So excited.
I’ve got some of my friends that
are here tonight, some of our team that’s here tonight.
We’ve got just a mixture uh, of of of many, many expressions of Christ and Earth when you start talking about real estate.
I I believe that god cares that you have a house, that you have a place to stay, that you have shelter, that you have arraignment.
We were talking about that earlier. How have you how many of you enjoyed the preshow?
Did you enjoy the preshow?
We don’t we don’t normally do a pre show on Wednesday night, but we we know we know you was coming.
Yeah. Yeah. We know you was coming in. We tried to make you a key.
And, uh, we did a pre show, and it was wonderful. We’re gonna go a little bit deeper.
Uh, I am blessed tonight to have Reverend Kari Jay Bridgewater, who is a minister and educator a business leader.
He is a principal at Crowell, 1 of the top 10 largest accounting networks in the world where he leach Crow Beacon, a select suite of service for high growth businesses.
We gotta preach a leading, a high growth business corporation.
I said your gift will make room for you and set you before great men.
Do y’all hear what I’m saying?
The goal of the practices to strengthen underserved businesses with Accounting Management And Technology.
Kari has also served as chairman and CEO of Northdale Capital Growth And Program Officer, would you come at the Davos Family Foundation where he served as programs for congregations in West Michigan.
He launched the urban church leadership center located located at Cornerstone University, where he served as adjunct professor and board member of our daily brand ministry Kari founded the Inspire Equity Foundation, and it goes on and on and on.
He’s done so many great things. Can you give him a warm potter’s house welcome?
From right here at the potter’s house, we have been invited to the stage Tiffany Brinkley.
You don’t often see her on the stage, but she makes it happen. Up in this place.
She is the director of United MegaCare. She is a native of Dallas, Texas.
Married with 2 wonderful children.
She is a graduate of the illustrious, the illustrious Clark Atlanta University, with a bachelor of science degree in political science and a pre law concentration.
For the past 7 years, we have had the privilege of having Tiffany work for the potter’s house.
Come on. Fort Worth as director of community outreach and transition to United Medicare as a new and let me tell you United Medicare goes everywhere.
They do disaster relief in foreign countries, and she’s gonna tell you more about it.
And she has headed that up.
And I tell you something that you could if you want to see your money grow, give it to a woman.
She can take a dime and stretch it into a $100.
I don’t know how she does it.
Tiffany’s 20 years of experience has afforded her the opportunity to work for other nonprofits, corporate, America, government, and faith based organization.
She enjoys being a basketball mom mentoring youth and volunteering with alpha kappa, copper, alpha, sorority.
You’re gonna get me in trouble. All the Delta’s got a attitude over that right now.
Save man for Tiffany. You may be seated. We’re glad to have you.
He is a national culture for GSA Acquisitions committee and author Cassie’s F.
Butts has worked alongside domestic and international heads of state presidents and CEOs for the past 30 years, he founded Capital Fortitude Business Advisors, consulting firm, and currently serves as chief strategy officer and managing partner with global leader group based in Salt Lake City with offices in Atlanta, Georgia.
Cassius was appointed as the national co chair of the general services administration policy acquisition committee and served on the Biden Harris’s agency transition team, Governor Brian Kemp appointed Cassie to serve on the Georgia Economic Development Board and he is the chairman of the Fort McPherson Local Redevelopment Agency.
Would you welcome my friend and brother, Cassius F. Butts?
A very familiar face is about to come to the state, Doctor Natasha Gresham is the director of the center of counseling and behavioral health at the potter’s house of Dallas, working closely with myself for over 25 with over 25 years of experience, she is a renowned inspirational speaker at Pfizer Executive Life Coach touching live through television social media conferences and individual consultations, driven by passion, transparency, and authenticity, Natasha has successfully worked with celebrities, athletes, politicians, faith based organis organizations and prestigious universities.
Her outstanding credentials include, uh, multiple credentialing recognized as a presidential volunteer of the year in 2019 and honored at the United Nations Natasha is committed to sharing her knowledge about inner healing, hope, and new beginnings in her spare time.
She enjoys traveling reading and embracing new adventures. Would you make her feel welcome even though she’s at all?
Just for the benefit of putting this in in context, and I want you to write this down.
Ministry takes on many forms. Ministry takes on many forms.
Historically, we have alienated a lot of people in church because they couldn’t sing or preach or do the the recognizable gifts, we have not noticed the fact that in the Bible, when it lifts down gifts, it also talks about the gift of administration.
There’s a gift of helps.
There’s a gift of giving There’s a lot of things that god cares about that we don’t talk about in church.
So to contextualize our conversation that we’re going to have tonight, I want you to turn to Luke chapter 4 verse 13 through 21.
And there you will find Jesus pointing out in his first address in the synagogue after that he was tempted in the wilderness, the things that matter most to him.
Now, normally, when we’re in the potter’s house and we read a text, we stand for the reading of the word.
So less abnormal. Even though this is an unusually big Bible class for Wednesday night, we’re we’re gonna act normal on you online.
You don’t have to stand unless you want to because I can’t see you anyway.
And so we’re reading out of the Amplified version of the Bible so you will see inserts added into the text to give clarity and possible opening of ideas throughout the text.
And when the devil had ended, every temptation, the complete cycle of every temptation He temporarily left him, meaning Jesus, that he has stood afar off from him until another more opportune and favorable time, lord have mercy.
Isn’t that how it is? The devil don’t never say goodbye.
He just say so long. I’ll be back later. Then Jesus went back full.
And under the power of the Holy Spirit into Galilee.
And the fame of him spread through the whole region round about without him even trying the word about his effectiveness spread throughout galilee I believe that for you.
Without you even trying, the word is going to get out.
I believe in marketing because the Bible says that men don’t light a candle and hide it under a bushel, but put it out for all men to say, but you’re not gonna have to stress out about it because of people who are blessed because of you and blessed because of your creativity are going to be your marketing agents and spread abroad what you do, who you are, and what you bring to the table, And I want you to think about this question.
Who do we get when we get you?
Who do we get when we get you, whether that’s personally, professionally, spiritually, when you come to the table, what just sat down at the table.
And he himself conducted, of course, a course of teaching in their synagogues being recognized and honored and praised by all.
Now we have not seen Jesus in the temple in scripture since he was twelve years old.
This is after he has been baptized of John been tinted in the wilderness, and he shows up in the synagogue.
And this is the story that is narrated to us as Luke brings to us what happened in the room.
Would you like to be in the room with Jesus?
How many people would like to be in the room with Jesus? Guess what you are.
So he came to Nazareth, that Nazareth, where he had been brought up And lord, no, there ain’t no place harder to go to than where you grew up.
Because the prophet is without honor in his own country. You know, I knew you win.
I knew your mama don’t come in here acting like you so much, and Jesus started where he had been brought up.
And he entered into the synagogue and as was his custom on the Saturday. So this isn’t a one off.
It was his custom to engage him on the Saturday. Only this time, he stood up to read.
And there was handed to him the role of the book because at that time, books were not bound.
Books were not bound. They were scrolls. And he had to unroll it.
The book of the prophet Isaiah, he opened or unrolled the book and was and found the place where it was written So what he is quoting from is Isaiah 61.
1 and 2, the spirit of the lord is upon me. Because he has anointed me.
The anointed 1, the messiah, to preach the good news the gospel.
This is what Jesus cares about. The gospel to the poor.
If you don’t care about economic equity, you don’t care about what Jesus cares about.
One of the top things on his list was equity.
He has sent me to announce released to the captives.
So he doesn’t want you to be bound by things, by drugs, by people, by the need for affirmation, for the need for validation.
He said he has sent me to announce the release of the captain. Somebody shall release.
And the recovery of sight to the blind. He wants you to have a vision.
Oh, my. How many women in here have a vision?
How many brothers in here have vision? Make some noise. To send forth as delivered.
He said, I want to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed.
So god cares about people who are pressed down, who are downtrodden, who are bruised, who are crushed and broken down by calamity.
To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the lord.
I’m claiming this as the acceptable year of the lord for your release.
So if you’re watching online, say this is the acceptable year for me to be free, in every area of my life to get my vision back, to get my emotions intact, and to see my finances rise up with me.
Oh, you ought to be shouting me down right now.
The day when Salvation and free favors of god profusely abound that is Isaiah 6112.
Did he roll up the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down And the eyes of all in the synagogue were gazing attentively at him.
They were staring at him.
It’s alright for people to stare at you when you got it, you just got it.
And he began to speak to them today? Today? Somebody say today.
This scripture has been fulfilled while you are present and hearing.
Well, they’re blessed our conversation tonight.
We thank you for the gifts that are on stage and the price they paid to be who they are And as we engage in this conversation, let us see ourselves and hear ourselves and understand ourselves in new dimensions and idioms of thought as we embrace the opportunities that has afforded us to be in the room where it happens in the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.
A man, a man, and a man.
You may be seated, chill out, take your shoes off, I forgot Pastor Michael Phillips.
Jesus. Come on, pastor. I’m sorry. Come on. Give it up.
I’m and I don’t know how I forgot my own. Come on.
He he is the chief operation officer for TD Jakes Enterprise. They didn’t give me no card.
They’ve been giving no card. Yeah.
They know I only read what they tell me to read, give it up for pastor Michael Phillips. Come on.
You know who he is.
If you’ve ever watched us, you’ve seen him minister, you’ve seen him preach, but you don’t know how he leads and how he directs our enterprise initiatives and oversees our films, our books, all of our ultimate real estate endeavors and particularly a focus on entrepreneurs, any entrepreneurs in the house.
Do you know how your business is about to be blessed?
Oh, y’all don’t know. Let me talk to these people.
Do you know how your business is about to be blessed?
Do you have any idea how your business is about to be blessed?
How in the can you be blessed in your business, not be blessed?
So I want you to take some notes whether they’re in your phone or in your laptop because you’re You got the privilege.
The wealth of knowledge that’s on this stage is incomparable to anything that you have ever seen before.
And so I want you to take advantage of this opportunity as we begin to have a discussion that I think is very important.
I’m gonna start with reverend Kari uh, Bridgewater.
When we start talking, since we’re talking about business, what do you see as the most often seen impediments uh, that stop us from being successful in business.
And why do you as a clergyman even care to be bothered with what you are fighting for today?
The the the biggest impediment Bishop, um, is fear.
That I see over and over again, people are afraid to trust their own insight and instincts but I also see them afraid to do the work that it takes to understand what it takes to get the capital flowing for their business.
So they they they do the thing that’s easy. They do the thing that’s enjoyable.
But they’re afraid to do the thing that’s hard. Um, so I see that a lot.
Um, I also see that Well, why I do this, you know, why I do what I do is because I see serving businesses as loving people.
Right? So so we look at um, visiting the sick.
We look at, um, feeding the hungry, but what does it mean to actually help someone build the resources so they never become hungry?
And so so that’s why I do whatever.
You know, uh, it’s so funny because when I was meditating today, I was over in the book of James And and in the book of James, he was talking fervently and ferociously about validating our faith about our works.
And you started talking about doing the work.
And and I would suggest to you that sometimes we love the craft but we don’t even know what the work is that is necessary to be successful So we have an idea, and there are people in here with great vision and great ideas.
And they’re ready to do the work, but they don’t really even understand what the work is, the research that’s involved, the the opportunities of prerequisites that are necessary, to do what they need to do to be ultimately successful.
So they drive past business and go to hustle.
And they keep hustling faster and faster and faster making cupcakes or or doing tax returns or whatever it is that they do, and they’re doing doing doing, but they’re not being, being, being, or thinking, thinking, thinking, And so, especially with inflation, now the hamster is having to run faster faster than he’s ever had to than she’s ever had to run before to make half as much.
When you say do the work, Let’s get down to the recipe.
Uh, what do we need to be doing to bring our businesses and our vision up to scale?
So we have to operate on multiple levels, Bishop.
Um, the the first piece is that just because you sell something doesn’t mean you actually have a business.
And, also, the purpose of business is not to sell the purpose of businesses to build wealth.
And so when you don’t understand the principles of wealth, you don’t design your business to be profitable.
And so what ends up happening and and and part of us, we’re so loving I I had a restaurant.
So I love selling fried chicken, and I love and we had good fried chicken.
Right? Alright.
And he dusted fries.
Alright. For the fried chicken. But
but we didn’t know how to make money.
Right.
And so if you don’t make money off your business, you’re just having fun.
And so part of it is doing the hard work to understand finances, understand cash flow, understand how capital works.
And so that’s the first thing. Take an accounting class says the accountant.
Um, understand how your cash flows. Right, and understand how you’re connected to a broader system.
Many of the reasons that we didn’t get PPP loans and we didn’t get some of the other things that we’ve talked about is because we weren’t ready to have financial records that we can present to the federal government.
And so If you need to grow a business, I know we talk about don’t get loans, but no one bills a company without some sort of debt and some sort of equity investment.
And you can’t get that if you it think about it this way.
Your house has electricity and water that comes to it. Right?
But the electrical company and the water company will not give you electricity of water if your house is not up to code.
Yet we have businesses that are not to cope when it comes to capital.
And so, therefore, no bank is no underwriter will give you a loan and no investor will give you an investment unless you get your house in order.
And so that’s the financial hygiene. That’s getting your books in order.
That’s getting the hard part working properly for someone to actually give you resources.
That’s what I mean by the hard work.
So that is the hard work. And and and I would say that’s the only part of the hard work.
Sometimes we don’t market our business. Sometimes we don’t manage our business.
Sometimes we don’t understand that you are no better than the people you put around you.
And so what you, instead of having a business, you you left your job to work for you, and now you just have a job.
And you call it a business, but it’s really a job.
And so you’re so busy doing it that you’re not running it.
If if you can’t step away from it 2 months, from doing it and it’d be sustainable.
It’s not a business. It’s a job. And so all you did was how are you?
And about 94%, uh, particularly African American.
I just happen to know those figures because I came in in this chocolate was the flavored.
Uh, you know, I didn’t pick it. It’s nice. I like it.
But, uh, 94% of African American Businesses have less than 2 employees.
So if you’re playing ball and you don’t have anybody to pass to, you’re exhausted.
And the reason we don’t have anybody to pass through is because our books are not together, and we say we can’t afford to, and you can’t afford not to, because if you don’t if you don’t really scale your business, then your business is running you, and you’re not running it.
So when the Bible says talks about setting the captive free, That’s not just hallelujah glory to god.
Thank you, Jesus. Cause you can hallelujah, thank you, Jesus glory to god, and be exhausted and be worn out and be at your wits in and go home smelling like chicken every day and not see a return on your income and still can’t send your kids to college.
To the college of your choice without more debt, and god wants to set at liberty those that are economically bow.
You’ve talked a little bit about the problem. Tell me a little bit about the solution.
What do you propose as solutions for startups because I’m not an accountant. I I have 1.
I have 3, but I have 320 under them, but I I couldn’t If they all left, I the glory to god.
Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. Okay.
I need the I need them because you have to understand the what he is saying is you need the language of banking to prosper in the pursuit of wealth.
So you can’t talk chicken in a bank meeting. Ortongs.
So help us out because we we’ve we’ve done a lot of think tanks about the problems.
What are the solutions?
So first, you can’t solve this on your own. Um, we’re dealing with the historic context here. Right?
So we don’t know enough about finance as a community because we’ve been denied access to finance as a community.
And so part of the conversation is learn yourself, but also understand that there’s a whole invisible system that brings capital to your neighborhood, brings capital to your communities, and you need to work together to demand better services.
It’s sort of like you have a house, but the pipes don’t work to get it to your house.
And the only way you can do that is come together and have conversations with the lenders, the investors, and your community so that you actually demand better services.
So part of that is a collective decision that we’re all gonna get our finances together.
Also, stop trying to do it yourself hire somebody who actually knows what they’re doing. Like, set.
Mhmm. Yeah. That that’s where write this down. Conversations are important. Conversations are important.
If you’re running around with people who are talking about people, you’re in the wrong crowd.
I have had the privilege of being in the room with very, very successful people, and none of them gossip only broke people are interested in other people’s business.
Bless people are so busy trying to run their business that they don’t have time to irrigate their thought process with other people’s business.
That that is the hobby of the disenfranchised.
So you wanna be in conversations where you have to Google Uh, oh, I’m getting ready to take you out of your conference zone.
I I wanna put you in rooms where you’re having to learn languages.
Conversations also includes starting to read things other than novels, love novels, and he came to her through the wind.
And he drove until his car ran out of gas.
And still, you walked with nothing but her on his right That ain’t gonna pay no bills at all.
None at all. None at none at all. Magazines, reading, newsletters, anything about anything.
That starts out slow reading but becomes a part of your language, which makes you understand what to want.
And if I understand my brother correctly, He’s trying to tell you that everything is in cut and dried that there’s only one way to, uh, access capital for your business.
There are multiple ways to access capital for your business. There are CDFIs.
Uh, there are minority owned, uh, institutions that create capital well.
There are multiple ways to increase passive and aggressive streams of income.
You don’t have to just keep running on a hamster.
There are multiple ways to get property and own real estate and have a multiple dwelling place and have your renters pay the mortgage and create your income.
There are multiple ways for you to break out of this, but you gotta start talking. You can’t keep crying.
You gotta start having conversations. And if you’re not around people who are conversing like that, you’re not around the right people.
Another thing, and I’m coming to you in a minute because it’s a natural transition.
Another thing is have the conversations in front of your family.
Because one of the problems, the difference between rich dads, poor dads, haves, and have not is that they talk about stuff that that poor people don’t talk about money because they don’t have none.
They don’t understand if you don’t talk about it, you’re never gonna have any. So you demonize it.
And church people are good at demonizing.
There are two things that church people want, but they never talk about.
But they’re they’re really interested in one of them is sex and the other one’s money.
Yeah.
They they don’t wanna talk about neither one of them, but they’re secretly interested in both of them.
So when we don’t talk about, you know, come on. He didn’t say I did write me.
Uh, so when you don’t talk about it, you know, what happens?
When we invite you to prayer, you want prayer that you can get a house, you’re believing god for a car.
You don’t have to believe god for a car.
If you got a 700 credit card, you just go down and get a car.
Believe god for something god like, like a kidney. Believe god for a liver.
Be believe god to part the red sea.
Don’t believe god for a car drug dealers have cars, atheists have cars, agnostics have cars.
We have made miracles out of things that just required discipline.
And it’s because we are never in the room where conversations are ahead about things that matter to us.
And and we we don’t grow up in a home where money is discussed, where investments are discussed, where a whole life insurance is discussed.
That’s why a huge percentage of people who died our church don’t even have life insurance.
That’s why we’re raising offerings because preachers have more shoes than they have policies.
That’s why all your friends are calling you to pitch in to help pay for stuff that we should have been thoughtful about.
And so we had bling but we didn’t have increase. And god wants you to have increase.
Can we settle on that? God wants you to have increase.
While we’re talking about business before we get to some other stuff, this is a good opportunity for you to talk about good soil.
Thank you, Bishop. Good soil. Some good soil folk out there. Got some good soil, ma’am.
That’s what I’m talking about. Good soil is the place where entrepreneurs come to evolve.
It is the place where small business owners come to have their business grown and impacted and scaled.
And what we have done is put your business pretty much in the middle of a ecosystem that gives you a lot of the support that Kyrie was talking about.
And so if you can picture your business being in the middle of a page.
And on the top of that page, you have a financial partner.
And to the side, you have a capacity building partner.
Somebody’s who gonna help you learn and understand what cash flow means? What what what are your assets and liabilities?
How do you have a, uh, a forecast for your burn rate and your churn rate for your customers.
All those terminologies and new language that Bishop is talking about, we put you right in the center of that and then link you up with those capacity building partners to walk you through that process of growing your business.
I’ve there’s the peer to peer network, and I’m a put all this in context in a second.
There’s the peer to peer network where you can learn and grow with other entrepreneurs that are on their entrepreneurial journey and that you guys can glean from each other, uh, better efficiencies, new ways of doing business, new ways of networking, so forth and so on.
And then last but not least, Uh, you’re gonna need legal support. You’re gonna need accounting support.
And we put all of that within your ecosystem and put you right in the smack dab middle of it so that you can have connectivity for growth for your business.
So me put it in context for you. There’s nothing wrong with your idea.
There might be something wrong with your environment that your idea is burst in.
If you wanted to grow oranges, Okay?
And you had the best Florida orange seed, and you went and planted it in Antarctica, Guess what?
It’s not gonna grow. If you had wanted a vineyard or something, but you’re gonna put your vineyard in Houston, the humidity alone would not allow such a thing to take place.
Great idea, wrong environment. Here’s the good news. There’s still life in the sea.
You just have to move it to the right environment That’s what good soul is.
Then when you get your idea of your business in the right environment, you’re gonna hook up those ideas, watch me now, to influence organizations and partners that we have curate it that’s gonna help you intentionally grow your business.
And when ideas hang around with influence, income is always the end result.
That’s that’s some really good stuff. You all gotta be fired up up here.
Uh, that’s that’s very, very exciting.
And it’s important that you understand most of the business people that I encounter in so many communities uh, don’t really have a real good ROI.
They don’t have real good return on investment because we pay so much for manufacturing and distribution because we don’t really do business like business.
We we are getting our supply from people who are getting their supply from people.
And the more middle people you have in between you and retail, everybody If I pass a cookie down the road here and everybody takes a bite by the time he gets the car, he’s standing with a club.
Okay. So all the people from the creation of the product, to the distribution of the product, to the wholesaler of the product, to the person who makes it available in the magazine to the person who buys retail.
All these people got paid. Why not go right here and cut out the middle man and drive down the overhead and increase the profitability?
And the reason you can’t see where you’re at, it’s because if you don’t have good accounting, you’re blind.
The numbers tell you not the sweat the numbers tell you whether it’s really working or not.
Am I helping anybody? I said am I helping anybody?
So so you can be working really, really hard and going absolutely nowhere and can’t figure out why I’m gifted.
I’m anointed. I fasted. I prayed. I worked long hours. I put in the sweat. I’m not seeing much return.
The reason you’re not seeing return is that they hate it. Bait your cookie.
Write this down. Stop letting other people eat up your cookie.
Is not deep, but you you’ll know what it means.
If anybody steals your notes, they’ll think you’re talking about chocolate chips or sugar cookies or something like that.
But but ask yourself how many people handled my materials before I got them.
And how can I cut that out?
So one trip, one trip to wherever you gotta go to get the manufacturer uh, might be might save you in the long run much more money than letting her take the trip and then letting him open up the building And then you coming down to the to the fashion showed up by the dresses in Vegas, and the dress was made in Vietnam, and you don’t understand that you’re you think you’re buying it wholesale, but you’re paying 60% more than you ought to and now you can’t get a return on your profit because nobody’s talking to you about this, and we’re just shouting and going to heaven.
And going on with our Jesus, it’s just the same.
And the Bible said the children of this world are wiser in their way than the children of light.
There are a lot of people doing what good soil is doing.
They’re having events and good soil is having a big event in Dallas in June.
For you to come and experience all the different ways you can get the financing and find out what you need to do to get on top.
What is unique about good soil is we’re not just having an event.
But if you download download the good soil app, You have somebody to hold your hand and answer your questions and walk you through the process, and we’re getting ready to start doing a seat at the table where you can sit at a round table like this and type in questions and get answered.
And by the way, if oh, yeah. Somebody got a happy for that. I know because you got some questions.
By the way, if you’re watching and you’re online and you got questions in a few minutes, I’m gonna open up for some questions and we’re gonna answer as many questions as we can.
And so if you type it in, even if you’re sitting in the room and you wanna go on YouTube and type in a question, We’re gonna pick out and answer as many questions as we can.
Uh, my brother Cassius, I’m gonna go to you next.
This seems like the natural progression It’s not everybody in here is not an entrepreneur, but everybody in here needs a house.
Everybody in here needs a community.
Everybody in here no matter how knowing that they are and how they pray and how they preach, they need to be able to go home at some point when the revival is over and have a safe place to stay.
What can we do about it?
Yes, sir. There’s a couple things, Bishop, and thank you for that question.
Uh, the reality is that we all have the opportunity to make a otherwise, it is really at our fingertips.
I was fortunate to serve, uh, in government at that time when I was at HUD in the Bush administration, we had this thing called House and counseling centers.
You anyone ever heard of them.
And if you haven’t heard of them and have the opportunity to go to the housing counseling center, if you go to hud.gov, Click on on the icon that says housing counseling.
There, you can speak to a counselor to talk to you about if you are looking to have a, uh, to leasing an apartment That’s fine.
If you’re looking to actually acquire a home and you go through the certification process, you can take that certification and use that toward qualifying for buying your first home.
That enables you to be a first time home buyer in every state has funds available for you to be a first time home buyer.
Bishop, the other best thing is that even on the business side, uh, fortunate, when I served in the Obama administration to let people know about starting the business, And one thing about starting the business, you have to have to do one thing.
You have to have a passion. What is your passion?
Your passion is your purpose, and your purpose is your plan. Whatever you’re passionate about, that’s your purpose in life.
You should build a plan around that. Whoo.
And so if if we didn’t buy, I got that raise your hand real quick. Okay. That’s part
of it. Purpose plan, passion, purpose plan, passion, purpose plan. Come on.
You can take that. Go to sba.gov.
Click on small business development sin centers, sbdc, it will put you within a twenty five mile radius for you to actually speak with a counselor about starting and growing your business.
So this is the best part about a bishop. There’s no call.
Wow.
Or or I like to say US taxpayers, you’ve already paid for this already. Alright?
You’ve already paid for it already. Sound like what you talk about son is Bishop. Mhmm.
It’s been paid for you already.
So go to sba.gov, click on sbdc, and then take that same knowledge and come with my to good soil.
So we could talk about you all become a first time home buyer to start your own business.
And, actually, that’s the time that we rejoice And we actually come together and say, this is how we learn together, Bishop.
So when we start taking advantage of opportunities like this, we can increase our ability to retire.
And we don’t have to walk we don’t have to work until we pass out in the floor and die.
We can have multiple streams of income coming in from different directions. Yes.
And you’re not at the mercy of your job as you get older.
And it is very, very important that you start working on this now because what you your 401 k might be looking like a 201q.
Come on and talk to me somebody.
But just because your 401 k isn’t looking good, doesn’t mean you can’t grow to the next level.
If you start strategizing, you listen, you if you if you were dropping your handkerchief out of the window, waiting on prince charming to come in on a horse and pick it up, I got news for you.
Go down the steps and pick up your own handkerchief and come on, talk to me somebody and make a plan So you can tell the difference between Prince Charbon and Freddie the frog, and you’re not getting tied up with somebody because you have to, but because you want to.
And am I talking good to somebody? So so so let’s go deeper.
So when when you start to and by the way, he didn’t ask me to mention this, but Cassius has just written a book called Exceptional bring the exception to the rule.
Bring the exception being the exception to the rule.
And I’m sure you can go on Amazon and somewhere and pick this up, and it’s great information.
You cannot lead if you do not read. Yes. You cannot lead it.
Stop scrolling down through Instagram for 3 a half hours.
And read something that’s gonna help you get a plan to your purpose and and your passion.
I noticed you have worked with every type of leader across aisles, why do you do that?
It doesn’t matter Democrat Republican. You work with everybody to further what you’re trying to get done.
Explain that to me.
It’s I I think it’s just with something really, really ordained in my family, Bishop.
Um, I really realized at a young age, if you follow your passion, you do never become lost.
That’s just the bottom line. If you can have $1,000,000 ideas and have $5 effort, right, you gotta put in a $1,000,000 of effort into that.
And I said it to say, Bishop, I think we’ve talked about it some time ago that in my book being the exception to rule, I talked about 14 principles about following your passion.
Checking your ego before it checks you. You might know about that?
Actually planting seeds and no one is harvest time.
These are basic principles that we know, but we’re actually not putting in the work to do that.
And I think if we can do that more and more on a consistent basis, you’ll find yourself a lot further than you can even imagine.
So at the end of the day, Bishop, I think for me, this just really don’t follow my passion.
I’m fortunate to teach at Morehouse College Leadership And Development, and I learn from these students.
I get to I get to be hip and cool again.
Right. Right.
I learned, and these young men and these young men at Moorehouse, they actually had these great ideas and they sit and they talk and they come with these great ideas.
So they’re far more advanced than what we were.
When we were in school, what we went to trade school, what we had to do is pour time into them, to mentor them, to show them what leaders look like.
Be present and on a consistent basis. And I think that’s how we can continue to change the world, Bishop.
Thank you for that. Give god a praise.
Tiffany, there has been so much drama in the world right now There is no safe place to live.
Either they’re on fire. They’re in earthquakes. They’re in floods. They’re underwater.
They got murderers running through the woods, stealing our people’s garages.
This has been a stressful time You have been leading us through disaster relief.
And before you can get one disaster out, here comes another disaster, and they’re calling from everywhere what when when you say use me, lord, it doesn’t have to be the pole pit?
It really doesn’t have I’m and there’s nothing against the pulpit.
I’m in the pulpit right now, but it doesn’t have to be in the pulpit. Give us a quick rundown.
Of what you do and why you do it and how it works.
Absolutely. Thank you, Bishop. First of all, I’d like to say that everyone in here is a change agent.
And I love what you said because ministry starts outside these Four walls.
And until you realize that ministry is outside these Four walls, you won’t realize that the changes that you can make in in your community.
So with United MegaCare, yes, we are helping all over the world. We are right now in Africa.
We’re in India. We’re in the Philippines. We’re in the Caribbean. We’re in Mexico. We have an imprint in Haiti.
We have partnerships all over the world, and we continue to build these strong alliances.
So when we say we’re boots on the ground, we’re boots on the ground.
However, partnership is key in the work that we’re getting ready to do.
And so when we create and build these partnerships, when we can’t go to Mau, we we make sure that we have a partnership that is there.
Is gonna take the seat that you’re sowing in this ministry, and they’re gonna do the work for us.
And so everybody already knows we’re all over the world. We’re in Africa. We’re doing some amazing things.
They love Bishop in Africa, but also charity starts at home. And that’s what’s really important.
I get it all the time.
People say, we know you’re all over the world, but what are you doing right here?
What are you doing in your community.
So it’s about empowering our people here to let them know that we are trying to create the awareness.
We’re trying to educate you. We’re trying to empower you in order to know the resources that you have in your community.
There are people right now in this in this sanctuary that are suffering in silence.
Because they don’t know what’s in their community that can help them get them out of the trouble that they’re in.
And so I always try and encourage people to know who’s in your community.
Know who’s working for you, know what resources that are readily available for you that can change the complete trajectory of your families and stuff, but you have to really, um, be transparent and you have to open up, and you have to ask for the help you need.
And so that’s what we’re able to do with United Medicare We we create these opportunities for families that are in the we work in impoverished communities, low income communities, but we wanna bring the awareness to those communities that we are trying to make sure that you will change agents so you can go out and do the work that we can’t always get to.
Hey, man. Somebody. So in my in my Baptist voice, I’m starting to see a message appear.
And it says passion, and it says purpose And it says plan.
And it says partnership. Yeah. Oh, y’all don’t hear what I’m saying?
So if I got passion and I got purpose and I got plan, then I need to develop some partnerships knowing that I cannot do this by myself.
I need to develop some partnerships. So y’all hearing what I’m saying?
I wanna bring Natasha in, but let me take a question quickly from Melissa.
Melissa wants to know what is the first step once god has given you an idea for a business?
I say research. I say research to business.
The first step is to fill your head with all the knowledge you can about it.
Will it work in this area? What is your competition in the area?
How far you are from anybody else in the area, research, research, research, research. What do you say?
You don’t have to agree with me. What do you think the first step ought to be?
I think you ought to go work for someone else who does what you wanna do.
That’s a good answer too. That’s a really good answer too.
To work for someone else who’s doing what you want to do is like going to a university and getting paid.
That’s a good one. I I
think there’s also a great idea not to go into business by yourself.
Someone mentioned it earlier about having a partner to keep you accountable. Yeah.
Get a partner to keep you accountable and making certain that you both are checking each other.
That’s the way that
you can move ahead. What do you say?
I’m just gonna add that when you research that business to look at the the the cap of of that business.
How how big is it? How wide can you go?
And so you wanna realize maybe perhaps It might not be as big of an industry as you want to be in and perhaps change your mind.
Okay. Doctor Natasha, when I came along, Uh, every time somebody came in the church and they were acting funny, it was a demon.
If you were smoking cigarettes, you had a smoking demon.
If you were drinking liquor, I see this alcoholic demon come out of it right now in the name of Jesus.
I see you fauna, Katie Deeman, come out in Jesus’ name.
My question to you as a pre trained therapist and psychologists, are we spiritualizing mental health?
This this is This is National Suicide Prevention And Awareness Month.
Millennials are dying are committing suicide at millennials now at amazing rates, unlike any other generation in the history of this country.
Men in their forties and fifties are more likely to commit suicide than any other period.
You should care about this because I’m talking about your brother, and I’m talking about your husband.
And I’m talking about your uncle, and I’m talking about people who are silently imploding.
And and and we’re not getting everything resolved by making little oily crosses on their forehead and laying hands on them and getting slain in the spirit.
Help us to differentiate a spiritual problem from a mental health problem.
Thank you, Bishop. No pressure. So I I like to say this.
Let’s first define what mental health is because in the faith based community, we really do not understand what mental health is.
And everybody in here has mental health.
You all do not have a mental illness, but you do have mental health. Okay?
And so let me break it down either further.
Mental health is how you live, how you love, and how you laugh.
That is mental health, how you live, how you love, how you laugh, how you show up in the world.
That is mental health. And a lot of us, especially in Black and Brown communities, church has been our foundation.
So we come in church with our trauma, and we do not know how to distinguish between our trauma and our pain and the sensation and the exuberance we get in the spirit.
And a lot of times, what you said, we don’t talk about sex and money.
Look at my counselors right there.
They can talk about sex and money in these therapy sessions because what you don’t talk about causes pain and causes frustration.
And we’re a silent church when it comes to real issues.
Everything that was talked about thus far tonight is mental health.
Everything from where you live, how you access finances, how you, uh, start a business, all that has to start with mental health.
If you are not healthy, you can’t grow anything. Mental health is the foundation.
So everything that we’re talking about starts with your mental health.
And how you perceive because how you perceive something may not be the truth. We live.
There’s the idea They are talking about the idea. Most of you live in the real. There’s a gap.
Counseling helps you bridge the ideal with the real.
Bring it on in and bring it on in.
Yeah. You know, I gotta
stand on. You had to get up. I knew you had to get up.
Church has come a place where we placate, and we’re phony When I come here, can we be honest?
Because everybody can relate to what they’re talking about, but you’re only as healthy as your secrets.
If you have secrets, you’re not healthy.
The church should not ostracize you because you’re unhealthy because if I I check, this is the hospital.
So you should be able to come in here with your trauma. Okay?
But this is the thing you have to come decent in an order.
We have a full service counseling center Right now, we service 33 States and 13 countries.
Wow.
And there’s a waiting list. Okay?
So when we’re talking about mental health and your spirituality, don’t use your spirituality to cover up your mental health.
We’re not talking about your position in Christ. We’re talking price.
And I can tell your condition is altered or broken by the way you respond in these services.
Right. Right. Right.
So when you draw more attention to yourself, then to god, something is broken.
When you compete with the person who has been anointed for that hour to give the word and you interrupt that, something is broken.
So don’t be ashamed of your brokenness, because can I let you in on a little secret?
We all broken. We all broken.
God made us out the dust of the earth So you’re always gonna be dusty.
You’re always gonna be dusty.
So don’t be intimidated or ashamed by your the list, get help, put some oil on it.
Okay? So I’m all for prayer. And getting a little cross and coming up to this altar.
But when you leave this altar
Come on. Come on.
When you leave this altar, you have to do that work.
Yeah.
It’s not about your prayer life.
God hears you, and he’s answering you, but he might answer you in a form of a therapist.
Where are my counselors stand up? Stand up. It might look like that.
So I’m encouraging you to go get counseling because if all your relationships are broken and it is always somebody else, you, the common denominator.
Go go with the go go go go go go go go.
That that that last line deserves a Grammy.
If all your relationships are broken and it’s always somebody else’s fault, the common denominator is you.
That’s a revelation. It’s it’s not ignorant.
It’s just sometimes it’s hard to see That is you.
Because when brokenness is your normal, you don’t think there’s anything wrong.
When you grew up in a dysfunctional family, dysfunction is your normal.
And if you meet somebody that’s front