Episode 520: The Best of Habits & Hustle: Touré Roberts (ONE Church LA Founder)

27:30And so there were a lot of stories like that. And because these people had influence, they were bringing people to the church. The church took off and the fastest growing demographic at that time was young Hollywood. But the reason why I bring it up, particularly as it relates to them being in bad situations, because I'm thinking about this other girl named Natasha. And Natasha is gorgeous. I mean, just a beautiful girl, but her self-esteem was like in the tank. And I'm like, Natasha, you're gorgeous. You're bright. And so I got a little pissed at the industry, to be honest with you. Because I'm like, here are the young people that are moving from all around the world to come here because they're talented.

28:10And they were just abusers in the space. And they were oppressing them and making them feel less than who they are. And so my message began to be shaped by who was coming. And so God gave me language for young Hollywood. And I started talking to them and it would be their lifeblood. I talked about identity. I talked about, you know, value, worth, affirmation, you know, purpose. And it just exploded. And so that's kind of the, you know, that's really how it happened. What happened to Natasha? Natasha's doing great. Okay, what are you doing now? She's an actor. She's an actor. She's doing great.

28:52Is she very successful? Do I know who she is? I wouldn't call her very successful, but you know what? She's successfully emotionally. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As a human being. Yeah. And she is doing, I mean, she's doing well, but there are people in our church that are much more public than her. You know, a lot of people, you know, I did, there was a show, we sold a television show to ABC in 2019 based on my life. It was a sitcom. The studio, ABC studio bought it. A sitcom? A sitcom. That's hilarious. I love it. A sitcom based on me and Sarah. But the guy who brought the idea to me, his name is Leslie Odom Jr.

29:33He's, you know, Emmy, Grammy, Emmy, no, Tony Emmy. And he's got some stuff. I can't remember what. I think he's one of the guys in your book, right? Yeah, Tony and Grammy award-winning actor and singer. He is. I had no idea he was sitting in my church. you know he was there before you know anything you know and now he's you know doing movies and traveling he was uh in god why is the the broadway hamilton yeah he did that you know he did hamilton he went all over where he's a musician he just hosted what an actor or uh amazing yeah oh really yeah he's but i had no idea he's sitting in my church the whole time while he's a quote-unquote nobody and being affirmed and you know and who he is and so you know i'm not taking credit for his career no of course not but you're saying and so he comes to me and he's the one that opened the door to do this show that you know we did successfully sell the pilot to abc and it was a put pilot so you know the network spent i can't tell you how much but a lot of money to do this pilot and we We were literally, our bags were packed in April of 2019 to go to the upfronts to sell this show.

30:41Yeah. At the very last minute, although the studio bought it and produced it, Network said we're not taking it to serious. Why? I don't know. We were all devastated. It was me, Leslie Kerry Washington was an executive producer on it. She was attached to it too? Oh yeah, she's got a deal at the studio. At ABC, I know. and yeah she was attached to it at the very last minute uh network said no we're not going to do it was i mean if you google it now all the trades were like this is going this is happening this is a show to look for and all this sort of stuff but it was all god's design one covid was not knocking on the door none of us knew it right so god only knows if we would have got stuck in development hell or whatever it just you just never know everything for a reason but was it was it already kind of canceled before it was started before COVID started in 2019 correct so even before it was already like it was already you have no idea why they decided they thought spending that kind of money and having her attached they didn't think that it tested well I have you know I don't testing is tricky because you got to know your audience to test you can't just put a show out there I you know it's almost like my church is very unique my church may not do well honestly in the bible belt you know because right it's just i'm just different i'm built differently my language is different so if you're going into the bible belt to and i'm not saying that's what that's what they did though yeah testing is like it's no it's you gotta anyway but why don't you take it not like that like career strategy advice for me right now but i should give it to you after but why don't you take it somewhere else like amazon netflix do it yourself pay for it yourself up and then sell it.

32:25We talked about it and we're always open to it. I think some of the networks that we were involved with, there was a little bit of, you know, executives go from company to company. And so sometimes when, so the person who bought our show at ABC, by the time the show was, it was time for network to make the decision, she was gone. She was over at another company. So sometimes that, that could have killed the deal, to be honest with you, they leave and, you know, everything's nice and nice on paper, but you know, I didn't buy that show. I'm not as invested in it. Well, that happens all the time, actually.

32:55But where did she go? Can she take the show with her there if they don't want to do it? Well, ABC owned, they own the rights. Can you get released from those rights and then she can buy it? I'm sure. I don't know where she is now. She might still be where she went, but I'm not sure. And there are things, but another thing, honestly, is the show started to become less about what we did originally. So, you know, when network gets involved, they have ultimate creative control. And so it kind of, they kind of soften some of the edges and, you know, but here's the thing, and I talk about it in Balance, like I needed that loss because I only knew, Jen, can I call you Jen?

33:42Is Jen okay? Yeah, of course. Okay. I only knew how to win. I had, you know, the church did amazing, you know, you know, two book deals, you know, television show. I'd done some other work, some smaller things. Did you get the two book deals because of your popularity with the church? I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And this, by the way, the two other books though, did you know TD and Sarah yet? This was not even yet. This is all before all of this. All of this is before. Okay. This is what I find. I didn't know this. Okay, go on. So I only knew how to win. You know, I'm being interviewed.

34:17I'm going to places. I'm talking to people. The Root made me the top 100 influencers in the space. I mean, it was just like, you know, it was happening. Things were going really good. So that was going on. I knew how to win, but I didn't know how to lose. And I realized that sometimes for the sake of development, it's better to lose than to win. Because during that time before, you know, so there was a transaction, a financial transaction that I was really excited about, an acquisition. And that deal fell apart. I found out that, you know, people say it's too good to be true. In this case, it was.

34:52And I lost a lot of money, earnest upfront money. And then, you know, to quite frankly, my legal fees to make them go away and cry uncle. So I was out of a lot of money. The opportunity was gone, a lot of money. This deal, you know, which is, again, my bags are packed. I'm going to New York, baby. We're getting rid of this upfront. We'll say, you know, you know, literally the week we were leaving, network says no. the community in Denver that you know I took over now that was my father-in-law's church and that was 2018 I took that over because the former leader had some missteps and they were out of a leader so I stepped in trying to be a good son-in-law for how have you been married to Sarah for it'll be eight years this year eight years okay yeah but the show was in 2019 show was in 2019 yeah okay yeah okay so you only lost that show like a year two years ago oh yeah Oh, the wounds are fresh.

35:46Yes. But I needed to, I needed, so the Denver organization not going the way I planned, you know, the acquisition falling apart cost me a lot of money and the deal goes away. The show that I just knew was it, you know, goes away. That was a lot of loss in one period of time. And I started struggling like, man, do I still have it? You know, am I still that guy? you know and um but i needed to i needed to know that there's a difference between being there's difference between losing and being a loser and it taught me that and i just i just think that there's more value honestly sometimes in losing than winning and i know that that's not a sexy thing to say but it's true like i to get up again to trust again to believe again you know i think that you should never waste a perfectly good failure.

36:38You know, people look at failure and they're like, man, I'll never try again. You know, I'm, you know, I'm going to go a different route. I'm never going to take a risk again. And that's a waste of a failure. I think if you do an autopsy on failure and you get in there and you start moving the spleens around different things, you'll see things that there's a treasure there that will set you up for the next thing that you're trying to do. So I needed that loss, to be honest with you. And, um, and, and I've won in other ways since then and I'm going to win again. And the main thing is I'm never going to stop taking risks because when you start talking about scaling, I know this is kind of a business podcast as well.

37:14And scaling, obviously, we all want to scale. You can never scale if you don't stretch, if you don't put yourself out there. Absolutely true. So anyway, it was tough, but I'm glad it happened actually. It's hard that it happened and you could say now, oh, I'm glad it happened because you got this and that.

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39:24what i'd like to ask you more about is you're talking about resilience and getting falling and then getting back up again so when this happens to people do you have like do you kind of give people who like follow you um what would you say the first couple steps are for for doing that for kind of getting yourself back up and to and to not being not quitting because actually what you said i say a lot is like you can being a loser and losing are very very different um what actually makes you a winner is getting right back up again and keep on you know moving forward so what would you say how would you tell people in your congregation yeah that they can do that and get out of their own way to succeed uh first the first thing i do is give them permission to say ouch like you know i'm not that god that says man up dog you know you know that's not me it all.

40:18It hurt. You know, I was, man, I was battling like some dark moments like, hey, have I lost my thing? Is my season pass? You know, it was a tough time. And I had to be honest with myself that I had been bruised because if you don't do that, you're going to walk around bruised. You're going to walk around perhaps even bitter. You're going to walk around with no faith. You know, you just kind of, if you don't acknowledge the fact that it hurt, There's no possibility to get that wound healed and you're going to be a victim forever until you say, ouch. So the first thing that I would do is say, hey, acknowledge the fact that it hurt.

40:56You're disappointed. You're mad at life. You're mad at God. You're mad at whoever's on the other side of it. Just get it out. It's okay to not be okay. That'd be the first step. Then assess it. Okay, so is there a lesson in here? I think with every loss, there's a lesson. So what am I supposed to learn? And really, you know, and you hear that all the time, you know, but no, really do it. Like there's something, I know it hurt and maybe it hurts to look at it. So that's why you got to grieve for a minute. That's fine. Grieving is fine. It's part of the process. But then really get in there with an open mind, get ego out of the way, you know, stop pointing fingers.

41:34Don't blame anybody. What can I learn from this mistake? Like, study it. Do an autopsy on that loss, that failure, whatever. Look at it. And you're going to find something in it. There's an insight there. There's something in that thing. See, it's not all dead. You know, there's something alive in there. So when that show kind of took a nosedive and the Denver thing kind of happened and you lost money, when you didn't know what was going to be the next opportunity, what has happened to you since then that's been a really good opportunity that you never even saw happen oh that came from those fail like if those things happen you wouldn't have been able to do xyz what was that first of all there's a shift in my mind a lot of times so here's the thing how many people that aren't fundamentally in the entertainment industry sell a television show to one of the major, one of the biggest studios.

42:32It's Disney, ABC. First of all, who does that? So I was over here crying and licking my wounds about it not going to series. And we sold a show to ABC. If I didn't do anything else in life, take the six billion people on the planet, how many of them have sold a show about their life, mind you, to ABC studios? Like that can't be taken away from - Very few. Very few. With Kerry Washington attached. With Kerry Washington, freaking Kerry Washington. Right. You know, now we're friends and family. You know what I mean? It's like, how does that even happen? So it shifted my perspective. Tere, you're looking at this wrong.

43:10Yeah, it didn't go there, but dude, you played in the game, boy. You know, you didn't go to USC Cinema. You don't know anything about that. Well, you know, a little bit, but you don't, that's not your space. You don't sell shows. You're not a showrunner. What are you talking about? Right, right, right. So it shifted my perspective and it created a resilience in me. And now I'm a beast. And I'm a beast not because I have all these accolades and I've got things that I'm proud of and I'll share that with you. But not because of that. I'm a beast because no matter what comes my way, I don't give a flip.

43:42I'm going to overcome it. I'm going to figure out, I'm going to find the treasure in that trial. Tell me the treasure. What have you found? Well, so one perspective. I, there's, there's a powerful thing about knowing that no matter whatever comes your way, you're going to survive it. That, first of all, that's gold in and of itself. Like this, this, this, I can't lose, you know, or even if I lose, I'm never a loser. So that was big. But then this book, like, honestly, like this book balance that I wrote, that's a whole nother subject. It's great. But the process, like I almost, I tell people this, I'm very, very vulnerable with you.

44:25I tell people this, I almost died writing this book. And you're like, what do you mean? My mom heard me say that once, you know, like publicly. And she called me, man, what do you mean you almost died? My mom, chill out, hold on. But what I mean by it is that this book was supposed to come out in October of 2020. And, you know, it doesn't come out to, you know, when it comes out. We all know when it comes out. And it kept getting pushed back. I pushed it back several times. I got halfway through writing it and I stopped and started over. I'm not sure if you, I think you've written a book or whatever, but like - I've written a few books, yeah.

44:59So you know, like halfway, you're like, praise God. I just finished my book. My new book is coming out in December. First of all, I find the process to be so hard. People don't understand. It's the most exhausting, stressful experience. It seems like very nice and la-di-da, terrible. Oh, it's the hardest thing. So I found it hard. I mean - And I do too. this was extra hard this was like so i get halfway through it and then you know my agent reads it and she's like tore this is not your best and she was right and she's major i mean jan miller she does everybody yeah yeah yeah so so she does so you gotta like if jan tells you that this is not good enough good enough you got it so i start over from scratch now just imagine getting halfway through a book with the publisher deadline looming and starting from scratch and you're pushing it back.

45:54So, but I did it. And, uh, but during the process, man, I had some dark moments where I felt like, man, you're not good enough. You, again, that, that voice, I call it night, you know, where that voice comes in and you're not good enough. You don't have it. What are you doing? You're a loser. You are, I mean, loud. And it's like, and I remember this moment. I write. I'm only laughing because it's like very, I totally understand. I know what you're talking about. It's the worst. So I'm in my hotel room. I always take, you know, take, you know, several weeks away to write. I'm in my hotel room and I have this onslaught of thoughts that you're a loser.

46:34You can't do this. Look at you. You're an embarrassment. You're a shamer. You got this deal and you can't deliver. And it was just, and you know, I don't think it's uncommon to have to overcome negative thoughts, but this was different. This was like, I was being oppressed by these thoughts and I'm by myself and I'm in this hotel room and I'm panicking. I can't sleep. It's going crazy. And there was a moment that where I realized if I didn't fight back, whatever this onslaught was would have wiped me out. I mean, like if I would have given into that, I understand how people you know because you always say I never kill myself let me tell you something that gave me just a little bit of a taste of what sustained negative thinking will do if you don't fight back and I knew that if I didn't fight these thoughts my life was getting ready to change not for the better forever and so something in me just said hell no you know and I it was just a fortitude like it just I just said no and and out of that moment man my creativity opened up that's how the character Knight even appears in the book because I had to fight off Knight to write this thing and so so all of that overcoming you know these these setbacks these losses develop something in me that I think is going to help a lot of people and I'm very proud of it.

48:09Yeah, I mean, let's talk about your book for a sec. We might as well, it's been like five hours. It's all good. But you know, because it's called balance. So how would you define, what's your definition of balance? Because you've had to figure it out through this whole process, right? I've had to. And like you said, the process of even writing the book has been, was very hard because you're doing a lot of other things also on top of it. You must, it's exhausting. So in all of this, how do you define balance? So I used to define balance the way everybody else does. How do I, I've got all these responsibilities.

48:42How do I effectively manage these responsibilities and divide myself up so that I can successfully be successful in all these things I'm responsible for? I used to feel that way. I realized that's not what balance is. First of all, it's impossible. I can't go, I can't give Sarah 10 % of me and my kids another 10%, my business another percent, the church and investors. I can't do that. So for me, balance is not dividing yourself up in response to things that you're responsible for. It's becoming all of yourself, becoming your whole self, and then giving your best self to things in sequence. And so I think that balance is really about wholeness.

49:23I don't think it's a discipline. We've left books about work-life balance. They're effective, but that's not where it's at because, listen, I tried it. I tried it, Jen. And I tried, okay, on Friday, I'm going to take my son Isaiah out. You know, Thursday is going to be date night. I'm going to spend time with my little girl on this day. And you know what I did because I wasn't balanced? I gave them a crappy version of me. So I did spend the time, you know, I could check off the time, but what did I give them? I didn't give them my best. I gave them a formula. It's not a formula. Balance is about being balanced.

49:55It's a journey to becoming your best self through disciplines and steps that I talk about so that you can do all things well. You can do all things well, you just can't do all things well at the same time. I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you. It's not about like, well, okay, I'm going to spend 50 % of my time at work and the other 50 % I'm going to do at home. I've never heard anyone describe it like that, but I think that is such a much more of a, actually, a more realistic way of looking at it. It's sustainable. Because I don't think anyone truthfully, like you can't balance things like a seesaw.

50:32You know, 20 % goes to my kids, 10 % goes to my husband. So that's a really good, that's a very good explanation. And you talk about this in the book. So how do you give us some indications of when someone is out of balance? Oh, yeah. There's a few. There's several. There can be a ton. For me, stagnation is a sign that I'm imbalanced. I think that when we are balanced, when we're aligned, when we are working the disciplines and we're in our flow, there's no such thing as stagnation. You know, you're innovative. You're creative. You know, we're creative beings. We're supposed to always have something to give.

51:12stagnation is a sign. I think that weariness is a sign. And that's the difference between being tired and weary. I describe weariness as the gradual gravitational pull down to the tarmac of disaster. Just know that disaster is on its way if you respond to your weariness. Jealousy and envy, to be honest with you. When you're balanced, you have such an affirmation, and personal affirmation, and you're so connected with victory and winning that anytime you see success, you feel connected to it. You're not jealous of it. You see somebody winning, you're like, yeah, that's what we do, baby. You give a high five.

51:50And so jealousy and envy is part of it. Declining thought life. If all of a sudden you always go to the lowest possible interpretation conversation of a comment, of a conversation, of someone's action. You don't know why they did that, you know, but, well, what did you mean when you said that? You know, your thought life declines. So there's several and you just have to perceive them and not tolerate them. Listen, when I'm off, I got to go get balanced because I'm not going to be a great husband, not going to be a great parent, not going to be a great leader. You know, I'm not going to be a strategic business this person.

52:32And so I just, I won't tolerate it. So I'm looking for signs that show me you're out of balance. You need to do something about it. So how do people get balanced? Like what's the first steps? Like if, let's say I say, okay, I'm static. You could be stagnating at your career. You could be stagnant because you're just not like feeling productive. The weariness is an interesting one because it's like, you feel yourself, you can, it's kind of like what you're, I think that you're saying, it's like, you feel yourself declining a little bit, right? Like Like you're not like yourself. Yes. So give us some, how do you become, how do you start the process of being balanced?

53:10Love it. The first step is no step at all, actually. The first step is to stop. That's why people, it's the funniest thing in the world, where people are like, yeah, I just try to get balanced in my life, but what are they doing? They're moving. You know, I need balance, but you know, but like you telling me you need balance while you got a phone in your hand, you know, you're tweeting over here, you're texting, you're driving to your next meeting. dude of course you don't have balance so the first step is to stop and i've learned that first of all it takes people think it takes more faith to start than stop i disagree i think it takes more faith to actually stop to come to a halt than it does to go forward you know i you know i think um you know there's this this biblical concept called sabbath you know that is pretty i think it's pretty universal jewish jewish you know exactly sabbath you're saying it like i don't know right I'm teaching you right here.

53:59I'm teaching you right here. Exactly. I was on the cover of the Jewish Journal. Were you? Yes, I was. No way. Yes. I was in the Jewish Journal years ago. Oh, you were? Yeah, I used to be on the board. Can you grab one on the bottom of the, nope, not drawer right there. Tell me, I want to know. Yeah, I used to be on the board of an organization called the American Friends of Magin de Vidadon. It's the ambulance service in Israel. Really? Yeah, so I sat on the board for that, the LA chapter. And so, you know, so I'm very, I love Israel. I love Jewish people. I love everybody. Well, I like to hear that because I'm Israeli.

54:33So this was like a couple months ago. Oh, come on. Can I tell you something? Let me just. For those of, okay, I'm only showing this to him because people laugh and mock. But I will say that got so much more traction than Forbes, than all these other big biggies. Because I don't know. I think that like there is something to be said about like being on the cover of like the cover. That's like a big deal. That's the major. The Jewish journal. Are you kidding me? Right? Yeah. That's that's heavy. That's right. If Jerry signed, it's good enough for Jerry Seinfeld. Right. Right. So thank you, David Suisa, who's the editor-in-chief.

55:08I love it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, so the first step is to stop. And I love that that word Sabbath because that Hebrew word doesn't mean to rest, even though rest is true. It means to stop. It literally means to cease. you know and no one wants to do that no one it's almost like our world is so noisy right now noisy is normal well it's also all about distraction distraction right if you stop and you don't have a distraction then you really have to start focusing on what's the noise right yeah which is a lot of times we people do not want to have that type of like stillness and quiet yes because then they have to look inward and be like oh my god this isn't good and this isn't good and that's wrong and right, whatever.

55:51So if you keep yourself busy or distracted, then it's much easier in like short-term gratification. Oh yeah. Right. I know all about that. I, I, um, I went through a divorce, uh, in 2012 and it was my first time being alone, you know, in 17 years. And, um, were you married for 17? I was married for 17. I got married pretty young. I was married for 17 years. And she's a wonderful person, just not for me. Right, right, right. I get it. And so I was single now, right? And I don't know anything about that. I'm single. I'm a pastor. You know, I'm like - Are you allowed to date? I guess technically you are, right?

56:37You were obviously, but I'm married again. Like we started this, I'm a grown. I'm a grown-ass man. Right, right. I know. As priests, I can't go. I got it. Okay, okay. But a reverend can go out with people? Yeah, I think so. I mean, again, it depends on your denomination, all that kind of stuff. It varies. But what I needed to do after 17 years of marriage is chill. Like, Tore, chill out. You don't even know what date. What are you doing? You're 40 years old. What are you talking about? You're 40 years old. Right. Like, what are you trying to do here? And so, you know, I told myself that I was going to like, you know, not date or whatever.

57:13And somebody came along and we started starting to date. How did you guys meet then? On Tinder? Are you allowed to be on Tinder? That's hilarious. I'm sure there's some pastors on Tinder. Were you on Tinder? I wasn't on Tinder. Bubble? No. No, no, no. I didn't know. Related ones? Because, well, then I would have had to acknowledge that I was actually looking. Christian Minga, right. Christian Minga. Now, I would even, let me tell you something, I would not do that. Because I love Christian, but Christian's is great. Give me somebody. We're indeeding. Right. No, I'm not doing the Christian thing.

57:49But I, so I started, I had, we had a professional relationship and she. How did you meet her? Was she, was she a pastor then? No, no, not at all. She had fashion? She was in fitness. She was in fitness. She was in fitness? Like, what was she doing in fitness? I didn't know her. What was she doing? I'm not even told your name. So you might know her, but I don't know. Oh, I was talking with Sarah. Oh, no. I'm not at Sarah. I'm not at Sarah. Oh, no. Oh, no. No, we're talking about when you need to be alone to do your stuff. Oh, we're not asking her yet. No, that's her yet. So you're like having to be alone and then someone set you up with this girl?

58:26Well, we had a professional relationship. So you're a trainer? Yes, you're so good. Okay. I'm like - I'm going to go - Well, who is she? Yeah, right. She was my trainer. Where, at a gym or like at a private gym? She would come train me at my place. so and then she just she steps to me one day like she and it was so funny let me let me tell you what's funny about it like she she was such a mac and she's a great person but she was such a mac because you know we're having lunch one day and it was just like you know we're just having lunch you know you're cool i'm cool you know you're training me and then she like lunch is over and she's like so when are we gonna stop playing this game and i'm like playing a game like i'm not playing a game like we're just and she's like come on you know you're interested in me you know and And I'm like, okay.

59:14Because I was so vulnerable. And granted, she's gorgeous. You're not hiring a guy trainer. You're hiring a hot girl. Are you not? Yeah. Okay, there you go. Okay, there it is right there. But that wasn't what she was really good at what she did. Sure. Great. She was amazing. Okay, so then you guys started to date then after she confronted you? And we started to date, which was so stupid. I think she's not your trainer anymore. No, she's not. We ended that. But I think the issue is I needed time to myself, but I wasn't ready for alone. I wasn't ready for what I might find in the silence. And so it didn't go well.

1:00:03And finally, I said, look, why are we pretending? This is not right. And I broke it off. And then - How long were you dating for? A few months. It wasn't very - I mean, I guess a few months could be considered a long time, but a few months. Did you find a new trainer? I did find a new trainer. I did. And I just, yeah. Actually, no, I stopped training and I started just doing what she taught me. Oh. Yeah. Try safer that way. Yeah, I think so. I was too vulnerable. I was open. I'd never been, you know, by myself. Right, alone. I was in college. And I think what's funny is guys sometimes are blinded from the fact that.

1:00:38people might want to have a relationship with it. I was so naive. Like, I was like, I thought that people were friends. I had one lady tell me, how real can we be on this podcast? Very real. I mean, how real. I had one lady tell me, and she was actually, this is bad. This is so bad. Good. The badder, the better. Better than badder, whatever. She basically told me, hey, I can sleep with you, and it won't be anything. Like, I'll even come to your church, sit in the pews, and it won't be anything. And she was like, and she meant it. Like, I will. And I'm like, oh, it's real out here. Oh, you didn't realize it?

1:01:18No, I didn't. No, I was in a bubble. Oh, my God. First of all, can I tell you something? By the way, girls are worse than guys. I learned. I freaking learned. It was like. Did you really not know this? I didn't know. No, because I've been married for 17 years. And how many of those years? 12 of those years, I was, you know, a person of faith. So I was walking this really, you know, pretty straight path. And I was faithful to my wife and that kind of stuff. So I didn't, I didn't really, I was shielded. I was shielded. And so probably being married to her was probably a blessing in disguise because it shielded me.

1:01:48Well, but also I would imagine if you're getting to be very popular in that space and you're on, on like a stage and you would have a lot of groupie like girls who would go there or guys also maybe who just had the hots for you. Yeah, but I. It's not like you're like a dog. It's not like you're like a hundred, you know, obese old man, you know, like. Yeah, I think I was distracted by my work and I had to be distracted by my work because my marriage wasn't great. Yeah. You know, so I was really lost and focused in working in there. And one thing I wasn't going to do is violate the integrity of why somebody's coming to our church.

1:02:24So, you know, yeah, I could maybe feel the energy of some people there that are, you know, kind of checking. But I'm like, you can feel that way you want to. I'm not going to play into that. You're not going into that. No, that's a whole other thing. I'm afraid of God about stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see what you're saying. I get that for sure.

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1:03:58so how long were you single before then you kind of met sarah or just like you know did you how long did you stay kind of by yourself after that debacle with the trainer a little over a year oh wow and you didn't date anybody for a year no after the trainer there were a couple of other people that were short-lived um again still battling with this not wanting to be by myself lonely very short-lived and then i got to a place so i'm like you know what man you're if you know it's right why are you entertaining it and i got to this place where i said you know what i'm not going to date anybody until someone shows up that i believe has the capacity the potential to be my wife you know because i want to be married again you know you know marriage is great if you're with the right person so i stopped and i stopped dating and i was by myself and my book was my first book was coming out so i had a good distraction and i get a call from one of my one of my friends, his name is Derek, who works for T.D.

1:04:56Jakes. And he's like, hey, Trey, you know, I've got somebody in town that I want you to meet. She's got a book coming out. And I just think you should meet her. It's Bishop Jakes' daughter. Now, I love my father-in-law. I think he is brilliant. Like he's brilliant. He's a blessed man and all that kind of stuff. But when I consider my father-in-law, when I consider my father-in-law and I think about his daughter, all I can do is see him with a dress on. And I don't want to date someone who looks like my father-in-law with a dress on. He's a big, burly, you know what I mean? And that's with all due respect.

1:05:32No, he's a big man. I understand what you're saying. So I wasn't expecting for Sarah to walk to the door. We met at the Peninsula in Beverly Hills for breakfast. So I'm sitting down and she walks in and I'm like, what? She's got on like jeans. She's got ripped jeans on. She's got boots up to her. And she's like, and she's bouncing around and stuff like that. And, and, and I'm like, hi. Yeah. So confused. Yeah. It was weird. And so we had a phenomenal conversation, a wonderful conversation about life. Our views were very similar about purpose and about what it means to be called now with the world needs.

1:06:08She wasn't a minister at all. What was she doing? She was an author. She was a blogger and an author. For what? What, what, on what topic? Her first book was called Lost and Found. So she was kind of telling her story, getting pregnant at 13 years old and having a baby at 14 while being in this high profile family. So she was inspirational, kind of a women's magnet or blogged it well. Was she well known in that already or not yet? She was known, but not, well, like in my world, she wasn't known at all. No, no, no. But like, was her blog very popular? Her blog was popular for sure. So if she had a book deal, she must have had some popularity around her.

1:06:44Popularity. Plus she's Bishop Jake's daughter. Right. I was going to say, How long has he been around, by the way? Oh, God. He's had that church in Dallas for 20 years. He's probably been popular for 25 years, like wildly popular for 20 years for sure. Right. So she comes from, obviously, being his daughter. Then she's well-known in that space. Exactly. That's true. Yeah, being there. She's young, but yes, to your point. Yeah. How old is she at this point? She's 25. Okay. Yeah. And so we meet. We have a great conversation. there was definitely um chemistry but not romantic chemistry i wasn't looking at her like that because remember my mentality is i'm not touching anybody unless they have a wife potential and to be honest she's younger than me and so when i had and i did have a little list to be honest with you about what i wanted to look like she wasn't in the age bracket to be honest with you so there were just things she now she's 30 she'll be 34 in july yeah we got a 15 and a half year age difference.

1:07:42So we have a great talk, great breakfast. I told her, I said, you know what, I want you to come and speak at our church. I think my people will love you because you're not churchy. You got on jeans. My people, you're young. You kind of get it. Your messaging is good. I want you to come and speak at my church on Mother's Day, unbeknownst to me that she didn't speak. She wasn't a speaker. She had done some talks, but she had never done a church message at all, ever. I had no idea. And so here's the crazy thing about that. I didn't see her that way then. I saw her, I felt like I met her and I felt like I needed to protect her because I knew what it was like in the church world to be kind of like me in that you're not super religious and you're popular and you have this charisma and you draw people.

1:08:30And sometimes the church world gets uptight, you know, and you're in Hollywood and they just assume that you are whatever they think about us in Hollywood. It's just, it gets weird. And I felt like, man, this girl, she's going to need some protection. And I didn't know, like Bishop Jakes, I knew who he was, but I didn't follow him to be honest with you. Because he's brilliant and I was missing out by not following him, but his style is a little different from mine. He's more, you know. Big. Yes. He's kind of. Dominating. Yes. And so I didn't, I knew who he was. I respect him. How can you not? He's in the faith world.

1:09:05He's massive. So with Sarah, it was almost like my eyes were veiled from seeing her in that way. And I did feel like you're probably going to need some mentorship because I didn't even think, who am I? Your dad's Bishop Jakes. But I knew that Bishop Jakes, he's in a different, it's a different type of thing that he does. He's more in the church world. And I saw Sarah as having more of a pop culture type of grace, similar to mine. So you saw that in her? Oh, for sure. And she didn't see that? Mm-mm. No. And so you're the one who brought her into this space. Absolutely. So fast forward, we exchanged numbers.

1:09:42She tweeted out, she kind of flirted with me in a tweet. She tweeted out, met with Ture Roberts, he's brilliant. I'm like, careful, don't use those words. Yeah, exactly. And then I went to her father's conference in Orlando, Florida. We were texting each other and then she approached me and said, I'm coming to LA in two weeks. Well, didn't she invite you to the conference? Because you weren't following. The Derek guy, the guy who - Oh, Derek invited you. Okay, okay. And so we get there. And so Sarah, we miraculously end up sitting next to each other on the last day of conference. This is really crazy.

1:10:16And there was a closing prayer that Bishop J. said, I'm going to do a closing prayer. Grab the hand of the person that's next to you. So I take her hand and it was crazy. I felt like, this is going to sound weird, but we've been talking about intuition. I felt like she was my wife. I felt I couldn't, I wouldn't be able to articulate that now, but what I felt was a familiarity just at the touch. And I'm like, what is this? So the prayer is over. She turns to me and she says, Tare, I'm coming to LA in two weeks and you are going to take me to dinner. And I'm like, okay. Okay. And the rest was his dinner was, we shut dinner down.

1:10:57But - Where'd you go for dinner? Where'd you take her? to remember the Capitol Grill used to be open right there at the Beverly Center that's closed now which and I'm hurt because that was when I proposed there first date was there really yeah I used to like that place too yeah it's great so um so we went to the Capitol Grill and we talked all night we both we both had been divorced and our perspective on marriage what marriage should be while we were in those marriages so you know for the time being and what the decisions the way we thought what we learned it was like talking to myself it was crazy really shut the Capitol to grill down.

1:11:29And, uh, and we knew pretty quickly that, uh, we were each other's person. Uh, but as far as speaking and stuff like that, Sarah wasn't doing it, you know, her coming to one. And then she started, then I started asking her to pray after the service. So she would do the prayer and then she started preaching there. So literally one became, even though her father has this major mega church, one became the platform that sprung her out into, you know, And she would tell you this. It's not just me. No, no. That's amazing. Hold on. No. Sorry. I thought I was going to sneak. Sorry. Allergy. Sorry. So that was basically, so then when she first spoke, was she awkward?

1:12:10Was it good? Was it? I think it was good. She was nervous, but she always has been a woman of substance. I think that she has grown in skill, in comfortability, in communication. she's more knowledgeable so she's got more to pull from and she's a beast if you ever listen to her that that woman she's my favorite speaker she's my favorite preacher of all times you know i mean even her dad is made 11 but she's got she's like this is gonna sound funny she's like a little bit of me and a little bit of her and a little bit of him and all of herself and she is fierce i love to hear her speak no she's very good i've heard i mean i when she was on the podcast I told you a year ago.

1:12:56I listened to a bunch of her stuff and she's excellent. Yeah, she's amazing. Where does it come from? How do you guys even put these things together over and over? And because you got to do it every week, right? Every week. Someone asked me, it's funny, it's become so natural that I forgot that it's actually a phenomenon that you can come up with life-changing, literally life-changing content every single week. I think for me, it comes from a couple of things. One, things that I'm learning recently. I think that in order to be a good communicator and a good minister or life coach or whatever you want to call yourself, change people's lives, you have to be growing spiritually yourself.

1:13:36And so, you know, there are disciplines that I work every day to keep me aligned, to keep me really connected to my spirituality. One. Two, you got to love people. You know, so when I'm like, even when I talk to people or before I get up on the stage to speak, I'm turned around and I'm looking at the audience because I want to see them. I want to see you. I want to feel you. I want to look in your eyes. You know, I want to, I love you. I have to love you in order to be effective. So I need to pause and look at you. And a lot of times it's weird. I can, you know, it's going to sound strange, but I can kind of feel people.

1:14:09I can feel what they're going through and what they need. Really? Yeah, it's really, really. oh that's why I can't write my I have points but I can't write my sermon out for word for word because I respond to who's in the room and I respond to how they respond and so if I say something that really resonates or maybe it's it intrigues a person but you know they need more then I'll work three or four analogies until I feel like the room got it and I can move on and you'll think about them on the fly oh yeah absolutely 50 at least percent of my message It's just extemporaneous. Like it's like right there.

1:14:45You know, I'll have a theme of somewhere that I want us to go. But, you know, it all depends on who's in the room. We used to do multiple services and each service would be different. Although the theme was the same because of whose energy is in the room. And you would do one sermon every Sunday. How many people would show up? So our theater is supposed to hold about 800 people. But we learned how to put chairs down and get the lobby going. So it'll max out at about 1 ,200. and we were doing three services a Sunday before COVID-19 hit. And so - Three on Sunday. Three on Sunday. Like eight o 'clock, 10 o 'clock.

1:15:18Yeah, back then it was nine o 'clock because it's LA. Ain't nobody coming at eight o 'clock. Yeah, exactly. I was going to say, by yourself, fricking. Exactly. Good morning, everyone, all four of you. But 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and then we would do a midweek service. By the way, how much is a membership? There's no membership. It's free. Yeah. Okay, so how do you guys make money as a church then? It's a nonprofit, you said. It's a nonprofit, yeah, through donations. So all donation-based. All donation-based. You guys can't put around like a bucket to people? We used to before COVID-19, we used to.

1:15:50But yeah, we would pass the bucket around. And yeah, there's no, you know, we just trust that, hey, you see the value of this, not just for your life, but for what we're doing in the community, you know, practical stuff. Because yeah, the spiritual stuff is majorly important. We totally get that. But people got practical needs. There's some people that you're never going to, well, I won't say, who knows? But you never may believe the way I believe. But you still need to eat. You still need job support. You still need all these other things. And people respond to that. People want to give to organizations that are making a difference.

1:16:22Do most people give when the bucket goes by? I think so. It's hard to tell. So I get a report. I can't see who's giving what. Right. It's kind of, you know. You can't anyway. How do you know if it's going around? Well, you don't have to. You can give anonymously. But most people want the tax break. Oh, so does it come around with a piece of paper that says, here's, you can tell it. Yeah, you can do that. Or now it's all automated. So you can text to give and you've got a profile set up. So you literally text the number and the amount that you want to give and it goes to that. And so on our back end, we have computers that track who gives what.

1:16:58So at the end of the year, they get their giving statement and they can deduct those gifts from their tax returns. Oh, but in person, when the bucket goes by, there's no technology, is there? Nothing? No. I don't even know. We're starting back. I don't even know if they're going to do buckets. We're probably still going to be digital. And people give stocks and Bitcoin, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But then on digital, how do they do it, though? If you're watching, how do they do it? So it's a text. So they start off with the text. That's what the text. Okay. So you send them a text first? With a form.

1:17:33Okay. And so that captures their data, you know, their name and address, so we can send out the mailing statement, email address. And so now every time they text, the system already knows. It's them. It's them. Right, right, right. So it tallies up their giving. So interesting. Yeah. It's like, and all this, none of this stuff I knew about when I started, I just said, look, I want to help people, you know, here it is, go for it. And how much do people normally give? What's like the going rate? Well, it depends on how much they make. So some people, and I think in—

1:18:04In person first. Let's go person versus online. So there are principles, and I'm pretty sure, I think this is the same in synagogues, but there's a principle called the tithe, which means a tenth. And so some people who really, really are followers and believe in the church and what we're doing give a tenth of their increase. Like I literally, 10 % of everything I make, I give to our church, you know, and that's where I start. And then beyond that, I help all kind of other places. I just. So this is where it's different. So when you're at a synagogue, typically you have to pay a membership. Okay.

1:18:40And then also you give donations based on where you are, like in terms of your like economic place in life. Okay. And there are people, it's like the 80-20 world, you know, like as in life, right? You have a very small percentage of people who give like the majority of it. But, you know, because it was done, how you guys do it with the bucket. And I'm only saying, because I remember when I was at Joel Olson, the bucket was coming by. And I was like, what the hell is this bucket? What's the bucket, right? Yeah, I thought that was only in movies. Right. And didn't realize it actually happens. And people are taking out money and throwing it in the bucket.

1:19:11Yeah. I didn't know if it was the same. Because if they're coming weekly, it's different if you just come once in a while. But also, they're coming weekly. You're giving cash or how much do you normally get in person? Oh, it depends. It depends. From like a dollar to? Yeah, people give a dollar, you know, 20. It depends on where they are now. And our church is a pretty young church. And so young people a lot of times have young money, you know. And so I think that we do well and stay afloat because there are a lot of young people who do so. But then you're right. It is the 80-20 rule. There's some people that do very well.

1:19:48And some of them aren't even local. They'll be either overseas or in another state. And they're multimillionaires. And so their tithe is significant. Well, yeah. So what I think is doing digital is probably way better. I mean, you're making more money digitally, I would imagine. The only problem with that is that - You're reaching more people. Yeah. The only problem with that is that people who are only connected digitally don't give as much because I don't want to suspect it. But if the bucket comes, no bucket can come around. They can't see you. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of people, when they see the bucket, they see other people doing it and they feel guilty if they don't.

1:20:28It's like peer pressure in a way. Because I didn't know. And I'm like, oh, I guess people are beside me. They're giving. I better give my money too. Because you don't know. you want to feel inclusive yeah but i was always curious about that because also when people do donation you make you tend to make more money because it's like the psychologically when people feel like well i'm not paying for a membership i get it because some of the people are feel more they feel more generous to be giving money because it's it's that way versus like a finite amount of So true. And then from a business perspective, you would almost want to be able to quantify if we've got a thousand members and they're giving a thousand dollars a month, then you've got a million dollar budget.

1:21:20So that obviously would feel more safe, but it doesn't work that way. We have zero commitment. And you have to trust that people. have to trust for sure but you have a huge i mean congregation you guys are probably raking it in i mean let's be honest not not really but i'll tell you what when we did well uh covid helped us because yeah one thing you're a non-profit so literally you're not supposed to be profitable isn't that interesting i know so most non-profits though can make a lot of money though oh for sure because people are generous and they support but you're i'm not saying you're supposed to spend it all.

1:21:58But if you're like a nonprofit and you're just growing and growing and growing and growing, and there's no outgo, outflow into the community, into the world, that's a little tricky. But COVID helped us in that because we couldn't use the facility, our overhead dropped significantly. Our numbers, our donations, they were pretty flat. I think we jumped, actually, no, we jumped 7%. No, 7 % last year. The first year we were pretty flat. But because the overhead was down, it was kind of awesome because we were able to do more. Right. And went at a time when the world needed more. So instead of putting money into the building and all the things that go into managing the building, we were doing all kind of radical altruistic things, which I think brought the church even to a greater place of prominence.

1:22:46I'm just curious, how many people do what you do in this kind of unconventional way? Is there other people? Do you have real competition in this way? That's funny. So I understand what you mean by competition. It would be - You know what I mean. Yeah, I totally do. But I want to preface that with in that faith world, even though the faith world can be more competitive than corporate America. Yeah. And let's not even go there. But in that world, you're supposed to not be competing because everybody is a servant of God. But - But with that being said. That being said. So we're just, so that we're clear.

1:23:19Keeping it at 100. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there are, thank God, I think that there are leaders who are being more open, being more authentic, being more relevant. I'm sorry. There's a guy that I'm thinking of. I think he had like a sermon or something in Beverly Hills at a hotel. I think it was. Judah. Judah Smith. Is that his name? Judah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he was doing something. I think it was one of those hotels on Wilshire. And then he's at the Saban. Judah Smith. Is that his name? Yeah, Judah. He's a friend of mine. Okay, so he's a young guy too, yeah? Yeah, Judah's about my age, maybe a couple years younger.

1:23:55Oh, okay. Are you sure it's the same guy? I think. I thought this guy was, unless I'm just like so old now that even. I thought he, so he was like the kind of considered to be like the rock star young guy. Could be Judah. And he was bringing all these entertainment people. And I was invited to go a few times. Yeah? Yeah, that's Judah. Is that him? Yeah, Judah. Jason Kennedy was there. Yes. Yeah, that's Judah. Yes. Okay, how is he different than you? First of all, I love Judah. I think Judah is an incredible human being. I love his broad perspective in bringing people together in the faith world.

1:24:28I think that I'm probably a little more raw than Judah. Oh, okay. I think because his father was a pastor and they had a massive church in Seattle, Washington. I didn't know that. Yeah. Okay. And I love him. I think that he is dynamic, greatly dynamic. And there are some similarities, in fact, because he does draw a lot of entertainment people. Yeah. But I think, and I don't want to say but, I'll just say and, he's raw, but I'm pretty doggone raw. Right, right, right, right, right. Like I, I, I, um, so I'm probably, you know, maybe, and maybe that's, that's, maybe that's, uh, maybe that's why, maybe that is not a good thing.

1:25:10I don't know. I think he's more, maybe more polished where I'm a little more, I'm polished, but I also will get to a place that I will get gritty to get you. Yeah. You know, if I've got to like, you know, get down there and just tell it like it is, is, is, is, is talk about, you know, how I was, you know, promiscuous or, you know, ego-sourced centric, you know, nothing's really off limits, so to speak. I mean, some things are, but not really. If I got to tell you, if I got to show you my scars to really connect with you, I'm going to do it, you know? And he probably is too in his own way. But, but I think, I think we have a lot of similarities for sure.

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1:27:17So what else? I know that you obviously are your businessman and you do all this other, How do you divide, not in a balance, divide your time, but what else are you up to? You obviously have this church. You have this book. What else do you do business-wise? Do you have other entities that you do? I do. We've got a multimedia company. Our thrust right now is the music. But what we did in the production space through Cary and Everything was done through our entertainment company. So we're always looking for, especially because we attract so many young people, we're always looking for shows and concepts that we can use and promote and push.

1:28:03So some of the doors that have opened up to me are in entertainment. And so we're always looking for it. So that's one. I also have Torrey Enterprises is all things book and speaking. So I travel and speak to leadership events, to some business events, and I've got that going too. We also have the tour, the Women Evolve tour. Right. That's also under the… Yeah, that's a separate entity. Oh, okay. Women Evolve is a separate entity. Okay. And so are you traveling a lot now with speaking or is Sarah speaking a lot? Or are you guys like tag team? Do you guys go together? It depends. I mean, we both kind of have our separate things.

1:28:43There's some things that make sense for us to do together. Yeah, what do you guys do together? Where is it? Like, under the church, you guys are both under the same YouTube channel? Yeah, that's actually what's crazy. That was actually my personal YouTube channel that I built. So even like if you go to it now, it's youtube.com forward slash Tori Roberts. That's you, right. Yeah, and it all just dovetailed in together. But she has her own YouTube channel as well. And it's called Women Evolve. It's called Sarah Jakes Roberts. Oh, okay, not Women Evolve. And Women Evolve comes through there. But Women Evolve is an entity.

1:29:12And under that entity, which she's a CEO, I'm, you know, I was the COO. I'm like, I can't do it all. So we hired a COO and now we're just partners in the entity. Oh, wow. But that has so many tentacles, you know, it's touring, it's speaking, it's obviously merchandise, there's the store, it's clothing, it's podcast. It's yours or hers? That's hers. some of those entities we we share um in but but that's kind of but you guys are also your own personalities right so like you have your own entity which is the speaking the tours the books i also have a leadership organization a leadership development organization so that's part of the speaking but it's also separately uh it's a separate entity separately branded which is because I'm big on, I love leadership.

1:30:05And I just, I love talking about it. I love entrepreneurship. I love empowering people, particularly people who just didn't grow up around information that helps them in the area of entrepreneurship. So I've got that stream as well. But we believe, we believe in multiple streams. Like if you're sitting around waiting on, you know. Right. Forget it. Yeah. You got to make your own opportunities. Absolutely. And so this, I know you're going to, what your answer is going to be, but I'm going to ask anyway, Do you guys ever get competitive with each other because you guys are in the same lane? Well, that's a great question.

1:30:39I think if we do, it is not spoken. I think that I won't call it competitive because we complement each other so well. And like, because we're really trying to help people and we only win, like helping people to really be effective at helping people, it requires one another's support. Like, I mean, we'll be in there and there's 5 ,000 people in a room. We ain't got time to be competing. Babe, I need you to win. You know, I need you to win this moment, you know, and we'll high five later. But so it's not competition, but it is.

1:31:16I think I'm a better speaker. I'm a better marketer because of her. You know, I think that I think we sharpen each other, you know, like so right now I'm doing this and she's seeing me at my best because you know i wrote this book um i'm doing these interviews you know with you know great outlets like this one you know and so she's seeing me at the top of my game i'm gonna travel you know i'm going to new york and a couple new press there so i think that it feeds and she had her turn with with woman evolve yeah she's here so i think it feeds it's not competition because competition is i'm competing against you and some might say that that's healthy, but that can become a little carnal.

1:31:58It can become a little egotistic. It's not in a negative way. It's more of a healthy competition. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you killed that. Like, wow, I'm going to kill my next thing. Right. I think it's more, it's more like that. Do you guys, and you guys help each other out? Oh yeah. Everything, we laugh about this, but it's true. When you see one of us, you see both of us. Like literally, I can feel her in my head right now saying, you better. That's her thing. You better. You know what I mean? Like, you know, and so, I mean, she recorded some stuff yesterday and I wasn't there. But when you see one, you see both because we're, I mean, we're two peas in a pod, but we're so for each other.

1:32:35Like, that's my best friend in the whole world. Like, people talk about this concept of ball and chain. Like, who are you married to? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A woman ain't no ball and chain, man. She's, I would, I'd spend every day with, I don't, I never get tired of her. and never get tired of them. That's a great place to be. Yeah. That's a great place. And then is your business, so like your business, her business, is there any affiliation with Bishop Jake said? That's just all just in my head. So there's one, so here's what happened. So I had one church and that was, I built that. It's been what it's been for years.

1:33:13It was a quote unquote mega church when I met Sarah. In fact, that's why Derek wanted to introduce Sarah to me to promote her book because here is this mega church in LA. Now, of course, Bishop would be a giga. He should be like a mega church. Did she promote her book in his church too, by the way? I'm sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And that was a, yeah, he did the foreword and everything on her first book, but it was established. So then Sarah and I get married, And now Sarah is a part of my church. So it's me and her now. So now instead of one, it's two. And we were just rocking that out and that was great.

1:33:54But the church in Denver, which is one of my father-in-law's churches, the pastor there had a moral failure and they had to ask him to leave the church. So now the church is headless. It has no overseer. Bishop is the big dog, but no person on the ground to run that church. So being a good son-in-law, I said, you know what? We can do it. I'm not going to let anything that you're doing fall to the ground. So I'm going to do both. I'm not going to give up LA. I'll move to Denver because it's going to need oversight. Got to build team, leadership, lick the wounds, heal things up. So I took over that church.

1:34:32Now, it was going to be a little odd to say I'm the pastor of one church or one LA and the pastor of Potter's House. LA, they've been rocking with me since 2004. Yeah. So how can I, from a branding perspective, present something that says it's still both? And so what we did was, since that church was called the Potter's House of Denver, which was owned and run and headed up by Bishop, I said, we're going to make L.A. a Potter's House church, but we're still going to be L.A. We're going to call it the Potter's House at 1LA. So at the time, I thought it was a good idea because it makes them feel like, hey, we're just merging into a bigger situation with him.

1:35:16And I just wanted them to feel like I wasn't leaving them. The only problem is, and I realize this now, that one had a lot of equity. I didn't realize that. Like my father-in-law, he had a talk show he did and he had to come out here to do the talk show. And everybody on set, you know, the producers, you know, down to the, you know, craft service people. And they're like, yeah, no, I go to one church. And so he's like, whoa, this church has a massive brand, you know, and we did. So in hindsight. Wow, yeah. And so people still, even to this day, you know, still, even when it was the Potter's House at 1LA, we're still calling it one church.

1:35:52Right. That's how strong the brand was. And it was unique for all those years. So, but I changed it. And I think it was a mistake, to be honest with you. It wasn't a mistake in my intention to unify and to let my LA people know that I'm still there. But I think if I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn't have taken another entity, but that's a whole other story. But anyway, so when the pandemic hit, everybody went online. Everybody went online. We lived in Denver for a year. I moved back because I just couldn't. My family thrived in LA. Thank God we didn't get rid of our house in Calabasas.

1:36:35Our family thrived. And I moved back, started doing Denver remotely. And then when pandemic, and when I say remotely, streaming from LA into Denver. And then when the pandemic hit, everybody was virtual. So I took Denver and of course, LA virtual, kept our feeding center in Denver open and our local outreach to the community open. But I closed church and made it digital only. And I decided to close it personally or permanently with the exception of online and local outreach so that I can focus here. When I did that, I brought the name back. And so now it's one, but to honor the Potter's House, there's a little tagline that says, a Potter's House church.

1:37:19So I reclaim one. And one is true to me. Right. It's true to me. So anyway. No, I like that. I'm like, how long have I been talking to you for? This is good. We can do this forever. I mean, I feel like I didn't ask you any real of the questions I had written here. But getting back to your book, I think I asked you like three questions about it. I asked you about balance and I asked you about how to know if you're in balance, how to get in balance. Did we talk about how to get in balance a few steps? Yeah, we talked about the step, step of stopping, quieting the noise and kind of went on a tangent.

1:37:55Which are the first two steps? The power of no, we didn't really speak about. We got to talk about that. Yeah, let's talk about the power of no. And then we can like, I can let you out of here. Okay. You can come back again. But like, people are going to be like, what is going on? This is not Joe Rogan with five hours. Yeah, so please, you talk very much about this in the book, about 90 % of your time you should say no to things, not the opposite around, the power of no. What do you, why, why, and, well, why? Yeah, that's probably, that could be the most important chapter in the book, the power of no.

1:38:31And the reason why no is important is because yes is expensive. You know, when you say yes to something, and it's easy to do because, let's talk about it. Somebody presents something to you, particularly if it's a friend, a mentor, somebody you want to work with, you know what I mean? And they present something to you, the easiest or an opportunity, the easiest thing to do is to say yes. Because why? There's instant gratification with yes. There was no conflict. You're liked. You feel good. There's instant gratification. Okay, great, right? But the only thing is it feels good in that moment. But what happens later when something that you really want to do, something that you've been working your butt off for, you've been preparing for, you've been praying about, you got all your friends in, that comes up.

1:39:18Now you've realized the value of the yes that you gave because now you have to say no to something that matters and then you get busy. And so, you know, I am dramatic when I say that you ought to have the 90-10 no to yes rule. It does seem dramatic, right? what 90 % 9 out of 10 things things ought to be saying no to absolutely now here's the caveat if you are you have a good structure good system around you good staff or whatever then maybe it's more like 50 % because your staff is screening some of the requests that come your way so maybe you're at 50 50 but the average person who doesn't who don't have gatekeepers don't have anybody around you.

1:39:57You should be saying no because you want to have a healthy amount of yeses available for the just because. When I say yes, I'm committing my time, my energy, my person, and my availability. I'm a limited resource. I can't do that. I'm flattered you're here now. Yeah. Thank you. It's true. I'm honored. This is great. So no is everything because yes is expensive. And you know what else I like about no? No qualifies your relationships because some people, the relationship only works because you always say yes. You should just try it. Just like, you know, let me just throw a no in here and see if they walk away.

1:40:39And you'll be surprised. Some people, if you're offended because I have a boundary and I'm trying to protect myself and I'm trying to better myself and I'm trying to level up. And in order to do so, I have to tell you know this one time if you're offended by that you're not my friend my no just qualified the relationship yeah so i love no knowing