Don’t Quit! Keep Going and Growing

Hey there! Before we jump into today's video, there are two things I want to make sure you know about. First of all, if you're watching today's video, you are getting overflow because I do this first with a little front of the show, uh, before the show and after the show foolery inside of my membership, The Inner Circle. Now's a great time to join us. We are headed into the fourth quarter, and the last quarter of 2022 is a great time to get ready for 2023. We want to help you do that with more content from me, community accountability, and content that will help you grow. Come on and join us. Go to chrystalevanshurst.com/innercircle. The second thing I want to make sure you know about are our coaching cohorts. What are those, you ask? Listen, the most frequently asked question I get is, Chrystal, can you mentor me? And I would love to, but there's only one of me and there's a lot of y'all. So what I've done is asked some of my friends who believe in the concept of discipleship to make room in their lives to mentor and coach 12 women or less in small We're going to be kicking off our next set of coaching cohorts in October. We're going to be talking about dating or marriage or difficult relationships or writing or speaking or exercising your spiritual authority. And these women who I know, love, and trust are ready for you, but you're not going to know when those coaching cohorts are ready for your registration if you're not on my email list. So go to ChrystalEvansHurst.com so that you are the first to know when they come out. They're small and they fill up fast. All right, y'all, without further ado, let's get into it. Hi, my name is Chrystal Hurst, and if you are here watching me for the first time, I'm glad you're here. Be sure if you're on YouTube to click the subscribe button, and if you are on Facebook, make sure that you are following me and make sure that you turn the notifications on so that when I go live at random times, you'll be sure to be notified. I'm here every Sunday night sharing wisdom that I hope helps you to live your life well. But this Sunday night episode happened because there was a Monday morning live that I do inside of my Inner Circle. The Inner Circle is made up of a group of women who want to get better, and they want to do that in community, and they believe that the practical wisdom and teaching that I share helps them to do that. And also, those women help to support the work that you're seeing here, so If you are interested in that, go to chrystalevanshurst.com/innercircle. I'll be glad to meet you on the inside. Today, I would like to talk to you about the great opportunity that awaits you, that awaits all of us if we choose to take advantage of it. I was talking to my brother just the other day about the course correction that's happening right now in the housing market. We all know that there has been a flurrying up, a flurrying higher of home prices. It was like a house would go on the market and then in 5 seconds it'd be under contract. And in 5 seconds, 50 people would've bid on that house and drove the price of the house up $25,000, $50,000, $100,000. And not only was it being bid up high, but you couldn't find a house to move into because so many houses were going on the market and then back off the market under contract so quickly. It was an environment. Things were being bid up and people made a lot of money on their homes if they were able to sell their homes during that period. We are currently right now Not in that period any longer. Houses have stopped. As of yesterday, there was not one home under contract in all of Texas. Now, that may change today, but at that moment, that says a lot. No houses under contract. That's because the tide is shifting. People can't sell their houses. I have a neighbor right now on my street that has had a for sale sign in front of their house for a month. That's unheard of in the last year that we've been in. So I knew because that for sale sign was staying up and there were no takers, that the tide was shifting. And finally, I noticed that he pulled the for sale sign out of his yard. He's probably gonna wait it out, wait until things stabilize. We know that we're in a shifting season financially, um, as a nation, regardless of where you are, the world economy is going through a great shift. But my brother and I were talking about what's about to happen and how there are people who understand this ebb and this flow, and they are about to do well. In this season of shifting. So I used to be an institutional money manager. I was an associate vice president at an institutional money management firm. So these are firms that manage pensions and 401s and that kind of thing. So there were a few accounts for wealthy people, but most of them were of institutions like firefighters or, um, educational buildings or privately owned companies. And we would manage their money, give them reports every month on what we were investing in. So I watched the stock market every day. And so one of the things that I learned then, and I have enjoyed, uh, watching and seeing how this is still true now, is how the stock market works. Um, before that, before I worked there, I worked for a mutual fund company, and I used to sit with my headset on and people would call in and they'd want to know their balances. So I first started learning about the, the stock market like for real. I mean, you know, you learn about it in high school, but I learned about it for real sitting there. And then I became a a manager, an investor later on. Here's what happens, and this is what people will tell you, right? If you want to invest, particularly in mutual funds, is that the market will do crazy things, but what you want to do is just stay steady. There's a principle called dollar cost averaging, and that says that if you just continue investing even the same amount of money over time, your returns over time will be better than if you try to get in and get out and get in and get out and get in and get out. And here's the reason for that. We are going to be tempted to get in when things look good and get out when things look bad. And that means you will lose the most money ever, because really what you want to do is get in when things are bad and get out when things are good. If everybody's buying, you shouldn't buy. If everybody is selling, that's when you come in and swoop it all up at a cheap price. But if you are dollar-cost averaging, if you're just showing up steady putting in your $50 a month, your $100 a month, your $500 a month into your retirement, into your college saving, or into the savings for a house. You just keep putting money in over time. You don't pay attention to the ebbs and the flows and the ups and the downs and the dips. Why is that? It's because over time there is an average increase that over time will make your investment pan out. So if you've ever looked at stock charts, right? If you look at the stock market, you will see, especially if you start from, um, before the Great Depression. So you see that the market is going up, and then there's a huge dip, and then it goes back up, and then there's a little dip, and then it goes back up, and there's a deeper dip— that's a recession— then it goes back up, and then it goes down a little bit, and then it goes up. But over time, this is the trajectory. Consistency of investment pays off. I want you to know that we are at the We are at a crux of time where there's going to be a great opportunity, and I'm not talking about money. Let me tell you what else has been bid up in the last couple of years. The price of good workers has been bid up. I'm looking around and I'm hearing from friends what they're able to leave one job for and go get another job. And because workers are few, the price of workers has been bid up. And it doesn't matter if you work at McDonald's or if you are an assistant VP somewhere, the price of workers has gone up. What I'm going to tell you is that that is not sustainable. What you're going to find is that, and eventually, the cost of doing business— a lot of companies, not all, but a lot of companies won't be able to sustain that. And the way that they're going to course correct is by laying people off. So let me tell you what you have the opportunity in this season to do. You have the opportunity to invest consistently instead of jumping off the train and getting this job when the pay goes lower, or jumping on this train when the pay is higher. You need to know that there's about to be a glut of workers in the economy, and the people who have been steady will keep their jobs. The people who have not taken advantage of the opportunity, who have not taken inflated pricing, are going to be the ones that people will keep. The people that have— that their, their bosses will keep, the organizations will keep. And this is not always true. I realize that sometimes you get a pink slip and you were there being faithful. But, but what I really want to get to is there has been an environment where people have said, what can the system do for me instead of what can I do to be better in the system. And the people who have taken this opportunity to get better at a skill, to be authentic and dependable at work, the people who operate on the also principle— there's a woman that I know very well, and maybe one of these days I'll get her to talk to me on the podcast. She's a gift to so many women for so many reasons, but One of the teachings she has done consistently over decades is this principle of also. It's over and above and beyond. Sometimes you won't give your also, you won't go over and beyond because you'll think they're not paying me for that. You'll think, um, what does it matter if I do this? Let me tell you something my daddy always says: if God is your source and everyone else is your resource, then you need to be answering towards your source, not your resource, and know that God sees you. He actually preached about this yesterday. He was 16. He had his first job as a dishwasher with a caterer in Baltimore. And my grandparents were— they were hard-working people. And my grandmother would say, all I ever wanted was for my children to be good citizens. They made them work at home. They gave them responsibility. They learned respect for their elders. They, they were, you know, in that— they were generationally communally, people who, who understood the job is not here just to pay you. You have to show up and do a good job. So my dad went to work as a dishwasher in the '60s, a Black boy working for a rich white Jewish man. After a few months, that rich white Jewish man called my dad into his office and said, I've been watching you. You do a good job. You operate in excellence. You get to work on time. And I need someone to drive my children because my wife is helping me in the business and we need a— we just can't do it all. So he hired my dad, a 16-year-old Black boy in the '60s, to drive his children. And this day, we know this man, Mr. Resnick. I've met him. We love him. He and his wife— his wife just passed away. As adults, when we go to Baltimore, we take Mr. Resnick to dinner. He is one of the most brilliant minds. We ask him business questions. He loves— like, and he says— he said— my dad did not say this in his sermon yesterday. He says, if your dad— because he ended up helping my dad go to college, and he said, when you get your degree, come back, I'll hire you. Well, my dad didn't get his degree and come back. He went into ministry. He said, if your dad had come back, he would have been second in command. Not one of his sons. Said my dad would be second in command. He had business acumen. He was highly trustworthy. He was a man of integrity, and he appreciated every opportunity. He was capable and humble. I'm telling you that the world needs more of that. I know what they're telling you. I know that they're telling you milk the system. I know what they're telling you, you know, get your boss by, you know, grab them by the neck and twist their neck for more money. Because they, you know, they can pay it and you can go somewhere else. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't ask for more money. I'm not saying that you shouldn't know your value in the workplace. I'm not saying that it's wrong. Starbucks just increased their minimum wage to $15 an hour. What I'm telling you is there is a glut of good workers with good character. There are people that will come in and take the money and not excel at the work. They will not operate in excellence. They will not be on time. They will not meet their deadlines. They will not, and they just think the system exists to take care of them. And I'm telling you, there's a dip coming. And when that dip comes, even if there is money to continue to pay certain people at certain levels, the people who are not operating in excellence will be dismissed. I'm telling you that there is an opportunity for you to operate in the also right now. So here's what the also looks like. The also looks like Chick-fil-A. The also looks like my pleasure. The also looks like if you're eating in Chick-fil-A, I come around and say, can I refill your drink? I know you already got your drink. Can I refill your drink? The also principle looks like fine dining that you never even have to look up before the person comes back and refills your water, or the person comes back and refreshes your coffee. You're not doing the, the bare minimum. You're looking for ways to excel because you're not working for them. You're not working for them. You're working from your source. And if God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he is able to put into your hands the work of your hands, giving you the ability to make wealth, giving you the opportunity to print money— see, because before y'all are seeing this, there's been a whole foolery in the live for today about all these other things. If God is your source and he knows where the job is that will give you the best trajectory for your path, if he knows where that is, then you need to show up and stay committed. This is something I've talked about many, many times with the girls that work on our team. You have to stay planted. There are some jobs that I know you can bail right now and go do something else that will make money. But can I just tell you, some of y'all, when you jump ship, you're bailing on your wealth, you're bailing on your trajectory, you are bailing on God's source for you because you are being distracted away by the thing that you will have right now. Right? When Jesus came, Satan took him in the desert. He tempted him and he said, listen, I can make this easy on you. If you bail now, I can give you bread. If you bail now, I can give you, uh, I can give you accolades. If you bail now, I will give you applause. If you bail now, look at what I can give you right now that will solve your problem right now. Aren't you tired and thirsty? Aren't you destitute? Don't you have no money? Jesus said, I have nowhere to lay my head. But you know what Jesus was doing the whole time? He said no to those distractions that would have given him— solved his thirsty, uh, throat, that would have given him food to eat, that would have met his right now need, because he knew where he was going. You can't leave that job until God says leave that job. I don't care if somebody else is offering you more money. You can't leave this area of service. You can't leave that church until God says it's time for you to leave that church. You don't sell that house just because you can and you can get a house in the nicer area of town. You wait until God says it's time for you to leave that house. I wish I would have left the houses we were in. Listen, the house that we're in now, I, I wish I could tell you right now how God gave us this house. I, I mean, we are so stinking grateful. But I have to tell you, we looked, we looked for 4 years. We looked at houses, we went looking at houses that were available for sale every month. And I waited, I waited until it was a yes. It was a yes for me, it was a yes for my husband, it was a yes for our finances, it was a yes for my children. And there were non-negotiables. I'm not moving until God says it's time. That it's time for this house, it's time for this neighborhood, it's time for this location. And I could have moved and we would have been happy. We would have been happy. There were nice houses, but they weren't the house. I heard a pastor say once, Pastor James Meeks, he said, don't get out of line, don't get out of line. Some of y'all keep jumping ship because that job has more money. This house will solve your present need right now, even though it's not the time for you to move. This man is here and he's available, so I'll take him. Quit settling. You keep showing up in your life with the also principle. What can I do right now to operate in excellence where I am? Because I'm gonna wait, as the old folks used to say, until my change comes. You gotta wait. And while you're at the place of small beginnings, do not despise them. Do not despise them. There was a young woman, um, and many of y'all, if you've been around for a while, you've heard me say her name. She would ask me, Monique would ask me when we would have like yearly, you know, and I was so grateful for Monique because she would say, can I have a review? And I'm like, uh, I don't want to do that. I had to learn, and I'm still learning how to be a great boss. And she would say like, I worked for you for 3 years, can I have a review? And I'd say, like, I'd paid her more money, but it wasn't, it wasn't about the money, it was about review. She wanted feedback, she wanted development. And you know, I don't know how to be nobody's boss. I ain't never been nobody's boss, so I had to go Google like, you know, how to do a yearly review. So we, you know, we had this little rubric that we would use and we would talk about and all this kind of stuff. And, um, she would ask me at those yearly reviews, like, what is the path of advancement? And I would say, I don't know, girl, I'm in here on a shoestring, I don't know what I'm doing. But I would tell her this, and I meant it from the bottom of my heart, What I do know is God is calling me forward. What I do know is that there will be growth. Can I say exactly what that will be and when? Like, you're the only person who works here. Um, so do I know, like, when we get to add people? And I, I don't know. I do know that I'm growing, and as I grow, there will be greater opportunity. When she left here, she was the branding and operations manager. We had people on the team to manage. We had multiple interns, multiple contractors. And I would always say to her, my hope is that wherever God is going to lead you is that your work here will help prepare you for the next season. And so her pastor called her back home. She moved back home. And when she did that, of course, she left here working and she started working there. But I asked her, do you feel like the work that you have done here has prepared you for that? 'Cause that was my prayer, and she said yes. One of the reasons why she kept riding with me, one, it's 'cause she said she was called to do so, which I was so grateful for. Two is she said God didn't, hadn't released her. And I know she could have made more money working other places. I know that. As God blessed here, I blessed there. But she wasn't released. And the other thing that kept me connected to her is that she always gave more than I asked. Always. Now Did she have to set some boundaries sometimes? Yes. And we talked through that. But even the way she would do it was always with a yes. I wish I could stay, but I have to go here. But I'll work on this in the morning. The spirit of also, the spirit of I know that I'm here working, as my grandmother would say, I'm working as unto the Lord. I'm serving Chrystal Hurst. I'm serving the women that we serve. But I'm working as unto the Lord, so I've got to bring my best into this house, into this place. See, sometimes you get blessed where you're at because you wait. You don't get out of line. The blessing is coming. Sometimes you're not finished in that season. There are some other things that God wants to show you and teach you where you're at, and if you jump ship too soon, you don't get the teaching. So guess what that means? You start over somewhere else. And you still got to get the lesson. And then when it starts getting tight, you jump ship and you go somewhere else. Now I realize when it comes to work that everybody's not going to stay on the ship for 30 years. I realize that times have changed. I realize that the, that the, the generationally things are different, that people don't want to work for the man all day long and you not have anything. Everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. I understand that, and that's great that some of y'all have figured that out. You want to work for yourselves, that's awesome. But I'm gonna tell you, there's a correction coming. Everybody who wants to be an entrepreneur will realize that entrepreneurism is not for the faint of heart. And when you realize that if you don't work, you don't eat, and that you are working way more for yourself than you ever work for the man, some of y'all are going to course correct. You're going to go back to your job so you can get your good benefits, or at least know that the check is going to be stable. The course correction is coming. You need to wait. Stop believing everybody out here that's a business strategist and is going to teach you how to write your email funnel and all that. You don't need to do none of that if God is not calling you to do it. Now, if he has put something in your heart, right, and you know it's your time and you prayed about it and you don't have a, an anxious yes, you have a settled yes— see, that's how you know the difference between I want to do it and God wants me to do it. If you have to do it, you have to do it right now, that's not good. You need to settle. It's not a, it's not a, it's not anxious. It's a deep, deep knowing. And the longer you walk with God, the longer you'll know the difference. So I don't care what everybody is doing. If everybody is buying, you should be selling. If everybody is selling, you should be buying. And a course correction is coming. And let me tell you who will have the funds to buy, who will have the funds to name their salary, who will have the funds to call for their promotion, who will have the funds to say to their bosses, this is what I like. It's the people who are gonna take advantage of this opportunity to exercise in also to exercise in excellence, who show up to work on time, who do their job and who don't whine and complain, who understand that the organization that they work for, that that's the goal, that the organization is not there to serve them, that they are there and getting paid to serve the organization. And once you stop saying, well, how does this organization work for me? And you start saying, okay, I am working as unto the Lord. I am here. God is my source while I'm here, and this is my job. What do I do? What do I do? And so this can be super simple, y'all. If you are a greeter at Walmart, y'all know we got multiple kinds of greeters at Walmart. There are the greeters who walk in and they just stare at you as you walk in. They just there on their post because that's where they supposed to be. They don't say anything. If you catch their eye, they may give you a half smile, but they are barely there. They are standing there and getting paid by the hour to do so. And then there are those people who came to work for Walmart in their retirement. They're glad to see people. They understand that the power of life and death is in the tongue. They know that the smile that they give, maybe the only smile that they see all year long. So when you come in there, that person is there and they say, well, hi, how are you doing today? Welcome to Walmart. Oh, you know what, there's no baskets. Wait right here, I know someone will be out in a moment. Or, you know, enjoy your day, happy Fourth of July. And they actually greet you. They greet you as you walk in the door. Okay, there are two kinds of Walmart greeters. And I know, I know that organizations aren't always loyal to the people that work for them, but what I'm telling you is you show up and be the person you're supposed to be because you don't work for them. You don't work for them. This is a principle that I've had to learn even in managing our organization, right, the Sister Circle. This is something I'm growing to learn. Um, I'm— I have very personal relationships that everybody who works for me— I am learning, um, and I love everyone who works with me, but I am learning that I am the caregiver over the organization, right? There's a budget to manage, there are people to manage, there are responsibilities, there's all these things, and it's for me to do. That's my job. My job as a leader is to— is to lead the organization and to do what works best for the organization. So even in my professional relationships with the women who I work with, who I love, I have to think first. If I only respond to what you need, I'm not thinking about the organization. I'm not thinking about the other women who work here. I'm not thinking about our P&Ls. I'm not— and I— and here's the thing, because this has been put on my heart to do by God, I answer to God. So I have to say, does this fit in this season right now? Do your needs fit in this season right now? And if I can accommodate, I will.. But if I can't, I don't work for them. Like, as much as I love everyone who works here, I don't work for them. I— God said, God said, God said, God, listen. And I have to ask him all the time because I start getting my own ideas about what I want to do, and then I wonder why I'm exhausted. God said, I didn't ask you to do all that. I didn't ask you to day trade. I didn't ask you to jump in and out of the market. I didn't ask you to try to take advantage of the ebbs and the flows. I asked you to listen to me. And be steady and intentionally and steadily put into the atmosphere what I ask you to put in. Get back to what I ask you to do. I answer to him, so I have to say, okay, the Sister Circle exists so that women of faith will have encouragement, that they will be equipped, and that they will be empowered to live out their life in a practical way. We know we're supposed to love Jesus and study the Bible, and every now and then I'll teach on that, but most of the time what I'm called to do is to give practical actionable steps for what it means to live out your, uh, walk with God, your walk in faith in a very, very real way. How are you supposed to manage your money, manage your kids, be married to your husband, show up on your job? That's me. I know this. So I have to look then at our organization and say, what fits? Because there's something bigger happening, and that something bigger doesn't change just because one thing changes for one person. And they've heard me say this, I will love you out the door. I will say I love you. Let me help you figure out what comes next in your life. I want to help. If you have been here in the also principle and something changes in your life, how can I serve you? One of the girls that used to be an intern here, over and over and over again she's been looking for a job, and over and over and over again I've said to her, I am team so-and-so, how can I serve you? You need me to give a reference? You need me to answer a phone call? I am in your corner. How can I help? How can I help? Because even the girls who show up and intern, when they have been consistent, when we can depend on them, when they do what they say they're going to do, I'm like, what door are you trying to walk into? How can I help you do that? One of our interns said to me one year, she said she went to work for herself for a period, and she said, I just am so— she said, there's so many, there are so many Chrystal connections like, I have this client because I learned about them from you. I have this client because you introduced me. I have this client because you recommended me. Listen, I am like here. I am here. So you gotta stop striving. And the world right now is offering many of us a distraction. Maybe you're supposed to grow where you're planted, and maybe the amount of money that you could make right now is the amount of money that you will make if you stay planted. What if you're on a path? And what if the path is narrow? And what if it's full, full of thorny branches that seem to be blocking the path? And that path looks easier, but what if it's not your path? What if you're supposed to operate in excellence here? And then what if when the correction comes, you have the abundance, the capacity, the juice, the tenure, the experience to make the move? What if what's supposed to fill your cup, your proverbial cup that holds your coins and holds your cash— what if that's your investment of showing up and being excellent where you are? Now, I'm not saying don't change jobs. I'm saying you need to go to God right now and ask him, where do you want me to be? Where do you want me to serve? What do you want me to do? And, and there are times when serving where you're supposed to serve, the jobs where you need the information, it's a sacrifice. Listen, I had internships in college, y'all, and they were sacrifices. One of my internships I got paid for. The rest of my internships, they were free. And do you know what? All of them, all of them helped me get my jobs once I got out of college. Because you know what those jobs saw? They saw good recommendations from every single person I'd worked with, paid or not. They saw completion of projects for every single opportunity that I had, whether I was paid or not. They saw me telling them what I'd learned from every single internship, whether I was paid or not. And you want to know how I got paid? I got paid when I got the real job. You want to know how I get paid? I get paid right now. Because you want to know what I learned how to do for free? I learned how to build an operations manual. I learned— I did that for free. You want to know what I learned how to do for free? I learned how important it is to have digital and physical organization so that your organization doesn't live or die by the one person who knows everything. I learned that for free. You want to know what else I learned for free? I learned how to code. With HTML because I had nobody to code for me. So I learned how to do that when I was nursing a baby on my left— with my left arm. I was using and pecking away with my right arm HTML code on the back side of my website. And the girls who show up to my organization say, how did you learn all of this? I learned all this for free. I was stewarding what God had put in my hand in the season that he'd put it in my hand, but I knew where I was supposed to be. And in that season, I was with my children not getting paid I was in my home learning how to manage my home so that I could learn how to manage people. And I'm still growing, I'm still developing, but I knew where I was supposed to be. Stop jumping on every train that comes by because the world will have you taking great things that are distractions. They're distractions. What I see is a great correction coming, and when the correction comes There are people who invested in things at the high moment and they won't be able to hold on to it. They won't. And, and there are some things that will change and will stay the same. I have some friends who will never go back to work for anyone else. They will always work for themselves. But the friend that I'm thinking of right now who works for herself and who has taken off, her business has taken off, let me tell you what she did. For 10 years. She taught herself a skill. She worked for a job that did not pay a lot, but she learned everything she needed to learn so that she was able to be her own boss. We have too many people that want to be their own boss and they don't know how. They don't know how to manage themselves. They don't know how to manage their time. They don't know how to manage P&Ls. They don't know how to meet deadlines on time. You will not be able to do this for yourself if you haven't been able to do it for someone else when you had a steady paycheck. There's a correction coming, and the people who have their cups filled, who have done what they were supposed to do, will be the ones who have the capacity to invest. So what I'm telling you is show up excellently where you're at. And I don't care if you're home with your children, I don't care if you're on a job, I don't care if you're serving in ministry at a church, I don't care if you're the neighborhood bakery. Because every time somebody moves in, you show up with a pie. I'm saying wherever you are planted, show up with excellence. Quit being late, show up on time. Quit not meeting deadlines, do what you say you're going to do. Be a person of your word. When you have one thing in your hand, if you can have two, have two. And have an also exercise in your life. Be excellent, operate in integrity, be the person that can be depended on. What I'm telling you is that there is a correction coming, and The people who have their cups full are the ones who will be able to spend. Those are the people who would actually be able to determine their price and hold it. Here's the difference between those that invest when everything is inflated and those that invest when the going is really, really good. You can hold on to it. You can hold on to it. The reason why people who win a lottery or come into a windfall of cash end up broke again is because they never actually changed their mentality. So just because they got more did not mean that they could handle more. And if you chase more and you haven't developed how to handle it, you'll be in trouble when the correction comes. You'll be in trouble when you run out of money. You'll be in trouble when you run out of relational capital. You will be in trouble. So the best thing for you to do right now is to average your investment, be consistent in developing who God wants you to be. Be consistent. Stay in school. Finish that degree. I know that job is paying a lot of money right now. I know Uber could take the place of your, your— the job that you have, but is Uber taking you where you want to go? Some of y'all have gotten the best jobs of your life in this season, and I'm happy for you. Some of y'all have gotten distracted. Some of y'all have believed the lie that, um, you get to determine the outcome of all things instead of asking yourself, how can I serve the outcome? As unto the Lord, you've forgotten. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord so that he can lift you up in due season. The other side of this coin is you do have to know your value. You do have to know your value, but just beware of over-inflating your value to your own detriment. And in this world right now, everything is inflated, everything. So You have to know your value. You have to know what God says you're supposed to do in this season. Let him guide your nos and your yeses. When you give nos, give them in the spirit of the yes. But know your value and then know where God is calling you to be. Stay planted until he says your time is up. And let me just flip this for just a second. If you are in a position of leadership, if you are in a position of authority, look at the people who work for you or work with you in your organization. And yes, you have your KPIs and you have your— the stated goals and the things that people are supposed to do. Yes, I know you have to manage to that, but look deeper, look deeper. And you ask God as a caretaker of a soul and of a life What do you want me to do to water and nurture this life that is here on this job working 8 hours, this life that is serving in this ministry? One of the things I would love about my Aunt Elizabeth, who was the director of children at our church for years, she didn't just say, come here and serve and check the box. She knew when your birthday was, she knew when you got married, she knew when somebody passed away, she knew your life and she cared for you. She didn't just say, you're coming to serve, check the box and go home. She said, no, as you care for the children in this ministry, my job as a leader, as a director, as a person who has a shepherd and a pastor's heart, my job is to care for you. People are not just here, leader, to clock in and clock out and make sure you meet your numbers. People are here giving you more time with you than they are with their families. You are a caretaker of their soul. So ask questions, care about them. Even if you're not in a, in a faith-affirming organization, you can ask as an individual, how can I pray for you? Is there somewhere I can pray for you? Because you are a caretaker of a soul, of a life, for the season that they're with you. Look for how their gifts and their passions show up and recommend. Would you like to develop further in this? Because I see that you're good at this. Here is a path for this. It's one of the things I love to do. I love to do— I love it. I have interns coming in and they'll tell me, I want to do this, and then I realize that they're good at that. And I say, "Would you like to do this?" One of my interns from 3 years ago, we talk a lot just because she's become a great friend. And one of the things she said to me, and she said, "I can't—" We went out to coffee. She said, "I can't say too much or I'll start crying." She said, "My life has changed because I came as an intern and donated my time." to you and to what God has called you to do. And because of that, my life has changed. This was the job that she's doing now. She would have never thought in a million years she had the capacity for that. Some of the entrepreneurial activities that she's been able to dive into, she said, I'd never would have seen, but you saw something in me and you helped me to cultivate it. And something I thought I enjoyed, you realized that it gave me the ability to make wealth. And now I'm able to still serve my family. I'm able to still serve in my church. I'm able to still have my life. And now I have this, and I'm good at it. As a leader, your job is to call out in others what they may not see in themselves. And if you don't know how to do that, you ask God. You say, show me what you see that they don't see. It's like with children, you ask God, how can I steward their life well? Well, when you're a manager, when you're a boss, you do the same thing. How can I steward these people? They're serving in this organization, how can I serve them? So you invest, you, you, you let them do the training. If you're in an organization that can pay for that, that's why, you know, organizations do this where they'll say, you go back to school and get a degree, you're serving here, let's serve you becoming a better person. What I'm telling you is we're in a season where everybody's buying and selling and it's a frenzy. And I'm saying there's a way to operate in excellence and a way to wait on God until he says move. I wish I had nice neat bullet points for you. I didn't organize this this way because this kind of is an overflow of what I just feel. But what I'm What I'm telling you is stay steady. Realize that God is your source, so you do in your job situation what he's telling you to do. What I'm telling you is operate in also, go above and beyond, do more than is asked as God leads, because you don't work for them, you work for him. And then you don't do what everybody else is doing, and stop letting other people tell you what you should be doing with your time and with your life. They don't know your path. The psalmist said, order my steps, because I don't want to take a step, any step, unless you're leading me. Order my steps, light my path. You're not going to know his path, by the way, unless you read the word. Because the word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. What am I telling you? I'm telling you things are going to go up and down. You don't have to go up and down with it. You don't have to go up and down with the stock market. You don't have to go up and down with culture. You don't have to go up and down with society. You don't have to go up and down with what social media is saying to you. You can be steadily on the increase of your path. Your path, your path. And here's the beauty in this: if you get distracted by what everybody else is doing, let me tell you where you'll be. You'll be on their path. That's not what you want. You don't want to be on their path. You want to be on yours. When you're on your path, this is how you see. Ephesians says he will do exceedingly above and beyond all that you can ask or think, but he does that when you're on his path, not when you're on yours. Not when you're on yours. And we get this twisted. There's nothing wrong with having a plan. There's nothing wrong with working towards a goal, but just keep checking in to make sure that you are in agreement, that you are in alignment with what he wants to do. I've had to ask the same question recently. There's some things going on in my home and in my work, and I've had to say, okay, wait, wait, before I start reacting, before I start doing all the things, God, what are you telling me? This, this, it feels very volatile right now. What are you telling me? What's my path? What am I supposed to be doing? I need you to speak, Lord. I need you to tell me what to do. And I'm waiting. I wait for the Holy Spirit to give me confidence to give me settledness of soul, to give me clarity of mind so that I can take a step. Because I don't want to do this. That's exhausting. You know what you also do when you do that? You burn yourself out because you spend so much energy trying to get where you'll just go if you'll just stick with the path. You can do it your way. This is what I always tell my children. You're going to realize that I've been telling you the truth. My hope is that you will operate in that truth because that's the easy way. It'll feel hard, but it's the easy way. If you want to learn that I'm right the hard way, if you want to learn through the school of hard knocks that Mom was telling you the truth, you're still going to learn that I was telling you the truth. It'll just be hard. Your life will be hard. You'll make mistakes that you have to recover from. You will waste time. You will have regrets. You don't have to learn that way. Can you day trade your way to the top? And yes, there's some people that are really good at it. Tara Ijeoma, I've had her on the podcast. She whole courses that will teach you how to do that with discretionary funds. You shouldn't do that with your, with your house note, with your gas money, but with discretionary funds, 100%. Learn, learn how to ride the ups and downs and take advantage. That's, that's business acumen. That could be smarts. What I'm talking about is your main thing. And I'm saying, like I tell my children, don't get there the hard way. You don't need to be stressed out all the time, have that cortisol running through your veins. I mean, you can do this. Steady, steady. There is nothing like, nothing like having God promote you. Bruce Wilkerson told me that. I asked him to write an endorsement for, um, for my book She's Still There, and when he said yes, he said And just know that I'm endorsing because I know this is what the publishing world wants, but my endorsement actually doesn't matter. What I'm praying is that God will take the words from your soul and he will maximize them in the eyes and the ears of people all over the world. Because what you want is God promoting your book. You can do all the marketing tips and tricks, and we did. We, you know, you, you work with the tools that you have in your hand. I did. We We sent, you know, graphics out, and I did podcasts and all the things. Um, you know, Moses had to throw down the rod, like, he didn't disappear from his hand. He had to have a part in that. God wants to partner with us, but he said, but don't strive. You do what's in your hands to do and let God take care of the marketing. You let God do it. You do your part and let him do the rest. So yes, get the degree, sharpen your skill, get the certification, learn the job. Don't get discouraged, learn the job. And then you wait until he promotes you. It's something else when you realize you did not have to fight to make it happen. You had to work hard, but you didn't have to fight. Never in a million years would I think that I'm supposed to be here streaming live to— how many are here? 1,300, 1,400 people right now. But I tell you what I did know when I was 20, and I wrote it in my journal, wrote it on my goals sheet. My goal is to be teaching women how they can show up in their lives for what God has put in their souls to do, how they can honor their lives live God-honoring lives and understand what it is to cooperate with God to live out their unique design in their life. It was something like that. I didn't know how. I thought I would be going and teaching, and I thought, I want to teach the Bible, but sometimes I want to teach practically. And I thought like seminars. I thought like, you know, and there's a piece of that that I hope still does come one day. I would love to teach in spaces that are not faith-based, but like John Maxwell, he teaches faith-based principles in non-faith-based space. He didn't change the message, but the people that hear the message are blessed because then now they understand that the messenger got it from God. That's still a, uh, something that I'm waiting on God to do and open the doors to do. But I did say that I didn't know that I'd start a podcast. I didn't know that there would be an Inner Circle membership. I didn't know that there would be women who I'm coaching and sharing with. I didn't know that we'd have classes. I didn't know that we'd have events. I didn't know all of these things. I didn't know that I'd be streaming live with you today.. And I sure didn't even know how to do this 3 years ago. So the thing that God put in my heart though, I'll tell you what I did consistently do. I've always shown up for women. I've always shown up to gather women. I've always had women in my home. I've always served women in my church. I've always done the gathering of women. Always, always, always on the playground, the girl who made sure that we all played together, always gathering the group of women together in my home. I was looking at a video the other day where I had my grandmother come into my home and teach. I said, y'all need to know, these are the lessons from my grandmother. Gather in my home and listen to the woman of wisdom. I have that recorded. Maybe I should start sharing some of those. And here I am talking to you. Here I am with 1,500 women in a membership at different levels who encourage one another when I'm not there. Here I am making it up as we go along. This is what his dream was for me, and I did not know he was dreaming of me when he said, serve your mother in ministry. When he said, stay on that job and write the manual. When he said, it's not time for you to leave until I say so. When he said, do the internship and don't get paid. When he said, all of these things. This is what he had in mind for me. You cannot dream, you cannot dream a better or bigger dream than he has for you. You can't, because eyes have not seen, ears have not heard what he has planned for you. You don't even know, you have no idea. So the only thing that you need to do is show up and excel where he has you so that he has something to work with when he's ready to move you. God has no intention on you living in the same rut for all of your life. He has no intention for you to be flatlined. He has no intention for you to be stagnant. He has no intention for you to not change. His purpose in having you on this earth is for you to keep growing from glory to glory. I don't have babies and expect them to always be babies. I expect them to grow. I don't have people who work for me and expect them to do the same thing for 25 years. I expect them at some level to learn and develop. I don't I don't expect people to serve in ministry with me and never ever do anything different. Even if the position doesn't change, I expect them to change because they grow and mature in the knowledge of God and in the knowledge of real-world solutions for real-world problems to affect change in their circle of influence. God does not expect you to flatline, but if you jump ship because you feel like you're flatline, what you're gonna realize is you jump ship and you're sinking. Because you were supposed to stay on the boat. You were supposed to stay on the boat. The boat may be anchored somewhere, but the purpose of there being a ship is it's supposed to travel. It's supposed to travel. So why are you jumping off? Listen, we went on a cruise recently, Alaskan cruise. My dad's ministry took an Alaskan cruise, and there are ports, okay? There are ports. You get off when they tell you to get off, and you get on when they tell you to get on. And everybody pays attention to the time you're supposed to get on that boat, and you get off, and you have to have your little key card because you want to be able to get on the boat. Let me tell you something, I don't care who in my life has a pattern of tardiness When they get on a cruise, they get on the boat because what they know is even if the ship is docked here and I'm gonna get off for a little bit here, the boat is gonna leave. So I make sure I know what time I'm supposed to get on that boat, and I don't miss that. Nobody, nobody gets off the boat. And listen, we would call— we saw our boys, Chrystal and I, we took our boys and they're 18, so we let them get off and do whatever they wanted to do. We were calling them, y'all know what time you heading back? We need you to get on the boat because we know the boat is going to leave, and the boat is going to leave whether they're on it or not. So I'm not saying to you that there's not pit stops along the way. I'm not saying to you that there are seasons when you're going to think, is this going to ever end? Some of the stops, I was like, are we still here? We've been here all day. Some of the stops were an hour, get on, get off, get some lunch, get some hot chowder, get back on the boat. The boat was always going somewhere. So don't be dismayed if the boat is in port Don't be dismayed if you don't see any movement. Don't be distracted and don't get off the boat and miss it when the boat starts moving again. There are moments in your life when you're gonna be in port at that job longer than what you thought, when you're gonna be in that relationship longer than what you thought. You're gonna be striving with that child longer than what you thought. There are gonna be times when school is gonna take you longer than what you thought. There's gonna be times when the promotion takes longer than what you thought, but don't forget you're on a ship and the ship is going somewhere. So you need to know what time it is. And how do you know what time it is? You need to pay attention to your guide. How do you do that? Well, there's a guide that they send every morning and they put it under your door, and this is what's happening today. You have to read that guide. You have to listen to the announcer. The guide is the Holy Word. The announcer is the Holy Spirit. And if you don't have your spirit and your mind and your eyes attuned to the instructions, you will miss the boat. Y'all got me preaching this morning and this ain't even that kind of thing. You need to understand that there are instructions for your life, and if you start making it up as you go along, not only will you be ebbing and flowing unnecessarily— all the drama, all the stress— you will be missing the boat. And what that means, if you miss the boat, then you got to find your own way home. You got to now get on a plane. It's going to cost you more to make it back to port. You're gonna have to wait to be reunited with your stuff. So you'll still get home. It'll just take you longer. Read the instructions, listen to the announcer, and quit making this whole situation— don't get distracted. The port is not your destination. It's not. I don't know, you're having fun, but come back to the boat. I know the zipline was fun. We ziplined, that was like a mile high. We ziplined with the kids, but we don't get it twisted. We didn't go back and do that again because we had a boat to catch. We had fun, and then it was time to get back on the boat. This is my whole calling in life. This is it right here, summed up in one sentence: I want to save you time. That's it. I've been blessed to have great parents. I've been blessed to be great, be in a great church. I've been blessed to have great experience. God has been so good to me, to help me finish my degree even as a single parent, to give me great jobs with great people who I learned from. I'm I'm so blessed, and yet I was so dumb. And some of these things that were right in front of me— I wasn't lacking information, I was just doing whatever felt good in the moment. I was just riding up and down instead of being steady with what knowledge I did have and waiting on God to give me the more knowledge that I needed. I was doing all of this and wasting time. So now I'm 50 years old, I'm exactly where God wants me to be, and I really believe that God doesn't waste anything. There is nothing that I have been through in my life that God is going to waste if I bring it and say, here, how do you want me to use this? What do you want me to do with this? How do you want me to use this to serve other women? But what I do want my knowledge to do is to save you time. Stop the foolery. Stop making dumb mistakes. Stop doing things that feel good or that serve you right now. Figure out how to get and be where you're supposed to be planted so you don't have to realize in 10 years, I knew this already, I should have done it earlier. In 20 years, I knew I was supposed to do that, but I got tired and I quit, and I should have never quit. Stop quitting. What I hear right now is we have this idea of quitters. I read this article, I wish I had the ability to reference it, but this idea that you can quit, you can be on the job and you're like, I'm done, I'm sitting here in front of my computer but I'm doing other things, I'm logged in, I'm working from home, I'm not giving my time. It's a quitting mentality. I know you're tired, I know that I know that the pandemic was a whole thing. I know that it's rocked our souls and our minds, but get a grip. Get a grip. This is your life. This is your life. And every moment that you believe the lie that quitting is all right— quiet quitting— every moment that you believe that just because everybody else is doing it, it makes it okay for you to do it, you, you are missing out on what you're supposed to gain in this season. You are buying when everybody's buying. You are selling what everybody's selling, and everybody's selling right now that it is okay for you to live your life on your own terms. No, that is the long way around to discovering that that's a problem mentality, and I'm trying to save you some time. Stop being sold a lie. What works is excellence. What works is integrity. What works is consistency. What works is you being willing to go the next mile. That's what works. Because even if your job doesn't change, even if your marriage doesn't change, even if your relationships don't change, you change. And guess what happens when you change? You give God more to work with. And that means whatever he has planned on his trajectory for you— that means whatever he has planned for you, when he brings it into the picture, you're ready for it. You're ready for it. I heard Steve Harvey say this about himself and his wife Marjorie, that they had met earlier on, and he said, in that season, we weren't ready for each other. They came back together again having lived their separate lives. He said, but now we were ready. When you meet the right person, when you run into the right job, when you get the opportunity at the right church, in the right neighborhood, with the right group of people, you want to be ready My husband and I would say that all the time. He— we were married, I was 29, he was 34, and we used to say earlier on in our marriage, we wish we had met sooner. It's like, I wish I had met you sooner. What if the quiet quitting and the distraction and the in and out and the up and down and the self-serving mentality— what if it's underdeveloping you? What if when the life opportunity comes, you are not ready? I want you to be ready, and you don't know when the opportunity is going to come. Same principle about being ready for death, being ready for life again. What if you just need to be ready? And there are some of y'all, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Some of this doesn't apply to you. Some of y'all are planted where you need to be planted, but some of y'all keep hopping around. Stop. Develop. Grow. Get nurtured. Understand what you're there for. Understand the assignment. And even while you wait on God to explain the assignment to you, be steadfast, unmovable. Always abounding in whatever it is that God has put in your hands to work to do. This was for somebody. I don't know who, but it was. Listen, make the money, take the job, move on, change churches. Just make sure when you do, you've received instruction Make sure when you do, you were told this is the place to get off. You don't have to worry. God is always taking you somewhere. Don't, don't, don't be distracted by this. Don't be distracted Don't, don't be distracted by that. Make sure you're where you're supposed to be planted. Here's what I know to be true: time tells the truth. And you are not doing yourself any favor if in the here and right now you're lying to yourself, because time will tell you the truth, and you will learn the truth clear as day, the easy way or the hard way. You can either believe me today, or you can say, but she doesn't know this, this, that, and the other. Okay, time will tell the truth. I just want to save you some time. That's it. I just want to save you some time. Quit wasting time with that boy. He's not the man you need. Quit wasting time in front of the TV. You are frittering away your life on social media. Not today, but other days. Quit wasting your money. Don't you know this is your way to build wealth? And most of the things you're spending your money on will be given away in the next 2 to 5 years. You won't be able to find it. You will be trying to sell it because it doesn't hold value. Quit wasting your words. Your words have power. Use them well. It's time for you to decide what is God asking me to do, and do that and stick with it, and quit jumping on and off the boat at stops he's not asking you to take. Because here's the other thing about a cruise. We could go from the port of departure to the furthest point and come back in 2 days. The reason why the trip takes longer is because they have planned in stops along the way. Stops along the way are not the problem. The problem is when you are adding stops that aren't a part of the plan. Cruise is supposed to take 7 days. We knew that, we planned for it, we enjoyed it. Had that cruise ship started taking other stops and that trip became a 14-day cruise or 21-day cruise or a 30-day cruise or a summer-long cruise, we would have been losing our minds. That's too long. But the reason why the ship would have taken longer is more ports or longer stays at the ports that were planned. What you are doing when you are staying somewhere longer than you're supposed to be is you're typically adding more points of stopping, or you're staying too long at a place God never meant you to live. Some of y'all, that means it is time for you to jump the cliff and start your own business, or leave and take that job opportunity. For many of you, especially in this current culture, It's to stop the quiet quitting, to stay planted, to show up and do good work in your home, outside of your home, in your church. It is to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding and showing up, and people knowing that the reason why she's here is because she knows where her help comes from. She knows who her source is. And whenever I get distracted, and I do I have to come back and I say, what— I know what the world says do. What am I supposed to be doing? God, I am, I am living on borrowed time. What do you want me to do with the time that you've given me? And you step back and you ask yourself that question and you wait for his answer. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. You only should do it if you have a deep knowing in your soul that this is where you're supposed to be. So I hope that this has been helpful. If you want to share this, share it. Make sure you like it. Make sure you tell somebody about it if you feel like it's helpful. I'm sorry I gave you a bunch of Auntie Chrystal today. But I just see so many of you, so many of you getting distracted, and I don't want you to waste time. I want you to maximize the time that you have to enjoy life. Enjoy it, but also get where God wants you to go. And that's not going to happen if you keep jumping around. It's just not. There is an opportunity coming. For those who understand the assignment. Stick with your assignment and you wait for God to open doors. All right, y'all, hope you enjoyed that.