Inspiration, now in session. So, we are in BarQ on a new journey. I'm about to tell you exactly what and why. Look man, we started this podcast October 10, 2018.
And we have grown a lot. We've changed a lot. And I appreciate so many of the listeners of this show have listened to every single episode. If that's you, I want you to patch yourself on the back.
If it's not you, I want you to look yourself in the mirror and frown and say, what is wrong with you? Well, I haven't you listened to every single episode of this podcast. Do you know that something you missed could have helped you? Do you know that something you missed could have guided you to your purpose?
Could have brought value to your life, but it's all good. The goal right now is to continue to increase the level of value that we are bringing the listeners of the show. So, I'm excited to say this is the very first episode ever of Inspire Guys people that is both audio and video. Ooh, that's new.
He doing something new. He doing something new. Look, new stuff is a blessing. So, y'all know who been rocking with me real quick.
Let me just say this and we're going to jump into the show. I've been talking lately about, like, we're going to take this video. I was saying it a year ago. If you go back, again, for the people who've been listening, I was saying, we're going to take this video.
We're going to take it a video. I was dreading it because I don't enjoy the process of YouTube. Look, I'm recording the video, editing, producing the show, booking the guests, uploading it, promoting it, making it, I mean, it's a lot of work on top of me already being busy, but I'm not complaining. I'm really sharing so that y'all, look, the part of this show to bring value is to share things like this.
So, you see and feel the truth that it behind the scenes as your own, your journey, you can hopefully grab something from this because we own this journey together. That's what I love about doing this show. I'm not so far ahead and so far removed from struggling and, you know, again, I'm at the beginning stage of a YouTube journey, right? So I'm right there with you.
Sometimes we want all the super famous celebrities that's worth $100 million to guide us on stuff and look, there's some value in those people. I'm not knocking nothing. But what I'm saying is sometimes people are so far removed from the struggle. They don't know how to, like, they too far.
You know what I'm saying? I'm still close enough. You know what I'm saying? I'm still close enough.
I mean, depending on where you at, I don't know where I was at, but I ain't so far removed that it's like I can't relate. So again, I share things like that so you can understand, look, I'm on the journey at the beginning of a journey too. If you somebody is like, man, I'm at the start of this journey. I'm trying to, I'm tired of this.
Look, I'm tired of it too. I'm one week and a doing YouTube videos and I'm like, do I need to get up and do this tomorrow? You know what I'm saying? I don't really need to.
I'm going to stop. What I'm saying is this though, this is the first episode that you have now the option. So the audio episodes, you know, we back to trying to do Wednesdays, be consistent with Wednesdays when possible, even though I got some travel coming up the next couple months. That hopefully doesn't interrupt with that, but could.
But we're trying to get the Wednesday for the audios and then the way we doing it is that, like, so this show that you're going to hear today, I got Toya co-hosting. Me and Toya also already did a video version of the video of the audio you're going to hear today. And so if you are interested in also seeing our faces and also I have slides, so it makes fun of me. I have slides that I share for the video podcast and walk through the content.
So if you want to check that out, that's dropping Wednesday night, June 8th at 7 p.m. You can watch it on YouTube, whether live or, you know, just go to our YouTube page, also the Facebook page. Inspire Guys, people does have a Facebook page. I'm going to start promoting that.
It's going to be on there as well as my personal Facebook. So what's the point? Sorry about the long intro. The point is that you can also go and watch this on video.
Mine is this beautiful, lovely introduction that I'm giving you. You're going to be able to get this great content from today's show in video. And if you do that, hopefully you get some value. Leave me a comment.
Let me know that you checked it out. Share it. You know what I'm saying? Like all that kind of good stuff.
You know what I mean? Like let's go from, let's go from getting 20 views to 30 views on videos this week. You know what I'm saying? Look man, at the beginning of a journey be hard.
It's humbling in the mud. It's like, all right. Okay. Well, 10 people, how do you know that work?
10 people to watch a video? The beautiful thing is that it's streaming on multiple sites though. So like I think Facebook is, we at least passed 100 views on Facebook. You know what I'm saying?
So that's where most people comment and if you want YouTube, we get into 10s and 20s and 30s and you start the beginning of a journey and I want y'all who listened to the show to be able to say wherever it is goes, whether it's good or whether I ain't doing it in six months because something went wrong or whatever, I want y'all to be able to say I remember when I like I was there. Like I was at the beginning, right? So today's historic moment. Inspire guys people, not just video, but also or I missed that up.
Not just all your video. I can talk. Y'all gonna get to see our faces and see, you know what I'm saying? Catch our vibe and see what we about.
And I'm excited about that. So thank you for listening to inspire guys people. Thank you for being a faithful supporter and we don't continue to grow from here. That's the goal.
More content, more content, more value. And let me know what y'all think of it. Give us ratings on Apple Podcast on YouTube, Facebook, all of those things. If you enjoy the content, let us know that you enjoy it.
If you don't enjoy it, you don't got to say nothing. You don't hurt my feelings. Let's get it to the show. Yo, yo, yo what up, guys?
People. How y'all feeling man? I'm good. I'm good.
I'm good. We ain't here man. You know what I'm saying? You ain't saying people are live, you just started.
Yo, that's, look. These people know what's up, man. We're just getting, we just vibing with the video stuff for the first time. You know what I'm saying?
It's by guys people trying to grow. You know what I'm saying? We trying to grow in enhance the situation. I'm feeling good.
How you feeling today? I'm feeling good. Today was a good day. What you getting into?
What was like when they did so good? I worked on content really all day, rebuilding curriculum content. You know. That's hiring.
I love it though. OK, I do. I love it. I'm with it.
I'm with it, man. It's been a long few days, but I feel good. I feel great in a new studio space. So right now, I'm really just trying to get used to where everything is at.
And you know what I'm saying? We got new stuff going on, new buttons, new gadgets. I'm just trying to get used to the vibe, but I'm feeling it. And I think we're going to be all right.
We're going to be good. I'm excited. Cool, man. Let's get into this show today.
Today, we're going to be talking about follow the leader. You know what I'm saying? Well, having was, first of all, leadership has been on my mind lately. For whatever reason, I've been thinking about leadership.
I think a lot of times, because for me, like I really want to become a great leader. You know what I'm saying? And I've always said I was a boring leader because I'm the oldest and nine children. But there's still levels of leadership.
And through the years, I've tried to grow and enhance my skill set to become the best leader I can be. At the same time, as much as I've grown, I still have so many more areas to grow. So I'm constantly trying to learn and constantly thinking about it. So what I did was, throughout a little poll on Facebook, we don't get into that.
We don't look at what people said. It just acts people about leadership. So before we really jump into that, though, I guess I just want to ask you, like, you being a leader, you know what I'm saying? Like, did you always see yourself as a leader?
Like, is this something, a lifestyle that you knew you were going to come into, or did this catch you by surprise at all, just being in leadership? You know what? It's funny that you say this back in my day. We used to call it bossy.
We used to call it bossy. I was told that I was always being somebody's mama. I was told that I was bossy. So I never really looked at it as a quality.
You know what I'm saying? I never looked at it as something that could help me navigate through life and help me really reach the level of success that I had truly desired. So I never looked at it that way as a child. I mean, I knew that as a child, I always have this desire to be a business owner, but even doing that, I never considered that to be a leader.
So, you know, being the oldest of my household, I had younger siblings. Of course I was the leader, but again, it was never shown to me or explained to me to be a good quality to have. So I don't know, that's kind of different. Yeah, it's like one of those things.
Like you could be born into it just as the oldest child, or different situations in people's lives. They don't have to be the oldest child sometimes. The younger one steps to the plate, but I think for me, right? I'm the kind of person I've always been observant.
I'll look at like the people that are in leadership. Like it's some about leadership, I guess, because if you a leader, you automatically are always in the forefront, to some extent, you know what I'm saying? So it's kind of like, I used to always look at who the leaders were, and be like, what makes that person special or different, or puts them in that position? You know what I'm saying?
And I think I used to ask myself, like, do I have what it takes to do that? You know what I mean? I think, I don't know if I ever questioned that. I want more so questioning, where do they get the confidence to just show up?
Like, you never really walked into a room and say, who's the leader? You know what I'm saying? You walk into a room and you knew who was leading the room. And it's like, man, where did they get that level of confidence from?
Like, were they born that way? You know, was it, were they pushed into this? Like you said, as maybe the older sibling, or just maybe the sibling with the most responsibilities? Like, where did this really come from?
This level of confidence that most leaders who are, what can I say this? Most leaders who, I want to say born this way, like where did that come from? How did it develop? And see, that's the thing to me, like, that I constantly ask myself, you know, a nature versus nurture is just one of my favorite questions to ask.
And any scenario flat out is like, man, was this person born this way, or would they groom to be like this? Yeah. I think the positive side of leadership is I genuinely believe that anybody can grow into a leader. And I do.
I do. Now, I'm gonna tell you the reason I think that though, is the books I've read. I've read so many books specifically about leadership. And from, like you said, because leaders tend, and I think that's one of the misconceptions of leadership, we see leaders leading, and we think, like you said, because I'm the same way, like, man, where did they get that confidence?
Because like, we all human, they none of us perfect, we all got insecurities, but you looking at a person when they lean, and you like, I can't see it. I can't see the weakness, I can't see the doubt, but I've read books from people that I view that way, and they always say, like, these are learned skills, and they lay out the things that you can learn. And so, you know what I'm saying? They need a believer in the fact that you can learn to be a leader.
And also, for me, I've lived it out, at least to it. I'm living it out, right? I'm still in my journey, I'm still on the path. But I've seen myself go from like, oh man, just being a leader in my household by default, because I'm an Otis, to like, oh man, I'm leading a national team, and we have a multi-million dollar responsibility portfolio that we're managing.
And so, or a revenue that we have to bring in annually. And so, then I've seen myself excel at that, and be like, oh okay, like, I do have what it takes. But then, once you do that, you think about the next level, and what you need to add to your arsenal for that. So, I do think you can kinda grow in it.
But I do also know that there are just some innate things that are natural to us all. So, are you saying you don't think you can grow into a leader? I don't think so. And that's only because, listen, I've had the privilege of watching some people, okay?
And I'm like, listen, there's, I don't think that this person was born with a piece of what we're talking about, right? And so, this is why I say this, and the space that I'm in, as it pertains to coaching, I believe that, you know, there's a gift of coaching. And then we have to mature that gift, right? And then we have to develop the skill.
As leaders, I believe that it is a gift that takes nurturing. And if there's someone, first of all, if you don't have the gift, it doesn't matter. Then there's nothing there to nurture, to then grow the skill to make you a better leader. So, even though you've been able to watch yourself, you know, expeditiously grow over the couple of years that you've been in leadership, it's still something that you were born with.
It's still a gift that you were born with. I don't think that everyone is born with a gift of leadership. And that's looking at, again, and I'm saying that you can't, even if I'm not born with it, that doesn't mean that I can't, you know, want to switch the game and start to go out and acquire and learn how to do it. But I think there's a difference between choosing to lead and being called to lead.
Yeah, I feel that I'm not, look, I can't argue it because I think it's a technicality in there. And in this regard, right? When a person can be born with something, there could be a seed planted in you, right? That like, fake the size of a must-re-see, right?
We know that the must-re-see is so small. So my thing is that some people might just be born with just the seed or the residue of leadership, and they have to nurture that and like literally bring life to it. You know what I'm saying? And somebody might be born with a more obvious trace of leadership where it's like, man, you can see a kid, where there are my nephews and these, I'm not gonna name people, but like some of my nephews and these is, I look in, I'm like, yo, I could tell that this individual right here, at four years old, five years old, this is a leader.
So I feel what you're saying, but I also know this. And this is where I know you can at least nurture the skill set because having a seed of something doesn't mean you have the full manifestation of it. Absolutely. So even if you're born with that natural leadership, if you don't nurture that, that ain't going nowhere.
Absolutely. So no, I think that's a good point. And again, these are things that we think about like nature versus nurture. What comes first?
The chicken or the egg, like, does the scaler wheel? That's the other thing I want to actually before we jump into some of the content is like, what's your thoughts on a skill versus wheel? So like, me and my wife was kicking it today, you know what I'm saying? And we were talking about like, you know, just where we came from, right?
And it was like, what made a person, like I'm trying to say this the right way, right? Like what makes a person not want better? Or is it that they can't get better or don't know? Like, you know what I'm saying?
Like when you come from the communities we come from. And it's people that you see and you like, that person has the potential to make something out of their life. But for whatever reason, it doesn't seem that important to them to like get their life together. So I use a really small example we can all relate to is like, you know, let's talk about saving money.
Saving $500. I use money a lot because it's just easy to relate to without really offending too many people. So if you talk about saving $500 for a lot of people coming from where we come from, they don't rather take that $500 to get fresh for the weekend. And so they value being fresh over having 500 in a bank.
But is it because they don't desire to 500? They don't have the skillset to save or they don't know the value of it? Like, how do you feel about all those dynamics? I think I think they don't know the value of it.
Here's the thing, it's hard to desire something that number one, you've never seen close enough to touch, right? Let me think of something like super random. I don't know, I've never seen a yellow diamond, right? Right?
Whatever. So it's not something that I've really desired. I've never seen it. It has never given me the effect of saying, ooh, I want one of those things.
So it's a little harder for me to desire something that I haven't seen in my tangible physical space, right? So I think it's more so, and this is such a good question because, you know, I'm around males a lot because of my family. And so I'm just looking at the dynamics of their different decision making. And like you said, you know, is it that you don't want it?
Or is it that you don't believe you can have it because you haven't seen anybody around you with it? And so I think that's more so the thing. I don't think it's a skill thing. I think it's more so them not being able to desire something that they may think in their mind is imaginary.
No, and that's the thing, right? And the reason I asked the question and relating it to leadership is like, again, I see people all the time, I see potential in people. And there are people out there who might have the potential of leadership in them, but they can't see it because they've never been exposed to leadership. Absolutely.
So, you know, just for anybody out there watching or listening, like I want you thinking about that, like the really the goal of today is we're going to get to a question at the end that you're going to ask yourself. So I want you thinking about leadership from the standpoint of like, because I genuinely believe that there's leaders out there, like we just not speaking life into their leadership abilities. I tell people all the time, you got all this content on social media, I feel it. Like man, creating content like this is challenging because it's so against the grain when you're actually trying to help develop people in their purpose, in their life, because the other stuff is just fun or funny.
So it's like, hey, let's ha ha ha, let's joke all day, let's play games all day, let's look at whatever all day, but the moment that we start speaking to something that is of substance, you know, people get bored, people lose interest or whatever. And so I think some of that is just laziness because, you know, look, I've been there, you think about reading the Bible, it was like man, you can binge watch, you know, eight hours of some season of whatever on Netflix and then try to read the Bible for 15 minutes and you fall asleep, you know what I'm saying? But the Bible is life though. That Netflix series ain't life.
And I don't know why we wired that way as human beings, but for whatever reason, when you start digging deep into the core of who we are, we get like, it's like, not anything that important, we push it to the side. I think it's what feels good, it's a flesh thing. I think when, man, this comes with maturity, maturity. And so I'm, as I'm, of course, as we're having this discussion, I'm just thinking through it, you have to mature your emotions, right?
You have to mature your flesh. The Bible tells us to mortify the flesh because the flesh can be overpowering. The flesh can lead us into, you know, places that it's hard for us to pull ourselves out of. And so it takes a lot of maturing discipline, applying discipline to the flesh, but the emotion as well.
So even something as simple as you using the example of, you know, the Netflix versus sitting down and reading the word, it's like, but if I learn, if I mature my emotion, if I'm mature how I feel, then the Bible will become more appealing to me because I understand the outcome of it. Now the question is, what part of life do you decide that you're ready to mature your emotions? You're ready to mature your feelings? You're ready to stop allowing, you know, our past or our circumstances or our situations to dictate how far we're gonna go?
Because if it exists, you can have it. Regardless of what it is, you know, because this yellow diamond while is very rare to have, I believe that if I applied myself, I could be in the presence of it, you know? So, yeah. No, that's real.
And you know, we talk a little bit about exposure earlier. I think sometimes, you know, stuff is boring to us because we don't know the benefit. And I'm gonna give you the real example. You know, when I was living check to check, it was like, man, who trying to learn about credit and credit cards and saving interest rates and stocks?
Like, I'm good, that's what? I know I got paid $500. I know these J's cost 200. I'm about to get those.
I know we about to go eat this weekend. That's about to be a hundred. We doing that. The thing is right in that narrow immature point of view, because you talk about like, you know, where do you want to mature?
And that's really a question for people. Are you ready to mature? The Bible talks about going from milk to meat. And it's not always easy to get people off of milk.
You know what I'm saying? But at the end of the day, look, man, you can't be 30 years old, you know, still on the milk. It's time for you to go to an ex-level. But my ultimate point is this, you know, when I was checked to check, I thought it was fun to spend the money.
But that was only because I didn't know the benefit of having enough money to do all of that, plus have money left over. Right. So I was only exposed to at some point in my life. Hey, if you got a little money, you only live once, spend all that money, have some fun.
I was never exposed to take a step back, save, plan, strategize, and then now I'll come back a year or two later. And you could do all that 10 times. Right. And still have some left over.
And here's the crazy thing about it. Once you mature, you're not even going to waste it on all that. Yeah. So all right.
It might change. Exactly. So let's talk a little bit about leadership, man. You know what I'm saying?
You know what I mean? I got a couple slides or whatever for y'all. Don't judge me. I already judged them for both of us, y'all.
It's okay. So we're judging the slides. Maybe we'll stop the slides. I'm the dude.
We got a video. It is what it is. This is what I do in my day job. I'm used to presentations all the time.
And it's how I actually keep my thoughts on track. Because I'm like, man, you ever do something? You're like, I should have said this or that. So this kind of helps me.
You know what I'm saying? Do that. So let's we're just going to jump into it. Look, I only got like four or five slides.
So don't judge me too much. But I did a Facebook poll. And it was what are the qualities of a great leader? Not a whole purpose of this was before I jumped into this, I really wanted to know what people think.
Like, how do people think about leadership? Do you feel what I'm saying? From their perspective, not just like me saying, hey, this is what I think a great leader is. So like, I don't know if you can see all of that.
But, you know, a lot of the things on the page, I'm not going to try to read them all. But when you look at them, what I took away was that there are a lot of commonalities to what people think is a great leader. You know what I'm saying? I don't know.
Toya Ternetine Brown said, someone who does not shy away from accountability lives a life worth modeling, patient, teachable, and servant. I thought it was interesting that a lot of people when they think about leadership, think about someone who's teachable in a servant. Do anything stick out to you on the page? I'm actually with your top five qualities in a minute, but I'm just curious when you see this, does any of these comments actually stand out or jump out on the page for you?
Absolutely. Listen, Todd says someone who is a guest on your podcast. I don't know about you, but that stood out like a soul ball. That one blessed me.
No. I see that lady talk about self-disciplining character always serving. Kalea, a person with patience, willing to teach. Like you said, there's so many similarities, which is really comforting.
It's really encouraging to see the consistency across the board. But yeah, these are some really good posts. All right. So what I want to do is I'm going to look at, you know what I'm saying?
Because I had a top five. You feel what I'm saying? Like I had my top five. And here's the thing.
Like, again, there's things that stuck out to me when I was looking at and listening to what everyone else had to say. And then I asked myself, like, okay, if I'm like creating a leader, what are the first, what are the top five things that that someone would need in order for me to follow them? You know what I'm saying? It's like about me or me saying, like, hey, I am the epitome of all of these things.
It's like, no, like, all right, if I'm thinking about asking myself, like, Jay, like, who are you comfortable, really legit following? Because you got to understand too what following really means. Yeah. Like following is a form of submission.
And it's just like marriage, why some people ain't trying to mess with it? Because it's like, as human beings, when we give up, like, oh, like, you want me to follow? Like, even though I don't want to get critical. Like, I feel like some of the stuff we blindly follow, we follow these celebrities, politicians, they say something, we just do it kind of blindly.
But then we don't want to give up. I don't know. But my point is that at the end of the day, following is a very vulnerable feeling. Right.
So I was like, I, if I had my top five, you know what I'm saying? What would they be? So here's my first servant of Christ and people. And that's just because I feel like, you know, you really, in order to lead people, you have to care about people.
You do. And I struggle with leaders that don't care. I just do. I struggle with leaders who put themselves first.
So that's, that's important for me is that if I'm following with someone that they have Christ as a head, but also that they want to serve people. I'm a breeze through these. The second one is they want to build other leaders, right? They want to create disciples.
I think it's super important because again, like I'm following someone as someone who has the seed of leadership in me because I want to become a better leader. You feel what I'm saying? So I want to follow someone that can nurture and bring that out of me. Um, thirdly, I just three humble, transparent, high character.
I just think it goes without saying you got to have high high character. Um, I get super thrown off when people personality and stuff seem sketchy. I just can't follow you. Confident and highly skilled.
Now, these are ones that I kind of feel like, you know, may not have been the top of somebody's list. Um, but when I think about being confident, leaders, man, you got to be willing to jump in the front. And I really can't attend it leader that don't really know that they not really sure nobody wants to follow a leader like that. You know what I'm saying?
Um, any a highly skilled, if I'm just being honest, I do believe in the value of talent and skillset. And, um, you know, like you said, when you walk in the room, you notice the exceptional people and doesn't mean they better than anyone, but you could tell when someone is focused, motivated and things like that. So that's my top five first, you know, I'm saying, tell me what you think, like, what you agree with, disagree with. Um, not that you would necessarily disagree, but if you see something differently, or if you got a top five, um, that's that, you know, if you were creating a leader that you would follow, that that would be important to you.
No, those were, those were definitely, um, J will responses, you know, so I, I can, I can definitely agree to what you share. No, those were, those were definitely the high character and the highly skilled. Those were all J will responses. No, but if I had to share, um, number one at the, the very top of my list will be integrity.
Um, I'm really big on integrity, like be true, be real, be, be who you are in the, in the light, be who you are at home, like be this person. You know, don't, you know, people who change character after five o'clock or, you know, change character on a Friday night versus a Sunday morning. I just, that just don't rock with me. So as a, as a leader, you need to be the same person across the board.
I love that you talked about, you know, being a servant of Christ and a people, um, because we do have leaders who are, you know, they, they mishandle people and they don't, they don't have empathy and they don't know how to communicate. They don't know how to build relationships and how can you inspire someone to take several steps forward if you are not connected or relatable to who they are as people. So I really did it like that. Um, number three, being optimistic.
That's a, that's a leadership trait for me. Um, okay. That's, that's interesting. I like that.
Um, optimism. It's like you can't be one sided. Like you have to be able to be versatile in your thinking. You've got to be able to adapt.
You know, we have, I worked with some really straightforward people and then I worked with some real flexible people. So I have to be able to go into the room and be able to be flexible with both sides. So optimism, being able to see the brighter side of things, being able to shift perspective. Um, that's really huge to me.
I love when you talk about confidence, you know, that's really huge. Like you said, I don't want to follow someone who's timid and can't speak up and can't stand their ground and be bold. Like, what are we doing here? Especially if I'm that way, it's hard for me to follow someone who isn't because now I feel like I'm overpowering and that's just not a good feeling.
Um, and then one thing that you shared as well lastly was building others. I am, you know, huge on reaching back, you know what I'm saying, reaching back, reaching to the side, like who needs my service and my support so that I can just be great at being who I am by helping somebody else be better. So I need to follow leaders, you know, who have similar traits and ideas as I do so that we can do what we need to do and feel the assignment. I love it.
And see the reason I like hearing what other people think about leadership and what's important to them is because like I said earlier, I want to be a great leader. That's like one of my very high on my list of goals is to be a great leader. And so when I talk about leadership, it's not the point of finger. It's for me to learn and for me to hear what matters to people, right?
Because one of the things that I really think about when, when people say a servant is for me, the word I hear is value. I think it's important as a leader to provide value. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, because if you're following me, there has to be something that you are getting out of it.
Yeah. Like I'm either, when you think about Paul D'Atonity, like teaching him how to be a leader, teaching him about the church and how to serve going from church to church. Um, you know, how to be with the people, like you think about Joshua being under Moses and when Moses died, Joshua was ready. And so the important from a leadership perspective, the importance of developing other people is because a leader recognizes and knows that they won't always be there.
You feel what I'm saying? And if you really care about the, um, the, the plan, the strategy, the vision that you're developing as a leader, then you would want that to live beyond you. And so you want to raise up the leaders. And so I always question a leader and I look at myself and I'm like, yo, don't ever let yourself be a leader that's not caring about the people and it's not developing people.
You know what I'm saying? Um, so, so those are those are those are my, you know, our top five. So, um, hopefully, you know, I would encourage people out there, share your top five, share the qualities that are important to you, um, from a leadership perspective, but not just to pick at other people, but to listen and like, you know, like ask yourself, like, like, is that me? Like, you know, I'm saying like, I was just getting ready to say I would even challenge you to highlight the top five qualities that you have, you know, what makes you a leader?
If, if, if you, if you feel like you're not a leader, what are areas that you can work on itself so that you can be the leader that you desire to be, you know, yes, I think it is this exercise was so good because either myself, it kind of just, it required me to pause. And the moment and really think about, man, what does leadership look like for me? Because here's the thing. And let me say this, for those of you who struggle, like they talk about the whole submission piece, especially submission and marriage, um, if you struggle with this area, then it's going to be really hard for you to be able to identify what leadership looks like for you, because if you feel like that you can't submit to anyone or anything, how can you be, how can you be effectively led?
How can you be led to the next level or to where you desire to be to a purposeful marriage? Whatever it is, the goal is, how can you be led? And if you're not clear of what qualities you're looking for that are going to attract you to that leader so that you can submit. So don't just look at the qualities and say, hmm, these are things, you know, that I look for in leadership, look at the qualities in yourself and look at the qualities that are going to attract you to be submissive to the leader.
Yeah. And you know what? Like what I really like about that is the accountability of it. Right.
And like you said, this isn't about us like pointing fingers, but we really trying to do is water or seed because like one thing that I know is that when something is in you, it's kind of like this. I watched his YouTube suggested this random video to me today where this guy was going around to Chinese restaurants in a drive-through and ordering place in his orders in Chinese. Right. But he was a Caucasian dude.
So my man is going around placing an order. And when he gets to the front to collect the food and pay the money, they literally looking like, where's the person at? Like one lady walked out of the building because she looking for the next car. And what they told him was like, oh, like we thought it was a Chinese person.
Like, how did your Chinese get so good? You get what I'm saying? Because they're from China. They're Chinese.
And they were asking like, did you live in China? Like they were so perplexed because they recognize they heard something they recognize in a foreign place. And so what I'm saying is that part of what we do and part of the goal here is that if there if there's a leader living on the inside of you, then we talk in your language. And a lot of times what happens is because you might be in an environment where there's not a lot of leaders or nobody speaking to the leader in you, nobody speaking to that best part of you, everything you listen to, everything you watch is talking to the flesh, the ignorant side of you, the side of you that's lazy and lacks motivation and doesn't really want to get up and do anything about life.
But when you hear something recognizable, if it's in you, then you like you get up like, what's that? Like your leadership, you know what I'm saying? Absolutely. Absolutely.
So we're trying to talk your language today. So let's, um, I got Okay. All right. You said we talk in their language, right?
So what's the language of the person who does not have the seat of leadership? Who does not who where there is no one around cultivating that gift of leadership? Yeah. Like the way the way I envision it is that when there's a seed in you, it may not be fully developed, but it's still familiar and it sparks something.
You get what I'm saying? Like so for me, you know, I didn't just wake up one day and was like, Oh, inspire guys, people, you know what I'm saying? Like, um, or even when I was younger, I didn't wake up one day and just like, Oh, basketball, I went somewhere. I saw somebody playing basketball.
I touched, I touched the rock dribble. It took a shot like saw how it felt to make a shot or be on it. Like, so what happens is for a lot of us, we think that, uh, this is crazy. I'm happy you asked the question because we think because we don't even awaken the thing in us until he hears something familiar sometimes.
So leadership could be dormant on the inside of you. You can have gifts in you that are literally dormant. I give you an example from the Bible when Samuel went to Jesse to anoint one of his sons as the king. He found David in the field tending to the sheep.
There was no king insight at the time. David was around 15 years old. He was a young man. There was nothing about him that said you are a leader.
You are a king. He was the youngest son being overlooked overlooked in the field. But that's the same young man that after he was anointed went and slew the life. You get what I'm saying?
And it stood up as a leader. And so my point, he's the same young man that after he was anointed went and played his heart and evil spirits, uh, departed saw. And so what I'm saying is like, we look at those other elements. And again, I don't know this for sure, but there's a part of me that at least recognizes that the order of how it happened.
He was anointed. You get what I'm saying? Now again, he did some things in the field as well. That seed of leadership was probably already in him.
But my point is once somebody approaches you and starts speaking to the king and you speak into the queen and you speaking to that best part of you, that is going to wake up more and more. And so I believe that that is how that language works because when I when I hear people talking to certain talk, I'll be like, hold on. Like, whoa, wait a minute. Are you talking to my stuff?
Don't play with me like, no, absolutely. My thing is, and the reason why I ask that question is because if there's someone who just so happily made you write in a car with somebody who know, like, oh, I know I'm a leader. Maybe you want to come with them and you like, I don't want to hear this. Like that does not resonate with me.
I want you to just challenge yourself for a quick moment and just, you know, find, find the leader in you, take a moment and say, okay, let me, let me hear, let me hear this song. You know what I'm saying? So that I can find and discover a new part of me so that I can discover, you know, maybe there is something laying dormant in me that I never paid attention to. So that was the reason why I asked that question.
What type of language can we speak to the person who may not even believe that there's that seed in them, that there's even a piece of leadership in them. Maybe someone writing a car or in the house or wherever you're listening to this, this broadcast and, you know, someone they always only spoken bad things about your life and bad things over you. I want you to know that these are the seeds that were depositing into you right now in this moment. And so I'm just challenging you to go sit down and find it, figure it out.
Okay, these are the qualities where I am of what I consider a leader to be. And these are the qualities that I desire to have. And so I just actually just go out and accept the challenge. I love that.
And the best part about it is leaders come from all walks of life. And, you know, first of all, I just want to acknowledge, look at our two faces on there. You know what I'm saying? I make sure we is on the screen with all these people, all the leaders.
So like, like, here's the thing. Um, I think sometimes people think, oh, I didn't come from here. I wasn't born here. I don't have this much money, right?
No, and a thing about leaders to me now, and this is where I know I might be going back and forth on this whole like skill versus will nature versus nature. Again, I'm just being honest about it. I go back and forth in my mind because there's a couple of things about leaders and we could talk about what are the familiar and similarities about the people on this page. But I'm going to tell you, like one of the things I think about with like, um, Booker T.
Washington on this slide is like this man was born a slave. How does someone become a leader in, in their slave? How does that happen? And that's the part of me.
If I'm being honest, that makes me think like, man, it was some already there, but like some people just born with it and they got a nurture it. I don't know. But like when I look at that, I'm like, yo, but again, he was a slave. So at some point, his leadership was overlooked at some point in life while he was getting beaten as a slave, while he was eating and sleeping on floors, uh, eating something and the way they describe, I read his book up from slavery, one of the best books I've read in my life.
But some of that stuff in there is, it's tough to read because of how bad their situation was. And I'm like, how did this person become a leader? You know what I'm saying? And you know what though?
That's why I don't believe that there. I don't believe that it's in everybody because the same, the same way he was out, you know, doing what slaves did, there was someone right next to him who could not pull together the courage that it took for him to do who to do what he did to become who he is. You know what I'm saying? So this is again, this kind of goes back to, like you said, the nature versus nurture.
It's kind of like, now, we're sitting right next to each other. We have the same opportunity, but for me, I'm looking at it this way, because it is a seed is somewhere there embedded in me. And like you said, I don't know how it manifested, but we know it's all because of that clearly, but the person next to me doesn't have a clue. And I feel you and that's why I say I go back and forth.
I'm going to tell you the reason one of the reasons that I don't want to come to the conclusion that you just born with it is because then somebody out there who maybe they have the seed of leadership in them, the gift of leadership, but it's so dormant. You know what I'm saying? Like it's so dormant that they think, oh, you know what, I'm just not born with it. That's not obvious.
And then that will cause that person to give up because Frederick Douglass now comes to mind another leader that was born a slave. And one of the things that I know about Frederick Douglass and now I feel like I might mix up Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington stories. I read their books back to back.
But I believe, you know, don't quote me, at least one of them. But I believe it was Frederick Douglass who was walking by a school and the white kids were in their learning and reading at a young age. He was like, I want that. So when I say that something wakes up in you when something is speaking your language, Frederick Douglass was able to realize at a young age, like the value in that.
And he says something so powerful because you got to think about the fact that how does someone who can't read and write recognize the importance of it? You get what I'm saying? Like, how can a literate person recognize the importance of literacy? But for him, it took him being a young boy and walking by the school.
So that exposure is so important. And it was so important to him. You know what I'm saying? That he taught himself to read and write and he leveraged some of the students in the neighborhood, some of the white students, but my point is then he said something so powerful to me.
He did not. This is so deep. He did not recognize how bad slavery was until he could read and write. Wow.
And what's my point with that? Some of us remember, I said when I had bad credit and was living check the check, I thought that was cool until I came out of it. And so the reason that we're trying to wake something up and everybody who's a leader out there is because right now you walking around comfortable thinking that what's the big deal? That ain't for me, whatever it is, whatever it is, but you're not even going to recognize how bad your current situation is until you wake up and come out of it.
I think, man, I agree. Let me let me stop there and say how much I agree with what you're saying. It just takes me back to that. If you're bored with it, if everyone is born with it and it's just up to you, like you said, to cultivate it, to find it, to find something that's going to wake that piece of you up so that you can go after it.
It just makes me think about, you know, what's going to happen in life or what has to happen in someone's life for them to say, okay, I'm ready to cultivate this or I'm looking for something that's going to nurture and that's going to, you know, make this this leader and you wake up. What needs to happen? What does that look like? Because some of us, it's kind of like as life happens as things go on, it just kind of grows out of us, like I said, it's an innate behavior to some, something has to really happen for things to shift.
I feel that and man, it's so many layers to this because I feel like if you are a true leader, you know, part of leadership is taking a leap. You know what I'm saying? And a true leader at various levels recognizes the importance of the next level. And I think one of the things that's super important is like, look, man, there's levels to this stuff.
Yeah, I come when I come in the presence of a great leader, I'm in the presence of people that's far beyond me all the time and it's recognizable of how exceptional they are in this inspiring. But for me, it's also important for you just to recognize the importance of the next level wherever you at. You know what I'm saying? So leadership is such a unique and personal journey.
I am where I'm at in my journey. You know what I'm saying? I've come a long way, but I have a long way to go. Yeah.
And that's a, that's a great place to be because you never want to stop growing. You know what I'm saying? But it's also cool to be able to look back and be like, wow, like, okay, like, all right, we accomplished some things. We, we reached some of our goals and things like that.
And we helped other people along the way. And again, part of what this podcast really is all about is sharing that journey and sharing some of those experiences so that other people, you know, can grow. I love being able to shift the perspective. Like I really believe that that is a gift that God has assigned me with.
And so platforms like this give me the opportunity to help you look at this a little differently. Let me try to shift how I'm looking at this. So whether or not, you know, I was born on the east side of Detroit or I was born in Rochester. It doesn't really matter of where you were born or your situation.
I'm sorry, y'all. My puppy is your dog is losing it. And I'm like, what, what is happening right now? I don't feed that dog.
Man, you should have fed that dog. Listen to him. I don't know what's wrong with you. She's watching the boys outside play.
And she's like, I want to go to you ever run a move with the movie boy. That's what you got to let that dog outside, man. Like seriously, so annoying. Anyway, it's all good.
If you got to go get into the dog and live, go get the dog. Don't let don't let me don't let us hold you up. I can I can anchor us right now. Why you go take care of your dog if you need to.
So what I do want to do is guys, people, I want to go back to this. You know, you think about, you know, leaders coming from all walks of life. And the fact that like what I really like about this is we have everybody, of course, I have to start it off with my men's Moses, you know what I'm saying? Had to start it off with Moses and get biblical with y'all.
But what I really want to do is actually, you know, just briefly, such on a couple of the leaders, you know, on this page. And so when I'm looking, I'm going to skip Moses because I mean, hopefully, you know, if you're reading your word, just read Genesis. Um, but Moses did like I want to call out just a couple qualities from all these leaders leaders come from all walks of life and leaders are not always liked. So this isn't about you liking these people.
Listen, not about me promoting all these people. That's why I put various people on this on this slide. But I want, I want you to recognize something that when I look at leaders, whether I agree or disagree with them, they share similar qualities. And I've seen people who completely are on different sides of the fence.
And I'm like, yo, this is low key to saying person. You know what I'm saying? And so I'm going to call out some about Moses. Moses was a number one.
Moses did not have to go back and free his people. He was already free. You get what I'm saying? So he went back and following guys, we will following guys playing went back.
And free the Hebrew people out of slavery and in doing so also took on a lifestyle that was different than the kingdom lifestyle he was living. So when we talk about leadership and sacrifice and empathy and caring about people, he was like, man, that was a great, he was a great example of that. And also he had other people ready again. Joshua was ready to step in place after him.
So I'm going to stop there on Moses. Do you want to say anything to me about Moses or you want to jump to anybody? We could jump around. We don't have to go in order.
I just want to call out a couple of things about each of these leaders, whether we agree with them or not, they have some leadership qualities because these people were all literally leaders. So you might not like them, but the reality is they're leader. Absolutely. And you know what?
I'm going to go ahead and be the rebel. You know, I don't care. I agree with all of them. And so here's why.
Here's why. Like you said, they're leaders. They stood there ground regardless if, you know, people are going to agree with how they think or what they do. That's what makes them the powerful people that are on this slide right now, because I'm not going to waver in my perspective because you disagree with me.
And sometimes as a leader, you have to be confident enough in what you believe. Now, now that's the same, you know, let's not say that. It's not important for us to make sure that what we believe doesn't align and make sure that it aligns with the word of God. But at the end of the day, leadership is about standing ground and being unwavering regardless of other people's opinions and how they feel.
And so listen, everybody across the board for me, they are right with me, you know? You know what I'm happy you said that, right? And that's why I wanted to try to tell people because we live in such a divisive world where people just look for reasons to disagree with you or like, you know, be mad about something. Look, this exercise, the purpose of this exercise is to look at leadership qualities.
And so as an example, I love what Toya just called out. The similarities across the board is that all of these people were willing to stand their ground. They were actually willing to do something or say something that was against what a large group of people believed or wanted to happen. And the reason that's important to me is because I'm going to just be real.
I see people sometimes like, all right, I'm going to be, this is about as raw as you can get right here during 2020 when the whole world, you know, got deeply into race, right? I watch people like, look, I'm black, I'm from the hood. And I can tell you that we never talked about, I never heard black being talked about until 2020 at the level that it was. Like I grew up my whole life in the hood.
And if I'm being real, the person that was the pro black person in the group that was just always talking about black, this bleeding black that go back and watch old movies like I'm going to get you stuck and we joke about them type of people. Like, and that's just, that's just facts. And so my point is I watch though how even the hood, I'm like a place, I grew up in Detroit that's 88% black, the most segregated city in the country. And even in the hood, people started changing in 2020.
Now again, what do you think they should change? Now that's a few. What is my point? My point is like, you can't talk pro black in 2020 and then call it leadership to me.
I'm just being real. Like if everybody doing it, I could have got on this podcast and jump right in and start saying all this stuff is like, and that's whether you think it needs to be said or not, I'm not saying stuff, don't need to be said. I'm saying I'm watching people do some things. And it's like, that's not really leadership.
Why? Because true leadership is when you're standing in the face of opposition. Absolutely. But if other leaders have paved the way for you to speak freely and openly and people clap and cheer for you while you speak.
And like, that's not, no, that ain't really leadership. You're not going against the grave. Here's the thing. Not only do true leadership stand in the face of opposition, but they don't allow their emotions to weigh their decision.
Right. So a lot of what you're saying and listen, this is political talk that I just do not engage in, you know, on social media, I'm like, yeah, say what you all want to say. I live in a community that they stand on corners and they rally Trump. I'm talking about we got a whole nother president office and they are on the corner rally and every Saturday, right?
And so I drive by now. Are there some, some practices and beliefs of Trump that I agree with? I do. But do I share that openly?
No, because what's not getting ready to happen is me try to argue why I understand certain perspectives that he has. And again, as a leader, I know how to stand in the face of opposition without allowing my emotion to sway me. I can, I can stand in the position. Don't get me wrong.
There are some things, you know, that I may do emotionally, but at the end of the day, what makes this list so diverse for me is everyone stood there, grown. And if you didn't like it, it didn't change them. And that's not to say that I'm not sensitive to the thoughts and the feelings of other people. That's not to say that I don't care.
It's just that if I'm going to make a change in an area that I believe change is needed, then I have to stand where I stand. And see, I like that you said that, right? Cause when you talk about politics, which is a topic that I stay away from as well, mostly because I just don't think people have the heart to listen. I think that in the culture, whether it's from the media or other politicians, whatever it is, the culture of today is to really shut people off the moment.
They disagree with one thing that they say. The one thing I always look at is like, Oh, if I really did want to engage politics, first of all, I would have to engage it from a standpoint that is initially neutral, meaning all right, throw a topic on the table. All right. I'm going to just say Trump Obama.
All right, Trump, you said this. Obama, you said that. All right, let me hear y'all both out. Nope.