Why Rick Pino Left The Ministry…

What's up, everybody? So in this video today, I'm going to be going even more in depth on why my wife and I chose to move out of full time vocational ministry and more into business. I think especially for those of you guys and gals who followed me all those years back in worship, and now you're like, Rick's talking about business a whole bunch this interview. I had the honor of being on the podcast recently with a buddy of mine, Mark Casto, and he asked me all the hard questions that a lot of people are probably wanting to ask me about what why we left full time vocational ministry. And all of it is included in today's video. So with no further ado, check it out, send it to somebody who you were talking about, like, what's Rick been up to? This is crazy. Is he all about the money? Is he serving mammon? What's he up to? Everything is revealed here in the video interview today, and not just why we have chosen to step out of vocational ministry, but even more in depth on our philosophy of what we're up to right now. If you like it, let me know in the comments. Make sure to like and subscribe all that stuff. Check out the interview.

All right, well, thanks for jumping on the podcast with me today. I've got my friend Rick Pino with me. Rick, welcome to the podcast.

Marky. Mark, let's go, bro. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, man. I really appreciate you being a part of the podcast today. And, man, I want to tell you, this past fall, you know, our church went through this crazy transition where we experienced a fire, got displaced from the building. It was just, just this crazy time of transition for me and gave me a lot of space to think about who am I? Authenticity, all of those conversations. And you became a big part of that in the fall. So reconnecting with you, man, has been an incredible honor. And the impact that you've made on my life the past five months has been amazing. So I knew I wanted to have you on the podcast, have a conversation and talk through some of those things today. So I appreciate it so much.

It's my joy, man. I'm glad to be here with you.

Yeah, man. So, so let me, let me start with this. So right after we went through the fire and displaced and all the fun things, I made a trip to Mobile, Alabama, which is, I go there often. You, you know, Damon and Tammy Thompson, and they've played such a huge role in my life. And so we go down there quite often and spend time with them. And jump in the river with them. And after one of the services, there's a couple there named Luke and Cheryl Thompson that are great people, man. And after the service, Cheryl motioned for me. She said, come over here. And she said, I've been praying for you and praying for you guys. And she said, I really feel like you need to reach out to Rick Pino and see what he's doing. And I was like, I haven't seen rick in. Since 2015. I mean, man, when I left Cleveland in 2015, I fell off the face of the earth and I lost contact with everybody. I was, you know, I am the Martian. Like, I've. I've. I've spent some time on another place, you know, And. And so I was like, I don't even know what Rick is doing these days, you know? And so I went and checked it out, got, got on Instagram, saw your videos, saw that you were, like, fully engaged with, like, business and going deep in business. I started watching your videos, and, man, I am so thankful that Cheryl told me what you were doing because it was a precursor for what the Lord was inviting me into. And so, yeah, man, I found you on there. I checked out what you were doing, and. And, man, I'm just so thankful for the. The reconnect and you giving me a huge insight. Once you find out what. Once I found out what you were doing, I jumped into your group immediately. It was like two weeks after listening to some of the stuff you're saying, I set up a call, jumped into your group, and then when you found me out that I was in the group, gave me your number, we reconnected, and, man, you said some really powerful things to me about Noah. I'm not sure if you want to talk about that or not, but, man, you said some things that were really revolutionary to me, but I really would love to hear, like, your journey and what took you into embracing this business call and transition in your ministry the way that you have.

Yeah, 100%. First of all, man, thanks again for having me on here. So good to reconnect and just so awesome to see all that God's doing in your life, both with ministry and with business. You know, I think it's funny, Mark, a lot of people in the church talk about kings and priests, but whenever a priest steps into being a king, they start getting rebuked. You know what I'm saying? It's like, wait, wait, are we just going to talk about it or are we going to be about it? Right? So a little bit of Context and backstory, because I'm sure there's going to be people listening who maybe have a background of, you know, who I've been and what my wife and I've been up to for 20 years and now have seen the big transition. So a little bit of context on that. So, as a lot of people know, for years, for 25 years, led worship all around the world, 79 different nations sowed worship into the earth, you know, like a. Like a mad dog, man. Just went crazy with it. Love it, still love it. But the interesting thing was, the whole entire time, even before we came out the gate with worship, I had always received words about business, finances, wealth. And it was so interesting, Mark, because the more we ramped up in worship, you would think, oh, man, God's breathing on their backs with these worship words. And in some ways, he was. You know, we had a lot of prophetic stuff going on and, you know, a lot of insight and just kisses from heaven. But a lot of the encouragement that we are receiving was about business, finances, wealth. And I will say this, nobody knew this except for my wife and I. We received 10 times more words about business, wealth, entrepreneurship, finance than we ever received about worship. And it confused me for the longest time because I'm like, God. I mean, that's cool. And of course, whenever you're in the church world, ministry world, the only lens you can see through is church or ministry. So my. My understanding at the time was, okay, maybe God's going to bring wealth and abundance and finance through ministry. And something interesting happened, Mark. We begin to have kids, Our family began to grow. And as, you know, and as probably a number of people listening here either know firsthand or can only imagine, just because you're going out there, just because you're traveling all the time, just because you're doing the stuff in ministry doesn't necessarily equate to you being abundantly blessed in your finances. Because a lot of time, you know, I would go to places that nobody else would go to, you know, and that's still to this day. My big heart is like, man, I'll go to the church with 20 people in the backwoods of Missouri or whatever, you know, because most people won't. But with that comes, obviously, the impact, but it also comes the struggles and the give and take and the ebbs and flows of the finances. And so we started having kids, our family started growing, and to be honest, Mark, we just needed to make more money just to make ends meet. I'm not talking about living a lavish Lifestyle or flying on a private jet. I'm talking about just, you know, normal, get by, pay the bills type of thing. And the ministry alone, even though it was doing okay, it just wasn't cutting it for where we needed. So, you know, rewind. Six and a half, almost seven years ago now, in 2024, it'll be seven years. I was hit with some opportunities. Kind of sounds, kind of like. It sounds like you were with my stuff, different people. Because I started searching, Mark, like, marketing. Like, I don't know. I'm just like, man, maybe I need to do better at marketing or maybe I need to start a side hustle. I don't know. And I'm so. I'm searching these things, and naturally people start hitting me with ads. Well, man, we join a mentorship. And it was on how to start a. An ad agency, a marketing ad agency. I started applying those principles, Mark. Our social media started really blowing up. I started my first business, and absolutely incredible. Within the first six months, my wife and I made $900,000. And we were like, what is this? And that was kind of the beginnings of our journey into not just being priests. And again, like I said, I'm a priest forever and I'm a priest first, but the beginnings of our journey into what it means to be kings as well. So that's kind of how it started for us.

Yeah, man. And that's why I'm saying, going back, I kind of got the cart before the horse there in the intro. But going, going back. That's why I'm so thankful for. For Cheryl mentioning, like, hey, I really think that you should connect with Rick, because I didn't know that I was about to be invited into that same journey. I've had business words and media words on my life for years, but I was always like, yeah, but I'm a. You know, I've been told for years I'm a fivefold ministry gift. And so that's all this other stuff has to be, like, secular. There's a sacred calling on my life and that business stuff. And so I would always just put it on the altar. I'd always just like, nah, you know, that's, you know, if God wants it, he'll make it happen. He'll probably use somebody else to partner with me to do it because I've got to stay true to the word of God in prayer. And. And I just had this really poor idea of what it meant to be a whole man in the kingdom. And so I still had this sacred secular dichotomy. Happening in my life. And so when. I'll tell you actually what happened, Rick, Seven days before the fire, the Lord started just really stirring up entrepreneurial dreams in my heart. And I was like, lord, we're in the middle of, like, planting a church, and, you know, I want to get the foundation strong, and I really can't think about these things right now. And, man, he would not leave me alone. So I walk out the back, I start walking down to a creek that's on our property, and. And as I'm walking, I just finally was like, lord, if this is really you, and you're really calling me into this entrepreneurial journey and you're calling me into some business things, then you're going to have to shut all this stuff down and give me a new blueprint. Seven days later, man, we had.

Then he burned church down.

Yeah. Seven days later, man, we have the fire, and we get displaced from the building. Thankfully, God protected all of my stuff, all of my journals, books, everything. Like, he. He preserved all of that, but it displaced us and put us in a place where we had to really rethink, like, life ministry, all the things. And so I'm like, okay, well, I need to jump back in. And we got to keep people rallied. We got to keep people, you know, connected during this time. And so I called Damon and asked him. I'm like, hey, man. I just. He's. I look at him as just an incredible father, spiritual father. I'm like, hey, I need you to speak into this situation. Tell me what you're thinking. And he said, I think you and destiny need to take the next three months off and let your leaders run with it. And I'm like, this is the most critical time in our church right now.

The church is burned down. Take three months off. Right? Right.

Yeah. So he's like, basically like, you all need to step back from this. Let your leaders lead. And so that's what we did. And it was in that process that. That the Lord brought you back into my path. Wow. And when I found out the transition and the journey that you had gone through, it was just like, the Lord was like, mark, here's another man, a man that you ran in some circles with years ago, and he made this transition, and I'm telling you, his life is permission for you to make the same. And, man, it has been revolutionary to. To kind of go back into your journey, be a part of the group that you do, some of the business coaching that you do. And it's just given me an Amazing perspective on business, but in particularly the King Priest revelation. And you're so right, man, it's like everybody's good in, especially in revival culture. They love when you're a priest and you go all in on your priesthood. People look at like the years that I did ministry and gathering thousands of people in conferences, building that $23 million facility in Cleveland and they see all of that and they think that that was like luxury. But I'm telling you man, when you, you're like doing ministry the way that I did and I was just like you, 42 weekends out of the year, traveling six weeks out of the country and I would go to some of the largest churches and also the backwood churches in Missouri. I mean I preached at the Flippin Church of God in Flippin, Arkansas. So I mean like I, I know what that's, that, that's like, you know, and like people have this idea that when you're busy in ministry that that automatically equates income and, and prosperity and it's just not true. And we've always lived off the generosity of the saints, which I'm extremely thankful for. So it's like we've never been without, but we've never built wealth.

Well, let me, let me just jump in here right quick because I, you know, it's, it's interesting that you're saying this. I was talking to one of my students the other day because as you know, Mark, everything I teach in my business coaching programs, it's all Bible. It's literally just Bible based principles. I say it like this. Principles, Biblical principles are God's automation. When you do God's principles from the Word, he will begin to automate things in a beautiful way. And so I had a student who was talking to me about, you know, like they were just wrestling again. They're coming from a ministry background and they're wrestling with stepping into, you know, entrepreneurship and starting businesses and whatever. And I just, I shared this with them and I want to share with the audience here. You know, there's different measures of faith. Okay. And the faith of a priest is I'm going to show up to the temple today and people are going to bring an offering to the house of the Lord and I'm going to live off of a portion of that offering. And Mark, as you know, that's very appropriate because that is the faith of a priest. But bro, the faith of a king is we provided 100,000 jobs last month, fed 100,000 families. How can we feed 200,000 people and provide for 200,000 families with jobs this month. It's not that one faith is better than the other, it's just different measures of faith. And as far as like vocational ministry, you know, the percentage of people who are called to vocational priesthood to where it is your full time job and you make a wage from doing that, it's very, very small. Now I believe all of us are called to be priests, but not all of us. And I would even go as far as saying the vast majority of us are not called to be vocational priests, but to be ministers of the goodness of God, the gospel, the goodness of his presence, the good news of salvation, the good news of everything that is in the gospel, but to do it in the marketplace and to be out there and to like you said earlier, not just go all in and go hard on being a priest vocationally, but go in and go hard on being a king, man.

Right, yeah, yeah. And, and I mean I've done the, go all in on the, the priestly ministry. I mean, I've done, you know, as far as vocational ministry, I've been doing that since 2007. So it's like I've been blessed and I'm extremely thankful for those years, you know, to, to live off of the generosity of the saints and then believe in what we were doing enough to support us.

Sure.

And to, and to, you know, I'm extremely thankful. But again, to. I think people can be deceived to think that busyness, opportunities, all of those things equals financial success. Like, you know, it pays the bills, it takes care of things. But there's a lot of things that are hindered in the process even of providing for your family and actually building wealth and, and, and securing future generations. Doesn't happen in the ministry. You know, it's very rare that it happens in the ministry. But this, this re. This decision for me wasn't so much about just finances. I mean, yes, yes, I mean we would love to have more resources, but this was also about like wholeness, man. This was about like stepping in, just like you stepping into a word that Yahweh was calling us into, but yet still struggling thinking that that was like a, that business or entrepreneurship was like a lesser calling than ministry. Like, yeah, ministry. And, and that whole king priest thing, man, is like, is huge. I was thinking about this. I've been doing a walkthrough in the Book of Revelation with a group that, that we started called Long Path Learning Community and walking through the Book of Revelation and kind of helping people deconstruct the idea that the book of Revelation is an end time prophecy book. Like, it's pretty clear right out the gate. Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ. But the first primary revelation that comes out of the book of Revelation concerning our identity is king priest. Like, that's the first thing that he says about us is we are kings and priests.

And.

And yet there are so many people, man, I know that, that have been just like me. They look at the kingly thing and wealth building, wealth creation, entrepreneurship. There's like something negative that the church sowed, especially in the Pentecostal charismatic circles I grew up in something negative that was sown there that gives us a poor perspective about money and a poor perspective about, like, ministry as it relates to business.

Well, bro, that. That's the enemy, bro. Like, that's the enemy. Because, like, again, I tell my students all the time, you hear me say this all the time, if you were the enemy, would you rather have God's people have money or your people have money? Which one? Right? And the answer to that question is obvious. Like, if you're the enemy, you want your people to have money. So guess what you're going to do? You're going to do what he's always done. Did God really say, right, it began in the garden, bro. He's going to twist words like, you know, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The enemy's gonna come in and just get the church tricked to think money is evil.

Right?

You know, it's interesting. I put out a tweet about this a few months ago. And, you know, I don't know if a lot of religious church people liked it so much, but it's interesting to me that, you know, church people on one hand. And by the way, before I go any further, I. I love church people. I am a church people. I've served God's people. I've served God's people with my whole heart for decades. And so I'm speaking not to, but from. And in that context, I just want to say I think it's so interesting that we as God's people, out of one side of our mouth, we say things like, money's bad. If you have a lot of money, you're greedy or evil. But at the other side of our mouth, Mark, we're also saying, but would y' all sow a seed? Because we have the building fund coming up and we're trying to build these orphanages. It's like, which one, man, do you want me to. To Go out and to create wealth, or do you want me to, you know, sow a seed? Like, is wealth good or is wealth bad? You know, also out of one side of our mouths, we're going, let's take the seven mountains, you know, for the glory of God. Let's go into education and business and media. But the second somebody actually goes, okay, well, like in my case, for instance, okay, well, guys, I've been in the church mountain. I'm actually going to step on the business mountain. Oh, man. We're praying for Rick Pino salvation. My God, he's. He's backslid. He's probably going straight to hell. He's all about the money. He serves mammon. It's like, guys, which. Which one? Like, I. And Mark, I just want to say this, and I think it's really critical for your audience to hear what I'm about to say. I think one of the primary reasons why God's people struggle financially is because we have conflicting internal beliefs around the subject of money. For instance, if you go up to most church people and you say, hey, do you believe that God wants you to have wisdom? I think, Mark, it'd be safe to say probably 100% of God's people are going to go, absolutely. I believe God wants me to be wise. But, bro, Proverbs chapter 8 says that with wisdom comes wealth, abundance, enduring riches, prosperity. So it's like, okay, on one hand you believe part of what God says, but on the other, you don't believe the other part. Like, I believe that God wants us to prosper. You know, people ask us all the time, like, hey, Rick, are you part of that prosperity gospel now? Well, bro, I'm not part of the poverty gospel. You know what I'm saying? The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, right? It's not that I'm all about the money. It's that I'm all about what God said is for us, you know, and he said, man, I call you blessed in the city, bless in the field, bless when you come, bless when you go. He's called us to be the head and not the tail. Not this perverted message of, you know, past TV preachers from old. I'm talking about real truth, real potential, man. You know, somebody was asking me the other day, like, you know, Rick, I just feel like you're chasing the money. I said, bro, I'm not chasing money. I'm chasing God given potential. Mark, it's my conviction that if we can be who God has called us to be, then we can do what God has called us to do.

Right?

And if we become who God called us to be, if we do what God called us to do, then, bro, we can have what God called us to have.

True. True. I want to ask you because I, because you've so helped me and encouraged me and I just love for you to help and encourage other people that are watching this in this area. Like how. How do you deal with the fact that there are people, especially in the circles you and I ran in Revival Awakening, you know, believing for, for God to do something amazing in our nation and in the world, which, by the.

Way, we're all still about that. I know you are and I know I am. Yes.

Still all about it. But how, how have you dealt with people thinking, people that used to be your biggest fans now, but now they're like. And biggest cheerleaders, but now they're like, Rick's turned his back on God, you know, or he's chasing some of the things you've already. Some of the things you've already said, like how, how have you dealt with, with that?

So I've got some insights on that, first of all. And you know this, Mark, and I know this is your stance too, because I don't live for their praises. I don't die by their criticisms, number one, right? But number two, you know, at the beginning of the interview here, you alluded to that revelation I was talking about, about the story of Noah. And just for the sake of time, everyone here knows the story of Noah, but there is a part of that story, bro, that a lot of us have skipped over. We've all read it a hundred times, but we've skipped over. So again, I'll just paraphrase. So Noah, the, you know, he builds the ark. And the context here is Noah is an ark builder for a hundred plus years, right? He's. He's literally one thing. He's a. He's an ark builder for over a century, okay? And this is all he does day in, day out. It's what everybody knows him as. Oh, no, he's the, he's the ark builder, right? The flood happens, which to me signifies great transition. And Mark, something powerful happens next. The Bible says whenever the ark landed on Mount Ararat and all the water began to dry up, one phrase, one phrase that I read a number of years ago when I was beginning to step into my transition, I read this phase, bro, and it said, and Noah became a farmer, bro. You know what it's like when you get a download, right? You get A download for me of revelation is you get all of this information in a blip of time. And it's like when I read that one phrase, bro, it's like God gave me permission. Rick, you've been this worship leader, psalmist, prophetic worshiper, voice, blah, blah, blah, for all these years. But this great transition now, you're going to become something different. And guess what? All I'm in all of it. And I was like, wow. I mean, Mark, to have the audacity to go, you know, whatever. Mark Casto, he's been a revival preacher, a prophetic voice, apostolic builder, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. And then all of a sudden, this transition comes. In your case, it was, you know, a fire, but of course there was more going on. But that was kind of one of the. It was your flood moment, so to.

Say it was a catalyst for sure.

And then all of a sudden, God's like, hey, Mark, that was awesome. I was in that. But I'm also in the fact that now you're going to, quote, unquote, become a farmer. What does that mean? It means that Noah literally. This brings us back, bro. In my opinion, this brings us Back to Psalm 27:4. I'm going to cut gears a little bit here with the life of David, okay? Especially in my case, Mark. You know, obviously for years, even in the midst of all the business words, I obviously got a tremendous amount of Davidic words. But what people don't understand about David, okay, is that David was many things. He wasn't just the sweet psalmist of Israel. He was a king, he was a politician, he was a warrior, he was a sweet psalmist. He was an inventor of instruments. He was all of these different things. And like you were saying earlier, you know, when. Whenever our lens is so small to say the only way God can move is through the ministry or through preaching or through conferences or through church. This is the only way God moves. And if, you know, if anything happens outside of this, they're backslidden. It's just a small mindset. David had to go out there and do these exploits and conquer these nations to acquire funds to build God's house. And so all of that, to say, back to the Noah piece, it was like God breathed on my heart. Rick, you've been this one thing forever. And Mark, I guarantee you, if Noah would have picked up a hammer, he would have easily been able to build something else, because that's all he did for a century plus. But God said, even though that was a big part of who you are. You're also this other thing. And, Mark, it's my conviction in God we can be more than one thing.

Yeah, it's true, man. It's so true. I'm so glad that you. You shared it, because I wasn't sure if you. If you would or not, if that was something you just wanted to keep between you and the Lord. So I didn't want to press you too much on it, but I'm so glad you did because it was the most helpful thing that you have said to me in the whole journey, because we let people box us in in the name of ministry, especially in the church world. More than any other thing, we let people box us in. And so I had allowed myself to be boxed in and. And say, well, no, Mark, this is who you are. This is your ministry calling. That's your highest calling. So therefore, every other thing, you just need to let it go, let it die. Yet. Yet. There's part of me now that had you not said that, that I would not have been able to come into the wholeness of authenticity. Some passions in me that are fully coming alive and making me come alive without that truth, man. And so, like, that revelation right there is worth the whole podcast to me, because people need to know, like, God can make you whatever you want. He wants you to be. And one of the things that I say to our family here in Covington is I tell them, you know, when God introduces himself to Moses, he introduces himself as the I am. And if you just do some he, you know, Hebraic word study on it, it literally means, like, I am whatever you need me to be. And I tell our family, I'm like, when God shows up in the power of Holy Spirit, baptism comes inside of you as a believer. The I am lives in you, which means you can be whatever he needs you to be in every moment. And, man, I've, like, laid hands on people who never painted before in their life and speak this revelation over them. Next thing I know, I get a phone call that they sold their first painting for three. Three grand. You know, they've never painted a day in their life. They went to Michael's after one moment of hearing that, buy a canvas and sell a painting for thousands of dollars. You know, like, I've seen that happen. And as crazy as that it sounds to say this, but I believe God could do that for everybody else, but not for me as a minister. That's been my personal journey. And so you sharing that revelation with me was absolutely critical. So I just want to honor you for that, man. That was. That's huge.

I appreciate it, man. I want to, if it's okay, I want to just switch gears here and even share a little bit deeper of after God began to, you know, do this big transition in our life. And he was saying, hey, listen, you've been a builder, you know, quote unquote, an arc builder, but now I'm going to transition you. You're also a farmer. And by the way, it's not that I'm never going to lead worship publicly ever again. It's not that I'm not a worshiper. Honestly, Mark, I can't wait for, you know, the, the vapor of this life to be done. Because my plan, if God wills it, I can't wait to be leading, you know, creations in worship at, at any level that God would allow me to. Because, bro, I'm a priest first, right? But in this transition where God's like, yes, you, you are a priest, you're also a king, okay, God began to also Open up Deuteronomy 8:18 to me, bro, and a lot of, a lot of, you know, Christians, a lot of believers quote this verse, but I don't think they fully understand it. And in no way am I fully claiming to understand it in the depths. But, man, I've got some insight on it. Deuteronomy 8:18, it says, Remember the Lord, because it is he who gives you the power to create wealth. And then the second part says, so that he will establish his covenant with you. I think there's so much in this verse number one. Remember the Lord, right? What I've learned in business, Mark, what I've learned is this. There is business wisdom. Again, if you do God's principles that are in the Word, they will automate. So a lot of what I'm doing in business now, it's simply automated because I just do the Word. And it's good in the sense, Mark, that now making money becomes easy, but it's dangerous in the sense of God says, remember me because. And he warns us of this all throughout the Word, especially in the story of Joshua. You know, like, guys, I'm going to increase you. I'm going to give you the land, but make sure to stay close to me, because if you don't, you're going to forget me. And the wild beasts are going to come and they're going to overtake you, right? And so now that I've learned some of these principles, some of God's automation for my business now, it's very easy and very simple for me to make money. Where my heart is pressing in for is I want to remember the Lord in all of it. I want to stay close to him. And because, Mark, we're talking about being priests today and kings, but in the priest context, you and I both know being a priest is not unto the people first. It never has been and it never will be. Being a priest is unto Jesus first. Right. And so for me, as a priest and a king, but in the context of priesthood, my heart is longing, my heart is reaching to stay close to him and remember the Lord. That's the first part. The second part is because he gives us the power to create wealth. What does this mean? A lot of believers, Mark, think that God is saying, I'm going to make you wealthy. But that's not what God is saying here necessarily. It's not necessarily what he's saying. He's actually saying, I will give you the power to create. Yes, wealth. Mark, you hear me say this all the time because you're in one of my programs. I believe that it's tremendously difficult to build wealth God's way when you are trading your time for your dollar. A lot of people, they work, work, work, work, work, work, work. And then they get paid. And the only way for them to increase in finances is to work more or work harder. But, Mark, hard work alone does not make us wealthy. We've got to learn how to disconnect our time from our dollar. And it's right here in the Bible. It says it right here in Deuteronomy 8:18, the power to create. I believe God wants to teach his people how to begin to create wealth not out of their time, not out of their labor, but out of their creativity. Because when we begin to build wealth out of our creativity, now we do the work one time, right? We have the creative process. We create this thing, and then we work. And then instead of work, work, work, work, work, work, work, get paid. Now it's work. Get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid. Everything that God does multiplies after its own kind. And so if we are going to try to generate wealth our way by connecting our time to our dollar, we're limited because time is limited. But when we connect our wealth to our creativity, that's God's way. And now our earning potential, just like creativity, becomes unlimited.

Yeah, I want to. I want to honor your time. So I want to kind of start landing the plane here, but I want to do it in a practical way. Somebody's hearing this and they're, they want to escape the 9 to 5 lifestyle. What does Rick Pino say they should do?

Uh, I mean, first of all, as far as escape the nine to five, man, we've got to get the Bible in us. Like, we've, we've got to not just read the Word, we've got to weep the word. Like, it has to be something that we're so passionate about. Because, man, everything that, that God has for us, it's already in the Word. And man, this business stuff, his business principles, it's in the Bible. So, number one, we've got to start really understanding what did God say about us coming into wealth, creating wealth, and being prosperous? I think that's number one. Number two, we've got to begin to press in and ask God for more revelation on God. What does it look like to be a righteous man? Because Mark Proverbs says that a righteous man leaves an inheritance for his children's children, right? So what that means is, is, you know, you can't leave a job as an inheritance. You can't leave a 9 to 5 position as an inheritance, but you can leave businesses, you can leave assets, you can leave intellectual property, you can leave real estate, you can leave that kind of stuff. And I know there's going to be people listening go, well, it's a spiritual inheritance. Yes, it is, but it's also a physical inheritance, right?

Ask a Jewish person, ask a Jewish person that's grown up with that teaching all their life, if that's just a spiritual inheritance.

A million.

Never been taught that way.

A million percent. Yeah, it's, it's got to be both. And, you know, so, so my conviction is, is, number one, we gotta, we gotta get the Bible in us to say, what is God saying about this, this new transition where he's calling his people into wealth and prosperity and business entrepreneurship? Number two, we've got to cry out, furthermore, when it comes to God, give me revelation on what it means to really be a righteous man. And then, bro, number three, I would say that the biggest unlock, it's mentorship, man. Mentorship is the cheat code. Mentorship is the unlock. In church circles, we call it discipleship. Whatever language you want to use, I'm telling you right now, the same way your spiritual life can explode and you can chop 10 years off of your growth just by having a mentor or a spiritual father in the spirit. The same thing happens for entrepreneurship and in kingdom wealth and in business. I encourage people get a mentor as fast as you can.

Yeah, and that was a big part of the transition for me this fall was I knew the Lord was inviting me into something new. I saw that you have. You've already paved away into that. And I just want to say, man, for all the naysayers that said whatever they've said, you found out on the podcast today, Rick Pino's still saved. He loves Jesus. He reads his Bible. He wants to leave worship again in heaven. No, but, man, I want to say. I want to say to you just how amazing it is and how thankful I am that you have made this decision to go all in on business. And not just business, but you showing people how to do it, man. Being a part of your program, just being reconnected with you, is bringing immense value to my life and changing the Casto family for forever. I mean, I'm having my kids sit down and watch the videos. So, like, my kids are going to get a leg up on, you know, on anything that I ever learned in my first 30 some years of living. They're getting it now. And so, like, man, I just want to honor you and thank you for that. And then I also want you to just let people know how they could work with you, you know, how they can connect with you.

100. Let me. Let me just wrap up with this one final thought, because this. This really. It was kind of like the. The solidifying word through the transition that God was Been. Has been bringing my wife and I through for the past almost 10 years now. You know, six or seven years, you know, for years. A lot of people know I used to sing this song. Pioneer. Pioneer. Pioneer. And Mark, right in the beginning of this transition, I was. I was weeping over God. I love traveling and leading worship. I love the nations. I love your presence like this. Like, I feel you calling me to this new thing. I feel you calling me to, quote, unquote, become a farmer. But I don't want to, right? Like, I want to do what I'm comfortable doing. And I'm weeping over it, Mark. I'm weeping over it. God, are you sure? Like, I guess I'll do this, but do I have to? And, bro, I begin to hear that song in my spirit. Pioneer Pie. And the Holy Spirit spoke something to me, Mark. He asked me, rick, who do you think heard that song the most? All these years that you were traveling around leading worship, you basically finished almost every worship set, just kind of commission the people with that song. And I started thinking, man, well, I've been to this place 10 times. I've been to that place 20 times. Maybe these guys, maybe this guy. And God goes, no, man, it was you. You heard that song the most. And there's layers. Everything that God does, bro, there's layers. And all of it that we don't understand at the time. And in his time, he reveals. And so the next layer for me was like, man, I was a pioneer. I mean, some consider me a pioneer in the worship world. Now it's time for me to pioneer in the business world. Anyways, all that to say the best way to connect with us is just on social media. Rickpino. Digitalproductacademy.org is another way that peeps can kind of just jump in and see what's going on. I've created a free training there, digitalproductacademy.org, but YouTube, I put out almost weekly, some free trainings if, you know, people just want to kind of dip their toeing and see what's going on. We're all out on the. On the socials, man. So.

Yeah, man. Man, I really appreciate you being a part of this today, man, and sharing, sharing your journey. It's. It's just super, super helpful. And yeah, it's interesting. You know, I've not been, you know, I didn't tell anybody really about the journey we started in the fall, but after signed up for your group and kind of got my. I learned. I learned a ton in the first couple of weeks. And then I was like, oh, my God. I just put my head down and started working, man. Just your big statement. Action takers or money makers. And I'm.

Let's go. I heard that before. Marky Mark, let's go.

It's so true, man. And it's been so cool. So after I got in the program and got really rolling, there's a lady that's super prophetic, just an awesome, like, intercessor prayer warrior lady. She has no clue what I'm doing, but every once in a while I'll get a text from her. And she sent me a text and she said, I don't know if you've ever heard this song or not, but she said, the Lord told me that you're stepping into something new. And I had to send you this song. And it was your song pioneer.

Wow.

I've heard that song for years. Love it. I've always loved your worship stuff, but just to have that little piece of confirmation is always so cool from the Lord. It's just the Lord incredible. Giving you the wink. Like, hey, buddy, you're on the path, man. You're doing it. So, man, thank you for being a huge confirmation piece for me. And, man, like, an amazing mentor in business and just incredible person. So, Rick, thank you for being a part of this.

Appreciate it.

Mark, thank you for being who you are, man. I appreciate it.

Thank you, brother. I appreciate it, man.

Have a good one.

You too.