Inspiration, now in session. Inspire Guys, people. All the records. All right, I'm ready.
My dream's lined up with guys' dreams. Now you know exactly what I mean, but this day's off the record. Let's talk off the record. This is off the record.
Let's get off the record. Yeah. What's up, people? I am your host, Jay Will.
And I would like to welcome you to inspire guys, people, off the record. How y'all feeling today? It's the holiday season. I don't know why I just saying that.
I really don't. But the holiday season is here. Maybe you're listening to this show and it's not the holiday season. You know what I'm saying?
Maybe this is a rerun at some point. But we gonna make this make sense for you, either way. No matter the season. All right, let me stop singing.
So this is what happens for me doing the holiday season. I get very reflective, reminiscent. I don't know why. It just kind of throws me into that type of mood, where I'm always thinking about things.
You know what I mean? I'm kind of thinking about my journey so far, right? And where God has brought me from. Some of the things that God is doing in my life, I literally, it's like a dream come true.
Like I can't believe it. You know what I mean? Because I still see myself as the young kid from the east side seven mile in Detroit. Like I'm the same person, but I'm different.
One of the things that is interesting for me is trying to understand certain aspects of the new generation that are a little different than what I grew up on. So I'll kind of sit back and watch my nephews and nieces around the house and how they are with their parents and grandparents and things like that. And there are some things that are a little interesting about how things are done today. Now keep in mind, I'm not judging.
I'm just observing. You feel what I'm saying? I'm not saying which one is better. I'm just saying that stuff is kind of different.
And something as simple as I watched a kid in my family recently at the dinner table, that was, this kid decided they were done with their food. Now we're just gonna throw an age, a random age, so nobody knows what I'm talking about if my family listen to this. All right, so the kid is under 10 at the table and decides I'm done with my food. Like, I'm not saying that the food is gone.
I'm saying this is a child. It has just decided that the food that you just slaved over and made, they done with it. Like done, meaning I'm throwing it all away. And it's like, oh wow.
And the parent was just like, okay, cool, you done. I'm like, man, that is different. Like I grew up way different than that. The way I grew up is like, you a kid?
And it's like, hey, my, I'm done. It's like, what, what you done? Hold on, because it's two problems. No, number one, the problem is, there's still food on your plate.
You get what I mean? Like, you're saying you're done, but there's still food there. Here's the second part that makes it super tricky. The kid isn't done eating because the kid wants cookie, cake, ice cream, they still want to consume something.
They're just done with that. And so there's this idea in the past, when I used to tell my mom, hey, I'm done with that. There was something she used to say to me, you know what her response was? You ain't getting nothing else until you finish your plate.
Okay, I need y'all to follow me on this. It makes me think about living this Christian life and how we can be so greedy sometimes. Always asking God for more. God, give me a word.
I need a word today. I'm going through something. I need a word. And it's like, haven't you got a whole bunch of words that you ain't even finished digesting yet?
The word is the word. And the word has been the word. And sometimes we're asking God for more. And it's like, finish your plate.
Come on, man, y'all know how it is around Thanksgiving time and stuff. Oh, Thanksgiving, you eat the food the first day, right? You wrap that food up, you put it in the refrigerator. And then you, the next day, you don't wake up the day after Thanksgiving and cook breakfast, not normal people.
You get what I'm saying? The day after Thanksgiving, you wake up and you grab that good food, cause it's still good and it's still food on your plate. Cause you know that I had something good and it ain't finished. I'm not just gonna throw no food away.
Let me tell you something. I love sweet potato pie. If I watch you throw a perfectly good slice of sweet potato pie in the trash on Thanksgiving, we about to fight. Why?
Because it's good. What am I saying to you? God has given us a lot of good. The issue that we have a lot of times in his life is that we want more before we finish the good that God has already given us.
And then we become blinded by our greed. We can't even see the good anymore. So imagine this. You cook the food and the kid like, oh no, I don't want that.
I'm done with that. And you're looking like, oh my, wait a minute. After everything I did, I had to work overtime about him green beans in the can. You get what I'm saying?
And so a lot of times we're overlooking blessings because we're chasing blessings. What am I talking about, man? In this life, we have to learn how to be content. This is a process.
I'm always talking about the process because I realize that every single thing in this life is a process. Okay, I'll give you an idea. So I was five, three, I think in seventh grade, I came back the next year in eighth grade, I was five, nine. Now here's the crazy thing about it.
I grew, but I never felt myself grow. Like, have you, I, listen, I'm no longer a baby. I'm taller than I was when I was six years old right now. But the crazy thing about it is I never felt myself grow.
You just wake up one day and you taller. You wake up one day and your uncle or your auntie's like, hey boy, when you get a beer? And it's like, you know what? I never felt hair grow out of my face.
And so what happens is you don't feel growth all the time because it happens gradually. So you grow little by little. It doesn't always happen overnight. No, it's over many nights.
And it's like that we're living, we ask God for things. God bless me with this, do this for me, all that stuff. And you ask God for a bunch of things and God is doing it. You walk down this path of righteousness and Christianity and trusting in the Lord and reading his word.
You don't feel like you're growing. You like, man, Jay said, read the story of Joseph. I don't feel no different. I don't listen to seven episodes of inspired guys, people.
And I don't feel no different. And what I'm challenging you and saying is that you don't feel yourself growing, but you growing. I promise you, if you listen to seven episodes of this show already, some type of growth is happening. But the problem is we lack contentment.
So we want the growth faster than God has given it to us. You know what I'm saying? And so it's like, when God gives you something good, stop asking him for more and finish your play. So what am I saying?
A child under 10 years old hasn't gone to work yet. They haven't had to cook yet. And so that child has not gained the experience or the understanding of what it takes to put a meal before them. So it's your job, our job as adults and parents to teach them those lessons.
So that's why you might need to tell them, finish your play or you not getting nothing else. Okay, cool. It got to be something, but we can't let kids go around and start setting the rules that are going to set them up for failure once they're in the real world. Because in the real world, you might have to finish your play.
And you know why it's important to finish your play? Because guess what? When I eat food, I get full. That got to go through my digestive system.
You know what I'm saying? You're not going to experience nothing I experience if you just watch me eat. Even if I set the plate, see I could set the plate before you. I could cook it up, slice the turkey pour gravy all over it.
I could put it right in front of you, but I can't eat it for you. And the thing with a lot of us is that we're trying to get full off of someone else's plate. Off of what someone else took the time to digest. It takes time.
This is why I listen to audio books. And I pick and choose the information that I actually download into my system, that I listen to, that I watch. Like there are certain songs I don't listen to and artists that I don't listen to. And I hate award shows.
I haven't watched award shows in like 10 years. That's just super sidebar. But it's because it's foolishness to me. And I'm so serious about what I'm doing that I literally don't have time for foolishness.
Like I don't have time for that. The things that I do choose for entertainment are either a lot of times neutral or indifferent, or there's something that's adding into what I do. And so I don't like things to tear me down. I always look at things two ways.
This is either taking me towards my purpose or is keeping me away from my purpose. Now that's up to you to decide for your life. All I could do is cook up the food and lay it on a plate before you. But you can't get full off of what I eat.
You know what I'm saying? Listen, the truth is it took me a long time to get to where I'm at today. And in reality, I still have a very long way to go. But what I'm learning each and every day is enjoy the process and don't fast forward my way through life because each and every day that we live, we're closer to our last day.
So my thing is like, let me enjoy this journey. Let me enjoy each and every moment with my loved ones. Let me enjoy the hope of starting something new, like this show and not really knowing where's this gonna go. I'm a couple of months into this process and by the grace of God, we have a radio show now.
We're on Urban Family Talk and six markets down south. You know what I mean? So you can check out the show, might as well throw a little promo in there since I'm talking about it. You can check out the show on Saturdays at 3pm EST on UrbanFamilyTalk.com.
Look at that, that's God moving. I don't know what this means yet. I don't know if this is the start of something bigger or if this is just one thing individually by itself. But what I'm learning is like, enjoy that.
Enjoy the fact that we just started this show and now we're reaching more people and God is opening doors. And yeah, I would like to be on more Christian radio shows as well in radio networks or whatever, but I'm not in the rush to get there because I know that even though I can't see myself growing, I'm growing. And I like to relate it to the Bible and what I read in the Bible. This is why I resonate with stories like David.
When I'm reading about David in the field. I say it all the time. I say it in one of my songs. Like, I'm the David in the field tending to the sheep.
I'm King David, the way before he was the king. This the David in the field tending to the sheep. The sheep. Because everyone wants to be that King version of David.
But if you just start off as the King version of David, like today, as you are today, as I am today, we might not be ready for that responsibility. And if you get something that you're not ready for, you could literally hurt yourself and other people along the way. So I'm learning not to just grab at things that I'm not prepared for. You get what I mean?
Because if you get it while you're unprepared, it will not help you, it will hurt you. If you could just think of that and remember that, then I think we'll be okay. But we also got to learn that there's a benefit to gradually growing, because when you gradually grow, you learn little bitty lessons along the way. And you're not forced to try to learn everything at one time.
A lot of times I look at like child stars in Hollywood. If you look at most, I'm not gonna say most. I'm not gonna put a number on it. But if you look at a lot of the child stars that come into the industry, they're out of their mind by the time they're teenagers and adults.
Like out of the craziest people in Hollywood, Hollywood, not Woods. I don't know why I put an S. In Hollywoods, anyway, the craziest people in Hollywood sometimes are the ones who got there the fastest. Because they got there and weren't ready for everything that that lifestyle has to offer.
And it ends up hurting them and robbing them of their innocence. I mean, some of them are out of their mind, but hey, love you guys. Bless you. This is why I'm learning.
Don't chase things that aren't for you. Sometimes you got to recognize the difference between your plan and God's plan. And I know for myself that the two don't always line up. And if you find yourself in a situation where it's like, okay, my plan ain't ending up with God's plan.
God's plan ain't ending up with my plan. Me and God just ain't on the same page. We got to ask yourself a question. Who has the requirement to change their page?
If you're not on the same page as God, then you have to change the page. In a fantasy world, I guess you would expect God to just change because always say he'll give me the desires of my heart. Yep, but the first part says delight yourself in the Lord. Then, you know, there's a front part to that.
First, delight yourself in the Lord. Then he'll give you the desires of your heart. Well, delighting yourself in something means to align with it. It means, oh yeah, this the page I'm on, once you align with my page, you'll get the things that I already plan to give you.
Do you see what I'm saying? People, God said a plate before you. He said a plan before you. Some things that he has just for you, but it's up to you to take that initiative to get on the same page as him and say, you know what, God, okay, cool.
You want me to finish this first? I wanted to jump straight to the cheesecake in the dessert if you want me to be real, because that's what we do as human beings. A lot of times we're trying to get ahead without working for it. And we think that by cheating life, that we're getting over on something or someone else.
When it's actually us who's losing out, it's kind of like cheating on a test in school. You think that you did something because you got to A and you didn't have to work for it, you didn't have to read, study, and you didn't have to go through the process of growing and learning. Well, let's think about this. Who really loses out when you cheat on a test?
Who doesn't get the information that the test was meant to provide? You're the one who don't learn. You're the one who doesn't have the added benefit of knowing that one plus one equals two later on in life. When you trying to cash your check and you was telling yourself, I never need math.
Well, how you're gonna be a millionaire if you don't know math? And I know we don't know it because I didn't look at some of my nephews and Nisa's homework in the second and third grade. I don't know how to do this third grade homework. Let me humble myself and just go act like I'm doing something else.
You know what I'm saying? The kids struggling on the test like, oh, because you're me, I don't know what you're doing. Hold on, but get that test. Let me look at that.
Hold on, let me. Where's your daddy at? Anyway, get your daddy in here. He should be the one, hey, hey, bro, get in here and help him with this test, man.
I got stuff to do. I gotta go record my show. My show and my show. My point at the end of the day is don't cheat yourself.
Finish your plate because that's for you. And also that plate is going to give you experience. It's going to make you better. When I think about being in corporate America now for over 12 years, it's such a blessing because there's so much that I've learned.
I've had the opportunity to take on a new role probably on average every other year. I think I've done maybe five or six rows in 12 years. The beauty of it is that with each role, this has happened since the beginning. I started in this company at the very absolute bottom.
And starting off, I didn't know much. If you would have took me in this company and after one year or two years, gave me the job that I have now, I would have lost my mind. Because now I'm in meetings with CDOs and COOs and CFOs. And these are the type of people that I'm presenting to.
And if you would have taken a young man, fresh out of college and really still kind of got some rough around the edge, just type of ways about himself, if you would have taken me and thrown me in that environment, I just wouldn't have been ready. I need a time to grow. I'm a late bloomer. That's why I did that project this summer, called the late bloomer, because I really am.
Sometimes it takes me time to learn things. I'm a great learner. I'm just not always a fast learner. Like everyone says that because it sounds good.
I'm a fast learner. I never put that on my resumes. I'm not a fast learner because I'm a thotical. I'm strategic.
It takes me time. And then once I get it, it's like it all unlocks in my mind, like a Rubik's Cube coming together. And then it's like, yep, I got it. But I don't learn things that fast.
It took me time in corporate America. And I'm just giving this as an example to make it personal so that you know, I'm not talking at you. I'm not coming on this show acting like I have it all together, or I didn't have to grow myself. This show is largely about the fact that, hey, I'm in this conversation with you.
These are either things that I'm going through and growing through, or I only know because I grew through them. You get what I'm saying? So I just want y'all to understand that this is what this show is about. It's like, it's me too.
It's a journey. It's us walking together. It's not me acting like I have it all together. My point is that in 12 years, I've gradually grown.
Each job, each role, each special assignment, each experience gave me something new. And it's happening to this day. I take all of the experiences that I gain from corporate America, and I apply it to things like this radio show and podcast. And when I was doing other things in business, they've made me so much better.
And just the thing, I was going to cheat myself of all of this by not having to work a job this long. So I have a different point of view on it. And another great thing that happens in my current role, especially, is that I get to travel a lot. And business travel is interesting.
Sometimes it's kind of boring, if you want me to be honest. And so I had this idea like, because I'm always thinking about the show now, that's just my life and my reality. So I'm like, I'm going to do a segment called Thinking and Driving, where I literally just take this expensive portable microphone and I've got all type of microphones now from this show. And so I'm like, I'm going to take this expensive microphone, and I'm going to have it with me in the car.
I'm going to turn it on, and I'm just going to talk. Because when I drive, I think that's just what I do. A lot of my songs are written in the car, because I don't really write. I just think my music.
And that's where all my ideas come to me at. And so I'm going to try this out. Y'all got to let me know, give me some feedback. Email me, germanewalsamusic at gmail.com.
Let me know if you are a fan of thinking and driving. Or if you feel like, hey, Jay, those last three minutes were a complete waste of my time. A lot of my time. I have a love, hate relationship with the road, because I don't necessarily enjoy it, especially when I'm traveling alone.
It's not that bad when I'm traveling with my wife, friends, family. And overall, it's a blessing as well, because I get to get out and see things, right? And I always want to do a little bit of traveling. And I'm not one of those people that needs to go to a bunch of exotic places to feel like I'm traveling, right?
Traveling for me is just a matter of seeing something I've never seen before and going somewhere I've never been. So one of the things that stick out to me, this is sidebar, is it just me or is most of the world, or let's call it America, because I'm not traveling the world, but it's like, mostly everything is just laying. I hear people talk about saving the trees, for instance. And forgive me, I'm no expert in these areas, right?
I'm just telling you what I see. I'm not telling you what I read in a book on this, that I put all this time in a study in it. But everywhere I drive, I've driven, driven, driving. I've driven 10, 12 hours in one direction, 10, 12 hours west, 10, 12 hours south, east, right?
And no matter where I go, it's like 90% land. It's like drive for three hours. And then you see like, oh, here's an intersection with every retail store that you ever heard of. And then for the next two hours, there's nothing but trees and grass and cows and cow horses and all that type of stuff.
And then it's like, oh, here's another intersection with all of the exact same retail stores and outlets that you saw at the last one. So it's interesting to me that I always seem to be hearing about saving a tree. And as I'm driving and looking right now, I see nothing but trees for hours. I'm talking about literally for hours, it looks like Groundhog Day.
Like I'm just seeing and experiencing the same thing again and again, which on the negative side makes me sleepy. So I have to do a lot of like drinking things that I don't drink, like express old coffees and juices and drinks with some type of extra caffeine or energy just to stay awake sometimes. And I don't want anyone to get nervous. I'm not talking about like dangerously sleepy or like, I'm talking like when you just been driving for five or six hours and you just start daydreaming and thinking about nothing.
So I like to be all the way alert because, you know, it's dangerous to be out here traveling as I pass by these baby goats that make me think about baby weather, driving by the little baby bill weathers. That's off the road. Guys, people, thank you so much for listening today. Remember, you can visit me any day at jwheelmusic.com.
You can also hear this show on YouTube by typing in J-W-I-L-M-U-S-I-C and share this show with your friends, family and coworkers and tell them like I tell you, if you don't like this show, just act like you like you. All Spy Guys people, jwheelmusic.com.