The Power of Capacity: Choosing Growth over Distractions | Made For Mondays

Hello, everybody. It's Justin. I'm here with Courtney and we're here for another edition of Made for Mondays together. You own your Mondays. Mondays own you. You own them. And so today we're excited to continue to jump in and dive into our journey of life and understanding and expanding one's capacity. You ready?

I'm ready.

Awesome. Welcome to Made for Monday. Welcome back, everybody. So glad you're here. And today we are continuing our journey. So today is Octo 16th. Can you believe we're halfway through October?

That's wild.

Yeah.

And mostly through the year.

Yeah, that's the crazy part. Like Christmas. It's almost playing Christmas music at camps. Field trip last week.

It's time. It's time. It's time. I love Christmas. Like, I like the fall. It's okay. It's cute. It's that. But it's just like, I don't know, on the way to Christmas.

Yeah, Fall to me is the best time of the year. Cuz it's football season and that's all that matters in the world. The world is right when football is going well. Colorado, shout out, primetime. Right, all of that. So today we're continuing our steps together as we continue to build and grow our podcast as we dive into some work. And we'll actually share a little bit later about some of the work we're intentionally doing and ways you can find us. But today, Courtney, what's on your mind?

Just about anything.

Yeah.

So I asked you earlier, but I thought it'd be cool to talk about. Did you hear I love pop culture. Did you hear about Jada Pickett Smith and Will Smith? And they've been like, essentially separated like the whole time. Well, I guess at least seven years, 2016. Well, but they have been intentional of showing the world that, like in front of cameras or in front of the world, like saving face and like making sure that they're together for pictures or they didn't want the world to know. And she said that she vowed that she would never get a divorce. And so I thought it'd be interesting to talk about that living. How is that dangerous or how is that? Right. Because it's like, so if you got there to get a divorce, are you still married? What is separation? What is. What is that? What is that?

Was she really entangled or was she really entangled?

We know she was.

Well, that's just what she called it. No. I don't know. You know, it's crazy because just seeing things for Will Smith, I know he traveled to the top of the Burj Khalifa and he. Whatchamacallit. He slapped Chris Rock. Right. So getting context behind it, I mean, it's unfortunate. I don't know. That was his story. So he really defended someone he's not even with anymore, which is wild and.

A cry for help.

Yeah.

I just think it's interesting because I think in a lot of our lives, though, we live in those in betweens, which can be confusing to other people and defining. Not that other people matter, but. But confusing to the two of them and the couple. I'm not defining. And I don't know what separation looks like to them. So people say, like, oh, there's. They're living apart, you know that. Or like all of that. But then it's just like, what's the point? And then living in that commit commitment to saying. Or does it make it right? Because you're like, oh, I promise never to divorce. There's no reason to ever divorce. But then going with the motions of divorce, like, how does that. I think we do that a lot in our own, like, lives. If we were to bring it practically, like living a divorced career life, but just going through the motions of work but not really committed in it.

Yeah. I think the word that I've used for moments like that is liminality. Right, Right. Liminal spaces are these, like, eternally repetitive. No non ending, but yet have no beginning spaces. Right. And you can't really see the end. You can see it. So it's like. Think about, like eternally white room. Right. It's a room. So, you know, it has to have an ending. You just don't know where it is. And so you're searching constantly for the end. And what a professor suggested is that in those spaces you just kind of sit where you are. You sit because the room. Eventually the lights have to go off. The room has to end. The repetition eventually has to find an end. Right. Like, even we went to the Room of Illusions, the Museum of Illusions in Las Vegas last week. Right.

That was really fun.

Eventually the repetition came to an end. It's not infinite. Like, it's not infinite. It comes to an end. It's all the trick in our brains. And so it seems like they're in a place where I'm, you know, they're decidingly in a liminal space. And it's unfortunate because it sounds like their whole relationship is defined by what the people think about it. And that's really sad for people's relationships. And it's. See it so often. I've Done too much premarital and marital stuff with people that it's like their relationships are not for themselves, they're not for the children, and they're. Sorry. They're either for children or for other people that you don't even know. So.

Yeah, and that's a powerful point. Shout out to Museum of Illusion. Moi. But you said something powerful when you said, you know, it can't go on forever. Right. But it could. They had, like, a lot of different scenarios of, like, optical illusions. Right. But the main goal, and I think by the time we've gone through each exhibit and each thing, the main premise was the same. These items are normal items. But plates like this can, like, do mind tricks to our mind. And then our brains are like, got it. Now we know what to look for. Now we know how to navigate. Now we know how to that. And so that was the end, Right. Like, they could go there. There's infinite possibilities of mirrors and lines and depth and looking at things and lights and, you know, just angles. There's so many ways of creating an illusion.

Yeah.

But once you realize that, oh, this is just a bunch of, literally, smoke and mirrors. This is just lines in mirrors or glass or angles. You just are like, oh, okay, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter anymore.

It sounds like that's what the relationship is. A relationship is for other people, and the relationship is a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Which I guess as one of the people that they want the relationship to care about, I just don't care. Like, it's just like, okay, like, you're deciding to be miserable. So that sucks.

It makes a good book, though.

But what. I guess that's another thing with that. So I'm seeing that more and more people are doing stupid things. Like, here's my issue with that, right? So people are doing stupid things like this, creating havoc and distraction. Like, Greg Locke, for example, told you this. So we were talking about this. And Greg Locke, a pastor in Mount Mount Juliet or Chattanooga, one of the two really super conservative cities in Tennessee. Pastor, is this mega conservative, ridiculous. Like, I'm not even gonna say Trump loving church, but just like, he is. But it's nothing bad about that. He just. He's so far in the deep end of just ridiculous. Right. And he's got a book deal about how God called him to be not conscious. But what is it like? I don't even know. Consciously conservative. I don't know what it is, but it's just like, how did he get a book deal? Right? You're talking about Jada. Like, some people actually gonna go buy this Jada Pakett book, right? And it's just like, for what? Like, we're gonna go. We're gonna go buy this book. And we already know that in this book, the sanctity of marriage is not gonna be honored. We know in this book, for Greg Locke, this gospel is not going to be honored, right? I'm not even talking about liberal gospel. I'm not talking about, like, conservative relationships or Jada, PK and Will. But the fact of the matter is, people are gonna go spend money, sit down and read. And all it's gonna do is cause division in homes, division among children, and confusion among relationships. All Greg Locke's book is going to cause is division in homes, confusion, pulpits, and people to wonder whether, like, you hear me talk about this all the time. I hate to be compared to other preachers who are not preaching the gospel. So now Greg Locke's gonna release a book and we're gonna go read. And it goes to all these not just books. It's. It's popularity. It's, it's, it's. I don't know. I get really annoyed with.

We are as the people obsessed with the out there, right? Like, we're obsessed with the most out there, right? Like the most craziest story, like, the most right wing of the right wing. That's why people. It's an obsession with Trump.

No, it's sad.

It's an obsession with Trump. And then on the other end, it's the obsession or whomever is on the other end of the left wing, like, it's an obsession. It's an obsession to, like, live in such a way with all this money and all this fame and in all of this and be like, what?

So the thing about. To me that really.

And it warps our brain, like, it warps our minds. Because that's why it's hard for us to be obedient to what God has called us to do. Because if we are like God, why aren't you calling me to be out there?

So with that. What I'm with that, too, is, is we're trying to encourage people to increase your capacity, right? To increase your capacity, realizing that you can do more than you. You think, right? And we do just in the wrong direction, right? Like, I preached this at church last week about Ephesus, right? They're doing stuff in the wrong direction so, like, we can increase our capacity so we can add more stuff to our plate, right? So we can scroll on TikTok for three hours at a time. We can scroll Instagram for two hours time. We can watch four hours straight of YouTube videos. We can read trash books that are literally gaslighting you. Gaslighting you into bad relationships, Gaslighting you to go to terrible churches. We have the capacity. We have the time. We have the energy. You will stay up till 2 o' clock in the morning reading a terrible book. You will stay up until 3 o' clock in the morning scrolling through mindless videos when you can take five minutes of that time and put it towards push ups. But I'm fat. I can't do this. You can take five minutes of that time and increase your body's capacity, but yet our mind's capacity. But like, you let something roll down the street and we're chasing it, Let something stupid come on, like, on the news, literally. I can tell you exactly what's on the news tonight. What? War, Rumors of war, death, murder. Black people are doing this, but white people are amazing. And their saviors, like, that's literally every single night. Our capacity is there. We know exactly when the news is playing. We say, we have no time. But let Oprah put a new show out. Let Tyler Perry put a new movie out. And we have the time. We don't know how to cook. We have no time to cook. But I think it's. I think that's what's so annoying. And then we watch other people. So then, like, the professions that we're in, right, Is we are counseling or we are taking steps with you to be like, stop it. Like, I love Jesus in scripture and I, I, those of you who are saved, understand the salvific power of Jesus. Those of you unsaved the philosophic power of Jesus. But literally, correction from him is, why do you keep doing, like, stop it. Like, stop it. Ephesus, stop. So we're gonna stop. Like, literally, I'm preaching about Smyrna. By the time you guys have heard this, I would have. I would have preached it at our church, shout out our friendship Vallejo podcast. But, like, I would appreciate our church. And at our church on Sunday, I'm talking about Smyrna. He literally looks at them and it's just like, stop. Like, stop slandering each other.

Yeah.

Like, because the goal is to be conformed with Christ. The goal is to be the person you are created to be. And yet here we are being like, ooh, this marriage is dysfunctional. I'm going to read a book about it. And yet there are Books that I've written, like, just Shameless Plug. There's books that I've written on how to use your mind as technology and technique. There's books that you were talking about writing together, about, hey, this is how you're faithful to your calling. I have colleagues who've written amazing books. Right. Combing through Scripture. My mother wrote an amazing devotional, Combing through Scripture. And it's like, oh, that's just too much to read. But Greg Locke's ridiculousness. And we'll spend three days straight sitting down, reading that and putting books and podcasts and status. And I think, I don't know, maybe I'll just have a point. And I think about it. I'm just unloading because of all this other stuff. Even the Mike Todd stuff. Like, just like, come on. Like, God has been too good. Life is too difficult to find ways to make it more difficult. You know, I don't know.

And sorry.

No, it's not your fault. I guess it's just. I don't know. It's just amazing to me when I think about, like, there's, there's so, like, why, why does that in our lives, like, we, we can forgive others, but we choose to not to. We can engage with those. We choose not to. We can. And so to hear, like, yeah, I saw the promotion. It was like, I saw somebody share this on Facebook yesterday. I was like, and this is my key to get off Facebook. It was like, jada doesn't even know who Will is. And it was like, what? Like, what is happening now? Like, what? Or like, I think I forgot some basketball player. Like, someone. But then we forget, like, Lauren Holiday has to move her entire family to Boston. Yeah, I want to hear that book. Like, how do you transition an entire family and deal with the traumatic experiences of that? But like, we won't read that. But let, like, Drew cheat on her. Oh, we're gonna read that book because we love that. But we don't. We don't like growth. So, like, we're over here is like, increase your capacity. No, you have the capacity. You haven't. Because you have the time to do mindless scrolling. You have the time to not engage with your life. You have the time, you know, you have the time to do five minutes of push ups. Yeah, doing. There's three minutes of commercials. You have time to do three minutes of setup.

We're more obsessed with the story. And I think looking at the train. The train. Watching the train wreck instead of helping the train wreck is more interesting to us. As a people not saying that that's right. But I think that's maybe we fix the track. Right. And over time, it's become the increasing of media in our hands, of our abilities to consume now and artificial intelligence in different ways. Right. In the rate that we're going that it's. No one's ever interested in the story of struggle. Right. Like, no one's ever interested in the story of how did you get there? Right. So you, you set an example with like. But if Oprah put something out. Yeah. Because now we see that she's rich and successful. So she does it. She did all the hard work early. I don't have to partake now. I can partake in the success. We don't care about her journey to success. We know that once she's successful, well, she did the hard work and it must be good. So I'm going to do it.

And that's why we're going to say broke.

Exactly.

Great leaders, great leaders do not care about like where you are. They care about your process. Like, ask any great leader about their process and they'll let you come back and meet with them again. Like, I've met with millionaires. Like, one of my mentors used to be the CEO. You know this. So for those of you on here, one of mentors should be the CEO of Hasbro, Brian Goldner. Right. I remember the first time I met Brian. I went and sat down with Brian. Sat down at Hasbro. It was crazy because this guy is worth millions. Millions. His VP of development was right next to me. His administrator was over there. And I'm looking up all their salaries online. Millionaires. I'm sitting at a table of millionaires as this pastor of a church, 201 years old at the time that like, nobody knew. How did you get here? And my entrance into toys and tech came from this man being like, yeah. So no matter what happens over the course of the next five years, robotics and xyz, XYZ is going to be the thing and we set the trend. So how did you get here? And he began to share with me his story. And not just his story from like, like, you know, I had a terrible childhood. But like, no, like, I have cancer. I don't know how long I have. So I want to ensure that every kid in America has access to inexpensive yet expensive, yet inexpensive, yet well built toys. What's your process? Hire the right people. This is what so and so does. This one so and so learned this process. So then now here I am in My organization. Like, I want every person I encounter to understand Jesus as clearly as possible. How do you do that? I'm going to hire certain people to be in certain positions. I'm going to do things this way. I'm going to be. Innovation is not an option. It's a requirement. Right. Great leaders want to know the process. Great leaders who care less about, like, but that's where, like, we talked about last week. Or even, like the Jada peak and stuff. Like, even bringing it up, it's like, ooh, like movies and like, money and all this. And it's like, frankly put, like, yeah, it's like going to say broke, man. Because we're going to keep doing shopping on Sheen, right? We're going to keep going to Ross and Marshalls and getting outdated trends. Like, think about it. Russian Marshalls have trends from two seasons ago. They. Two seasons ago. So you're over here dressing like the images that were staged a year ago when the trends were coming. And so we're dressing a year later because we want to look like them, right? Instead of like, who are you and what do you want to wear and how do you want to share with yourself in the world? I think it's just, I don't know, it's. If we're going to increase your capacity on here, you have the time and the energy. You. You have it. But we make decisions to, I don't know, like, enjoy reading books on separation and conservative white evangelical theology. Like, really, really far left.

Yeah, well, because I think it takes people off of their own lives, right? And it makes it feel like, oh, well, if I can read something about somebody else's misfortune or somebody else's bad life, it somehow in a weird twist away, makes it seem like, oh, well, my life isn't all that bad. But that's a false sense of motivation, right? A false sense of like, no. Instead of like, doing the work. Right. Reason why she continues to say, she continues like, this is now her second or third statement about her marriage. Alone, by herself, not saying anything with her partner. It's because people are eating it up. It's serving her. It's serving her. Somebody. We do things that serve us. We don't do things that don't serve us. So it's serving her in some type of way that means people are consuming it and people are flocking to it and people are paying into it and buying it and a key. And it gives us a false sense of security, of like, well, at least I'm not like, that Though, you know, and it's a sad. It's a sad exchange. It's a sad conundrum in our lives that what if we, though, took the time to build the life that we want to see? And I think, like I was saying earlier, that's why it's so hard for us to be not obedient. Because you listed some really big people, right, that are out there. Right. We see like the Mike Tides and his amazing ministry and. And we see the big names like the Sarah Jakes and the big things. And we just want to go from right where we are, where we barely can show up to work on time, to now managing millions, millions of people, millions of dollars.

You can't balance that $200 budget.

Balance of 200. Can't walk past Starbucks without foaming at the mouth for an iced coffee. But we want to manage and lead millions when we won't do the first thing that God told us to do. So lots of times, instead of pressing through, right? Instead of just starting with a push up or starting with a walk, starting with something, starting with a business plan, starting with a word, starting with something, an idea, start journaling. We take a passive. And we just read other people's success stories.

Yeah.

Or other people's demises.

If it were to me, something in terms of increasing one's capacity today, I would look at number one. You have to get frustrated with mediocrity. Right. Like separation without divorce, but not being together and all that. Like, I look at it like, for me, with that too. So Damian Lillard, who just moved to the Bucks, Right. Damien Lillard and his wife have been separate for the past seven months. Right. And then as soon as he goes to the Bucks, he had filed for divorce, I guess, like, right as he left Portland to move to Milwaukee. Right. Which is why his wife wasn't there with him at his introduction. And so to go from. And people were online were just like, oh, it doesn't matter. Like, at least he's gonna be more focused now because then to worry about his marriage. Maybe that's why Drew wasn't great last year, because he was so focused on keeping his marriage. This is literally. Comments. Damien's gonna be better now without this.

Wow.

Right. It's really sad, this. I'm saying. So it's stuff like that, right. I think really have to evaluate, like, and what is it that we. What is it that you. If you're gonna increase your capacity, what is it that you stand for now? And what is it that, you know, you could Stand for. If you were to take a fraction of your wasted time, like, a fraction. So, like, for those of you listening, if you took 25% of your wasted time and put it towards, like, I think about, for me, put it towards something building. So I put the guy for me, like, I. I was so frustrated with myself. Two weeks, not last week, but the week before, but how much energy I wasted three days of my mind, my energy and my time on things that, I mean, literally they got worse and they were so stupid that it didn't even matter in the first place. Like, it was so dumb that literally yesterday I had to scream about it. Like, it was just like, this is so dumb. And I'm like, that time I wasted could have been spent increasing the capacity of my employees. Could have been spent team building with my team. Could have been spent reading a book that I was 20 pages finished, almost finished reading. I could have written two chapters of a book. I could have engaged some of my students. We could have gone out to eat, could have played in the park with my son, but yet I had capacity. I just gave it to. So I want you also to acknowledge, and this is something we'll get to eventually. I read a book called the Six Types of Working Genius by Patrick Linsoni, and he talks about, you have your working geniuses and your working frustrations, right? And the challenge that they gave is, we give so much. We give 80% of our time to our working frustrations and only 20% of our time to working genius. And that's why about one day a week, you enjoy the rest of the days of the week, you're struggling, right? On average. And he was saying, great organizations and great leaders do their very best to give their employees time to spend 80% of their time to their geniuses. So if you are a wooer, if you are a leader, if you are a great communicator, if you have tenacity, you give 80% of your time to do that. You give 20% of your time to get frustrated. Like, you have to do your frustrations. Like, you have to. If you don't like emailing, eventually you're gonna have to email. If you don't like talking to people, you have to talk to people. You can 80% of your time not. But eventually, you're gonna have to work on your frustrations. I think the opportunity, if we're gonna increase capacity, if we're gonna grow, is gonna have to be like, hey, listen, like, okay, so it's very easy to escape into all these Other things or who the heck am I? What am I doing? Where am I going? Who am I becoming? And I'm gonna give more of my time to that than, like, those of you who are single or those of you in a relationship. The last book. This is just the pastor me right now. The last book you need to be reading is Jada Pinkett Smith's book. No, I mean just period. If you are single or married, why are you reading a book on separation?

I don't think the book is about separation.

Why are you reading a book on a broken. Like, why, though? If you're trying to make money, why are you reading books? Like, if you're not. If you're trying to make money, like, why are you reading books about, like, like, not balancing budgets? Well, if you're trying to learn basketball, like, why are you reading football books? So the la. If you're married or if you're single. The last book. The last. The last book, the last profile. The last, like, like, you don't need to be on tmz. Like, why are you bringing things into your. Like, what is the last marriage blog you read? Not you, but I'm saying, like, the married people. What is the last married blog you read? Like, from a couple that's doing well. What is the last. Like, if you're trying to lose weight, what is the last diet blog you went to? Who's the last fitness trainer that you've spoken to? Right. Like, I'm trying to dunk right now. So I literally. If you go to my YouTube search engine, you can see jump rope exercises, lower body exercises for people who've had knee surgeries. Because I will dunk by the end of the year. I will. And one day a week, when I do go work out, I only get there one or two days a week. It's concentrated on all lower body workouts. Because this is what I'm going to do. It may sound crazy, but I'm not living for. For anyone but. But me.

Yeah.

And I think that's like, why would you saturate your mind that's already supposedly so busy with things like, it's escapism. But why.

Why escape to your future? Exactly. I think those are all great words that I think we. It's our. Our human nature. Right? Like, that's where sin comes in and what we were talking about. Right? You know, you can escape into somebody else's, like, nonsense life. And then we look up and we wonder why we're so confused. Traveling. Like you said, you preached about traveling and going nowhere, traveling and going sideways. So we're making movement, but we're not making progress. And that is. That is the difference, I think, in a lot of where we're at. And it separates people who are good from great. It separates people who will take the chance for it versus those that are just sitting on their gift and are safe and just don't have it. And another thing I'm going to say is so interesting. I had an opportunity to look at a bunch of resumes from a group of people, and it's crazy to me, the things that we don't see in ourselves, right? Like the insecurities and the lack of confidence that we have in ourselves. I mean, these resumes were pitiful. I mean, like. And I know these people personally. I know them, right? I know the work that they've done, right. I can list off a bunch of different adjectives and action words that they have done to change the trajectory of whole populations. But it was just like, I did this, I did that. It was okay. I helped with that. I did that. And how we don't see ourselves well enough. No, right? And that, I think, goes into the greater things once we know who we are and have a good sense of identity. And that's what stops us. Like God says, oh, I want you to start this. Or I want you to do this. And I want you to, you know, do this and start with this step. Just reach out to this person. Why would they text me bags? They're gonna find it so strange. I'm just. I'm a nobody. Why would I do that? Oh, my gosh, this. This is so weird. And so we talk ourselves out of it, and we don't do it. And so then it's like, you pray and God, you know, help me to do this. Help me grow my career. Help me do this. Help me have more money. Help me manage my money. Help me whatever. And God is silent because God is like, did you. Did you text the person I told you to text?

Yeah, but.

Yeah, okay, I will. But it. Why would they want to text me back, you know, or nobody's going to give me a job. Why would they want to give me this job? Or why? And we can't see ourselves. That's why. That's the. The. And I'm going to finish. The largest group group besides self help in books and bookstores and libraries besides self help is the autobiography and biography section. Because we're more consumed in other people's lives and more consumed into that than we are with like helping ourselves because we don't see ourselves well.

I think nothing. My therapist, well, not therapist me, have been trying to work on taking the words I think and like out of my vocabulary. So we. I see that. And have been more consumed with obituary values than resume values. Right. So obituary, what did I accomplish? Who am I leaving legacy for? Your obituary is not about what you've done. Well, it's about what you've done and who you did it for. Now who you did it with, who you did it for. So look at your obituary. Well, obviously we don't have it, but look at what obituaries are written. You're always perfect. You are doing very generalized stuff. There are individuals who literally murdered people and they have a page long obituary about how they were a father, a friend, a lover, whatever, they served in this, they played football here. Obituary values are finding the smallest, goodest parts of ourselves and listing it out and naming who we're connected to. And what's happened in the resumes. I've even read too, even like hiring people is that you get a lot of resumes that are really full obituaries. This is what's good about me. This is what's great about me. This is where I can prove that I'm good because I accomplished X. If they even put percentages on there, which you need to percentages on your resume. And this is what I'm connected to. It's gonna be really good for you because I'm connected to them and like, oh, I play football in high school. Right. And that instead of seeing that your resume is, this is what I've done and my room for growth, I've accomplished these 25 things. I have room to grow. And when you hire me, you will assist in the growth of this human being that if I did 50% at this level, I can do 70 at this one. But getting to your point to all that being said, that getting to your point not. But along with that getting to your point is yes. We're so consumed with reading obituaries, autobiographies and biographies. There's nothing but full obituaries. Here's a story behind the worst moment of my life that a ghostwriter wrote. Not me, a ghostwriter. I verbally said it and some person in a black dark room wrote it for me. And I'm going to go around and tell you like the worst moment of my life. I'm not going to tell you my prayer time. I'm not going to tell you about my faith. I'm not going to tell you about who I'm connected to. I'm not going to tell you about who hired me. Not going to tell you about the loan my parents gave me. Not going to tell you. Like, even as we talk about the different stories about different pastors and leaders we were talking about, like you mentioned Sarah Jakes and Mike Todd and it's like, would you grab a hold of their stories? Like, yes, they have great stories. Great stories. Sarah Jake's daddy's TD Jakes. Mike Todd is an amazing story. He didn't start transformation. Right. And nothing against that. No, they're clear. And I'm saying, I'm saying we have to then recognize that. Like I want my son to say that. Geez. Yeah, I know. I didn't, I didn't start this church. I didn't start this business. My parents did. I hope my son's able to say like and because of my parents started, I'm now a multimillionaire. My parents didn't get to that level, but they did their very best to get there. I hope that our son is able to be like, yeah, my parents did this. Like, I like T.D. jakes. That's what you live for. You were starting on the backwoods of a mountain in West Virginia, right. And here you are by faith. You move to Dallas and you are the black preacher legacy. Please give it to your daughter. Like, don't let anybody else come screw that thing up. Right. And so grew like she's worked.

Yes, she's worked. It wasn't like this. Yes, it, it's good to have a backup in a megachurch pastor father who's a man of integrity and yes, that's great. That's an amazing safety net. That's an amazing like if all fails, I still have a. The low end was 3, 000 members coming to her conference. Yeah, that was the low end. Right. And but working her way up of her own story, being a pregnant at 15 or 14, you know, like and now like this and managing it. It. Right.

But I think what makes her different along with Mike Todd too is like there's the obituary side of it and then there's also the resume side of it and there's a delineation they have and I, and to, to your point, we cannot get so consumed TedX. I'm trying to get on TedX talks and they make it very clear when you get to every one of the websites, we don't care about your life story. What have you done that makes you so unique and different? Because we all have done something, we all have increased something, we all have sustained something. Even if it's like you, I was pushing, like, I was pushing coke on the corner. I don't even know where to go get coke, but I was pushing coke on the corner. You built a business model, sustained it. I was leading again. You built this. The same thing with your organization. You know what? I was working at McDonald's and during my time of work work, this is what it looked like. I worked at XYZ company And this is during my time work. I, I did this with my children. And during a pandemic. These things happen when we get to a place where we're no longer just saying, like, this is how terrible it was. Like, because like, I said this at church a couple weeks ago about testimony services, where it's just like, testimony services are just like, my story's like this. How bad is yours? Oh, my story is worse. And then we start making up stuff because we got to be worse instead of like, no, the Lord has been done this for me. This is what my life actually is. I would love to partner with other people who want that. And that's why too. When you look at the average income of members who attend churches, you don't see a lot of millionaires unless they go to mega churches like Los Angeles. Church of God in Christ in LA has all of the black actors, all the major black athletes, right? Because they could get lost in the sauce. Trinity in Chicago has all the black millionaires. Barack was there, Oprah was there. They had all the black millionaires, right? And there's certain churches like that, all like TD Jake, spot all the black millionaires along with like two of the churches, because I can get lost in it. But you don't see because it's, we want this Jesus, we want this church, we want this gospel with the self help. That's just like, my life is so terrible and tomorrow is going to get worse. And not like if you apply one thing, like if you apply something from something Courtney and I said today, one thing from it. Hey, when you go to the bookstore tomorrow, don't go to the autobiographies. Go get that self help book and then apply it. Hey, next time you talk to your boss, don't ask them about their story, ask them about their process. How do you plan your week out? One of the best things, I'll shout out one of my co workers, Brandon, he actually one day he said, how do you plan your week? I said, Monday nights, 8 o', clock, same Same book, same place. I sit on the couch upstairs every Monday night at 8 o' clock and plan my entire week out. I asked myself different questions and Brandon came and asked me that question. I was so excited, I lit up. I was so excited. I couldn't wait to tell them my process. I want to bring you in because I'm telling you the reason I've gotten to where I am today is because I sit down at 8 o' clock on Monday, plan my entire week out, hour by hour, so I know what's coming. I pad in like as a leader, it's exciting, it's exciting.

But what was important about that? You only ask process and people that you see value in. That was what our episode was about last week, right? You only ask the process in which you value the outcome of the process, Right. You don't ask the process if you don't value what someone has to bring to it. And so with that being said, I think the notion in additional takeaway is valuing ourselves first, right? Valuing. I don't think this generation of people or these people in general have some of the worst, lowest self esteem out there because we don't value ourselves, right? And then, then to contribute something to this world, whether it's knowledge consuming knowledge to contribute something to this world so that someone looks at you and says, how is your process in doing this? I think you would surprise your own self in it. If one just acknowledging your self worth and then knowing that what I have is a value for someone to ask what's the process behind it?

Yeah.

Right. And so as we all value those, right. That we admire, we all have someone that we're looking up to that, you know, they're in a capacity or the space that we desire to be in or whatever that looks like, right? And it's asking the question of, yeah, what is your process? But also working towards creating your own process so that someone looks at you and is like, wow, because eyes are looking at you. Whether that's your children, whether that's your co workers, whether those people that you manage, whatever that looks like, there's always someone looking at to you and do they see something of value? Because a, you see something of value.

Yeah. To that end. And the last thing I'll say is Doug Conant, the book you gave me touch points, right. He said that I want you to stop in terms of considering who you're looking up to. Imagine you, everything going the direction that you sense that it can go knocking on the door of your office, you from 10 years from now, showing up to you right now, that's who you need to be looking up to. What are they wearing? What are they driving, who do they talk to, what meetings are they going to, what meeting did they leave? How's the relationship? What do they look like? What's their body like? What's their bmi? You with everything. Not even. I'm not talking about going to school. Those of you like, I'm not talking about school. I'm talking about millions of dollars, a windfall, everything going the direction that you sense it can go right now with the decisions you're making. You 10 years showing up, who are you? And best or good or bad, that's who you need to be looking up to. I used to look up to pastors. I did look up other pastors, other leaders. Not because, like, bad failures they've done. I used to look up to people, but then I began to think about, like, my son will be at that time. Dude will be 16, right? Who's gonna walk in that door? Is a stress. Like, is the Justin the last three weeks, who's been stressed out, looking at more gray hair, frustrated, barely sleeping, nightmares, mad, sad, really, really difficult Tuesdays, really, really difficult Monday nights. Really, really high Sundays. And that sits on the couch all day Saturday watching football and hadn't cooked in four. Hadn't cooked in four days. Once it's a safe place, would that be the person I want to show up in 10 years? No. So my prayer then was, God, what do I need to read, what scriptures I need to go to now so that the person I am right now does not show up in 10 years because I hate that person. I don't. I don't want to look up and be like, oh, yeah, same old thing, same old dent in the couch, watching the same old stupid football that I have no qualm or I have no football team. Same old Packer fan, yelling and screaming. Same old Sunday morning high Sundays, really decent Mondays, very low Tuesdays, frustrated up. Is dad gonna be okay by Friday? Because we got to do it all over again on Sunday. Do I really want that person showing up? No. I want the person I know I. I can be the person I know. Like, if I were to take all of my Mondays and my Sundays, put them into a whole week. Oh, my God. I write books monthly. I'd have blogs and podcasts. I'd have a whole business. I'd have millions. But yet I'm over here. Like I was telling Courtney before we recorded today, I was so Frustrated myself because I put a book out and didn't promote it, because I was insecure about it. I was afraid of what people were going to say about it. And I. And then now the book is being sold across, across the world, translated in different languages. And I'm over here just like, what if I would have promoted it?

Right?

Like it was giving some. It gave life to people.

Right.

So I want you to compare yourself to who you are in 10 years if everything were to go the way that you wanted to. Now in the midst of that, we already know that if things do go well, favor from fate, favor from God is not fair. That you will see millions and you will see cows on a thousand hills begin to just come in your direction. But if you were to take what you have right now, add nothing else to it and be the person God's called you to be in 10 years, that person showed up. I want you to compare yourself to who you know you can be instead of other people. So anyway, what's your unpaid advertisement?

Did we do coffee last week? Advertisement. I don't know. Red eye flights, I think.

Red eye flights.

I have a red eye flight tonight. When? Florida, for a wedding. Thank God, because I can sleep. I always. I don't know, I'm 50. 50 about red eye flights. But in this moment, I thank God for them.

Yeah. So my unpaid advertisement is football. It's the best time of the year. There's nothing better than football.

Well, Christmas. That's debatable.

Okay. There's nothing better than football season. I'm not a fan of Christmas. Wow. I'm really not a fan of Christmas. I like Pentecost. I like east. I don't even like Easter much anymore. I like Pentecost. I've never really been a fan of Christmas. No, man, it's just the season.

Just like how people like fall and pumpkin spice and. And all the stuff that happens in the fall time and apple picking and the leaves turning colors. It's not necessarily the holiday. It's the spirit of the season. Season. Everybody is nice on Christmas.

Yeah.

Time.

Everybody's also nice on Halloween. They give you candy?

No, not as much as Christmas. They give you gifts.

Yeah, you get candy.

Fun size candy or a whole gift.

Frankincense and myrrh. I mean, if we're really gonna do.

This, that's extremely expensive.

So why don't we give it what we don't give Frankens? We work four jobs to get gifts for ungrateful people.

Listen, I am riling you up today. But I think.

I'm not riled up. Just saying truth, like let's end.

We've kept the people far enough.

I'm sorry. You're made for Mondays. Mondays are on you.