How Piano Lessons Transformed My Perspective on Life

Hi there. I am in my car and I have a thought, and somehow if I say it out loud while somebody's listening, it makes me feel as if the thought is seed that is helpful to someone right now. When it's bubbling up, I just try to catch it. Okay, so I have a thought and I just want to get it out there so that I don't forget. Okay, so here goes. So I was at piano lessons tonight, and, um, for those of y'all who aren't in the Inner Circle, you may not know this. So here's the backdrop for why I'm in piano lessons, but the lesson is not about the piano lessons. The lesson is, um, about what my piano teacher told me, and I just feel like I'm gonna forget it if I don't get it out. So I've took piano lessons from the age of 5 to 15, maybe even another year or two after that. I can play a Bach two-part invention, slap down the Chopin book in front of me, I'm good. You know, give me minuet in G, you know, any of that, I got you. If you put me in church and you give me the chords, I can follow. I have the dexterity. Can't play by ear the way I want to, which is why I'm taking lessons. I want to be able to sit down at the piano, hear what I hear in my head, and get it out. I've said this for a long time. I've said that one day I want to write some music. Um, I think I'm a good wordsmith, and sometimes those words need to be to song. Um, I just want to free myself up. So I went to piano lessons. This man has tuned my piano for 20 years, and one day I said, hey, do you do piano lessons? I was asking for one of my sons, and he said, yes, I do, but I'm really picky about who I do piano lessons with. And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, I only want to teach people who want to learn. So if your son really wants to learn, like, I don't do kids whose parents are making them take lessons. I only want to teach kids who want to learn, or adults. And you can have previous experience or brand new, doesn't matter. But I teach people who want to learn, no problem. And then it turned— I was like, oh well, he don't want to learn. I'm trying to make him— he's naturally gifted, but he doesn't want to necessarily work that hard. That's okay. But then I was like, wait a minute, what about me? He's been tuning my piano for 20 years. I never asked him about piano lessons. Then he told me he has this method for teaching, and I'm thinking, what method could you have that everybody else don't have? You know, he has a method that nobody else has, and it is the most basic, non-glorious, not shiny, low aesthetic method ever. He told me to bring him a binder. Here's my binder. The lessons, y'all, he just writes them down. He makes copies. He don't use no books. He's like, this is what I did to understand the piano, the instrument. I can read music too, he said, but I wanted to understand the instrument because once you understand the instrument, you can play anything. The lessons are 2 hours a week, 2 times a week, because he said, if I can get you immersed in it, you'll connect the dots faster and you'll, you'll, you'll get where you need to go. His, his system involves immersion, just like if you want to learn a new language, you can learn it in a book, you can learn it in a class, but you really learn it when you move to Mexico or Spain with Spanish or French, German. You learn it well when you, when you go and immerse yourself. He's like, we just don't have a lot of time. So tonight we've had some stopping and starting. I've had some traveling out of town. He went out of town. The 3, the 2 lessons a week for 2 hours at a time was supposed to be 3 or 4 weeks, but we've been have an issue. So I'm back at it. And I looked at him today and said, how long do I have to keep coming to her? I said, like, it's, it's a big investment of time. I leave work early, you know. I look at the girls in the office and I'm like, it's 3:45, I got to go to piano lessons. And, um, you know, I'm thinking about all the things I need to do at the end of the day. I'm trying to make sure I start dinner. I mean, it's a whole thing, 2 times a week to disappear. And he loves his piano lessons so much Y'all, it's supposed to be a 2-hour lesson. We have gone for 3 hours sometimes. He'd be like, do you have a few more minutes? Because he gets so excited about it. Here's what I need you to understand that he said to me tonight. He said, when I asked him, how long do I have to keep coming twice a week? He said, the thing is, if we can just stay consistent The stopping and the starting is what's making this take longer than it should. There are so many things in that, but all I could think was— I'm switching gears— is how my husband, when we go on a road trip, he wants to get there. Okay, I want to stop and see all the things. He wants to get there. And so this is what I told my piano teacher: you're basically telling me what my husband would tell me if we're going on a road trip to Disney World. You're putting too much time and energy on the stops. If we would stop with all the stops, you'd get where you were trying to go. Because I asked my piano teacher I've been to some people, Mr. Piano Teacher, who will teach some of the, the, the, the, the technical skills, but then they throw in a song so you can like feel some joy. Like, I can play the song. He is hardcore tech. I need you to do your, your, your, your— I mean, I don't even know— your scale tone chords. I need you to do your There's all these things. They're in the book. They're in the book. And it's just straight, straight core knowledge. That's it. I said, can I play a song? I said, I went somewhere one time years ago in my 20s where they taught you a principle, but then they gave you a song to play. They gave you a song to learn. And some of what you're trying to get me to do, which is recognize some of the chord names, they would let me practice in a song. And he said, but every time I stop to give you a song, we're delaying, we're delaying where we're trying to go. I would rather invest my time in giving you the tools so that you can get where you want to go. Then exiting, then taking breaks to do things just to make you feel good. That's going to make the whole thing take longer. And I thought my husband would say to me, we're not going to exit and do all these little foolery trips. We're not going to see the little sights. We're not going to see the caverns. We're not going to go veering off-road to go look at the little thing from the, from the, from the little book that you got. We're not going to— because we're going to Disney World. My husband and my piano teacher think the same way. Why would you delay the big part of your life for unnecessary stops? Now, I believe you should enjoy the journey, and I believe sometimes you stop over and you just have a good time. But I also believe, y'all, that many of us get stuck on our stops. I can take a year. He said, why would I give you a song to play with your limited skill and knowledge when with a couple of months I can set you up to play whatever you want to play? Why would I stop off and do that? Why would something that takes 2, 3 months, take a year just so that you can have a little enjoyment. He said, I'll do that. He said, if that's what you want to do, I'll do it, but I'm trying to get you to Disney World. Sometimes, y'all, we mistake the exits and enjoying the journey for what really is delay, what really is um, what's the word I'm looking for? Where you push something off till tomorrow, postpone, but that's not the word I'm looking for. Y'all know the word I'm looking for. Why would we delay? This is what happens when you say you want a certain man but you keep stopping off. This is what happens when you say you want a certain employee with a certain skill and you keep stopping off. Procrastinating, that's the word. This is what happens when you say you want to reach a goal in your life, um, financially, but you keep stopping off. Now, I believe that Sometimes you just need to stop off a little bit because you do have to live life along the way. But some of us are habitual stoppers and we stop to take advantage of things that don't even scratch the itch. You have to know the difference between smelling the roses and getting lost in a garden that doesn't belong to you. You have to know the difference between having small joys in your life and blowing your budget and not getting to your financial goals. If you see a pattern of exiting, if you see a pattern of taking a break, if you see a pattern of pressing pause, and then when you come back to it, you regret the time that you took because you know where you're trying to go. If every time you say you're gonna go back to school but you don't because you took a class or two, but then, you know, this semester you didn't feel like it, but then you know you're trying to get to the playground, you know you're trying to get to Disney World, you know you're trying to get to the thing— y'all, we— our lives are gonna be littered with all of the exits we took. And we know where we want to go, but we keep taking exits. And he just looked at me and said, "I'll do whatever you want me to, but I wouldn't give you a song to play just to make you feel good about learning a few chords." He said, "Because what's going to happen is you're going to get distracted." playing with that song. You're going to get so excited you can play it, and you're going to work on that song, and you're going to, you know, want to get that song good when you could have been practicing the fundamentals. Some things in life, y'all, are just about the fundamentals. What I see in my life and what I see in so many lives of particularly young women 25 to 35, maybe 40, is that you keep stopping off. You keep stopping off with the career. You keep stopping off in relationships. You keep stopping off with the church. You keep stopping off with your friends. You keep stopping off with your health. You just keep stopping off. And then what happens is then you are frustrated because you're not getting anywhere. But you never— and this is a big message of my whole life, okay? My— one of the messages that I find myself giving over and over again is that you have to be planted. You can't— you cannot keep hopping jobs every 6 to 12 months and expect to have a comprehensive deep knowledge of anything because you're not staying long enough to be stretched. You have to stop breaking up with friends or relationships or ministries or small groups because there was conflict. You'll never learn what it really means to love. You'll never learn what it really means to be long-suffering with people. I'm not talking about abuse, and I'm not talking about You know, but sometimes in good relationships for the long haul, you will be triggered. A part of life is learning how to manage your triggers, and managing your triggers does not mean running from them every time they show up. Some of the things that you are looking at in your life as verifiable, okey-doke exits are actually you chickening out of staying on the road. You got to stay on the road. There are some things that you cannot get hopping around. You need to finish some of those books. You need to finish that Bible study. I mean, and I'm talking to myself. You know where you want to go, but you keep taking an exit because what is at that exit seems like a good thing, and then you stay a little too long. There's a whole— I feel like this is a whole message. I feel like this is the starter of a whole message because there's multiple times biblically where Abraham took— he stopped off and he stayed too long. And he knew where he was supposed to be going, but he kept getting off. I, I don't— I just need you to get in your mind what you want. I need you to get in your mind what you want. I need you to get in your mind what you dream of, what you hope for.. And I need you to keep that in your mind. Keep it in front of you. So when you're tempted to exit, you remember that you have to ask yourself the question, is this exit worth the break of time? When I compare that with getting with where I'm trying to go, some exits you need to take. You gotta fill up with gas. You need to get you some Chick-fil-A. You need to stop off and get some Starbucks. Why is everything about food? But it is. Um, but sometimes y'all, and you know what I'm talking about, you just should have never exited. And you knew it when you took the exit. You knew it. You were like, should I be getting off here? Maybe I shouldn't. You know those exits where they show you the sign? And you think that whatever you want to eat, the Chick-fil-A, the McDonald's, the Burger King, the Panera, the Starbucks, whatever, you think it's right there. And then when you take the exit, you realize that it's a mile down the road, but you couldn't see that. And the sign said it's right here. And as soon as you realize that it's a mile down the road, you think, I should have never taken this exit. Before you take the exit, ask yourself the question, do I even need this right now? Hey there, I hope you're enjoying this content, and I hope that you are learning and growing as you sit and watch, or walk and watch, or whatever it is that you're doing when this content comes out. I want to make sure that you know about 3 things. Count them, 1, 2, 3. 3 things. Number 1, mark your calendar for January the 5th and 6th. I'm hosting the Sister Circle Live. It's going to be a combo of worship and also live podcast recordings, and also networking. It's going to be amazing. You can go right now to thesistercircle.com/live for more information or to register. Number 2, if you are trying to get your whole life together, did you know I created a planner? It is the Full Circle Planner, and it is a quarterly planner because I believe in 90-day sprints. You can buy one quarter, or you can buy all, all four quarters with— they're all different. We even have a set of yellow bound book special edition, limited edition, that's available for a bundle of 4. But they're going fast, and I want to make sure you get yours. So if you are interested in actually moving the needle forward and having some built-in accountability, get my planner. Not only is it a planner, but it's a coaching journal as well. You have a lot of quotes and questions from me to get you to thinking. Here's the third thing I need you to know about. The Inner Circle is amazing, and it is open. But it's not going to stay open. On January 8th, the doors are going to close for our community coffee and connection level guests. So if you are interested in the Inner Circle or you want to know more about it, go to thesisterscircle.com/innercircle. I would love to have you in there because this year we're going to have a growth plan and a development plan where every month, you know what we're teaching. It's emotional health and getting rid of anxiety. It's relational health. It's financial freedom. It's spiritual growth. It is looking at the areas of your life and saying, how can I build a life that will last and that will be steady in the midst of chaos? Because sometimes life is chaos. So I don't want you to forget about these 3 things: the event in January, the Sister Circle Live, January 5th and 6th, the planner— get yours while they last— and then the 3rd thing is the Inner Circle. If you want to be committed to growth this year, then I want to be committed to you. You can go to thesistercircle.com www.christalhurst.com/innercircle for more info. Well, anyway, I didn't want to take up too much of your time, but I wanted to make sure you knew what was happening. So now that you know what is happening, as Fred Sanford would say, let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming. He sat there, y'all. My piano teacher is a 70-year-old man who started learning how to understand the piano as an instrument when he was in his early 40s. He's disabled. He had polio as a child. He said, my wife would leave for work and I'd sit down at the piano and I was determined to master it. And I would spend 3 and 4 hours a day combing through my books and trying to make it make sense to me. I could read the notes on the page, but I wanted to, I wanted to understand it like I saw other people understand it. He said, I knew music, but I wasn't a musician. And then I sat down every day, 3, 4, 5 days a week, and immersed myself in the thing I wanted. And when I invested in the end result, then who I needed to be rose to meet me. There is a you spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, relationally that wants to rise to meet you. The you you are right now, but you'll never get to her if you keep taking exits. So what does this mean? Whatever vision you have for your family, quit taking exits. Quit saying, you know, one of these days I'm going to plan meals and sit around the table because, you know, I know I need to spend time with my family. We need to see each other face to face. We need to turn off the TV. We don't need to be on devices. What are you waiting on? Get a basket, put it in the kitchen, and at a certain time, everybody's devices go in the basket. And you're going to be the mean mom and the mean parent and all the things. You leaving on that one, aren't you? Mhm. I'll be in there in a minute. I know you want me to do your hair, but you keep getting caught in the busyness of life. So what does that mean? That means that you have to put some pillars around your life, some things that are non-negotiable, so that you make room for the family life you want to have. I know you want to finish that Netflix series, but do you actually want to create family memories, or do you want to finish the series, what will actually be the final destination. And whatever that is, you need to start investing in it right now. Or maybe you want to be prepared so that if you get hit by a bus one day, all of your affairs are in order. We taught a whole class in the Inner Circle recently about— well, we called it the Death Book. I think we changed the name to something else now that sounds more enlightening. But we all know, we know that stuff is scattered around. We need to put it together. We've seen it happen when somebody passes away and then they didn't have their stuff to— we've seen it. What are you waiting on? I know you're 28 and you're making good money and you're living the life, driving the car that you want to drive, and you can kind of eat out whenever you want to. And you know, you, you're dressed in clothes that you really like. You know, you, you know, you, you're sporting it all. And you know, they keep coming to you with the investment package that they have, and you know, you're saving a little bit, but you're not maxing out. Your 401k or your 403b, cuz why? You're young. But aren't you going somewhere? Where are you going? What do you want? If you don't know what you want, I guarantee you do if you think about it like this: every time you're scrolling on social media and you have a heart ping because you see what they have that you don't, that's what you want. But are you working for it? Are you working for it? I have 195,000 miles on my car. I have put lots of money into my car this year. My car is 11 years old, 12 years old. 195 is not too bad for 12. Everybody in my life says, Chrystal, girl, when are you gonna get a new car? Your car is in the shop again. When are you gonna get a new car? I don't want that bill because I know where I'm going. I have 2 kids that are about to be in college. Um, because of all the things that have happened health-wise in our family over the last 10 years, we were not able to keep up the way we wanted to. We have ground that we have to catch up on. So I can make sure the kids get to college. I can make sure we're saving for retirement. Or I can have a new car. Where am I going? I want to live life. I want to have ease at some point when I'm older, and I want to leave a legacy for my family. So you want to know what that means? The car can wait. What are you exiting for. That can wait. I just want you to have what you're supposed to have. What's over there? And I want you to have all of it, and I want you to enjoy it. So I don't know who this was for, but why would you exit and waste time on things that don't actually get you where you want to go? So there we go. That's all I wanted to say. That's all I wanted to say tonight, you know. That's all I wanted to say. Now, that said, we all have to make decisions. Um, we all have plans and sometimes those plans change. Sometimes what we thought we wanted or thought we were going to do, we wake up one day and realize, oh, this is not it. So let me give you one more word of advice. That's hard for me to take, but it is true. And I've never regretted taking this advice. When you realize that you're headed down the wrong road, when you realize you took the wrong exit, when you realize you should have never been on that freeway, don't get stuck thinking about whether or not you should stay where you are because you already invested. It's a sunk cost fallacy. It says, since I've already invested, spent the time, spent the money, gone this far, I might as well stick with it even though I know it's wrong. This is why we stay in bad relationships. This is why we don't get out of debt. This is why we, uh, we, we just give up and say, well, since I've already gone this far, I mean, I might as well stick with it since I've already put in the 3 years to the wrong degree. If I change my degree, I have to stay here an extra semester or an extra year. So I'm just gonna get the wrong degree because I don't wanna put in more time. As soon as you realize you took the wrong exit, as soon as you realize that you have been on the wrong road, as soon as you realize you made a mistake, you cut your losses and you change direction. You cut your losses and you get back on the freeway. You say, what? That investment was for me to learn a lesson. That's what I got out of it. You never lose anything that you think you lose. You gain in knowledge, you gain in wisdom, you gain in experience. But once you realize, oops, I made a mistake, You don't sit in it. You, you wake up and you pay attention to what you need to do, and you shift. You don't sweat bullets over it. You don't lament over it. You don't rake yourself across the coals. You don't do any of that. You say, you know what, I thought this, I've learned something, now I'm gonna make this decision and I'm gonna move on. And whenever you start to rake yourself across the coals, the because you took a wrong exit, you stayed on the wrong road too long, this is what you tell yourself. This is what the future you— you have to give your future you permission to tell the current you, girl, you needed that experience. Because who I am, who you're going to be, needed that experience to walk in wisdom, walk in confidence, walk in boldness. Because you know stuff. Yes, it would have been great if you didn't have to learn the lesson the hard way. But you learned the lesson. And you know what? Since you learned the lesson, that's gonna help me be better. That's helping me be better right now. So you just say, you know what? I needed that. I needed that. I needed to learn that. I'm gonna be better when I recover. I'm gonna be stronger, and I'm gonna be able to help someone else. I'm gonna be able to tell someone else, let me give you a warning about the pitfall. I'm gonna be able to, to help someone else who got stuck. I'm going to be able to better navigate the situation. The next time I see an exit, I'm going to know I'm not supposed to take that exit. The next time I have a distraction, I'm going to know better. I'm going to know better. When you know better, you do better. So let me give you some very practical things, okay? Because I just saw a question in the chat. What about those who don't know they're on the wrong way. I believe, and I believe this from the bottom of my heart, okay? If you will follow God, if you will pray, if you will crack open your Bible and read it, he'll let you know. You are not powerful enough to get in the way of of what God wants to do in your life. Screw it up. Okay, but let me just give you some things. If you are living with him and you're not married to him, you're on the wrong road. If you are stealing time from work because you're just clocking time and not doing your job, you're on the wrong road. If your numbers and your blood work are going the wrong direction because you can't stop eating what you enjoy, you're on the wrong road. If you have foul words coming out of your mouth all the time because you cannot control your anger or because you're that hurt, you're on the wrong road. If you have no ability to love people well because you have been so traumatized by other people not loving you well, you're on the wrong road because community matters for life. If you're not in church, you're on the wrong road. Somebody's church somewhere. If you are not doing something that develops you personally, whether you're in school or whether you're reading or whether you are stretching and trying new things, you're on the wrong road. If you don't spend time, quality time with your children and quantity time with your children, you're on the wrong road. If you never have anything positive to say to your spouse, you're on the wrong road. If you are always out of money always chronically in debt, if you never have enough— if you're here in America, you are wealthier than the majority of the people around the globe, you're on the wrong road. If you are constantly sick and never going to the doctor, you're on the wrong road. Let me tell you if you're on the right road. You're on the right road even if you don't have the answers, if you are seeking the right answers. You're on the right road if you are always trying to better yourself and asking other people, how can I grow? How can I learn? You are on the right road if there is something— not everything, but something— in your life that you are better at this year than you were last year. If you're always in a cycle with the same stuff, wrong road. There ought to be something in your life that's sprouting fruit, something in your life that is nourishing you or other people. There ought to be signs of life and signs of fruitfulness and signs of growth. If you see signs signs of growth. I don't care how small they are. Don't we get excited if the seed breaks ground and grows an inch tall? We see signs of life. You don't have to be a corn stalk in order to be alive and moving forward. Signs of life, personal development. If you are holding your tongue when you want to lash the people in your life and slice them across your neck, but you know that nothing productive is coming out of your mouth, and you are willing to hold your tongue until you have better more constructive words, you are on the right path. If you work to get the job done, even when you're not necessarily getting paid for them extra 15 to 20 minutes, you're on the right road. If you seek to be above reproach, if you seek to do not just what you're asked to do, but you go beyond the also principle, my friend Debbie Titus used to say, you're looking for what else you can do and not looking for what you can get away with doing, you're on the right road. When you are able to not just take care of your needs, but have a little bit extra in your pocket to notice the needs of others, you're on the right road. When you are sitting at a restaurant and the person who's serving you is having a bad day, but you notice their name on their name tag and you make sure you know your server that day is seen and loved and cared for, you care about their name, you care about their life, and you leave them a little extra in their tip and say, "God loves you," you're on the right road. You don't have to do this to an extravagant degree. You just need little signs that I am making moves in my life. If you don't have a regular prayer time early in the morning, late at night, then listen, while you in your car on your way to work, you turn off the radio, and if you gotta holler at God because your life is so hard and so challenging, you're on the right road. You don't have to be perfect. You just need to be headed in the right direction. You're on the right road if you tell your kids you're sorry. You're on the right road if you know you're jacked and you go get therapy so you can be better. You know you're on the right road if you're not good with finances, but you're really doing, doing your best to manage what you have. You're on the right road if you're laughing. You're on the right road if you're crying, because emotions, positive or negative, are good for you. You're on the right road if you are cultivating intentionally friendships. You're on the right road if a friendship— because you were willing to cut them off, you actually decide to work on it a little bit— if the friendship can be restored and can be healthy. You're on the right road if you're serving in your church. You don't have to be perfect. And if you dropped an F-bomb yesterday, leave it, apologize if you need to, and keep moving. There have been worse things, okay? If you've got substance abuse going on, deal with it. If you've been sober and you can count the days, the weeks, or the months, you're on the right road. I just want you to be on the right road, and I want you to stay on the road while you move to your destination. Where's your destination? I don't know. What I do know is that you truly are called for a purpose. That's all I got. I mean, sometimes when it's bubbling up, I mean, you know, there's always a bubble on Monday mornings. Inner Circle girls, y'all know there's always a bubble, there's always a bubbling over. But I just, I literally was sitting in my car and I was like, I think if I don't— you know how if your stomach is upset and you need to throw up, you're like, I don't know, I don't know. Exactly when it's gonna come, but everything in your body— like, your spit starts forming in your mouth, your stomach starts turning. You know that something is coming up, and you know you need to pull the car over, you need to get to some grass, you need to do something because it's coming. And if— or, you know, pregnant, right? You're having a baby. There comes a point where the baby is coming, so you can say whatever you want to say, but you gotta do whatever you're gonna do because the baby is coming. It was one of those moments. I was like, I feel like it's coming and I just need to get in a place where I can, where I can let it do what it's supposed to do. No notes, no filter, no plan, no Monday morning live. Because if I, if I would have waited to try to write it down or waited till Monday, it wasn't going to be there. So I had to get it out right now. This is what I want to say. Listen. Listening is better than talking. Everybody has something to say, and the Bible says something about that. In the presence of words, things are jacked, basically. Some of y'all are talking too much and telling me all the things you know. You need to listen. You need to ask questions. I think that the greatest travesty of a generation is that they think they know everything. If you don't ask questions, if you don't sit at somebody's feet, if you don't get the wisdom, you will have lost what somebody has gained 20 years ahead of you. I tell my kids all the time, the job that I have as a parent is to give you information so that you don't have to take 20 years to get the information. If you listen to the information I already got, I'll save you time. The reason why kids don't do that, the reason why teens don't do that, the reason why 20s or 30s won't do it, is 'cause they think they know everything. Be quiet. I don't mean don't talk. I'm saying assume the learning position. And, and I'm— I say the same thing about myself. But because we have Google and the internet, everybody thinks they know everything. There are just things you don't learn until you've been here a while. So I just want y'all to get wisdom. What does Proverbs say? Wisdom is crying out in the streets. She is saying, listen to me, I want to save you heartache and trouble, but people are too busy having a good time. She's like, come here, let me give you what you need to know. People think they know it all. What do I know? It's basic, y'all. The Bible says whatever is at your hands to do it, do it to the glory of God. Whether you eat or drink, what— in whatsoever you do, be excellent. Be excellent. Be kind. Love people. And let the stuff that comes out of your mouth, because the power of life and death is in the tongue. Your words bring life. Inner Circle girls, y'all know we talked about this already. Be careful what comes out of your mouth. Okay, we all are on borrowed time. And, um, uh, Inner Circle girls, we're going to tackle a few things soon. We've been talking about and planning for the third quarter, and, um, we just don't have time to waste, you know. You know, I like to bring in experts. Some things I'm not going to talk about, but like, literally, like, can Christian women, you know, have some real conversations about sex, please? Like, for real, can we not be churchy about it? And just— everybody else talking about it, ain't no reason why we can't. We, we, we got to go somewhere else to get information that ain't correct. Like, it's— this is stupid, you know? It's just stupid. See, y'all getting me— you're getting me going. I gotta stop. I mean, like, can we talk about money? Like, it's like, if God has called you to a life in a ministry or a job and you know you're where you're supposed to be and you're barely paying your bills, amazing. And I have had seasons like that. But if God has given you the power to make wealth and you have an idea and you can run a business, run a team, make money. Why are we apologizing for that? But make money and do good. Write some checks, bless some people, live on half of what you make. Like, can we talk about paying your kids when they're teens so you don't have to write it off, that you don't have— they don't have to report it and you get to write it off and they can start their IRAs when they're 16? Can we talk about that? Anyway, all the things. Keeping it raw and real is what I do. So y'all just need to know I've been thinking a lot, and, um, I need to be on my right road. I gotta get where I'm supposed to be. I need to not take exits that are cute, because people in these streets will have you taking exits because everybody else is taking the exit. Last thing, and I promise I'm done. Have you ever had a wreck happen on a freeway? Um, and, um, and everybody was trying to avoid the wreck, so everybody started getting off at the exit. Everybody, they cutting across, they cutting across the grass, all that. And have you ever been a person that took the exit because everybody else was taking the exit, and then you realized, I should have stayed on the freeway? I'm more stuck on the service road than I would have been had I just stayed on the freeway. Has that ever happened to you? I just want to stay on the freeway. I just don't want to be distracted. I don't want to exit too early. I don't want to exit because everybody else is doing it. And this world, y'all, will have you doing stuff because everybody else is doing it. Good things. So anyway, I'm rambling now. I feel relieved. Whatever I was supposed to say earlier, got it off my chest. But, um, yeah, it's time. It's time for you to get on the road. Quit messing around. All right, y'all. I think that's it. Uh, Inner Circle girls, I'll see you on Monday. I might have a few more things to say about this. I have some inside scoop about what's going on. So, okay, bless the Lord on my Y'all have a good night. I will talk to you later. Bye!