The RIGHT Mindset to Take Your Life to the NEXT LEVEL! | Bishop TD Jakes

What's up everybody? Welcome to another YouTube Hangout. I am super excited to be here with a special new guest. He is the Bishop of the Potter's House. He gives moving sermons every Sunday to over 30,000 churchgoing members as well as over 20 million people online. It's a crazy number. He is a master communicator and entrepreneur, a best-selling author with over 40 books to his name, a business leader, and he's got a new book out to help entrepreneurs called Soar. Bishop T.D. Jakes, welcome aboard, man.

Thank you, it's a real pleasure to be with you.

So I'm a huge fan of your work. I think, uh, I don't know that there's any speaker who gets more into the message when he's really on point, just feeling it. And I think at least once a week I'm telling somebody on my team that they need to touch somebody and run.

I'm pretty animated, things are out here pretty loudly. That's true.

For those of you who are watching who may not be as familiar with Bishop Jakes' work, I recommend go to his YouTube channel, type in Touch Somebody and Run, and watch that video. It's my favorite. It's, I think, a great introduction. And thank you so much for all the contributions you're making, not just to the world, but now also to entrepreneurship with your new book, Soar.

You know, I'm excited to have the opportunity to talk out the other side of my head. So much of what people do see about me is is my faith, and I came on television preaching, but I've done talk shows, I've produced films, over $500 million grossed at the box office. So I do dabble over in the entrepreneur space, and I grew up in that environment, and I finally decided to kind of come out of the closet, out of the shadows, and talk because so many people in, in my world are really trying to launch businesses or figure out how to launch businesses are having similar troubles and struggles getting it off the ground, and I wrote Soar to kind of motivate and encourage people not to give up, and that trouble is a part of the process, and to encourage them to buckle down and work through until you get the thing off the ground and in the air.

Now we've linked to Barnes Noble, to Amazon, for everybody watching. You can go pick up the book. It's not out yet though, right? It's still pre-order, or is it out yet?

October the 10th. So we're just—

October 10th. 5 days away, you guys can go check it out, but you can preorder right now in the link below. One of the things I love about this story was when you were talking about your father and he had his, uh, his business, a janitorial business, and he started with one, one bucket, one mop, and built it up but never was able to go nationwide because you said he refused to put down the mop and the bucket. Could you share that story? Because I think it's really insightful and could really help my audience.

I used it as a metaphor, and it really inspired me. My father was what I would call the, the serial hustler. You know, it's hard to explain what all he did. He did some of everything in order to make ends meet, tried to survive. And then he got to the point that, uh, he really zeroed in on building a janitorial service, started with the mop and a bucket, and he ended up with 52 employees back in the '60s in West Virginia. That was really big. But he never could have launched it to the level that it would have gone because he was always so busy working on it. He really didn't have time to run it. And I think that's a common problem with a lot of entrepreneurs. They can't get their hands off of the day-to-day things that they have to do long enough to think through the business from a CEO's perspective. And consequently, uh, they fail to be used for their highest and best, uh, capacity because they have a tendency to hold on to the minutia and get away from the maximum things that should be on your head if you're really building your business.

And so for people who are going through that, you know, they may not have entrepreneurs in their family, they may not have had parents who are entrepreneurs, and, and they don't know any better. What's, what's the solution? Is it self-education? Is it reading books? Like, how do you, how do you get them out of that mindset?

Well, I think first thing you have to realize, there comes a point that your brain becomes more important than your hands. and you have to figure out what point that is. Uh, good leadership is working yourself out of a job. It might be more profitable in the long run for you to hire somebody to do what you used to do while you, uh, kind of step back and rethink, where is this going? How can I intensify the marketing value of this? What associations, partnerships do I need to build in order to really exploit this business and take it to the next level? Am I really reaching the targeted audience, or am I just shooting shotgun pellets out into the air and hoping that I look up and hit somebody. All these things require some time, uh, getting around other people who are doing what you're doing, having discussions with them, being mentored by them. A lot of times you don't have time to do that because you are so tied down to whatever your function is. And I am suggesting in the book that you might be more valuable to your organization to step away, hire somebody to do what you were doing, you might be more valuable in the next capacity because the fruit is out there on the tree. It's not the one that fell to the ground, it's the one that you're about to pick and your hands have to be free to get it.

I love that. And now in the building of, you know, the Potter's House and building your business, who was the first person that you hired? Like, what was their role? What did they do for you?

It was really, it was really scary for me. I have 300 employees on the church side of my business and on the entrepreneurial side of my business, I have less than 20. And oddly enough, the model of my business is built on partnerships, and I've talked about that. The T.D. Jakes Enterprises survives because we have partnerships with Sony Pictures, we work with Fox, we work with lots of people because the entertainment business, you don't always need to keep full-time employees when you're not filming. So because it is a partnership-based business, you want to keep your overhead as low as possible so that your profit margins can be highest and functional. We kind of operate that way, whereas in my not-for-profit world, uh, we, we produce all of our everything— graphic artists, designs, our own marketing. We even have our own 18-wheelers. We do contracts with Walmart. We, we carry our merchandise to them. So it's much more of a practical, pragmatic, traditional corporation. Those two models give you two options, and there are many, many more through which you can do your business, scale down the employees. Scale up on the partnership, or bring everything in-house and control the integrity of your brand from a hands-on viewpoint.

So as someone who's done both, what advice do you give to entrepreneurs who are trying to figure out which is the model for me, which, which path is better?

It's, you know something, there is no definite answer. I think you have to evaluate at different seasons, and in order to do that, you have to be free to do evaluations at cost comparisons between what it would cost to bid out the services versus hiring the employee. And sometimes it is true at one junction that it's better to do it internally, either because of financial reasons or because of the quality control issues that are developed. Other times, uh, it is better to, uh, to farm it out and, and use your people for better usage. And in order to do that, that evaluation process, you've got to step away, get the bids from people who would come in and replace the services, and then evaluate, are they gonna do it at a better quality, or are they gonna do it at a better price? All of those are good reasons to do it. In the long run, you don't have to pay benefits. In the long run, you don't have to deal with the minutia of organizing the behind-the-scenes struggle, because they're providing you a service. And you have to evaluate, is that the best decision for you at this time? And it's no cookie-cut answer, it depends on the business. It depends on the answers to those questions. One of the things I've learned most about entrepreneurship, and really about life in general, it almost pays not to come to the table being smart. Smart people become smart people because they ask questions. It's not what you know, it's what you think to ask. And asking the right questions is the catalyst to get you to the next dimension.

I love it. Now, you've mentioned here that you want to start a movement with this book. You, you've written 40 books, you've had lots of success. I mean, you've obviously built up your church and other entrepreneurial ventures. Why now? Like, what's the movement? Why now, after 40 books? Like, what's the driving force behind this is the time to launch this book?

So for me, you don't do things for profit, you do things for purpose. And I think that this is a time in the country that we desperately need to rethink where we're going as a nation. When you start looking at what is really eating at the belly of the Rust Belt states, and you listen at the groanings that are coming from the inner city, they are saying the same thing: the lack of opportunities. The jobs that went away are not coming back, and if they do come back, we're not going to be equipped to be on those jobs because of automation and technology has moved the criteria. And so we may be waiting on a ship that's never going to come in. America has survived through small businesses. Over 90% of the employees in this country right now are employed by companies with less than 500 employees. So it's not about big Fortune 500 companies coming back. I applaud that. That's good for economic growth, and it's good for the stock market and all that, but it's much more pragmatic when it comes down to, uh, survival and employing, uh, people on the streets are much stronger done in smaller businesses. So I think we really need to go back. We have become better consumers than we are investors. And so the whole notion of pointing people toward entrepreneurship gives you control. You can live the life you want, you can make the kind of money you want, you can do it from home if you want, you can take care of your children and do it, you can take classes at school and still own your own business. That kind of flexibility you don't get every day. Entrepreneurship, depending on the business, will provide those opportunities.

I love it. Well, you're preaching to the converted. I'm a fan of the message, my audience is too. And speaking of the audience, I want to get some questions. We've got tons of people already lining up. I've been monopolizing the time, but let's get to some of the fan questions. Jay Rise is writing in, @BishopJakes, do you feel entrepreneurship is a spiritual practice?

Wow, I think that you benefit when you are a spiritual person because entrepreneurship is like riding a roller coaster. You're sometimes up in sometimes down. And if you have no spiritual equilibrium to stabilize your emotions through the transitory process of building a business, you can be erratic at home and with your kids, in your own life, because you like the stability to anchor yourself beyond the day-to-day reports. So from that perspective, I think it is very valuable. The odd thing about it is simply this: people of faith— I've lived in that world a long time— could really benefit from better business skills, but people in business could really benefit from having more faith. So I, I tried to merge those two ideas. I'm really not trying to convert you in this book. There's very, very little in this book about faith, but I really am targeting this book toward people who are trying to rethink, redesign, and relaunch, uh, the second half of their lives, or are tired of eating at their mama's house and waking up at noon eating cereal, and they want to get back into the market, and there are no job opportunities. You may have to hire yourself.

I like it. Next one coming in, Bishop Jakes, what separates an entrepreneur from a wantrepreneur?

It's the difference between having a dream and having a goal. A wantrepreneur has a dream, an entrepreneur has a goal. As long as a dream has no date, it will always stay in euphoric realms of our mind. To those of you who are wantrepreneurs and you really want to do it, put a date on the wantrepreneur and you'll become an entrepreneur. Holding your dream to a deadline makes it a reality and not something that you fantasize about every time you're sick of your boss.

I like it. Hermione has a question. I know you, I know you have a strong opinion on this. How do I evaluate my worth?

Wow, I, I do have a strong opinion on it. You know, you cannot do that in a vacuum. I could— I'm sitting in a room right now, I can see you on the screen, I can see other people in my office, I can see the couch and the chair. The only thing I can't see is me, and that is a real problem in evaluating your own worth. You— your eyes are not designed to show you you. So what has to happen, you have to determine your own worth and value by interviewing people who interact with you and do practical interviews. What do you get when you get me? What is it that makes you see value in me? Because sometimes our opinions of ourselves are overinflated, sometimes they're undervalued, but when you talk to the people with whom you have to do, you get a sense of what is the level of your contribution. You'd be shocked sometimes it's not what you put you're putting your energy in. And, and so in the book, I have a point called E:2:I ratio, and it's energy to impact. Sometimes we're putting the greatest energy into areas where we have the least impact. This sort of evaluation helps you to reassociate that energy and reallocate it to things where you can have the greatest impact. And sometimes you can't get that done until you talk to the people you do business with, talk to the people who you live with, and ask them the candid question, what is it about me that is most effective? Sometimes the answers will really shock you.

I love it. The next one's coming down to mindset, and I know you have a lot of opinions on mindset too, which is great. Basically, the question coming in saying he's worried that by profiting, having a for-profit business, he's selling his soul. So how do I get over that mindset?

You know, not unless he's selling little dolls with pins in them that he's gonna stick in somebody and do voodoo. Uh, when you have more resources— money is a nebulous thing. It is what you do with money that determines whether it's good or evil. When you have more money, you can send help to, uh, the flood victims. You can rescue the people in Puerto Rico. You can do positive things with resources. If you don't have resources, all you can do is wish people well. So whether having money is a positive or negative, it will only amplify who you are. If you are not a good person, if you are selfish, if you're self-consumed, if you're, uh, self-aggrandized, money will just reveal that all the more. But if you are philanthropic, if you have a loving heart and a giving heart, money gives you more options to be able to do that, plan a better future for your children. And I think what the person is wrestling with is the probability to think about guilt. And spiritual people often do that. They become guilty over their resources and they think that money is evil. If you're a Christian, you might point to things like the Bible said money is evil. The Bible didn't say money is evil. It said the love of money is the root of all evil. So what that's saying is it is your attitude about the money that produces the evil. It is not the money itself. It could be used to save a life. It could be used to find a cure for cancer. It's up to what you— it's all about how you direct it. And so that begins with your own inner self and heart.

And so how do you get over that? Because it's so common for entrepreneurs to underprice themselves, to not charge what they're worth, to give their thing away instead of charging for it, feeling they're not worthy of it. How do I— like, so I hear the words, how do I internalize that? Or like, my audience, right, how do we internalize that so that you do it?

First of all, you have to do things at fair market value. Life is a bit of a Robin Hood situation. You're taking from one person so that you can give to another. You choose your own charities, and it's important that we give some give back, but that give back has to be budgeted as well. I think it's good to set up a budget of what you can afford to give back annually, set up a budget for that, operate within that budget like you do everything else, because if you don't, you're gonna, you're gonna give away, uh, the resources that you need to stay afloat. And it's like jumping in a pool to save somebody who's drowning. That's really amazing. But drowning with them really doesn't save them. So if you become so philanthropic that you drown your organization, two of us laying there in the water dead, I appreciate the company, but I'd rather get out of the water.

I love that. Drowning with them doesn't save them. That's great. Um, Kiki is writing in about the ministry, but I think it applies to all entrepreneurs. How do you sell you— how do you set yourself apart in a ministry that already so congested, so many ministries out there. I think it relates to every entrepreneur. You get into business, there's competition. How do you set yourself apart?

You know, uh, it's— we're really talking about branding. And I know branding is an overused word, but branding really makes you rethink what do people get when they get you. I think a lot of people, whether they're in ministry or in business, have not really drilled down to specifically what is it that you do that you're passionate about. But we use broad terms like I preach or I do hair or I build robots or whatever it is you do. But see if you can go a little bit deeper than that, specifically what is it that when you do it, it gives you life and it gives you passion and kind of hone into a promise. KFC's real simple, we do chicken right. If you're looking for hamburgers, don't come here. You know, what are you gonna hone in that you do right and do that and you will distinguish yourself the moment you define yourself. You cannot be all things to all people. You can't respond to all causes. You have to choose your lane and get in that lane and brand yourself and introduce yourself and describe yourself with, uh, the synchronicity that allows people to get a common picture in their mind when they say— when they see you, whether it's the Uncola, uh, whether it's Have It Your Way. There are certain brands that quickly, when we hear this We expect certain things. Most people have not branded themselves because they have not clearly defined themselves.

I like that. What would you say the Bishop T.D. Jakes brand is? What are you world-class at?

I think, you know, my mantra for years has been helping hurting people. And the thing that gives me the most passion is to be of service. When I feel like I did something, whether it's a movie, a film, a book, or a ministry that really helped people, and added value to their life, it actually adds value to mine. I become demoralized if I don't find a way to help you. And that has been consistent throughout all of my life, that I might be an asset in this lifetime to, to the people I share the air with. It's what I have dedicated my entire life to. It gets me out of the bed every day and it keeps me going. And whether you experience me through the talk show or through books, or whether you experience me in the ministry The commonality is going to be I'm always going to be uplifting, I'm always going to be trying to help you, because I think that my purpose in life is to help you find yours.

If you had to pick one core value, like one word core value at the center of Bishop T.D. Jakes, what would that one word be?

Loyalty.

Loyalty. And how does that break down? Like, what does loyalty mean to you?

Loyalty means a whole lot of things. It means that if I'm your friend, I'm the friend you can trust. Uh, it means that if I'm in covenant with you, I'll go down to the wire whether things are going up or going down. Loyalty means that if I make you a promise, I'm going to do everything I can to deliver on that promise in my business and my corporations and my partnerships. Loyalty means that I'm in for the long-term play. So people who are in for the long-term play don't try to do short-term gimmicks to get over. I'm, I'm a long-haul sort of guy. I've been married 35 years. I've been preaching 41 years. I've been in the ministry since I was 19 years old. Consistency, that's what loyalty is about to me, a consistent promise you can count on, and that's what I've given my life to.

I love that. Maybe the title for your next book, Loyalty.

That's about it.

Okay, hey Bishop Jakes, question, what would be a good method to network with other people and put yourself out there if you're an introverted or shy person?

You know, that's an issue. I think social media becomes a great forum format to start the dialogue because you can put out at your discretion what you're comfortable with and, and then build alliances. But I think that we have underestimated in this generation also the practical pragmatic thing of sitting down with people at social events. If you're an introverted person, put a time on it so you're not up under pressure to come up with conversation for a long time. Have a lunch with somebody because you can talk about the food, you talk about the weather, it gives you a myriad of things to talk about and it gives you an ending date. When you run out of food, it's over. Don't stay in your cocoon because men don't light candles and hide them under bushels. If you are an introvert, you are still a candle, you are still a light, and you've got to come out of hiding so that people can see you. By the way, being introverted doesn't mean that you can't be a public figure. The purest definition of an introvert is I can go out and do things in public, but I am fed in isolation. So you want to feed in isolation, but you don't want to become so fat that you don't ever go out there and exercise the enrichment that happens from being alone by sharing your gift with other people.

I love it. Next up is Monica. Question, very excited. How do you stay strong when everything around you is falling apart?

I think the first thing you have to do is not base your strength on the things around you, but the things within you. You know, a ship doesn't go under because the water is around it. It was designed to float on water around it. It's only when the water gets in it that the ship goes down. And so you are never— you will never rise or fall based on the, the conditions around you. You can overcome those issues as long as you don't let them get in you.

I'm, I'm curious where all the analogies— like, you have so many great analogies in your sermons, in your interviews, the ship, the candle, like in every sermon there's something. Do you think in analogies? Like, how do these things come to you? I'm just curious for myself.

My mother was a teacher, okay? So I grew up in the house with a teacher, and a teacher's passion is to help you know truth. And any illustration that I can use to help you better see truth— and people learn differently. Some people are audiovisual learners, some people learn through reading, some people learn through doing. And so the more I can find ways to get the truth to you, the metaphor is a conveyor belt through which I am delivering the truth. I don't want it to distract from the truth. I want it to enhance the truth. And you'll see that in my book. And I think it's what makes my books enjoyable readings because I'm on subject, but I use everything around me to explain the subject I'm talking about.

I love that, that even in the answer you talked about a conveyor belt. You're using the metaphor. It's great, I love it. It's fantastic. Okay, Chris is writing to say, Bishop Jakes, what are the first 3 steps you would say are vital to beginning an entrepreneurial venture? First 3 steps.

Investigate. One of the things that I found when I started researching this is that the likelihood of successful business is not predicated on the entrepreneur who needs money. If this— if the— when people go into business because they need money, the stats are shocking at how rapidly they go out of business. You want to go into business because you have found something that somebody else needs, okay? This is about supplying what someone else demands. So, so the first thing I want you to do is find who has a demand for which you can have an answer or a product, because when you find the person who needs you your need to market goes way down. Because if I'm thirsty for water and you got water, you don't have to have a great sales pitch to sell it to me. But if I'm not thirsty, you're gonna have to talk to me a long time to get me to drink something I don't want. So find who wants what you have. Number 2, find who has done what you want to do. Because sitting with them even for a moment, if you have to wash their car to get to talk to them, finding out the pitfalls will save you the time of going through things you don't have to go. We, we don't have to reinvent the wheel twice. The third thing is find out the climate of other businesses around you so that you can partner your business in an environment where one, it can be seen, two, it can be appreciated, and thirdly, it is accessible by the people that you have determined have a need for what you have.

I love it.

I love it.

I always come on point. Uh, next question I think you're gonna like. Now, I know you've talked about having a vision, how important that is, and that money runs from blindness. So Amanda's question coming in is, how do you create the career you want when it does not exactly exist yet?

That's the best. I mean, that's why, that's why I wrote the book. The whole book is built around, around the Wright brothers, the audacity for these brothers at a time that no airplane existed to stand on the ground and think, I belong in the air. The whole analogy throughout the book is built on that question he just asked me. We need to go back to doing things that nobody has done before, building things that have never been built before. That innovation is what has been at the inner structure of America for years and years and years. And if we get away from that, we are defeated. I am asking people to read the book and be bodacious enough and have the audacity not to just repeat what you see everybody else doing, but do something fresh. The Wright brothers built their first airplane, as you know, in a bicycle shop. And I use that in the book to point to the fact you can have a big idea and have small resources. You can build from an inadequate place and still master a dream, even when nobody believes in it. And even when you've built something that you don't have a name for, put it in the wind and let it soar.

I love it.

I love it.

And we're aligned. Like, my logo is here on my chest. It's a paper airplane. That's my company logo. 'Cause we have this idea, we wanna soar, but we don't have a lot of resources, so we're paper airplane, we're not a fancy jet taking off, but we're gonna take off and get our idea happen.

That's exactly where I'm at.

We're aligned, I love it. Paul is writing in to say, question for Bishop Jakes, if you could define success by one act in your life, what would that be?

Let me start with this and give him the definition that I most often give for success. Success for me is never about how much money you make or where you live or what you drive or who you associate with. Success for me is when I, when I take what was in my head and bring it to the point that it stands in front of my face. The birthing of an idea, the fulfillment of a concept, is success to me. I give them personal illustration. I sit around a boardroom and we were trying to figure out what it would be like to take our women's conference and our men's conference and put them together at the same time so that families wouldn't have to pay 2 plane tickets to come to an event. We didn't have a name for it then. We were going to call it Manifest. Somebody had a proprietary usage over the name. We ended up calling it MegaFest. Fast forward 12 months later, I'm standing in the Georgia Dome, the World Congress Center, and the Phillips Arena with over 100,000 people jammed and packed into Atlanta That's success. What started in my head is now in front of my face. And whatever your vision is, whether it's to raise good kids, whether it's to be a good father, whether it's to build a building, a company, or a church, you can't be successful if your dream dies in your head. You've got to get it out in front of your face so that you can see it materialize. That is success.

I love that you said, 'Birth of an idea.' I think my, my, if 1A was touch somebody and run for me, 1B is the birthing of an idea, the one that you did on Oprah's Master Class. So guys, go check that one out if you haven't seen Bishop Jakes and birthing of an idea. It's a must-see. Here's a question that's interesting. How do you help somebody else? There's somebody in my school who's always alone sitting on a chair. I think this can be a bigger question too. Like you see somebody who might need help, but you're afraid. Judgment, fear, whatever it is, like you're afraid of something, how do you reach out and help somebody that you see is in need?

The worst thing they can do is say no. If you're afraid like that, you'll never be a good entrepreneur, you'll never be able to do anything. If they're the person who's in discomfort, you have to be the bigger person and walk over and say hello, or you want to come eat with me, or, uh, you know, that sure is a nice salad you're having, what made you order that? Starting a conversation with people, uh, is a ministry within itself, and you have to be courageous enough. Let's, let's take this question to the next level. We must— everybody viewing us right now must be cured right now from the fear of rejection, because you will never be exceptional and you will never succeed if you are bound by the fear of rejection. The worst they can do is say no. I am living proof you can survive no. You can survive no. But it would be terrible to go to the grave with maybe.

I love it. I feel a sermon coming on. I love it. I love it. Uh, it's, it's crazy how quickly half an hour flies by when you're having fun and talking shop. Uh, your book's coming out October 10th, Soar. Bishop T.D. Jakes. Again, the links are in the description. What's the one message takeaway that you want people to get from reading the book?

I want to start a revolution. I want to see our country building again. I want to see our businesses thriving again. I want to give hope to the inner city and the Rust Belt states that you are the help you've been waiting on. Come up with your dream and get it up into the air, and then don't let the turbulence make you cancel the flight.

I love that. That— there's that metaphor again. Thank you so much, Bishop Jakes, for spending your time with us today. Thank you guys so much for watching. This will be on— you can watch it repeat afterwards. You can get the messages back to you. Really appreciate everybody's time. Have a fantastic rest of the day, and we'll see you soon.

All the best, bro. Thanks.