one of the most fascinating human beings I know in my world traveling evangelist best-selling author seven fig entrepreneur I have with me Manny orango the goal of communication is connection it's not to say all the stuff in your head when we're in a room and a masterful communicator is talking and we leave and we feel transformed or we feel uplifted or we feel motivated or we feel encourag well there's actually psychology and skill and expertise that goes into that happening this year you said that you you probably preach 50 Sundays 48 Sundays probably 200 times on stage this year what are some principles that applied both in that context that would apply in speaking in front of thousands oh my gosh okay so welcome to the department where we interview people who are killing it in their Department it's Omar Tori and I have with me one of the most fascinating human beings I know in my world he is a traveling evangelist a best-selling author seven fig entrepreneur and he's currently getting his Doctorate I have with me Manny orango yo how you feeling fam dude this is tight dude I'm really excited about the studio the space talking to you like there's a highlight for me um I would imagine that you know not many people I I said all these things that make you fascin you're really good at all these verticals I want to get into them you know individually but could you just talk about a little bit about um who you are what you do just so people know and kind of get a okay I'm a Bible nerd I would say like that's the fundamental thing that I feel like I've mastered in my life or that I've given myself to master I think it's is that what your dotin what yeah my docton new testament okay uh so my undergraduate degree is in biblical and Theological studies my Master's Degree was in Bible and then my doctorate is in New Testament and that's crazy how extensive it can go isn't it oh my God there's no end yeah and I'm yeah I'm even thinking about continuing with school but that that's like there's this really really cool verse in Genesis 49 right and it says that uh it this Jacob is kind of giving like prophetic words to his 12 sons and one of his son is Benjamin he says Benjamin you're a ravenous wolf you devour your pray in the morning you divide your plunder at night so you devour and then divide and when you say like okay like traveling evangelist entrepreneur like all that stuff that's like a diversification of like skill sets but that's not possible until you first like devour in the morning and so I think there's a lot of people they're trying to do like 15 different things but they haven't mastered one thing yet that's good and actually it doesn't ever feel like I'm doing 15 things it just feels like I'm doing one thing in multiple formats right and I feel like if you just ask me what's the one thing that I've just mastered it's learning how to communicate biblical ideas that's it and I can do that through books I can do that through an e-learning platform you know I could do that on stage on a Sunday morning I could I could do that in any way shape or form it's it's like there's lots of weeks right where like I'll be writing a paper for school and then I'll take that paper for school and I'll turn it into a sermon and then I'll take those sermon notes and turn it into a chapter from my book and then I'll take that chapter from my book and turn it into notes from my online platform so I'm not doing like you know 15 different things I've just honed in on one thing I know how to communicate biblical ideas and that one thing it's it's like dope let's let's turn it into as many things cuz there's some people who will sit down with a book but other people need a video other people need audio it's no different than you saying to me hey if you're going to do a podcast do a video do a video right and then separate the audio it's not extra work it's still talking in a mic with a person you may as well throw up some cameras because you're not doing more work you're actually just being a good steward over the work that you are doing love and I would say I started preaching at 13 and I've fallen in love with God's word and I think that the Bible has something to say to every single person I think it has something to say to Christians non-christians Republicans Democrats you know liberals conser the Bible has something to say to every single human being on the planet and my job is just distilling biblical truth and making it really easy for people to understand it and that's good I just so happen to do that yeah in tons of different ways so I would say there's so many verticals that's that people are doing that very thing distilling something into a a form that people can then digest better I would call that a thought leader that's that's what a thought leader is you you take the time to consider maybe formulas or Frameworks and and in that you make it easy for other people and we can get into what Arma is which is your subscription model Bible you know education uh platform but you know you mentioned you fell in love with God's word as a teen with God God's word as a teenager how do you fall in love with God's word I have I mean I have my journey with that you know it it was an exposure to the interpretation of his word when when uh my B my youth pastor showed me how to properly interpret scripture yeah I just fell in love with I was like this is amazing yeah and I just was like until somebody showed me that it wasn't until I fell in love with his word but I'd like to know what was that for you it was definitely a journey okay so the moment where I fell in love with God's word wasn't like actually falling in love with the word it was falling in love with the benefits of his word and and I eventually fell in love with the actual Bible okay so I remember being 12 years old okay um little bit of my story background for me uh my dad was incarcerated for 18 years uh my mom's pregnant with my oldest sister at 12 years old wow pregnant again at 14 um my dad took me to a crack house for the first time when I was five okay so rough upbringing okay and so uh I had a pastor who just knew how to contextualize the gospel okay so I churched in the hood and uh our P my a guy that I eventually started working for name's Pastor Andy comes to our youth group and says okay how many is there all black kids in this youth group okay and obviously I'm one of them so he's like hey how many of you um know what child support you know what alimony is you know what child support is I mean dude 80% of our our hands go up right and uh he's like uh how many of you guys like your mom is mad at your dad right now for not paying alimony and you know a ton of our hands go up and then he goes all right how many of your uh families are poor you know 12 years old I absolutely know what that mean like I'm like hand up and he goes all right I'm going to tell you why your families are poor okay I'm going to tell you why your dads are poor he's like oh last question how many of your dads have multiple baby mamas hands up okay he's like all right I'm G tell you exactly why your dad's are poor and why um and oh sorry last question he goes and how many of you right now you're sexually active and so a bunch of our hands go up and he's like all right so cool let's get into this he's like so so uh your dads are probably doing the exact thing you're doing right now when when when they were your age so like the the way that like you get to multiple baby mamas and like broke and like can't get out the hood like the way you get there is what you're doing is like having sex at 13 like that's how you get there okay that that's where this road leads and he goes let me tell you why your dads will always be broke because it cost a lot of money like let's say you got four kids by four baby mamas it cost a lot of money to provide four chickens for four baby mamas for four kids he's like but guess what's cheaper if you got four kids by one woman who's your wife way less expensive to Prov provide for those four kids if they're all by one woman he's like so we're going to do an abson challenge he's like and and I know none of you are mature enough to love Jesus yet you're not going to be ABS because you love Jesus so just forget that he's like but how many of you want to get out the hood all of our hands go up dang and he's like all right so since you all want to get out the hood let's do this let's keep your pants up and your zipper zipped let's let's keep it in your pants and I remember from that moment that's wild like into adulthood I was it wasn't until I got to college that I was like oh no I can be sexually pure because I love the Lord First Timothy has this really cool verse it says that the scriptures are able to make you wise unto salvation which means that with wisdom actually can come before salvation and a lot of times I think the church wants to just offer people salvation hey come give your life to Jesus come get saved that's obviously really important let's not mistake how important and vital that is but sometimes I think we withhold wisdom until after people are saved like they're not going to understand until they're Christians and it's like ah no like dve Ramsey is actually just saying hey this can make you wise like if you learn how to like get out of debt manage your finances you don't have to be a Christian to like access this wisdom that's good here you go here's wisdom and now this wisdom becomes an onramp to this highway called salvation that's good and I remember being 12 years old and going oh this thing called the Bible it has something to say to me it's relevant to like my situation and what that dude did he took something that I thought was boring and Antiquated and he made it relevant good that's the job of a communicator they take something that's on paper in a book that I don't think has anything to do with me and they become the bridge to making it something that has the ability to change my life and I made a decision as a 12-year-old that absolutely altered the course of my life I'm the only orango I mean that I know of that's never served prison time that's a pastor that's in Ministry that owns property that's wealthy and that had kids after marriage not before like I changed the trajectory of my family's lineage because I had a youth pastor who made the Bible relevant for me and contextualized it for a bunch of kids who knew what alimony were was in Middle School school that's and I remember falling in love with the scriptures that day I mean just going okay if that dude got that advice from that book bet I'll read it and from that day on it was it was over game over within a year from that point I started preaching I mean it was it was I was set on a course to do the same thing that I saw Pastor Andy do like crack open the Bible and and and and you could watch scales fall from people's eyes like as truth got exposed to them and I went yeah I'm hooked I want to do this for the rest of my life have you ever wondered to yourself or asked yourself the question when you watch my content how the heck does Omar's quality of video look and sound so dang crispy it's literally the number one question I get asked whether it's privately in the DMS or people commenting on my videos on Instagram or even on YouTube the reality is I believe the quality of videos that I've been able to produce has been the recipe to my success online and I want to give you access to my live document where I've listed out everything I use both for the podcast I create to the YouTube videos I make as well as to what I use for my smartphone to make it look and sound amazing the reason I put it on a live Doc is cuz I keep this document updated in real time with everything that I'm using so just head over to the video.co crispy or just click the link down in the show notes let's get back to the conversation that's so good it's crazy how much you remember everything about that moment you know cuz a lot of times we remember how we felt in the moment we know kind of like what went on in that moment but like looks like it's it's so vivid in your memory and it's funny I I the other someone who's also in Ministry Pastor Irwin mcmanis or wiwin mcmanis no but he said he he Pursuit he he was on a pursuit to just be have better character and that Pursuit led him to Jesus mhm and it was so it wasn't like he found Jesus and then his character changed it was like no he was changing his character and then it was like oh wow this guy is the ultimate example absolutely and and so like what you say about uh what Timothy says about how the wisdom could come first and then salvation the scriptures make you wise under salvation so good I think sometimes the church thinks that the thing that we're exporting is truth but really sometimes the world doesn't want our truth but I think if we were to change our export to wisdom I think the world does want our wisdom and I think we could kind of offer truth once people get hooked on the wisdom and I think sometimes we try to throw those in Reverse we want to offer everybody Truth uh and the the reality is that if you talk to anyone who's not necessarily identifies as a Christian and they are they they they they don't they they don't like what is truth you know yeah but everyone wants wisdom everyone every single human being on the planet is like yes tell me a wise way to be a mom yes tell me a wise way to be a husband yes tell me a wise way to manage money yes tell me a wise way to manage my business like the reason that we listen to podcast is a because we either want to be entertained or we want wisdom and so I think capitalizing on the world's desire for wisdom is something that I wish the church did more more so good it makes me think about a friend of mine who's in business and he's been coming to citylight a couple times and I would say like dude I don't think he knows the Lord yet pretty sure but the dude's loving it like I was on the phone with him yesterday and he's like dude Omar does does jvin preach like that every week I was like bro every Sunday yeah and um he's like it's crazy like that dude got fired up you know I was like no it's awesome he's like I literally watched the sermon again I was like dude that's awesome he's like I think I'm going to bring Whitney uh which is his wife you know again and it's just been it's so like I have the patience to know like it'll work like the dude loves he loves coming he loves how it feels but I know he's getting so much wisdom yeah and and that that the truth will come and I think that's really good all right can you define wisdom really quickly I mean gosh okay so the Bible does a better job of defining wisdom than I ever could um and and so there's this there's this interesting I'm going to get nerdy okay um so when you think about wisdom I want us to think about being crafty okay so what does it mean to be crafty it means like I'm a little devious it means like I'm like my wheels are turning in my brain but it also means I'm like good with my hands right so like crafty kind of means like I got some schemes I got some I got some tricks up my sleeve M but I could also go down to Hobby Lobby and like bust it down you know what I'm saying so when the Bible shows us wisdom for the first time in the Bible it shows us a serpent in the garden who in Hebrew is described as a room that's the Hebrew word and it means that he's crafty and Jesus then says hey here's what I want you to do I want you to be as crafty as serpents but as innocent as doves and the wisdom that God wants to give you is n in Proverbs it's called the fear of the Lord so okay what's what what does craftiness have to do with fear okay cool it's like I want you to think Adam and Eve get deceived by The Serpent and then they're scared that so the fear came after they made a mistake the fear of the Lord is not just to be scared of God but it's to be scared the way God is scared which means he's not scared after something happens he can predict what's going to happen and then operate in that fear in the present even though the mistake isn't into the future so the fear of the Lord is to say whoa I'm not gonna be scared after I cheat on my wife no no no no I'm GNA foresee that if I cheat on my wife I'll lose my kid I'll lose my family I'll lose my business I'll lose my Ministry I'll lose credibility and now I'm scared now even though I've never done that that's good I'm scared at the thought of doing it I don't need to do it to be scared so like Adam and Eve they're scared after craftiness has deceive them but we want to be crafty so that we kind of reverse that and go whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa I'm all that fear that I would feel if I did make that mistake I feel that now so if somebody ask me what is wisdom I would say foresight wisdom is foresight it's having the ability to go oh okay we're in the middle of covid wisdom says byy Delta stock like foresight like I can see where this is going God's given me discernment and and then so in Proverbs that craftiness that devious that like okay I can like put this together and I can get creative like I can like build businesses and I can figure out how this is going to make money like I've got foresight like that thing that's really good don't just let that live up here and don't use that to deceive and trick use that to roll up your sleeves and actually put some crafts together with your hands like get all that creativity and don't just let it live up in the clouds let it get in the dirt and do something with your life life build so like the first people who are given a spirit of wisdom in the Bible they're building this thing called a tabernacle and so for biblical authors wisdom isn't just like heady philosophy all day like we're just going to wear our robes and debate Socrates and er no no no wisdom is Paul says I'm a wise Builder so like you know that I'm wise CU I built a build building that could sustain storms you know that I'm wise cuz I built something that can last a test of time that's wisdom and wisdom has the foresight to not just build because it's a passion project right now but it it puts cultural values into the foundation of what's being built because we don't just build on impulse we're building something that we want to pass on to our children our children's children like if if you ask me what it means to be wise it means to take the ideas of creativity and foresight and fear and and like Innovation and you put all that together and that's like what the Bible is saying about like wisdom dude I love that you do that you get your hands dirty you go to work you work hard and you roll up your sleeves and you get to it you you freaking build and and um you embody what it means to be a builder like one time I was you know the I was asking this young guy about his life I was mentoring him and like you know he was telling me about some dating decision and I went okay well calm down you're telling me about the bricks like but where's the blueprint I was like you you don't know whether or not this girl is a good person to date M because you you don't have blueprints yet like you're trying to figure out does this brick go here and I'm trying to get you to back up and go well what are the blueprints of the building and he's like well I don't I don't have Blueprints and I'm like yeah until you get some blueprints put the bricks down you'll never know if this is a good girlfriend or a good mate or a good business partner or good anything until you like figure out what's the vision for my life like what does the architect have to say about like what I'm building and so anyway that's a I just think there there's a connection to the doing of of the thing that you're gleaming on yes you know it's that it's knowledge if it's not applied but when it's applied it becomes wisdom absolutely yeah no and dude and you embody that I feel like you you're not only a hard worker but like it's something you talk about a lot in your on your Instagram and sometimes on your stories like just that dude if you're a dude trying to date and you got no job it's like bro what are you doing I don't know what you're doing and I've known you since 2019 and dude you've been grinding bro like and it respect because it's cool to see all that has happened from your wisdom you know yeah and um and one of those things is you are a you're diligent at the craft of communication and this year you said that you you probably preach 50 Sundays 48 Sundays 48 out 52 some of those 48s are three times that day four times that day sometimes you got a midweek or a conference sure so you could say that this year you'll probably you probably have spoken yeah and that's not counting preaching on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursday yeah yeah yeah I mean you're like what well over 200 probably probably 200 times on stage this year and they say that um what is it like a 30 minute you know sermon is equ equivalent to an 8 hour workday right in terms of your body's exhaustion it's crazy yeah it's number one are you okay yeah yeah yeah all right cool just want to first ask you that but like okay but you've been preaching for a while I started preaching at 13 13 I've seen you I've seen how you move a room um how you're able to just get up on stage and you have this ability to like immediately in a really short amount of time get them going uh open up their hearts and then you know deliver a sound message could you just talk real quick about some of the biggest mistakes that newer creat uh newer communicators are making oh my God gosh like on stage yeah on stage I mean I would imagine and we could we can even go like I think I think preaching is much more I would I would call it difficult skillful um like it there's a lot more to preaching in my opinion than like professionally communicating or speaking at a at a conference or what have you for sure so I think you have some so much to say about just these nuances but let's start with the mistakes like if you want to be a professional speaker or whatever listen but I would like to know from you you're your observation oh boy okay I'll tell you one of the best things I did as a young Communicator is I found or not even I my youth pastor found what I would call lowrisk environments for me to preach at what is that what do that mean okay so first this is like I'm I'm 13 years old and I'm like yo I feel called to preach M and my youth pastor is like bet like uh meet me at my house 6:00 p.m. on like Thursday night so I'm like yo he found a youth conference for me to preach at like he booked me at some like event like this is about to be dope I got like dope kicks on like I I'm I'm I'm excited you know so anyway we we um we get in his car and we drive like a couple miles like from his house and we pull up to a juvenile detention center and we get out and he's like all right let's let's go and I'm like ah this is not like like what I had in my head and anyway so from that week on for the next like two years I'm preaching at juvie wow like every other Thursday and so then I you know I'm probably like 15 or 16 and I'm like hey like I I feel like I can handle adults you know what I'm saying like let's let's step it up a little bit and he goes okay Bet meet me at my house Sunday morning at like 700 a.m. so I get to his house 7: I'm suited I like I got a dope suit on K&G I don't know if that's even still a thing so what is K&G real quick bro buy one get one 50% off suits like kmg is the JY anyway uh so I'm at his house 7 a.m. I'm thinking he's about to take me to like Mount Zion Baptist Holiness Church he's about to take me somewhere we drive another couple miles down the street and we roll up to a Nursing Center Nursing Home wow and so he's like you want a adults here you go here's a nursing home and so we get out the nursing home and so for the ne I I preach at that nursing home well into college and he would start doing what's called like a preaching game with me so we would be walking into the nursing home and he would say okay hey we're going to preach on the seventh floor eighth floor ninth floor so we got three different groups of old people that we're going to preach to wow and you're going to do the same text but three different messages based on the same text or you're gonna do the same topic but you're going to do three different passages of scripture on the same topic and he would give me the topic so he' be walking into a nursing home he'd be like all right you're going to preach on Hope and you've got from now until the time we get upstairs to find three different passages on Hope and you're going to preach passage number one on the seventh floor passage number two on the eighth floor passage number three on the ninth floor on and on and on like I mean and so by the time I preached for the first time at youth group oh dude like first I've been preaching at juvie and nursing homes like like No cameras nothing live stream it's it's what's called a lowrisk environment there's there there are people on oxygen in here like like no one in here is like saying anything to my classmates like my reputation's not at stake it's just an environment that's good with actual humans where I can get at bats and I think a a lot of times people are so hungry for like a microphone and a stage they don't realize they opportunities everywhere wow and you you may not actually actually a microphone on a stage too early is actually not helpful uh like right now I'm I've determined that golf is going to be my hobby let's go it's not right now but I've determined it's to be and everyone that I talk to says hey get lessons before you go golf like get lessons first cuz you don't want to have to unlearn bad habits right just go ahead buy a pack of six 10 lessons and that should be your way to start golfing and I think a lot of times what happens with a a lot of communicators is they end up getting on stage with a microphone and you know even a broken clock is right twice a day so like they're getting amens they're getting people to like tell like that was great son you know but they don't understand they're making tons of mistakes yeah and actually if you had a mentor in a nursing home or a mentor in juvenile detention center You' do way better than an I also grew up at a church with a youth group of 750 kids wow so youth group was not a low you know risk risk environment youth group was like youth youth group was and it was like the 90s so it was like fire and like freaking smoke like like youth group was freaking dope so those low-risk environments were everything cuz practice doesn't make perfect practice makes permanent and so I got to live with like right there with Mr Miyagi I got to like talk get feedback talk get feedback talk give feedback and um that's good I think you know those first sermons were five minutes s minutes 15 minutes like whereas if you're so hungry for a microphone in a stage you'll jump into a 30 minute slot and and just and just make everybody put up with the fact that you don't know what you're really doing wow and we've all been in church listening to people just kind of figure it out and I go you know I've never CU then of course I became the youth pastor and I had all these young people in my youth ministry that I thought had a call in their life to communicate I've never rolled up to a nursing home and ask them if they would be willing to have like some 15 and 16 year olds come volunteer on a Sunday and them say no dang never never no nursing home director has ever turned me away and then it's like a character test cuz then it's like you you you ready I think we want sexy instead of effective though I think we we want we're I think my fear is that we've we think that real life is happening online and so if I can't post about it then it's not it's not worth it but the reality is that everyone saw David kill Goliath no one saw him kill a lion and a bear wow and there's got to be some stuff that nobody sees like there just has to be wins right that you get that build your personal and private confidence before we just stick you up on stage and think yeah like yeah and I I think also sometimes in church space we think as long as we're anointed we're skilled and that's not true you could be very very very anointed called by God graced by God and just not have skill y just not have turned a gift into a skill to me raw gift is great but a skill when you are skilled you can perform that gift tired jetl hungry stressed whatever whatever's happening in life you have enough muscle memory so now that skill is not dependent on whether or not the people at that church on that particular day are in a good mood or whether or not the worship leader got the atmosphere right or like a skill just means I could show up anywhere anytime to any room any context and deliver because I've turned my gift into a skill and now that skill no longer has all these variables that sometimes gifts have gifts have tons of variables it's like you know and I think the place to work out that gift is is uh in practice so it's good like even today like and I I don't want anyone to be offended by this I I don't mean this I hope that no one is offended by this like you know there's there's an admin on our team who takes in all the speaking requests and um they know like at least 15 times a year Manny's gonna want to preach at a church of like 50 people 100 people because I'm cooking like that's I keep lowrisk environments on my calendar that's good and if you pull up on a Sunday at like like you know Mountain Zion fire baptized Church of God in Christ whatever like in random City like you may be like man like I I'm pretty sure like is that to say Manny who's like at elevation or at Social or at citylight and I'm going to be like yeah because I got new content that I'm experimenting with and I'm not going to EXP experiment with new content on big stages I'm going to experiment with new content in environments that remind me of that nursing home that remind me of that Juvenile Detention Center that's really good and like keeping those that's what the great com comedians do right Dave Chappelle they show up at a random yeah they're not just doing Netflix specials they will show up at a random hole in thewall like you know spot and they're cooking and I think you got to figure out is where's the kitchen like yeah there's got to be a kitchen somewhere that's a low-risk environment now you got me thinking about the lowrisk environments that I've been able to operate in um first one would be small groups yeah like we're just we're you know either either I'm distilling what was said on a Sunday or I'm bringing a thought yep and it's just it just allowed me to to to work on that you know and then like me overseeing groups at citylight I've literally for the last five now going going into six years have been taking the sermon on Sunday and and and then putting it in a different way that could be used in conversation Y and just like that constant like dude nobody sees that yeah and and like now I've I've spoken more than I ever have in in different sectors but I think about those moments and I'm still doing them yeah and and um and then even just like the the lowrisk environment is also you know what you do in your mind and when I'm creating content right like just just rehearsing in your brain or listening to sermons and other people communicate but not watching what they're saying watching how they're saying it yeah um that's so I just I I think about those moments and how it it's not by accident you know someone's a great commuter I would actually argue no one probably ever was a great communicator by accident no it is not by accident who would be some of your favorite communicators to watch and stud right now my go favorite communicators Bishop TD Jak Pastor Robert mue my P I moved so here's a here we go here's free advice I was living my life very happy in North Carolina when we met I was living in North Carolina the year we met I probably had done 70 speaking engagements that year and was successful and sometimes people ask why did you move to Dallas Texas and I said because the best Communicator that I personally knew was starting a church in Dallas Texas and I just wanted to be around him I wanted to be around Pastor Robert MW and they're like so you moved your family and your wife and your kid all the way to Texas just to be around a communicator and the moment someone asked me that question I'm like oh God it you don't get it got it yeah you you don't get that like my first Sunday or my second time ever preaching at Social passor Robert in The Green Room in 5 minutes was like hey don't ever say that again switch that closer to the opener do this and this and in five minutes doctored my sermon to which I preach it again that second service and was like oh yeah bet the advice that he just gave me in five minutes in between the first two Services I can now figure out how to give myself that same advice on all my other serm let let me now watch all these other messages it's like this past Sunday no two Sundays ago I preached at Social and Pastor Robert was in the building and he heard the first service and he was like man it was great I was like all right give me the real feedback like any anything that like I need to change for the next one he was like ah he's like it I would really just be nitpicking and I was like but that's please the nitpicking is what gets you to the next level right and so of course he nitpicked game CH like I mean the difference okay can you just say what he nitpicked oh man just one or two things um well F well I'll tell you one of the things that he said the very first time I preached social yeah he said hey man you do this thing on stage where you say like Boo Boo and he's like hey you will preach at youth conferences for the rest of your life if you keep doing that dang he's like isn't it funny because it's like it's lowkey correction I mean it's correction oh yeah he was like he was like you can do that he's like but you'll be like 45 years old still preaching at youth conferences F so like if you want to get picked up in the church van like by a youth pastor and like taken out to a campsite somewhere to like go talk to some kids who smell like Axe Body Spray keep saying boo boo like go like I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life he's like but you know like if if you want to be taken like seriously yeah good and if you want to um brand yourself as an adult Communicator as someone who he's like cuz it doesn't make sense to be in a doctoral program and saying boo boo on stage wow he's like I don't think that that reflects your Brilliance and your intelligence that's good it sounds like you are trying too hard to relate and whereas actually what we want to hear from you is like what did you learn in your doctoral program man like and that's it like that was the last day I said boo boo on stage wow like ever I never said it again I it got eradicated from my onstage vocabulary and that was it done and this other thing is always just like he's a stickler on like your openers so like a lot of times with sermons that I know my openers are like really rehearsed or like really smooth uh but when I'm like figuring out a message I'm a verbal processor so this is also conversation between me and him he's an introvert which makes him an internal processor which means that it's unfair he has an unfair Advantage he's able to process all of his thoughts and words on paper and then he gets on stage and it actually lands the way that he wanted it to as he was mapping out his message I'm an extrovert so I'm an external communicator and so my thoughts aren't 100% clear until they are out of my mouth which is a problem if you talk on stage for a living yeah and so that is also one of the reasons that I've kept lowrisk environments in my itinerary if I know that about myself I don't need to try to pretend like I'm someone I'm not I'm not an introvert I'm not an internal processor therefore I have to be intentional about getting that verbal processing happening before I get on stage because I am a verbal processor and that I would have never had language for that outside of me and his relationship that's really good I think that you know I'm 36 and it's like at 31 32 2 33 34 it's like I watched my friends go plant churches and while my friends were planting churches I decided to move to Dallas to be around what I would say is the best Communicator in our generation and I'm totally cool like not planting a church until I'm 40 because I decided to spend a solid amount amount of time with a master communicator and the time that I've spent in Dallas has helped make me into a more thoughtful I'm als a a way more thoughtful Communicator so like another thing right like that uh I've changed uh I'm an eight on the anagram and I'm from Boston Massachusetts okay so like Northerners at on the anagram Brash honest like and shock value on 10 so um one time you know I'm I'm doing I'm in a relationship series and I'm preaching at Social so Pastor Robert calls me on like I don't know the Friday before Sunday and he's like hey Manny just want to let you just want to reiterate you know do not say anything like shocking don't say say anything that you think will go viral we we like just don't you know tacked tacked and I would describe Pastor Robert as like an insanely tactful communicator and he's like there's an example of like um he's he's describing lust on stage but he never says lust and he's like Manny just think about all the extra work that has to go into communicating to not say the thing that will make you go viral but to make everybody think about the thing wow instead of saying it and so this three two Sundays ago I preach at Social and I did a message called God loves Pharisees we're in the series called God loves Dallas or sorry we're in a series called God loves blank fill in the blank and and the first week was like prisoners and second week was you know lgbtq plus and the next week was like addicts and so my week came up and of course I'm like hey for everyone who felt like they didn't fit in the first second or third week haha my your week is today it's God loves Pharisees if you don't if you can't see yourself in the addict if you can't see yourself in the prisoner if you can't see yourself in the lgbtq plus Community then guess what you are you're a Pharisee and so am I and so I start talking about personal convictions becoming Universal standards you know you're a Pharisee if you have a personal con fiction that now you want everybody to live by and you know there's this concert that you just think is ridiculous and you know you know everybody everybody from a particular Hive is gonna be there and you you just think oh I can't believe everybody would go to this concert and I start talking about this concert that you have a personal conviction around and of course I'm talking about Beyonce everyone in the room knows I'm talking about Beyonce but I never said the word Beyonce prior to being around pastor Robert I would have I just would have said it I'd have been like yeah like a Beyonce K I just would have been the eight on the anagram from Boston but I did the extra work of painting a picture instead of saying the word dude cuz good preaching shows instead of tells and I learned that in Dallas I learned that the extra work that goes into painting an internal picture inside someone's mind is better than saying the word for shock value that that's that's and some of that's just caught some of that's like some of that you can't get that by like and I know you know we live in a world that is like yeah I'm going to have a coach here and a coach there and a coach there and like be like but some of that is just no like my family attends this church we tith at this church like this is the house that I'm at and like I'm planted in the soil and like yes like Pastor Robert's not just like a coach he's like my pastor and like there's there's there's convictions that I have because I've swn in to the soil of like this church and so there's no better decision in the last three years that I could have made as a communicator than like moving to Dallas I remember like I literally gave Robert's address to my realtor and was like find me a house within 5 minutes of his house like right now I live 3 minutes from this man because I'm like yeah I I moved here to be around you like The Sundays that I'm in town I'll listen I I sit in both services in the first service I'm listening like as a communicate in the second service I'm listening for my soul like yeah so good masterful Communicator that was just a preaching master class in 10 minutes so TD Jakes Robert mue oh boy Tim Ross Tim Ross what about Tim Ross Tim Tim Ross is actually that like like Tim Ross will just say I got I got bre in my pocket yeah like like like and that resonates with me okay but Tim's ability to be Rev T like here's a passage of scripture and I'm going to communicate this passage of scripture in a way you've never heard that like I'm going to give you wisdom to make you wise into salvation I feel like he is master that but I will listen to Tim Ross preach anywhere anytime at any event also I was a teen it's funny how like Tim Ross has become like no like repop sure yeah when I was a teenager he was the guy Tim Ross was the guy so I'm old I'm 36 when I was a teenager every your conference wasn't a conference unless Tim Ross was preaching at your conference like your conference was whack unless Tim Ross was there like he was the the guy that's cool and so I remember hearing Tim Ross preach like 11 12 13 14 years old and so to so I've some times when you've been listening to someone preach since you were a teenager their voice and their content just like resonates with you and I feel that way about Tim like if I sit somewhere like I was at transformation conference last year and immediately I was like 14 years old again like listening to to Tim Ross so cool those would probably be my top three do you have a white guy like who's who's like killing it you know it does it doesn't to be preach preach it know Bishop Kevin Wallace I don't do yourself a favor okay Bishop Kevin Wallace he's white good he's he's real white uh what about Brown like me no I'm just kidding uh no you don't have to force it dude if they're not there they're not there um who do I no that's that that's your top three I want to know your top three my top three would be Bishop Jakes my pastor Pastor Robert and then Tim Ross fire okay so you were talking about how low-risk environments for communication a place where you can talk it could be dude it can be start a meeting it could be like what you did go to go make it like a community service type of way to do it uh because that's what's actually being magnified is you serving and and doing it I say all that to say what are some principles that applied both in that context that would apply in speaking in front of thousands that the goal of communication is connection it's not to say all the stuff in your head it's like um you know this is great Mike Tyson quote like everybody has a plan before a fight until they get punched in the face and then you have to learn how to Pivot everyone's got notes until you get up on stage and you realize this isn't going well MH and then you are forced to either stick with the notes and die or deviate from what you wrote down on paper to actually connect with people which failure then teaches you then I have to write notes with the mindset of not what do I think but how do I connect that that's the goal not well what does the Bible say but what connects with people when my youth pastor 12 years old got up to talk he didn't say everybody pull out first Corinthians chap like he said who in here had who knows what alimony is first words out of his mouth who knows what alimony is which means he knew who he was talking to and I think that sometimes we love the scriptures so much that we don't love people a love for people makes you go okay great people need Brussels sprouts but can we put some bacon in them yeah like can we get some pickled onions in there can we like can we cook them in a way that they taste good and that is thinking about content with people in mind how what what is going to make the average person or my audience care about this truth or this wisdom that I have and going yeah my job is to connect so I may have done all the exegetical work on a passage of scripture right I found all my observations I got points I've got the truth I've got I know what I'm going to say that doesn't mean I have a sermon I don't have a sermon until I I call it a SIM card I until I've got stories images and metaphors okay a story because if people could just access truth by themselves we would just hand out Bibles at church have quiet time and then dismiss yeah the the point is to bring the Bible to life and what brings the Bible to life stories images metaphors Jesus didn't only preach expository he didn't only say you've heard it said but I'm telling you the truth that would be expository like hey you heard it said in Leviticus you've heard it said in Deuteronomy but let me give you a a a fresh Insight on the law dop no he also said come on Yo the kingdom is like a farmer the kingdom is like seed being scattered on thorny ground and shallow ground and oh and by the side of the road and the kingdom is like a mustard tree like why is Jesus going through all this trouble to create imagery and metaphor why is he like there were two there was a dude who had two sons okay and one of the sons went and spent all his dad's money but the other why why is he just going through all this trouble he could just be he could just say y'all are legalists y'all are Pharisees yeah and you don't know you don't know the father he could have just said that but he creates this entire Parable why cuz the go goal is not just to tell the truth the goal is to connect with the audience the goal is for the audience to get to the end of the parable and go dang got me he lighting us up you got me the goal is to play checkmate with the room so I always do this thing as a communicator it's called an affirmation bias the first five minutes where I get up on stage I'm I know that everyone's going to agree with what I have to say okay so I write my sermons with my audience in mind so if I'm preaching at a Women's Conference I know how to get amens if I'm preaching to Republicans I know how to get amens I'm preaching to Democrats I know how to get amens preaching to black people I know how to get amens preaching to white people I know how to get amens the first five minutes of my message is a big huge we love this guy he's saying all the stuff we like amen this's this passage I do this with where I'm like man ain't it crazy how God could could God's never inent a catch 22 so the people of Israel have the armies of Egypt behind them the Red Sea in front of them and then God miraculously Parts the Red Sea so that they go in they go through on dry ground that's crazy that it's dry ground that's actually a little weird because if God rolled back to Sea it should have been mud but the reason that it's dry ground is for the same reason that my mother makes me take off my shoes when I go to her house cuz she doesn't want me tracking my past into my future ain't it crazy that God can miraculously make the ground dry well ain't it crazy and see now we're going to get amens ain't it crazy that you don't look like what you've been through isn't it crazy that you're not tracking Egypt into Canaan isn't it crazy that God would miraculously not just make the sea go back but go through the extra effort to make the ground dry so that you're not tracking Footprints in into your future man and now at this point everyone's saying amen yes and here's the Master's trick here's the communicator's trick but God can make the sea Beneath Your Feet the ground Beneath Your Feet dry but when you get out to that Wilderness he can't make your taste buds not desire the food you had in Egypt ain't it crazy that the same God that we're so happy he made the ground dry that same God doesn't mess with your taste buds so Numbers Chapter 14 says that the rabble among them out in the wilderness they start reminiscing about the food that they ate in Egypt that God can control your Footprints but not your taste buds and so now what have we've done we've shifted the room I got you to say amen and now you're too far along the path of agreeing with me to turn back I've just gotten you to agree with me so far that now so I've done this with with my young people right this backround youth pastor my kids started watching like MTV like the same shows that I watch when I was a teenager this interesting how you know things just come full circle so they started watching uh catfish which is a whole show about people pretending to be people that they're not and then tricking people into falling in love with them and so I went through this whole episode of catfished right showed Clips it was great dude black dude named desan was like I'm in love with this girl like I'm in love with aqualina or whatever this girl's name is right and so the the the producer like do you love aqualina and desan is like I love her oh my gosh we're soulmates and they're like are you ready to meet her and then Dean's like I'm ready and they're like you sure you love her and he's like I love her and then they open up they meet at a park and then she is not 120 lb she is 280 lbs she don't look nothing like her profile picture right she is she's catfished him then the producers come back out like desan do you still love her and he goes no no I don't love her why because love requires truth so the reason that he doesn't love her is because you can't build love on lies and now I naturally just go into so all of you want love but none of you want the truth and you've agreed with me too much to go back now you can't make a U-turn we're already here I've used confirmation bias you've given me too many amens to turn back at this point point now I can rip apart your entire worldview that thinks that you can build a world of love without a world of Truth which is the world that we live in a world that says I can identify in any way that I want I can Define who I am as an individual even though I'm a created thing and not rely on the definitions that the creator has given me that now that I've done away with truth guess what I've also done away with the potential for love and in a culture that has idolized love and torn down truth a simple episode of Catfish actually shows us that that world is an unwise world that that is a figment of our imagination that if I'm going to have love that truth is a necessary requirement did I come out of of the gate on minute one talking about see what's wrong with y'all worldview is y'all think y'all can self-identified no that we ain't whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa show me some clips of Catfish get me to resonate with desan MH get get get me there and this is the art of persuasive communication so this is the same reason sales works right it's I'm not just rolling up to you like hey man here's a Rolex like no there there's actually like there's there's persuasive technique that goes along with getting an audience to agree with what I have to say and so that just hey amen amen amen amen I agree wow this guy's great wow I can totally relate I love what he has to say and then I don't say anything that would cause an audience to not like me for the first 10 to 15 minutes never I'm never stepping on toes in the first 10 to 15 minutes of being on stage that's good I'm never going to withdraw out of an account that I've not deposited into and most of the times we think that's what when we're in a room and a masterful communicator is talking and we leave and we feel transformed or we feel uplifted or we feel motivated or we feel encouraged we're like man that so cool that that happens it's like well there's actually psychology and skill yep and expertise that goes into that happening because if you give someone dessert before their entree they don't want it I've been at restaurants tons of times where I've ordered an appetizer and it just comes out too late I'm like yeah never mind you could take the coconut shrimp back like I'm good because an appetizer is supposed to be given at the time where appetizers are appropriate and a lot of times the number one thing I find with bad sermons is you gave dessert first then an appetizer then an like this this was the right content just out of order D like if we could have just rearranged this it's not that you had bad ideas it's not that you had bad truth it's not that your product was a problem your packaging was a problem and the way that you presented this stuff was an issue and man good food on like a ugly plate is is is it ain't a good meal right and I've learned to really dial in the process of getting an audience to agree with me dude or getting an audience to sign up for Arma when I'm done talking or getting an audience to buy my book in the lobby when I'm done talking all of that is how do I write this content with an audience in mind and how do I lead them down a path that by the time they get to an alter call they're way too far down this path of agreement to turn back and I think that is and obviously even when we don't do that well the holy spirit makes up right for the difference there have been tons of times where I've botched the whole process and still do an alter call and people still come because God's kind and the Holy Spirit cares about building his church so dude um so good I love that so much uh so Arma Arma is something you've been building since what 2018 2019 no 2020 oh for real we built it in response to hundreds of young adults deconstructing at the church that I was at in North Carolina so if you didn't know Arma is a subscription and I uh platform but I'll put a link to it in the description um where you can learn how to uh read the Bible you can learn a a little bit more deeper Concepts and precepts and things like that and it's really cool that you're offering this CU I would say it's there's not much resource out there that is accessible and you're making it so accessible and relevant um but this is a in in essence an entrepreneurial you know Journey absolutely that you're building something you're making hires you're you're you're getting people involved and I kind of want to unpack that a little bit we were talking when I picked you up from the airport about how like you felt like it was you it was like the like Ministry kind of puts this guilt in the in in making money yeah when I mean I think it's biblical to sell I I I think think you know Deuteronomy says God's given us the power to create wealth yep in what I mean what other way you want to Define wealth um but to establish his Covenant so like the point is to build his you know uh Kingdom yeah but beyond that uh I just want to know like what what have you discovered about you being a kingdom uh entrepreneur and building a business that is now you know multiple six figures and yeah right now Arma brings in about 40 to $45,000 a month it's incredible in recurring revenue and um that number if you had told me that number three years ago I would have been like you know sign me up um I remember we were a year in and we were barely at 200 subscribers and uh me and Elijah my right-hand man uh were he was just giving me the the numbers and he was like we should stop doing this this is like not fruitful um and uh I learned a massive entrepreneurial lesson right there okay so we're a year in we're only at 200 people it costs more to run the platform like kajabi cost like 400 bucks a month and to pay Elijah costs money and like we've already like we you know the videographers that are editing the courses and all the stuff costs money and it's not making any money and so Elijah's just giving me the numbers he's not saying we should shut it down he's just giving me the numbers um and my wife over here's a conversation I'm having this Zoom meeting in the kitchen my wife over here is a conversation where we're debating whether or not we should shut it down and my wife says that doesn't sound like a good idea and I'm like like why and she said um two two things number one if you shut it down how will anyone believe in your brand from from now on like if you stop don't you think that's going to have more damaging effect on people trusting you like here's this dude we signed up for a subscription and it's it's supposed to go until forever and now it's not happening anymore it's like actually shutting it down would be damaging to your brand which a my wife's never been a business school or anything like a she's saying there's a value in in just keep it going keeping it going yeah that that brand that for someone to trust in a brand means that they're trusting in longevity second thing she said um which mind-blowing is um Paul says of we have faith hope and love and the strongest of these is love okay and so my wife says you know you start something with faith that it's going to do well and you hope that it's going to do well but even if your faith is disappointed and your hope is disappointed you do it because you love it so faith hope and love so come on you yo just like we do stuff with the faith that one day it'll make $440,000 a year with the hope that it's going to make a difference in the lives of people but you you started this cuz you love teaching people the Bible so just double down so so then I just went okay I'm convinced like we're not going to shut this down so if I'm going to do it it can't be bad so then from Year from the end of year 1 to the beginning of year two we finally got to a th000 wow so on our second year birthday we celebrated hitting a th000 subscribers what' you do differently in the second year I thought to myself if this was a free resource that every new member of my church got when they became a Christian what would I make wow and so we just we just did one course called a 30-day journey and in 30 days you could become biblically literate and it was a 30-day Journey it was a 30-day challenge of spend 12 minutes with me every single day for 30 days and I promise whether you're s student or fresh off the street or whatever in 30 days I could get you biblically literate in 30 days and and I started again thinking about my audience that second year we put out like a homosexuality course which was super helpful for parents and youth pastors I also realized yo if you go to Seminary you get homiletics courses why am I not teaching people how to preach on the Arma platform we also realize 65% of the subscribers were pastors so we're like okay the people we think we're talking to are not the people that we're actually talking to I listen to an episode of How I built this and there was an episode you listen to how I built this there was an episode with the dudes from Airbnb and they were like they didn't know how to fix the platform until they visited the first people who had listings on the site and they realized oh people don't know how to take pictures of their property oh PE like and they like went to New York actually helped people with their listings and then I I just started calling up people who were subscribers wow and being like hey like what can I do yeah like what courses do you like which courses don't you like like I stopped thinking I was someplace I wasn't like I wasn't at the place where I couldn't like think about these people like I actually like I started to learn people like Chris and Jasmine yeah and and their son Xavier who go to citylight Y like I started to learn the stories and names and people that were subscribing W and it's crazy how when you love what you got God trust you with more and now from the end of year two to year three we hit we went from a, to 2500 by our uh third birthday MH and then before this year was over before 2023 was over we hit 3500 and so it's like you start growing faster and faster and faster but going back to okay I have faith that this will make a lot of money I hope it'll make a difference but I love what I do I love the work I love sitting down with a new book of the Bible figuring out how to communicate it to people I love doing that and I think the love for it was being choked out by the faith and the Hope wow that it would make money or make a difference in people's lives and my wife helped me to get back to yeah but you may not be able to control the outcome but you can control whether or not you're just GNA be faithful yeah and I'm I'm glad we never we've never R ran paid ads right and um I'm glad we didn't because it it and along the way there have been people who wanted to like invest like hey for 10% or 20% of the company like will invest whatever dollar amount and I'm glad I didn't like I'm glad I didn't take steroids like like like I'm glad we just got in the gym yeah because what we have figured out through trial and error like what works what doesn't work so that when new employees come on we're able to go yeah okay yeah yeah like that new idea that you have that you think is going to like be the golden ticket we tried that a year ago like and I'm not saying that your idea is a bad idea I just want you to know what didn't work or why it didn't work like I feel like we've just learned that's good and um yeah three years ago I wouldn't have described myself as an entrepreneur like but the reality is that during covid I started a project in my garage with one camera and two kids from my youth group that I made come to my garage to film me teach the Book of John chapter by chapter that's cool and fast forward three and a half years later that little project in my garage is um December of 2023 will be the last month that it's in the garage January of 2024 we we um move into a studio space um and our team will officially be at six employees so cool and um so yes there dude I mean you say that like 2020 you were I mean you were an entrepreneur I mean creatively dude you when you preach at citylight in 2019 you preached a different message at night both times you preach the message you had like a lead magnet you're like yo just take this home with you I got this 7-Day dvo and you're collecting emails was like maybe you knew like there was something that you were going to do or whatever but I mean I I I just think it's so cool I I do have the question from like a genuine curiosity standpoint like why did you go the subscription route okay as opposed to like pay you know maybe like for a Year's Worth or once you pay you're good for I mean because like there's there's so many ways you can go you could have went about it dude so there was a there was another platform in our space doing what we were doing called theosu yeah and there there're still in our space we're about half their size and um we just copied everything they did Fair that's it that's the answer like like they were charging 13 bucks a month so we made our thing $12 a month like our first website looked just like their website like I was like yeah man like I'm gonna just do whatever the heck they're doing you know so that's it that that's if if they had if they had been charging per course we probably would have charged per course shout out shout out to Nathan shout out to Nathan fenocchio and the theosu team like yeah that's cool but that's it that there was no additional thoughts it was literally hey man like there's a thing called theosu and I just thought yo every Uber needs a lift like like there can't just be one thing in this space and um and yeah let's let's let's go after it like let's do it that's cool and so they were the only model that we kind of had and I just felt like I did believe like yo we want to lead people on a journey and we do want yeah I I it's the same reason why like when I ran a conference I didn't let people just sign up for night sessions it was like no you got to you got to pay for the whole conference or not because I felt like God wanted to say something through the whole event and you needed to like buy into the whole thing so I definitely thought like yo um there's there's like if if someone sticks with with us on this journey so so here's the cool thing we launched I guess this was pretty entrepreneurial we we didn't have any money when we launched so I did this thing called Founders so like the first hundred people to sign up they just had to Bill annually so instead of paying $12 a month it was $120 yearly and IID reached out to the Bible project and they had these cool coffee table books and so I just told them like I would love for you to just ship me a hundred of these for free to which these people said Okay a couple months later a massive pallet shipment of like a 100 c table BS just shows up in my garage and so we were like hey if anyone becomes a Founder with Arma at $120 we'll send you a coffee table book and so we that's how we got the influx of cash to like start Arma that's how we bought our first cameras and lights and stuff so after the first year when we hit a th000 subscribers we gave Arma to all those Founders for Life for free dang like so those first 100 people um I still send those first 100 people like like videos every couple of months like they get yeah I'll always be grateful to those 100 people who SED the first 120 bucks times 100 for us to like get off the ground um I did the same thing with my my coaching program oh dope I mean it was like an unreal offer um and I sucked at selling I didn't even know what I was doing but and I just said like hey you're going to help me figure this out this year's time and it's just been so cool to see even just their their feedback people who've joined other programs and said like dude you you got it you like you're you're just right there yeah just figure out this or like you know if you could figure out a way to do this it's just been so cool that people who bought into something um also you know helped it become what it what it's going to be absolutely yeah it's just really cool and I'm I'm wrapping up that year right now I got two more calls with them yeah and it's like it's Sur Real I've been thinking about it for probably the last three months like dang we every Tuesday showed up on a zoom call handled their questions gave them taught them something told them what I'm doing uh something I'm learning and um and I've been thinking about like what's that next thing for them because like they it's like they'll they'll always have a special place in my heart absolutely like yeah those are we call them our Founders yeah and um just just so if you're listening or watching just a cool principle if you're starting something new people like being a part of something new absolutely so give them use that that verbiage and um it'll help um give them ownership yeah right it's an identity it's ownership it it it and it creates culture yeah like every time we're like those those are the people they want to know where I'm preaching so they can pray for me while I'm on the road those are the people who like like uh there a couple they're Founders and um when my first book came out they reached out to the publisher and bought cases of books dang for everybody in their Church wow like I showed up to preach at their church and everybody at the church had my book already cop cuz the whole they bought copies for the whole church you know like like you have no idea what what you do means to other people and along the journey I've learned that like entrepreneur is um is not a is not a negative word in any way shape or form right there are people who are proud like that you're creating jobs and creating something out of nothing and and that you're using the gifts that God's given you to to to generate income and to generate wealth it's good yeah I heard this that like the word generosity comes from the word generative yeah which means to like produce produce yeah and that a form of generosity in building a business causes you to produce so that it can afford absolutely you know people to have a a life in and do what they love to do it's it's really cool how like it all works hand in hand absolutely I I was I was you know what it's funny you're helping me you're holding up a mirror because you're right I've been entrepreneurial even before launching Arma back in 2019 you know I have ADHD so I have zero administrative skills right and in 2019 like we got 70 speaking engagements out of nowhere in 2018 we had done 28 speaking engagements so we moved from 28 to like over 70 wow and so I just needed to hire an admin and the church that I was a part of was on a spending freeze and I couldn't hire an admin so I was just like bet I'm just gonna I'm just gonna I gotta find like one of these young adults I just got to pay them myself so like but they still need to have like a church email and all that like they came to a church staff meeting with me but they were literally just like my employee like that I was paying yeah and so um the the this girl that was handling all the speaking engagements um I found out that she was like living on her friend's couch and I was like what do you mean you're living on your friend's couch she was like well you know I can't afford an apartment right now and I was like okay cool well we got to pay you enough to get you off that couch and so then when I started praying for speaking engagements I wasn't praying for more Instagram followers or for more notoriety or for me to be popular I wasn't praying for anything that benefited me my prayer was Lord and my magic number like when we first started was like if I could just make $10,000 a month like from speaking engagements man that would be MH that would be insane uh and so I was like yo if we make $110,000 a month I could pay at the time I think I was paying this girl like $1,500 a month I was like I'll double what we pay you we can get you off the couch and so my prayer was like Lord like for real for real God put my name on the minds of of whoever's making decisions for youthx at elevation cuz we got to get home girl off the couch yeah like my prayer is no longer like anything selfish and I think sometimes like that that generosity like that like there is no Supply because there's no demand and you put a demand right on on the marketpl you put a demand on God you put a demand on the Heavens to open up and provide for you because you have like been generous with people and part of hiring people for me has like I always want to have more Vision than I have provision I always want to hire people in faith we're going to grow and I want to be generous towards uh anyone that we bring on to the team so that God then has to in turn be generous towards us not because I'm out here like flexing like because of the business we started but because we are like paying it forward so anyway generosity that's real dude that's so good so I mean I feel like you are operating in like such like a full you know flow I guess you could say like in in in the will of God for your life what what is like your next goals Ambitions what would you like to do next year next year next year honestly my goal for next year is to travel less and it's it's this I think we're at this Tipping Point where it's like the more this year I I I really did do a good job of inviting people to join Arma after every sermon so that meant we grew this online stream of Revenue um in direct correlation to traveling and preaching and now I think we're at this Tipping Point of if I continue to travel now there's courses that won't be created there's like like there's YouTube content that won't get made like be being on the road takes a lot of like energy and um and a lot of time and and sometimes like I'll get back to Dallas and because I was gone for like two or three days the number one priority is wife and my son so like I'll get back home and my team wants answers from me or wants time or wants coaching or whatever but it's like like you know let's say I get back home on like a Sunday night well Monday Tuesday is Tia and Theo and so by the time I get to my team on Wednesday I'm gone again on Friday right so it's like if y'all don't get what y'all need on Wednesday and Thursday I don't know what you're going to do yeah uh cuz I'm out again you know and I think that that that Rhythm needs to get healthier yeah and if I were to slash travel by 50 % right if I were to double my honorarium and cut travel by half it wouldn't affect our number like our in our Revenue yeah but it would give me bandwidth to focus like right now I think Arma should have like printed like like uh Bible study guides and journals and all but that stuff requires me to like yeah dial in you know what I mean yeah like this past year with Arma I recorded all 12 courses CU we Dro one new a month I did all the courses from January to March I filmed every single course in three months never touched Arma again for the rest of the year and then just promoted it on stage at every single speaking engagement wow so I have not shot a course personally since March of 2023 yeah and so I did three months of work which then lets me and my team eat for the next nine yeah and so which then means dang we don't got a YouTube channel yo we don't got a we don't have a podcast we don't have this we don't have that and I go golly we'd probably be a the amount of subscribers that I get from being on stage I could probably funnel those subscribers from online spaces yeah if we were actually making the content in those online spaces so and and like because what's cool about when you're on when you're on stage obviously there's a there's a Buy in and you know people are are warm you know and it's so it's easy to convert them but but you can't do that at 2: am 3:00 a.m. in the morning and that's what's cool about doing this stuff is like you over time that compound growth will it'll be a 24-hour sales cycle exactly as opposed to having to be on a platform exactly like we know right now right like if you looked at our growth chart for the year it's every Sunday mhm we it's like you can look at every Sunday and be like oh 100 new subscribers there 200 new subscribers like like you just look at look at the Sundays and I think if I'm looking at 2024 I'm going uh we we gota it's not an either or it's creating a more cohesive ecosystem yep um and again do half the amount of speaking engagements double the honorarium you're still at the same Revenue number and probably speaking engagements that and and better is a very subjective word but speaking engagements that are more aligned with the audience that is probably going to convert anyway so good that's probably if I'm looking at next year I'm going yo we got to take Tik Tok seriously we got to take YouTube seriously we got to podcast for like we got to do some of these things that I think will actually make Arma stronger and then of I'm always looking at our churn like I'm always looking at who's unsubscribing H like what is our rate like right now we're at a 12 I think 12% unsubscribe and I'm trying to get us down in like single digits how do you how do you bring that down I think our onboarding needs to be better so we know right now if someone signs up for Arma and they start watching a course from us Within three days or within a week of becoming a subscriber our average uh lifespan on that subscriber is like 24 months if someone doesn't log in like in the first week or the first month or the first three months bro they're they're they're at they're gone they're either going to cancel before 6 months or they're going to cancel when the annual uh renew thing kicks in it's like or they're going to get charged after a year and send us a angry email like yo I forgot that I signed up for this thing but if somebody like let's say they get a subscription on a Sunday because I'm you know on stage somewhere and then they start watching a course that night we got them yeah so I mean and so fixing a lot of those like strip email like fixing a lot of that like hey someone became a subscriber how do we get them to watch a course y like right now I think I mean I think of two things I mean you didn't ask for it but I think something quickly goes in the mail and it's like great places to start yeah you get so they get a physical thing doesn't have to be super gnarly could just be like oh cool I'll I'll probably start there ah um and then I think another thing is like like ranking up that customer service piece where what if every person got a phone call and there's just a touch point and like that's incredible just something someone just spends their time calling people Y and seeing people who even haven't checked in I don't know whatever I just I feel like it's just touch points that's the only thing is just a touch Point they'll probably give him some Buy in I love that yeah but dude thank you so much that that was a master class on communication and a master class on uh bootstrapping a business and uh bro talk about bootstrapping but dude I'm I'm I'm honestly grateful I can call you a friend and um excited for tomorrow at citylight uh but can you let the people know where they can find you and find your stuff and we'll be sure to post links down in the show notes but uh go ahead and Manny Rango on all platforms so if you find me on Instagram I'm at Manny arango I respond to every single DM so that's like my claim to fame I don't respond to every text messages but I respond to every single DM on Instagram um and from Instagram you can find Arma real easily but if you just want to go directly to Arma it's armac courses.com and you teach preaching in that course oh yeah all right there's three preaching courses on that course all right got ten commandments of preaching I got a homiletics course then our original ecourse that started everything was a course called Speak Easy TI I remember that dud I remember all these things it's so cool yeah cool thank you so much bro I appreciate you dude love you thanks for having me on
