The Power of Cooking

So then there was like, they stemmed out their own groups because some guys were like one kid, I remember, 19 years old, his name was Oscar, he was taking two buses. He would take a bus from Galveston to South Pasadena and then from South Pasadena all the way to West Houston in the Memorial area of Houston just to attend this function.

So just so everybody knows, that's probably about a two hour process or so. It is, yeah. That's no joke.

The cool thing about that two hour process is it gave him an hour of prayer time on the way and back, man. And he started praying for people on the bus. He took an opportunity to be inspired. And so the stories that I could share, Jim, we would need three more of these just to share from the level of people we were connected to. And then they wanted to invite their girlfriends and they wanted to impress them and let's come. And I'm like, guys, I mean, this is so it was good because it turned into something very big. And then. And then when I got real sick and. And my wife was pregnant, it was time to focus on my family. I said, guys, like, I'm passing on the lantern, so to speak, right? Yalls candles is lit. Go do this with as many people as you can and don't stop. And. And rumor has it there's still seven men's groups where they get together and they listen to worship music and pray and man, that was 2000, started 2018. I stopped in late 2019. I mean, I did it for a little over a year. And recently it came back up at a John Maxwell leadership conference. And I was asked by a publisher to potentially write a cookbook and talk about the phases of that. Because to them it was like, there's cookbooks, there's devotionals and there's books, but there's not all three. And like, you are like, Jason, I don't think you realize that you represent three very unique opportunities of something that may or may not have been done before. And we'd like to explore that opportunity with you. And so here we are. Right? I was.

Please tell me the name of the book is going to be Garden of Eden.

It is, man. They've already got the COVID I got the COVID The color of the rendering, it's awesome.

I can't wait to see it. That is a super cool.

So we get to introduce recipes of my nana and my mom and my dad and from my wife's side of the family from my travels, a missions trip that I went on. You know, I got to eat some, some, you Know, I love different cultures of food, and I've got to travel the world and different parts of the United States, experience their culture. I'm connected to people in the restaurant business. I want to give a shout out, like, literally to Chef Kieran Karen of Kieran's Restaurant in Houston, Texas. She's like a celebrity chef. She's been on tv. She's competed on Be Bobby Flay, and, man, if I want to take over, she wants me to take over her restaurant. Kieran, I want to take over your restaurant. You're asking too much money for it. But I gotta tell you, dude, she's like my second mom. I love her. She's a believer, and she makes unbelievable food. She touches so many people's hearts. And if I. If I could do something even remotely close to the people that she touches through food, I mean, that's. That's somebody that I would. I would collaborate with every day of the week and 10 times on a Sunday.

So I'm gonna need a link to that restaurant so I can go check it out when I'm in Houston.

You cannot come to Houston without going there with me. That's.

Oh, okay. Let's go do it.

Like, if I found out that you went there without me and a. Like. Well, what is it? Steve Furtick said the offense is the event to remain offended. You would offend me, and I would choose to remain offended.

I was kind of hoping you say you'd go. I was kind of hoping you'd say, yeah.

So that basically means you can't. You can't come to Houston and go there without me.

Gotcha. Last thing.

Yeah.

I notice, like, a bit of a theme here. The food thing, the. Joining and leading in a church, VP over at First Choice, the previous history and accolades there, the getting sick and dealing with that. A baby that wasn't supposed to be here. And as I watch you and talk with you, you have this emotion about you that's. That's joyful. Talk to us about that for a minute.

You know. You know, it starts at a. Again, at a. At a young age. I'll never forget in my family, it was Jason. Don't you. You might not ever be the greatest looking, the smartest, the funniest. Just whatever you do, whatever room you're in, make sure you put life into the room. That was really the basis of our home. That's why we. We had a lot of joy in our household, and we faced quite. Lot a. A bit of adversity. You know, my older brother and older Sister weren't angels growing up. Neither was I. I just learned from them to make good choices. They didn't make the best choices. I was like, oh, thank you for the lesson. But no, we just had this. We had this reoccurring theme, and a lot of it had to do, actually, not a lot. I will say that it had everything to do with the relationship that both my parents had with God, independently, as believers and also together. I'll never forget the probably the greatest lesson I ever learned in this life about marriage was from my mom. And she said, jason, the more I fell in love with Jesus, the more I fell in love with your Father. And it just. I mean, it's going to make me emotional because it's resonated with me. The closer I get in my walk with Christ, the more I love my wife, even for the things that I might not like my body and my mind tells me I don't like. I find myself loving her more. And then in turn, it's reciprocated. And that gave me. I mean, I just witnessed so much joy. I mean, joy over occasions, even in death, we celebrated the person's life knowing that they were in heaven and that we would meet them in heaven when it was our time, that was with family and friends. And so this, this theme of like, choose joy just, just resonated with me throughout my life. And there was a. There was a period of time where I didn't. I mean, I was very depressed. I had somebody of 16 years of my life have an opportunity not to leave me, and they did. And then I got sick. And that. And during that, it was when I was my strongest in my faith too. Right. I had the strongest walk with the Lord at that time in my life. And. And so there was times where I actually prayed to the Lord and said, God, you know, I am enough. I've done enough. I don't need to wake up in the morning. And. And that's not a good place to be. And so that was a very. There was a short period of time where I allowed to believe some lies from the enemy and, and from some, from other people as well. But, man, just. There was still that reoccurring theme because the people that were closest to me that I just mentioned, like my parents, like my wife, like Aaliyah, like my, my best man in my wedding, my brother Fendi on a bond, you know, Andrew D. Barbaras, Jeremy Foster, a pastor. I mean, the list, the list goes on and on. I had surrounded myself, thankfully, with winners, man, with Winners. And those winners chose joy. So even when I didn't, it was short lived, man. That time was short lived. And so the them theme of choose joy has just been rampant. And then, you know, finding a church where it's like, you know, love God, love people. Choose joy. Make a difference, change the world, right? I mean, that's literally the vision, right? And then the mission goes behind it. And, you know, joy and that, that lifestyle is a choice, Jim. And, and I had a unique, like.

You'Re saying it like, choose joy. But we have a choice. We can choose the other thing too, right? We can choose. We can choose darkness, we can choose negat. We can choose all of those as well. And I see so much of it. You know, it's why I don't watch the news. It's why I really limit any of my time on social media. It's why I limit who I allow to be a friend is what? Anytime somebody asked me for, like, friend on. On Facebook, by the way, I still do that. I'm the one that goes and looks through, like, hey, these are the people that have asked, okay? I go and look through their. Their profile, their feed, what are they putting out into the world. If it's positive, all right, you're in negative, man. No, I'm not going to allow you into my world. You're going to mess up my algorithm, my algorithm of joy. And I work hard, I mean, I work really hard to ensure that those people are in my life because I can't do it by myself.

Yeah, it's a daily thing, man. I had a guy a lot smarter than me, much more wisdom and a little bit more experience and ears on me. And he. And he said, he goes, I don't watch the news. Check the news. And it was. He said, you know, in your own life, you know, joy is a. Is a choice because it's a. It's a posture like anything else. You really want to be vulnerable and give it to God and worship. Get on your hands and knees. That's a physical posture. Moses did it. You want to have a moment. You haven't heard from the Lord. Maybe you need to identify what that distraction is in your own life that's keeping you from hearing from the Lord. You want to experience with the Lord, you got to be vulnerable enough to do it, and you got to have time with him just like anything else. Like you and I, right? We give each other time. We wouldn't have had our friendship go from like 0 to 100 in that short period of time if we wouldn't have spent time together and had substance of like, Jim, I want to pray with you the first time we have a conversation. Like, I'm not going to say I'm going to pray for you. Like, we're praying.

Yeah, we're going to pray together right now.

Right now.

Yep.

Because those are opportunities. And I think that we have a unique opportunity as leaders in our own respective industries and for our own companies to choose joy. And that has an effect on culture. Right. John Maxwell had this really interesting thing in the sixteen Laws of Communication in the new book. I have no problem plugging it. And it was probably one of the most powerful things. Yeah, right. It's probably one of those most powerful comments that he made. And I know it came from scripture, and I know what inspired him was Holy Spirit. He said the. Your most effective message is the one you live.

Oh, yeah, that's the one.

That's a golden nugget right there, man.

That's the one that people go, why is he like that?

That's right. And so you want to know my difference and why I choose joy as is? Because God asked me to.