I Had Everything, And I Was More Empty Than When I Was Homeless

I thought I literally had everything that I thought I'd ever want, but I was more empty then than I was when I was homeless. In late 2023, early 2024, uh, I finally sold a company that I built with literally a hammer and a nail on a trash pile. When I exited, we had about 400 team members across 3 states generating all kinds of revenue, and I thought that that would make me happy. I thought that that would make me successful. I thought that if I, if I somehow did the un unthinkable, the unachievable, and managed to accomplish that thing, then all of a sudden then I would have the validation, the appreciation from others. The solution that you think is the solution is not the solution. You will never know external joy until you realize internal peace. Because whatever question you came in here tonight with, you're going to walk out with the answer the moment you sit still long enough to hear them. Yes, yes, there's— hey guys, what's going on? Look, uh, you're about to watch a brief super brief keynote, if you want to call it a keynote. It was more of a Holy Spirit-led talk I gave to the community with Seeding Greatness and Darryl Stinson. I was just in Nashville recently getting ahead and getting ready to launch a new book next year and working with my good friends Roy and AJ Vaden on the book strategy for that. We're going to make a run at New York Times. Love to have your help with that. It's gonna be a big lift. God willing, we can get there. But in the meantime, I wanted to make sure you had access, immediate access to this conversation, if you will, for a small community of elite leaders. In that room were 6, 7, 8-figure entrepreneurs and business leaders who were there to learn more about what it takes to become an integrated leader and how to build unity within your organization and your business. And as a result, I want to invite you to enjoy this conversation. It's a step away from what we normally do for the podcast, but we love it so much, we think you're gonna love it. The feedback was absolutely incredible at this event. And as a result, I think there might be a hidden word in there for you. God bless. Enjoy the episode. There's a lot of different stories I could share. In fact, you know, I was thinking, you know, there's sometimes when you're supposed to come out with like your talk, right? As a speaker, you come out with your talk, right? You've got your bullet points, you've got your stories, you got your humor, you got your different levels. And if it's all right with you guys, I just want to talk truth tonight. Is that good? Is that okay with you guys? Can I talk truth? All right, cool. I'm 5 foot nothing, so I'm gonna take one step up. Ah, there you go. All right, so I can see everybody. So one of the first things that's on my heart and mind tonight is the solution that you think is the solution is not the solution. And I really want you to sit and wrestle with that. You know, we get a lot of credit a lot of times in certain, certain realms, certain respect, certain relationships for what we achieve. Most of us don't get any credit for what we sacrificed. And I'm a big proponent of celebrating the sacrifice because the sacrifice is ultimately what provides the provision long term. The problem that we get stuck into, at least in my experience so far, is we get in an identity struggle, not knowing who we are, when we are, and who we're supposed to be. And if I'm being honest with you guys, I just turned 50 in January. And thank you. Appreciate that, brother. I, uh, In my 50 years of wisdom, I discovered at age 49 and some change that I still had work to do. Mm-hmm. Right? And here's what I mean by that. You would think after 25 years of building organizations and teaching other people how to build and scale their own organizations and all these different things, that I would have a lot more insight into me. Mm-hmm. And what was really interesting was when I was homeless, I struggled with identity. I struggled with self-worth. I struggled with— in fact, I did a podcast not long ago. Well, I guess it's been a couple of years now, 3 years. One of the first ones I did with Rory. We were talking on the podcast and I had this epiphany. He's like, bro, just tell me about, you know, kind of— I don't remember what the question was, right? But Rory's a fantastic interviewer and thought leader in his own right. By gosh, you guys have been incredibly successful. But one of the things that come out of me that I wasn't expecting is I had to discover— I had to discover if I was worthy of a voice. And I kind of want you guys to wrestle with that because whatever's in front of you, it's that struggle with the worthy of the voice that's probably preventing the solution from manifesting in front of you. Good. Okay. So what I've discovered is in late 2023, early 2024, I finally sold a company. That I built with literally a hammer and a nail, a trash pile. Um, when I exited, we had about 400 team members across 3 states generating all kinds of revenue. And I thought that that would make me happy. I thought that that would make me successful. I thought that if I, if I somehow did the unthinkable, the unachievable, and managed to accomplish that thing, then all of a sudden then I would have the validation, the appreciation from others. And I carried that all the way through the exit. And I finally moved out to Utah to help a friend of mine, Randy Garn, do some stuff with some people he was trying to help build their backends. And I'm not gonna go into that in too much detail, but I went out there to be of service. I didn't have— my kids were grown. And I ended up having an upheaval that I didn't expect. So here I am on this mountaintop home It was about 6,000 square feet. It was a beautiful home. I could see 40+ miles from my deck. I used to call it the Kingdom View because I could walk on the deck and look at the entire city of Lehigh right behind, like, under me, right? And I had the, you know, I had toys, I had things, I had cash, I had relationships. I had the privilege of being in rooms with people that all of— I mean, at least for me, I chased to be in these rooms for a long time. I'm speaking for me. And so on paper, on everything, I thought I literally had everything that I thought I'd ever want. But I was more empty then than I was when I was homeless. And it wasn't too much after that. Just, again, it was a bit of an unexpected upheaval. Literally, I think God sent me to Utah for a year and a half because I think he wanted me away from everything that I thought I'd known. And that December, actually September 21st of 2024, I had this experience. I sat down in front of a computer and I began typing and I just poured my heart out to God. Now, keep in mind, you have to understand that my, my personal life, and I'm sure many of you guys share this struggle in that it feels like Joseph from the Bible, right? There's, there's— you just feel like you're in and out of prisons and pits and all kinds of stuff. And that's been essentially my entire life, right? So in order for me to get here, it's kind of like one of those places of sheer force and will. And so I sat down at this computer and I just poured my heart out to God. And I got to the bottom of the document and I changed the font color blue. Actually, before I changed the font color blue, I said, God, if there's anything you'll share with me, please share with me now. I changed the font color blue and I kid you not, I could not type fast enough. I couldn't see what I was typing. I was, I was like weeping and weeping and weeping and weeping and weeping. And if you guys have any kind of journal or note-taking device, I'd like you to jot this down. That began a process of what I call what I hear you say is good. And I do this every morning. In fact, I brought it up here. I'm going to read. I'm going to read exactly what I feel like I heard God say about us, all of us. Because I think integrated leadership will lead to integrated unity. Mm, come on, Stephen. And right now we're so fragmented on the inside, we can't help people on the outside. So we start with the inside, the root, if you will, and we can change the fruit. And that's just been a battle cry of mine. I began calling it becoming one part lion and one part lamb, the ability to carry surrender and strength simultaneously. Because as a leader, I can tell you from personal experience, I was either all lion at times, aggressive, domineering, all kinds of things, even controlling in certain respects. And then all the way to the other side, so passive, because I realized that I wasn't supposed to do that. So I was like, what do you guys think? I don't know, whatever you think, I'll just do whatever you think, right? And what I've discovered is neither one of those work well, right? And so I began studying the life of David and Saul, and in them I saw a man who ran at a giant with a rock and a really tall man who went and hid. Right. I saw a man who, when he failed, his first thing was to hit his knees and repent. And another man who said it was their fault. Mm-hmm. And as I did the dichotomy, that was the genesis of some new material we're working on now. But what I want to do is go back to this journaling process for just a second. My journaling process goes like this, and I want to— I want to really invite you to step into this because I'm gonna tell you a short story after that, and I'm gonna read the journal. I get up at 5:30 most every morning, 5:30, 6:00 in the morning. I've discovered that if I will start my day in presence, I can carry presence all the way through my day. Yes, sir. If I start my day in anxiety, then I will carry anxiety all the way. So if I start in performance, I start in force, I started like trying to push it and make it happen, doggone if it's not harder. But if I start in presence, and I start sitting still and being still, then things change rapidly. It's the wildest thing. It's the culture. The culture kingdom is the complete inverse and opposite of kingdom culture. It's complete inverse and opposite. It's one of these really cool things I've discovered. So I'll sit in this moment and I really want to encourage you guys to try this. We've been— I've been telling this now during some of our 3-day live events we do virtually for a while now. We're getting countless people that are having their own encounters. 'Cause one of the things that came out of that first blue journal document that I did, and sometimes I'll even read parts of it from stage, because I want people to see my heart and not see some performance. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. 'Cause you can't, we can't connect if you can't see my heart. Yeah. Right? And one of these things in this journal said, despise not small beginnings. Yes. Or painful transitions. Ooh. He also says, that don't you know the pain will only last until it meets its purpose? Hmm. So whatever purpose that you're missing going for, there is a cost to that. When I went through an embezzlement, I had a lady who was a prophetic lady, a little lady named Dee. She was so awesome. I was stepping on stage to teach my first 3-day training event called Transform Me Live in 2017. I stepped on the night before I found out my company was— I was getting ready to be embezzled. $1.7 million executive team that had been with me 10 or 12 years. I'll never forget this little lady. I go up to give her a big hug. I'm about to lose it. And she says, "Oh no, honey. Oh no, honey." I'm like, "But, but, but, but, but." "No, honey." She says, "There's a cost of every calling. You can't go to where you're going without going through this door." Some doors you have to go through. Some things that you go through that you feel like are going to take your legs out from under you are actually things that are setting you up. I've got friends in the room right now that experience that. The very thing that they're doing right now is a byproduct of going through what some would equate as— we'll just say heck, right? In this journaling process, another thing he said, he said, I'm always talking but they're seldom listening. And I sat with that, and I sat with that, and I sat with that, and I sat with that. Again, I was in, you know, on all the, by all intents and purposes, my friends and family, they're like, oh, Stephen's good, right? My real friends knew I was in trouble, right? My real friends, I knew I was going through something, I needed to walk through something. And it's because I was vulnerable and transparent with them. I told them what was going on. And when I began reading this thing and going through this process, one of the things I very quickly realized and discovered is I was going to have to reach out to receive. And that began to set with me. So on December, I think it was like it was 2 days before Cameron was born, I flew out to Raleigh, North Carolina, which is where I'm from, on a whim. My buddy Randy Garnett moved to Texas to be the mission president for Texas for his faith. And I was like, what the heck am I doing out in Utah by myself? There's literally nobody here. And so I boarded a flight unexpectedly, flew up, and I realized that, hey, my kids had— they're adult, but they expanded. I came back home. They all came back together like a collapse. So then I fortunately go see my daughter and Connor. They were in Clayton, North Carolina at the time. And lo and behold, my little toddler of a granddaughter comes up to me, Hailey, Connor's daughter. And she says, pops, pops, pops, pops. "Let me show you my room." And so I'm like walking upstairs and she shows me her room and it's like, "Pops, pops, pops, let me show you my dresses." And look at the dresses and then Jason, who's her brother, is like trying to vie for time and stuff like that. So I eventually can make it downstairs. I'm sitting at the dining room table, about a table about this, maybe a little bit smaller than this. And I'm sitting there and Haley comes up with a slap bracelet. You guys remember slap bracelets? You're smacking me, they just pop on your hands, right? And what was really interesting is she's, "Pops, pops, pops. Will you fix my bracelet?" And she had this little ball on it, right? This little ball is about to fall off. And she's like, "Will you fix it? Will you fix it? Will you fix it? Pops, will you please fix my bracelet?" I'm like, "Sure." So, she hands me the bracelet and I start working on it. And I'm about to make it like put it back together, right? And she literally comes and grabs the bracelet out of my hand. Takes it, says, "Pops, I got it. I can do it. I can do it, Pops. I can do it." And she walks off. And like most of you would in that moment, you'd giggle. Like, "Pfft, that was kind of funny." And then God said, "You do that to me all the time." So good. You do that to me all the time. You bring me stuff all the time and you come and take it right back out of my hands. Just about as I'm about to replay it or repair. Your solution that you're looking for is not your solution. The solution is presence. It's presence in the listening. And I could tell you a bunch of other stories in that season. It was probably one of the hardest in my life since I've been— since I was homeless, honestly. It's forced me to change as a man. It's forced me to change as a leader. It's forced me to embody what I now believe as being the truth. And that process became an everyday process of how do I let go of the bracelet? How do I give it back and let it— you got this. You got this. You know what I don't know. You know who I don't know. You know what they're carrying, what they're not carrying. You know what I'm supposed to carry, what I'm not, what I'm not supposed to carry. And I began doing that process. So I want to invite you into this moment, if you will. I'm going to actually read to you this from this morning, what I heard in my journal. And I want you to understand that God has a very, very— the Holy Spirit has a very distinct voice. It does not shout. It is very quiet. And you only hear it if you're being still. But before I read the journal here, I'm going to read you something else. You guys have all heard the The scripture, "Be still and know that I am God," Psalm 46:10. Have you ever done it? Have you ever looked it up in Hebrew? Oh, you guys are about to get in for it. Okay. The phrase "be still" comes from the Hebrew word "rafa." This word can mean let go, release your grip, cease striving, stop fighting, relax your hands, surrender, abandon your attempt to control. In ancient Hebrew imagery, it carries the idea of a warrior dropping his sword, loosening his clenched fists, and ceasing to resist. A more literal rendering might be let go, stop striving, release your grip. Do not do nothing, not be passive, but stop trying to be God. The word known, the word known is yada. This is one of the deepest words in Hebrew. It does not mean intellectual knowledge. It means knowledge by experience, knowledge by intimately, sort of intimate, have an intimate relationship. Knowing relationally, knowing through encounter. It's the same word used in scripture says Adam knew Eve. God isn't saying understand that I'm God, he's saying experience me as God. Putting it all together, the verse could expand to this: release your grip, stop striving, stop fighting battles that belong to me, surrender your need to control the outcome, then experience through direct encounter that I am alone, I alone am God. The context matters. It is written amid nations. Now, keep in mind, when the scripture was written, that there were nations raging, kingdoms were shaking, mountains were trembling physically, waters were roaring, chaos was everywhere. Guys, this is, this is more from the stuff that I've been teaching recently. But the word— how many guys have you ever— guys, all right, the word— you guys are familiar with chaos? Mm-hmm. Okay. It translates back to a word in Hebrew that's almost spelled verbatim, bal. You guys familiar with the kingdom of Baal from the Bible? Yeah. Okay, that's a very chaotic— they tried to bring all kinds of nations through conquering and try to force them together. It created dysfunction. And one of my battle cries right now is you cannot scale dysfunction. You can't do it. You can't scale in your marriage, you can't scale in your life, you can't scare your family, you can't scale with kids, you can't scale in your business. Can't do it, can't be done. I've spent millions of dollars trying, I promise. Lots of sleepless nights and all the peaceful nights I could have had because I wanted to control the outcome. So if we know that's the truth, and the word chaos by definition I'm starting to see as a spiritual principality. So when the Bible talks about waging against war against spiritual principality, I see now, see chaos. And when you go to look for chaos, you can see it everywhere. And it's up to us as integrated leaders to bring it to pass, remove it. And we do it in my world by becoming one part lion, one part lamb, carrying strength and surrender simultaneously. But in order to get there, you have to be present. So start your day in presence. All right, I'm gonna give you like a little insight. Okay, there's a high likelihood there's a big word in here for some of you guys. All right. First thing he told me this morning, he said, give them your heart and not the speaker. What I hear you say is 5:29, 2026. Presence is the practice. It's— that's what separates divided leaders from integrated ones. The ability to be present. Sit in presence. Integrated leaders carry strength and surrender at the same time. Calmness and sophistication simultaneously. Presence resolves outdated personal programs and patterns. So whatever personal program and pattern that you guys are trying to remove out of your life, which I have lived— I didn't realize I've been living a pattern for 49 years. I had to be the savior. I had to jump in. I had to, because I had the resource, I had to save everybody. And I attracted all that into my life. You will never know external joy until you realize internal peace. Listening always precedes being. Being always precedes doing. And doing always precedes becoming. Culture says become to have worth. I say I created you with worth. Their internal doubt should never outweigh my external, my eternal truth. Let me move through them rather than you forcing a door open that I have closed shut. I will multiply you if you will simply sit with me. Kingdom leadership is integrated. Leadership is stewardship, discipleship, and companionship simultaneously. Truth is trust, and trust is truth. The question I have for you is, do you trust me? When you unify me, everything else will follow. We want unity in our marketplace. We want unity in our homes. But we won't have either until we become unified in ourself. There is not a single thing that I have had outside of the Holy Spirit that has unified my soul. It taught me how to love parts of myself that I used to hate, used to resist, used to not— can't stand. And it wasn't until I began loving that part of myself that I began seeing his divine love in me. So my question to you is, will you sit in presence and will you trust him? Because whatever question you came in here tonight with— yes. You're gonna walk out with the answer the moment you sit still long enough to hear him. Yes, yes, there it is. When you do that, everything else will change. You will be the leader, you will be the unifier, and God will multiply you more than you can possibly imagine. Yeah. You don't take a homeless high school ADHD dyslexic kid and have him create a multimillion-dollar organization as if I did it. Are you kidding me? He's had to crush me so many times to get my undivided attention because I kept taking the bracelet out of his hand. I would like you to sit with in your first What I Hear You Say journaling practice and say, just say God in here. Just sit down with the intent for the first time. Just sit down and say, where am I taking the bracelet? And be willing to listen. Don't mind if it takes 10 minutes, 5 minutes, an hour. There's been times I've sat down and it just pours out. There's been other times I've had to sit there in obedience and like, I'm here, I'm here to listen. I'm here to listen. And I simply write what flows. I ask questions after that, not before. Sometimes he'll literally tell me to pray and meditate on it. I love you guys. I appreciate you guys more than you know. Darryl, I appreciate your heart, bro, more than you know. I know what you're trying to accomplish. I know what you're trying to accomplish. And you've got the support you need to accomplish it. It's not a matter of time, it's already done. As soon as you believe it, that it's already done. It's already done. It's already done. It's already done.