Purpose. Faith. Gratitude. Abundance. The Best of the Past Weeks

Foreign.

You are coming from a real authentic place, whether it's having a conversation like you and I are having a conversation right now, or whether you're trying to write a song. Right. The most.

Successful conversations, the most successful songs, the most successful businesses come from an honest place. Yeah, Right. And so honestly.

So honest is probably the key to authenticity.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I wrote. I wrote Affliction in four minutes. Like, it was. It almost felt like a stream of consciousness thing. But when I wrote it and I played it for the first time in my room, I didn't want anybody to hear it because I thought, nobody wants to hear my sad story and, like, the struggles that I'm experiencing and no one's going to care about my message. Right. But I was really, really fortunate. After I wrote that song, I was in a studio in Winston Salem, North Carolina. I remember it like it was yesterday, and I had the door shut in the studio because this song in particular, again, I didn't want anybody to hear because I was like, this is. This belongs to me.

Yes, to yours. Yeah.

I don't want anybody to hear this. But the door wouldn't shut all the way. And so as I'm playing it, the door kind of like cracks open. Like, there was almost like a. Like a gust of wind or the AC or whatever blew the door open just a little bit. And the producer at the studio walked by and heard the song, and we were working on my first EP at the time, or what I thought was gonna be my first demo of eps.

And he walked by and he goes, what is that song? And I said, oh, no, it's nothing, man. Like, this is just for me. I don't want anybody else to hear it. It's really Vul.

The girl that the song's about. Like, it had been a relatively recent breakup, so I was like, I don't want her to hear it, you know? And he sat across to me and he said, if you don't put that song on the album, you don't get an album. And that's when. And that's when I was like, wow. Actually, people are hungry for this stuff. They want to know about another person's vulnerability because they want to feel like they're not alone. And the song that I didn't think was gonna take me anywhere, the song that I thought was only gonna save my life, not only transformed my life in a way that was bigger than I ever imagined, but it went on to transform other people's lives and really facilitate and ground the message that I have now, which is I want 1 million people to be able to look in the mirror and see a better version of themselves than they did before. They.

Me. Pull that mic a little closer and say that again, because I think that's profound.

I want 1 million people to wake up in the morning and be able to look in the mirror and see a better version of themselves than they did before they met me. That is my message. That is my mission.

I'd love to talk a little bit about the transformation that you've experienced the last, gosh, 24 months. Yeah, we could absolutely jump in the house. I know the hell's not a piece of that, but. But there's a. There's the.

The kin that I love, that I'm proud of and proud to be associated with is the authentic one. Like, it's. It's not uncommon for you to share your heart with tears on stage without fail.

Yeah, yeah. Pain. It's pain. We talked about a little bit this yesterday at dinner. I was sitting. I was fortunate. There's about 12, 14 pastors. 2011 is. We had. We had dinner with Craig Grisel, the largest church in America. Craig's one of the greatest leaders I've ever known.

He's fantastic.

He's unbelievable. We're having dinner with Craig, and Craig is Craig. Only Craig can do. He goes around the room, there's all this church planters and the pastors at the table, and he goes, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want? What do you want at the end of your life? And everybody goes. It's impact, influence, build the kingdom, lead people to Jesus, like, all through. And then Craig stops. He goes, guys, I want you to understand your ability, your ability to have impact and influence will only be able to. Will always and only be equivalent to your ability to be able to tolerate pain. And I didn't really understood at that time. I didn't understand what he meant until I started pastoring in church. And I think that when we embrace pain, I have five affirmations I do every day. One of those is, I am whole. I choose to use past pain to help others find healing. Because you understand when you go through something, it's not necessari. Literally, you're like, man, I'm living my life great, and everything's awesome, and I don't have any sin in my life. I'm just loving God. I'm doing great. And then something blows up in your life. Well, you live in a world at war. God didn't cause that. You didn't cause that. You just live in a planet that is full of sin. And in those situations, you have to understand, you can either get bitter or you can go, okay, God, I don't know why I went through this. Romans 8:28. All things work together for the good. All things, good things, bad things, sucky things, things that are awesome. All things work together for the good. Okay, God, I don't understand why this is happening, but I do know that I'm whole, and I do know that I'm going to choose to use this pain to help somebody else circumvent something in their life where they can either navigate around, not have to experience what I experienced, or if they did experience it, I can help them find healing faster because I've been down that road already.

Yeah, man, that's so good.

You. You see how magical it is when you're present to life itself, how rich it is that in every moment, God sent you right there.

Yeah.

And there's a. There's a gift there. And the gifts are not exiting the business or having something fancy to post on Instagram. The gifts are moment by moment. Are you feeling and receiving the gift of life? And are you contributing to life?

And.

Yeah, and when you're in that divine choreography, there's what. What's amazing about that is not only does life get so good, but those are the ways that you actually produce abundance. Right? Like, that's all of my friends who are, you know, doing incredible work. Ryan Holiday said to me, he's, you know, he's. He practices stoicism. He teaches it. He's like, I'll sit there in front of the cursor on my computer, like, I gotta write my next best selling book and it won't come. It won't come. Sure enough, he goes, my wife will nag me and say, forget it, we're going on a vacation. And he said to her, I can't go on a vacation. I gotta write another book. I have a deadline and I can't get the book. Sure enough, he says, fine, I'll go on vacation. And three days into the vacation, he finally shows up. On the vacation, he's finally present. He said he's sitting in the sand with his daughter. And he goes, oh, my God. The obstacle is the way. I think I got the book. It's like.

God is waiting in the wings for you to show up in the moment fully. And boom, like every billion dollars ever made anyway, came from an idea, came from consciousness, came from Walt Disney, came from. Right. It's like, you got to get quiet. You got to go inside what subconscious belief was drilled into us. And we can change that software programming and say, you know what? Money is a blessing, right? And what I tell people is money is an activator. So whatever. It's like rain falling in a garden. If. If rain falls on weeds, weeds grow. If rain falls on roses, roses grow. So money will enhance whatever you are. So if you're a person with integrity who has a blessing of money, you'll do more good with the money. If you're a person out of integrity with money, it'll exacerbate that. And so there are people with money who are really kind and generous. There are people with money who are losers, but also there are people with no money who are kind of. And there are people with no money who are horrible. There are jail cells filled with rich people and poor people. So it's not the money, it's the essence of the intention. The power of intention creates effect. So when a person is clean in their intention and they do what you said, I want to be a steward of the highest order, right? That version of you, money is safe with you because it's not for the self alone. It's to provide, not just for you, but for the whole garden, for the whole collective. And that's when things get really fulfilling anyway, we don't really want it for ourselves. Anytime you have an experience you like, you want to share that with somebody else. That's what makes it enjoyable.

What keeps getting in people's way, like, what do you see that really is the. Is the. Is the. Is the primal block or the main core blocks that they have to focus on. Because I was, in my own way, I was the block before some of these divine synchronicities began happening. But I can't. I don't know if I can articulate what changed outside of me literally pursuing presence and stillness.

Well, really, that's it. Because ultimately, here's the deal, right?

Either you try to control it and do it, or you say to God, you do it. And all of a sudden you're available for the level of miracles, right? All of a sudden you're available for the mystical. You know.

It says in the Bible that when. When the Israelites were in Egypt, enslaved, right, they were going through this journey, and then they finally had this idea, which is to call out to God and say, could you help us out? And you read that and you're like, why did that take you 200 years?

Yeah.

Why didn't you ask for it on day one. Oh. Because we think, I got to figure this out. I got to figure it out. The amount of times people will say to me, I have to figure this out. And I'm thinking, do you really? Or is there a way bigger, way grander path for you if you could sit down trying to control this and believe, right? So this is the thing. Certainty. You're never going to have certainty about how things are going to go, right? That's actually not something that you're going to get, but what you could do, you could have certainty that God runs the world.

And when you have that certainty, you don't believe in the illusion. You say, I know it's here. I know it's gonna come, right? And because you trust in that, you're now available for that level of the miracle, right? And that's when life gets really, really good. Because what do we really know, right? When I moved out to Los Angeles, I wanted to be a songwriter because all my life, that was the thing that I thought made me special. That was the thing I love to do. And so I got a record deal at Interscope, and then I got dropped, and then I got a record deal at Atlantic Records, and I was like, oh, cool, I'm gonna do this. And then I got dropped from Atlantic Records, and I wound up writing music for TV and film for 10 years. And I had songs of mine on different shows, and my friends would be like, oh, I heard you on Grey's Anatomy or whatever. Fine. It was kind of cool. But then I heard God say, I sent you to use your voice. You really think your voice is best used in the back of a McDonald's commercial? And so I started a PODC. Keep your day job. And at the beginning of every episode, I would say, God has put you on assignment. You're not here to do a job. You have a life's work. And I don't know what it is. It could be listening to people. It could be painting. It could be doing math. It could be playing basketball. There's something that when you do it, you channel greatness, right? And I want you on assignment. And that thing I started in my closet, and it took off. And then from there, you know, we've just been having a deeper and deeper spiritual conversation, pretty much. But I didn't know what was best for me, right? And so when I set it down, it was even easier than recording these songs and dressing like someone I don't want to dress like and touring the country. No, no. Instead, it was like, how about just talk over people? How about just use your voice and I'll give you the words and you can then be wherever you are and just love people into life, right? And so.

The name of the game is if you look out in nature, nothing's rushing. Trees aren't urgent, they're not rushing. Everything's being provided for. There's so much abundance, there's so much provision, but we get so worried that there's not. So we start to try to, like, get in the way, try to hustle and figure. It's like, no, no. What if it's waiting for you to trust and just be led to what's going to be the next divine synchronicity?

People question my title of my brand, you know, chase life, right? And because they're like, does that, like, may mean you're constantly chasing things? And I'm like, one could perceive it that way that you're. If you're constantly chasing, are you ever content and happy? And that's not, you know, the definition behind my brand. The it is continue to chase the light and continue to chase the things that light you up and make you happy.