Latest / Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast / Winning the War Within: Building a Mindset that Lasts with Edward Griffin

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Winning the War Within: Building a Mindset that Lasts with Edward Griffin · Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast

• 0:15
  Good morning. Welcome to Rise and Thrive with
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  Doctor J Nicole, where we are rising in faith and thriving in
• 0:21
  purpose. Today I am joined by special
• 0:24
  guest Edward Griffin. He is a powerhouse marketer and
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  serial entrepreneur with 20 plus years of turning ideas into
• 0:32
  impact. He is the founder of E Griffin
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  Enterprises and the publicity firm Where Brands Get Next Level
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  Marketing, Branding and Webmagic.
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  Currently serving as the EVP and CMO of Steezy and the CMO for
• 0:47
  Brands by Rick Ross, Edward drives culture, growth and
• 0:50
  strategy on a global scale. His career highlights include
• 0:55
  leading with Allen Iverson organization iHeartRadio and The
• 1:00
  Source. A proud member of Alpha Phi
• 1:03
  Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, Edward lives by the beliefs that
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  positive thinking turns mindset into opportunity.
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  Welcome, Edward. Thank you so much for having me,
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  Jimmy. Doctor Simpson.
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  So I haven't talked to you since.
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  Congratulations. Proud of you, I'm.
• 1:21
  Super proud of you. Yeah.
• 1:23
  Thank you. I'm so proud of you.
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  Right. So I'm like, I'm reading your
• 1:29
  bio and I was like dank. I remember we both used to work
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  at the mall and Racine. Exactly.
• 1:35
  Exactly. And that's actually how we work.
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  Yeah, you know, there's so many things and I don't like to talk
• 1:41
  about myself a lot. So, you know, when I send over
• 1:43
  my bio, I'm like let me take out some of this stuff.
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  It's too much. Let me just and then some stuff
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  I just don't want to share because I just feel like it's
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  people would be like, Oh, that's too much, right.
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  So I just kind of. It's not too much.
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  It is. It is.
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  It's true. It's not too much if it's facts,
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  true. And so that's the other thing
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  is, I mean, I've had a similar conversation with one of my
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  cousins and I'm like, because if God is blessing you, God is
• 2:07
  blessing you, right? Like give him his glory.
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  And I get what you're saying. You don't want to come across as
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  you're bragging and you want to stay humble, but at the end of
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  the day, he's blessed you. And it's different if it's a
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  fact, right? You work hard, it's earned.
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  So it's not, you know what I mean, but I get it.
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  I get it. Super excited so.
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  Today we're going to be, and I'm so happy to have you.
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  Yeah, yeah. So today we're going to be
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  talking about winning the war within, building a mindset that
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  lasts. This episode is for anyone who
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  is felt stuck in cycles of starting over, doubting
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  themselves, or just silently battling with the weight of
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  their own thoughts. Winning the war within is a call
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  to arms, not against people, but against the inner negative
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  narratives, habits and strongholds that keep us from
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  walking in power and most importantly, peace.
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  So together we're going to unpack what it really takes to
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  build a mindset that lasts. Not just motivational fluff or
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  quick fix fixes, but truth, discipline, and alignment with
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  the mind of Christ. So this conversation will
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  explore how to overcome that self sabotage, staying grounded
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  when motivation fades and breaking patterns that keep us
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  out of purpose. So we're going to talk strategy,
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  scripture, spiritual warfare that often hides in everyday
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  decision. So whether you're rebuilding
• 3:31
  after a hard season or trying to stay consistent in the one that
• 3:35
  you're in, this episode is going to help you to smart fight.
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  Excuse me to fight smarter with grace, boldness, and the wisdom
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  to rise. All right.
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  So, Edward, when you hear winning the war within, what
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  comes to mind from your own life?
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  You know, it's when I, when I think about that, I think that
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  my war started super early, right?
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  So when I think about when I think about growing up, you
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  know, I guess with anybody, right, coming from the hood,
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  there's those things that come from the hood.
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  But then when you think about drug abuse, alcoholism that, you
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  know, impacts people that you love, people from my own family,
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  right, People that I know in the neighborhood.
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  So it's all those little things. So that war starts very early.
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  And so for me, it's one of those things where I had to start or
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  decide what path very early. When I think, I mean, I'm
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  talking maybe like 6 or 7 years old because you see so much you
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  have to decide at a very early age.
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  OK, well, which way is the the right direction for me and what
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  should I do? And it starts early and then
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  every year, you know, God, rest in peace to my dad, but you
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  know, rest his soul. He passed, but he wasn't in my
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  life. So I didn't see I didn't have
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  that, you know that person in my life.
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  So I had to go searching for it. And so when I think about the
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  war within, it was very early and it it took a lot of bio
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  tribulations, but again, very early for me, I had to decide
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  which path is for me and not knowing if it's right or wrong,
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  right, because we're going to make those decisions.
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  But I had to decide very early what that path was going to be
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  for me. And so I made a ton of mistakes,
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  but I also learned a time, right?
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  And so for me, the World within started super early.
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  Yep, I can resonate with that with with similar age to four.
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  And you can get as personal or as guard, be as guarded as you
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  like because I understand like, but you know, I do want to hear
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  the real, but I don't want to push you outside of your comfort
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  zone. But yeah, yeah.
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  What one of the hardest internal battles you've had to overcome.
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  Yeah, so I, I think let me talk to kind of where I'm at today.
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  Yeah. So there was so much in my life
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  when I thought about success, right, going up, I didn't know
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  what success was. And so I just kind of chased it.
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  And so I knew that I wanted to impact lives, whether that be
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  young people, people in my family.
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  And I looked to my younger sister to be the example, right?
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  Have an older brother loving to death.
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  But he's the reason that he's part of the reason why I learned
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  what not to do, right? So my older brother was in and
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  out of prison most of his 20s. And so I didn't see him right?
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  And so he may be out like 9 months of his 20s.
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  And so as much as I love and wanted to be around him and I, I
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  find myself wanting to be the type of person he was.
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  But you know, he grew up gangs, so drugs the same thing, right?
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  And so I found myself learning what not to do based on what I
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  saw him doing and not just him, but but everyone else.
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  But when I think about wanting to have an impact, I want to
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  impact my sister first because she's right there and she and
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  she's right under me and I, you know, she's my best friend.
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  So I wanted to make sure that with her I put position myself
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  where I can be an example for her.
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  So when I look at the way life kind of is for me today and I
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  chase success so often that I was like, you know what, I'm
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  going to be successful. I'm going to be one of those
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  people. I don't want to be like
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  everybody else when I get older. I don't want to say, well, I
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  wish I would have done this. I wish I would have done that.
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  I didn't want that for my life. So I chase success, you know,
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  went to school, got educated, you know, multiple degrees and
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  then you go and you accomplish these things that you want to
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  accomplish. And then you look up and you're
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  like, hold on a minute, COVID is here.
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  I love kids. I have 12 nieces and nephews.
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  I want a family of my own, right?
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  I want all those things that are important.
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  You can have the things, and I realized with COVID that you
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  have these things, you have, you know, the successes.
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  But family is super important to me.
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  My own family is important to me.
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  But I think having your own is something that just can't be
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  replaced with any other feeling. And for me, that's where I'm at
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  today. Yeah, that's that's so good.
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  You're right because it's like when it was like when I think
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  back, you just showed up like, but also we grew up on two
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  different, different ends of town, right, or a city.
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  And it was just like the mall. That was a place where everybody
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  came. And I think you were working at
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  Original Cookie. Miss fields at first, then I
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  went. To finish line, OK, I can't
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  remember those cookie place. And then I was working at Dollar
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  Tree 1st and then I went over. Oh wait, I worked at 3 spots in
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  the mall. I worked at the little CD stand.
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  You remember the CD stand? Yeah, work.
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  People still buy CDs. They're so funny.
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  And a mix, like a mix, a good those mix used to be Bob.
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  But I worked in Dollar Tree 1st and then I don't know if I went.
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  Then I went over to the pretzel place because my friends were
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  working over there and then in the CD stand before I got a job
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  on campus. But like, it was just like you
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  kind of like showed up out of nowhere.
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  But it was just like even from the time of meeting you, you
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  like you were out of the way, but everybody knew you like you
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  were cool. You you got along with people
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  like never really heard your name and messiness or anything
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  like that, right? Like which, and I'm sharing that
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  just to say that like, I could see that you were different from
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  the beginning when I first, when I first remember meeting you
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  when we were in our teens, like in high school.
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  And so just for context, if anyone watching like growing up
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  in Racine at the time that we did, there was a lot of crime,
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  drugs, teenage pregnancy. It was a lot to get wrapped up
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  in. It was easy to, yeah, just
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  really find yourself on the broad path rather than the
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  narrow. And so you really do have to
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  make conscious effort to do that.
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  So I do commend you for choosing success and choosing to do
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  something different and wanting to create legacy SO.
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  Definitely. Why do you think that it's
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  easier to give up rather than a stay on course?
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  It's easy because nobody cares, right?
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  Nobody cares if you give up because the thing about giving
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  up is that you're not letting anybody down but yourself.
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  So we have this, we may have this friend group and you go to
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  them with ideas, but a lot of times when you go to them with
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  these ideas, you have those people in your group that will
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  say, Oh no, you can't do that or whatever.
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  But again, it's easy to give up because nobody cares if you give
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  up. So you have to care enough about
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  where you are yourself to be able to move the goal forward
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  because it's it's super easy because nobody cares.
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  And then for me, I added it was, it would be easy for me because
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  I don't talk about what I do. It'd be easy for me to do
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  because nobody would have ever known.
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  But I think for most people, it's easy to give up because I
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  have this thing called where I give talks about the fear of
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  starting, right? And I think people have this
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  fear of starting and they always say, well, I don't know what to
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  do. And it's easy to give up in that
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  way because if you don't know what to do, you can't be held
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  back. It's easy to just say, oh you
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  know what, forget about it, I'll move on.
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  So when you think about overcoming right, why do you
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  think it's hard for some people to just give up rather than stay
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  on course? Yeah, I think it's easy to give
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  up because people don't care. People don't care whether you
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  succeed or not, right? And so I think one of the things
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  is that if you have a friend group, you have a support system
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  sometimes, right? But other times you may have a
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  friend group where everybody's looking at you like you can't do
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  that or whatever it is. And I think it's just easier.
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  And so I give talks about this thing called the power of.
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  Well, not the power, the the fear of starting, because what
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  happens is people, they want to do something, but then if they
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  don't know how to do it or how to get it done, they're like,
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  you know what, forget it. I wasn't doing it anyway, right?
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  Or I don't know how to do it anyway.
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  So it's easy to say, you know what, I'm going to move on
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  because I didn't know what I was doing anyway.
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  Yeah, so when I hear something like that, that makes me think
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  of this quote, or like this social media clip of the Rock
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  where he was like one day or day one.
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  That's a fact. And you're absolutely right.
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  And it's like, instead of figuring out, so we identify the
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  barriers that I don't know, and then we just stop versus let me
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  figure it out, let me go research, let me go read.
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  Now these days you can Google AI all the things could tell you
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  how how to do it. But for some people, you know,
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  the mindset, right, is a big part of that.
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  And if you don't come from a community where you've seen
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  people take these risks, for sure, you see people all the
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  time give up. It's actually easier.
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  It's it's, it's harder to dream in some of these faces because
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  people will kill it or they will question it, just drown you in
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  doubt why you want to do that. Yeah.
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  And I think one of the things when you talk about dreaming is
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  that as we get older and we become adults, we forget the
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  child, like dreaming that we had as a child, right?
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  So we forget what it means to, you know, want to be the
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  president of the United States or want to be, I don't know, a
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  lawyer or a firefight, whatever it is, right?
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  In the NBA, you forget what it's like when you start to get
• 13:25
  responsibilities. Responsibilities kill a lot of
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  dreams. Yeah.
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  And a lot of times the responsibilities aren't your own
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  as much as it is the household and like the survival.
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  And also, I think sometimes we are shamed into get your head
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  out of the clouds. Ain't no time for daydreaming.
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  We got to eat. Like there's no room for your
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  dreams. So we're taught then you or one
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  could really be taught that your dreams are a bad thing.
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  Your dreams are the difference between y'all being able to eat
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  and you. You know what I mean?
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  Like So what? It's got to go when we have to
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  find that middle ground. How do I survive right now and
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  also stay true to that thing that's in me that nobody else
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  understands with me. And no one's really talking
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  about that from a faith perspective and the spiritual
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  perspective, right? Like us.
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  Even that what you're describing that is spiritual warfare
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  because we're trapped in what we're experiencing in the body
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  versus what we know in our spirit and what God has planted
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  in US. And so even as you talk about
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  mindset, right? Like it, it makes me think of
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  the scripture. Now I should know where the
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  Scripture is, but it talks about putting on the full armor of
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  God, right? And that's really like knowing
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  your word. And depending on like your
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  family background, some people, they are not even exposed to the
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  armor. So then how are you supposed to
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  make it through that, right? There's so many good scriptures
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  that are that talk about like mindset and renewing of the
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  mind. And at my church, actually we've
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  been doing all of August, a series on the renewing of the
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  mind and taking every thought captive and how to yeah, it's
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  good. But we we spoil our ministers.
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  Also a psychologist and training.
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  So he really blends together like faith and mental health.
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  So like it really just, it really just feeds us.
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  So you just grow mind, body and spirit while you're there?
• 15:25
  Yeah. So let's talk self sabotage.
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  What does that look like in real life?
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  It's one of those things I see every day.
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  I believe that God gives us all a gift.
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  Yes, He gives us all this thing and then we know we feel it.
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  But but then we look at it and we say, you know what, that
• 15:45
  can't be what he's giving me. It can't be I don't know how to
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  even do that. How can he give me this?
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  How can he give me this responsibility?
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  And I don't even know the first thing to do so self sabotaging.
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  And I I, I say this all the time.
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  There's this thing called NST, negative self talk.
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  Do it a lot, right? So our brains and, and I always
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  tell people this, there's you have your brain in and you have
• 16:08
  your, your subconscious mind in there, a constant battle.
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  So our subconscious mind is one of those things that it tells us
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  it, it tries to protect us, but it doesn't know what's real,
• 16:19
  doesn't know what's real or fake, right?
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  It just knows of our experiences and it tries to protect us.
• 16:24
  And so it's easy for us to say, you know what, I'm not going to
• 16:28
  do that thing because I can't do it or I'm a failure or this and
• 16:33
  that, right? And so when you think about self
• 16:36
  sabotaging, it's a lot of our subconscious mind that we have
• 16:39
  to rewire. It's not our brain because so if
• 16:42
  you think about this, for example, you're walking down the
• 16:44
  street, you see a bunch of people and you're just walking,
• 16:47
  going about your business, having a good day and you trip
• 16:49
  and everybody laughs at you, right?
• 16:51
  It happens all the time. And so your subconscious mind
• 16:54
  remembers that thing. And so you go down the street,
• 16:57
  that same St. on a different day.
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  And when you get to the point where you trip, your
• 17:02
  subconscious mind tells you, hey, you remember last time you
• 17:05
  got here and what happened and how it made you feel.
• 17:09
  Let's not go that way. But we have to know in our minds
• 17:12
  that we can overcome whatever that thing is.
• 17:14
  And So what people live in the self sabotaging moment.
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  So what happens it happens is if you're not recognizing the
• 17:22
  negative self talk and you're just continuously moving, you
• 17:26
  just have one negative thought to the next.
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  That's it. And they just keep happening.
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  And when they snowball, it's overwhelming and you don't even
• 17:34
  want to deal with it. So self sabotaging starts with
• 17:37
  something very small. It's kind of a nudge.
• 17:39
  Hey, I don't think you can do that because you haven't had
• 17:41
  that experience. Remember, Doctor Simpson said,
• 17:44
  if you do this, whatever it is, and a lot of times our our
• 17:48
  experiences impact how we move or the decisions that we make,
• 17:54
  and we don't know how to deal with those things.
• 17:56
  We don't know how to say, you know what, that's a lie that
• 17:58
  can't be true. Let me keep going.
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  And that's why for me, kids are something that is important.
• 18:04
  Well, we have to pour in the children a lot more because they
• 18:08
  don't know how to deal with those things.
• 18:10
  And so all that to say, you know, it's it's one of those
• 18:15
  things where self sabotaging becomes, it's a small thing that
• 18:18
  starts, but you can snowball into something a lot bigger.
• 18:21
  And if you don't know how to assess what you're feeling and
• 18:24
  deal with that thing, it, it's just going to be a nightmare.
• 18:27
  Yeah, there's so much in there, right?
• 18:29
  Like, So what you say God gives a, gives us all gifts.
• 18:34
  Some of us have more than others and sometimes though, we can be
• 18:39
  frightened by how big The thing is that he's given to us that
• 18:44
  vision, the dream, the random idea that just like right, you
• 18:49
  have, but like and this is and that connects to what what
• 18:52
  you're saying about why it's so important to talk to children
• 18:56
  because they're pure, right? They're more pure at that point
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  and just depending because some for some of us, the warfare
• 19:02
  starts earlier, right. But you feel that and so if you
• 19:06
  can speak life into kids and also help them see what the
• 19:10
  Bible, God's word says about them, that can help them to
• 19:14
  combat those negative thoughts. I'm not a failure.
• 19:17
  I'm uniquely and wonderfully made.
• 19:19
  My circumstances isn't all that God created me for because he
• 19:23
  knew me before he formed me and my mother's womb.
• 19:26
  Like all of these things to really just like pump them up.
• 19:30
  But it's not even like gasping because it's true, right?
• 19:34
  And I love one of my previous guests said that his grandmother
• 19:39
  would tell him when he was like afraid or nervous or unsure.
• 19:43
  It's just like all you have to do is take the next step.
• 19:45
  The rest comes from God. So this is how faith is built,
• 19:48
  right? So like God, like just like that
• 19:50
  negative self talk is a nudge. I think moving forward and our
• 19:55
  purpose is a nudge because we're being spirit LED, right?
• 19:59
  So God is going to provide once you're there and like you,
• 20:03
  there's so many different examples in the Bible where God
• 20:05
  has told. People to do something that
• 20:07
  didn't make sense with the biggest one being Noah.
• 20:10
  There's no rain insight and he's like get the wood this kind, cut
• 20:13
  it this way, do this, do that. And everybody was ridiculing
• 20:17
  him, just like the example you use with the tripping.
• 20:19
  But that's all internal too, right?
• 20:22
  Because then if they got in the head, because if he had tripped
• 20:25
  and no one was there, he would have been fine.
• 20:28
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:28
  And a lot of times we don't give ourselves the opportunity to
• 20:33
  replace that negative memory or to challenge it to say, I can go
• 20:38
  back. It's only a failure because
• 20:40
  that's where you left it. It's only the embarrassing place
• 20:43
  because that's where you left it.
• 20:45
  That was the last thing you did. And so people think they're
• 20:48
  protecting themselves when really they're preserving the
• 20:51
  self sabotage, the trauma, embarrassment.
• 20:54
  Yeah, So what, just to go in a little bit deeper, what are some
• 21:00
  some of the most subtle ways that people can get in their own
• 21:04
  way? I think it's the, it's the NST,
• 21:07
  right? It's the negative self talk and
• 21:09
  people get in their own way because they don't know how to
• 21:11
  deal with that moment. Yeah, it's all.
• 21:14
  And then I also believe that we don't give ourselves enough
• 21:16
  grace. So when we make those mistakes,
• 21:19
  we don't give ourselves room to recover.
• 21:21
  So one of the things I think about is, and I'll ask you this,
• 21:25
  if there's a kid, let's just say 5 or 6 years old, and they're
• 21:27
  saying to themselves, oh, I'm so stupid, or I'm dumb, or I'm not
• 21:31
  smarter, I'm not, whatever it is, what do you say to that?
• 21:34
  Child wow. Well, what I want to know, my
• 21:36
  first thought was who told you that?
• 21:38
  Because I don't think that's a thought of going to organically
• 21:41
  come to a kid. Someone said something or did
• 21:44
  something that made you feel that way.
• 21:46
  Why? Right.
• 21:48
  And as you were saying that I was like, let me write this down
• 21:51
  that I was like, is it even your voice, right?
• 21:53
  Because these are things that we're taking from the
• 21:56
  environment that people have said or people made you feel
• 22:00
  away. And then and it, it plants a
• 22:02
  seed and it becomes part of an identity.
• 22:05
  And we know as we think that's what comes out of us, that's
• 22:08
  what we become. So if you're 5 and 6 and you
• 22:10
  think I'm dumb, I'm stupid, everything you're going to do is
• 22:14
  going to reflect that. Yeah, and I, and the reason I
• 22:18
  ask that question is because everything you said, right?
• 22:21
  But then when you have that kid and you say to them, you know
• 22:24
  what? No, you're smart, you're
• 22:26
  beautiful, you're this, you're that.
• 22:28
  But we don't give ourselves that same grace.
• 22:31
  Why do we do that for kids? But we don't do that for
• 22:33
  ourselves. What I mean by that is when we
• 22:35
  have that negative thought, and you may have, let's just say
• 22:38
  you're in school and you bombed the test and you think you're a
• 22:41
  failure because of that. Well, I like to tell people, and
• 22:44
  you said it earlier, challenge every assumption.
• 22:47
  You're a failure according to who?
• 22:48
  Who told you that? That's it, that's it.
• 22:52
  But, but one of the things that I, I try to get people to
• 22:56
  understand is that the biggest thing for me is we'll be there
• 23:00
  for a child. We'll encourage them, we'll be
• 23:02
  there, we'll be supportive of them.
• 23:04
  We'll give them all these things that, that they need to build
• 23:06
  themselves up. But we don't give ourselves that
• 23:08
  same thing. We don't give ourselves that
• 23:10
  grace. That's super important to me.
• 23:13
  So all of those small things and, and for me, everything
• 23:15
  starts in your mind. It's, it's, it's one of those
• 23:19
  things where, and we hear this all the time.
• 23:21
  Your mind is a playground. But what I like to think, and I
• 23:24
  tell people this all the time, what you think, good, bad or
• 23:28
  indifferent, shows up in your life physically, right?
• 23:31
  What you think, so shall you become.
• 23:34
  Exactly. That's it, right?
• 23:36
  And it's one of those things where when you realize that what
• 23:41
  you think shows up in your life physically, you're really
• 23:44
  careful about what you think about, right?
• 23:46
  You don't think about things you don't want in your life.
• 23:49
  And now we all have negative thoughts.
• 23:51
  It's just that it's human nature.
• 23:53
  But you have to know what to do when that thought arrives,
• 23:57
  right? When you realize that those
• 23:59
  negative thoughts show up in your life physically, you're
• 24:02
  really careful about what you think about because it happens.
• 24:06
  People talk about manifestation all the time.
• 24:09
  Don't be confused. You can manifest negative
• 24:11
  things, so be mindful of what you think and shift that mindset
• 24:16
  as best you can. And there's a ton of tools that
• 24:19
  we can talk about, but. Yeah, and we'll get to that cuz
• 24:22
  we'll make sure. But I think it's important to
• 24:24
  help people to identify because this is the way they've always
• 24:27
  thought, or it's normalized in their culture, their
• 24:32
  environment, wherever they are. And so even when you were
• 24:34
  talking about the kids and we're telling them how they're
• 24:37
  beautiful, they're smart, they're all these things, we can
• 24:40
  say that. But if that child doesn't
• 24:41
  believe it and really that belief is locked in that they
• 24:45
  are unlovable or whatever The thing is, that becomes a really
• 24:49
  big challenge. And if no one's working with
• 24:51
  them to positively reinforce them, it can take a long time or
• 24:56
  they have to get out of that environment where they can say,
• 24:59
  oh, no, I am these things once because it's your, once you're
• 25:03
  separated or you're into in an environment where you can be
• 25:07
  nourished and just like where it's safe and to come out of
• 25:11
  survival mode. And also, I think adults are
• 25:15
  intentional about doing that because I think sometimes the
• 25:18
  adults are the people who didn't get it.
• 25:20
  And so they're trying to do better and do more for the next
• 25:23
  generation so that they can have it because they know the power
• 25:27
  of it. And they might.
• 25:28
  I feel like it's too late for me, but it's not too late for
• 25:31
  them. And honestly, it's not too late
• 25:33
  for anybody. You could be 68 and have a
• 25:38
  completely different life the rest of your time on this earth,
• 25:42
  should you so choose. And what you're saying about
• 25:45
  just like the words and what you come, what you become like and
• 25:49
  manifest and give, well, really it's imagination, right?
• 25:52
  Like we were given imagination for a reason.
• 25:55
  Anything that you can see in here can be.
• 25:59
  And I think what happens and what slows us down is that we
• 26:02
  get bogged down by the how rather than just moving in that
• 26:06
  direction. But like, think about when you
• 26:09
  someone, you know, people call them stubborn or they like, once
• 26:12
  they get their mind made-up, there's nothing you could tell
• 26:14
  them, hello. Like, it's the same thing
• 26:18
  because we compower it. But I think so many people are
• 26:22
  stuck in whatever version of survival mode they're in that
• 26:27
  they don't recognize that life isn't happening to and that they
• 26:31
  can actually create it. And I've recently been exposed
• 26:35
  to this quote by Doctor Tony Roach that I'm like this.
• 26:38
  This is it. Like this is it.
• 26:40
  And if you don't know, I think you're going to really like this
• 26:42
  one. It goes.
• 26:43
  What you see is what you say. What you say is what you sow.
• 26:48
  What you sow is what you reap. What you reap is what you
• 26:51
  become, What you become or was. What you are.
• 26:55
  What you are is what you get. What you get is what you give.
• 27:00
  No, what you give is what you get.
• 27:02
  And what you get is what you deserve.
• 27:04
  And it starts all over. Yeah.
• 27:06
  It's. It's so good.
• 27:07
  It's so good because it really does speak to that and taking
• 27:12
  ownership of your experience because what has happened from
• 27:16
  the moment we allow somebody to drop that negative thought in
• 27:19
  that doubt and we believe it. We don't even know whether we
• 27:22
  really just became passive rather than active because we
• 27:26
  said I'm going to take on your doubt and fear and release my
• 27:29
  goal or that dream, that vision, that whatever that was put
• 27:34
  inside. It, yeah, I agree with.
• 27:36
  That So how do you interrupt those patterns before they take
• 27:38
  over? So I think, well, I know that
• 27:42
  you interrupt them by recognizing that you're having
• 27:45
  it right. So you recognize that you're
• 27:46
  having that negative thought. And so once you recognize that
• 27:50
  you have and that's a lot of times we think so frequently
• 27:53
  about so many different things and we have so many thoughts
• 27:57
  that, you know, one of the one of the tools I use as an SOS
• 28:00
  method, but in that method there's called the SI mean the O
• 28:05
  stands for observe. And So what I find is that
• 28:07
  people, we'll have a, let's say, a negative thought.
• 28:12
  And what we don't do when we have thoughts, we never observe
• 28:17
  what that thought is, or we never think about what that
• 28:19
  thought is, and we never observe how it's making us feel, right?
• 28:25
  So we have these thoughts. There's a physical feeling
• 28:28
  connected to every thought that we have.
• 28:30
  So when you have a negative thought and you catch it, catch
• 28:32
  yourself in the act of the negative thought.
• 28:34
  When you catch yourself, observe what is making you feel because
• 28:38
  that thought and, and you can do the same thing for, for those
• 28:41
  really good thoughts, right? It really helps.
• 28:43
  But when you have the negative thought, observe what it's
• 28:46
  making you feel. When you observe what it's
• 28:48
  making you feel and you don't feel good about it and it makes
• 28:52
  you feel small or it makes you feel unloved or something,
• 28:56
  whatever that thing is. And when it makes you feel that
• 28:59
  way, you know you don't want to feel that feeling again.
• 29:01
  So you try to move on to something that's a bit more
• 29:04
  positive. Now it's hard when you're used
• 29:07
  to people talking down to you or you know, having these negative
• 29:11
  and, or creating these negative environments for you.
• 29:14
  But when that happens, you just have to find a way to get
• 29:18
  yourself back to the point where you can say, you know what,
• 29:21
  that's not this, I'm going to move on.
• 29:23
  But it's one thing that we don't do that's super important I just
• 29:27
  mentioned is observing how those thoughts are making us feel.
• 29:30
  You have to take an assessment, do a body scan of what those
• 29:34
  things are making you feel because it, it, it makes you
• 29:37
  feel something. Think about all the good in your
• 29:39
  life, not guarantee you you'll feel something in your body.
• 29:42
  You will think about people you've loved that have passed
• 29:45
  on, right? Those experiences.
• 29:48
  But we have to do the same thing in the moment and observe what
• 29:51
  those things are making us feel, those feelings are making us
• 29:54
  feel. Yeah, that's so good.
• 29:56
  That's so good. And people don't realize, the
• 29:59
  same way you can think yourself into just depression, anxiety,
• 30:06
  negative things, you can think yourself into the good things
• 30:08
  that we're told don't get your hopes up.
• 30:11
  Exactly. I just wanted to make sure you
• 30:14
  knew. Yeah.
• 30:14
  I didn't want to make it seem like I didn't tell you.
• 30:16
  When it's really like you think you're keeping me safe, when
• 30:20
  really you're weighing me down. How you know what, when you say
• 30:23
  that, I think about I'm not a parent, but I think about
• 30:26
  parents. I have nieces and nephews.
• 30:28
  I see it. Our experiences shaped those
• 30:30
  little ones, right? So when we think about the
• 30:34
  things that we fear, things that our parents told us don't go do
• 30:38
  that because of this, that or the other, we do the same thing
• 30:44
  with those little ones. Yeah, and.
• 30:46
  Those children. On what it is and we almost make
• 30:51
  it that my experience is my negative experience is the only
• 30:55
  experience that can come from this when you might be the one
• 30:59
  who's come 1-2 generations later to push through we limiting
• 31:06
  beliefs that like so that also can tell you too how deeply
• 31:12
  embedded the negatives of talk is.
• 31:14
  The NST is the like doubt. Have you ever heard about this
• 31:19
  study that they did or experiment they did with monkeys
• 31:22
  where they would start with like 3 or 4 monkeys in there and
• 31:27
  they'd have a pole or something. And at the top there'd be
• 31:30
  bananas, but it was open and what they did and also a monkey,
• 31:33
  they would go up there, but then they get squirted with water.
• 31:36
  They get sprayed with water. Then they run back down.
• 31:38
  And so they would keep going up and they kept getting squirted.
• 31:41
  So then they kind of stopped. And so then they will rotate out
• 31:45
  some of the monkeys, but then like leave one or two, right?
• 31:48
  I don't know the exact number. And then the new one would
• 31:51
  automatically want to go up because that's banana.
• 31:53
  That's their natural food source.
• 31:55
  And guess what, overtime as they kept rotating them, the monkeys
• 31:59
  completely stopped because they was they would stop them from
• 32:03
  going where then eventually it got to the point that they would
• 32:07
  no longer do it, which speaks to how within generations, because
• 32:11
  each of those rotations, I look at that as a generation.
• 32:15
  So then now you have generations that don't even know why they
• 32:19
  don't go up there and get the food and they might be sitting
• 32:21
  down there hungry, but four or five generations ago.
• 32:24
  And then they will like hurt you to prevent you from getting
• 32:28
  hurt, pull you, drag you so you don't go up there and be
• 32:32
  squirted by the water when it's the thing that's natural for
• 32:35
  you. I don't think human behavior is
• 32:38
  too much different from that because we don't even know the
• 32:41
  wise. It's behavioral.
• 32:43
  And then we take it as like it's fact or like it's gospel.
• 32:47
  If you do this, this will happen.
• 32:48
  But also it's a little bit of water.
• 32:51
  And if they don't like, if they don't mind being squirted by
• 32:53
  water, let them go get the bananas and everybody can eat.
• 32:56
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I. Don't know, maybe that's just
• 32:58
  how I think. No, I agree.
• 33:00
  I agree with that. Yeah.
• 33:02
  I agree with that. And I'll say one last thing
• 33:04
  before we move forward about like the thoughts.
• 33:07
  We, you're right about observing the thoughts.
• 33:10
  Thoughts are not facts and we don't take hold of them.
• 33:13
  We just let them run rampant instead of being like, yo,
• 33:17
  that's wild. That doesn't even make sense.
• 33:19
  That doesn't even align with what I see, what I know.
• 33:23
  And we don't remind ourselves of those things.
• 33:26
  Yeah. So, you know, we can work on.
• 33:29
  So say someone is working on cultivating this new mindset
• 33:33
  that's more abundant and less focused on lack, right?
• 33:38
  But then life starts lifing, right?
• 33:41
  So what does it take to like, build that mindset or maintain
• 33:45
  that mindset under pressure so that they don't return to like
• 33:49
  those old or negative behaviors? Yeah.
• 33:52
  So I think life is going to happen regardless.
• 33:54
  So there's, there are these things that I like to do or I'll
• 33:59
  do talks on these things. But there are, for example, if
• 34:02
  you're settled somewhere, like if you're at home or, and you
• 34:05
  have the time to do this thing, I call this thing, you know, 4
• 34:08
  steps to kind of killing negative self talk, right?
• 34:11
  And so that first step is going to be, we talked about this
• 34:14
  earlier, catching yourself in the act.
• 34:16
  What is that thing? And we need to stop it, right?
• 34:19
  And then once we have that thing, we need to write it down.
• 34:22
  So get pen to paper, pencil to paper, get our notes on our
• 34:26
  phone and we need to free write. A lot of people haven't done
• 34:30
  free writing since elementary, right?
• 34:32
  So you free write and free writing is, you know, it's
• 34:36
  you're not thinking about, you know, punctuation or spelling.
• 34:39
  You're just writing all those negative things down.
• 34:42
  What a lot of times we're trying to do is let me call my strong
• 34:45
  friend and let me just tell them, let me unload on them.
• 34:49
  Yeah. Right, let me unload on my
• 34:51
  strong friend. But instead of doing that, write
• 34:53
  everything you're feeling down because the same way you're
• 34:56
  telling your strong friend those things, you get that same relief
• 35:00
  a lot of times, unless you're looking for some feedback,
• 35:03
  right? And then that third thing would
• 35:05
  be to challenge every assumption, like you mentioned
• 35:07
  earlier. Challenge every assumption.
• 35:09
  When you say to yourself, I'm a failure, Well, according to who?
• 35:13
  I'm not successful, we're successful.
• 35:16
  Well, whose idea of success are you using?
• 35:19
  Have you defined success for yourself?
• 35:21
  And then lastly will be to rewrite.
• 35:23
  And you're going to repeat that for 60 seconds.
• 35:25
  So you're going to rewrite the positive things and you're going
• 35:28
  to repeat that 60 seconds. You remember, like when you see
• 35:31
  The Simpsons, come on, you see Bart writing 100 times.
• 35:34
  I will not do this thing again. Yeah, well, why do they do?
• 35:37
  Why did teachers in the past have us do that?
• 35:40
  You know, I never thought about that.
• 35:42
  That's definitely like a way to reprogram because it's in your
• 35:45
  have to if you have to, thought it was punishment.
• 35:48
  But also what I don't like about that is that it wasn't an action
• 35:53
  statement of what they will do, which doesn't it necessarily
• 35:58
  stop it And they would do it, but they also didn't believe it.
• 36:01
  They were just writing it because they had to, when if
• 36:04
  they had wrote I will Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah.
• 36:07
  I wonder how much more of a difference that would have had.
• 36:11
  I agree. And then also eating yourself in
• 36:13
  front of the mirror and maybe saying those things too, because
• 36:17
  some of us can't even look ourselves in the mirror, right,
• 36:20
  let alone say something good about ourselves, right.
• 36:23
  So I think again, if we're settled, those four steps are
• 36:26
  those are some things that you can do.
• 36:28
  And and I try to tell people do it at least once a day.
• 36:32
  Yeah, do it at least once a day and and something I like to do
• 36:36
  just if I'm in a rush in between meetings because meetings that
• 36:39
  it could have been that could have been an e-mail like I don't
• 36:41
  feel like anymore. But that's right.
• 36:43
  Like so again in between whatever it is in traffic.
• 36:48
  Yeah. Something I like to do called
• 36:50
  the SOS method. And again, that first thing is
• 36:52
  similar to those four steps. And the first thing is to stop.
• 36:56
  Yeah, you know, you're mentally tell yourself to stop or even
• 37:00
  better, physically tell yourself to stop, right, And and stop.
• 37:04
  Stop that negative thought immediately stop it.
• 37:06
  And then we go to that second thing, which is the O and that's
• 37:09
  the observe. You know, again, do a body scan,
• 37:12
  observe what those thoughts are making you feel.
• 37:15
  And then lastly, you're going to shift again your cognitive mind,
• 37:18
  your behavioral mind or your emotional mind to something
• 37:22
  positive. It's hard to do, but with work,
• 37:25
  you can definitely do it right. So the SOS method is something
• 37:29
  you use, you kind of use that you know as you're moving
• 37:33
  around, but it's, those are simple things you just have to
• 37:36
  be willing to change. And you mentioned this earlier,
• 37:39
  but you're reprogramming your mind.
• 37:41
  Everything that we we knew about how we do things, we almost have
• 37:45
  to forget it and reprogram our brains again.
• 37:48
  Your subconscious mind is is there to protect us, but you
• 37:52
  know it doesn't know what's real or fake.
• 37:54
  Yep. And it it, it can be very it can
• 37:58
  keep us stuck trying to protect us.
• 38:01
  This is so good. So many good things are coming
• 38:04
  up in here and different thoughts.
• 38:05
  So I do this thing exactly similar to what you do with like
• 38:10
  the Sosi have clients write the things down or we'll get to what
• 38:14
  those core beliefs are because there's always something
• 38:17
  underneath that, right? And then they don't know.
• 38:20
  Then I say, now share it out loud or read it aloud and
• 38:22
  they're like to say this out loud.
• 38:24
  And I was like, well, how did it feel to say this right?
• 38:27
  Because this is a feeling you're allowing to just run rampant
• 38:30
  inside of you. But also then sometimes they're
• 38:33
  embarrassed that they even think this and they really know it's
• 38:36
  not true. And of course we process through
• 38:39
  it, replace it with something positive.
• 38:41
  And I was just thinking about what you're saying.
• 38:43
  And if it's hard for a person to say all the good things because
• 38:47
  they can run down the negative, but then they struggle to write
• 38:50
  like 3 pieces of evidence or three facts that refute that
• 38:55
  negative thought. They struggle with that, right?
• 38:57
  And so I helped them get through it and I'm like, this shows the
• 39:02
  work that we have to do to normalize you speaking more
• 39:05
  positively about yourself. But I was also thinking if they
• 39:09
  could say at the one time, it could also be good to record it
• 39:11
  because you can listen to it over and over again and let
• 39:15
  things sink in. And then finally, when you were
• 39:18
  talking about the grace earlier, this other thing that I love to
• 39:21
  do is when people struggle with grace and self compassion is
• 39:26
  take a photo of you when you were young, like the before
• 39:30
  whatever happened. So there's like this photo,
• 39:33
  there's a couple of them of me, but there's this one photo is me
• 39:35
  and my brother look, Kevin Hart, his head looks so big in his
• 39:39
  photo, but my, you big hair looks so big.
• 39:43
  But I think it's because he had a little Afro and I'm just
• 39:47
  smiling the biggest smile, right?
• 39:50
  And you take that photo of you, your version of that, whatever
• 39:54
  that is, and try saying those things to that person.
• 39:57
  You can't. You can't because that's the
• 39:59
  version of you that you're likely still trying to protect.
• 40:03
  And what I try to do, encourage them to do.
• 40:07
  If they're in the space is to write a letter to that version
• 40:11
  of you and tell them what they need and like and know that you
• 40:16
  can let them lead because now you're adult you right, you can
• 40:20
  protect them. And so it's OK to let them out
• 40:23
  and when it's safe, then you can come, you know, come forward
• 40:27
  with that. But like to allow for, yeah, to
• 40:31
  allow the true you to come out, but no, now you can protect him
• 40:36
  or they're not just like a child who is taught to trust adults
• 40:40
  and then the adults did something wrong or did something
• 40:44
  or whatever. The thing is to just allow
• 40:47
  yourself to be you, man. That's a beautiful thing when
• 40:50
  that version of you can come out and I like to you know that
• 40:54
  that's a representation of like the God in you, right?
• 40:57
  Like the that light, that candle, because that's what kids
• 41:00
  are. They're light, they're innocent.
• 41:03
  Let that let people see that again.
• 41:05
  How do you answer someone saying well how long is this going to
• 41:08
  take right? I don't have time, I need this
• 41:11
  change of mind. Right now, so this one I remind
• 41:14
  them and I'll be like, I'll ask them you're how old?
• 41:17
  Like so say they're like a 35 year old.
• 41:20
  This is 3 1/2 decades. This is over 1/4 of a century of
• 41:25
  programming. How committed are you is the
• 41:28
  question right? Like so are you because you,
• 41:30
  you're grumbling about it, right?
• 41:32
  Like I can give you a plan. Are you, how motivated are you?
• 41:36
  Like that's what we're going to focus on because we can do these
• 41:39
  things, but are you willing to do the work?
• 41:41
  So if they want to know the time and when really it's about their
• 41:44
  motivation, their commitment to self.
• 41:47
  And so like it says, it's what kind of time you own, you know,
• 41:51
  really is what it is. But that's what I think for
• 41:53
  them. Like it's how, how committed are
• 41:55
  you? But also give yourself the
• 41:57
  compassion, but you'll see it change.
• 42:00
  Like I love when a client is highly motivated.
• 42:03
  Like I had a client, we've been talking about her mind and her
• 42:05
  business so her, her anxiety can go down and she went and did
• 42:11
  stuff literally from this session.
• 42:13
  Next session, she came back was like, you know, I've been doing
• 42:17
  this my whole life. I wasn't sure how this was going
• 42:19
  to work, but she was like, I feel a difference.
• 42:22
  I want to do more like. And so she's continuing to build
• 42:27
  on that. So it's really and truly up to a
• 42:29
  person. And I think it's important to
• 42:31
  start with lower risk things so that they feel comfortable,
• 42:35
  right? Because that fear be like, why
• 42:37
  did I think I could do that when you start too big, But also what
• 42:41
  are you listening to? What are you listening to?
• 42:44
  Are you still listening to sexy red?
• 42:46
  That's going to directly go against what?
• 42:49
  No, no, I'm not saying anything like bad about her because she
• 42:53
  can get the party started if that's what you want, right,
• 42:55
  like that's not going to feed a mindset shift.
• 42:59
  And I know I had went through a period of time where I wasn't
• 43:03
  really listening to music if it wasn't like Maha loops and
• 43:07
  positive affirmations. It's like music with a good
• 43:10
  message, Not necessarily all gospel, but like things that can
• 43:14
  help reprogram your mind. And you still got the beats, you
• 43:17
  could still dance, you could still do all the things.
• 43:19
  And then I was listening to a song and excuse me?
• 43:23
  And I was like, she got in life. I don't remember who it was.
• 43:27
  And I was like, she's in survival mode still.
• 43:30
  She's still like, she's trying to fight everybody, everything.
• 43:33
  She's, you know what I mean? Like, I can clearly hear what's
• 43:36
  going on. If they wrote their own stuff,
• 43:39
  people will. They'll tell you exactly where
• 43:42
  they're operating from. A lot of these musicians, they
• 43:47
  can be really easy to manipulate.
• 43:50
  If you're listening to what they're saying or they're
• 43:53
  putting it out, they're like, now what song was it?
• 43:56
  He was basically talking about he'll about flying women out,
• 44:02
  buying their bags or something like that.
• 44:04
  And then you wonder, then the same person is going to turn
• 44:07
  around and say women only want what they could get.
• 44:10
  You put it out there, you're attracting the type who wants
• 44:14
  that. So before I go too far down the
• 44:16
  Red Bull, our words absolutely matter.
• 44:20
  And going back to your question, I would just have the
• 44:23
  conversation about their commitment.
• 44:25
  How soon do they want to see change?
• 44:26
  And then we could put forth a more aggressive plan on how to
• 44:30
  do that. But they got to be ready to
• 44:32
  release some things. What Are you ready to let go of?
• 44:35
  Because you're, we got to replace it with something else
• 44:37
  because they just say don't do it anymore and we don't fill it
• 44:41
  in. Times get rough and they're
• 44:43
  going to go go back to that. Yeah.
• 44:47
  So this is a great segue. So once a person starts to
• 44:50
  shift, right, they're using the SOS and whatever other skills.
• 44:53
  Yeah. I hope they're going to therapy
• 44:56
  as well, because that's going to be something else to really
• 44:59
  accelerate that. So how do how, how, how does one
• 45:04
  maintain those? Or you can tell us what do you
• 45:06
  do to stay consistent and maintaining your shifts.
• 45:12
  I think it's you have to find, I believe that if you discipline
• 45:15
  yourself in one area, it's easier to discipline yourself in
• 45:18
  other areas. So how do you define this plan
• 45:21
  before we go too far? So I think discipline for me is
• 45:24
  commitment to yourself. OK, love that.
• 45:27
  So that's commitment to yourself.
• 45:29
  A lot of times we're discipline based on what we see on social
• 45:32
  media. I want that.
• 45:33
  So let me follow those steps to get that to me.
• 45:37
  It's my commitment to me. Let me give you an example.
• 45:40
  I go to the gym at 5:00 in the morning.
• 45:41
  I don't feel like going all the time.
• 45:43
  I don't want to go. Sometimes if I go to sleep at
• 45:46
  like 11/30, 12:00 and I've been watching TV, I'm like, this is a
• 45:50
  reason not to go. What I do is once that alarm
• 45:53
  goes off in the morning, I have a 5 second window.
• 45:56
  When that alarm goes off, I say to myself or I say out loud, do
• 46:00
  you want to change? And I respond to myself, yes.
• 46:04
  And then I get up. Because what you don't change,
• 46:06
  you're choosing. That's good.
• 46:08
  Yeah. So I have to, I get a 5 second
• 46:10
  window. If I don't say this for myself,
• 46:12
  then I'm not getting up. So I say it, I respond to myself
• 46:16
  out loud. I say yes and I get up, yes.
• 46:19
  And I go because that's, that's my commitment to me, right?
• 46:23
  So that's the discipline for me. When I commit to commit to
• 46:28
  myself, that's the discipline I need.
• 46:31
  And so again, discipline isn't taking someone else's path and
• 46:35
  saying I'm going to copy the exact path.
• 46:38
  Well, you can still get the similar result with what you
• 46:42
  want for yourself. You have to create your own
• 46:44
  discipline. It's it's no different.
• 46:47
  I've been vegan for over 10 years.
• 46:50
  It's a difficult. But I think I'm remembering when
• 46:53
  you didn't eat pork, and that was over 40 years ago.
• 46:56
  Yeah, yeah. So before I was vegan, I didn't
• 46:59
  eat pork or beef for over 20 years.
• 47:02
  My last beef I had was a double stack from Wendy's.
• 47:06
  That was the last beef I had. You know what I mean?
• 47:08
  Like stuff like that. But you, you decide.
• 47:11
  I think first of all, you have to decide what it is that you
• 47:14
  want. Whatever that thing is, if it's
• 47:17
  more, you want to be more positive, a positive person, if
• 47:20
  you don't want to have those negative thoughts, you want to
• 47:23
  be more positive about life and have a positive outlook.
• 47:26
  Once you know what your end result is, you have to then
• 47:31
  decide what you're going to do to make that thing happen,
• 47:35
  right? And so I think that decision is
• 47:38
  where the discipline starts. That decision to me is your
• 47:42
  commitment to yourself. What does that look like?
• 47:45
  And so I would, to answer your question, after all that, I
• 47:49
  would decide my commitment to myself first.
• 47:53
  What is that thing? Once I commit myself, then I do
• 47:57
  the work or whatever that work is, but I have to commit to me
• 48:01
  and not commit to what you said I should do or you think I
• 48:05
  should do. So that's that's my.
• 48:07
  Boundaries in there. Yeah, yeah, that too.
• 48:09
  I love that because at first I was like 5 seconds.
• 48:12
  Oh, that's a lot. But I also heard that, well,
• 48:16
  what I I, what I labeled it as this is your activation question
• 48:20
  in the morning. What's going to put that battery
• 48:22
  in your back in the morning? And I was like when you said it
• 48:25
  and did like the power of speaking it out loud.
• 48:29
  That's powerful to answer yourself is you talking to you,
• 48:32
  right? Like it's me versus me every
• 48:34
  single day. How, like how far we get, how
• 48:40
  whether we achieve our goals or not.
• 48:42
  Like that's good. That's, that's what I'll say.
• 48:45
  That's good. Wow.
• 48:47
  So what role do spiritual habits play in reinforcing a healthy
• 48:52
  thought? I think it's everything.
• 48:53
  I don't think, Well, let me stop saying think.
• 48:55
  I believe it's everything. There we go.
• 48:58
  I believe that my, I start my day with God and I end my day
• 49:02
  with God. But I believe that we, I truly
• 49:06
  believe two things. God is going to always make a
• 49:08
  way always, no matter what, he's going to always make a way.
• 49:12
  But I also believe that we're not promised tomorrow.
• 49:15
  I start every prayer the same way, whether I'm eating, whether
• 49:18
  I'm about to go to bed. Thank you for allowing me to see
• 49:21
  a day I've never seen before and a day I'll never see again.
• 49:24
  I believe that right? I'll never see this day again.
• 49:27
  So can I make the most of this day or this moment that's
• 49:31
  important to me? So I start everything with that
• 49:35
  regardless of what I'm doing. But my conversations with God,
• 49:38
  I'm in the shower, the Bible app is playing.
• 49:41
  I'm not listening to music. And I, you know, me, I love
• 49:43
  music. Yeah, you know, I love music.
• 49:46
  So but when I'm, when I'm in the shower, the Bible app is playing
• 49:50
  morning and evening because I need that thing.
• 49:54
  I mean, I've listened to the Bible a good 100 or more times,
• 49:57
  right? Because.
• 49:58
  It's easy, Proud of you. It's easy right to.
• 50:02
  Live, yeah. Yeah, it's easy, but then I'd
• 50:05
  have to jump out the shower and highlight something.
• 50:07
  But you know, it's one of those things where it's it's you.
• 50:12
  Everything for me is connected to my relationship with God.
• 50:16
  I attribute a lot of my success to, you know, people that have
• 50:22
  helped me get there, you know, my mom being an example that I
• 50:25
  can look to, you know, but also there's nothing.
• 50:30
  I'm nothing without God, period. I'm not, it's not about, it's
• 50:34
  not this facade. It's not one of those things
• 50:37
  where I'm thinking this will look good for other people.
• 50:39
  No, the things are gods are gods.
• 50:42
  He gave me those things, you know, me waking up, it's God.
• 50:47
  Sometimes it's it's hard. And when you think about people
• 50:50
  not getting up or not moving around and you have to just
• 50:54
  gratitude is something that's to play out on a daily basis.
• 50:57
  I'm walking around and I'm like, man, thank God because I could
• 51:01
  have been where that person is right now.
• 51:03
  So every moment for me, gratitude plays a huge part of
• 51:07
  my daily walks, right, Because my daily walks are with God.
• 51:13
  But I'm always, you know, I'm always practicing gratitude
• 51:18
  because it's important, because there were moments where I
• 51:22
  remember you talk about, you've been talking about this a lot
• 51:24
  that survivors, survivors, how did you?
• 51:31
  How did you? Survival mode, yeah.
• 51:33
  Survival mode, right? So that's something that I'm
• 51:36
  still trying to get rid of, still trying to get rid of that.
• 51:40
  And it takes consistent work, but it's something that you have
• 51:44
  just have had and you have to constantly battle that thing.
• 51:50
  Like I have it at Bay, but it's still one of those things where
• 51:54
  I have to call on God in those moments where it's, you know, I
• 51:58
  become weak in that like where I don't feel like like I'm chasing
• 52:02
  this thing, but I have to call on God in that moment.
• 52:05
  Every day for me is a conversation with God.
• 52:09
  Or if I'm not talking to God, I'm practicing gratitude because
• 52:12
  I know I'm not making those move.
• 52:15
  I'm not making movement without his word.
• 52:18
  Yeah, and really sounds like they're one and the same because
• 52:21
  you're thanking God for the things that is still
• 52:24
  conversation with God. You're thanking him for
• 52:27
  provision and vision protection and like all the things, like
• 52:31
  even when you don't know it. And something you said just when
• 52:36
  you were just talking about that, like, you know, thank you
• 52:38
  for this day I've never seen before.
• 52:39
  It makes me want to go back towards the top of the podcast.
• 52:43
  We were talking about self sabotage and like fear, right?
• 52:47
  And how that stops people from doing things.
• 52:49
  And I think people forget that there is more data that suggests
• 52:53
  that they'll do well than not, right?
• 52:56
  And that they've already done so many things they've never done
• 52:59
  before. It's just that this one, they
• 53:02
  have the doubt you. Every day we wake up, it's a
• 53:05
  brand new day. The first day you went to
• 53:07
  kindergarten, that was the first day you went there.
• 53:09
  The first time you made a friend, right?
• 53:11
  Like we take for granted all of those little things that are
• 53:15
  data points that suggest that we cannot fit and that we have been
• 53:19
  successful in navigating the unknown.
• 53:22
  It's just that it's because we've seen everybody else do it
• 53:25
  or there's enough evidence that has shown that people can do it.
• 53:29
  And some, some of us are meant to be exceptional and that's
• 53:32
  just what it is. But when you're looking for
• 53:36
  others in to anybody listening, if there is nobody in your life
• 53:41
  that understands what you're talking about, you're not
• 53:44
  supposed to be talking to them about it.
• 53:47
  And that's that's that's for that's between you and God.
• 53:51
  God gave that to you. He's telling you he has higher
• 53:54
  for you. It doesn't mean that you're
• 53:55
  better than anyone else. It just means that you're
• 53:58
  different and he has, you want a different assignment and he will
• 54:02
  take you away from or allow people to let they let them lose
• 54:07
  you. Because a lot of times we're
• 54:10
  trying to hold on to people and they don't really have it to go
• 54:13
  into the spaces and places they don't have the vision.
• 54:16
  Oh, have you seen the it's AI? Don't know what year it was, but
• 54:21
  TD Jakes was on Oprah when Oprah was still doing her show and he
• 54:25
  talked about the puddle and the giraffe.
• 54:27
  Oh yeah. And basically you can only eat
• 54:29
  on the level of your vision. And to put it short for or
• 54:34
  audience, since you're also familiar, is that like a turtle
• 54:37
  sees the world the way the turtle sees it is nothing wrong
• 54:40
  with it. And they got that they master in
• 54:42
  a giraffe. They see the world, they see the
• 54:44
  treetops, they see different things and they can't understand
• 54:48
  turtle things. Now they can swoop their head
• 54:50
  down there for a little bit, but you know, a giraffe has a really
• 54:53
  big heart that has to pump so much blood up there that if they
• 54:58
  keep their head down there too long, they can literally die.
• 55:02
  So I'm that to say to the people who are dressed, who are giving
• 55:08
  treetop vision versus grass level vision, both are equally
• 55:12
  important. You have to understand where you
• 55:15
  are and have respect for both and not talk crazy to the
• 55:19
  giraffe. I mean to the turtle and the
• 55:21
  turtle don't talk crazy to the giraffe because both have a
• 55:25
  purpose and both are valid. But also, no, you can't expect
• 55:30
  turtles to really get giraffe things and giraffes to get
• 55:33
  turtles. That's true.
• 55:35
  That's good. Yeah, that's good.
• 55:37
  Yeah. And I also want to share a
• 55:38
  scripture that I think is good for this is Second Timothy 17.
• 55:43
  For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a one of
• 55:46
  power, love and a sound mind. So if you're questioning who you
• 55:51
  are, can you do what you absolutely can?
• 55:54
  Because God did not give you a spirit of fear.
• 55:56
  So right there, that tells you that's not God, that's the
• 55:58
  enemy. And I'm not calling the person
• 56:00
  that might be saying it to you an enemy as much as he might
• 56:03
  have crept up in them and is trying to stop you, right?
• 56:06
  Spiritual work, but power, love and of sound mind.
• 56:11
  And then this also brings me to another point.
• 56:14
  I'm like, it's flowing, it's flowing Myron golden.
• 56:18
  I've been seeing him pop up in my social media a lot more
• 56:21
  recently. And so I started consuming more
• 56:23
  of his material. And so he was just saying like
• 56:26
  in the first few verses of the Bible, it really unlocks how we
• 56:31
  supposed to live. Simple one, we supposed to
• 56:33
  create because we made in God's image.
• 56:35
  So in the beginning, God created heaven and earth.
• 56:37
  So we're creatives too, right? But then when you get to verse 3
• 56:41
  in Genesis, and this was one that like I started to focus on
• 56:44
  the create thing was dope. But then it gets to the mindset
• 56:49
  and protecting the mindset and understanding of the power of
• 56:53
  our words. There's, you know, I said, let
• 56:57
  there be light and there was light.
• 57:00
  Now that seems so simple when you don't understand whose you
• 57:03
  are. You're made in his image.
• 57:05
  God spoke it. It was that ain't manifesting.
• 57:09
  That's an authority you are given as a child of God to speak
• 57:15
  it and they will become so. Now we're not actually God, so
• 57:19
  it might take a little bit longer, but what we say is what
• 57:23
  happens, we have it every single person right now listening,
• 57:29
  watching speak it and it will be so.
• 57:32
  And and of course it has to be aligned with God's will, but you
• 57:36
  can't manifest some negative stuff like.
• 57:38
  Yeah, I think you have to, you have to visualize clearly,
• 57:42
  precisely, and frequently and it will manifest itself into
• 57:46
  reality. You just have to do it.
• 57:48
  We, we talk about visualization, but that's just faith.
• 57:51
  That's it. You visualize something, you
• 57:54
  have the faith to you. You have the faith to get there.
• 57:56
  One thing I was talking to somebody recently about is that
• 57:59
  when they talked about I, I feel like I have to, I have this gift
• 58:03
  from God that I can see the end result of something before I
• 58:09
  even get there. So I can see that there may be.
• 58:12
  That's why I do so many different things, right?
• 58:14
  Yeah, I can see success at the end of this thing.
• 58:17
  I don't always know how to get there, but I tell people if you
• 58:20
  just start to walk in that direction to where you want to
• 58:24
  go, you'll end up where you're supposed to be.
• 58:26
  Yes, that's it. So instead of being so fearful
• 58:30
  of, oh, I don't know how to get there, I don't know what to do,
• 58:33
  I don't know what the first step is.
• 58:34
  Take the step in the direction. God will provide all the
• 58:39
  directions. Curiosity goes a long way.
• 58:41
  That's it. That's it sounds.
• 58:44
  So good. Oh, this is so good.
• 58:49
  OK, So what would you say are some tips for resetting your
• 58:54
  mind when maybe there has been a slip or you know, you've kind of
• 58:59
  fallen off your habits. A couple days have gone by,
• 59:01
  you've not gotten up at 5:00 AM or whatever, you know what I
• 59:04
  mean? So how do you, how would you
• 59:08
  suggest or you know, how do you get back on track?
• 59:11
  So I think it goes back to what I said earlier about your
• 59:13
  commitment to you. You didn't make your commitment
• 59:16
  to anybody else but you. When you decided on something,
• 59:19
  you made that commitment to yourself.
• 59:20
  I was reading this book by Russell Simmons and.
• 59:25
  You read a lot. I see.
• 59:27
  I see a lot. I love to read, love to read.
• 59:30
  I was reading this book by Russell Simmons and you know,
• 59:33
  he's vegan, been vegan 5040 whatever long time.
• 59:37
  And so I was reading it. He said he was traveling one day
• 59:39
  during in his veganism years into his veganism and he ate a
• 59:43
  piece of fish and he was like I ate the fish because I wanted
• 59:48
  the fish at that moment. But he said then I thought to
• 59:50
  myself, because I ate that fish, does that mean I'm not a vegan
• 59:54
  anymore? He said, no, I'm still a vegan.
• 59:56
  I just ate a piece of fish, but that's still who I am.
• 59:59
  I don't have to it. It doesn't make me a non vegan
• 1:00:02
  because I ate a piece of fish. I'm still a vegan and I practice
• 1:00:05
  those principles, but that that could just be life.
• 1:00:09
  We commit ourselves to something.
• 1:00:10
  If I say to myself, I'm going to go to the gym every morning and
• 1:00:13
  I told you that there mornings why I just don't feel like it.
• 1:00:16
  I'm not getting up. And I'm not going, but I'll say,
• 1:00:19
  you know what, maybe I'll go at night, I won't go in the
• 1:00:22
  morning, maybe I'll go at night. So you have to make some sort of
• 1:00:24
  adjustments, but always think about that commitment to
• 1:00:28
  yourself there. There's a week that's gone by
• 1:00:30
  we're having and I just keep using this gym thing, but I
• 1:00:34
  haven't gone to the gym. So what?
• 1:00:36
  I just start over. That's my commitment to myself.
• 1:00:39
  Because at the end of the day, when I wake up and say, do you
• 1:00:42
  want to change? And I say, yes, that still
• 1:00:45
  stands. Yeah.
• 1:00:46
  Your commitment to you has to always stand.
• 1:00:50
  And it doesn't matter if a day goes by, a week goes by, come
• 1:00:53
  back to yourself, come back to your commitment to yourself, and
• 1:00:56
  just keep moving. Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  And you know, that's so good. And I imagine there's somebody
• 1:01:02
  listening who hasn't even developed their commitment to
• 1:01:06
  self. What?
• 1:01:08
  What would you recommend as a starting point for them?
• 1:01:11
  I guess my, my thing would be, what do you want for yourself?
• 1:01:16
  Do you want? So when you think about and so
• 1:01:19
  I'd like to start with some people is so you, you just get a
• 1:01:24
  pen and a paper and you make this T line.
• 1:01:26
  And on one side you have success and on the other side you have
• 1:01:33
  in this T line. What we'll do is we'll have on
• 1:01:35
  one side, let's say happiness, the other side is success,
• 1:01:39
  right? And so and so the reason that we
• 1:01:42
  do that is because we need to define what happiness is for us,
• 1:01:47
  Not the happiness that our mom told us, our dad, our friends,
• 1:01:51
  our loved ones, our significant other.
• 1:01:53
  It's not that. It's how you define happiness.
• 1:01:56
  On the other side, you define success.
• 1:01:58
  What is success to you? Success sometimes are tied to
• 1:02:03
  people. Success are tied to sometimes to
• 1:02:05
  our children, but you have to define what success is to you,
• 1:02:09
  what happiness is to you. Take as long as you need to to
• 1:02:12
  do that. Once you look at what happiness
• 1:02:14
  is to you and what success is to you.
• 1:02:16
  And sometimes they overlap. Let me make sure I make that
• 1:02:19
  clear. They do overlap at times, but
• 1:02:22
  when you know what happiness is to you and you know how you
• 1:02:24
  define happiness, then you can determine what it is that you
• 1:02:28
  want for you. That'll make you happy, right?
• 1:02:32
  I think joy is something that's we have to choose joy, right?
• 1:02:36
  You choose to be happy or you choose happiness at times.
• 1:02:41
  And so I think once you define what happiness is to you on that
• 1:02:45
  T sheet or T line, you can then determine what that commitment
• 1:02:53
  to yourself will look like. So when you decide what
• 1:02:56
  happiness is to you, and you've confirmed that when you look at
• 1:02:59
  your list, you can choose one of those things that make you happy
• 1:03:03
  because that's going to be your ultimate thing.
• 1:03:05
  And then it's about how you get there.
• 1:03:06
  And then once you realize that I'm going to use this thing to
• 1:03:10
  get to whatever my happy place is.
• 1:03:12
  And then once you look at that, you've already, you've also
• 1:03:15
  defined what success is, what success means, and what success
• 1:03:20
  is to you. So I think this this example of
• 1:03:23
  what to do would be really helpful for someone who has no
• 1:03:26
  clue what happiness is for them, or even if you might.
• 1:03:31
  This is a good a good example and the task to do with other
• 1:03:34
  people. But define what happiness is to
• 1:03:37
  you. Define what success is to you
• 1:03:40
  and use that as your point of reference for where you want to
• 1:03:43
  be, but also when you realize where you want to be with
• 1:03:46
  happiness. Determine what success is for
• 1:03:49
  you, not what society says success is or what anybody else
• 1:03:53
  says success is. Determine what success is for
• 1:03:56
  you, and then you'll get to the point where you want to be.
• 1:04:00
  And what I also love about that is, like you said, there's
• 1:04:04
  overlap. It can show you that they can
• 1:04:06
  coexist. A lot of times we live in a very
• 1:04:10
  all or nothing, rigid black or white world.
• 1:04:14
  And that even goes back to like what you said with the example
• 1:04:17
  of Russell Simmons. I ate the piece of fish one day,
• 1:04:20
  right? Like, and some people are like,
• 1:04:22
  Oh no, like they put all this pressure.
• 1:04:25
  So what if that was the last thing left?
• 1:04:27
  Are you going to die to be vegan when you could eat and be vegan
• 1:04:31
  another day? Like, you know, some people can
• 1:04:33
  be really extreme, but that goes back to that grace and that self
• 1:04:37
  compassion. And like we are taught judgment
• 1:04:41
  even though it says don't judge lest ye be judged, right?
• 1:04:45
  Like, we stay judging. And a lot of times, judgment and
• 1:04:49
  negative self talk, they go together real bad.
• 1:04:53
  Yeah. And what you hear people say to
• 1:04:55
  other folks, just imagine their self talk is on a whole other
• 1:04:59
  level because this is what they're comfortable saying out
• 1:05:01
  loud. That tells you there's more
• 1:05:03
  going on on the inside. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 1:05:07
  Well, that's good man. I love that you like brought
• 1:05:10
  that up like on the spot. Last I checked, you weren't
• 1:05:16
  trained in mental health or counseling, but you've been
• 1:05:22
  coming through with the things today.
• 1:05:25
  But. You know, I've, I've, I've done
• 1:05:26
  the work on myself, OK? And I, I don't believe in being
• 1:05:30
  an information hoarder, so I share everything I know, OK.
• 1:05:34
  And So what I like to tell people is, yeah, I'm informally
• 1:05:37
  educated, but I learned way more in the streets, the experience
• 1:05:41
  and also with being an autodidact.
• 1:05:43
  And for people that don't know what that means, it's a
• 1:05:45
  self-taught learner. So you think I, I read a lot, I
• 1:05:50
  learn things on my own, but I believe it's important to share
• 1:05:53
  information. And I don't hold anything back,
• 1:05:55
  but I've done a ton of work on myself.
• 1:05:57
  But I also did and continue to do therapy because it's huge.
• 1:06:01
  It's a huge part of my life. And so I want to make sure at
• 1:06:05
  every level of life that I learned something, that I'm a
• 1:06:08
  voice to someone else so they can get it.
• 1:06:11
  Don't be an information hoarder. Because that's what we're here
• 1:06:13
  for. Like we, our gifts are not for
• 1:06:16
  us. Everything that God gives each
• 1:06:18
  and every one of us, we're supposed to put out.
• 1:06:21
  And if you're experiencing any type of resistance hesitation,
• 1:06:25
  understand that spiritual warfare and that Satan is just
• 1:06:28
  doing his job. But also know that you already
• 1:06:31
  have the victory because Jesus went up on the cross.
• 1:06:34
  Jesus won. But what maybe comes in is that
• 1:06:38
  if he can trick you, if you don't understand your identity,
• 1:06:41
  that's where he can come in and get you to hang out with him
• 1:06:45
  however long until you wake up, if you wake up.
• 1:06:48
  So anybody listening you on the rise, you're in the right place.
• 1:06:52
  And so we want to make sure that you're getting what you need so
• 1:06:55
  that you can thrive. So then, and how do you show
• 1:06:59
  yourself grace without falling into excuses?
• 1:07:03
  We're just like, or falling into judgment, like excuses aside,
• 1:07:06
  because that's kind of like a judgmental question.
• 1:07:08
  So how can you show yourself grace without judgment?
• 1:07:11
  One, knowing that we're not perfect.
• 1:07:12
  In God's eyes, we're not supposed to be.
• 1:07:15
  And He knows we're not. He knows we're not perfect.
• 1:07:17
  He doesn't want us to be that's. Exactly.
• 1:07:19
  And that's where the grace comes in, right?
• 1:07:21
  If God knows that we're not supposed to be perfect and he's
• 1:07:25
  the only perfect person or perfect being, then we have to
• 1:07:29
  do what's best for us next to best, right?
• 1:07:32
  And so that's doing our best to be God like, and that's hard for
• 1:07:36
  all of us. None of us are perfect.
• 1:07:38
  You see people every day who are people of God who that who
• 1:07:41
  struggle, right? And so we're not perfect in
• 1:07:44
  knowing that we're not perfect. We just have to do our part to
• 1:07:47
  get to, you know, where we're supposed to be in God's eyes.
• 1:07:52
  He he wants us to be in his word.
• 1:07:55
  He wants us to share what we know.
• 1:07:58
  He wants us to bring people to him.
• 1:08:00
  And I believe that you don't have to be a pastor or you don't
• 1:08:06
  have to be necessarily in the church to bring people to
• 1:08:09
  Christ. Absolutely.
• 1:08:11
  That's it. Because knowing for me, I guess
• 1:08:15
  I know that because we're not supposed to be perfect.
• 1:08:20
  That's not my intentions. My intentions are to bring the
• 1:08:23
  glory to God in my work, in my dealings with people.
• 1:08:27
  Am I kind? Am I compassionate?
• 1:08:30
  You know, do I offer a helping hand when needed?
• 1:08:33
  And you know, I'm getting to the point now where I'm the
• 1:08:36
  survivors thing that we experience all the time, even
• 1:08:39
  for me where I'm getting to a point where I'm allowing people
• 1:08:43
  to help me because I feel like I'm the strong friend.
• 1:08:45
  I need to be there for other people and allow myself to be a
• 1:08:50
  vessel for others. But in this is a little bit off.
• 1:08:53
  But what I explained to some people is that our life is like
• 1:08:56
  a sponge, right? When people are unloading on us,
• 1:09:00
  it's just filling up. And unless we find a moment or a
• 1:09:04
  place to decompress, we're carrying around everybody's
• 1:09:07
  stuff. And so I'm really good with
• 1:09:12
  decompressing, but at the same time, I have to allow help.
• 1:09:16
  I believe that if you don't allow people to help you in
• 1:09:19
  multiple ways, you're blocking their blessings.
• 1:09:22
  So I'm mindful of that because God told me to come and help
• 1:09:26
  you, and you said no. And I'm like, OK, now what?
• 1:09:30
  What am I supposed to do? Oh, I'm about to do this.
• 1:09:32
  So we're blocking our blessings, but I'm just mindful daily that
• 1:09:38
  I'm not supposed to be perfect. I have to do what God has sent
• 1:09:41
  me here to do. My purpose is to help people and
• 1:09:49
  whatever way I can do that, I'm gonna just gonna always do that.
• 1:09:53
  Yeah, yeah. That's good.
• 1:09:56
  And God doesn't want us to do any of these things without him.
• 1:09:59
  He doesn't. That's the other part about it.
• 1:10:01
  So we don't need to be perfect. He allows for weakness, He
• 1:10:04
  allows for struggle because it means we need him.
• 1:10:08
  This is the only codependent relationship I'm ever going to
• 1:10:13
  recommend for anybody. And that is with God because
• 1:10:17
  like he, he does it like, and as I continue to grow more and more
• 1:10:23
  spiritually, like, I really think about, I can understand
• 1:10:26
  the Bible in the way that I didn't before, right?
• 1:10:28
  Like, and that's because I also invited God in and I asked God
• 1:10:32
  to like help me with it. And it makes me think about the
• 1:10:36
  tower of Babel, right? Like they were doing and they
• 1:10:39
  was trying to get to heaven and get like God.
• 1:10:41
  And God said, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:10:44
  And for once, God created confusion because if they got it
• 1:10:49
  and it was too, well, what would they need him for?
• 1:10:52
  What would we, what would they have needed God for?
• 1:10:55
  So I get it sometimes too, when when people have questions about
• 1:11:00
  things and it's like, it's all really and truly about God and
• 1:11:06
  our own ambition. Sometimes can can get in the way
• 1:11:10
  of that. And we really just need to let
• 1:11:13
  him work on us. And if you don't understand,
• 1:11:15
  like our struggles or the resistance we're experiencing,
• 1:11:19
  like we have to talk to him. He creates situations that make
• 1:11:23
  you come to him and some people still won't.
• 1:11:26
  And you. Can't, because we want to do it
• 1:11:27
  on our own. We don't think.
• 1:11:29
  We don't think we need God. Well, he gives us free will, but
• 1:11:33
  he wants to be a part of the process.
• 1:11:34
  Yes. And I think there's this thing
• 1:11:36
  of hyper independence that we're taught and that we learn in some
• 1:11:39
  formal mode. I'm telling y'all for sure lived
• 1:11:42
  experience, right? For sure.
• 1:11:44
  I'm glad the survival mode that I had to do, I had to do it
• 1:11:47
  because my Mama wasn't going to do it.
• 1:11:48
  My daddy wasn't going to do it, right.
• 1:11:50
  And so my aunt was very much raising me and my brother to be
• 1:11:55
  able to take care of ourselves because there was number
• 1:11:57
  guarantee that the parental figures were going to get it
• 1:12:00
  together. And so that turned into go
• 1:12:03
  hustle, make it happen. A lot of what you said, all the
• 1:12:06
  things I said I wasn't going to be and education was how I was
• 1:12:10
  going to do it and all of that. And so I got to a point little
• 1:12:15
  over a year ago and I was completely tapped, completely
• 1:12:19
  and utterly exhausted. And I was crying in my whole
• 1:12:22
  therapy session. And I told the therapist I was
• 1:12:25
  working with at that time. I said I used to pride myself on
• 1:12:29
  surviving. I'm tired.
• 1:12:31
  I am ready to, right? I didn't know what I had said in
• 1:12:36
  motion with my words because I was just expressing to her and
• 1:12:39
  it wasn't an intentional thing like me talking to God.
• 1:12:42
  But I also happened to literally be doing my therapy session in
• 1:12:45
  the church on the Wednesday. And so when I tell you, things
• 1:12:48
  started shaking and shifting. This was in June last year, in
• 1:12:52
  2020. I'm like, Lord, what year is it?
• 1:12:57
  And things just really started shaking.
• 1:13:00
  But it was like, it used to be a good thing.
• 1:13:03
  It used to serve me until it didn't anymore.
• 1:13:06
  And so I think we all can evolve.
• 1:13:09
  So even though you might have things that have helped you,
• 1:13:12
  that have served you, like what you said, chasing success, it
• 1:13:15
  has served you. Sometimes we have to examine, is
• 1:13:18
  it time to set that aside, right?
• 1:13:20
  And then either really get in a relationship with God, like
• 1:13:23
  obviously I did the things, I did things with God, or I'd make
• 1:13:27
  up my mind and then I'd ask him. And I shifted to what do you
• 1:13:32
  want me to do? What is the next step?
• 1:13:34
  You're giving me all of these ideas.
• 1:13:37
  What do I do first? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:40
  I remember my my first therapy session maybe four years ago,
• 1:13:44
  one of the first things he said to me was what got you here
• 1:13:46
  won't get you there, right? What got you here won't get you
• 1:13:49
  there. So those coping mechanisms,
• 1:13:52
  right. So you think about like, I was
• 1:13:55
  always a person that, you know, smile.
• 1:13:57
  I don't want people to know. I don't want people ask me, you
• 1:14:00
  know, what's wrong. I give them the impression that
• 1:14:03
  things are fine. But when things are bad and
• 1:14:06
  people aren't asking you what's wrong, you like, hold on a
• 1:14:08
  minute. I can't keep doing this to
• 1:14:10
  myself. So that's that's that's true.
• 1:14:13
  What got you here won't get you there.
• 1:14:15
  And that's something that and that I got the book too.
• 1:14:17
  So. Something I never forget.
• 1:14:19
  And then I got the book What that made me thought of.
• 1:14:21
  When it gets really bad and you're the one, you're the
• 1:14:23
  sponge. You're the sponge.
• 1:14:25
  You dry up and curl up. Very true.
• 1:14:28
  Yeah. Very true.
• 1:14:29
  OK, all right, let me see. Because I'm like, clearly we can
• 1:14:32
  keep all keep talking. This is good cover here.
• 1:14:37
  So, oh, what do you do when you're growing but you're not
• 1:14:42
  seeing results? What do you do when you're
• 1:14:44
  growing but you don't see the results yet?
• 1:14:46
  I think you just have to well, let me stop saying thank you, I
• 1:14:49
  believe. And what I do is I keep going
• 1:14:53
  because the end result, again, when I'm walking on that path, I
• 1:14:58
  know that I'm going to fall into where I'm supposed to be.
• 1:15:02
  I know that already. And I have I keep my faith in
• 1:15:07
  God, right? We want to see life today,
• 1:15:11
  social media, all these other things.
• 1:15:14
  We look at it and we we want success or whatever that thing
• 1:15:17
  is to be instantaneous. It's not like that like we want
• 1:15:21
  to have we want to achieve success.
• 1:15:23
  We see the true overnight successes and we're like, God,
• 1:15:27
  you see it all the time. Why aren't you doing this for
• 1:15:29
  me? We see it all the time, God, I
• 1:15:32
  see what you're doing for them. Do it for me.
• 1:15:33
  Why aren't you doing it for me? We see that all the time, but
• 1:15:37
  your path is not their path and how they got it might not be how
• 1:15:40
  you want to get it. Hello everybody is not aligned
• 1:15:44
  with God. Exactly.
• 1:15:45
  And so I, I make sure that I stay faithful even when it's
• 1:15:50
  hard, even when you feel like you've been running your race
• 1:15:54
  and somebody got there first and it was supposed to be me, right?
• 1:15:58
  We work, think about corporate America, happens all the time,
• 1:16:01
  right? That promotion was supposed to
• 1:16:03
  be mine. I've worked hard.
• 1:16:04
  I've done this and I've done that, but then somebody else
• 1:16:07
  gets it. I believe nothing happens by
• 1:16:11
  happenstance. Everything is supposed to be
• 1:16:14
  what it is. I believe in timing.
• 1:16:17
  Your time will come. I tell people this all the time.
• 1:16:21
  Very true. I tell people this all the time.
• 1:16:23
  Be prepared for your moment because if you're not prepared
• 1:16:26
  for your moment, because sometimes people will just give
• 1:16:29
  up and they'll say they got it. I'm done.
• 1:16:33
  When your time comes and it's your moment, will you be
• 1:16:36
  prepared? Are you prepared for your
• 1:16:39
  moment? Because sometimes people get to
• 1:16:41
  their moment and they're unprepared and it shows.
• 1:16:43
  So have faith. Believe that the path that
• 1:16:46
  you're walking on, it's where God wants you to be.
• 1:16:49
  And if it's not, he's going to redirect you.
• 1:16:51
  He's going to redirect you, but you have to be open to that and
• 1:16:54
  be prepared for your moment. That's important because timing
• 1:16:58
  is everything and and our time will come.
• 1:17:02
  It may not be tomorrow, maybe next week, but it will come.
• 1:17:05
  And are you prepared? That's how I look at life.
• 1:17:07
  That's so good. You basically just spoke
• 1:17:10
  Galatians 69, which is let us not become very weary and doing
• 1:17:15
  good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not
• 1:17:20
  give up, right? And that unseen part like that
• 1:17:23
  represents that like a seed in the ground and like a harvest.
• 1:17:26
  We understand that all these plants, these fruits and
• 1:17:30
  vegetables and flowers, they all have a season, they have their
• 1:17:34
  time when they bloom and some rebloom over and over again.
• 1:17:38
  But we don't apply that to ourselves and we think we need
• 1:17:41
  to see it right away. And also like that overnight
• 1:17:47
  that we see is somebody's 20 plus years or however long.
• 1:17:53
  We just saw the one night, even though it's been like your life
• 1:17:57
  literally can change overnight, but it took 20 years or however
• 1:18:02
  long to get to that. And then I also want to remind
• 1:18:05
  people giving up costs way more than staying committed and then
• 1:18:10
  staying faithful. And if you don't get that, think
• 1:18:13
  it wasn't yours. And a lot of times people have
• 1:18:16
  difficulty accepting releasing their desires and their wills
• 1:18:20
  for what God has for them because then that person get
• 1:18:22
  that position and then some crazy stuff come go down and
• 1:18:25
  that position gets cut. And you like Dang up for the
• 1:18:28
  state in the company because you're moving off of emotion and
• 1:18:32
  you don't. That's when you go talk to God.
• 1:18:35
  God, I thought this was my time. Help me understand why.
• 1:18:39
  What do you have for me? Like what would you like me to
• 1:18:42
  do? What are you teaching me?
• 1:18:44
  Because everything is preparation.
• 1:18:47
  Nothing goes wasted. And as Quandra said on one of
• 1:18:50
  the previous episodes, everything is spiritual compost.
• 1:18:55
  God will take what you think is dirt and he's going to turn it
• 1:18:59
  into soil. And what if God had it to give
• 1:19:02
  you a business? He had to get you out of that
• 1:19:05
  job, not get you that promotion because now you building
• 1:19:08
  somebody else's dream and not the purpose he put inside of
• 1:19:11
  you. Yeah.
• 1:19:12
  Yeah. Yeah, what's what's for you will
• 1:19:16
  not miss you it. Will not period.
• 1:19:18
  And you know, I've always been like a positive person, but I
• 1:19:22
  had to do a lot of examining of I had some hidden seeds that
• 1:19:26
  were planted and those fruits a little bit of negativity.
• 1:19:30
  I told someone last year I was like I was the most positive
• 1:19:34
  pessimist and didn't even. Know a lot of those people.
• 1:19:37
  I was so I because I was around so much negativity and I was
• 1:19:42
  more positive than them, I was calling myself an optimist and I
• 1:19:45
  wasn't even there yet. So now I'm actually like a
• 1:19:50
  positive optimist. Like for real, like, and even
• 1:19:54
  sometimes little things will try to come up and I'd be like,
• 1:19:56
  Nope, no thank you. We're not doing that.
• 1:19:58
  That ain't true. Like and I believe very much in
• 1:20:02
  practicing what I promote. With my clients, just because
• 1:20:06
  it's, it's huge. And then not only do I get to
• 1:20:09
  witness their growth, they get to witness mine.
• 1:20:11
  They see my evolution on the other side of the screen because
• 1:20:15
  I do have some people who have been working with me for years.
• 1:20:18
  And so I think there's a mutual thing and I get inspired all the
• 1:20:23
  time by their growth. And I'm like, oh, it's time for
• 1:20:26
  me to level up. That was some real good advice
• 1:20:28
  you gave. You need to do the same or you
• 1:20:30
  that you would benefit from that practice that you're telling,
• 1:20:34
  telling them. So then what does having faith
• 1:20:40
  in the process look like to you? You know what it's having faith
• 1:20:43
  in the process to me is enjoying that process.
• 1:20:47
  Yeah, we've been. And I'm sure you may have
• 1:20:50
  experienced this too on your journey to your success.
• 1:20:54
  Well, at least until this point. Because, right, because I'll
• 1:20:56
  show you. I don't even feel fully around.
• 1:20:58
  Well, there's going to be more. We know God is going to bring
• 1:21:01
  more. There's more blessings coming.
• 1:21:03
  But to this point, there are things where you just rushed to
• 1:21:09
  get here, you did everything you thought was the right thing to
• 1:21:11
  do, and you missed the process. I can't even remember.
• 1:21:17
  I remember things, but I don't know what it felt like.
• 1:21:19
  I just know I arrived at certain points.
• 1:21:22
  I felt like God at some. Sometimes he just planted me
• 1:21:26
  from one place and then put me somewhere else.
• 1:21:28
  But I do know that there was a process.
• 1:21:30
  Yeah. Sometimes it was meant for me to
• 1:21:32
  miss that journey. But I never forget what I've
• 1:21:38
  gone through. I think even though I missed
• 1:21:40
  part of my journey and and how I arrived there, how I grew up is
• 1:21:44
  what keeps me grounded. Yeah, I never forget that.
• 1:21:49
  So when I arrived to certain places, I'm sharing my
• 1:21:52
  experience and I may not have have really celebrated that
• 1:21:55
  moment in that journey, but I remember what it felt like to
• 1:22:00
  not have as a child, right. And so I know that I want to
• 1:22:04
  share so much more, but I think for me, it's important to, and
• 1:22:09
  I'm being more conscious of this now as you're going along and
• 1:22:13
  you, you're doing certain things, you're appreciating the
• 1:22:16
  moment, you're in the moment, you are enjoying the process
• 1:22:20
  because you want to make sure that process, one, it's
• 1:22:24
  something that you can speak to later, but you're feeling what
• 1:22:27
  you're experiencing. It's more than just feeling a
• 1:22:30
  thought. You have to feel your
• 1:22:32
  experiences because if you don't feel those experiences, you're a
• 1:22:35
  person, you're a shell of yourself or you're just a shell
• 1:22:38
  of yourself. And that's why I think so many
• 1:22:41
  people get whatever their ultimate success is.
• 1:22:44
  And then they're not happy. They're unhappy about so many
• 1:22:48
  different things. Yep, they still feel that.
• 1:22:50
  They got where they want to be. You're shell of yourself, but
• 1:22:53
  you never really felt your experience or your journey.
• 1:22:59
  And that's, that's, that's my thought.
• 1:23:01
  I think that's important. That's good.
• 1:23:03
  That's good because we have to pour into ourselves.
• 1:23:05
  And we think sometimes I got time for that.
• 1:23:09
  I got to go. I got to get it.
• 1:23:11
  I got to grind. I got to hustle.
• 1:23:12
  And then, yeah, you get there and you literally have
• 1:23:14
  everything and you feel empty and you haven't cultivated the
• 1:23:20
  healthy habits, the spiritual habits.
• 1:23:22
  And then what are you going to do?
• 1:23:24
  You're going to cope, and it's likely not going to be healthy.
• 1:23:27
  And then depending on who you're allowing into your life, it
• 1:23:29
  could get real messy. And then like how did I get
• 1:23:33
  here? Yeah.
• 1:23:35
  Sometimes you did it, you did it on your own ish where God did
• 1:23:40
  allow you know God allowed you to do things and he'll let you.
• 1:23:43
  He'll let you, right? We have free will, but and
• 1:23:46
  that's when he probably has done that.
• 1:23:48
  You've accumulated everything. So there's nothing left but to
• 1:23:51
  really and truly try God, try Jesus.
• 1:23:54
  So all right, so we have come to the part of the show where we
• 1:23:57
  are going to do this signature question.
• 1:24:01
  If you could lead the audience with one powerful truth to help
• 1:24:05
  them to rise in faith and thrive in purpose, what would it be?
• 1:24:09
  What I would say is your feet won't go where your mind hasn't
• 1:24:14
  already been. Your feet won't go where your
• 1:24:16
  mind hasn't already been. So again, we have to visualize
• 1:24:19
  where we want to be clearly, precisely, frequently and often,
• 1:24:24
  because if we haven't seen it, you won't arrive to where you
• 1:24:27
  want to be. That's it.
• 1:24:28
  That's so good. I had to be quiet because I was
• 1:24:30
  like, I don't want to disrupt you, but I was like, oh, we
• 1:24:33
  going off like it's so good, so good.
• 1:24:37
  Like y'all, I just really want to encourage all that.
• 1:24:40
  This thing is not that difficult.
• 1:24:45
  And what I mean is that like you have to give yourself permission
• 1:24:49
  to think, to believe, to like unlock it.
• 1:24:52
  And when you give yourself permission, like you have
• 1:24:54
  nothing to lose but purpose to gain, right?
• 1:24:58
  Like if you allow yourself, if you really let it unlock.
• 1:25:01
  So just like listen to what he said, allow your mind tap back
• 1:25:04
  into that imagination. Forget what they told you about
• 1:25:08
  daydreaming. We want you.
• 1:25:10
  We don't want you to Daydream. We want you to imagine.
• 1:25:12
  And then we want you to go. Then we want you to your feet to
• 1:25:14
  move right. So the vision is what is your
• 1:25:18
  GPS, The vision is your GPS and that's going to guide everything
• 1:25:22
  that you do All right, thank you Edward, that was so good.
• 1:25:28
  This is good. I feel like I've been talking to
• 1:25:30
  me, but like in a good way and to hear like a different
• 1:25:35
  perspective because you know, I'm the strong friend.
• 1:25:38
  I'm usually the one pouring into people, so to hear other
• 1:25:41
  positivities. So it's always important when I
• 1:25:44
  can have conversations with people who think in a similar
• 1:25:47
  way. And then I can just hear how how
• 1:25:50
  other people think about it. So I leave it.
• 1:25:52
  Yeah. Well, so thank you so much.
• 1:25:54
  Thank you. Yeah.
• 1:25:55
  So audience, now we're transitioning to you.
• 1:25:59
  I want you to reflect what is 1 mindset, habit or belief that
• 1:26:03
  you've used to avoid your growth.
• 1:26:06
  Then we want you to take action. Name the war that you are ready
• 1:26:09
  to win and commit to at least one action this week that can
• 1:26:14
  help you reclaim your peace and power so that you can walk in
• 1:26:17
  your God-given authority and purpose.
• 1:26:20
  And then finally, I want to affirm you.
• 1:26:23
  I will not sabotage my breakthrough.
• 1:26:26
  I have the mind of Christ. My thoughts are aligned and my
• 1:26:29
  habits are consistent and I am no longer at war with my own
• 1:26:34
  becoming. So I want to thank you all again
• 1:26:36
  for tuning in for another episode of Rise and Thrive for
• 1:26:39
  Doctor J Nicole and want to give some love to my special guest
• 1:26:43
  today, Mr. Edward Griffin. Thank you for spending.
• 1:26:46
  For having me, yeah, anytime. I'd love to come back.
• 1:26:49
  OK, well, listen, we can make that happen because we we're
• 1:26:53
  talking about multiple topics. So yeah, we go have to have back
• 1:26:56
  and we can maybe be strategic about we'll talk offline.
• 1:27:01
  We'll talk offline. All right y'all well, thank
• 1:27:04
  y'all. We'll see you again next
• 1:27:05
  Tuesday. If you are in the DC area, I
• 1:27:09
  invite you to join me at Life Surge.
• 1:27:12
  It is a going to be a wonderful day where they're discussing how
• 1:27:15
  to fuel your Kingdom purpose. There's going to be information
• 1:27:18
  down below in this in the description with the promo code
• 1:27:21
  so that you can get a discount and come and join in this
• 1:27:24
  Kingdom experience with me. Also, the merch is available
• 1:27:30
  online so you can wear your fade where your rise, where your
• 1:27:33
  thrive. And thank you again, Edward, for
• 1:27:36
  joining me today, and we will see you all next week.