the first part of that, which is, um, which is learning God's word. I basically said the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Read God's word, learn God's word, because when you start there, it makes so many other things make sense. I think so many other things make sense. And so, um, but because I had plenty to say about that, I was like, okay, I was at 7:45 in the morning Central and was like, I'm going to have to roll into another day because, you know, it is what it is. I had plenty to say. Um, I want to tell you all today's a very special day because it's May 1st. We're in a new month, y'all, in 2020. And, um, today also is the day where we have opened up the Inner Circle for the other levels. So, um, you can come in and be a co-producer and get a shout out and get some bonus stuff, or you can come in and join journeys and get coaching and get teaching and get access to community groups and all those fun things. And so we opened that up today. Um, and so if you are wanting to participate with us in May for our 21-day journey where we talk about, um, who you are, how God made you, uh, appreciating your gifts and learning about your abilities and honoring your passions and your interests and maximizing your personality and your nature so that you can do your part to get out of you what God put in you. That's what we're going to be talking about for 21 days. And then, um, after that, if you are enjoying yourself and want to continue, in June we'll start another 90-day journey. So I'm so excited about this 21-day thing. Y'all, y'all listen, Poor, poor Monique. Poor interns. Y'all, we've got a team of 8 interns who are rocking it. People are like, sometimes, why do you— how can you do all the things that you do? Cause y'all, I'm not out here doing these things by myself. I mean, don't get me wrong, I did stay up late last night prepping, prepping Inner Circle stuff. I did. I did, and I prayed to God that I wouldn't oversleep this morning. But you have to understand, there's so many things that a lot of people stay up late doing, or getting up early doing, or doing while their kids are napping. And we do it because we really, really love— we love setting the stage to make sure whether it's a podcast or a blog or YouTube video or Inner Circle stuff, that there's great stuff happening. So if that sounds of interest to you, Check it out. And then y'all, we are about to cross the 5,000 women mark in the Sister Circle group. And y'all, if you, if you, it's my fault. If you're not in and you tried to get in 2 days ago, it's my fault. Because once you cross the 5,000 women mark in the Sister Circle group or any Facebook group, there are certain things you can't change. And I've been taking my time making sure that certain labels and addresses and things are the way I want them, because once we cross over, I can't change them. So if you're there hanging out waiting on your acceptance, it's coming. I just had to do some housekeeping first, but I think I figured that out and I will take care of it today. Yes, isn't that great? 5,000 people on there. It's awesome because y'all, I'm not the only person with answers out here in these streets. Um, the great thing about the Sister Circle, cause it's an idea. Okay. The Sister Circle is a concept that I'm trying to, um, live out loud in a variety of ways. So then there is the Sister Circle online because maybe you don't have a great Sister Circle with your neighbors or your family or your coworkers or your small group at church, because really all of those are your in real life Sister Circles. Okay, we all have them, right? There's at least somewhere where there are people that you know and people that appreciate you and that you appreciate. Maybe you run with them, maybe you— your kids go to the same daycare or preschool or Mother's Day out. So you should have your own sister circle in real life. But the fun part of digital media is that we get to meet people from everywhere all over the world who can give us their wisdom or their experience or teach us a recipe or give us their one-up or share something, a link online. Like, that is the beauty of it. And so that's what the Sister Circle is in concept and how I'm trying to bring this concept into different realities. The Facebook group is one way, the Inner Circle is another way, the, um, the retreat, the in-person retreat, y'all. And we, we want to have it. We're doing— we're trying to be wise, but we, we're, we're planning on having it. In October, unless God says something different. So just know it's not gone, but we're just being patient and waiting on wisdom. The retreat is one way, um, and then y'all, at the end of May, Memorial Day weekend, Friday night and Saturday day and night, um, the online event, the Sister Circle online event is another way. It's another way that we're bringing this to reality. And here y'all, here's the belief. The belief is that when God said in the Bible, Titus 2:5, teach the women how to— this was actually something that was super important to my mom. She would say, y'all, she would say, Tony, talking to my dad, Tony, women just need for it to be practical. They just need somebody to show them how to do it. So we had all these wonderful things at our church where women could teach each other, connect, We're still doing that at our church in Dallas. And this is my way, my— it's like my thing. It's my thing to connect you all. It's my thing. Makes me excited. Can you tell I'm excited? So here's what you need to understand. I'm gonna say this and I'm gonna jump into challenging your mind because I'm trying— I'm answering all the questions so that, uh, uh, hopefully you can ask me questions, but hopefully I'm going to answer most of So the Inner Circle, that, um, that basically gives you extra stuff. That's all it is. It gives you extra stuff and it gives you a way— for so long people would say, how can I help you? How can I help you? How can I support what you do? So this became a way for people to support what I'm doing, um, whether that's fees for hosting the online stuff or the streaming software or the camera or the mic. That's what that does. Um, also It allows me to give extra bonus stuff. So that's what the Inner Circle is. The Facebook group is free. Just come in there and we have a good time. We're gonna have a good time talking and yapping about real stuff. Okay. Hey, Kim Gaffney, I love you. And then the online event. Okay. So here's the deal. The online event is May 22nd and May 23rd. Tickets, registration. I haven't even figured out what we're going to call it. Passes. I don't know. It'll be, it'll open up. Next week. Okay. Next week. We're working hard on it right now. It'll open up next week. And then here's the fun part. If you're in the Inner Circle, the live sessions, the live sessions, the live main keynote sessions you get because you're in the Inner Circle. Okay. But also if you're in the Inner Circle, you get $20 off of the, of the registration price. Okay. So it's me, and I'm inviting a bunch of women who don't even know they've been invited yet, but their invitations are coming. Somebody say, just do the thing. I've been sitting here stressing, going, can we do it? Do we have the technology? Do we have the manpower? Do we have this? In everything I've ever done in my life where I felt a bubbling up about it, like a bubbling up about it, sometimes my head gets in my way. Like, it's, it's actually a scientific thing. Let me, let me teach you something real quick while I'm making announcements. Um, you probably have heard people talking about lizard brain. You know, it's the, it's the back of your brain. It's the animal part of you. It's the instinct part of you. I'm not calling you an animal. I'm saying that there are things that God gave us that are a part of our makeup, that are a part of us staying alive and surviving and smelling fear and intuition and all. Okay, there's a part of you that turns on when something gets hard. That starts going, ooh, I'm nervous, maybe I can't do it. It's, it's the, it's the place where, where good fear and bad fear lie, because there's good fear. You need to know when you need to get out of Dodge. You understand what I'm saying? You need to know when it's, you're not safe and you need to move. You need to be able to respond to that. And then you also though need to understand that sometimes that fear brain starts telling you to be afraid and there's nothing to be afraid of. And the only way that you push past— uh, I feel like I feel overflow happening right now. I'm not supposed to start getting all excited yet, but I am. The only way that you get rid of the bad fear, the only way, is if you push past it, because then you teach yourself, oh, there's nothing to be afraid of. So y'all, I keep talking about my book only because it's in here.. And some of y'all have it and y'all have been telling me, listen, it's like a manual because I have to keep opening it up to stuff that I need. So let me tell you where this is at. This is in the chapter called Coach Your Mind, chapter 23. And I tell this story about how, um, my youngest son was scared of the dark, okay? And so the closet was open and so he would be freaking out, Mommy, there's something in the closet, you know, something's gonna— and so I would come in and the only way that I could get him to not be afraid was to turn the light on and for us to actually look and see what's in there. And then once he faced it, once he faced the thing that he was afraid of, yeah, he did still want me to close the door, but then he wasn't afraid to stay in the room. He was like, oh, okay, now I know. Now, now I know what's in there. So since I know what's in there, I'm not going to be afraid. I can actually stay in here because I now know what I was so afraid of, and it's actually not a big deal. Okay. It's not a big deal. So what, that's what happens for me when sometimes I feel, and it's very frustrating for my team. Like I have to say, I'm sorry to my existing current team members and my honorary team members because my old interns know in a hot second, I'll be like, y'all, I need your opinion about something. We use Voxer to communicate and I'll Vox them. And I'll be like, so y'all, I know you're not currently interns, but once you're an intern, you're always an intern and we're friends. So I need your help. And I'll be stressing out about what to do. And then I take too long to make decisions. It's one of my faults as a leader. I take too long to make decisions and I'm growing in that because amen, we're all growing. But I want you to know that sometimes the very best if it's not a legitimate fear, if it's not a, a fear, okay, if it's not a for real fear and, and you're just making stuff up in your head, that's called— that's what I called in, in this book She's Still There in chapter 23, a monster in your mind. And the only way that you deal with it is by getting those thoughts out of the dark. What are you afraid of exactly? Like, what is it? You know, what's the worst that could happen? If you fail, what's the worst that could happen? And most of the time, the worst thing that could happen ain't that bad. It's not that bad. We just have to say, I actually want this. I actually am dreaming about this. I actually am passionate about this. I actually desire this. And stop running away from us. What if— oh my gosh, I'm on a tangent and I haven't even gotten past the announcements. I mean, I have, I have things, y'all. I have notes. What if the very thing that you are the most afraid of is the very thing that you're supposed to do? And the reason why you have this mix of passion and excitement and heightened fear is because you, you, like the core of you, you are trying to rise up. And your logic is— it can't keep up. Do you know that often who you're supposed to be in this life and what you're supposed to do defies anything that you've seen? Do you know that a part of your fear might be because you've never seen it because you're supposed to go first? Do you understand that a part of the reason why you may be talking yourself out of the very thing that God is trying to talk you into is because God dreams bigger dreams for you than you could? Ever dream for yourself? Don't you know that fear, once you take it out of the closet and identify what the issue is, don't you realize that fear, the rise of fear, the uncertainty, the questions, don't you realize that those very things might be the very thing that's telling you you ought to do the thing? I think that might be a sermon right there, or a quote, or something. There were too many things in that sentence. I saw early on a friend of mine named LaCracia, uh, Holly, sign on. And I love her. LaCracia has made birthday cakes for my families and wedding cakes. And, and y'all, but I remember when she wasn't a baker. I remember when she didn't have her own business. And you want to know why she didn't have her own business? Because she was working, she was doing the thing, she was paying her bills. But she had this thing on the inside of her. She was like, I wanna I wanna, I wanna bake. I wanna have my own something. And she went and she learned and she took the classes and she let me taste all the cakes and said, give me good feedback. And I'm trying to do the thing. And y'all, now she's living her dream. Like she's living her dream of y'all creating crazy looking cakes. I'm talking about stuff like she has made, like she took my dad's commentary. Um, and she made a cake. Like the commentary was a cake craziness. Like, for my mother, she has made like hats. Like, my mother would always wear hats. She made hats like birth— I mean, but y'all, not the homemade, I tried to make a birthday cake hat, like for real where you're in awe. And I just remember when she was trying to do it, trying to do it, trying to figure out how she could quit her full-time job and launch into her cake business. And I remember when she was doing both at the same time, you know, because it wasn't right to leave the big job. Then she had to— here's what it is, Then she had to take the leap of faith and say, I can't do— I can't fulfill my dream totally until I let go of the— until I let go of the safe. Now, she was wise with it. You got to be wise with it. But she did the thing. And I remember when she did the thing. Listen, Brex0713 on Instagram, you said, can I repeat the thing that should be a quote? I can't. And that's why I have Marissa on here and some other interns, because they are taking notes while I'm talking. Because I say things all the time that I didn't plan to say. And then we'll go back later and listen to it and find other quotes and things to share, because I cannot— I just cannot. I cannot. Okay, so y'all, okay, that was a whole— that was a whole thing. I just want to say, what are you dreaming for you? And then I want to know, how are you following the dreams that God has for you? Do you not know what the dreams are that God has for you? Well, That's all right. Half of us don't know what he put in us because we don't look. We don't look. We don't look. We're too busy. And the beauty of this quarantine season for many of us, not all, because I know some of y'all are in overdrive trying to teach kindergartners on Zoom and working at the local hospital overtime. But for a lot of us, it's been a whole shift of seasons, right? Because we're working from home and, and we, you know, and for all of us, we can't go to Best Buy and buy the geeky things that I've been trying to buy. I'm so glad Glad Competitive Camera in Dallas opens today because I've been needing stuff. And then I was trying to order stuff off of Amazon and then it was going to take a month to get here. I needed this one cord. And the reason why I have a new camera this morning is because I got the cord. The cord came yesterday. So anyway, y'all don't want to know about all that. It's my geeky stuff. Anyway, my point is, so there's like a whole course, y'all, I have on how to live a life you love because it starts with knowing who you are and the 21-day journey, which I'm cycling back around to what I started with. The 21-day journey in the Inner Circle. Okay, chrystalhurst.com/innercircle. That's kind of a mini version of that. It's a mini version of that. So that's what that is all about. Okay. Sorry, y'all. I was on a— whew, Jesus, help me. Help me. Okay. So I want to go ahead and I'm going to make this smaller so y'all can see me good. I don't want this to be a distraction for those of y'all who are watching on Facebook. And Instagram and all that. I see questions, so I'm going to launch into my chat. Oh, I forgot to tell you this. So the online event, here's what, here's what it's for. Yes, I want to inspire you. Yes, I want to motivate you. Yes, I want to invite friends from my Sister Circle who are probably— some of them are on here right now, don't even know they about to be a part of an online event because that's how I roll. I just make stuff up. And figure it out as I go. Um, here's what it is. I don't just want to inspire you and motivate you. I want to practically equip you to do the thing. There's the thing word again. I want you to be able to do the thing. I want to teach you how to study the Bible. How, how to do it. I want to teach you how to create a life-giving home. I want to teach you how to get your finances in order. I want to teach you, I want to teach you how to take good pictures for Instagram. I want to teach you what you can do to organize your photos. I want to teach you. And so the beauty of this is, um, that I don't know everything, so I'm going to come on and teach some stuff, but then I have wonderful friends who are going to come on and teach you some stuff too. Because here's the whole thing about the Sister Circle: we're simply better together. So it'll be me and friends that agree to join me, and we are going to teach you what we know. Um, I'm all about, you know, a retreat and an event and an online situation. I'm all about that. But I don't want it to just be raw, raw, raw, y'all. I need y'all to walk away from this and know this is how I'm going to live. Because we cannot come out of Corona, y'all, the same way we went in. Somebody say amen. I'm so churchy. The theme of this event is going to be focus. We're going to talk about what it means to nourish your soul, challenge your mind, and choose to live with your hands and in your everyday life with your family, how to do the thing. Okay, leading people. There will be some extra stuff for writers and speakers and all. Yes, I'm so excited. Okay, so that's, that's what I was supposed to say that I did not say. Okay, I said, I said what I was supposed to say. Team, are you happy? Did I do it right? Did I leave anything out? Okay. Hey, Joy Lynn Blake on Instagram, I see you. Hey, okay, so let me talk to you for a second. So yesterday I talked about challenging your mind. Hope you got your tea, enjoy that. And I did finally go and unearth my Bibles because we talked about the first step being the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and, um, how you can, um, learn— I have a framework for truth framework for truth by studying God's word. So I wanted to show you my Bible. Now I have a million, and I did show y'all a picture yesterday. I think I can put that back up on the screen. Let me see if I can do that. Praise the Lord, everybody. Let me see. Okay, there you go. There are the Bibles in the shelf in my office. Okay, um, so now those are not all the Bibles I own. And, and on Instagram— oh shoot, Instagram, I forgot. Y'all feel free to DM me because I forgot to put my pictures up yesterday. I'll put them up today. I'm sorry. Uh, but you can see I've got a parallel Bible with the NIV and the Message, reading them alongside each other. I've got the Message by itself, the Living Bible, the NET Bible. Got, um, a 4-trans— a Bible with 4 translations in it: New King James, New American Standard, uh, Amplified, and NIV. And one of the best ways to read the Bible— we talked about it yesterday— is to read it in different versions so that you will, um, you'll be able to, you know, to absorb what the interpretation of God's word is. Okay, but I also wanted to show you, this is my— this is my honker. This is the one that I put into my suitcase, and the people say to my carry-on when I travel, when I'm going to speak, um, what do you have in there? And I'm like, God's word. I like God's word, my Bible, y'all. My Bible, it's heavy, and I have some thin line Bibles, but the thing is, is I want to teach. Let me show you what happens when I write in my Bible. I want to teach from the, from the thing where I took notes. And I also— this is— I'm gonna give y'all a little bit of my speaking, my speaking situation here. I usually have notes that look like this. Now these are not my speaking notes, these are notes about the retreat and the 21-day experience, like announcement notes. But they kind of look like this, and I have notes like this, and then I write in them over here, and then I highlight things. And this is what I take with me to speak. And sometimes it's on paper and sometimes it's on my iPad, because then iPad lets me make last-minute changes. But here's what I want to show you about my Bible. So John 4, I have this, uh, you know, here's some last-minute notes I put in my Bible for speaking. But in John 4, um, is that what I want to show you? Yeah, John 4. We'll do John 4. Um, this is where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman. And, um, here's my Bible, okay, because I write in it. So if you can see that, you see all of my notes on the side here. And most of the time I write in pencil. Usually if I've been doing something in there, I've got sticky notes. And if you can see really closely You can see that there is some— there's some color in here. Uh, I can't do this backwards. There's color in here because I'm a wannabe inductive Bible study teacher. I say I'm a wannabe, y'all, because I'm a perfectionist, and then I keep starting, and then the colors aren't right, and then I'm— then I'm sad because I messed up my Bible. And the reality is, is It's, you know, it's all right. You just want to engage with the word. Any good teacher will tell you it's called active reading. It's active reading. That's what I tell my kids. They actively read when they use a pen to mark it up or they take notes. Here's another page in my Bible, okay? This is, this is my inductive study where we've got colors and things. And, and the good news is, is in this Bible, this Kay Arthur Bible, in the front she says, here's how you study the Bible for yourself. Okay, and then she even gives you some hints if you want to mark things up. And this is stressful for some people. I think it obviously was stressful for me, so I came up with my own system because all this is, y'all, is Kay Arthur's system. And then she said, oh, people, people like it, okay, well, I'll show you my system. But you know, we make our own systems. That's why I have my own planner, because I was doing something for myself and it was helpful to other people. So this is the Inductive Study Bible, and this is my favorite. Because I have room in it to write. Now, I haven't, I haven't cracked open my Tony Evans Study Bible, um, because it's so precious. He wrote in it for me. He said, to my beloved daughter. I don't want to mess it up. So, but, but the Tony Evans Study Bible is like this too. It has lots of room in it, and the difference is, is it has study notes. So Kay Arthur's Study Bible doesn't have any study notes because her philosophy is make up your own But I have a study Bible, y'all. I have a study Bible and I love it. Um, I had— before my dad's, I had an NIV Bible. And sometimes when I just needed my commentary to come along with me, you know what I'm saying? I just— the commentary, uh, the study Bible is great for that too. So, so you can have a commentary which explains the Bible, or you can have a Bible that has the study comment— the study commentary notes in So this is the Tony Evans Study Bible. Isn't this lovely, y'all? It's so beautiful. I want to get another one. Y'all, I have a special one. If you missed the episode with me and my dad, um, Broadman Holman— LifeWay was so kind to give Bibles to our family. Like, there were not even 20 that had my mother's picture in it, and my dad got to show my mother the Bible with her picture in it before she passed away. Sorry, hold on. Okay, okay, so here's the Tony Evans Study Bible. So you see there's plenty of room to write on the sides, plenty of room to write on the sides. You see that? Plenty of room, lots of room. But then your notes are on the bottom. So I'm pro Tony Evans Study Bible, I just don't want to write in it. So, um, So this will be a Bible that I read out of, probably. We'll see, we'll see. It's still new, you know how you don't want to break in new shoes quite yet? Kind of like that. But for the last, I don't know, I don't know, 10 years, that K. Arthur Bible has been— it's been the business, y'all. It's been the business. Okay, I want to show you one other thing. It's just a show and tell. Hopefully this is helpful to you. Then I'll talk about this— these other ways you can challenge your mind. This is the Bible that I keep on the side of my bed to just read. Now it's a one-year chronological Bible. I have to admit I haven't made it all the way through it. Um, so here's what, here's what I do. I've started and stopped wherever I am. So here's what I do to relieve the pressure, to relieve the pressure. Let me find, find where I actually did it so I could show y'all. But I marked this one up, you know, it's a paperback, it's a cheap book, and it's cool because then it aligns so many— so much of scripture, it repeats itself, but you get different angles. You know, like if you read the Gospels, they're the synoptic Gospels— Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John— same men telling the same story for the same period of time. And so if you read them at the same time, then you're not reading Matthew and all the stories and then Mark and all the stories. You're reading the story of this thing in Matthew and the same story of that thing in Mark, and then it helps you to line up the different viewpoints of things that happen in the Bible. Um, and it's kind of cool to read it like that. So, um, so when I just want to read— and I'm trying to find a spot where I've done it— when I just want to read, I pick this up and I enjoy that. And I have no problems at all marking in this because it was a paperback book and it was cheap. Oh y'all, I can't find it. I had it marked in my— when I, when I was getting it this morning, it dropped out. So what I do Okay, I'll just tell you. So what I do is when I am reading this, this Bible, okay, so this is April the 13th, okay? So I totally mark this up and I, and then I ask all the questions. If I have a question mark, a question, I leave a question mark and then I ask Tony Evans or I look it up. I don't understand this, I'm just reading it and I don't understand it, but I just read it. So I'm reading like 3 or 4 chapters at a time just to read And then I just make notes about what was bothering me, and then I look it up later. Okay, but what I do is— I've had this Bible for a few years, so this is April 13th— and what I'll do is write 2020 so I will know what year I read it in or how many times I've read it. So I could put 2019, 2020, 2022, and then I would see how many times I've done this day. Do you understand what I'm saying? So that way it kind of lets you keep track of what you've done and what you haven't done. So I recommend you get a Bible you can read, just read and enjoy. And then I, I recommend that you get a Bible you can mark up, um, because when you annotate— that's what marking up, marking up any book is called— when you annotate, uh, your reading, you're engaging with it. You're saying, this is what was important, this is where my questions are. 'Oh, this is quotable.' 'Oh, I need to remember this.' And I actually mark up my books that way. So, okay, so let me, let me talk to you beyond the Bible, how you can challenge your mind. Okay, how you can challenge your mind. I'm going to look down at my notes here. Learn something new. So number 1 was learn God's word. Number 2 is learn something new. Okay. Um, now here, here's what I'm talking about here, y'all. I told y'all yesterday that my grandmother was a wordsmith. She loved Scrabble and she, um, she loved word puzzles and all the things. And she said, baby, I'm just trying to keep my mind sharp, just trying to keep my mind sharp. So here's what's important for you to understand. Your brain is a muscle. Everything in your body is a muscle, and the more you use it, the stronger it gets. We know this to be true about our heart. We know this to be true about the muscles in our arms and our legs. We know this to be true about our musical abilities. If you don't sit down and play that Bach two-part invention every now and then, you know, you're going to get a little rusty. This is true about singing. Anything that you don't practice, you get out of practice for doing. And learning is no different. Your brain is no different. If you're not using it, You won't stay sharp. You won't stay sharp. So you need to, you need to, you, you need to use it. And learning something new is one way you use it. So what do I mean by that? Well, the easiest way to, to, to figure out what you want to learn new is to think about what you want to be able to do, what you're passionate about. So let me give you some examples for me. I have to treat myself. Soon to piano lessons. Now I know how to play the piano. I took piano lessons from age 5 to 15, uh, and I can play classical music like nobody's business, and I can play some things by ear, but I didn't really cultivate— my teacher was a, was a classically trained pianist, and that's what she taught me. So everything that I did about playing for ear came with me teaching myself, y'all. And by the time I started doing that, I was in college, and then I was working, and then I was a parent, and I just didn't have the time.. And there are some shortcuts. Some of you musical people know the circle of fifths and understanding progressions and different chords and making those work and calling out chord numbers in order to play. Like all of those things. I love music, y'all. Y'all know I sing a little bit, but I want to be able to play more of what I hear in my head. So a gift to myself will be piano lessons. I can do those online. I could do those, the same guy that teaches my boys, I can, I can say, hey, add me to your list. When you come by or when we meet up, I can, Do that. So, you know, I can do those, do that for me because I enjoy it. What would you like to learn? What would you enjoy learning more about? There's a podcast coming up soon where I interviewed a gentleman who's a professor of psychology, Art Markman at the University of Texas at Austin. And how I ran into him is because I took a class, see, learning something new on CreativeLive. CreativeLive is a place It's a subscription service where you can go on there to learn how to do Photoshop and InDesign and how to start your business and everything about not being afraid and learning how to draw. And, you know, it's a, it's a site that teaches you new things and it started mostly with artistic stuff. And then they branched into other things. And he was on there teaching a class about habits, why habits are so hard to develop, why they're so hard to maintain. How long does it take to develop a habit? Oh, this is wonderful. I love this. Renee on YouTube said, I am learning the cello at age 40. That's what I'm talking about. And my, my cousin Clarice learned the violin when she was in her 30s. And there are a lot of you all who didn't start anything until you were later on in life, and you were just like, I— this is something I've always wanted to do. So learning something new— Creative Live was a great, uh, photography thing, so I ran into Art Markman there. And he learned to play the saxophone as an adult to teach himself that he could learn something new. He's like, I always wanted to learn how to play. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that. So what is the thing that you can learn that you want to learn more about? Okay. So that's one of the ways where you can keep growing is learning something new and getting out there and just saying, I'm gonna do it. There are some tools that I wanted to give you for learning new things. First of all, y'all, I told you about CreativeLive. If you're a creative and wanna do creative things, but also it's got a lot of great content on there about starting a business, managing your money. It's kind of, it was built for people who were creatives who were building businesses. And so anything that they needed to know, stepping out outside of fear, the Adobe Suite, photography, video, and lighting, but also sewing and crafting and scrapbooking and all these different things. And also managing your business and not being afraid and habits. That's what that's for. But y'all, there's another thing called Lynda.com. Lynda.com, L-Y-N-D-A. You can learn a lot of things that are digital on there. And my library in this Metroplex has it for free, for free. So you don't have to pay the $25, $30 a month. You just can go to your library and say, what resources do y'all subscribe to? Check out your local library. Cause like y'all, libraries now are not just about books. They're about information and books is one way that information comes about. And a lot of times your library, um, your library has resources that are digitally available to you and you don't even know because you stopped going to the library as soon as you finished your research paper in the 10th grade. Check out your library, go online, there are free books to read and all that kind of stuff. And then here's my favorite, y'all, here's my favorite, uh, YouTube. Listen, y'all, YouTube is free. Somebody say amen. And you can learn how to do anything on YouTube. Okay, if you've ever seen the movie The Matrix with that wonderfully looking Keanu Reeves— I'm sorry, Jesse, you are so handsome and I forgot you were watching. Oh, but y'all, Keanu Reeves is a nice looking man as well. But anyway, but not as good looking as my husband Jesse is. So anyway, um, I mean, I'm not blind. Okay, so anyway, uh, anyway, so in that movie, right, and you know, it's of course sci-fi, but when they— Andrea, you said wow— but when they were, you know, when, uh, Keanu Reeves and his team, you know, Trinity and, uh, all the, all the people, Morpheus, you know, when they needed to learn something new, they were like, give me a download, you know. And then all of a sudden they'd learn how to fly a helicopter. Uh, Trinity said Uh, he's, he's like, do you even know how to fly a helicopter? And then she said, uh, not yet. And then she was like, give me the helicopter program and it downloads, right? And then all of a sudden she knows how to, she knows how to fly a helicopter. And obviously it doesn't work that quick. But what I'm telling y'all, we live in a day and age when you can download anything, anything you want to learn. There is a course for it. There is a, there's a mastermind for it, but then y'all, there's YouTube. Can I just tell y'all that I, I have— I had to close it so my computer would work, but I have usually about 50-something tabs open on my computer, and a lot— half of those sometimes are YouTube, because I am like, okay, how do I run this program? How do I work this camera? How do I, uh, how do you build a course? How do you build a community? How do you do this? How do you, how do you work YouTube? How do you— everything I'm learning to do, y'all. I mean, this whole thing started out because I was like, I got this software that I've been paying for that I need to figure out. It's supposed to help me stream. I need to figure out how to use this. So I got on YouTube and then I, and then I started doing it. So I've had a DSLR camera sitting here, y'all. I've had it for a few years and, uh, I used it to do video. Whenever you see my video looking crisp and clear, it's because I'm probably using my DSLR because my phone is 3 years, 4 years old. Um, but I couldn't connect it to my computer because I needed this cord. So then when I finally got the cord, y'all, then I had to get on YouTube and figure out how to make it work. How do you— now that I'm connecting it, how do I make it work? I don't know how to do it. I was like, download it. I don't know how to do it, but I do now. Download it. YouTube. Listen, if there's anything you want to learn how to do, you have no excuse. Anybody— and let me tell you a secret, let me tell you a secret— anybody who is out here in these streets selling you anything me included, okay? I would say 95% of what you are seeing sold to you online, pitched to you online, delivered to you online, that you are paying for, you can figure that out yourself. Let me tell you what you're really paying for. I know Monique is probably sitting there going, oh gosh, here Chrystal Hurst goes, she's supposed to— she's not supposed to say this. Let me tell you, let me tell you what you're paying for. And this Perfectly great for you to pay for it. Cause I paid for it. You are paying for somebody to save you time so that you don't have to Google it and figure it out the hard way and learn whether or not this works the hard way, or watch a million YouTube videos to figure out which one is the right one. You're paying for somebody who knows which instructions were the right instructions and the best instructions to walk you through the steps so that you don't have to figure it out the long way. But what I'm trying to tell you is that just like anything else, You can do it yourself and go to Home Depot and figure it out and you save some money, but it takes you time. Or you can pay somebody to come in and rip your bathroom out and do it for you because you don't want to be bothered with doing all that on your own and figuring it out the hard way. Either way, time is money. And if you have time and you have an internet connection, like my friend Ali Worthington said, with God and Google, you're unstoppable. So I just want to take away this mystery that if you can't pay for the course or you can't pay for the membership, if you can't pay for— Listen, you can learn anything if you can read a book. Okay? Beth Moore does not have a degree in theology, but many of us have done her studies. You wanna know why? 'Cause she's read the book and read a lot of other books that have taught her what we have either not had the time to study or have been unwilling to make the time for study. So we pay for the course and for the event because we want her to take all of her hours of study and condense it down into a 1-hour lesson for us. Do you understand what I'm saying? So what I'm telling you is you can learn anything you want to learn. You just have to decide if you want to do the work yourself, DIY, Google, YouTube, read a book. You know, some of y'all can't afford seminary. It's— it don't matter. It don't— it don't matter. And I'm not downplaying seminary. I'm saying if you want to have a concentrated time of pouring into theology and learning that, by all means, go and do the thing. I mean, I'm halfway through. But what I'm also telling you is go to the college, look up the class offerings, and ask for the syllabus from the professors. And whatever the books are that they recommend, rent them for your library, borrow them from your library, and read and grow. So don't look at your barriers for growth. Look at your opportunities for growth, because in this day and age, y'all, the opportunities are unreal. Even my dad— it's the Tony Evans Training Center. If you're trying to learn from Tony Evans and you're trying to do that, yes, you can learn from him free all day long. That's why there's a YouTube channel, and that's why there's social media and all these different things. And you can, um, watch, watch all of these sermons and grow for free. But some of y'all have said, nope, I want a structure to it. I want to walk through a class with homework and I want accountability and I want to walk through this. And so then there's the Tony Evans Training Center. Okay. Because sometimes we want somebody to spell it out for us and there's nothing wrong with that. What I want you to do is free your mind of what you can and can't do. Choose to learn something new, pick anything and just dig in. Do it yourself free, pay for it shortcut. It doesn't matter. Uh, let me give you an example. One of the things that we're doing with the Inner Circle is taking a lot of content, y'all, that I've just put out there over the years and putting it in there. So some stuff is new. There's a lot of stuff that's new, like these quarantine conversations. They go into the Inner Circle when it's their time to, you know, to go away, uh, from social media. But I'm giving everything away here, right? And then I put it over there. And then not only do I put it over there, but then I organize it. So somebody that's coming in doesn't have to dig all through my Facebook page and dig all through the YouTube page. You can, but if you want me to say, here, I've organized everything and I'm saying, here's where you begin with all of the stuff I've ever put out there for free, and I'm going to walk you through a pathway of learning what you love and how to engage and plan your life and set goals. And here's what you— if you want me to walk you through that and save you time, then that's what the Inner Circle is for. Do you understand what I'm saying? You have the power to learn anything you want, and you have the tools at your disposal if you have a doggone phone to learn anything you want. The sky is the limit. When Jesus in the New Testament said to these servants, uh, it gave the— gave a parable of a master leaving servants, and he said, I'm going to leave y'all talents, do something with them. Do something with them. And he left. And servant number 2, he took what he had and made more. And servant number 3 took what he had and made more. Servant number 1 hid his thing in the dirt. And then when the servant came back— and my dad has a whole sermon about this, about his motivations for hiding it— but let's just say that when the master came back and the servant showed up, the master said, what did you do, servant number 1? And servant number 1 said, well, I hid it because I wanted to make sure it was safe when you got back. And this— and the master said, something's wrong with you, boy. Something is wrong with you. I gave you a full— I mean, I said the sky's the limit. Go and do something with what I gave you. Go and maximize your potential. Go and invest in what I gave you. Use what you— what I gave you to invest and make more. And I'm saying some of us, y'all, are not investing. We're not investing in ourselves. We're not investing in our lives because we're not reading and we're not watching and we're not listening. We go to church every Sunday and we don't take notes. We don't memorize scripture. We're not digging deeper. When the pastor says, you know, he mentions a verse and says, when you go home this week, I want you to read this, and you don't read it, you're not investing. So you should always be learning. So I'm about to tell you the third thing which is, if you don't know anything else, this is how you can always be learning. So first you learn God's word, then you learn something new. Pick something, just pick something. What's interesting? What do you look at other people and say, oh, that's cool? Learn something. And then here's, here, here it is. Here's number 3. You ready? This is life-altering. It's life-altering. It's life-changing. You'll never be the same. You ready? Read. Read. Did you hear me? R-E-A-D. What? What do you read? I don't know. I don't know. Pick something. Go to your church bookstore when Barnes Noble opens back up. Go to Amazon and see what are the New York Times bestsellers if you want to read fiction. Go to Amazon, Christian women, just search that and books will come up. I don't know. What are you struggling with? Read about it. What, what do you have questions about? What is your problem? You have problems in your marriage? Read about it. You having problems in your, in your soul? You struggling with forgiveness? Read about it. You need to laugh? Google funniest book, funny books. I have a book on my shelf somewhere because y'all, books are a problem in this household. I, I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 bookshelves in my home. They're all over the place, in the, in the rooms, in game rooms, in living rooms, in— oh no, no, no, 12, 13, 14, 15. 15 because I didn't count my office. We homeschool, so that has added to the collection of books. But, but I picked a book once by Nora Ephron. Is that her name? Hold on, I'm gonna look it up. Y'all, I don't even know how I got the book. I think I got it from a garage sale and the lady told me that the book was hilarious, so I got it. And, um, y'all, I was laughing out loud. Now, y'all, somebody emailed me recently because there was another book that I recommended that I do love called Small Great Things, and, um, and it had language in it. And we did give a warning about that, by the way. We gave a warning. And, uh, but it was worth it. It's a, it's a, it's a book with bigger— so it's an issue. So I just want to tell you, I don't, I don't remember if this book had language in it or not, so I'm making another book recommendation. It was not horrific because if it was horrific, I wouldn't have read it, but it may have some language in it for those of y'all who are very sensitive to language. Um, it's called I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. She is, she is— oh, it says temporarily out of stock. All I know is, y'all, it was stinking hilarious, and I read it in a day because it was a thin, easy read. And what it was, it was her reflections about being— getting older. And, um, y'all, when I tell y'all, I was in Hawaii on my 15th anniversary reading this book. My husband and I went to Hawaii with my parents and my sister and my brothers. I wanted to go to Hawaii and then the whole family came along. Or maybe my parents wanted to go to Hawaii and I went with them. But anyway, it was our 15th anniversary and I was in the back seat and my mother was like, what are you laughing at? Y'all was laughing hysterically, hysterically. So what I'm saying is it don't matter. Read to laugh, read to learn, read to heal. It doesn't matter. Read, read to just read. There is something that happens, and this is, you know, from an educational standpoint. Um, uh, Ben Carson, Dr. Ben Carson talked about this. We might— we've— I've read the book to the kids, we've watched his movie. Y'all, his mother couldn't read. For those of y'all who don't know the story, he, you know, he's, um, just a renowned doctor who's been a trailblazer, neurosurgeon. His mother couldn't read. And what, what it is, is she worked in a home for a rich— this is a Black family— she worked in a home for a rich white man. She was cleaning for him. And one day it just clicked. He had a library full of books. And she said, have you read all these? And he said, most of them. And she went home and she told her boys, you can't watch TV. You have to read 2 books a week and write a book report on one of them every week. And you have to tell me. And so she— they didn't know she couldn't read. But the point is, is she made her boys start reading and it changed the game, changed the game. And Ben Carson always credits the fact that his mother turned off the TV and made him read with the fact that he developed a voracious hunger for learning and a desire to grow. Because reading can take you to places you will never go, introduce you to people you will never meet, and teach you principles that you would have had to learn the hard way unless you learn the principles in the book. Which is why we start with reading God's word, right? Because you don't want to learn the hard way. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. But there is so much wisdom, um, history books, because history all repeats itself. Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun. So if you can study what decisions, what dumb decisions people have already made, whether those are policy decisions, parenting decisions, political decisions, then you can say, well, we shouldn't do that again. It saves you time. So one of the best ways to learn something new is just to read. Now I know a lot of y'all are going to say, but I'm not a reader, you know what I mean? I'm not a reader. Okay, all right, listen to the book, you know, listen, get an Audible account. If you don't want to carry books with you all the time, make sure you're downloading Kindle, you know. And I will do my best when I read, when I'm recommending things, and to give y'all a warning so you can decide for yourself, okay? Um, I want you to decide for yourself based on what you're sensitive to. Like, for instance, Tiger King. I haven't watched it because some people that told me that they watched it and said it was really good, they said, but it was kind of ratchet. And I was like— and they gave me some examples of the ratchetness, and I was like, I don't want to watch that. I don't want to watch that. So I don't— but I don't hold them hostage for what the decision they made, you know what I mean? I just say it's not for me. And that's what you have to learn how to say. So I'm going to teach you, share with you what I'm learning, what I think is worth the learn, worth the read, or worth the watch. And then you decide based on my recommendation whether or not you want to dive in. So Nora Ephron, that's my latest thing. Don't be mad at me if it has language, but it was great. It was great. She's like a writer for Seinfeld or something like that. I mean, she's like a ridiculously great writer. I mean, and then though, for those of you who are wanting to be writers and speakers, oh my gosh, please read. Please read. Like, the worst thing you can do— one of the best things you could do, I should say it that way, when you're writing, is to read a good fiction book. You just need to read some good language. Uh, the Small Great Things book that I mentioned, that does have language in it because it's, it's about, um, a woman who is Black. It's a Black woman who gets falsely accused, uh, but she's falsely accused by a skinhead, okay? So he's a white supremacist, so his language is off the chain. So anytime he's talking, his language is off the chain. But the book— first of all, y'all, a white woman wrote this book. And, and one of the, one of the best things about this book is I was reading it thinking, how does she as a white woman know what I'm thinking? How does she know what I'm thinking? And it is a great treatise almost for, I think, Black people and white people to read all together because it helped me to understand the skinheads' mentality. Of course, I don't agree with it. And of course I think it's ridiculous, but it helped me to get in his head. So it was a great— y'all, we're all living in this world and the attorney was a white woman. And then it just had this whole— it gave me a bigger understanding. Okay. And so what I'm saying is, is when you read, it enlarges your mindset with how other people think and how other people see the world. And that enlarges how you operate in the world. So my point is, read, okay? Read to learn, read to grow, read to laugh. What to read? Ask your friends for their favorite book. Um, I will put— we gotta find, team— there was a post maybe a year or two ago where I asked on Instagram what books people were reading, and y'all, we had like 200. I mean, you just need to go to that Instagram post to look for ideas for what to read, okay? Visit your local library, y'all. Now I will tell you, with your kids, be careful. Beware of the library. There are a lot of agendas. One of the reasons why for homeschooling I kept buying Sunlight Books is because I didn't want to go to the library and figure it out. There are a lot of agendas. Now I'm an adult and I could sift through that. Remember how I told you, you have to know, you have to know God's word so you can know what's true and what's not? Where our kids haven't learned that yet, so I, I, I do censor what they read. And I do want them to learn about history from a biblical perspective because I do want them to learn science. I want them to understand evolutionary thought because it is— sometimes evolutionary thought does have a place, but it doesn't mean that that's how the world began. There are things that still evolve. There are things that still change. The mutation of viruses, for example, is an idea of that. It's an evolutionary idea, but that doesn't mean we started from an amoeba or we came from apes, right? So I want them to learn about all the things But I want to do that with, uh, greater exposure as they get older and as they're able to handle the truth, okay? As they're able to handle false truth because they know real truth. So what I'm saying is, when you take your kids, you get all the books you want at the library. You're grown. Come on, millennials, raise your hand. I want to know who the— it just makes me so happy when the millennials are on here because I feel like then I'm teaching you and I'm saving you some time. All right, always give me a thumbs up or a wave if you're a millennial. So with my children, I do censor, and as they get older, I censor less. Remember in high school, there were books that you read, uh, you know, um, um, um, what's the book? Tom Sawyer. Who's the author? My brain just went dead. Y'all know who I'm talking about. And there were things in there, and then the question became from parents in late years, should our kids be reading that that has the N-word in it? Okay, you know, I mean, I understand. Oh, Instagram, you're about to die. You're about to die, Instagram. Sorry, Instagram, I'm so sorry, my phone died. Oh, and I think it— oh, it may not have even stayed on Instagram. Oops. Anyway, okay, so what's the name? Hey, hey, hey, Mark Twain. Because we were reading things from that time period, right? And so, um, you know, but it's— I'm just like, it is what it is. That's, that's the language of the time. And to me, as kids get older, that's appropriate. But when you take your kids to the library now, y'all, there are so many agendas. Um, there are so many agendas— political agendas, um, liberal agendas. And while I do think it's appropriate at a certain age for your children to be introduced to it, because why would you wait until they go to college You mean have the hard conversations while they're still at home? I told my children that, um, even if they went to school, because sometimes they'll threaten me, Mom, I just want to go, I just want to go to school because you're so hard. It wouldn't be this hard if I was in school. I wouldn't have to be doing schoolwork right now. Whatever. Um, I said, even if you were in school, you would still have reading from me because we're either going to be reading a book as a family Or I will be giving you a book that I think you need to read that's not on your reading list for your 10th grade year. And I will expect you to read it and report to me. We're going to talk about it at the dinner table. We would watch CNN if even if we weren't homeschooling, we'd watch CNN every day. CNN Student News is wonderful. If you don't know about that, we would do that because I want you to be an educated individual and it's my responsibility to educate you. And if I choose to farm that out to a teacher, to a public school, to a private school, to a charter school, if I choose to farm that out, I am still responsible. So it doesn't matter if you're in school or not. There are certain books that I would insist that you read because these are good books that are not on your school's reading list, but they're on mine. So there you go. I need to develop a reading list for teen boys. That's a great idea. Maybe we can do that, team. Y'all keep giving us ideas. But my point is, is, um, with you, go to the library because usually what they have on the end cap, right, are books. You can ask your— listen, People go to get whole degrees to be librarians. There is librarian science. Did you know that that's a degree? Librarian science. Their whole job is to help you know what to read and how to find what you need and how to resource you with the resources that the library has. But I was just saying, when you go with your kids, don't let your kids pick up what's on the shelf. I, I take reading lists. For the longest time, I could not afford to buy Sunlight as our curriculum because it was expensive to buy the program and to buy all the books. So I took the, I took the program, I bought the program, and then I went to the library with the reading list and got the books from the library. And we went to the library every week, every week, checked out books. I had at a minimum 50 to 75 books checked out at a time. I usually had about 75 books checked out in my home at a time. And I would just keep them going, keep them, keep them in and out, keep them in and out. And then I finally got to the point where I could just buy it. And that's how we started building our home library, which I'm so grateful because now I get to read to my children. My grandchildren my favorite books I read to my children. And then eventually, you know, I'll start gifting them away and all that kind of stuff. So, um, read, go to the library. Okay, let me keep going about this reading situation. Um, I want to know what are you reading? And I know y'all have already been sharing those kinds of things in the comments. This is why y'all got to be active in the comments. Um, I wanted to tell you how I read. I kind of showed you that a little bit where I showed you when I engage with a book, I write things down. I write things down. I underline. I don't so much use a highlighter because I don't always have a highlighter, but I take a pen. And here's what's cool, because I'm writing, I'm reading to study as a speaker and a writer. Here's another free speaking and writing tip, y'all. I use hashtags. So if it's a quote on the side, I will put #Q. And then if it's an illustration, I write #I. And then if it's a statistic, I write #S. If it's funny or a joke, I write hashtag J. Okay, I don't, I don't do a lot of underlining. I kind of do what I was showing you in here. Monique is like, you're giving it all away. It's alright, Mo, it's alright. I engage with it. Okay, I engage with it even in my Bible. So I underline sometimes, but over here you'll see in the, in the margins Which way am I going? In the margins. Okay, here you go. I asterisk and I draw a line. If it's too long and I don't want to underline the whole thing, I draw a line. If it's super deep, I put these 3, these 3 asterisks. I just made it up. I just made it up. But I write notes because here's what happens when you engage with what you read. You remember where it is. You remember it was a yellow pen and it was on this right side of the page and all this kind of stuff. Now, if I'm really diligent, after I read a book, I go through it and anything that was— any of my notes, I write them down and I file them away. I use Evernote. If a book was ridiculously good, um, um, Getting Things Done by David Allen, it's a great book, productivity book, business leader book. And it was so good. After I was finished, I went back and I looked at everything that I wrote and took notes on it. And then I saved my digital notes in Evernote because I was like, I need to be able to access the stuff he said anytime. I don't do that with all my books. For some of you who are readers and leaders and teachers and speakers, and you— if you have an executive admin, you read the book and then give it to your executive admin and let her put the notes in your digital library. John Maxwell, there are 5 things he does, if I can remember them. He says, every day I read, I write, I file, I study, and I— and I ask questions. I read, I write, I file, I study, and I ask questions. Every day. And this is his system, and his system is in a note card file, like physical note cards. That's how— that's, um, that's how he keeps track of what he's noted, because he doesn't know when he's going to need it. Y'all, I went to, um, Heaven Come Conference last year with Bethel, uh, Bill Johnson, Jen Johnson, and the team. Whatever you think about them, listen, the Lord spoke to me, and I would go again. In fact, I have gone twice already, and I— and I was supposed to go, you know, Memorial Day weekend I don't know if they're still having it. I'll have to see, because maybe I'll fly out to LA and do that. But anyway, the point is, is I heard Bill Johnson say when God speaks to him, he said, "I've got a stack of note cards on the side of my desk because I don't want to forget what God said. I don't want to forget the lesson." And y'all, we are like sheep. We forget. So what I'm telling you is when you engage with what you read, whether that's the Bible, whether it's a book, whether it's business, whether it's pleasure. In Small Great Things, y'all, I wrote in that book because the writing, it's fiction, but it was so great. I wrote in it because I was like, this is, these are quotes. These are things I don't want to forget. So engage with your books. So that's how I take notes. Take notes on books that you're reading to learn in. I showed you my binders and spiral organization, but what I do with my notes is I just put a binder and it's just reading notes and the dividers are by year. That's it. So I can get to it when I, when I do have physical notes, that's how I do that. Okay. So you need to read, you need to read. And you want to read by listening, by, you know, digitally. And, but the discipline of reading, if you don't love to read, it's kind of like reading the Bible. You will get better at it the more you do it. I mean, think about kids reading. They start out, mm, ah, t, and then they go, mm, at. Then they have to learn how to blend, mat. And then they read like this, Sam sat, and they look at you and you're like, that's what reading starts out by. None of us right now are there, probably. Why? Because you practiced, but you may have stopped enjoying it when you had to read for things you weren't interested in. 'Cause high school, y'all, taught a lot of us we don't like reading. When in reality, the only reading we'd ever done for school was for school, and we didn't enjoy school. That's the problem. So what if you could become passionate about topics and learn to like reading? Because now you're getting out of it what you want out of it. And then the motivation is what causes you to enjoy it. Just like Jesus is not about rules, but he's about relationship. And that's why we can enjoy reading the Bible. I think reading to learn and to grow and to be, uh, and for pleasure is the same too. Okay, so that's reading. All right, so I want you to know that when you challenge your mind, that involves learning God's word, learning something new, and reading. Okay, so I'm going to say a couple of other things and then I will take some questions because y'all are making me break my word every day. I had that unexpected rant at the beginning, and while y'all take questions for the people who came on late Somebody say it's all right. It's all right. You all right. You'll be all right. I'm reminding you about the Facebook group, chrystalhurtz.com/facebookgroup. Uh, we will start letting you in soon. And then Inner Circle, where if you're in the Inner Circle, the lives for the Sister Circle online event are a part of your membership. And also if you want to have the whole online event then you can get that at a discounted price. Priscilla, I'm still online. Can I call you back? Bye. Bye. So you can get that at a discounted price. I think it's $20 off. And, and then in addition, come to all the sessions and get a lot of extra things. So Inner Circle, that's open today. And if you were not in it, you can join. And if you were in it, but at the first level, co-producer, you can level up for the levels where everything else is available. Okay, so I'm looking for questions if y'all have any. I feel like I've talked so long about this, what questions could y'all possibly have? And I see y'all giving great recommendations in the comments. Oh yes, The Red Tent, Boundaries by— oh yes, these are great books. I love it. And read to your kids, read a book with your spouse, Listen, go on a date, go on a long drive and say, hey, I've been wanting to read this book. Can we read it together? Like, you got to get creative with the dates, right? So drive— there's this restaurant that my husband and I love, our whole family loves, and for forever it was in Houston. And then y'all, they franchised and came to Dallas. They should have never done that. It's 30 minutes away. And yes, all of my family's been like, girl, we drove to— we drove to Lupe Tortilla. It's 30 minutes from my house. Sat in the car and had some queso. You know, all that dairy is just messing with me, but it didn't matter. I loved it. But now I'm thinking, that was a date, right? We went out one night, my husband and I, we went to P.F. Chang's. That was our date. So on the drive, maybe you can listen to books, right? Instead of listening to the radio, that can be an opportunity for you to learn and grow. Um, okay, please explain the inner circle again, but I think I just did that. Somebody said, yes, my husband lets me read to him. That's awesome. Did little sister take a break from heckling today? That's a fun question. Well, she just called me on FaceTime from her morning walk. So there's that. So she's walking right now. Maybe she was too busy trying to get out the door to start walking. Because she— I didn't see her heckle. She may have done it and I didn't see it, but okay. I'm looking for questions. Y'all got any questions? You still cannot figure out how to see you on the Facebook page. So I am at Facebook.com/Chrystal Hurst. That's where I am on my Facebook page. So that's where I am. And how you know you're there is because it's a blue C. My little profile picture is a blue C. Okay. If you want to, if you want to, oh, this is a good question. If you join the membership and you want to upgrade, can you do it after Sunday? Can you do it after Sunday? Uh, no. So after Sunday, you can still come in at the first level, co-producer. It's kind of like a tip jar for all the podcasts, and I give you some extra content from the podcast. But all the other stuff, the coaching, the teaching, the discounts, the all that, that those are closed. And the reason why is because remember, we're doing a 21-day journey, and I want to shut it down so we're not having to manage getting people in and out. At the same time we're trying to move forward. It will open up again in June and you can upgrade then, but then we're going to close it on June 3rd again because then we're going to launch into the 90-day journey. Does that make sense? Hopefully that makes sense. Okay. All right. Yes. Nothing Wasted is an awesome book. I mean, can I save the comments? They should save. They should be there when you go back to look at YouTube or Facebook, the comments should stay. I know they stay because sometimes I go back and reply to some of the comments that y'all have. I can't do that always. My podcast name, you know what? I'm always confused about this too, Jill. You can find my— first of all, the easiest way to find my podcast is simply to go to chrystalevanshurst.com/blog. And then right there are all of my podcasts. But if you want to subscribe through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, then you can search my name. Sorry, Monique. You can search my name or you can search Chrystal Hurst Chronicles because I can't remember which one works where. I can't remember which one works where. Okay, Monique is always texting me going, you're supposed to say this, you're not supposed to say that. I'm like, yeah. Do I coach writers? Okay, so here's the deal with that. Yes, I have done that twice. I only coach the writers who have been through my writing and speaking course or who have attended the Writing and Speaking Summit. So the last time in October, we had the summit and I was gonna do coaching, but then my mom— so I didn't do it, right? So what we're gonna do is, for the people who we're gonna share our courses again soon, and then we will see if I have the bandwidth for coaching. Because, I mean, part of the reason why my team is always like, you're doing too much, you're doing too much— because y'all, when I go all the way in, I go all the way in. I'm like, I want to tell you everything. I want to tell you everything I know. And so yes, I do, but I do that when I have the bandwidth to do it. And right now I've got a book that's due in July, so I— it probably won't be before July, and then we'll see. So I do, but I do group coaching And I do that at strategic times during the year. However, the course is a great place to start. There will be a speaker and writer option at this online event. And so that will be a great place to start. And so then if you do the course and/or that, then I coach people who've started. So that way there's, we're not starting from scratch. Like there's a basic body of knowledge that we have and we can launch into your, into your project. Okay. When do you know it's time to learn something new? Okay, I love this question. Oh, my stomach is growling. Hopefully y'all can't hear that. When do you know— I mean, this is a good, good long question too. When do you know it's time to learn something new? I'm a mom of two toddlers and found out that I got into USC's— come on, girl— USC's doctoral program the same week we found out baby number three is on the way. How do you discern when it's time to move forward in such uncertain times? Okay, so, so listen, I want to tell you that Only you know, and only you know, and only you know. That said, what does your husband say? What does wise counsel say? Okay, I need you to listen to wise counsel. But I know so many women— there's a woman at DTS that when I sat down with her and I said, maybe this is not my season to go to school because I want to, I love learning, but my husband has health challenges, and she said to me, Yeah, my, my husband was sick the whole time I was here. In fact, he passed away when I was halfway through getting my theology degree. And I wouldn't have made it except for the community that was here. And here during that difficult season was exactly the place that I needed to be. I have a friend of mine who's a nurse. She has 7 kids and she started going to school when her youngest was a newborn. And it took her a long time because she was going from being a nurse to a nurse practitioner. And she did it slow, but she was like, it was my time. But I know a lot of other people who waited and are glad that they waited. My mother waited and then she ended up getting her degrees and a doc— and an honorary doctoral degree. And so, and she doesn't regret waiting. Only you know, but here's the thing I need you to ask yourself. Okay. When it comes to learning something new, that could be potentially stressful. Is the stress of the new thing going to steal me away from the season that I'm in? Because you don't want to miss the season that you're in trying to do a new thing. You have to ask yourself a question: am I doing the new thing because I'm an achiever and I feel the need to see value? Because see, when you're a mom at home of young children, sometimes it's a question of value and you want to feel like you're working on something. But if working on that and building value is going to create stress in your life that causes you to miss these best years with your children, trust me That's not what you want. You don't want to have any regrets. Now, if you can do it slowly and you enjoy it and your husband agrees and it gives you time out of the house and it keeps your brain active, then do it. When my kids were small, I was always reading and I was learning how to build a blog and some HTML coding. And I was always teaching myself something for free, always buying books and learning things. But that's what I could fit into my life. School didn't fit into my life. My husband traveled a lot for a living. So I put in what fit, right? And then later I started back to school. And then when school didn't fit, which it hadn't for the last couple of years, I got sick, Winter died. I mean, you know, my mom, okay. But I'm going to get back to it eventually. So only you know the answer to that question. But I would say have a realistic check with yourself, with your heart, with Jesus, and with people that love and know you very well. Where are my courses? You know what? We'll put a link to that in the resources, y'all. I don't even— what's the link? Let me, let me see what the link is. The reason why I don't even put it out there, y'all, is because I always put it out there when it's on sale, because I'm trying to be nice to y'all. And I probably should just put it out there and y'all can decide if you want to wait for the sale or not, right? Isn't that what I should do? So, uh, hold on. I believe— let me just double-check it. It is— my courses are at, yeah, thesistercircle.teachable.com. thesistercircle.teachable.com. There are two courses there. And a bundle, Learning to Live a Life You Love and the Speaker and Writer Workshop. And then you can bundle them together and save money. I can't tell you exactly when they're going to go on sale, but they will, um, in the next month or so. But if you're like, no, I need to— I have the time now and I want to dive in now, be my guest, go right ahead. Okay. So hopefully that answered that question. Okay. I'm looking for questions. What is the name of my book again? It is She's Still There. Rescuing the girl in you. Okay, all right, I want to put this— this is not a question, but I think this is worth dealing with. Renee said, Chrystal, I have received a much-needed promotion. However, being a single mom, I am now working late. I'm grateful because the money is needed, but I feel regretful for the time that I will miss. Listen, When I was a single mom, I worked hard. I got there early and I stayed late. No guilt. You're doing the best you can and the money is needed. Now, if it's not needed and you're getting your hair done and doing all the things and actually it's not needed, only you know that. But if it's needed and allows y'all to live without financial stress and save for college, to have— make some memories going on vacation and stuff like that, then Don't stress, but I would say find, find your way out. What's the light at the end of the tunnel? How can this change? What can I do? Can I have a conversation with my boss? Because it's a new job and sometimes new jobs are like that. You know, you have to put in the extra time and then you get a rhythm and then it's not as difficult. But I would say when you have your weekends and have your time with, with your child, maximize that. I went bike riding with my kids the other day. On a bike that I have owned now for 25 years. I spent the money, I bought the Schwinn, I bought the expensive bike. I think when I bought it, it was almost $300, y'all, and I didn't have that really. I just knew I like riding a bike and I wanted to buy a seat for my daughter on the back and, uh, so I could go riding and do something together with her. 25 years later, it's one of the best investments I ever made. I would go riding down at the lake, down the street, on the road, and we'd make a sandwich and we'd sit and we'd eat. I was stressed out all week long. And then I took her when I got home from work or on the weekends, I took her for a ride. So you don't have to be, don't feel guilty. Just look for small moments of things y'all can do together, memories you can make. Um, Kara slept in the bed with me until she— until I got married, really. Even then, when I gave her her own room, she still slept. And you know what, to this day, those are some of the sweetest memories for her, falling asleep. She said, you would always be on the phone at night, and I would fall asleep to the sound of your voice on the phone, but she would be cuddling with me. And so, um, I just want you to say, this is only a season. This too will pass. This too will pass. Hopefully that's helpful. You said you knew your mom had a Caribbean accent. Yes, Guyana, South America. Glad you're reading the book. I'm scanning maybe for one or two other questions. The start dates of the retreat. Okay, so let me tell you, if you want to mark your calendars for the retreat, Lori Milton, when it is, And then it will— we again, we don't— we didn't want to do— here's— I already said this, I think, but I didn't want to say, y'all, launch the retreat. Hey y'all, do y'all want to pay a few hundred dollars to come to the retreat? Sure, your lodging and all food is, uh, is included, but I know you just lost your job. Like, that didn't— that didn't seem like the right thing to do. So I was just like, we just need to wait. We just need to wait and see if the camp's even going to be open. We just need to wait and see if people even want to come. We need to wait and see if people even have the money. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to go out here in these streets and go out there on a limb and people can't do it. But the, but the, the event dates are, I just want to give you the exact dates. It's October 15th through 18th, 15th through 18th. Or you come a day earlier if you're a writer and speaker and want that. So it's the third weekend in October. So if we feel comfortable with having it about June 1st, we'll know. And if we feel comfortable with moving ahead, um, then, uh, we'll let you know. Okay. Somebody is saying I'm having trouble with Patreon. What you need to do is email hello@chrystalevanshurst.com. Okay. And we'll help you out. We'll help you out. Okay. Do we have to get on your distribution list every day? So here's what happens when you are on my email list. Typically the quarantine has been different, but typically I send an email every Monday. It tells you about whatever I want to tell you about. And it tells you about the podcast for the week, which by the way, y'all, if you have not listened to podcast episode 256, Gary Thomas, toxic relationships, get ye therefore to that episode. Just go to chrystalhurst.com/256, or you can find it on iTunes, Stitcher, whatever, y'all. So normally I email you once a week, but quarantine and then getting in the Inner Circle and all the things that are happening, I've been emailing more. But if you're on my email list, that's typically what it is. I only email you once a week. Once a week. Okay, hopefully that helps. Um, Okay. Somebody asked me about a mentorship program. So here's, here's my dream, y'all. Here's my dream. My dream is to build a place where that can happen. And not just for me. I'm not the only smart woman in the streets. Yesterday, if you have not watched on Instagram, I do a Thursday 2 o'clock live. It's quarantine content, but it's just for moms. Oh my gosh. It will only be up y'all through 3 o'clock Central today. If you have not watched that, Go watch that now. So she is— she actually has mentorships and coaching for people. She has a podcast. But my point is, people like her, I want to bring them together to serve you. So whatever you need, you can find it, because I realize so many of y'all have said, I need a mentor and I can't find a mentor. Nobody wants to help me. And so there's lots of help out there, and I want to help you find it. And so I want to help for certain things. Writing and speaking is a thing. Business productivity is a thing for me. Motherhood is the thing for me. But I don't, I don't necessarily want to coach you on, um, you know, having a group of women who are working on their doctoral programs. I can't do that. So we'll figure that out. But you know, slow and steady wins the race, right? Slow and steady wins the race. Okay, I must have done a good job with talking all week because y'all don't really have that many questions. Oh wait, I'll answer this one. Does the 21 Day Journey have a set time and schedule to meet for the live feed? I'd like to catch the live, but I'd like to know how it's scheduled. So the lives for— okay, when you're in the inner— you're kind of mixing a few things up. The 21 Day Journey, um, doesn't really have a schedule. It's more of content that we release that you can enjoy and a community that you can be excuse me, that you can be a part of. And then I just pop in and do fun things. Um, the lives I think that you're talking about are for the online event, which is a paid event that the Inner Circle has live access to, certain— the main sessions. Those for that event are Friday night and Saturday night. Okay, I hope I didn't just confuse you more. But basically, if you're in the circle, you get community and coaching for 21 days to discover you. Then you also get this live pass to do a part of the online event, and you also get a discount if you want to be a— take part in the whole event. So there's the— in all these circles, y'all, I'm probably confusing you. I probably need to come up with a way to make this simpler, but inner circle is you get benefits. That's the bottom line. And the online event is an event, a one-time weekend thing And if when you buy it, then you get a replay for a little bit longer. Okay. All right. I think, I think I did it. I think I asked most of those questions. I think I answered most of the questions. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I want to end y'all with showing y'all a video. It's going to be shared later today. My mother had a heart for women and pastors' wives. And she had a heart for women's and pastors' wives. And all of her social media, we've not been doing anything with because we've been trying to figure out where to start. And we're going to start with her. And so I want you to look up and I'll share the link for that too, Lois Evans, because what we have done is we are continuing her work, her ministry to pastors' wives. We're continuing that, really, really excited about that. But there were so many things that she said and did and so much ministry that she had that was for women. And so while there is— while there will always be special things for pastors' wives, we're going to be sharing a lot of stuff on her channel channels, uh, Facebook, um, specifically, and YouTube that have to do— and I'm trying to pull it up— that have to do with, um, what will be encouraging to you as a, as a woman. And my computer isn't cooperating, so maybe what I'll do is just put— pull the link because I was going to show you, but my computer doesn't want to cooperate. It's trying hard to keep this camera going. I'm sorry. I don't think I can do it. I was trying to see if it would cooperate, but my computer isn't cooperating. So we'll put the link to my mother's, um, yes, you typed in my name and found everything I'm about. Great. So basically, um, you can follow her. We're going to start sharing her on Monday publicly. I just had a, I had a backdoor way to show it to y'all and I was going to show it to y'all and then cut it out of the replay. But anyway, um, you can get access to the resource list. If you don't do anything else, y'all join the email list because everything you need to know starts there. It starts there. Okay. Oh, thank y'all for being here, and I hope this has been helpful. I will see you again on Monday with a guest. I'll have a guest. I won't tell you who that is. I actually do know in advance, way in advance this time, who it is, and you're gonna have fun with us online on Monday morning, 7 AM Central. And I will continue to be here for a while. I'm not gonna do this forever, y'all. I'm not gonna do this forever. I got things to do. But for right now, for right now Um, I'm here to keep encouraging you. If you are still in the bed, get up. It's time to get up. Okay, y'all, talk to you later. As a kid walks in the door. Oh no, oh no, oh no, he's trying to get on my live. Wait, I