EP 186 How to Keep Going During Tough Times

Yo, what's up people? I'm your host Jay Will. This is Inspire Guys people where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. Welcome to episode 186 how to keep going during tough times.

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about today like you know share some personal experiences about how I've gotten through during some tough times and hopefully you with some tips to help you get through some tough times. So if you were a normal human being like myself and you have experienced rough times or hit some walls, maybe even this year, that's happened to me. I'm gonna share some of my little tricks and tips and how I overcome those things and keep going. And also we just don't get real with each other.

You know what I'm saying and try to be vulnerable a little bit about how we can endure the tough times moving forward. With all of the hope of like, if I'm sharing with you how I've gotten through, maybe you sharing with somebody else that we being real with each other and helping each other through some tough times versus what we like to do today is just try to act happy versus be happy. The internet makes it really easy to act happy. So we gonna talk about that.

But before I jump into that, my mom had a crazy huge accomplishment. So I'm gonna tell you why I'm proud of my mom. We're gonna spend a couple of seconds talking about her. We're also going to talk about financial stress during the holidays and how to kind of overcome and deal with that.

And then I think lastly, what we're gonna talk about how to get a hit start on a new year. So of course, the new year is coming up next week, but I'm trying to get ahead of that. Like we don't really wait. You know what I'm saying?

I believe in a happy new day mindset and not just a happy new year mindset. So we're gonna talk about that and just kick it on like, yo, how do we get ahead? But a lot of this is about you being able to be reflective and real with yourself in order to prevent short comes in the future. You got to be aware of where you feel short and be real about what you're dealing with in life and not just trying to front for everybody like again.

We try to do some listen, this is episode 186, how to keep going during tough times with me, your host, Jay Will. If you like this content and enjoy this show, please share, subscribe to inspire guys, people on YouTube, Instagram, all those good things, Facebook and help us keep moving forward. I'm excited about the stuff to come in the new year, but we getting ahead start right now. So yeah, this is why I got to be.

I can see beyond the tears you cry. I saw every hill you have to climb. Just a make it here. When you say you ain't afraid to die.

It's a fucking fear. All right, guys, people. So first we're going to talk about my mama. I'm gonna tell you why I'm proud of my mama.

She had a huge accomplishment. What we talking just last week, actually, my mom went back to school and she just go back to college. She went back to my alma mater, Oakland University, and she graduated with her bachelor's. This is what over 15 years I graduated about 15 years ago from school.

So imagine that a mother of seven, grandmother of eight going back to school to her oldest son's alma mater and getting her degree. And you know what I'm saying? Mama did it better than me. She graduated magna cum laude.

So shout out to you, mom. You know, just for being an example, like what I'm proud of my mom for real is just the fact that like you have seven kids, you know, you sacrifice so much through the years where you couldn't get your stuff done in the time and that you might have wanted because of the responsibilities that you had as a mother as a wife. And first of all, let me just say you killed those responsibilities killing those responsibilities have always been there for me, you know, throughout my life. And I think about the fact of like, man, growing up, you talking about waking me up for school six o'clock in the morning.

So I can get to the bus out or really five something so I could get to the bus stop at six o'clock because a lot of times I'll call the bus to school. So just for my mom being so dedicated in that sense, I always woke up to some hot chocolate, some sausages, some toast, some eggs, like I could still smell it to this day. You know what I'm saying? And so for me, having always been proud of my parents and watching my mom, you know, again, always be a mother.

And like sometimes as I just kick my camera, let's try to get that back into focus, right? Sometimes, you know, I look at parents and situations today and it seems like, and this ain't no knock on nobody. You know what I'm saying? I don't want to knock nobody else just to show my mom love.

But a lot of times I look at parents today and it seems like sometimes parents don't want to be parents. You feel me? Like maybe they got so many other things going on or they don't know how to be parents. And I'm talking about people with two, three kids.

I'm watching, you know, our generation seems like we struggling with two or three kids where I watched my mom with seven kids, still killed a job, still work hard and be there for her kids. And again, like Sharon is just to let you know that it's possible because I think sometimes we remind ourselves of so much negativity and so much negativity reinforced today that we think things are impossible. But at the end of the day, my mom was able with seven kids to go back to school and to graduate with our bachelor's, magna cum laude. So just shout out to you, mom.

Thank you for showing an example of what it means to be able to, you know, maybe have to sacrifice for your kids really. Be a mother, but in the midst of that, not give up on your dreams. And, you know, to see my mom walk across that stage for me, it showed me something about myself because I always say like there's something in me that won't give up whenever I'm dealing with something where whenever I'm going up against an obstacle. I just always feel like, all right, like I get battered, bruised, beat down, you trip, you fall, you make mistakes, but I'm always willing to get back up.

And when I watch my mom walk across that stage, it showed me what I was made of. It's like, yeah, that's because you come from that, you know, so it's important, man, like being example to your children because they never stop watching. I'm a grown man. I still watch my parents because I want to learn as much from them as I can while they here.

On this earth while we all here together. So again, shout out to my mom for graduating with her bachelor's and showing that it's never too late to go get your dreams to go after your dreams to go after your purpose in life. It's never too late. You might have been delayed.

You might have obstacles in the world. All the excuses in the world, all the reasons to not do it, but I watch my mom watch. She was working a full time job. It went a lot of Sunday dinners and, you know, for a while, on the last couple years, it wasn't a lot of, you know, family gatherings outside of holidays and maybe some weekends or whatever.

She was like, I ain't cooking, you know, because usually I look forward to, you know, sometimes on a Sunday after church, we hit up my mind. You know, what you cooking, whatever. She like, you know, I ain't cooking. I'm in school and she's staying up to three, four in the morning doing homework just to get back up at six, seven o'clock in the morning to be ready for work.

Man, that's an example of, you know, keep somebody who kept going during tough time. So again, just want to acknowledge my mom. So I love to her. Thank you for being such a great example.

Now I want to talk about let's talk about dealing with financial stress during the holidays. And again, the primary topic today is going to be how to keep going during tough times. I'm going to kick it with you all about a few things. I got a few examples and some tips that's going to help you with that.

There's a couple of things I want to kick it out about before we get there. And this idea of like dealing with financial stress during the holidays is one. It's always been important to me. I'm going to just be real with you because about 11 years ago now, I think 2011, 2012 is I think it was 2011 when I started deciding like, yo, I want to get serious about my finances and, you know, I want to do better and live better financially at the time me and my wife or living check to check.

We were definitely not where we wanted to be in life and I had to make that conscious decision to be like, yo, we about to get real about our finances. And I'm going to tell you a couple of things that happened during that time. Let's see first. Let's go to the comments.

Jerma, what up? Jay Pat. My mom did the same thing. I'm proud of her.

But I listen, bro. I feel you. I ain't going back to school either, but I already got my degree. So I'm good.

I'm good with a bachelor's. It's going to do everything I needed to do is been doing everything I needed to do, but shout out to your mom as well, man. It's amazing to see parents when they become grandparents even to go back and make those accomplish those goals and eliminates. It helps us eliminate any of the excuses we have.

So let's talk about financial stress during the holidays, man. So I'm going to share a little bit about my own situation. Again, you talking 11, I think 11 years ago now, when I decided that. Yo, I want to start doing the right thing financially.

And when you get to the point where you trying to like better your finances for the long term, not just for a particular season, one of the hardest things that you're going to ever encounter, that what it depends. For me, it was hard because I'm close to it with my family and I have a large family. So it was always hard around a holiday season because it's too many of my people in my family to buy everybody a gift. And I kind of grew up.

My parents teaching me like, you know, about like treating people equally. So like that's like an example, me and my wife. We got we got eight parents. You feel what I'm saying?

Because we both come from broken homes. I never every every holiday Mother's Day, Father's Day. My parents may not even notice. We never make a discrepancy between who gets what you get what I'm saying.

We always spend the same amount on everybody. So it's never a situation. We don't try to pin people up against each other and be like, oh, we spent the hundred on her. Let's spend 50 on her.

Let's spend 25 on her. And I was like, are we spending 100 across the board? 200 across the board, whatever. And so as you can imagine that that can add up fairly quickly.

So one of the most stressful things for me was, yo, how do I communicate with my family? Like I'm not getting gifts this year or like don't expect much or whatever because listen, I'm just going to speak for me. It seems like when you come from poverty, the gift given really mean more to people. I think this started when we were kids because parents always wanted to sacrifice and get their kids what they never had.

I can watch my parents do this. My mom did this for sure. And so like in our household, it was like, all right, my dad, whether we broke whatever is going on, they're going to fight to get you your PlayStation. They're going to fight to get you your one or two things that's on that list.

And on one hand, let's be real. That's cool. As a kid, you enjoy that. You thankful for it like bet like, you know, we broke, but I got a PlayStation to or whatever at the time.

And in reality, though, if we be real, it's probably some of the times that our parents should have sacrificed us getting a gift, just to prove a point to maybe teach us like, oh, you don't always get everything you want. We got to pay this bill here and there so you can get the PlayStation. But what happened is our parents always sacrifice. And what I noticed, even now, no shade to my parents at all, but I just want to use this opportunity to be real is I even see that even when we got grown, they still kept the same mentality.

So it seems like, you know, and I know some people's love language is given or receiving gifts and I get that. But I'm the type of person is like, yo, let's not do it irrationally. And I think where the stress from financial times come from is with irrational responsibility to purchase gifts. And what I mean by irrational is like, when you don't have it or when you have other things going on, freeing yourself up from that responsibility.

So you could just be like, yo, I can't get the gift. Like I can't do it. And we put so much pressure on people and then it's that awkwardness. And I'm going to tell you this, the number one thing I don't like about on the holiday season when it comes to gifts.

People expect whatever they gave you. So to me, this the that's the weakest type of mindset when it comes to giving a give like, yo, bro, if you want to give me a give, give me a give. I got you if I got you, I don't if I can't. But the way people operate for real is like, yo, I'm a give to you and I may expect the same in advance and I hate that number one because if I want to spend $100 on you when you spend $100 on me, I could just kept my honey, you could have kept your honey.

Like if you want to give me a give, give me a gift. So what I'm saying is the hardest thing, one of the hardest things for people to do is free themselves from that responsibility of having to buy people stuff. I'm going to tell you what worked for me. And it don't make you easier.

It just mean like, yo, this is part of the process. I remember one year I text everybody in my family and told them like, yo, like maybe a month in the head like I'm sorry, but like when we get to exchange and don't expect them from us. There was another year that I started telling people in person a couple months in advance. Some years I didn't say nothing.

And my point with all of this is I'm gonna be real with you at the end of the day when I was making those decisions two, three months later I had money to pay my bills to do whatever I needed to do. And what it ultimately comes to if you're an adult is you need to be responsible for yourself first and foremost and giving somebody a gift of a certain amount of money like out of obligation and neglecting your own bills and responsibilities to do so doesn't make you more of an adult. Actually, in my opinion, makes you immature and maturity is challenging. And that's one of the things that you're gonna get out of the content that we talk about in this show is like, bro, is this challenging being mature, being mature and easy.

Like you got to be willing to endure people not understanding people not liking you people feeling some type of way. But my thing is like, bro, like you might feel some type of way cool, but my light bill gonna feel some type of way. My mortgage gonna feel some type of way. My savings account don't feel some type of way.

And so my whole point with all of this man is like as it relates to financial stress during these holiday seasons, do what you got to do to release yourself of that burden, that responsibility to do things out of obligation. Now what I'm not selling you fam, I ain't selling you don't bad gifts. I ain't selling you don't show love don't go out there and shop. But I'm saying don't do it irresponsibly.

Don't do it irrationally. Like if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. And I'm sorry man, to those of us that come from poverty, like if everybody want to be limited to thinking that, you know, I got to buy a gift to show you what you mean to me, then I'm gonna be real with you. Like that ain't really saying a lot to me.

Never one, because I ain't really, I think for me, like I'm really asking for nothing. You know what I'm saying? I'm really not a person that acts for a lot of gifts because I like people to give like out of the goodness of a heart for real and like I can appreciate it more because I know I didn't force you to do it. So anyway, for yourself people, what else I want to talk about before we jump into the topic today for real.

Let's talk about getting the head start on the New Year, man. So we got what New Year is a good, what, nine, ten days away, whatever it might be. I think it's next Sunday. So you're talking about going into the New Year next year.

Now we know how this goes fam. Every year same thing. People with their New Year's resolutions talking about what they gonna do. You get a good three to four weeks in.

I'm gonna be real January is really that month. January really just be like the gym is full. Y'all know that like I ain't gonna say the savings account for because you didn't spend all your money on Christmas. Like we just talked about a lot of times like when you in the beginning of your goals, they feel real good because you like, all right, I'm gonna save $1,000.

You saved that first hundred. Over the next 10 weeks, I'm saving $1,000. You get that first hundred year. You feeling good at first week of January.

But here's the thing. The New Year mindset to me is a set up for failure. Number one is because it's the same time that everybody else doing it. I'm just be real.

I'm not a follower. Like whenever I'm doing stuff and I feel like, yo, am I doing this because everybody else doing it. I start looking at myself different family. Like, what's up with you, man?

Like, why you doing this just because they doing it. And then the other thing is like, once that, once that initial fire down dog, it's hard to keep that going. So once you get to February, then it's cold outside. It's dark.

Dang near three full o'clock. It feel like, man, you ain't trying to get up and go to the gym in February. Like you was in January. Then nobody talking about it.

No more on social media. Y'all know how we are with training is like, when something died down. So here's my whole thing. My whole mindset is a happy new day mindset instead of a happy new year.

That means I wake up every single day with the mentality like, hey, new mercies today. That's promised to us from God. So happy new day. I'm starting off today like it's the new year.

So for me, like I just want to share with you, I say the same thing every year. Like, yo, it's a happy new day mindset. So as you get prepared for the new year, if you start today with a happy new day, you get yourself ahead. Start.

Don't wait until January to start doing the things that you know are necessary today. And the other reason is tomorrow, I promise the last reason is if you get yourself ahead and start by the time you get two weeks away from now, you already, you know, then save whatever you got to save or you already 10 days until your workout or whatever the thing is that you put in off until next week, started today. Happy new day. All right.

So now let's kick it about the primary topic today, which is how to keep going during tough times. All right. And I think the first thing we got to understand is faith. Like some, okay, let me shout out to somebody.

A do name Derek that listens to the show. Shout out to you, Derek. I think Derek is from Sweden, maybe or something like that somewhere over overseas somewhere and Derek, all from time to time will give show topics that he want to talk about. So he emailed this topic and specifically asked about how to, you know, how to keep going in the midst of obstacles.

And he asked the question and like, what role does faith play in it? So Derek, first things I want to say to you and everybody else, excuse me, faith is when as it relates to how to keep going during tough times, faith is the lead actor in the movie. Like faith is the hero in this movie fan. So if this is fast and furious, faith is done.

At the end of the day, you know, it's going to be close to impossible to make it and endure it during tough times if you lack faith. So I want to give you three tips and things for me personally that have helped me and that continue to help me. So, you know, first let me say we all endured tough times, man. And this year in particular, you know, I've had some tough days.

I've had some tough seasons this year. And it's been, it's been weird because it's also been an amazing year. And that's one of the crazy things about life. I don't like to just define something always as good or bad.

It's like, yo, like if I'm being real with y'all in some ways, this has been the best year of my life. And in some ways, it's been one of the rougher years and the last 10 years for me. And that's why I believe in nuance. And I really believe in trying to look at, you know, everything that the ups, the downs, and in betweens.

And so one of the things I just want to be real with the people that are watching this show and who see me online and whatever, wherever you see me at, I'm human just like you. So I talk about aspiring guys, people. I try to keep things at a certain standard, try to keep a certain level of positivity in life. But that doesn't mean that I don't endure tough times too.

And I could tell you this year I kept hitting the wall with some things. Now, I want to share a little bit, but I can't share too much because for me, it's number one, some things are business related. I'm still in business. I'm still in the corporate world.

I always respect confidentiality. Also kind of respect people and situations. Also respect the fact that I'm still trying to go somewhere in life. So the way you talk about things publicly, you got to be mindful of that, especially while you're still in the midst of them.

So maybe, you know, at a later date, when I get, you know, beyond some of the stuff I'll be able to talk about it, but just generally speaking, I want you to know that. When you get somebody like me on the internet, don't think that somebody's perfect. That's one of the most challenging things that happens when you want to have a positive or a godly message is people start tagging you and identifying you or categorizing you as like this person that thinks you're better than everybody. And to me, that's real.

It's real immature, really, it's an immature mindset of like not being able to, not being mature enough to receive content from someone and know like, yo, just because I say I'm a Christian, for instance, it doesn't mean I'm better than you. The whole idea of Christianity is denying yourself and turning and repenting from your sins and admitting that you're wrong and that you need a Savior in Jesus Christ. So just fundamentally, the idea of a Christian thinking they're better than you, not saying they're not Christian, I think it just fundamentally is illogical because the entire reason that I would be promoting Christianity is the fact that I am too, just a human being that, you know, could be struggling with sin or have sin and need to repent and turn away from it. You feel what I'm saying?

What I tell you? How are you feeling? Very immature. So the first thing I want people to know is like, I've hit some walls this year to the point.

If I'm being real, like, you know, I haven't seen me do a lot of speaking engagements this year, that's been on purpose. You know, I have this podcast. This is a platform that I truly believe God has called me to. This is something that I'm passionate about and at times it's also therapeutic to me.

So I've still felt, you know, the freedom and the passion to continue to produce content on Aspire God's people. But even that, right? Like if I'm being real, it was a point where I was putting out, you know, up to two audio podcasts a week. We didn't do that this year.

There were some months I didn't do a show, some weeks I didn't do a show where in the past it was every Wednesday. A lot of that is because I did hit a wall myself and I continue to hit a wall to the point where there were times this year for me that it felt like I was an amaze in every door that I went to and opened it up. It was just another wall. And so I just want you to understand that that's a real thing.

And I wasn't doing a lot of speaking. I only spoke once at church this year. A lot of that for me is because I didn't want to be speaking and I knew I wasn't really mentally in the right place. And what I mean about being mentally in the right place is like when you're frustrated and when you're going through sometimes it's easy to take that frustration out on other people or allow that frustration to come out on a certain platform or whatever.

And so I take preaching at church very seriously like speaking at church you speak in people lives. I take this very serious too. But the reason that this is different is because you know like right now we're talking this is my opinion right now. I'm really sharing my opinion and my personal experiences.

You know you're getting up and before church and you are speaking from scripture you need to take that very seriously how you're dividing that scripture, how you study in that scripture and really feeling led that this is what God wants you sharing with his people at this time. Now that doesn't mean that this whole year that I have experienced it might produce a hundred sermons in the future. You know what I'm saying? But from a time in perspective like I really knew that it just wasn't there.

What up Ken? How you feeling bro? Thanks man. He said that one time was fire.

I appreciate that. You know and it that's funny man because there was a lot bottled up in there that one time that I did speak you know and that's the one thing once I feel free and feel led to speak and it was like alright I have something to say like you know whenever y'all want me to speak I got you but I guess I'm just sharing this for people out there we talking about how to keep going during sometimes and like the thing that I find the hardest for people to do this day and age in the social media day and age I find it hard for people to admit that they in sometimes. Now why is that? Why is it hard for people to admit?

Excuse me. I think it's hard for people to admit because people have they put on a max for social media and like one of the things that I try to be very intentful about is like I'm really being myself on here like whether I'm silly or serious if you know me in real life I'm both I'm a very serious and a very silly person like almost equally almost irrationally it really doesn't make sense I can very much be the silliest person in the room and also the absolute most serious person in the room so I try to share based off reality but I even understand that there are limitations to how far I will allow myself to be committed and how deep I go into social media because at the end of the day it has put us all in a bubble and what is it over 7 billion people in the world I don't know that I don't know the count of people in the world today but when you look at the number of people in the world today we all want to be individuals think about it if it's 7 billion people in the world who are you and we do so much categorizing and putting people in a box based on how they vote based on the color of their skin based on their religion denomination like oh it seems like all we want to do these days is categorize people and I think a lot of people identify so much through categories that they forgive who they are as a human being so it makes people not be able to admit that they have tough times maybe because of one of the other categories maybe your categorize as an influencer so you can't admit that you too are going through sometimes maybe you're categorized as like you know somebody who's super successful so you can't admit that you too have gone through sometimes and so what ends up happening is people are acting happy instead of being happy and social media today has put us all in a position where because you wake up and it's the first thing you're doing it's posting and communicating here it's the last thing you're doing at night you're spending so much time here that you're being really confused about who the digital you versus the real you really is and so it's like hey the digital identity says that you're successful when people like you because of all these positive things so you can't admit that you're going through because your digital identity is motivation or you're constantly you know coming with these messages about what people should do to remain happy and all these things and so what happens is again we find ourselves acting happy instead of being happy so first thing I hope you can take away from today looking at mirror and admit that you're human and give yourself the freedom to go through tough times now once you do that I think when you find yourself in tough times what ends up happening is the beginning is revealed and what do I mean by that like the beginning is revealed really for me means that when you find yourself in an obstacle then the reality of why you started is going to come to the forefront if you don't have enough of a reason as to why you started enough of a purpose if you never establish that in the beginning then you're going to crumble the moment that you have any obstacles so I think it's very important that before you even start something that you establish you know some purpose behind it and why am I doing this um not just for attention right there are a lot of things that we could be doing online and stuff just for attention if we be honest about it it's like you know I don't know like I don't want to name specific stuff but there's a lot of things I'm like what's the purpose of it what's the point why would I do that you know and that's how I kind of like approach this stuff it's like there has to be some purpose behind why I'm even here or why I'm even doing this because I know at some point it's gonna get challenging it's going to get challenging people let's see what Ken is saying um it's not all it's it's all of that it comes down in fear of judgment of vulnerability and it's taboo to some people cultures so glad I finally gotten past that I'm coming back to life because I started talking about it I love that that vulnerability and that reality that we all need Ken we need to be able to be real with ourselves like for me right when it comes to inspire guys people I have this platform I want to inspire people I want to share my experiences and things that I've learned and gone through um to be able to help others go through it right but I always try to balance that out and I'm not saying by any means that I do it perfectly but I try to balance out even with the stuff I share I don't share everything because it's not the time or season for everything it's not the time or season to talk about every single success I try to share what's relevant with people but I'll also try to be mindful of my real life so like I'm aware when I'm coming on here and inspiring other people that I don't want to empty my tank to the point that I've given so much here that I don't have enough to give or I'm not replenished at home or in my real life and sometimes there's so much to gain from like an online following or being an influencer that can't be the purpose why we doing it that really can't be the purpose why you're doing anything in life it's to just simply gain gain gain because at some point if all your focus on is gaining you will have sacrifice something that wasn't worth losing in order to gain what you did I think about this in my career you know I've been in corporate America at a fortune 50 organization for 16 years growing my career climbing a career ladder starting pretty much at the very bottom you know entry level as ever right out of college and even as I've grown my career I've had to ask myself how much do I need the game and what am I need what am I willing to give up in order to gain it I won't get into the specifics all of that because I'm still in a career like I said earlier there's some things sometimes it's not wise to share every little thing in the heat of the moment while I'm still growing my career but I'm just saying that those are the type of things that I think about as it relates to that like I want to think about how much do I want or need to gain because everything has a price you are always going to sacrifice something to go somewhere I really can't think of nothing in life that doesn't require sacrifice of some sort so the question is is the sacrifice worth it and you can't just look at the next social media influencer you can't look at people cars and houses that's why it's always really silly for me in my mind for people to show off that type of stuff like I don't really need to see your house I don't really need to see your car it doesn't really do a lot for me because I don't know what you gave up to get it you know maybe you got a Ferrari right now so what we do is we see somebody our age with a Ferrari or from our city or whatever from the same walk of life as us or they got a Bentley or they have something and we we start coveting things and it's like you're coveting these things but you have no idea what the price was what if that person gave up their family gave up their wife their relationship you know gave up a relationship with their children we do realize this is a thing right there are CEOs that don't know their kids favorite color so one of the things that's happened in life and we're still talking about how to keep going during times but I'm laying somewhat of a foundation for the conversation that I want to continue to unpack and one of the things that happens in life is we don't know how to value things we don't know how to put a put a value on something for ourselves you know you I don't look online at people and see success or even meet people in real life and see success without seeing a sacrifice if you're going to look at somebody success you have to look at their sacrifice some sacrifice is good some sacrifice but not all sacrifice is good not all sacrifice is worth it I give you an example if I have 10 thousand dollars and I show you 10 thousand dollars and you're like oh okay that's fascinating let's say you don't have 10 thousand dollars right this is all relative it's just a arbitrary amount of money it doesn't matter if you think 10 thousand is a lot or not but if I have 10 thousand dollars and you see it and you want it and you think higher higher of me because I have it the real question is what did I sacrifice because I could tell you when I when I touched my first 10 thousand dollars there was a level of sacrifice behind it that a lot of the people around you weren't willing to endure in order to get it so people will say they want something people will say they want 10 thousand dollars people will say they want a particular house they want a particular car or they want a particular anything but they don't count up the cost that's bible jesus says to count up the cost before even considering following him and he uses the example of like you know who starts building something and don't you know count up the construction cost so that's really one of our main issues is counting up the cost so let's say I have 10 thousand dollars but I didn't spend any money on Christmas this year let's say my birthday came in February which my birthday is in February and I didn't you know take a big trip or buy myself a big item let's say my wife's birthday came up and we agreed that we weren't going to do anything crazy for her let's say I decided not to buy any new shoes in the summer kept the same shoes from last year and went through whatever I went through to get my money and then got 10 thousand dollars now the question is are you willing to sacrifice for your 10 thousand the answer to how bad you want the 10 thousand now you might want 10 thousand dollars but do you want that 10 thousand because that 10 thousand I got that kind of 10 thousand came with sacrifice now I also want to share with you that there is some truth to the example that I just gave it's not 100 percent accurate but fairly accurate in in different parts meaning when I touched my first 10 thousand dollars it came with all of those sacrifices and more but it also came with purpose there was a reason I was saving 10 thousand dollars there was a reason I needed 10 thousand dollars but we didn't take any trips when everybody else was posting all their pictures of trips I didn't buy any jays I didn't buy any yeezys my wife didn't have a Gucci purse um I wasn't able to stun on everybody we're living in a one-day room apartment where with the air conditioner in the window you know that joint they still make those you know an air conditioner in the window right like I mean the whole house I'm getting cold just that part of the house that part that part cold stand over there stand right that one right there yeah I've been through that let's see let's go to the comments without me trying to fill the room man this scripture about counting up the cost man you can apply this to so many things that's facts bro that is facts so many things thanks counting up the cost so all right let's keep it moving let's get into this we're talking about how to endure during tough times how to keep going right again you're gonna see some tough times but you got to have purpose so now let me talk to you a little bit about this money since we talk in finances it's the holiday season um I probably shared this on the podcast in the past but you didn't hear it because you don't listen on my show shame on you um if you want to join this comment please do like subscribe share check us out on youtube at inspire guys people instagram at inspire guys people you're trying to get a lot better with sharing consistent content that's one of the goals going into next year but look I hit a wall several times this year man and things were it was very challenging to keep this show going this year because I just had a lot going on a lot of responsibilities again even good things were uh come with responsibility let's talk about this money though people like talking about money um when I had when I first touched ten thousand dollars for the first time I can remember this is what's crazy I had a purpose for the money I was really trying to say for our first house right and a short story version of this story is like it's so crazy that once you start saving then something always wants your money when it comes to money one of the reasons people can't save is because I learned in life there is always a reason to spend there's always a story somebody in your family is always going through something somebody close to you is always going through something there is always a story or a narrative to come and get your money right and that's why it's hard for some that's why some people literally can't save money because somebody or something you love or like there's always a reason to spend it so money like saving money takes the level of discipline that's almost savage I remember I had this purpose of saving for a house and I never forget like there was this opportunity to take a family trip and I decided not to do it and everybody wasn't happy my wife wasn't happy about it and that was something I had to endure now you're talking about an obstacle you have this purpose to save the money my wife was on board with the reason when we first started saving and this ain't to throw my wife under the bus maybe I should have thought twice about this story so let's get past this part very quickly but when we got to the obstacle the obstacle was the family trip she lost sight a little bit of our original purpose so I want to I want to really get to really the first thing I want you to think about as it relates to this here's the first tip the way you keep going during tough times very first tip is to establish purpose revisit purpose and redefine purpose if necessary establish purpose so I told you in my example when we first started we had established the purpose that we were saving for a house that was the reason we needed more than ten thousand dollars ten thousand is arbitrary example all right we saved in ten thousand four house now this wasn't the only thing we did there was things which are credit and getting things together but I'm just focused on the one thing with the money so when I got to the hard time the obstacle which was something had presented itself right this this idea of taking a family trip had presented itself and had become a threat so the money I had saved so far we weren't at the ten thousand nowhere near it it it was just the first time for us that we had any money now what do I mean by that wasn't the first time we touched money wasn't the first time we got a big check it was the first time that we had used discipline to have money that we didn't necessarily need at the time this is a very challenging thing for people who are used to not having money you are conditioned you have been conditioned to live check the check and to basically not have enough inventory as it relates to money you've been conditioned to deplete your financial inventory and have just enough whenever you've been living your life getting over on having just enough then just enough becomes enough and that's the problem for some of us why we never turn the corner financially because just enough is enough for us right so it was the first time in our lives me and my wife where we could look in the bank and maybe have a couple thousand dollars right and so she was seeing that thinking like yo this family trip just popped up we got the bread the bills is paid you know what i'm saying you know what i'm saying anyway and she like y'all we should be able to spend that so in the in the midst of that threat that was a threat that was a cold seven red alert threat to my money i had to revisit purpose so we had established purpose as to why we were saving the money for this house we needed to revisit that purpose so it's like yo conversation with the wife like yo like um like um you know we uh we had a reason why we were saving right we said throw uh we all about to be in trouble after this podcast come on yeah join in brother throw them wives under the bus but i had to revisit the purpose like yo like we said we wanted to do a b and c i'm gonna be real she wasn't trying to hear it and it was at that moment that i had to have faith in the original plan now a lot of me this is me i don't like to give marriage advice this is just sharing marital thoughts i want to be careful about this i really don't like giving marriage advice um people who know me i say it this way no i don't like to turn happy wife happy life i actually think i think it's weak i do but hear me out hear i think the term happy happy wife happy life is weak because if you are leading something then the goal should be long-term happiness not short-term happiness happy wife happy life every time it's ever been presented to me has been based on short-term happiness so i'm using this example in this example my wife wanted to go on this family trip she wanted to take this family trip at the time in the short-term more than she wanted to say for her house now the thing about me was as her husband as the leader of my house as somebody who knows her really well i was taking a bet a leap of faith on the fact that hmm i know what to make you happy in a long term and i know that your long-term happiness is more important to me than you going on a trip this weekend so okay i'm gonna endure you being mad at me which she was i'm gonna endure these hard times of being a villain or the bad guy that can't go on a family trip and spend the money that you are losing sight of purpose on but i have them so i'm gonna endure this to get to what i believe is ultimate happiness now i believe a happy wife happy life do it what it just took the trip and to me that's not a leader that's not a real man now again y'all could deal with all that i know people don't like talking about leadership and marriage and stuff like that so i'll let y'all shuffle the car so i've got one two on that i'm not even going to have a bunch of disclaimers of the femme myself but what i can tell you is this that was 11 years ago we skipped a little trip how many trips you think we've taken since then countless countless trips but the reason we've taken countless trips is because i had to endure the short-term disagreement the short-term frustration because i was trying to get to long-term financial health and the thing was i had to endure short-term paying to get to long-term financial health meaning oh i don't have enough money just for one trip one time and then go broke and start the cycle over again no i want to be able to afford the trip when we take it to take the trip at the right time but i don't want to take the trip while i'm living in a one-bedroom apartment with an air conditioner in the window i want to take the trip when i have a home when the home is comfortably paid for when i have this i don't want to buy you a hundred gifts for christmas if they're going to make me miss my mortgage payment or make me go broke what we're talking about right now is enduring paying in the short term so that you could get to your long-term goal all right let's go to these comments me to say a happy wife happy life is a lie male day without male male say she agree with the happy wife happy life uh meet you scaring me what if your wife is happy with that pool boy we have no comment there they they saying it should be it's okay to tell your wife no because she ain't in charge all right yeah he meets the kind of person that'll get you in trouble that little trip all i'm saying is this y'all all right let's see me actually says something this disclaimer this is based off of your purpose you might be okay with your apartment but you have to build purpose around your desire i love that you are 100 right there when we talked about that step one let's go back to step one establish purpose revisit purpose and redefine purpose if necessary now because i had already established purpose for saving and my wife was in agreement with me i was building making decisions based on her happiness based on the purpose that she had jointly established with me excuse me now when i talked about redefining purpose if necessary the reason that's there is because sometimes life changes sometimes you're going through something um let me just give a uh let me give a let me this is a made-up example let's say you you had a goal to go to move to california to become a fashion designer and that was your goal you worked four or five years for that goal but then somewhere along the way let's say when you had that goal originally you weren't even saved you weren't married you were just going after whatever for yourself let's say four years in you get married you have a baby you might now have an opportunity to move to california for your fashion um career but then have to decide i'm a new parent do i want to move my wife and my child away from her parents in michigan you might have to redefine purpose because the circumstances of life changed since the purpose was established that doesn't mean that's always going to be the case but i'm giving an example of we're talking about how to endure how to keep going during tough times and sometimes you have to redefine purpose all right let's move on to the next thing y'all eliminate distractions the second tip as you think about um how to keep going during tough times is to eliminate distractions now i know this is a very vague example when you start talking about distractions but let's think about it first i want you to realize not all distractions are bad and what i mean by that is it's very easy to identify distractions when they are something negative or something bad but it's challenging to identify distractions when the thing that is distracting you in and of itself is not negative or bad what makes it a distraction is that it's taking a focus away from your purpose and so what's an example i could think of for that so let's let's think about this um all right let's say you have a podcast right so i have a podcast inspire guys people i have these goals and things that i want to do with this podcast and let's say i have been gotten maybe i'm watching or let's say i'm watching another podcast or influencer right there's like two or three people i watched that i find valuable to my life but there have been times that i've had to turn their podcast and their content off why because if you're making two podcasts a week and they're our each and i'm spending two hours a week doing that but then i find myself going through a stage where i haven't been producing the content from my podcast then even though your podcast isn't bad it me committing too much time to that could be taken away from time that i should be in my studio strategizing and developing content for my podcast so that will become a distraction so whenever i find myself getting through in a hard time always look for the distractions because sometimes the distractions are actually what's pulling you into the tough time and you know i'll use this example of like if you were traveling and you were stranded and you had a backpack or you were carrying luggage or something you might have to get rid of anything you don't need to survive in order to make your luggage and your baggage lighter and so what happens for a lot of us is we find ourselves in tough times in life and things become heavy and i'm sure this is this is what i've gone through maybe is different for you i don't know like but for me like whenever i go through a tough time in life everything becomes heavier like physically heavier have you ever gone through something where you could physically feel it like it's not physical it's internal it's like you dealing with something but the burden literally becomes heavy that's why we should be casting it over to the Lord i've done this i've had to do this this year i recently done this i recently had the literally cast my burdens over to God because something that i was carrying was too heavy too heavy it was a disappointment i was carrying it was a heavy disappointment right and that's how life is sometimes sometimes you get disappointed sometimes you don't reach your goals in the time that you want it to and these are the realities of life that we have to be willing to face so that they don't burden us or make us bitter or make us not value our own lives and part of the reason i'm talking to about this topic on this show today is because i want you to know that you can endure hard times like you can make it and you don't have to give up and you don't have to lose value or lose sight of the value that you are in this life you are valuable even if you don't reach your goals you are valuable if you fail they're still purposing your life they're still a reason that's why what do we just say step number one establish purpose revisit purpose and redefine purpose if necessary but understand purpose is always there that's why the Bible says all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to what is purpose established purpose right revisit purpose redefine purpose if necessary but all things work together for the good they work together let's deal with this idea of all things working together it doesn't mean only good things work together the good things work with the bad things to work out for you if you're called according to his purpose male you say you've been there with the with the weight it's a literal thing it is it's a literal it's a literal thing man here's something i've learned in life y'all um do not try to rate people's problems don't try to wait rate people's weights i think social media because we're all in a bubble and we're seeing each other every day you're looking at people's lives and you're making a decision on how they should feel based on what you see some people have a beautiful family and they have beautiful kids so you think their life is just easy some people have a beautiful house so you think their life is easy some people are millionaires so you think their life is easy some people always say the right thing so you think their life is easy some people are beautiful beauty is one of the most deceptive things in the world we they're beautiful people that the only thing we can ever see when we look at them is beauty and they can be going through the most pain on the inside so i'm telling you this like let's not look at each other don't look at me and think because i got inspired guys people and oh like he always talking like this or he a business dude or maybe i'm a little successful or whatever like don't look at my life and think that i don't i'm not you know able to have problems it's a very frustrating thing when people do that when people look at your life and try to point out you know things do you know how many times i'm a good example you know how many times in life that people have told me this has happened to me so many times over the years oh the reason you're able to do that is because you don't have kids wow okay so the reason that i'm able to commit to successfully building or developing something seeing it through having discipline through the ups and downs and in-betweens um evading and going through obstacles that you've never even seen is because your kids are your excuse and because i don't have kids you don't see your excuse so now the only reason i am doing what i'm doing is because i don't have kids people say that to me a lot more than you would think and it's not always said with malicious intent either that's why it's a very interesting observation that i've made through the years that people just easily say to me no if you know me you know that i want kids know more than more than anything that's what i want i want kids and in my mind the thing that's an excuse to you will be pure inspiration to me if you think i'm working hard now if you think you've seen me give any effort now a legacy a son or a daughter whose life i can help shape opportunities i can create now my opportunities are not just my own not just my wife's but for a legacy what that show excuse my mom just graduated college she got seven kids and eight grandkids i don't hear that excuse i don't hear it it means nothing to me but that's your excuse so what i'm saying is that what people do in this world is we project we are constantly projecting on other people projecting our problems projecting our beliefs projecting our experiences good or bad or some people that think no marriage is good because they've never seen a grip marriage or never experienced a good marriage uh no guy is good no woman is good why because of your life don't project your life on mine don't project your shortcomings on mine don't project your doubt or disbelief on me no i'm not limited by your doubt my life is not limited by your fear because i have faith and that is yeah y'all like that's that's really a real thing like legitimately people have said that's in me so i want you to think about eliminating distractions whenever i have hit hit walls and find myself in a in a stage in life where um i'm going through a rough time there's always been baggage that i was carrying that was unnecessary so you need to sit and ask yourself right now what unnecessary baggage am i carrying now a lot of times it's other people's responsibilities it's other people's decisions maybe you're not allowing another adult to be an adult that's another thing y'all about me i allow adults to be adults when you are an adult i would treat you as such that also means all your problems are not my problems um one of the most challenging things that the internet has created in my personal opinion is it has made the entire world's problems every individual's problems i don't accept it you can accept it if you want to i don't wake up every day and catch up on every ounce of news that is shared on my social media timeline sometimes social media is the distraction that i'm saying that i don't allow myself to scroll the timeline i don't allow myself to look at everybody's pages because those can be distractions maybe it's a really sad story happening in another country i'm not saying it's not sad i'm not saying that i don't pray for the people it's not my burden of berry berry to berry it's not my way to live to carry i can't do it i can't wake up every day concerned about something 10,000 miles away from me like hey man i don't know what's going on over there um i know that my grass ain't cut listen it's some people out here that's worried about stuff that's going on in other countries and your grass ain't cut you ain't shoveled chose no your bed ain't made up your refrigerator is dirty okay i want everybody that's listening to this show right now about to take a quick pivot this is a commercial break i want you to go check your refrigerator please do a refrigerator check this is new this is off the top of the head right here i have a new standard that i'm establishing on inspire guys i no longer want to hear your opinion until you clean your refrigerator if your refrigerator is dirty then you've been putting off something that's more important than the opinion your share i don't need your opinion about the church i don't need your opinion about should they wear shirts skirts and jeans i don't need your opinion about nothing if you got an open banana in the refrigerator that then dried up okay because because if we be real if i had everybody take that's the next challenge there it is you know what we want to do all these challenges on social i got a challenge for you the refrigerator challenge you go take the picture of your refrigerator and post that and if it's dirty i want to hear nothing from you until you clean it now why am i saying it that sounds harsh to some people what i'm saying is that that's a real-life way to prioritize because we're waking up and we're worried about stuff three thousand miles away and we've put off something important that's three feet in front of us and you open that refrigerator a hundred times a day and you're not gonna grab a rag and clean off that coolade that drip that red pop that dripped to the next shelf you're not gonna throw away those leftovers and clean out those uh Tupperware containers do the dishes sweet the floor what i'm saying is that sounds so small but some of us are waking up arguing with people on social media carrying burdens that are not ours to care carry i can't talk we carrying all these burdens and we even clean the fridge king what up bro refrigerator challenge like i'm trying to tell people let's do the refrigerator challenge and if your refrigerator ain't clean shut your mouth i might have just solved it i might have just solved a lot of the animosity in the the ignorance that goes on online just do a refrigerator challenge refrigerator ain't clean shut your mouth why am i saying it it's something that's easy to do it doesn't take long to do anybody can do it and there's no re-listen hey young lady you you online half naked twerking and dancing all over the place put some clothes on until you clean your refrigerator hey young man nice abs great i see okay picture at the beach put your shirt on until you clean your refrigerator i don't want to hear what you think about whether or not uh we should be uh celebrating christmas or not sir because uh the tree fail off the moon in the bible clean your refrigerator and then tell me about tell me about the christmas tree refrigerator challenge 2023 i need y'all to do this i really need y'all to do this stop scamming it so you clean your fridge facts it's listen y'all y'all don't really understand there are times doing this podcast that's sometimes the most unnecessary part of the show completely blesses and changes my life my goal when i do this show is to literally give you something tangible every episode i believe that when you're episode i literally believe if you go listen back to episode one there's at least one thing tangible every single show we not just talking we not just throwing out opinions there's at least one thing on every single show that you can take and apply to your life today and i genuinely believe will make you a better person in a refrigerator challenge just leave that that's it that right there your life has been changed you're welcome i don't require cash for anything i didn't ask for any money just like and subscribe to the show follow us on youtube add inspire guys people share this with somebody i mean that's the least you could do but i just got you refrigerator challenge people you can now tell me it don't make sense if y'all tell me this doesn't make sense i'll stop saying it but the more i think about it why are you arguing with me in my comments about stimulus checks inflation unemployment and the war on terror and your refrigerator is dirty how you worried about what the soldiers doing over there and you ain't including that your refrigerator i just the more i think about it i can't even how can i accept your opinion about marriage or maybe we got so much advice online every day now i just want y'all to do the simple stuff that's my thing i want y'all to understand that you know when i'm doing these shows like i'm before i make the videos my refrigerator clean the the code is hung up we've done that all right let's move to the last thing before i get in trouble all right here's the last thing i'm going to tell you fight be persistent and don't give up easily now that sounds simple when you're thinking about how to keep going during sometimes we've talked about eliminate uh establishing purpose revisiting purpose redefining it if necessary we've talked about eliminating distractions so that you could have a lighter load right and part of a lighter load is cleaning your refrigerator because you want to eliminate those distractions so that you can focus on the important things and you can prioritize that was the purpose between the refrigerator challenges that you have other things that are in your way of your actual life right and lastly we have to be persistent and fight and i'm saying this because for a lot of people when they get to tough times the first thing that they want to do is give up and you got to ask yourself why do people give up during sub-times well sometimes it's because they had unrealistic expectations going into it they didn't properly establish the purpose um they didn't properly assess the situation i'll give you an example i grew up on seven mile in d-tray whenever i would walk through the hood which was often because that's where i was from and that's where you know that was where i live my life whenever i would walk through the hood i was always on guard for stray dogs now i know people that live in the suburbs this don't make sense to you that's because y'all got labadores and uh shitsoos whatever other kind of uh poodles and y'all got those kind of dogs no no no no no no sorry bop in my neighborhood everybody had a pit bull okay pit bull ropweiler jeremy shepherd uh guard dogs okay uh fighting dogs okay uh dogs that got something to prove okay uh i never saw a labadore until i turned on the tv okay we didn't handle there was no labadores in my neighborhood okay so whenever i walked through the hood then i had to be on guard for dogs and the thing is if you ain't paying attention you go mess around and get bit if you don't properly understand the risk involved with being out there in the hood you might mess around and get bit by a dog okay and so let's listen to what i'm saying fam when you when you go into something you have to properly assess the situation when you go into a marriage when you go into a career some of us have goals and we have no desire to endure anything because the only thing we faced uh thought about when we was establishing the goals what we get out of it and i told y'all earlier like it's not about what you get out of everything and that's why some of us don't fight we don't fight because we haven't been real with ourselves about the fact that it might be a fight required you feel what i'm saying let's go to the comments meach you say me and my customer cracking up she about to make the kid uh it's oh man make them kids do the uh the the free is challenge make them come inside ain't nothing for christmas until they clean up that fridge all right man uh we don't want to we don't want to have no dirty freeages and you giving your opinion about the election okay we need you to get yourself together get them kids together don't be in school fighting and arguing with nobody until your refrigerator clean now when it's all said and uh we got to fight and we have to endure when i think about anything in life that's ever been worth having people fought for it remember earlier i said this i said don't show me your car don't show me your house don't show me you know your rolex watching things like that because i don't know what you sacrifice to get it show me your sacrifice because that's the thing that's going to inspire me to keep fighting that's the thing that's going to let me know that you know what yeah Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan and he's revered as the greatest basketball player of all time but he got cut in ninth grade so he didn't win the championship every year i know we like to make it seem like that Michael Jordan ran into the pistons and the Lakers and the Celtics and he he endured some losses before he experienced those wins and it's the losses that inspire me because the losses show me that he continued to fight now what if he had given up as soon as it got tough when he saw Larry bird or an Isaiah Thomas in a bad boy pistons or a magic johnson he would have never found out who he was the reason that you keep going during hard times is to find out who you truly are that's why i do it who am i it's not a question that could just be answered in the moment you have to go through life to answer the question you have to continue to fight to answer the question who are we you talk about your marriage who are we right you got to keep going to find out who you are you have to endure some ups and downs life has ups and downs i know everybody wants to tell you that everything is so easy and in these three steps i became a millionaire in these three steps i had the best marriage ever the truth of the matter is it's a continual process of growth of commitment of discipline of persistence and the only way you find out who you truly are is that you don't stop and that you keep going in order to keep going you have to have faith you know the bible says that it's impossible to please God without faith that's something that has always like tripping me up mentally it's always been intriguing to me the idea that it could be impossible to please God that's the first part that gets me but without this one thing very specific it is impossible to please God without faith have you ever thought about that if i constantly give up in life it means i have no faith giving up it's to admit that you are faithless a person who's always giving up is always lacking faith it's an admission like it's not even it's not even debatable to constantly give up it's proof that there was no faith proof that you constantly displease God how to keep going during tough times the question is how to have faith how do i keep faith during tough times i think the first thing that we got to realize is that faith doesn't come or go with tough times you don't get to lose faith just because it's tough it's kind of like a kid when they throw a temper tantrum something gets tougher they don't get exactly what they want and they lose their minds and act like a kid that they are the bible also says when i was a child i thought as a child i became a man i put away childish things it's time for us to stop being winers and complainers it's time for us to stop throwing our hands up and you know posting about every little every time some i'm not saying don't share your story that's not something i'm saying like let me not even say that i think social media has given us the opportunity to complain it gives us an opportunity for a lot of things one of the most challenging things about social media is that we're living it out in real time and similar to like the pandemic and things that happened in the pandemic it's very hard to research it while it's happening so we don't really know what the results of social media is going to be until we get you know years removed from wherever we are today imagine like i can't even imagine like even 15 years ago when i was in college we didn't have youtube we didn't have smartphones maybe youtube just came out or something but we didn't have smartphones like we literally didn't have it i graduated college in 2006 like there was no like we had stuff like a tea mobile sidekick the next tail chart that type of stuff and so what's my point my point is like what happens to a person when you give them a device that becomes a portal into the rest of the world back and forth not only can you share but you can receive from all over the world when i was in school you was worried about being a cutest person in the class maybe the school best dress in the class maybe the school you even know what was happening at the next school over unless you had a friend over there i wasn't trying to beat a cutest person at the next school over i wasn't trying to beat a cutest person on the west side i lived on the east side but these phones have given us a portal into the rest of the world and now with that portal we are also carrying the burdens the responsibilities the information of the rest of the world and we find ourselves really living out of case study and an experiment without realizing that we're in it that like what do you what happens to a person mentally spiritually physically emotionally when you give them a portal into the rest of the world we're we're seeing it every day people aren't truly happy they aren't truly at peace depression anxiety mental issues i'm not saying it's all i'm not blaming social media no like you have a responsibility to i'm not blaming your phone but what i'm saying is have you ever stopped and took a moment to think about like how does this portal impact me i'm worried about stuff that i never worried about before and my refrigerator is dirty i'm ignoring the thing that's right in front of me because everybody else is talking or posting about the other thing some of us some of us some of us went and made a cartoon out of ourselves on the lens of app and paid for it just because the next person did it i don't have a cartoon coming out there's no album like no no purpose behind it like everybody else did it so i did it people walked outside on crates a year or two ago for the crate challenge for no other reason than they opened up the portal and people all across the portal were doing it i don't have no problem with that if that's what you want to do but is that refrigerated clean have you taken care of the things right in front of you before you worry about the rest of the world is your child's diaper change did you sweep the floor and right in front of you did you finish the project that you were supposed to do i'm talking about prioritizing taking ownership accountability and responsibility for your own life your own dreams your own purpose your own goal and doing that first before you be finally yourself arguing about what's going on in another country or five states over or what they protesting about i'm just being real i made up my mind in 2020 when everybody was mad about everything i wasn't mad listen to go back to the show in 2020 and listen to inspire guys people from march 2020 to December 2020 just go listen to all the episodes look at the dates on apple podcast spotify is there you can see how i was talking i went mad like everybody else was mad because i couldn't carry it and i knew i couldn't carry it wasn't oh man it's not that i don't care it's that i don't carry whoo before we go i always got to get y'all some fire you know i'm saying like it's not that i don't care it's that i don't carry i need to let that marinate i don't carry next time somebody say somebody say something to me that i can't and it's a burden that i can't carry i'm like oh i don't carry they're not gonna know what i'm talking about tell somebody that the next time they come to you with some drama or something because in a reason i'm saying this it's not to be mean or dismissive but it's because i can't carry it it's bringing me down like i'm gonna just be real with you all about something and i'm saying is uh it's like some stuff man you gotta because i'm genuinely not saying it to sound harsh but i do want to say it to make my point the internet has given us news and information all across the literal world but it's still not all the news it's topics or stories at the the media selects because they know it'll get people riled up and so there were there are times that people are getting riled up about something that happened five states over that they don't know nothing about maybe it's racially driven racially driven content really gets people emotionally triggered and moves people so if you take something racial that happened in Oklahoma right let me just i'm just using an example now everybody's outraged about this situation that happened in Oklahoma i might wake up and decide i don't carry not i don't care i don't carry why not you know my cousin got murdered this year i didn't see everybody in the world carrying a burden of it they didn't it wasn't their burden to carry but our family had you know two funerals back to back at one point in August two days in a row two young men we didn't project it on the rest of the world to carry that burden there are people there are things happening every day you can't carry it all and if you try you will realize that you are not god so what am i saying give yourself the freedom not to carry just because everybody else in the world is carrying doesn't mean you got to carry hope this content helps somebody today man i hope it bless you i hope you have a great um holiday season i really hope you share like this content uh vibe with me on on youtube man i'm sharing youtube shorts now i'm trying to get better with sharing them daily um and just being consistent with my content thank you jen always appreciate you um much love to you and i know for me man as i go into the next year always try to think about like you know goals and what i'm trying to do um and the information i share today is part of also how i do that you know establish purpose revisit purpose redefine purpose so when i think about that going into this new year how i'm gonna set up my new goals whatever those are is i'm gonna go back to the purpose established because purpose has already been established with what i'm trying to do with my lifestyle goals um dreams and commitments and stuff like that we're gonna revisit that purpose to remind ourselves i think that's important to remind yourself because sometimes the way after year you forget sometimes throughout the ups and the downs i forget you know i'm saying why i'm doing something you want to remind yourself so that you don't act out of the unforgiveness like so you know if you if you are mindful of your purpose why you're doing what you're doing and all that that drives you when you forget that then you start acting different i've been there um and your redefine purpose where necessary i think i got some a couple areas where i need to redefine the purpose behind my goals you know i'm saying and that's a real thing too and so ultimately ultimately i hope you can take away from today man that you're human give yourself the freedom to be human um all this idea that everybody's so perfect like it's just weird to me i'm just being real it's just weird to me um that's what i don't like about cancel culture because i kind of think well we all should be canceled then if you like if you're gonna dig in somebody's i've seen stuff like i remember this i'm not even gonna say his name because i don't want to bring up some negative and attach it to a person but there's a white football player came in the league like five years ago to the NFL and he was a top like 10 pick or something like that and i remember they had found a tweet where he said something racist about black people from when he was like 16 and they were questioning him about that now granted you know i guess by the time of the draft he only like 21 22 whatever it was five six years ago cool you can make that argument but i mean what you say when you were 16 what did i say at 16 bro y'all i don't man you think somebody want to be you think i want to held against me some stuff that i said when i was 16 i don't want what i said at 26 to be held against me because i that was an immature person so just this this idea man and we got to go around self-righteously judging and canceling everybody and i don't carry that burden i don't carry i'm human i'm trying to learn i'm trying to grow i'm not better than nobody i'm not like i don't think i'm better than somebody i don't think like oh my god i am the golden child and like no i think i'm human i think i'm struggling just like everybody else i think i have wins just like everybody else i have ups and downs and i'm allowing myself to be a human being and to continue to try to cast my cares over to the lord you feel what i'm saying and uh i think part of that man so yo what up bro how you feeling man what up though um check out melody of comfort my god and tonyo um avry been knowing that guy since uh kindergarten ain't that crazy to have a friend from kindergarten we were literally in kindergarten together so shout out and tonyo melody of comfort is his brand should have worn that hoodie today just so it would have been a dope coincidence um thanks me appreciate you bro let's see yeah this was dope i've been trying to encourage especially during this time amen uh clean your fridge cut your grass love your family and be thankful i love that i literally love that remember you're not god and don't carry the burdens of the world thank god i ain't famous because it's stuff i've said yesterday uh hey bro literally yesterday and look man i just i just hope and pray that everybody's get themselves a freedom to be human and um know that we need the lord like we need jesus like that's why we repent um everybody falls short this idea that somebody is perfect or whatever it's just weird man i don't accept all this weird stuff in the world today i don't it's a lot of weird stuff i just don't vibe with it so look rock with inspire guys people we gonna keep putting out content check out the youtube short clips man i try to post them every other day um it's at inspire guys people on youtube still dropping new content on apple podcast if you prefer to audio check it out there but i hope y'all have a great sandwich y'all family um that you definitely enjoy this holiday season man because um there's a lot for us to be thankful and grateful for and even if you have enough time i pray that you endure i pray that this show today man that i said at least one or two things to help you out if you don't take nothing else away from this please clean your refrigerator like i might have to read i think i'm gonna re-tidal the name of this episode clean your refrigerator that's that's what we doing i'm changing the title it is what it is you know i'm saying my guy and son y'all yeah walking to school together pre-ay man i remember those days so appreciate you bro look much love to everybody out there man y' y'all do what y'all doing with y'all families you say you was literally thinking eight s fire bro yeah man we uh we had a dope talk today um a lot of dope things hopefully was said and received from people so especially anybody who missed it definitely go check it out um when i jump off and um let me know what y'all think man but please do like subscribe and share share with somebody there's a lot of people going through man um not just in this season but just period especially with you know social media puts people in a position to try to live up to things that nobody can live up to and that's another thing like with me it's like nah man i'm i let myself be human like bro you a human you can't live up to all this stuff like it is what it is no doubts on y'all thank you man much love bro everybody having a amazing holiday and uh you know i'm sure i'll be posting some crazy stuff over the next few days it always depends on what happened in life i'm telling y'all just wake up and i'll just post whatever i'll let life do the post in man so much love got blessed y'all be easy man mary christ