Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - How to Turn Your Darkest Season Into Your Greatest Strength | Travis Hearn - Phoenix Suns Chaplain & Author of The Fire Is For You

Transcript

Lessons - How to Turn Your Darkest Season Into Your Greatest Strength | Travis Hearn - Phoenix Suns Chaplain & Author of The Fire Is For You · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  In this lessons episode, discover how life's hardest trials can become catalysts for purpose and personal growth.
• 0:06
  Understand why success and wealth cannot replace inner peace.
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  Explore how adversity can refine character and reshape priorities and uncover how faith and perspective can help navigate life's most difficult seasons.
• 0:24
  So you're writing a book, The Fire is for You, and that's really focused on your journey.
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  And when somebody chooses a title for a book, it always has a lot of meaning and significance to them.
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  So as we go through your journey, The Fire is for You, what does that mean to you as a title and why did you choose it?
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  But what does it mean to you as you go through all these inflection points in your life?
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  For example, when you go through that title,
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  point where you have your DUI, you go to your mom's pastor's house for the first time.
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  Connect those dots for me.
• 0:57
  Great question.
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  The fire is for you title.
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  The book is not a book.
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  It is about what happened and things that I've been through.
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  The book is for you.
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  The book is for the reader.
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  The book is because every one of us, every one of us go through fires, right?
• 1:18
  So you just said like you have a business or you're chasing, we all do that, man.
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  Like, man, I wanna build a great company.
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  The church is a business.
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  The church is a ministry, but it's a business.
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  It is a it is a corporation.
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  It has money coming in, money going out.
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  You know, we've got I've got 50 full time employees, probably another 50 part time.
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  And like the church is a business.
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  You're growing a church.
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  Yes, it's ministry.
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  But there is this business.
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  We have a department.
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  We got to conform and abide by laws and all these things.
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  So, you know, so Impact Church, my church, it's entrepreneurial, entrepreneur birthed out of a Bible study for the Arizona Cardinals.
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  So the Arizona Cardinals football team, you know, started Bible study for the football team, eventually opened it to the public and the rest is history.
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  So, yeah.
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  Going back to your question, my church is flooded with people going through fires.
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  So is this nation.
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  So is this world.
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  Man, I'm going through depression.
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  That's a fire.
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  Anxiety, fear, guilt, worry, shame.
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  Shame?
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  Oh my gosh.
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  The times that we've done stuff in our life that we're not proud of, and we know other people that hurt them, and we can carry this shame, this guilt.
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  And so those are fires, man.
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  Cancer.
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  My stepfather was diagnosed with cancer given two to five years to live.
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  It's my mom's, you know, third marriage, her first great marriage.
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  He's a good man.
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  That's a fire.
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  My sibling who is fighting fentanyl addiction.
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  That's a fire.
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  Like we all go through fires, man.
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  Addiction, alcoholism, brokenness, divorce, failure, my business.
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  Dude, I...
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  This is the fourth time I've tried to get a company off the ground.
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  And all four of them have, like, that's a fire, right?
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  So what I have learned in my own life is that God...
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  God, there are no wildfires in life.
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  There are only controlled fires.
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  Meaning, scripture, whether somebody believes in it or not, you can't deny the things that it says, the truth, the little nuggets of truth.
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  Like, thou shall not murder.
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  Maybe you don't believe in God or Jesus, but I mean, that's a pretty good rule to live by.
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  It doesn't matter if you don't believe in God.
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  Yeah.
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  Don't murder.
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  Don't commit adultery.
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  I mean, that's kind of good.
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  Don't lie.
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  Don't cheat.
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  Don't steal.
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  Don't, you know.
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  But one of them, one of the scripts or a couple of them, but it talks about how we get put in the fires to be tested and that fire purifies us, right?
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  It refines us.
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  So the fire of brokenness that I went through, the fire of that failure.
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  That's going to refine me because I'm not doing that ever again.
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  So that's refining me, right?
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  The fire of whatever, infidelity or the fire of cheating and you get caught.
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  Okay, well, that sucks.
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  We're human, man.
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  We have all done human stuff.
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  But hopefully we learn from that and we go, man, I need to change some things about who I am.
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  Maybe I need some therapy.
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  Maybe I need some counseling, right?
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  And so the fire being for you, it purifies you.
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  Hopefully it burns out the image.
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  It doesn't feel like it though.
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  And the moment it's hot, it burns.
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  It feels like the house is going to burn down.
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  See, in the Bible, it uses three metaphors for trial.
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  It uses storms.
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  It uses valleys and it uses fires.
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  Right.
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  And so the fire is for you is a book for people to go, dude, I've gone through some some hell.
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  And this book is going to help you get through your hell.
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  I've gone through some hell, too.
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  You know, being a man of faith doesn't exempt you, doesn't put an umbrella of like, you know, like, dude, this is life.
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  This is in heaven.
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  You know, it rains on the just and the unjust and good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people.
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  And so.
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  So going back to your story, the fire is for you.
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  That's what that title means to me.
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  Because like two years ago, I went through the fire of my life.
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  My family, we went through the fire of our life and it almost killed me.
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  So and I want to talk about what that fire was in a second.
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  I want to go there just yet.
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  I just want to I want to just point out.
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  So even when you're getting that DUI and kind of just like tying back to something that I mentioned about.
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  If it didn't happen, who knows when it would have happened, right?
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  And that's like the perfect example of fires for you.
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  And I think that...
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  Without the biblical analogies, I think that when people go through stuff, when people go through really hard times, the people that I repeatedly see come out of that successful, because everybody goes through it.
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  It's not like, hopefully, it doesn't happen to me.
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  Life's going to happen to you.
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  Life's going to happen to you.
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  Fire's going to happen to you.
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  Right.
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  But it is how you come out on the other side of it.
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  So how did you come out on the other side of that DUI?
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  But I do want to, and I'll answer that question.
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  I do want to say you literally just, you literally, you just, you were a preacher for a second.
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  Because here's why.
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  Because you said, well, you said it's not if, it's when.
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  Yeah.
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  Right?
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  Well, David said in one of the most famous chapters in the Bible that every rapper has done a segment on this chapter is, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, right?
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  I shall fear no evil for you are with me.
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  What does he say?
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  He says, even though I walk, he doesn't say, I hope I don't.
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  He doesn't say maybe hope like it might.
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  No, he says, even though and and and those are valleys.
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  And so going back to that DUI, I wouldn't be who I am today without it.
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  I always say I went from jail to Jesus like like that was a wild day.
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  I went from like I had this cool accolade and, you know, got an award to like, dude, I got arrested, put in jail.
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  to like, dude, I just discovered my purpose in life.
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  And yeah, it did shape me.
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  It did define me.
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  God has no, this is what I've learned, dude.
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  I'm in the people business.
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  I have billionaires in my church, 500 millionaires, 200 millionaires, like it's Scottsdale.
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  It's the entrepreneurial hub of the nation.
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  It's a very wealthy city.
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  Very wealthy city, very affluent.
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  I pastor pro athletes.
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  I have for 23 years.
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  The biggest names in sports are in my church.
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  They're in my phone.
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  I pastor them, right?
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  This is the thing.
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  When you talk about mine, mine was jail.
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  I was like, dude, I screwed that up.
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  But a lot of times people have everything and it looks seemingly good realizing, dude, I have nothing.
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  And a great example of that is a friend of mine that I had on our stage in year three of the church is Reverend from Run DMC.
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  Right.
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  And I interviewed him and I go, dude, like, when did you become a Christian?
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  Because he's obviously very vocal about his faith.
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  And he goes, my top, he goes, my top was my bottom.
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  And I go, tell me, he goes, you know how a lot of people, they hit rock bottom and then like, oh, I found God.
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  I found real.
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  I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know about that.
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  I know.
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  And he goes, well, mine was the opposite.
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  I'm run run DMC at the peak of like run DMC.
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  Right.
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  He's like, dude, I got everything you can buy.
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  I bought it.
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  I've got everything money can buy.
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  I've got any any earthly thing that you want in this world.
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  I got it.
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  And he goes, and I felt so spiritually.
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  bankrupt, that in my bathtub, right then and there with a pile of weed on the bathtub, he's like, I said, you know what, I'm going to give this Jesus thing a try.
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  You know, and I think...
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  What are we trying to do?
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  I can tell you story after story after story, Scott.
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  I can tell you hundreds of stories of people who are trying to chase what many of us are trying to chase, and they've got it.
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  I can tell you the hundreds and hundreds of people that have gotten it, and they go, Yeah.
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  Dude, this is empty.
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  This is lonely.
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  I'm broken.
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  I have 30, 40, 50, 100 million dollars, 200 million dollars in the bank.
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  I'm broken.
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  So what actually is the meaning of life?
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  You know what I'm saying?
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  And that's what I discovered from me being put in jail.
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  You know, it was like, dude, and it wasn't my first time in jail.
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  Dude, I told you I partied my face off.
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  I, you know, I got in trouble for stealing and I got in trouble.
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  Like, he's just brokenness.
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  And so the fire is for you is like, yeah, that was a fire.
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  The DUI was a fire.
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  Disappointing my mom, man, that was dude, like that was a fire.
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  And, but at the same time, there was a fire going on before those moments.
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  And the fire was just like, dude, who am I?
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  What am I supposed to do?
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  Why am I here?
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  What is this what it's about?
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  Win awards?
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  Yeah.
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  get on a starting team, be a star.
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  That's what life is about.
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  And I can tell you star after star after star, NFL, MLB, NBA, WNBA, who they look, they're all stars to us.
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  But like, I know the truth.
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  I know what's going on in their lives.
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  You know what I'm saying?
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  And like, life is tough, man.
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  Hurt people, hurt people, broken people, break people.
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  Like that's what life is.
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  And so for me, the fire is for you is not about me.
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  Yes.
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  I'm telling many of my stories, but it's giving people tools to get through the fires that they're going through right now.
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  Tools, like real tools.
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  Like, how do I do this, man?
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  How do I do this?
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  Like,
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  I had a player my first year in pro sports, and I won't.
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  My last ring.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  I'm 25 years old or something like that.
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  And, you know, I'm walking in the hallways of an arena, and I'm like, dude, there's Shaq, there's Kobe.
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  They're on the Lakers, and they played the Suns that day.
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  And I was starstruck.
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  You know, like I'm like starstruck.
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  I'm like, dude, I'm 25.
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  I'm like, this is my first time ever doing this.
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  I didn't sleep the night before.
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  I was like, this is crazy.
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  And I called Natalie.
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  I went around the hallway.
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  I'm like, dude, Shaq's the biggest dude I've ever seen in my life.
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  Like I'm literally as big as his leg.
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  You know, Natalie's my wife.
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  And so I'm starstruck until like the third game.
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  And in the NBA, we have chapel before every game.
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  By the way, the NBA is a business.
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  The NFL is a business.
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  Major League Baseball is a business.
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  The WNBA, it's a business.
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  They're a business.
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  Multi, you know, million, billion dollar businesses, right?
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  I think it's fascinating that they make space for, like, people to, like, have a little devotional.
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  I think it is interesting.
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  I've never heard of this before I heard of you.
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  To be quite honest, I didn't know that exists.
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  I didn't either.
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  Until it, you know, until I got invited to be a part of it.
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  I didn't even know it was a thing.
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  Yeah.
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  But like, so for the NBA before every game, one hour before every game, we have a little 15 minute window of chapel and it's both teams come or invited.
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  And, you know, in that moment, we'll talk maybe a verse of scripture, but just like you're getting centered.
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  You're about to go perform.
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  So no matter all, it's all, it's all centering.
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  It's all like it's centering its routine.
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  So, hey, I might own a company.
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  I might own a McDonald's.
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  I might own an Arby's.
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  I might own 15 of them.
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  I might own 3000 of them.
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  But like, but but don't don't miss out on this, this, this kind of power to go.
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  But you know what?
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  I do need I needs to center myself because we just go.
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  And then, you know, and then pretty soon, like what you said, we're going and blowing.
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  And then it's like, dude, now, like, man, I lost my marriage.
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  I wasn't there for my children's games.
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  And man, I made a lot of wealth.
• 12:46
  Yeah, but then you wonder, what's it for?
• 12:48
  And then you're wondering, what's it for?
• 12:49
  Thanks for tuning in.
• 12:50
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• 12:55
  And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode.
• 13:00
  See you in the next one.