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Inspiration, now in session. It's fire-fast, get free, guys. Thank you. Yo, what's up, people?
I am your host, Jay Will, and I would like to welcome you to Inspire Guys, people to podcast, where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. Yo, today's gonna be a great show. I say that every week, Jay, you say that every week. I sure do.
And this is actually something, what ends up happening with the show is, it'll be something that's been on my mind, my heart. You know, I gotta say my heart to make it deep. But it'll be something that I've been thinking about. I've probably been thinking about this for a year or two.
You know, it's crazy as much as we talk about things on the podcast, right? There's so much that I'll sit certain topics aside because I like them to bake. You know what I'm saying? And be ready before I talk about them.
And so today is one of those topics that is, yeah, you know, I didn't say that. Why did I just say, yeah? You know, I don't know why do that. I know y'all judge me.
You know, when you listen to the podcast all the time or any time you watching people are listening to people consistently, you probably petty and be picking up stuff that I say, it's all good. Judge me. Judge me if you will. All right.
So just so y'all know, last week we talked about it, episode 166 with Toya Latoya Early from Chase Great University. That was our very first podcast where we were audio, video at the same time. That means that was the first time you could have went on Apple Podcast and Spotify and everything. It also went over to YouTube or catch the live stream on Facebook.
We do have a Facebook page, Inspire Guys people, as well as my personal Facebook page. I just stream it from there as well, which is like, let me just say this, that's where most people listen to it. But that's not really what I want though. You know, it's kind of weird in the social media world, marketing entrepreneurship or whatever podcast or whatever you want to call it.
It is very tough to build something from scratch and change behaviors. So it's like, I really want to push people to YouTube. That's where I really want y'all listening to Inspire Guys people, YouTube. But most people right now listen on Facebook, which I'm not complaining about.
It's good extra advertisement. It's just like not the preferred channel that I want to try to push people to. And, all right, and I'm done with this part, at least. So just starting how I'm done.
Like I do create additional content for YouTube. So just know even though the least amount of people is going to YouTube, that's where the most amount of content will be. Now we'll continue to do this audio. So if you listen to video, all your nothing is going to change for you.
You'll want to be weaker. We got once a week content for you. But if you want more content, shorter form content in some cases, different things and you want to see some slides, slides. All right, why am I doing this?
This ain't starting off good. I got to stop being random. But if you want to see some visuals, some slides and things like that, you know, check us out on YouTube. Inspire Guys people.
The link is in the description of the show. Even if you're listening to the audio, why don't you just read the description and scroll on through and start clicking some links, listening to some music. Shout out to everybody who listens to my music, by the way. And I will say something really cool about that on the listeners of my music.
I was looking at the data the other day. And 75% of my listeners listen to the complete song without skipping through it. You know what? You know what?
I love y'all. I love y'all. And those numbers are fairly close to the same for the podcast via audio. I think it goes between like 68 and 75% sometimes it's in the 60s, but 60%, 68 to 70% of people who listen to this podcast listen to the entire episode.
That's a blessing. And what else we got going on? I guess that's it. I want to jump into this content.
I really want to spark be a catalyst to change in lives. Like the goal of this content is to speak to the leader in you, speak to the king and queen and you to speak to your purpose. Like I said last week, sometimes your purpose is dormant on the inside of you. I am like so focused and committed right now to continue to create content that speaks to that best part of you.
So we're going to be diving deeper and that's why I want to do some audio stuff. And I really believe this. Mark my word for the people who take this content seriously. I literally believe it to change your life.
I don't have no reason to lie. I'm not even charging off another. I don't make no money off this. And I'm not saying that it's like I need like it's like a victim type.
I don't make any money off of this. Feel sorry for me. No, that's not what I'm saying. The focus of this content is literally to change lives.
And so I don't have a reason to lie to you. I don't have nothing to gain off a line. I'm like, this is going to change your life. And it don't change your life.
And it's like, well, it's not like I'm saying this is going to change your life. This miracle water for the small price of four payments of $25.99. Just go like I'm not saying that we create content to change lives. This has been like a long five minute intro.
So I think it's about time to jump into the content of today's show. And remember, you can also check this out on YouTube. You know what I'm saying? Hey, we had a YouTube video man like in two days like I don't know why I look short clip.
Like 85 views. You know, a lot of them I tell y'all is like 25 30s or something. Hey, we listen and we had about six, seven new subscribers and a little. Come on, come on.
Give me a high five. Hey, y'all know what I hate high fives. I literally hate high fives, yo. Like I hate being in scenarios.
It's usually at work and it's like we had a game or something or you bowling. I hate being in situations and scenarios where it's required of me to give people a high five. Like I have to continue to a raise my hand and then touch your hand. That's two violations right there.
I don't want to keep raising my hands, right? And I don't want to touch your I'm weird. I don't like touching people hands. I probably never told y'all that holding hands in church, holding hands to pray.
But judge me. I'm sorry. I'm just this is just a transparent moment. Like it ain't it ain't my thing.
I don't like I don't know what your hands mean. You know what I'm saying? That's really the challenge I have is like I don't know where your hands have been and now I have to hold them. And what if I'm not by no water?
What if I ain't by no sink right now and I make a mistake and eat a piece of candy or something five minutes later with your hands, you sonnet? No, I'm good. And that that's about enough to make you you know, let me let me stop talking for I make some people mad enough to stop listening. Thank you to all my listeners, all jokes aside.
I appreciate you being here and a part of the inspired guys, people family. And I hope you are getting something from this content that is valuable to your life. Feel free to email me germane Wilson music at gmail.com and let me know what you think or leave some comments on these videos and stuff. Shout out to everybody doing that.
Shout out to Helen. Helen. You alright with me? And yes, I'm calling out one person because she went back commenting on replay videos.
You know what I'm saying? She missed a couple videos and went back. Shout out to everybody comment. Nah, to say that one person name and it's all kind of people comment and go be mad.
But hey, she was commenting on a live and she went back. So go back and comment on other videos and I'm like, say your name on podcast. Alright, man, let me let me just shut up and let's get into this content. I feel so many times.
Yo, I'm a fellow people. I'm your host Jay Will and this is Inspire Guys, people where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. Today is episode 167 and you know what it is? Do what you love.
That's the topic of the day, man. So I'm excited. This is something I've been thinking about probably for two years, something like that. And we're going to talk about this idea of like you ever hear somebody talk about how it's like, hey, man, you want to have a job that you love or career that you love and we're going to try to answer this question of like, should I be going after what I love?
Should I be trying to go after something else? Should I do this job because I make money? Should I quit my job because I don't love it? So we're going to explore this concept of, you know, doing what you love.
A couple of things before we jump into the content, man, I want to give a shout out to Ashley Pope in a Good Morning podcast. It was actually on her podcast this week as well. So I want y'all to check that out. If you're looking, watching this on YouTube or listening on Apple podcast, just look in the link in the description of the show and I will link her podcast as well.
And we had a dope conversation around discipline and consistency. And so she asked some great questions. It was also a video podcast. You can listen on Apple podcast where you can watch via video as well.
Yeah, man, you know what I'm saying? A little cross podcast action, a shout out to Ashley, you know, keep doing what you do. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
What else we got going on there? Hopefully y'all like to countdown video, you know, we trying to grow, baby. We trying to grow. And if you listen to Apple podcast or Spotify or something like that, you know what I'm saying?
Like, you know, you're still getting the content, but you're missing a little bit of the visual action. So a shout out to everybody that is watching and listening all across the world. We appreciate y'all trying to grow the video content. So please like, share, subscribe, you know, I got to get the new little intro together now.
Please like, share, subscribe to my channel. Click the notifications, all those little things that love to explain. So enough of that. Let's talk about doing what you love and explore this idea, man, because I think this is something that a lot of people find themselves thinking about and trying to think through.
And you know, of course I got some slides. So of course we're going to jump to some slides for sure, for sure. So let's, you know, think about this idea of doing what you love. So the first thing is, you know, what's love got to do with it?
So I know like when I'm thinking about a career or a path for my life, this is serious stuff. You feel me like you should really be putting time into like trying to figure out like what you really want to do. Now, there's something I want to say before we jump into this. One of the most challenging things about this stuff is that we judge our whole life under minority.
And what I mean by that is like celebrities and people, they jump up and they tell these success stories and don't get me wrong. Like their stories are motivating, they're inspirational, but I'm a person that believes in taking inventory and really like being real with myself around like what my skill sets are, how to maximize my skill set. But what happens is we typically chase what's thrown in front of us. That's why you have like, you know, how many people standing in line for American Idol, you know, thousands of people standing in line and, you know, for hours because everyone has this dream because that dream has been thrown in our face so much.
Not so many people who are necessarily standing in line to be an astronaut, at least not that I know of, right? Because that's not presented to us as like this flashy dream that we should be chasing. And so a lot of times we end up loving stuff just because we were told to love it. And that's something I really want you to think about before we jump into this content.
It's like, you know, why do you love something? And is it just because, oh, when I was eight years old and my grandma took me to a Michael Jackson concert and now I love that, but it's like, you know, being real with myself. Hey, do I have what it really takes to be the best of the best and am I willing to give that or what like, do I kind of like it or do I love it? Because in order to be great at something, which we don't talk about, I'm jumping a little bit ahead myself, but in order to like be that best of the best, you got to really be, you can't just love the thing.
You have to love the process. And I think for a lot of us, we love the results that something brings. We love the trophies of the awards. Like, we love the idea of standing in front of a million people, accepting the Grammy and people watching all over the world.
Like, but we don't necessarily love, you know, rehearsing for 10 hours for one song or, you know, sacrificing and hanging out with our friends because we got to, you know, get ready for a big performance or be in focus on writing music versus partying. You know, you're as an artist, like, especially an artist in the world, you, these people might be creating the music that people party to, but your favorite artists don't necessarily live the lifestyle that they talking about because they can't be even worldly great. You can't be that without some level of sacrifice. So I want us first to really be thinking, like, what does it really mean to love something, not someone, we ain't talking about relationships and stuff.
We talking about to love something. A lot of us say we love things, but it's like, do you really love it. Again, this is something that's hard for people. Like it's like the 80, 80, 20 real rule, the parietal principle.
And it's hard for people to realize that, like, you know, when you think about, like, who gets most of the Grammys, it's the same people every year, really. Like it's the things are top heavy. Like that top 20% gets 80% of the accomplishments. Probably 80% of the music streams are probably, you know, 20% of the artists, you know, your Drake's and Jay Z's and the Christian world, Kirk Franklin's and Maverick City and these people, you know, but you have thousands of other artists.
So you got to ask yourself, too, well, if I love something and I'm ranked number 15,000, you know, and I'm nowhere near the top, am I? Do I love it enough to put in an effort that it takes to get to the top and also endure the hardships and obstacles that are going to come while I'm trying to chase the top? You feel what I'm saying? So these are all the things you really got to be thinking about as you actually so be loved something.
Here's the example I have, right? Like Michael Jordan. I used to love basketball growing up. I used to watch Michael Jordan come fly with me or Michael Jordan's playground.
All these little videos you watch before and then you go outside and you try to get busy on the court, right? And Michael Jordan got cut from the team at high school. You feel me? That was his story.
That's the inspiration behind Michael Jordan. Everybody, you know, grew up in the 90s. Like, oh man, like Michael Jordan, you knew that story. And we all was watching the same video.
So here you have thousands and probably millions of kids across the world watching one story, all seeing themselves in that story. You know, what's crazy? I got cut from the team of high school. So it's like, oh, here go my Michael Jordan Jordan story.
But you know, well, part of it is I'm not in the, it ain't all height. I hate when people try to make sports just about hype. Like, but I ain't six, six. I wasn't tapped into a A.A.U.
program. You know what I'm saying? So I ended up like finding out when I got to high school and I went to a competitive high school as far as athletics, I'm like, oh, all these kids already was like in the A.U. program in the system, in the farm system, being pushed through the school.
And it's like, I'm already behind. So like, I ain't, like, I'm not sorry to any like, like, you know what I'm saying? So what I'm saying is like, sometimes you got to be real with yourself. Like, it's like, oh, I'm in the 80% on this one.
I'm in that 80% of people that didn't have what it take to make it as far as whooping at the end of the day. And so at some point, you got to be real about yourself. I might love basketball, for instance, I might love whooping. But anybody who knows me know that there was a shift in my life from whooping.
Then I went kind of some music, but it was kind of the same thing being music more so the business. Here's my point. I really loved basketball. But at the end of the day, at some point, love got to make sense.
You feel me? And love might have to make sense when you 22 years old and you out of college and it's like the chances that you make an NBA is one in three trillion. You might have to move on to something else. Or, you know, when I switched over the rap, I've had successes in music and things like that, but it's like you get to another point in music where it's like, all right, you hit a certain age or, you know, for me doing Christian as the genre, I'm like, I don't really see like a lot of success, like for real, for real in Christian rap, like I don't see that success where you could like retire for the rest of your life.
Maybe two or three artists are at that level, right? But that's a very low percentage in comparison to the number of Christian rappers that are out there. So then I have to ask myself, how much do I love Christian rap? How much do I love rap?
I might really like it. I've been rapping my whole life since being in a high school with people making beats on the lunch table with their hands and I was freestyling. But at the end of the day, I came to a certain point in my life where the love ran out. It wasn't enough because the bills was too much and I have a wife and responsibilities.
And so for me, it would have been delusional for me at a certain point in my life to blindly chase that. No, that doesn't mean that you might hear somebody's story and they chased it and they're that one person that made it through. But the reality of it is a lot of times we don't hear the failure stories. And I'm a realist.
Like if you listen to this podcast, I know we only on our second video version, but for the people in all your land who have been listening for the last three and a half years, y'all know that I'm a realist. I'm not a pessimist. I'm a realist though. So it's like at some point, I like to be real with myself like, Hey bro, I don't, this got to make sense at some point, you know, you're 30, 35 years old, rapping.
And it's like, you're making $200 to go to some church and wait for three hours to go up and they giving you, you know, you got to pay for your chicken dinner and for somebody don't even want to pay you. And I'm like, I'm not going to let you sell your CDs. Like I've heard it all. And I've also had some good situations where people took care of me.
So this isn't to take a shot in that way. But I'm saying as a realist, I got to a point in my life where I was like, Hey, you know what, as a rapper, I'm not in the top 20% of rappers and people streaming. I might have the talent. I do believe I had a talent, but how much do I love this?
Like do I want to go through those like, down times and I don't love it that much. So what I'm saying is you got to know how much you love something. Now business was different. Business was something for me that I found simultaneously over the last 15 years in my corporate job.
You know, in the beginning it was all like, I love, love, love music, I love, love, love basketball, rap, whatever it is. And I did some good things and I still make music. So, you know, I have a lot of music. If you listen to this, please look in the description of the show or just Google J will music J W I L N U S I C.
That's one L in J will, but check out J will music. I make music to accompany the content I have now. But at some point business made more sense. You feel me?
At some point, I got a certain level of promotion. I got a certain level of perks in the business world. I like dealing with people. You know, you complete a couple business deals and some transactions and you see some things happen.
You never seen before. You know what, I love that. You know what I'm saying? So, for me, that's how I started growing a love for business over the years.
So what am I saying? Sometimes what you think you love isn't what you end up really loving. And why do I say that? Because what was different about business versus rap and basketball is that business also comes with this with this hard times, but I love business enough to endure the hard times.
So again, you know, like for people who watching this, if you're watching this on a video, this is the beginning of my video journey for this podcast. Like this is the second episode that is a video and I've made a couple, you know, over the last year out there out a video here and here, but nothing consistent. So we're at the beginning, like these are the beginning bricks, right? So we don't have a whole bunch of viewers or it's not going crazy or something like that.
But this is part of that process that I love business so much. I'm willing to endure this for business. I'm willing to endure this for the content that I'm building with Inspire Guys people because what? It's my purpose.
And that's the difference when you talk about love. Like you loving something? Sometimes we say we love something that we only lust. Some of us just lust being an artist.
I watch things on TV where people like, oh, he's willing to be an artist. I'm so happy to be here. And I'm like, hey, well, Johnny, you're about to lose. Only one person out of your 16,000 are going to win this American Idol.
And they're going to have an amazing story. Everybody's going to focus on that story, but nobody's going to talk about the 15,000 people that auditioned and didn't get it. They had to find some other way to move on with their life. And that is the reality of life, not to discourage you, not to make you not want to go after things.
But I think it's all right to be real with yourself while you're going after things, to be a realist and understand the dynamics and, you know, the statistics and probability behind what you're going after is like, if you're trying to make it to the NBA, it's 400 jobs, 400 jobs. You know how many people hoop in the world between high school, college overseas, thousands of people. So let's just use the number 100, because I know at least 100,000 people trying to go to the world, 400 people get a job that 100,000 people are going after. That's a lot.
That's a lot. Like 400? That's correct. 99,600 of y'all got to find something else to do with your life.
I was in that number. You feel me? All right. So let's let's go back to let's go to this.
All right. So what's love got to do with it? And when we talk about what's love got to do with it, you know, the question is why do people want to do what they love? You know, and some of the things is like, it makes them happy, right?
We all want to be happy at the end of the day. Secondly, it comes to them easier naturally. And that, you know, might just be like, Hey, if you a singer, it's singing makes you happy. It's more natural for you to do than working at your job.
You know, if you are processing mortgage paperwork, that is not necessarily fun. At least it doesn't sound like it. And it doesn't necessarily come to you naturally. So it's hard for you to be like, I love this.
So a lot of people follow their emotion and because love, you know, it's an emotion. And look, the reality is some people just take their current job, right? And so you can't see another way out. You hate it.
And you're like, I want to go after what I love. And lastly, like, you know, look, the reality is doing what you love can give you a sense of purpose. So the first thing I just want to outline was that like, let's wrap our mind around like, yo, why do people even go after what they want, what they love? And is that a good thing?
Like it can be a good thing. And part of what I want you to walk away with here today, like, look, if you knew listening to my content, I'm not a person that just tells you what to do. I don't, what to do. I don't paint with a broad stroke.
I don't try to make it seem like it's one universal answer other than Jesus Christ to everything. But it's more about challenging you with content, presenting you with new ways of thinking so that you can critically think through this yourself and ask yourself these questions because unfortunately what ends up happening now is people blindly chase what they quote unquote love only to find out when they're knee deep in it that they only lust it. And lust is not enough to follow through on a commitment long term. So a lot of people find themselves lost out here in the world.
And the reality is time has passed them by. Maybe it's like, man, maybe you 37 out and it's like, man, like it's hard to start your career at this point. Doesn't mean you can't do it. Don't don't don't take it as that because you can do it.
My point is you have to assess your own life and figure out what am I willing to sacrifice and be real about time wasted. One thing I like to be real about. I just told you all like I didn't make it in basketball. Like that's the reality I wasn't good enough.
I might have thought I was a good player, but at some point in my life, I couldn't blame the coaches. They didn't pick me. I couldn't blame teammates or other people or whatever. I just had to look in the mirror and say, yo, you just wasn't good enough to make it, but you are good enough for something else.
There's purpose in you. And then I started doing music and I did some good things in music. I had more success in music than I had in Hooping. But at the end of the day, I came to a point where it was like, yo, music, even though it's something I will continue to do, it's not who I want to be.
So I don't want to build my life and my expectations of responsibilities around music because I think it is a very, um, a tough business. One of the tough things for an example about that business, like I interviewed Montel Jordan for my podcast like three weeks ago. And Montel talked about, you know, the challenges that he had. I advised you to go listen to the episode.
I think it was like 165 if I'm not mistaken. And of course, this is entitled, this is how we do it. I'm trying to talk to Montel, but he talked about some of the challenges of being in the record industry. And one of the things, I don't know if he shared this on the podcast or after I don't remember, but he talked about like how the record company hadn't had a vision.
Like they wanted him to be, you know, that R&B symbol, right? Where ladies is coming after you. So he had to hide his marriage. That was something that the label wanted him to do, hide your marriage.
At some point him and his wife had to walk away from that and value their marriage over just, Hey, I love doing music or I love being an artist. And what I'm telling you is what you have the Bible, Jesus told the disciples before they follow him, count up the cost. Like Jesus is a realist. Jesus literally told people like, Oh, don't blindly follow me.
Like count up the cost of what you're going to have to give up if you walk down this path. And the point I'm making is sometimes we say we're loving, we love things, but we haven't counted up the cost. We only think we love it because we ain't really assessed it because a lot of us are too lazy to strategize in a plant and to understand what are my limits, what are my capabilities, what are my boundaries. Those are all things you should know about yourself.
And so for me as an example, just trying to get your like, so real life example, right? When it came to music, one of my boundaries was I am not willing to do anything to become famous, right? So that's just me. That's just a personal boundary.
I'm not willing to try to like become something else so that people can like me. I struggle with the idea of trying to get people to like me anyway. Like I'm just me, either you like connected with what I'm doing or you don't. That's more so my approach, but in order to be successful in music, to be marketed well, to sell enough albums, you got to be like a politician, you got to be walking around.
It's like I'm an artist just listening to audience like, and somebody else I love you. And he's just like, I love you. I love you too. I love you too.
Like, all that. That's not me. Like, I don't want to do the fake thing. I don't want to try to like package myself as a star or like be like, no, I got to like wear new clothes every time I leave the house.
Like, no, I want to go to Walmart in these jogging pants and his t-shirt with a hole in the back because I'm cutting the grass and I just needed to stop and come get a tool. I don't want to turn Walmart into like a paparazzi trip, right? So those are my boundaries. So in being real with myself, I'm like, yo, you don't love music, the music industry.
You might love making music, but you don't love the music industry. And unfortunately, because you don't love the music industry, we're doing the things that it takes to be like a major artist. That's not a path you should take because it's outside of your boundaries. You don't love it enough to be committed to everything that it takes.
Like, that's not you. So I had to go to something else. I love business. I love self development, helping people.
I love making a big transaction. I love that. I love growth. Like so I thought I love basketball.
I thought I love music, but I really lust it after those things and maybe some of the lifestyles that they presented. But what I really love, I love business. I love consulting and helping other people. I love presenting content.
I love making big deals. I love networking. I love making connections and business and the relationships that you build over time. I love starting something from scratch or meeting somebody.
I did a lot of cold calling in business at one point and you meet someone cold calling and then you see the results of what you did for their business. I've had people contact me after a big business deal that I had to convince them to do and tell me like, yo, I appreciate you, man. Like if you ever am outside of town, dinner on me or whatever it is, you know what I'm saying? I didn't take the dinner.
No bribes, no gifts or nothing like that if anybody's watching. All right, so let's move behind this. So then the question becomes like, what's the problem in? Based on everything I just laid out, it sounds pretty dope to do what you love.
So what's the problem? Doing what you love is good, right? Here's just a couple of things I laid out for y'all. I don't like that.
I like this view better. You know what I'm saying? We can't use the views, whatever. Love doesn't pay bills.
So like I told y'all, you know, for me and just being real with myself, I had to be real about the fact that love doesn't pay bills. So I might love making music, you know, but the reality of it is, you know, artists make like a penny off of a thousand streams. I don't know, you got to listen to a song 10,000 times before I make a dollar and I don't know if that number is exact, but there's something crazy like that. You have to listen to music a lot for people to make a little bit of money, but me, I'm a numbers guy.
I'm like, I need to go out and get this many people to listen to my music in order to do this. And on top of that, this doesn't come with health insurance. This doesn't come with any other added benefits or perks. This doesn't come with a company car.
This doesn't come with a company phone or iPad or tablet or nothing. And I'm doing all of this. The numbers don't add up. And then on top of that, what is the marketplace for me, right?
Like, does what I love doing have an actual market for it? Is there a customer base that's willing to pay for this? At the end of the day, if it's not, don't get me wrong, some people might be like, it's not about the money. I'm not mad at that.
It's not about the money, but then I have a wife and we need to live somewhere. Like, I can't tell the mortgage company or the landlord or wherever I live. Like, yo, it's not about the money. I just love to make music.
And they're going to look at me like, yo, but this is about the money or I can't go to the grocery store and say, hey, it's not about the money. I made a new song and when my wife says she's hungry, then I'm just, hey, let me rap a verse to you. I know you're hungry. I'm a rap to you right now.
Listen, this is not to discourage you from going after what you love. This is to challenge you to put what you love in perspective. Cause sometimes I think we are driven by what we love because we don't understand how to process it. full time, like I want to do what I love.
That works for some people. Their situation might be different. Your situation might be different. It might work for you, but it might not.
What I'm saying is not, either side is not necessarily right or wrong, but you may need to listen to another side of the story before you just make that decision. You feel what I'm saying? Let's jump back into it. The other problem is sometimes people are chasing what they love just because it's an escape of responsibility.
And that look, that's just real. You know what again, if you're watching this, if you listen into this and not watching it, there are some slides on the screen, so that's what I keep referencing. An escape of responsibility. And then like, what's an example that like when you think about escape and responsibility, it's like, you know, hey, would I rather go to work and learn how to process mortgage paperwork or whatever, or would I just whether wake up and sing?
And some of us are, and this is how I know it's really less than I love for real, is because we don't love it enough to work on it. You feel what I'm saying? We just doing what we love, but we're not even serious about that. You're not even a best at that.
Like, come on, bro. Like, how you gonna, how you gonna base your whole life around this and then you just want to wake up and be lazy and do what you want to do when you want to do it. And if you don't have a boss, like I have an episode entitled BYOV, you should look it up. It's like episode 60 something, be your own boss.
And the whole idea behind that episode to touch on it is just that what would you do if you didn't have a boss telling you what to do? And the reality with some of us is we haven't developed ourselves enough to be our own manager. You should be your own manager. I don't need a manager to tell me to work or to do this or that.
I am my own manager. You feel what I'm saying? Like, you are capable of being able to do that. So, the other thing is love is blind, man.
Like, let's just be real love is so blind. Love doesn't allow you to see the reality of everything. Again, love makers do crazy thing. Hey, I love making music and you can be chasing what you love and losing what you love at the same time.
Like, there are people who chase what they love and lose their family, lose their wife or their husband and like don't have the connection with their kids. Like, love is so blind. You have to make love see. Like, you got to paint like the eyes for love.
Like, okay, love. I know you got to put it in this proper place, proper place. That was a tongue twister. I can talk.
You know what I'm saying? I can't talk. Oh, wait a minute for the people this is this the oh, this thing that I can talk. I got another mug around here.
Everybody who listens to the show knows that I say I can talk and there's another mug. I got to bring the I can talk mug. I got to start showing that mug whenever I do the I can talk. That's new.
Love is blind. And then look, love is an excuse to be lazy. Like I said, you love music, but you don't rehearse before a big show. Why do what you love and not be great?
Like, look, that if there was any real challenging question that I want you to be thinking about is like, if you're gonna do what you love, how are you not gonna be great in it? Like, if you say, yo, I want to be an artist and this is what I'm going to put my efforts to a full time or I don't matter to me if you was a full time pastor, like whatever you're going after and you saying this is what I want to do or if you work in corporate America like me, like I want to be great. I give a lot to my job. Like a lot of effort towards being great.
Every road that I have, because for me, if I say I love business and I come on this show and talk about being a leader in all these business principles, then I need to be trying to be the absolute best that I could be. Here's what I want you to think about. And I probably said this on the audio podcast before, but there's something when new cars come out called the Proving Ground. So when you think about the cars that's coming out now, like 2022 cars, whatever it is, you go pick up a car or just hit the showroom right now, before that show that car hit the showroom, there was a lot of testing behind the scenes to see if that car was ready for real life, for the roads and for the conditions that you're going to be dealing with when you win that car.
That's why we got crash test was it crash test done. He's I can talk like so the whole idea behind it is we need to go through these simulations to prove it out. So with a car when the Proving Grounds, you take a car and you drive it and you handle it like my dad and my brother have done these jobs before like where they just drive a car. I remember one time my brother, he had a job driving his car and he would have to drive it for eight hours a day.
That was his job. A luxury car. His job was literally go pick up this luxury car, drive it for eight hours a day and he would come back. That was his job.
And I remember he was telling me about the job, like how it handles, how it feels, the interior, excuse me. And I was like, yo, I went in, I went and bought the car. Like I went and got my wife the car. I was like, like my brother was working his job to prove out this car and he had convinced me to look into this car.
I look into it and this was, you know, this was back in like 2015, 2016. I bought my wife this car. And so my point is at the end of the day, like when you go through the Proving Grounds to test something out, like you're testing it out to see what it's made of. And a lot of us haven't gone through our Proving Grounds.
Like we haven't maxed out our speed. We haven't seen like, all right, how much do we take before I overheat, right? I'm not saying we should be going and running yourself until you tired or stressed out, but you should know what your capabilities are. Again, if you got a car going here and look at that, look at the speedometer, like look at how fast your car goes.
Somebody had to max that out before. Some tests simulation had to max that out so that they can know this car could go this fast for real. Like everything on your car, the airbags, they've been tested. That's why they get rated.
They had to see could this handle it in the simulation. And the problem with a lot of us is we're walking around and we're seeing we love stuff that we haven't proved. We haven't proved our love and going through the process of like, yo, R.A.J. you say you want to be a leader.
You say you love leadership. Have you tested it out? A lot of us get opportunities to be managers and create excuses. I don't want to do that.
You know what I'm saying? I ain't selling out or y'all know how these managers, whatever it is. No, you say you want to be that J. Go through the Proving Grounds.
And that's my position is on it. It's like, if you love something, you need to know what is your max speed. Just like you can go on your car and look at all the features that it has, right? When you buy new cars, like, oh, we got automatic lock, we got a app to start the car.
We got the sunroof, the panoramic and the trunk clothes or all this stuff. Like all these features. What are your features? You should know your features.
Like, you should know like, oh, I come with great people leadership skills and I'm great with building relationships and closing a deal. I'm an excellent negotiator. Like, these are your features. You should know your features.
If I love business, I should know what my max efforts are. Like, all right, what are your capabilities? And then I should also know where I need to grow. And so it's one thing to say you love something.
But if you're not going to be great at it and you're just going to be lazy, hey, I love music, but you never rehearse. You never put in a time. Why? Because it comes so easy to you.
Sometimes we're chasing what we love because it's easy. And whenever you chase what's easy, you sell yourself short. Like, quote me on that. Whenever you chase what's easy, you are selling yourself short.
And a lot of us are living the easy life, the average life, but we want great results and you're never going to get them until you max yourself out. And now, improve yourself out to understand what your limitations are, not to exceed your limitations. If you know your car starts shaking when you get to 90 miles an hour, I'm not telling you to go to 100, right? I had a neon when I was in high school, my grandmother bought me a neon because I had a 3.6 grade point average and 11 grade.
And she brought me a neon. And one day I was late to work. Oh, I 94 traveling east. I worked at Major Magic off 15 and grassy, right?
So I'm on 94. And I'm late to work. I'm like, let me see how fast this thing can go. Now a neon might have one team on the dash, right?
If I remember, right? And your man's, your man's hitting 92. When I start going 92 and a car that maxes out at one team, that car was shaking. And I was like, okay, I can't hit 92 in a neon, right?
But so again, I tested the limitations so that I can know where I need not to do next time. You're not testing your limitations to exceed them or drain yourself. But you might be capable of more than you think you are simply because you haven't been on a proven route. All right.
So hopefully that hopefully that, you know, makes sense or whatever. Let's see what else we got. Be great. This is just a quote I had, you know, as I was putting this together, just a quote that I wanted to share.
Be great at something because love isn't a feeling. It's an action. So again, some of us are chasing lust, right? We're chasing lust and we think it's love.
But that feeling that you feel sometimes, I love, that's lust, right? Love is the action. And so when I say be great at something, what I'm telling you is versus simply doing what you lust, doing what you feel like you love, be great at something to prove that you love it. Get on the proven grounds, like get on that test track, be that crash test dummy.
Like it's just like, yo, upload like I'm doing right now, like I'm being transparent about this process so that wherever it goes, we can look back and be like, okay, like I was this was the beginning of Jay's YouTube journey. And the beginning of this YouTube journey is like, I'm a crash test dummy right now. I'm just trying to see what works, like what, what slides do I like, what what camera angles do I like, what part of the studio do I want to sit in when I'm doing my live video, whatever it is, like where do people watch right now? Most people are watching on Facebook, but I want people to be watching on YouTube.
How do I grow the YouTube, right? How do I share the clips of the content which we also do on the YouTube, but also want the audio to continue to grow. We got people listening all over the world in various countries every week on audio. I want to grow that.
So what I'm saying is I'm on the proven grounds right now. We've been doing this fire guys, people for three and a half years, bought a grace of God. We've been doing really well. I don't want to stop that really well.
I want to get to great. You get what I'm saying. So I've proved that we could do really well. I proved that we could hit 20, 30 countries and like shout out to everybody who emails and we have testimonies of people where this podcast has literally changed their life in the audio.
And I am so proud to be a part of that and so honored and grateful that people would share their stories and how they've listened to every single episode. I have so many people who have listened to every single episode, right? But I don't want to stop that good. How do we grow that and get to great?
I want to be great at this. I want to share great content. Hey, if I've reached you know, a thousand people and changed their life, I want to reach 2000 and not just because it's the number of people because I love this content and I love what I'm sharing and I literally believe it changes lives. But also because I want to be great at whatever I touch and love ain't a feeling for me.
Love is an action. I'm on the proving grounds. I'm committed to growing the YouTube and just at least being consistent. Even if I fall on my face, everybody's going to see it.
Well, at least well, 80 people might see it because everybody ain't watching. My point is, it's sometimes we play it too safe because we want to be lazy and we want to do what we love, which is really what we love, which is really just the feeling which really doesn't push us to create any action behind it. Right? This is about action.
Do what you love? Yeah, be great at something to prove that you love it. Get on your proving grounds and see what you're capable of. You cannot continue to go through your life.
Cannot continue to go to your life halfway doing it. All right. So, so let's jump back into into this over here. Let's see.
Let's see. We got all right. What's the next slide, man? We got slides, man.
You know what I'm saying? We got slides. All right. So peak this up.
For God so loved the world that he gave, he gave his only begotten son. That's John 3 16. Why am I pointing out the fact that he loved, right? Because we talking about doing what you love.
He loved so much that he gave, gave as an action. Remember, love is not just a feeling. The Bible doesn't say, hey, God so loved the world that he felt bubbly feelings whenever people were around them, that he felt bubbly feelings whenever they prayed to him. No, God so loved the world that he action verbed gave his only begotten son, so that this world may be saved and not condemned.
What is my point? Whatever you love, whatever you so love, you will have an action behind it. Jermaine so loved business that he dot dot dot. So such and such so loved, A, B and C that like so, it's one thing to be walking around saying you love something.
If you haven't gave nothing, if you haven't had any action behind it, to me, you don't really love it. You don't love it. You don't love a person if there's no action behind it. You don't love a job if there's no action behind it.
You don't love a purpose or a creative talent or steal if there's no action behind it. If you tell me you love something, tell me the action you put behind it. Don't tell me what you love without telling me what you gave. The Bible consistently reminds us that God loved us so he gave his son.
So we see that literally all throughout scripture that God gave, God gave, God gave. He made away. He created miracles. He healed the sick.
He gave eyesight to the blind. He gave. He gave. He filled with the Holy Spirit.
He gave as a comforter. He gave a mother to the motherless, a father to the fatherless. He gave God so loved the world that he gave. And the question is what are you willing to give for what you love?
You don't love something if you ain't gave nothing. You feel what I'm saying? Like I hope that makes sense. It's like so we talk about doing what we love.
It's not just this bubbly feeling. We be saying we chasing what we love but really we just chasing bubbly feelings and stuff that don't really have substance behind it. And that is not going to ultimately get us anywhere. So, all right, I want to talk about the King David effect.
All right. And we're talking about really what we're talking about is substance imbalance. All right. And I want to go to scripture on this because I want you to see a couple things about this idea of being great at something and proving it out.
If you love it, you will sacrifice for it and you will put effort and energy in it. Like again, it's one thing to say, hey, I want to do it. I love doing it. I love it.
Like we want to do what we love. But what are we giving for what we love? Right. And are we trying to be great?
Or are we just settling for average? Because what ends up happening and this is what I love about the parable of the talents, like the parable did not focus on how many talents that someone was giving. It focused on what they did with them. And some of us, the more talent we have sometimes, or even the less talent we have, we use the level of talent we have as the barometer for how much effort we're going to give.
So for some people, it's like, I mean, I think so good. I don't have to rehearse. I just do this. Do it.
Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.
Sounds amazing. No, of course it didn't sound amazing. I just did it. Do it.
Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.
Like, you know what I'm saying? Now, again, it's certain people that can do that. My brother Darius, he can do that right now. The same thing I'm doing.
He can make it sound like a song, right? But is he honing that gift? Because he's so talented that he don't have to hone it. And that's some of our problem.
It's like, um, you know, I don't want to, I don't like putting people on blast negatively, but it's certain NBA players, right? Where you could just look at him and be like, man, this kid is talented, but they're not working on a craft. They're not trying to be great because they may be naturally great. But your level of greatness is based on your level of effort and your capability and your capacity.
You feel what I'm saying? So at the end of the day, you can't base your level of greatness on other people. Just be great at something. Be the best you could be going to Provengrounds, max yourself out, see what you need in order to survive.
You might need airbags on the side and that like see when a car has airbags, they're putting it in places that are most vulnerable, right? So you got to test yourself out. That's the whole reason for the tennis is to see not just what the capacity of the car is, but to see what level of security do we need in place to be able to make this car safer. You get what I'm saying?
And so at the end of the day, some of us need to max ourselves out on the Provengrounds so we can know like, oh, I get kind of weak in this situation. Oh, I get kind of weak over here. I need some airbags over here. I need a support system over here because I can't trust myself in this area, right?
And that's what it's about, you know, Ashley's podcast, a good morning podcast, which you should check out because I was a guest this week. We talked about discipline and how discipline is specifically tied to what you do when you're weak. That's all I'm going to say about it. You need to listen to the conversation here to rest.
But what do you do when you're weak? So discipline is that airbags that you put up those precautions and safety that you put in place because you know your weaknesses. But the problem with some of us is if you ain't been on the Provengrounds, if you haven't done something, if you haven't tried to be great, then you don't know what you're not good at. It's like in order for me to know where my weaknesses are, where do I need to improve on video?
I got to make the videos. Like we are here now live in the flesh making YouTube videos and Facebook videos and whatever else and creating content because we're on the Provengrounds for inspire guys people. There's so much more that we want to do. We've already proved we could do audio.
We've already proved we could interview people in. I've interviewed CEOs and different kind of people and artists and whatever. People with amazing stories, right? That's been proven.