Transcript for:
Overcoming Struggles and Embracing Growth: Lessons from Abram's Journey

do you feel like no matter what you attempt to do whatever you Endeavor to do it doesn't work do you feel like you're stuck on The Struggle Bus for your entire life are you 30 40 50 60 70 years old and feel like like my life isn't working I'm terrible at this life stuff well in this video I'm going to show you something that you've not seen probably because it's been too close to you in the Book of Genesis chapter 12 uh we get introduced to a main character and it says and we're actually introduced to him in Genesis chapter um 11 I think but this is this is where his like Journey Begins and it says in Genesis 12 verse one now the Lord had said unto Abram get thee out of thy country and from thy Kindred and from thy Father's House unto a land that I will show thee now like if we just stop right there that's a whole day's worth of talk right there just get out of the land out of your country away from your family away from your kin folk out of your father's house and go to a land that I will show you and I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and I will make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing and I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee and in the shall all the families of the earth be blessed so Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him and lot went with him and Abram was 7 and5 years old Abram was 75 and it wasn't too late some of y'all think you some of oh man I'm my life is almost over I'm 60 oh what am I going to do my life isn't working oh I'm 65 like America made up that whole thing you're old when you're 65 I I'm 62 I ain't I'm 6 62 years of age but I ain't 62 years old you can be old if you want to at 35 oh I'm so old oh my bones are I'm so old stop it like you like we we bought into this idea that as we age we have to get weaker and sicker and less able to learn and less capable of doing and and well I'm too old to learn this and I'm too old to try that and I'm too old I can't teach an old dog new trip well maybe that's true but you ain't a dog the reality is it's never too late here's what the scripture says unto him that is joined to all living there is hope and so if you're Brea if you got breath in your lungs and you got Vitality in your body it's clearly not too late if God thought you was done he'd have taken you out of here I'm too you Ed but you don't understand I've got this runs in my family well don't let it run up on you run it out of your family like we we we act like we act like we're prisoners of circumstance we act like we're victims of the way things are in reality we're the victims of the way we are let's challenge ourselves to become more to do more to impact the world more that's why we're here God told the first man he said be fruitful what does that mean produce on the outside based on what I put on the inside of you why because our fruit is a living organism whose seed is in itself when God said be fruit he said I I put an aspect of my creativity inside of you as a seed make sure it shows up outside of you and around you so that it benefits somebody other than just you and we go through life with all these excuses and then we hear ourselves make the excuses and we hear other people make the excuses and then we buy into the LI the excuses are reasons the only person the only person who's pretending to think the excuses are reasons are the people who are making them everybody else knows it's just an excuse like let's step up and act like we're made in the image of a great God and let's step out there and decide we're going to do some great things God comes this man named Abram that like everything in the story is so powerful and so important his name is Abram he's 75 years old the name Abram means high or exalted father he has no children he's 75 now I don't know exactly what 75y olds spend their weekends doing but it probably ain't painting the nursery for the coming baby his wife is 65 years old and I believe that Abram's name was the source of his shame and the source of his pain because he's the high father who couldn't have any children and so he talk about impostor syndrome talk about talk about having a reputation for something you are not every time somebody called his name it reminded him of his inability to produce and God said because be because you're in this land in this a land of idolatry because you're in this land of idolatry and you're in this land where you've had 75 years for people to get to know your identity time to go it's time for you to leave the land where people know you for who you were so you can become who I know I made you to be and see some of y'all are stuck like Chuck in a pickup truck in the identity of what other people have told you your whole life you're not can I get a witness you ain't smart enough you ain't tall enough you're not pretty enough you can't sing good enough you can't dance good enough you're not athletic enough I don't even know why somebody like you even tries and we've heard it so many times that we've begun to own the identity as if it's our identity but God never told us what we aren't he only told us what we are and so if you're focused on what you aren't you're listening to the wrong voices can I get a witness up in here and so the Lord said unto Abram get thee out of thy country get thee away from thy Kindred and from your father's house and go to a land that I will show you I want you to leave the land of the familiar and go to a land that's so unfamiliar you won't even know you're there until I alert you when you get there let me ask you a question God came and said that to you how would you explain that to your wife cuz you know wives ask questions right I mean they want the details the husband don't want the details it's not he doesn't want them he's not even aware that there are details until his wife asked him a question every man in here knows exactly what I'm talking about where where my Witnesses at my brothers there's this there's this uh there's this YouTube short that uh this guy says pray for Tom Tom's in the hospital and his wife says why is he in the hospital I don't know I just got this text says pray for Tom Tom's in the hospital well what happened to him I don't know I just got a text this Tom's in the hospital well is he in critical condition I don't know I just got a text pray for Tom Tom's in the hospital well did he have a heart attack I don't know I got a Texas said pray for Tom Tom's in the hospital and his wife finally says don't you know anything he says yeah I know pray for Tom Tom's in the hospital that's all I know and if I had known that there was an inventory of questions coming I would have prepared for it but I am ill prepared to pass this test at this per particular moment right so anyway uh he goes and says to his wife baby we leave it now you know because she's a wife the first question is where we going well um and um I don't know yet so we're leaving after you know no we're leaving now what let me ask you a question do you have that kind of Faith the kind of faith that could step out on faith in the direction of a new Endeavor you don't you don't even know how it's going to turn out you don't even know where it's going to turn out you're not even sure if it's going to turn out but God told me right the Lord told me yeah okay right people come up to me and tell me the Lord told them to to told them that I'm supposed to do something okay well I'm going wait for him to tell me I'm glad he told you what I'm supposed to do but I'm going wait for him to tell me okay and so the land of the familiar is not a place where you can succeed if what you were already doing was going to work it would already be working so everything you're looking for is on the other side of the person you've not yet become amen and it's see our brains are energy Hogs I mean like when we're thinking when we're focusing on something our brain uses more energy than any other organ on our body and so it does the brain does not like to waste energy so what it's going to do it's going to look for the path of least resistance because when I have to do something new now I have to engage at a very high level I got to engage my synapses I heard somebody who's a brain scientist use that word one time so we have to we have to use our synapses to figure out and make them fire in new ways so we can figure out how to do this new thing so we can get a new result but see here's what we've forgotten see we we thought that the objective of life is to get to a place where we can be comfortable and then stop doing stuff that's the retirement line cuz when you retire then I noticed a lot of folks as soon as they retire shortly after that they expire and I ain't interested in retirement cuz I ain't interested in expirement can I get a witness say Mar how long you going to work oh at least till the end of the day and then I'm going to come back and do it again tomorrow how long you going to do that hopefully my whole life I have no desire to retire I only desire to Aspire higher I'm a poet and I know it okay I'm done so so familiarity breeds failure a lot of people don't realize the reason you're stuck the reason you've been on The Struggle Bus so long is because you keep on doing the things you've always done just let that settle let that marinate right like people graduate from high school and never touch a book again that blows my mind they graduate from college never touch a book again do you understand how fast the world is changing if you ain't reading if you ain't learning if you're not gaining some new mindsets you are being left behind by the virtue of the fact that you are not changing the like life is leaving you behind how many y'all tracking so understand this number one familiar mindsets are roadblocks to new ideas familiar mindsets are roadblocks to new ideas it's the things that you know that are keeping you from learning the things that you don't know well y'all ain't picking up what I'm putting down see see we're like knowing is fairly effortless learning that'll wear you out it'll make your brain sweat huh learning a new learning a new language learning a new instrument learning how to use a new piece of technology huh it's like oh my goodness this is so hard and and what blows my mind is the fact that people well you'll say wow I'm learning Hebrew wow that's so hard I'm learning how to play guitar wow that's so hard have you ever even attempted it how could you possibly know how hard it is I mean think about it so one of the things I've noticed in coaching like thousands and thousands of people is that one of the main reasons people struggle is because when the path is smooth they throw the rocks of anxiety in front of them and so they decide they assign a level of difficulty to a task that they've never even endeavored to do well I don't like ABC cuz it's so hard have you ever done it no well how do you know it's hard I am so thankful for my parents they weren't perfect but they were great for us and I can remember and I know y'all heard the story of quadrillion times but I'm going to tell it again me and my dad were working on this flood car in the backyard when I was a kid and we were taking off the exhaust manifold and there was this rusted bolt it's so funny cuz when I tell the story I can see this rusted bolt on this exhaust manifold and we're Tak we're we we used a chisel we used a torch it ain't budging it's rusted on there my mom calls us for lunch we're going in for lunch I said Dad it ain't coming off he said oh it's coming off it's coming off he said boy you want to know why it's coming off yes sir cuz it don't have a brain and we got a brain wait anytime I approach something that doesn't have a brain it can't beat me oh snap let's go and so I knew since I was an elementary school I never face anything bigger than me I never face anything stronger than me I never like a thing that's just sitting there cannot outsmart me but I never and I mean never I never assign a level of difficulty to a thing before I even Endeavor to do it in fact I always assign a level of ease because it's it's like I have a brain it don't have a brain it if it attempts to make it hard for me I'm going to make it hard for it to make it hard for me see familiar mindset it's the stuff you know that keeps you from learning the stuff you don't know and one of the reasons that keeps you from learning the stuff you don't know is because knowing the stuff you know requires no new energy no new effort you can just relax into it this way how many ever drove somewhere that you go all the time and you get there like I don't even remember driving down that street I don't even remember I don't remember turning right there how did I get here anybody ever do that it happens all the time okay so familiar mindsets are the roadblocks to new ideas so like God is telling Abram if you stay in this environment where you are known mostly for what you are not you can't even become the person I've designed for you to become so that you can do the thing I put you here to do and in order for me to bless you and to bless all the nations of the earth through you you got baby you got to go and see we don't like the idea that we have to go because when we have to go that means we have to grow and the going and the growing both require energy familiar mindsets are the roadblocks to new ideas because places we know keep us stuck in past perspectives it's so interesting how like when I go somewhere I pretty much take the same roote almost every time right because why I know it it doesn't require me to learn learn a new route like think about think about how much more mentally lazy we are because we have GPS now GPS is now people don't even know how to read a map it's so fascinating cuz maps are cool like I learned how to read a map in my mom taught me how to read a map in elementary school because we used to travel all the time okay this is this is this road and so like like she's like okay all of the um all of the odd-numbered highways and interstates go north and south and all of the even numbers go east and west if you start down at the bottom of United States the numbers are lower and the higher you get in the United States the the higher they get and then like how many are shocked by and over you start on the west coast the numbers are lower going north and south and you come over here to the east coast they get higher and higher until you get all the way over to 95 and then after that there's just the Atlantic Ocean right see like like so you can just look at the name of a road if you can read a map and you can know whether you're going north south east or west but I learned that when I was in elementary school right all I'm saying is like doing the same old things in the same old places do does not give us A New Perspective and we don't see things the way they are we see things the way we are from the place we are and if we'd like to see something new I mean something old in a new way we either need to become a new person or look at it from A New Perspective and God said here's what you going to have to do if you are going to become the Abram that's going to be Abraham you got to get up out of here because places we know keep us stuck in past perspectives people we know keep us stuck in past performances it's so interesting like I'm taking this guitar Mastery class and my guitar teacher he's like he looks like he's probably 26 disgusting I can play he can play anything he can just yeah you and so so every two weeks he's like giving he's like he's like stacking up okay this week we're going to do Triads then we're going to do we're going to do um we're going to do we're going to do sevens and we're going to do intervals we're going to do all that this week and he's always like he's always like oh don't worry you can do it I said you don't have to tell me not to worry I never worry it's been so long since I worried I forgot how to do it he said it's not that hard I said I already know it ain't that hard it ain't harder than I am tough but it feels over like when he says this is what we're going to do and then he does demonstration it feels initially overwhelming but I don't let that over feeling of overwhelming throw me off guard because I know I'm bigger than it and then when we come back in two weeks and I show him he said oh my goodness this is so good this is the greatest way to start a day he's French he lives in New York he he's just but the dude is brilliant but he like he like he treats me like I'm supposed to be able to do this stuff so guess what I do I figure out how to do it places we know keep us stuck in past perspectives people we know keep us stuck in past performances people who know us keep us stuck in past practices a lot of times we will do things to please people who we're close to that we would never do if we were just doing it to please ourselves so for instance like I love my granddaughter there's almost nothing she can't get me to do like my pop can you sit on the floor and play with me no I can't right now Ari what but you have to you do have a point let's go what are we doing she's a closer man she is a closer but but yesterday I had a small window I got done playing golf and my son-in-law and my granddaughter were getting to the golf course but they were going fishing in one of the ponds and she's like my pop do you want to go fishing with us I do want to go fishing with you but I can't do it right now come on my pop go fishing with us I'd love to go fishing with you Ari it's just not going to happen today and no I did not go fishing with her because I had a small window go home had some stuff I had to get done and just like not possible so I asked my son the other day I said hey you want to get together and go to Edie's before you leave town again he's like he's like nah not really but I would like to come over and eat some iron Stakes okay cool when well how about early enough for me and Mom to go to a movie you want to go to the movies with us I don't know what are you going to see Kong versus Godzilla nope not interested like I like there's nobody I'm GNA go see that for we there's I don't care there's so many levels on of not carness I can't count them all and I love my son I I love hanging out with you like anyway he shocked me last week he came to my house and he he's like he's like where you where yeah I'm on my way to the golf course okay I'm I'm almost at your house I'm like the sun is going down I've got so many hours no I want to show you something okay so he's in his van he says he gets out of his van he says I got something for you I'm thinking to myself I want to go to the golf course so bad but I am going to not be an impatient father who would rather go to the golf course and see anything he's goingon to show me and so he opens up his van door and he's got a brand new set of title golf clubs he's like I'm going to the golf course with you I'm like let's go let's go so he and I went out and played nine holes it was so much fun but people who know us can keep us stuck they can like and you know who's the best at keeping us stuck because they know us we are are like who knows you better than you and so you know you better than anyone else knows you but you think you know you think you know you as well as you can be known and you don't I promise you one of the biggest challenges all of you have and maybe I have it too I don't really think I do though and I really don't think I do like I'm not and it's not because I'm better than you it's just because I've been aware of it longer one of the biggest challeng most of you have is that you believe in your limitations more than you believe in your leverage like you really believe that there's something you're facing that's bigger than you that's outsmart that can outsmart you that's tougher than you it's harder than you are diligent it doesn't exist I'm this is not me being preachy this is not me being Guru is this is just me having a level of awareness like it doesn't happen I'm this is not a guy who's never been through anything and I'm telling you I'm telling you it's okay I'm you H we have to leave sometimes get out of the environments where people we know keep us stuck we stay stuck in past perspectiv stuck in past performances stuck in past practices familiar skill sets are roadblocks to new habits familiar Financial skills keep us broke I'm going to tell you one of the biggest Financial lies that most people believe they believe like broke people believe they're broke because they don't make enough money and I promise you if you are broke at a low income you will be more broke at a higher income I promise you I know people who make six figures who are broke I know people who make seven figures who are broke and there is such a thing as broke at a higher level and trust me broke is not fun either way but broke at a lower level is way more better than broke at a higher level I have been both the real reason people stay stuck financially is because of their financial money management habits and familiar skill sets you you don't you're it's not that you're lacking the money it's lacking it's that you're lacking the money skills if you had better money management skills I'm telling you right now there's no doubt in my mind that this is true I could work at McDonald's or Taco Bell I couldn't work there but if I did work there and I made the money you made there I could live as a full-grown adult why because I know how to manage my money see I wrote a chapter in this book from the trashman to the Cashman that states I can if my can say I can see money only hangs out with people who respect it and in order for you if you really respect money you will manage it better you will not find your if you will follow the I can if I my can say I can I did not get rich until I started applying those principles so when I get when you get when you get your money you put some in your I can pay put half of your money in I can pay your bills can you might have to change the percentages in the beginning but eventually you can put half your money in I can pay my bills can then you put 10% in your I can tithe can then you put 10% in your I can save for what I want can then put 10% in your I can educate myself can then you put 10% in your I can finish free can and then you put your um 10% in your um um for lack of a better term um no uh I uh I can be ready for anything it's like an emergency fund can and maybe at the beginning you can't put 10% in each one of those cans maybe you have to take all of your money except for $5 and put $1 in your I can tithe can $1 well put put your tithe in your I can tithe can okay but you put $1 in your I can finish free can if you will just start managing the money you have when money comes to you it'll hang around longer because it feels respected familiar business skill familiar Financial skills keep us broke familiar business skills keep us stuck I in coaching like thousands of entrepreneurs you know what I've discovered the number one thing that keeps businesses from getting to a half a million dollars a year is is getting to 100,000 a year and then they get comfortable the number one thing that keeps businesses from getting to a million dollar a year is getting to a half a million dollars a year and getting comfortable the number one thing that keeps a business from getting to $3 million a year is getting to a million dollar a year and getting comfortable and it's like there comes a point there comes a point where making more money doesn't make your life better and some of you thinking well if it doesn't make your life better why make more money because maximizing your potential in every Arena of your life within a within reason within a reasonable amount of balance and focus okay that caveat it makes you better I don't have a desire like I don't like what am I going to do with more money I know some of you are thinking give it to me I get it I get it but that's not the point that doesn't really help people help giving people money does not help them it just prol it's putting it's like putting a Band-Aid on an artery teaching people how to manage their money better and teaching people how to do better with their money helps them way more than just giving the money like if somebody would have given me money I would have lost the incentive to go figure it out I'm glad nobody gave me the money okay anyway so familiar business skills keep us stuck familiar relationship familiar relationship skills keep us stuck in past frustration and past trauma some of us react and respond to things the way our parents did for that reason and no other and our parents did it because of the trauma they grew up in and the trauma their parents grew up in and so we're repeating those habits when we've not even experienced the same trauma but it's just ingrained in us because it's how we learn to be us yeah you got to hurry familiar tool sets are roadblocks to new technologies how many of y'all sometimes find yourself honestly find yourself frustr frustrated by how fast technology changes like first I had to learn how to use the internet then I had to learn how to use cell phones and smartphones and then and now we got I AI it's just like social media is just too much right but it's not too much it's not bigger than you it's not smarter than you it's not better than you it's not outside the realm of your ability I'm I was 60 years old when I started Ed my like focusing on my YouTube channel I was 60 you're too old to be a YouTuber okay YouTube don't know that cuz they keep on sending me money every month don't know hey don't y'all tell YouTu how old I am familiar uh I recently bought an AI Mastery class why because it's here do I believe that it has evil potential yes it it has evil potential so does the internet so do guns I use all those what's the difference like anyway I was going to get sidetracked the technology can be used for evil but let's don't just let the evil people be the only ones that use it because it can be used for evil let's let's use it for some good familiar tool sets are the roadblocks of new technologies familiar tool sets keep us from learning new te you got to learn new tech I know it comes at you fast guess what with AI it's going to come at you even faster but guess what it can't come at you fast like AI is artificial intelligence it's not smarter than real intelligence real intelligence has to program artificial intelligence it may be able to access data faster than you but it cannot cognitively process data better than you so learn to use AI so you don't end up being used by AI familiar tool sets keep us from licensing new technologies what do I mean licensing new technologies like new tech a lot of new technologies we have to pay for so we have to pay for a license to use them but guess what there are some of us in this room who have and will create new technologies and guess what like I'm working with a partner right now um uh quam's brother and man this dude invented this software that is so brilliant that when when we exit it's going to be hard to imagine it being less than a billion or two dollars and yesterday in a conversation with John I was like oh let's go get some users make this thing even more sellable so we have conversations a couple of times a week and having conversations with people who think we don't know what we have oh but we know yeah we know and we're going to license the Technologies and then we're going to sell the company so which brings me to my last Point familiar tool sets keep us from leveraging new technologies I know you think that the technology you use now is enough but I promise you when people had pagers and and and bag phones we thought that was it I got a pager and a bag phone or a car phone with a $1,400 a month payment on the phone that's higher than my car payment some of y'all remember that that's why you're laughing it was crazy we thought that was it we got the first iPhone oh my goodness this is amazing we look at one of those original iPhones now we're like how did he even get away with selling this to us all I'm saying is you have to become comfortable with discomfort if you're going to change your life you got to get out of the land of the familiar leave your country you don't have to leave America that's not my point don't the thought has crossed my mind um uh um you don't I'm not saying leave America I'm not saying move to a different city than your family unless you know for a fact they're keeping you stuck like I'm not going to move away just cuz I'm near my family but I ain't GNA stay just because I'm near my family either when the opportunity for my immediate wife and children family is somewhere else man I'll get up out of here so fast make your heads spit why when Abram left guess what happened to guess what the next chapter tells us Chapter 13 Verse number two and Abram was very rich in cattle and silver and gold Abram become became a wealthy business Mogul what guess what happened to the chapter after that he became a general who armed the servants that were in his house and went and fought five nations to bring back his nephew and won like we can't even like when it is with the credit card processing company all I'm saying is this get comfortable with the discomfort of growth and become more comfortable with things that are not familiar to you and your life will change for the better I hope this video blesses you stay blessed by the best and we'll look forward to seeing you on our next video thank you for watching