How to Turn Your Message into a Movement

How to turn your message into a movement. In this video, I'm gonna give you the 4 truths I discovered on my journey that I know if applied to you in your life can be the catalyst to turn your message into a movement. What's going on, people? My name is Javier Torres, and in 2019, I started an Instagram page called Vintage Jesus Tees. It's the largest curation of Jesus tees on the internet, and in my opinion, the best curation in the world. It was the first page on Instagram to curate all Jesus tees, and now it's a genre in streetwear. It's been shouted out even in K-pop songs by name, which I think is kind of cool. And tees that used to be going for $5 now are valued at thousands. But more importantly than that, more important than the thousands of dollars is the thousands, if not millions of people that are now being reached. And because of these walking billboards, for Jesus. Let me give you a brief backstory. I think it's important to give you context for the 4 points I'm gonna lay out in this video. I've been really into sneakers and streetwear since 2014, and at the same time I was working at a megachurch in San Diego doing a lot of the same work that I'm doing now— creative consulting. Uh, I started watching a show called, uh, The Show by Round 2, which opened my eyes to vintage because they were a buy-sell-trade store Uh, selling sneakers, Yeezys, and then they were doing vintage. And my mind was blown that they were selling $200 to $400 leather Nike jackets, stuff that I thought I could find at my local swap meet, stuff that I remember finding as a kid. After a few years and a little bit of some church hurt and burnout, I ended up leaving that position at the church job and ended up doing full-time vintage. That's when I came across my first Lord's Gym tee, and boom, My life was changed. The idea was set. I was able to mash up my love for church and my love for vintage, and the idea was born of Vintage Jesus Tees. Today there's a ton of curated vintage pages, but this was the very first page on all Instagram to curate just Jesus tees, which brings me to point number one, which is to find your own lane, find your own blue ocean. I think it's really easy with today's availability of information to copy a lot of what other people do. And I think for those that are just starting out, I think that's exactly what you need to do. You need to copy what other people are doing to be able to learn. You need to imitate and then start creating on your own. But for those who actually want to build a movement, the first thing I say is finding your own unique voice. Today, like I said, there's a lot of pages who curate different pages of vintage. But for me, back in 2019, there was no page that ever did just Jesus tees. And it was a big step. It was a big move for me because I had to be a leader on the cutting edge and just do something that no one had ever done before. Obviously, it sounds very presumptuous to call myself a leader and cutting edge and I definitely didn't feel like that when I first started. And even to say today that I started a global movement sounds a little bit presumptuous. But the reason why I say it with such confidence is because I know that it's bigger than me. This isn't my genre. This is God's genre. I was just the one brave enough to kind of see this unique opportunity, to grab it, and to just really put my stamp on it and to make it my own. You don't have to start your own brand new thing, but I do think you need your own unique voice, your own unique perspective on what you're going to bring, whether that's starting a burger place. What's your unique spin? What's your unique proposition? Whether that's a service industry, what's your, you know, your unique touch of doing that? I think finding your unique voice is going to be key to starting your own movement. It was obvious very early on that this page was going to take off. Um, by the responses that I was getting, the DMs, people trying to mimic and replicate. And yeah, I had to double down even more where I was like, if I'm gonna do this— first it was kind of like an idea. I was like, if I'm gonna do this— I remember talking to some friends. I'm like, dude, should I just really just go all out? And my friends just told me, yes, go all out. Be that guy. You need to like totally double down, triple down. And be Mr. Jesus Tease, and man, it was super duper scary just to commit to picking a lane. And but I honestly think that that's maybe number point number two is to pick a lane first. What's your unique proposition? Number two, what is the lane that you're going to commit to? From that is point number three, which is finding your tribe. Once you find what your Unique proposition is you find your lane, which you know is kind of the same thing. The next thing is finding your people. Once I started posting, the people came to me, obviously because it's a grander message about Jesus and message of the cross, but also it was a sub a subgenre. Excuse me, it was a subgenre of vintage people and streetwear people who were really. drawn to the message. So I say find your tribe, find the people that you're called to. That's one of the things that I always talk about is who are you called to? Why are you called to them? Why would they care? And I think finding your tribe is a great pillar for that. The next pillar is this: consistency, consistency, consistency. I tell you that if you are consistent enough, People will have no choice but to believe who you say you are. Wait, what? Are you telling me you have to lie to people or pretend? No, I'm just saying if you show up consistently like a professional, people will treat you as such. For me, I showed up every day posting t-shirts. Boom, boom. I'm this Mr. Vintage Jesus Tees. I'm Mr. Vintage Jesus Tees. Boom, boom, boom, every single day with my tribe consistently. And yeah, the page grew to like 10,000 followers in one year, which was huge at the time because that's when you could swipe up and get the, um, the link button. This was back in 2019. I also think I got pretty lucky with Kanye West doing the Jesus Is King album, um, a few months after I started my page. So I think Those 2 worlds collided and definitely blew up. And it was definitely the stars aligning and God's hand definitely on it. But I say that consistency in what you do is going to very much separate you from the crowd or anyone else. The next thing that I found is this: keep the main thing the main thing. Sometimes you get shiny object syndrome and you want to move on to the new cool idea, but I promise you, That's only going to get you so far. If you already found your tribe, you found your unique voice, you found your unique lane, rinse and repeat. Keep the main thing the main thing. If you started off as a Jesus T page and then I start posting all types of different things, you're gonna lose the reason why people were attracted to you. So if that's for you, Pastor, and certain quotes are hitting Keep that the main thing. Obviously with social media and trends and different things, there's going to be unique things you want to try. If it's just written, you want to try some reels, you want to try some long form, go ahead and do that. But your message cannot change. Your core pillars and core mission statement of who you are needs to stay the same. And you keep the main thing the main thing. I think those are the 4 pillars that worked for me. And I honestly think if applied to your genre will work for you. Going over them once again, finding your unique voice, your unique lane. Those are, you know, it's coupled together. Finding your tribe, staying consistent. And number 4 is rinse and repeat. So those are the principles that worked for me. And I honestly believe that they will work for you if you put the work in. Obviously, all these pillars or lessons I learned in hindsight, hindsight being 20/20, but I want you to be able to learn from what worked for me. This movement will live on long after I'm gone because honestly, the message of Jesus Vintage is not dying anytime soon, but I'm just so honored that I was a part to be able to be used, you know, by God to be able to bring that into the world. And I want you to bring the message that you're called to bring into this world, you know, into fruition. How do you do that? I want you to pause the video a little bit, and I want you to write down these questions and do a little bit of homework. Number one is, what lane can I own that is mine? What is my unique lane? What is my unique proposition to the world? Take a moment, pause this video, write that down, or just quickly think about it, or just do even a brain dump with ChatGPT and just ask it, you know, knowing that you know me, what is my unique proposition to the world? All my business ideas, whatever. How can we execute that? The next thing is this: who am I called to? What is their problem? And how am I solving it? For me, Um, I wasn't solving a grand problem. It was more just a unique proposition of being a place where people could share the message of Jesus through vintage with the world. At the time, it was a unique problem where maybe people couldn't find that. So I did solve a problem, I guess. But for you, I think, you know, if you're a business owner or you're a service provider, thinking about what is it that you provide for your people. Right. Why do they come for you and how are you solving that problem? The next question is this: What does consistency look like for you for the next 90 days? Is that posting daily? Is that posting 3 times a week? Is it weekly? Is it a once a week YouTube video? Pick one, dedicate for the next 90 days, and start working that consistency muscle. I promise you it's gonna pay off. The next question is this: What is the main thing I will not compromise? What's your unique message? What's your unique lane? And what is something that you know is your core message? If it's a unique city that you're called to for the gospel, cool. If it's a unique business that you are helping children in this way, cool. Make sure that you're committed to a message and that you will not compromise Because this road is long. It's been a long road for me, uh, building that page and now starting this, which is Javier Torres Studios, my creative agency where we help, you know, people just like you find your message. But I know that people don't know who I am. People probably are watching this video and going, who is this guy? But I hope a year from now, this video I'll laugh at and so will you. They were like, man, that was a cool little humble video. I didn't think he was going to do X, Y, or Z or work with those people. And I know I'm going to apply these same principles that I did for Vintage Jesus Tees with Javier Torres Studios, finding my people, finding my tribe, being consistent, posting consistent, and not compromising. For me, it's about being spirit-led in my creativity and executing with excellence. That's my unique thing. And that's what I promise to all my clients and the people that I work with. So I ask you, what's yours? I know if you do these things and you actually post consistently, You actually have a unique proposition. You're ahead of 95% of people out there and you could start your own movement. Sure, it might not reach the millions, but maybe it will. But honestly, it's not about, oh, uh, like I use the whole thing global movement because it sounds cool. But honestly, if it only reached a group of 50, it would totally be worth it. When you're called to a certain group of people and you're put here on earth to reach them in a unique way, it's priceless when you reach them. It's priceless when you help them. If for me, I do things as service, I think every successful businessman that I follow, they do it as an act of service. And I promise you, if you find and dedicate yourself to serving a group of people, it's gonna help Turn that into a movement. I love you guys. Thank you guys so much for watching this video. Like, comment, subscribe, and let me know what you want to watch on the next, you know, video. What should I talk about? What are some problems that you think I could help you with? Make sure to hit me up on vintagejesusteas.com or on Instagram. I love you. God bless you guys, and peace.