THE APOSTLES TABLE | S2, E2: LIFE REIMAGINED WITH BEN TANKARD | DR. MIKE WOODS | 26 FEB 26

Well, grace and peace everyone. I pray you are well. This indeed is the day the Lord has made, and we shall rejoice and be glad in it. I'm super excited, man, about this conversation tonight. I wanna welcome you to this evening's episode of The Apostle's Table. Unlike my guest, who flies himself around the country in his own plane, I just got in and I ran right in here tonight, turned on cameras, lights, so I could sit down and interview him. I told him last week, I said, one day, Ben, I'm gonna be just like you when I grow up and I'm gonna fly myself around the country. So, Well, we just got in from an amazing, uh, just break we took right before this conference we're about to go in. I've been playing golf for the last 3 days, but I'm super excited to talk to my guy tonight. Uh, do me a favor, family, I need you to share. People already coming in, I think I see, uh, a total of 125 watching us right now. We are on 5 different platforms: Instagram, 3 Facebook pages and YouTube. So if you're just joining us, family, do me a favor. I'm gonna be bringing Ben in directly because we're gonna get into this. I'm really excited about this conversation. I'm excited about him being back with us at Rodder Church. Uh, it's a very pivotal season for our church. Uh, some great things are happening for us right now. Talk about that a little later. Uh, but to have a voice like Ben come in in this moment to motivate faith, to release the spirit of abundance and wealth over our house is gonna be absolutely phenomenal. So you need to make sure you're in the building. I see some of you doing your job, you're sharing. We just jumped up to 284 over here. Y'all sharing good. We just jumped to 935 on, over all channels, which is great. 935, let's keep sharing. Let's, let's hit, let's, let's try to hit 2,000 tonight, guys. Let's see if we can do it. We can only do that with your help. Glory to God. So if all 935 of you share this right now, we will be really close to our goal of hitting 2,000 viewers tonight on this livestream. I'm gonna get ready to bring Ben in. Uh, he is one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom of God. I will say that. He is a man who lives what he preaches and teaches. But what I love about this brother, he is so down to earth. Um, from the day I met him, we hit it off, and I'm just super excited to have him in my life. Uh, he's someone, uh, in the areas of financial growth and development that I look up to, and I'm super happy again to have him on my side, on my team, and to have the opportunity as a leader, as a pastor, and as an apostle in the Lord's church to be able to bring him into your life. Glory to the name of God. So you can experience the things that he brings to the table. So without further ado, I'm gonna add him into this conversation tonight. And I need y'all to do me a favor, guys. Please, this information that's about to be dropped is gonna be life-changing. If you take what you hear tonight, that as Ben speaks to us, And as we share, glory to God, if you take it and apply it immediately, it'll begin to work immediately. So get little brother, get your cousins, get everybody on here tonight. Get all the broke folk you know, because we're trying to shift that mindset. God is moving us from this season of holy hands and empty pockets. No more of that. In order to take dominion and advance the kingdom, We gotta embrace the wealth and the authority that God has allowed us to have. Glory to the name of God. So without further ado, praise God, Ben. Pastor Ben, good to see you, man.

What's up, my brother? Man, you bringing dark-skinned brothers back in style. Come on, man, you ain't never went out of style. Oh man, I love you so much, uh, Brother Mike. I've been uh, stalking you for several years on your Instagram page, and I just love your powerful word. And, uh, um, reconnected, and you guys brought me down, and I had such a great time with your church. And me and my wife, we talk about you all the time. I'm so proud of what you're doing. I'm so proud to be in your space, in your, uh, in your life. And thank you for, um, allowing us to, to share life with you and your wife, man. We love the community you all have created. And thank you for allowing me just to throw some gas on your fire already, because really you don't need me. But sometimes you have to bring in somebody from outside to say something you've been saying the whole time, and people were like, oh, that's a revelation! You've been saying it the whole time. So I'm, I'm just here to throw gas on your fire. Thanks for having me, brother.

Man, it is my pleasure, man. Um, I don't have it no other way. You know, I remember the first time we connected and I was so excited because this is how God works, right? I had, you know, for years, you know, I still got like old Ben Tanker CDs laying around, man. When, when— see, and I think I might have— I got a box of cassette tapes. I probably got—

you might have an LP because I started recording right after 8-track, dog. So you might have an LP somewhere.

'Cause I was actually at that Kojic convention where you first started selling it. I got one of them.

Oh no.

I was able to pick up one of them when you was at that convention. Oh, you remember this? I remember that, sir. Yes, sir.

And you remember that guy right there?

I remember that guy.

Yes, sir. I had hair, Doc, come on now. I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

So Ben, let's jump into this and listen, guys, y'all are doing good. We're almost where we want to be. We're at 1,630 people over all platforms. Keep sharing this. This information, uh, is so necessary, uh, that we're about to disseminate. Uh, so Ben, I'm gonna jump right in these questions, man. You are doing something called Reimagined. You did us Yeah, and you're getting ready to go on tour. So I guess my first question for you tonight, you've had decades of success, won awards, you have produced Grammy Award-winning artists outside of yourself. In, in light of even winning your own awards, what does reimagine mean for you in this stage of your life? I mean, as far as your spirituality, your creativity and even financially? What, what, what, and how did you, how did that arrive? Reimagine what, what happened that caused that to be a thing?

That's a very good, uh, it's a very good question, Pastor. And just let me know if I blank out, seemed like we had a little technical glitch there. But that's a very good question. And you know, as an instrumental artist, I learned very, very quickly, especially in the gospel community where the audience can quickly turn into the Apollo Theater. You know, they, they, they can be harsh. They can be— you got to be on your P's and Q's. So they're very judgmental of singers. But here I am, never sung a note in my life. I'm an instrumentalist. My music is gospel mixed with jazz. I learned very quickly in my career I can't just come on stage and play for 2 hours and just say things like, "Well, the next song is this," and go on to the next song. I had to engage the audience. I had to involve them because you can quickly become what they call a lounge lizard, where if you're just an instrumental artist, People start talking on you, they start walking, texting, you know, just disrespect your presentation. And another thing I learned to keep the audience was you can't do all original material. You gotta find something that has already been a hit, that people already love. And then you just put your own stank on it, put your own spin on it. And represent it as a cover song. And reimagine it. And in my 30 years in the industry, in my 20-plus records that I've recorded, in my 15 gold records, in my 6 platinum albums with all my awards, let me tell you, the songs that I did that was somebody else's song that was hot already, that I redid it like a— I redid, um, You Will Know by Stevie Wonder. I redid Outstanding, the Gap Band. I redid Rise from Herb Abbott. I redid Melodies from Heaven from Kirk Franklin. Wouldn't you know that where I got the most impact was something that was reimagined, something that was already present in their heart. And I just— and you've heard that term, there's nothing new under the sun anyway. That's right. So every time you go to Genesis 1, it always says, "In the beginning," no matter what year it is, it always says, "In the beginning." So I, I got that reimagined from, um, that my success as taking something that was already there and just shining it up. You know, we've always, um, had a new car that first week or two, you won't let no fingerprints Live on that.

No, you won't.

It won't be no french fries on the floor. Come on now, come on, take your shoes off before you get in my car now. Don't—

but right about it.

But over time we get carnal and we get used to it. And then, then now years later you talk about getting a new car, and sometimes the thing that you'd be wanting to buy isn't, isn't as good as what you already have if you just reimagine it and shine it up and, um and keep it fresh. So that's where Reimagine came from, brother.

That's awesome. So in light of that, man, so a lot of artists, you know, they'll reinvent themselves or reimagine themselves out of necessity. But what I've noticed with you, you have always been progressive and on this road where you kind of reinvent yourself from a place of strength.

How do you—

and I think this will help someone listening— how do you discern when it's time to pivot, when it's time to do something different, when it's time to— whether that's in music, business, ministry, when you, when you know it's time to pivot? Because you, you said something earlier about capturing the audience and how you had to reimagine yourself, but what is it that really shows up that makes you say, okay, it's time to pivot right here so I can be impactful? Because again, some people do it because they need to do it.

Yes, sir.

I think you, you, you have done it from a place of, of strength and being very deliberate and intentional.

That's a good question. You're such a good interviewer too, man. I see why you're so successful in this media space because you know how to read the room and read the questions. Uh, that's a very good question. I like low-hanging fruit.

That's good.

I believe when, um, I believe what, what you lose track of, uh, easily, it might be something that you're called to. You know, um, many times we figure, we figure out what's going on in our lives and we say, you know, I don't know what my purpose is. Well, we know our general purpose, our, our standing order is to be a worshiper. Because God made us as humans because he was bored with the worship of the angels. So he, he created a whole new creation just to worship him. So the standing order in all— in military, we got, um, Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, uh, no matter what part you're with, the standing order for all military is to protect the country. After that, you might be a data entry, you might be a gun runner, you might be a short order cook, but the standing order of all military is to, is to protect the country. The standing order for every human is to worship God. You were created to worship God.

Yes, sir.

And then secondary to that is your career, how you keep food on the table, your shoes, you know, your clothes, the cars, you know. Oh yeah, I'm a, I'm a data entry clerk, or I'm a supervisor. No, no, you're a worshiper. Yeah, that's your purpose. But after that, your occupation is what you do to eat while you in the earth suit. Come on, talk to me.

Yeah, come on, sir.

You know, so, so I like the low-hanging fruit. And, and I'm, and I'm only married to Jewel. Uh, I'm supposed to be a worshiper, but as it relates to the different things we do to make money, to create resources, to spread ministry, I'm only married to Jewel. I will flip a switch whenever the Holy Ghost show me just a slight breeze. I never thought I was gonna be a day trader until pandemic happened and they shut down every building, no concerts. Here I am doing 150, 200 concerts a year, Mike. Now, how do you go from 200 concerts a year and making a million bucks on the road, making people scream in a theater and an outdoor festival and a concert hall and in a church, How did it go from that to sitting at home like, what I'm gonna do next? How did— how does that work? And so while I'm sitting at home, I become a day trader. I learned how to trade binary options, and my best day, Mike, my best day was $560,000 in one day.

Yes, sir.

And so I'm like, you ain't, you ain't never got to call me to do no concert. I sit right here on my, on my laptop and they trade these currencies. But my point is, I'm not trying to brag about that because my worst day was $360,000. So I know how it is. I know what it's like to lose it, just like I know how it is to, to gain it as well. But my point is, I'm not on— I'm only married to Jewel. And so I will, I will pick peas I will be a podcaster, I will be a reality TV dad, you know, I'll be a pastor, I'll be a mechanic, I'll do anything for the season. And I believe who you hang around is so good, it's just seasonal. It's just— I'm only married to my wife, Doc. Even the children are interchangeable. I am married to this church, I am married to this building, I'm not married to this car, I'm not married to this plane. I'm only married to Jewel. Anything else can change.

That's so good, Ben. God is good. That's good, I love it. 'Cause everything else is really interchangeable. And I love that answer, man, 'cause we have to be what we need to be when we need to be it. And that's just the perfect answer to that question. Because we are providers and God depends on us to express worship through provision as well. That's so powerful.

Hey, I have musicians, and you, and you seen it. Yeah, I have musicians who will go to the dying, uh, grave broke as a jailbird, broke within the first set of Ten Commandments that Moses dropped when he came off the mountain, because they refused to do anything but music. But let me tell the musicians and creatives and singers and that are listening. It don't matter how good you can sing or how good you can play. If you can sing and play more than one key, you have the same creativity to operate more than one business.

Come on.

Sometimes your passion don't feed you.

Come on.

Sometimes what you love to do don't get the memo that you supposed— that it's supposed to take care of you. You could be the world's is, but if nobody buying the doggone sweaters, you, you need to do something else. And, and so, uh, I don't believe that believers and Christians are supposed to be a one-trick pony. And if you're going to tap into millionaire status, come on, you're going to have to open your mind to do more than that little bit of thing that you said that you wanted to do when your third grade school teacher said what you wanted to be when you grow up, and you said fireman. And I don't know no millionaire firemen.

Come on. No, no, sir. That's so good, Ben. Listen, I'm, I'm, I'm the same way. And even though I'm not a musician, I've been a full-time minister for 37 years this year.

Amen.

That was a season in my ministry where I had to pivot because I was out here doing 40 and 50 revivals a year. I was traveling all— and this was before, uh, MySpace. I was on the road doing revivals as an evangelist and prophet before MySpace. So I didn't have no social media exposure, I didn't have no television program, but God was opening those doors. But one day I was coming back, and I think this kind of ties into what you said, um, from San Diego. This was a door I would go through every single year. And the late Bishop George McKinney, Church of God in Christ board member forever, he was one of my mentors and he would bring me in every year to preach. And I would go in, I would preach for 7 days, twice a day. So I would do like 14 services in 7 days. I'll preach at 12 noon and come back at night. And they would just take up money for me every service after I preach. And so whenever I would leave, that would be like my meeting in the beginning of the year. I would leave that place with anywhere from $75,000 to $100,000 in a week. And so I could use that money to kind of manage through the rest of my year. Because, you know, that was a good foundation, right? Well, one year I went out here, that money didn't come in like that, because the economy had changed. And my offering was probably about $3,000 for that whole week, which was a big drop, right?

Pandemic, bro.

Yeah, that's right. Demi drop. That's what I'm saying. So I was on the plane coming back and it was a Forbes magazine inside of the pocket, man. And that magazine said on the front of it, it's time to take charge of your finances. By creating multiple streams of income. And the same thing you said about if I could run a ministry while selling tapes and preaching and traveling all over the country, I had the same ability to create in crisis and start a business. Mm-hmm. And when I got off that plane, the first thing I did was research my very first business I started. And from that day forward, I haven't had to go preach to live. Now I'm the biggest giver in my ministry. I'm the biggest giver to other ministries in many occasions because at the end of the day, my businesses have a way of sustaining what I'm called to do. Amen. So that's, that's so good because a lot of musicians and preachers don't get it. They think that, you know, I could just do this and not pivot. So that, and that's what the question was about. It was about knowing when to pivot. And, you know, a lot of times your circumstances are speaking loudly. You need to pivot, which means you need to learn something different so that you could, like, you learn day trading so you'll know something else you could do to create wealth and income. Man, that was so good.

And, and, and it's so, it's so freeing because I remember I had some buddies, you know, I, I, I traveled in in the gospel community, but I have ties in the secular community. I've gone number one on the jazz chart. That exposes you to a lot of professional musicians. So I've had people part of Janet Jackson's camp, part of Drake's camp, you know, that would call, just kind of treat me like an uncle and say, hey man, I'm on the road, you know, they're giving me 1500 a week per diem just to eat, and my salary is 2000 a concert, you know. So I'm getting 2 or 3000 a week per concert, plus I'm getting, you know, basically they were just kind of laying out what they were making. What should I do with this? And I said, well, what, what are you spending it on? And it was all gone. It wasn't enough. They would be making 7 to 10 to 15,000 a week, and it still was never enough because a mentor that would show them how to manage the money. And then I began to tell them that, you know, you need to really, uh, um, give your gift back to God. You need to make sure you're locked into a local church. You need to lock into a, a mentor, lock into the structure of, of living right. And I'm just trying to be an uncle to them. And it was like, you know, they almost were saying, what gives you the confidence to be able to minister to me this way because of what we make. So I said, well, um, how much do you make for a concert? And they said, well, I make $2,000 per concert. I said, okay, I'm gonna share my screen. All right. And I pulled up a chart and, and I made one trade and in 30 seconds I made $2,000. The same thing they didn't make for a concert, I made $2,000. How much you making a week? I said, I make $11,000 a week. I did the same trade, tripled it, and made $11,000. I said, so now I can tell you what to do because God has given me another skill. If I was trying to ask you for money for the roof of my church, if I was trying to ask you for a donation to help me out, hold me, hold me, hold me up till Friday, I wouldn't really be a kingdom example that God wants me to be, to be with a minute. It takes somebody with money to tell somebody with money that is not about the money.

That's good.

And, and I got my start in the NBA. I was injured and I was cut. They cut me from the team. God saved me, gave me this gift to play piano. But how about the NBA comes back and hires me years later to come in and talk to the players. And, and my house is the same size as theirs. My airplane flies just as high as the one that they rent, you know. So that— so I'm— I was armed with the blessings to be able to disarm them from arrogance so they could hear what God wanted to say, because I didn't come with them with no need. And that's what I'm going to be talking about at your meeting, how we should be a seed Not, not a need.

I love it. That's so good. That's good. Oh, that's so good. So Ben, with that said, you built wealth, uh, beyond music, right? And think about how I want to word this. So you've done real estate, you know, you've done the trading, aviation, just business. Outside of music. So talk to us a little about— because I know there's always a moment, just like that moment I shared that I had. What was the moment where you realized that you needed to go beyond just being a musician? I, I, and I heard that I'm just married to Jewel Pease, and that's awesome, but outside of that, what was the moment that it said, aha, I need to create a stream in real estate. I need to create a stream in trading. I need to invest in this. What was the moment that was the driver that got you to begin to do those things so that you can create the wealth that you now enjoy?

Uh, that, uh, you know, that's a powerful question. I believe that, you know, there's a scripture that talks about iron sharpens iron.

Yes, sir.

I'm not sure where that's found. Um, it's in Proverbs.

Yes, sir.

But it might be Proverbs 16:2, but Benjamite 12:2 says, Benjamite 12:2 says, iron sharpens rust. Come on, I love it. The word tells us the iron sharpens iron, but iron also sharpens rust. And, uh, I was rusty financially getting into the industry because I was raised rusty. I was raised broke. I came up in the millennium of government cheese, Pastor Mike. Welfare peanut butter.

Me too.

Powdered eggs. Me too. Hamburger Helper with no hamburger. Yes, mayonnaise sandwich, uh, onion sandwich. You know how nasty an onion sandwich is?

Terrible. I'm gonna tell you something, that welfare cheese made the best grilled cheese on earth.

Come on now, you know, you, you, you ghetto if you ever had Vienna sausages.

Yes sir.

But you're big tankard ghetto if you ate the Vienna sausages and then drunk the juice. Come on, talk to me. Oh my God. Yeah, drinking juice, man. Why you drink juice? And so, Doc, my dad, my dad used to, my dad used to walk around with food stamps on a money clip. Oh my God, we've all had those moments when we when we inadvertently walked in on our parents, you know, when they was making whoopie. My— the thing that stuck in my mind is when I interrupted my parents one time. My dad was in there with food stamps doing this right here. But I came from nothing, and the reason I have a a sense of humor and somewhat of a poor man's comedian is because I had to laugh to keep from crying.

Yes sir, me too.

We had holes in the roof, man. Uh, one, you know, shotgun house, you know, if somebody did a drive-by with a BB gun, the house would have fell and killed 12 dogs. We did— we had nothing. And so when I grew up and I got into the NBA, I didn't know how to operate money. When I got into recording records and with the royalties, I didn't know how to operate money. And when the market shifted, you remember that market shifted and they started doing that download stuff and just overnight Napster and this other stuff. When the royalties fell out, that was the first pandemic for musicians. Yes, sir. When the format changed and people, you know, but it started earlier than that with piracy where people started copying tapes instead of buying it. Everybody, the whole family would get one person to buy a cassette and then everybody would make a dub of it. That's when we started to realize we're gonna have to do more than music if we don't have a life beyond just a meager existence. That's what my revelation— my light first came on.

That was a moment.

That moment. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. So for believers who struggle to create a connect between spirituality and kingdom wealth. What would you say to them? Because I believe somebody's watching right now that— because there's two things in church folk don't want to talk about: sex and money. Reality is they want some of both of them. Most folk want a lot of both of them, and but they still struggle connecting spirituality and wealth. That's why I always say people have holy hands, empty pockets.

Yeah, yeah.

The reality, the reality is there has to be a disconnect somewhere. What would you say to them to help them? Because you've done it. So, so for someone watching that can't seem to connect God and money, God and wealth, what would you say to them to help them make that connection?

You gonna have to really, and I'm I'm gonna get some hate, some hater mail for saying this, but really you're gonna have to really think more secular. You got to think— the Bible says that the children of the, of the world sometimes are more wiser than the children of the light, children of darkness. Write this down if you're listening, the 2,000+ people that are watching us. Faith cannot work without works, but works can work without faith.

So true, so true. That was good. I hope y'all got it.

The body of Christ will get bent out of shape. We'll get madder than a wet cat. —madder than a wet cat with hemorrhoids in a snowstorm because somebody crossed the street that's shacking up, that's no smarter than me, seem to be living way better than me. And I'm keeping myself, I'm living right, I'm going to church, and that person, that person, they don't care nothing about God, but their cars are shinier than mine, the house is bigger than— what is going on? We have so many people that get mad at Beyoncé. I I can't believe Beyoncé so successful. I can't believe Oprah. They name all these people that are successful that don't appear to love God, where— but they're doing the work. The work will work without the faith. And so you, you— if you sung and look like Beyoncé, you'd be a millionaire too. If you shot the ball like LeBron, You would never have to go to Bible study. You'd be a billionaire too. And so sometimes they mix that up and, and, and they won't do anything because they feel like they could just pull the, the, the lever, the Holy Ghost switch, and you know who's coming on the Honda, shabba-ba-ba-ba-ba. But you're gonna have to do the work. You know, this is the scripture in John 9 uh, verse 6 through 7. I was teaching on last Sunday where the man was blind all his life. Jesus comes by, he said, he said, Jesus, I want to be healed.

Are you sure you want to be here?

Absolutely. Uh, the guy's been blind since life. So Jesus spit on the ground, got the mud, put it in his eyes. Hold up. He's already blind, but now he's blind with mud in his eyes. And then he's given an assignment: go down to the— do something— go down to the water and wash. Jesus could have said, blink, you're healed. But for some reason, he gave him an assignment, something to do, uh, to be able to participate in his miracle. What's wrong with the body of Christ is we're so arrogant, we don't want to take the assignment and do anything to activate our miracle. We want to speak in tongues and, and give our tithes and offerings, pull around to the miracle window and pick up our million on Tuesday. But you don't want to do the work.

You got to do the work. You got to do the work. I always say this, and then we're going to take a quick break. That's so good, Ben, that money is what you receive when you give somebody something they cannot get without you. So if you discover what you can give people that they'll pay you for and work that, you'll never have to worry about money a day in your life. That's so good. Good stuff. Good stuff. Let me go to a quick break and we're gonna be right back with more Ben Tankard. I hope you guys are enjoying this. Glory to God. For too long, many have lived beneath what God promised. Peace stolen, Purpose delayed, progress interrupted. Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy." But he didn't leave us there. He went on to say, "I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly." This is not hype. This is alignment. Abundantly. Abundance Weekend 26 is a divine interruption. 5 powerful sessions designed to annihilate the thief and teach you how to abide in abundance. Freedom, dominion, overflow. February 27th through March 1st at Rhoda Church. Register Now your season of abundance starts here. Abundance Weekend 26, Annihilating the Thief, Abiding in Abundance. Yes, yes, yes, that's what we're gonna do this weekend. Listen, I want everybody right now, if you have not RSVP'd your seat, please go and text Abundance to 770- 470-8279. I'm sorry, text abundance to 770-777. That number is wrong, let me take it out. 77— oh my God, you— 470-777-8279. Text abundance to 470-777-8279 if you have not RSVP'd your seat. This weekend is going to be phenomenal. We're gonna annihilate the thief and we're gonna begin to walk in abundance. And Ben is gonna be with us on Saturday night and it's gonna be absolutely phenomenal. So let's get back in this interview. Ben is blessing us. I pray you guys are grabbing the nuggets he's releasing tonight. And again, take the things you're hearing and apply. Information without application is constipation. All right, you got to use this stuff so you're not stuck. Glory to God. All right, Pastor Bing, we're back, sir. Um, I appreciate you, man, so much. Let me ask you a quick question. So last time you didn't do any music for us, you just preaching. The word was phenomenal. So are we gonna get to hear even just a taste this time when you come in?

Absolutely. I'm actually going to bring my little electronic sax and do a little something from that as well as the keyboard. I'm looking forward to it. We're gonna have a good time, man.

All right, good stuff. I'm excited because you added us to your, your tour that you're currently on. And if you want to mention that, because there may be people from other cities that can check you out going forward, if you want to mention some of your tour dates that you got coming up.

Yeah, you can go to my Facebook page. We try to update it every day, uh, and just let you— let people know the cities that are coming on. I'm different from a lot of artists because I don't, uh, minister in music just for money. I allow the, the church to just come up with their own budget. I'm coming anyway, whether they have money or not. If they got a lot of money, I'll take it. If they don't, I'm still coming. And so we call it Reimagine Tour, and we, we're in churches that got 10 people, we're in churches that got 10,000 people. And so just check out our Facebook page and let us know that you're going to come out, and we'll hang out with you. You know, we like to do meetups and like to talk to the musicians, give them advice and stuff. I'm a people person. I'm everybody's uncle or cousin or brother. Praise God. And that's the truth.

This, this is one of the most humblest men you'll ever meet. So make sure you guys are in the building, uh, on Saturday night so you can meet Ben and you can experience what God has so blessed him and graced him to carry. And he's coming for us, and I'm super excited about that. Uh, all right, man, let's jump back into this, man. So I got a few more questions I want to ask you. So if you could give 2 to 3 financial disciplines, uh, that have created multimillionaire results for you and Jewel. Um, what would those disciplines be that you think most people overlook? What are some things that people can take away from our talk tonight and actually start doing to start creating the kind of— to move the karma in their income?

I, I think one of the biggest, one of the biggest, uh, um, revelations in my life came when I realized the power the small, the power of the compound, um, and, and investing automatically. You know, um, I read that book The Automatic Millionaire, and you know, you know the story. The financial advisor had a couple to come in. They were very old school, school teacher and a principal. And he came in and said, well, we, we wanted to see if we got enough money to retire. And the man started laughing like, man, you're You're a principal, you ain't got enough money to retire. But they said, well, we've got half a million in this account, we got $400,000 in this account, we got $1.2 million in this account. And the guy just went crazy, like, oh my God, you got more than me, I'm struggling. Where did this money come from? How did you save this? They said, well, we did it automatically. And he said, what do you mean automatically? He said, well, we began to save like we spend. And people spend automatically. And so their point was, when they found a way to round up every time they spent some money, they round it up to the next dollar or $2 and take that difference and put it in the interest-bearing account. In 20, 30 years, they had all these millions. But think about it, you know, you go to Starbucks and you spend $5, uh, if you automatically rounded that up to $7, and that $2 went to some account where that you wouldn't need to put your hand on. Over a few years, their small amounts would have added up, and you would have automatically accumulated this wealth, and then you didn't even know where it came from. So that's one revelation. The second revelation is the power of real estate, the power of real estate, because they ain't making no land no more, and rent is not your friend. Rent is not your friend. Now we didn't start here, but now we have investments in 230 properties. Wow, 230 properties. And I used to be homeless. How do you go from homeless to 230 properties? How do you eat— how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. One, one bite at a time. So, uh, real estate The power of the compound. And then just knowledge, just coming to this event tomorrow, you'd be surprised. Just the voice behind the voice. When you're teaching, when I'm teaching, when somebody else is teaching, because there's an anointing in the room, God will speak to whoever's in there and they'll start writing down something that God told them that has nothing to do with what we're preaching. It's called the voice behind the voice because you were in the room. You cannot hear the voice behind the voice over the internet. You have to hear the voice behind the voice in the room. There's something about going up into the upper room where the, where the tongues went forth, and on the day of Pentecost they didn't stream that, they weren't texting that, they weren't emailing, they was up, they was in the room. I remember a few years ago, Mike, and I'll kick it back to you I don't want to be too chatty. A few years ago, um, somebody would ask me, they say, Tank, you're doing a whole lot, how you doing? And my answer would be this, man, I'm the busiest man in God. Now if I got 5 cities in 3 days, I'm tired, man. I got this church, I got my family and my wife, my children. I'm trying to do this, I'm trying to talk to the NBA players, and man, I'm just doing so much. This reality show, man, I'm tired. And then God challenged me. He said, Tank— he calls me Tank— he said, Tank, let me ask you something. He said, um, the things that you talk about when people ask, how are you doing, if I didn't know you, I would think you was complaining. Come on, sir. Actually, you're actually living in the manifestation of yesterday's prayers, but you're talking like it's an inconvenience. Wow. And so what that did was tell me, he's like, he can't do more for you if you're acting stressed about where you are. How can he give How can he give you a million-dollar business if you acting like Atlanta traffic is so bad and I got to get home and take the chicken out? I'm just so tired, I ain't doing much. If you, if you complaining about getting through traffic and getting home and taking the chicken out, how can he give you a business with 2 million customers? You know, you, you self-eliminate yourself from the process just words. And so, and so whenever God get ready to take you to the next level, he will put you in the presence of somebody who's a resident of that level because they're not intimidated by what you're going through. And this is how I went from where I was to where I am right now. I went to Memphis. I think I might have told the story when I was there with you. I went to Memphis to, uh, uh, talk to the NBA. I was speaking to the NBA that night, and I pulled up the plane to this place called Wilson Air. I ain't used to nothing. Wilson Air is on the other side of the airport of Memphis. There's the corporate side, you know, and then there's the commercial side. Over here on the commercial side, you got to go through x-rays. They're asking you, have your bags been in your possession the whole time? Wear your license. It's a spirit of suspicion. On the commercial side, but on the private side, Wilson Air Center, you walk in, it's like a million-dollar mansion with chandeliers. So I'm ghetto, I'm from the woods, I ain't used to nothing, man. I'm like, dang, it's tight up in here, dang. And so I'm acting the fool, I ain't used to nothing. And I see a picture on the wall of this gentleman, and I said, who's this guy on the wall? She said, that's Mr. Wilson. He owns the place. And I said, well, how come he's standing in front of a Holiday Inn? He can't afford a better hotel than that. She says, sir, he owns the Holiday Inn as well as this airport, all 1,700 locations. Long story short, I got to meet with Mr. Wilson, and, and I said, Mr. Wilson, how is it that you, um, are able to handle an airport that has 3,000 flights a day and operate this hotel that has 1,700 locations? And he said something that changed my life. He said, Ben, that's, that's just 2 businesses. I have 53. He says, I have 53 businesses. When he said that, it totally changed my life. I began to see life totally different, that I began to tell myself, stop complaining, Ben, because you're really not doing nothing. You ain't doing nothing, man. And that opened my eyes because I was in the room. So my point is, just get in the room tomorrow night. Just, just, I mean, on Saturday night, just, just get in the room and you'll see, uh, a revelation from God that you never saw before just because you're in the room.

Amen. Amen. That's good stuff.

Y'all heard it.

Get in the room. That's, that's the key. Take the position of a learner, get what you need, and apply it immediately. So Ben, you— we all know you're a pilot. And I'm telling you, when I grow up, for real, I'm, I'm almost— I'll be 60 in 3 years after this year. I'll be 57 this year. On my bucket list before 60 is to be able to get on a plane and fly like you do. Now my wife done already told me how Jewel be on that plane when you sleeping. She ain't doing it. She already told me she ain't flying with me.

Jewel, she's a trooper. She be back there, legs all up. She be chilling, be doing influencing, you know, be doing her broadcast from back there. She— we've been doing it 25 years, man. Yeah, I love it.

I love it. So as a pilot, I'm gonna talk a little bit about that pilot mindset. And strategic thinking. So as a pilot, you understand wind, you understand altitudes, you understand turbulence. So how has aviation shaped the mindset in how you do business and how you do life? Just thinking about all the elements that's connected to flight.

That's a good, very good question. You know, the Four Laws of Flight, are lift, thrust, weight, and drag. Four laws of flight. Lift lifts the plane up. I got one here. Lift, lift the plane up. Thrust pushes it forward. Weight weighs it down. Yeah. And drag pulls it back. And those four laws of flight don't just apply to airplane, those apply to business because everybody that's in your life, that's your partner, your customers, your building, your business plan is going to fall in one of those categories. It's going to either be lift, thrust, weight, or drag. Another thing that we are trained, uh, and it sounds simple, uh, but they train us The number one thing about flying an airplane is takeoff— takeoffs are optional, but landings are required. You ain't got to take off. That is so good. You ain't got to take off. In fact, when we're getting ready to take off We're looking for a reason to abort all the way up to rotation. When you pull back on that yoke, you're looking for an animal on the runway, you're looking for a flat tire, you're looking for an excuse to abort because you don't want to continue this. You don't want to continue this unless everything's— everything is lined up. But once you— the— once the rotation is established We're gonna fly this plane and we're gonna land it come hell or high water. And so the thing they train us is no matter what's going on, the window may pop open, you may have a bird strike, a bird may run into the windshield, crack the windshield, you may have a storm. They say what you got to remember, don't get distracted, fly the plane. There have been people that took off, Mike, and crashed the plane because the window popped open. They got so concerned with the window popping open that they lost control of the plane and the turnover because they was not paying attention. Fly the plane. You can always circle back and land and close the window. Don't get involved with the people in— don't stop to try to, to calm them down when the wind is— you fly the plane, they'll be all right. Fly the plane. That's the way in business. Don't be so moved by all the conditions. Don't be so moved by who's president. Come on, come on. Or not, you know. So you didn't get your president of choice, does that mean you don't get to be rich? No, because when you had the president of choice, it didn't make you rich. One thing I found out as a, as a child— let's talk about politics just for a second, man. We had— I'm— I've been through— I've probably seen 8 presidents in my life, Mike. 8 presidents, and, um, some, some were Democrats, some were Republicans. And the thing that I found out, my family, it didn't matter who was in office, we found a way to be broke with all of them. Come on. And so I made a decision as a young man that if we can be broke no matter who's in office then doggone it, we should be able to be rich no matter what. Come on, stop using politics as an excuse for you not to get that mud and that spit out of your eyes and go down there and wash and get your miracle. You got to do something. Let's go. I love it.

That's good stuff. That's good stuff. So another question about Flight, man. So because I know a lot of times You have to fly through a storm, right? So how is flying through storms taught you lessons about leadership and life on the ground? When you face a storm in the air and following those protocols to get through the storm, have you been able to apply those principles to life? Absolutely. And getting through storms? Yes, sir. Tell us about how that works, what that looks like.

Absolutely. Um, one of the things I want to, to, to say, because a lot of times people talk about private aviation and small planes, they think that, that they're automatically more dangerous than the bigger planes. Yeah. The number one cause of accidents in private airplanes is known flight into adverse conditions. You knew this. You knew the storm was there. Come on. But you still flew into it.

Oh, that's so good.

You knew that negro didn't have a job. Oh man, you married him because he had good hair. You knew. You had signs and wonders all the way to the altar. Known flight into adverse conditions. So good. It's a condition called get-there-itis because you wanted to get there so bad. You could have just sat on the ground and looked at the weather for 30 minutes and that storm would have passed, but you wanted to get where you was going so bad till you took off. My God. And knowingly flew into the storm because your arrogance told you that you could beat the storm. That's the number one cause of accidents. That's the number one cause of businesses failing. You did not obey the wisdom of those who have already done it before you. You took off, you had your mind made up, you flew right into a storm and crashed. That wasn't the business fault, that was your fault. Oh, so good.

That's so good. All right, well, our time running out, man. I hate that we gotta go. I get to see you this weekend. One last question, man. So if you were sitting across the table right now from a 35-year-old Ben Tanker, what wisdom would you give him about business, finance, and family? To ensure that he obtains the success that you've been able to obtain in your life.

I would have started, I would have started aggressively buying real estate way earlier. I would have aggressively started saving earlier if I'm talking to Dentanga 35 years ago. If I'm talking to somebody right now in the fit 20s, 30s, and 40s as to what they should do moving forward. Come on, you got to learn AI. There's nowhere around it. AI is the new dot-com. AI can turn you into a millionaire in 90 days if you apply yourself, and you can be an expert in it, in anything. With AI and, uh, YouTube. There's no excuse. The, the time that we spend binge watching a series that have had 10, 10, 10 series, I mean 10 years of episodes, that same amount of time makes you an expert in AI. I would say AI, real estate, and saving. Do it now. Beautiful, beautiful. And don't begin today. And then don't begin the day with your cell phone.

That's good. Begin your day. You spoke on that when you were here. Talk to them about that. Just repeat that again, man, about that cell phone starting the day. Tell us what we should do first.

The number one distraction in the world is the cell phone, but it also can be the number one thing that takes you to your wealthy place. So you don't want to begin your day at someone else's pace. When you begin your day, some of y'all can't trust yourself with your cell phone as your alarm clock because once you pick it up, all those notifications that have come over the night, you feel obligated to respond to those notifications, and you're usually surfing somebody else's business. You don't need their history because that's his story. You need to spend your first few minutes with God. So when you get up, the first thing you should do is prayer, pray and praise. Yes, to work, begin your day with your job. Your job is to worship. You were made to worship. That's why you are even on the earth. So you begin your day doing your job. It don't have to be long, but worship God, worship, prayer, prayer and praise. Then I exercise and eat. Pray and praise, exercise and eat, read and reflect, dream and direct. That's in my book, The Full Tank Life. There's a little system that I call Self-Aligned by 7:59. I learned that very wealthy people get more accomplished before 8 o'clock in the morning than the rest of the world gets accomplished all day. So you do all this— pray and praise, exercise and eat, read and reflect, dream and direct and you get it all done before 7:59, here comes your millionaire status.

I love it. I love it. I pray y'all getting this. I pray you are receiving this. This is good stuff. Ben, we love you, man. Thank you so much for your time tonight. My heart is totally grateful to you, sir. Um, looking forward to seeing you on Saturday. Uh, it's gonna be awesome. This has been awesome. You guys, make sure you follow Ben. It's Ben Tankard on all platforms. Make sure you support him wherever you're watching us. Make sure if he's coming to your city that you show up and show your support. But he's going to be in Atlanta, Georgia, or Ellenwood, which is a suburb of Atlanta, at Rhoda Church this Saturday night at 6:00 PM. Make sure you're in the building. Abundance Weekend is happening. It's going to be great. We love you guys. We thank you for coming. Listen, I want to give you opportunity to sow tonight real quick. And, um, if you want to give, uh, I'm gonna put the ways to give up on the screen really fast. I think we can do that quickly. And while you're doing that, um, I'm gonna also invite you to make sure that you are inviting people out to this meeting. Especially you guys connected to the church. Make sure this room is full. Uh, it don't take much to fill up our room. Now we go to our next place, uh, I'm gonna talk about that in a moment. You're gonna— we're gonna have to really be practicing being faithful over what God has given us. And so I want to make sure that you're getting seed in the ground. Let me just put this up for you so y'all can see this really quick, those of you that have not seen it. Let me remove 3 acres, but also this next phase. I'm gonna give y'all guys this good news while you're planning to give right now. Uh, I talked to our realtor today. So our offer of $1 million for our next building— they were offering way more than that, asking way more than that. They accepted our offer today. The contract is being put into motion. So as you're giving, not only are you connecting with the budget for this weekend, but you're also helping us push into fruition our next phase of ministry, which is going to be our new facility that Again, Ben said it tonight, renting is not of God. It is not our friend. So we already knew that going into this building. And our goal was when our 2-year lease was up, was to purchase. We're at that point. Our lease is up in September. We're planning to close in late May. So hey guys, make sure you support and be a part of what God is doing. Again, Ben, you got any final thoughts you want to share with us before we go, man?

Only that, um, they need to get there early because tomorrow's gonna be packed out, you know. I mean, I mean, Saturday's gonna be packed out. Can you give the, the schedule of all the services for the week, um, while we're up, Mike?

For— yes, yes. So starting on tomorrow night at 7 o'clock, our speaker is Apostle Lamar Richardson, and then on Saturday at 10 AM. Leaders get up early. Now Ben just told you wealthy people get more done before 8 o'clock than most folk do all day. So 10 AM on Saturday, I'm gonna be teaching two sessions, uh, on being very aggressive, uh, in investing with life insurance. You wanna be in that session in one of them. And then secondly, we're gonna talk about some entrepreneurial principles around character with money and discipline with money. So you want to be in that place so you can get those resources. And then Saturday night, I'm gonna get you out of there early Saturday morning by 1, by 10, by 12 noon, we're gonna have you out of the door. Ben will be in the building at 6 o'clock. We're gonna be blessed by him. And then on Sunday morning, I'll be teaching on Sunday morning and on Sunday night, uh, Pastor Anna Noel is going to lead worship on Sunday night. She's an amazing worship leader. Uh, so we're looking for glory to come in every session, and you need to be there. Amen.

Well, I'm glad that I'm part of your story, man, and I just decree that everything about you is growing. Uh, I declare that you're quick, you're sharp, you're gifted, you're smart, you're good-looking, healthy, wealthy, and wise. You're an example for the body of Christ and there is millionaire status, billionaire status, trillionaire status that is on your church, and it's going to spread like a disease. You can't catch COVID without exposure, but the exposure that's going to come forth in this Finance and Abundance Conference is going to spread like wildfire with those who within your sphere of influence. And I'm happy to be a part of it in Jesus' name. I'm, I'm coming to spread the germs in Jesus' name. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Well, you guys have a good night. Thank you for that, Ben, and we'll see you guys on tomorrow. Y'all be blessed. Peace.