"Use These 3 SECRETS To Find The PERFECT RELATIONSHIP Today!" | Pastor Michael Todd & Lewis Howes

progression over perfection that if you take a step every day you'll get to the place that you're supposed to be i think you've got to have a dream the school of greatness yeah please welcome us how do you get to a place of unity vision if two people see the world in a different way honesty like there are so many people not actually being truthful about who they are today not that you don't want to be better not that there is not more for you but today you're faking like today you're a liar today you got up and put on a mask and i always say it to like this to my um congregation of people that listen to me i say god doesn't bless who you pretend to be he blesses who you really are like and a lot of people try to make this performance thing for like god and and people and my family because this is what they want and i was like there's a blessing on who you actually are even if it's not good today because then you can start from there and actually become who you really want to be or a better version of who you are but if you're telling me i mean just think about it i'm i'm in la right now yeah i've never been here before i i don't know where this is so when you sent me the address to do this the first thing my phone asked me is can i use your current location what if i told the siri or told the map that i was somewhere i wasn't it would have given me directions from the wrong place from the wrong place and whenever they got here and i would have never reached this destination and be looking at your amazing smile if i wouldn't have been honest about where i was at interesting even if it's a bad place even if it's dark shameful even if i'm lost broken hurting beaten down abused mentally emotionally spiritually if i'm honest about where i am today that is the only way that i can get to my better tomorrow and so when we why are we lying to ourselves so much because it is shameful and a lot of times we hate that we got there we had ourselves we hate ourselves that we got there how in the world did i get to this place how do i need these pills to go to sleep or to wake up how in the world do i have to keep kissing their butt to steal work at this job like this is not me this is not who i want and so because we have disdain for who we have become it's like if we acknowledge it that reinforces that we're actually there and maybe we can't live with that and so it's this vicious cycle of faking to make it and that's why a lot of people say you got to fake it till you make it i'm like no no no no no face it so you can make it be real so that you can actually move on to there and a lot of people are delaying the inevitable you can't hold up a facade forever no it's going to happen at some point it's going to crumble the sad thing is a lot of time it crumbles when it has more people to damage oh a lot of times almost always right yeah a lot of time it crumbles now i have three children and they're in relationships and now everything's dependent on me and i've built this empire um um of podcasting or business or um fitness and now i'm in this space and place that if i'm honest it'll cost too much may i submit to you if you're not honest it's going to cost you too much yeah i'm i'm already oh wow let me stop so how do have you have you had to heal in the last 10 years your relationship from stuff that happens every year or is it only stuff from 10 years ago that you guys have to work on bro you know the answer to this question man i'm a i'm a flawed man yeah my wife is a flawed woman um we serve uh an amazing god we we're people of faith um but he knew we were gonna mess up and there was there was there was uh room in the plan for imperfection like that's what i always tell people because i'm a pastor and people know i'm a person of faith and they think i'm just going to throw the bible at them all the time and what i tell them i was like no no just first look at my life like i've experienced amazing grace and now i have to extend amazing grace and i have to receive amazing grace because i'm still gonna mess up my wife had to forgive me for something but before i came up here you don't understand like this is a daily walk but that's why i tell everybody the beautiful thing about journey if you can get this stuck in your brain and in your heart really is that this life is about progression not perfection i know culture sells as perfection i know your parents may have wanted perfection from you i know you've probably required perfection of yourself but that is the wrong metric this is about progression how much did you move forward from yesterday to today or how much did you move past i know you wanted to cuss them out last week but you only said one cuss word this week you know what i'm saying or last year it was about um being successful you didn't take any breaks but this year you actually took a few days and and had soul care and self-care and spiritual enlightenment and getting back in your place of faith like how did you progress and i think for me in all of my relationships especially the one with my wife the one that i'm in covenant with um i have to know that i'm gonna need grace because i'm still figuring it out right like there's nobody anybody on earth that says they're a relationship expert are liars nobody knows everything about all relationships we're just trying to share from our journey and truth that we've experienced and um i know for me that in the journey that i'm in right now i make a lot less mistakes than i made 10 years ago right because i've progressed but am i going to make more mistakes the next 10 minutes probably you know what i'm saying and so it is daily and yeah there's tons of healing that has to happen from every lie from every deception from every um wrong word that was spoken i tell people this because a relationship is all about trust and this is the thing that people don't really factor in you can spend decades years months building trusts but this is the truth trust is lost in buckets but gain back in drops so you could have an entire five gallon bucket of trust built up yeah but one thing that you never said you would do you do and the whole bucket goes out gone and now you have to come back in every day drop by drop drop by drop you don't get uh uh of trust built back up and that's where most relationships fail is because they lost the trust and they were not diligent enough to build it back up because it takes a lot of time but the problem is you have history with that person and a lot of times they would rather start over with somebody else to do the same exact thing instead of going back and yeah it sucks yeah no didn't we talk about this you know i don't you know oh come on but no this is valuable and i'm the one who tipped this thing over and so i'm going to be the one to be consistent enough or disciplined enough to put those drops back in what's been the biggest lesson for you in the last 10 years of putting drops back in over a decade plus with your wife what's the lesson you've learned as a human being through that discipline through that daily drop yeah after breaking trust you know back in the past yeah yeah um trust is way more valuable than money trust is way more valuable than connection trust is way more valuable um there's a book that i encourage everybody to read it's called the speed of trust and um um it basically the premise is that where there's trust everything um takes less energy yeah it takes less money and it has better results but where there is no trust it takes more energy it takes more money and there are minimal results yeah and you can apply this to business relationships you can probably do your family and i think our culture is one that doesn't trust we you prove to me and and and at the moment that we don't um go into situations with trust there's this disconnection that doesn't allow people like the vibes not right or all these different sayings i think for me i've learned that trust is probably a higher commodity than anything else my greatest relationship me and my wife natalie don't have to be doing anything but when i'm in a bed in a hotel with a woman that i fully trust it's more satisfying than any platform i've ever been on wow it's more euphoric it's more when i can say something and somebody believes me and i don't have to prove it to them but they know what i'm saying is real that's amazing feeling oh what are you talking about name the places you get that name the places you got to make presentations to make people you pay believe you come on let's let's be honest like because there's still not full trust there but when you put in so much trust that that person your yes is a yes and your no is a no and that people trust what you say yeah when i told my wife that i was going to take care of her and i would never hurt her again and to be able to now 10 years removed we just did a 10 year val renewal and we went out to the sand desert and now it was me and our three kids and we're sitting there and glass runway it's on youtube and we just like it was just the most beautiful thing to look into her eyes and say the words unscripted that came from my heart and to look at her and knew they were hitting her heart and she fully trusted what i said you can't tell me nothing like nobody like there's no feeling like that and the sad truth louis is most people will never feel that they will never know what it is to have another human being with your flaws with knowing the worst about you i can't hide from my wife she knows everything that i do she knows when i do take showers when i don't take showers she knows when i leave the toilet seat up or when i put it down she know like so in the most vulnerable place she knows when i do my workout and when i don't like i can't hide from her i can hide from people on social media i can hide from people that are that i work with but from her i'm vulnerable and to know when i speak she trusted it was well worth everything that i had to do and what happens if you are 100 in integrity with your word you're following through you're being honest you're showing up you're delivering in a relationship but the person doesn't trust you yeah after years yeah and you're like you have access to my phone yeah these right passwords you you know where i'm at 24 7. yeah and you still don't trust me is that still my responsibility or is that the other partner's work they get to do so the beautiful thing about the story that i'm telling you i'm telling you from my side yeah but if you were to talk to my wife right now there were things she had to do on her own during this whole process or she wouldn't have made it she wasn't sitting there like prove to me that you were no there was self-discovery she was going on do i want to stay in this relationship is this worth it what do i bring what do i have what am i worth and that's why i tell people all the time no matter if you're a couple you're still single like even though you're in a relationship you still have to be single enough to continue to improve a lot of people stop improving once they get in a relationship like i got it like what else do i need to do i made it and all that other stuff but when you are in a relationship there are still two very single people that need to work on their communication work on their insecurities work on their ability to communicate work like and if you stop developing your singleness in marriage or in relationship that relationship is headed for at one po one point for somebody to be on another level and be like this is not what we signed up for hey i thought we were partners i thought we were we were doing this together i thought we were growing and going towards this together and that's why i encourage people all the time like what have you brought to the relationship lately like what skills have you improved in what has your emotional intelligence gone to another level has your spiritual awareness gone to another level has your faith gone to another level has your have you learned a new language so when we go on our uh vacation two years from now we don't get swindled at the you know like what are you bringing to the relationship and i just would encourage every couple not to focus on because when i say this a lot of times they'll be like see you ain't brought none to the relationship in three years kathy like hold on hold on a second like no ask yourself what have you brought to the relationship and if you both are asking yourself that's part of the reason we wrote that um this book taking your relationship from good to great because it allows people to evaluate where they're at spiritually emotionally and then be able to say what do i need to change how do i need to do this and that's the only way that you can go from good to great in any relationship my friend matthew hussey talks about this he talks about relationships from women on how to really attract the right man in their life the right partner and he said to me one time you know if you want to find a great partner make a list of all the things you want from them and then become that list yourself whatever you want someone else you need to become that first and really add that value to them as well yeah it's kind of like what i'm hearing you say is okay after a year two five ten years you have to keep becoming that list yourself to to keep that partner excited or engaged and trustworthy and connected and both parties have to be working on that list now i i have a little different perspective on the list because sometimes the list limits you who tell me more like so i tell people a lot of time because specifically a lot of my sisters a lot of uh they make lists now they got this he got to be 6'5 he's got gotta have this amount of money he's gonna be covering the things that they want from the qualities not the things the quality yeah and that's the thing sometimes i do believe that there are certain things that you need to be able to um lay out and really ask yourself am i becoming those things i don't think though the package always comes the way you think it's going to work true and so a lot of times it's like six five shades yeah and and and all kinds of things even some of the qualities because the thing is i tell people this you write down what you want i believe god factors in with your mate what you need to see the problem is like if you ask natalie i'm not what she wanted what does she want she wanted uh some big uh hispanic uh uh model for lotion like she wanted somebody you know what i'm saying the typical beautiful but what she needed was me and and when you look a lot of people make these lists at the beginning of their list but somebody needs to start a podcast interviewing couples who actually made it right so somebody you maybe need to do a series of relationships who lasted for 40 plus years that thrived that thrive that stayed together each other and not that were business partners right that thrived because if you ask a lot of them which i did a lot of research on writing relationship goals the book when you ask them most of them did not get what they wanted on their list they got what they found out they needed and the honestly the things that i need i don't ever write down on the list because i need somebody to help encourage me when i want to go have ice cream instead of stick to my diet i don't write that down on the list i just write down i want somebody supportive well in my mind when i'm writing that down on the list i'm thinking support me on whatever i'm feeling at that moment maybe not support me and what i've decided in a different moment and i need that but it's not necessarily that i want it and i found out that a lot of times when you rip up the list and start becoming the best version of you that you can be you will then begin to see that i am now worthy and worth being with somebody who's worthy and worth being with right and you don't settle for a lot less and that's why i called it a relationship goal i know it's a proper a popular um term um in in culture but i said people aren't doing good at relationship is because they don't have aim like they're they're not aiming at a goal that actually is going to produce the the greatest end for them and so that's my whole thought about it i do believe you got to become your best version your best self but then when you do that a lot of times it creates an entitlement in people that they will they will dismiss the right thing because of the wrong package and what happens if you continue to be your best version year after year and the other person's not willing to go on that journey is it is it until death do we part even if they're constantly pulling you down and saying i'm not going to work on myself yeah you do all the work i don't trust you even if you're 100 honest yeah is it you know is that there's all there's always provision um in a relationship especially when there's infidelity and there's different things that have happened that there may be this may be an unhealthy situation that we that we can't um progress in i honestly feel though a lot of people give up too soon on that yeah nothing good um ever comes out of the easy way there is nothing great i'll say great that comes out of easy if it's going to be great there's got to be some work that goes into it some pain so there's got to be some pain there's got to be discomfort there's got to be do i got to do this again are we still talking about this and i really do believe in our um society today that we rush into things because we know how easy we can get out of them instead of taking the time that's honestly why our written books and done series and millions of people have watched it because i'm trying to convince people like hey like take this seriously it's not just like uh oh we met at the bar we hooked up uh we lived together now we should uh um make a life together and i'm not saying that um people haven't been in relationships that have worked like that i'm just saying that if you had to take a test to get a driver's license and and and be able to drive legally in your state it's easier to get in a relationship with somebody build a marriage have kids that are going to affect the rest of us with no actual preparation no training no training no required reading no counseling no honesty like no like hey just before we get married let me tell you how much debt i'm in hey just before we get married let me tell you that your friend and that friend and i slept with all of them just before there's no requirements and that's why i'm saying if if we don't put that in and build that into the relationships we want how can we expect it's gambling it's like maybe this will work or maybe it won't i think we can be more intentional on setting a real goal and i believe those goals need to be um put on principles that have lasted in faith that can last for a long time man what are the main principles that every relationship should be founded upon bro i wrote a whole book about it i'm gonna give you three three let me give you three of them the first thing has to be transparency yeah about everything everything like i had this thought yeah i looked at this i did any idea so so i don't uh i'll say this you have to be wise because you you have to depending on the layer of relationship you're in right now if you just meet somebody today and you don't even know if you want to be with them i don't think it's wise that you you you tell them everything but i do believe that there's a difference between transparency and honesty and many people have um adopted the um thought process and the philosophy of being honest but not transparent honesty is is when you ask me i'll tell you the truth but until then but until then i'm i'm hiding something yes and a lot of times most of us don't get asked the questions that we need to answer because those questions are scary oh my gosh they're scary to ask and you don't want to know the answers and you don't want to know a lot of times and and then it automatically if the person is not emotionally um um secure enough then they're like what you don't trust me like there's so many different things that are there and that's why i always ascribe to the philosophy of being transparent you don't have to ask me i'm going to offer it up i'm going to tell you hey this when you when you talk to that guy at the restaurant that made me feel some type of way and it made me really start thinking about the insecurities of my last relationship and why we broke up and i'm not asking you to solve it at this moment but i'm letting you know how that made me feel and um i'm just going to process with that there's no question that your mate could have asked to get that um um response that genuinely because then they'll say something like this are you okay yeah i'm fine like and the truth is no you're not but i don't emotionally know how to let you know that that honestly it wasn't really what you did it's what i've been through yeah that triggered something in me and now i'm insecure about what i know i have but it's because of what happened to me like sure but that takes being transparent and what i've found is when i'm transparent it honestly provides more empathy from the other person to be able to man i'm sorry you felt that way well what can i do and like that then is deepening that relationship more than it is creating a wedge between it so i would say number one transparency has to be the top thing that you have in a relationship i think that you need to have um common faith goals i think for me um a lot of things that i found in relationship is a lot of people like each other but what their their faith is founded on are two totally different things and i think you should be equally yoked in the are equally compatible in the things that you believe and and when you do that it's more easy it's easier to have conversations about how to raise children finances it's easier to be able to go to for me and my wife um we're christians that believe in the bible and so there are certain things that we disagree on and then we can go to the bible and we're like okay but this is something that we believe together let's wrestle through this let's work through this let's how does that make you feel let's ask somebody there are so many problems that have been solved because we believe the same things um foundationally in our faith and i'm encouraging people a lot of times that when you do that it creates a foundation that moves past emotions a lot of times right yeah it's just like well i can't get it and i can't get it but then when you go to certain thing love is patient love is kind love keeps no record of wrong damn first corinthians 13 is jacking me up right now love love offers forgiveness love oh love is long-suffering like these are words that we have adopted from a book that we believe has truth in it and principles to live by and because we're on the same level in that faith it corrects us sometimes when we don't want to be corrected and that's where um i tell people the bible is one of the only books you can read that when you read it it reads you like and and for us that has helped us and so transparency having strong faith foundations and then the third thing that i would say is fun yeah if you cannot have fun with the person that you're in relationship with good luck like good because there's certain things life is hard it is hard there will be trouble it's promised but but if you can find somebody to look at in the in the darkest part of the valley and live and laugh with them it happened to me and natalie on the plane yesterday i told you before um we brought two of our daughters with us and they're seven and three years old and we're on a plane from tulsa to la three and a half hours you can imagine all the fruit snacks and the ipads and all of the different things crying just the whole nine and my wife is pregnant right now so put that on top of it so and she's trying to eat and i'm sitting in the chair next to her and something drops off of her plate and i can just i can see the braids down right down up just right up ahead like a movie and i just look at her and just start laughing and she sees me and she breaks out and for 20 minutes laughing we are dying on the plane not because everything's good because we have somebody to be through and go through everything with us and that joy i mean literally we got off the plane and all that stuff she said i haven't laughed like that in so long and she was just kept laughing about it and those are the moments that i found like i told you a little bit before but our son mj he's five um he was diagnosed with autism and um this has been the greatest emotional faith journey that we've been on he's five years old still nonverbal i'm the guy of faith i lead a church i i'm a pastor i believe and in my home there's a situation that has not changed yet and it's challenged everything the one thing that has gotten us through or excuse me the three things that have gotten us through the three things i just gave you transparency our faith foundation being the same and being fun i wouldn't be sitting here today talking to you on my way to a fourth child after my wife battling depression me challenging my calling trying to figure out why is this happening at the moment where everything great in my life is happening and it's those three things being transparent about how i felt and my emotions and her being transparent about how she felt and her emotions and having our faith anchored to something that was stronger than us and us having fun that i told you before we came in here i am having the most fun in relationship i'm not faking this is authentic this is the joy that i have to be because we have decided that there are some principles we have to live by that that most people aren't going to show you in reality television most people aren't going to give you in a blog or a tabloid and it has to be lived out and that's what we're trying to do what has been the biggest challenge for you during the rise of your personal brand success the the church success the audience growth the financial growth what has been the biggest challenge emotionally on how you've handled the emotional weight with the information about your son the stuff with your wife and everything how do you personally manage the emotional weight so um there's a scripture that i go to all the time and just because i'm a man of faith there's a scripture that says cast all your cares on the lord because he cares about you i have to i have to offload daily and most people carry daily they keep picking up more they keep picking up more and every day i i i go to my secret place of meditation of of spending time with my creator and i say hey everything that's happening in this life i'm casting it on you cause you care for me i'm i'm mentally casting it i'm not gonna i gotta let that go i cannot i can't fix the situation if i could pay for mj to talk i would but i can't so i'm casting it i i have this organization that's reaching millions of people and i've never led anything like this in my life before i have people's jobs and lives and benefits and everything but i'm casting it and what ends up happening is it doesn't make it go away it just means i don't have to carry it alone the way it is the weight that's where anxiety and pressure and bad decisions and not resting and all that other stuff comes from imagine going to the gym and doing um uh squats 200 pounds on you do the squats you do your 10 of them yeah killing louis i was a beast imagine walking out of the gym with that on your shoulders driving with that on your shoulder that's exhausting doing the podcast with it on your show like can't sustain it you cannot sustain it and i think the weight of life people feel that they have to carry all the time by themselves it doesn't mean that i'm not gonna have to squat stuff every day but i'm gonna squat it and then i'm gonna cast it do you think there's a way for people that aren't in your face yeah who don't believe yeah and the same things you believe is there a way for people to let go of that weight even if they don't have the same faith i believe there's a way to start that process i believe the first thing that you have to realize is you're not in control like like no matter what faith no matter what you believe where you came from make the sun come up 20 minutes yeah you can like add another hour to the day and i think there's this false sense in a lot of our beliefs that make us feel like we're in control of stuff there are certain things you are in control of but there are so many more that you're not in control the business failed coronavirus who we didn't how like and so i think that if you first recognize that you're not in control then it gives you the ability to see what you are in control of you are in control of the toxic relationships you let into your life right you are in control of what you do with your time one of the other reasons that i feel like during this um what i call the world win of change in my life why we've been able to sustain and be angered is because i made some very hard decisions to do less when everybody was telling me to do more i can't control that my son um has to go to therapy three times a week and i can't control what's happening with this business and with this but i can control what i do so when we went from um for speaking engagement requests in 2017 to over 3 000 a year later crazy nuts i still did less than five really because i knew that i couldn't control everything but what i could control is the pace and that i was graced for like i believe everybody has a pace that they go that they're graced for and anything that you do outside of what you're grace to do you have to sustain or carry that weight by yourself how many people you got a successful business but somebody told you you need to double it so you started another one and now the other one's killing you you are grace to be successful at that business but because now you've seen some success and you want to do it now you're going to lose your family three years from now because what was supposed to be enjoyable and now give you freedom to be able to spend time with your wife your kids your your family your whatever like that now you've put something else you want grace for and now you're falling under the weight those are the things that i really do believe that when people step back out of this like i got it all handled kind of mentality and say hold on i can't control everything but there are certain things i can control and they start taking off the things that they they that are weights on their life like and and putting those aside i believe that gives you the margin this is a big word that people need to adapt in 2021 is margin most people do not have margin for life they have a margin of time space mental energy money right nothing so at the moment you're you're at the brink of everything and when life happens because it's gonna happen you're gonna break down and this is why you can't hold it all up this is why somebody that's worth a half a billion dollars can jump off a building [Music] because what you you got everything you got all the connection you got everything it's cause there was no margin there was no relational margin there was no financial margin yeah there was no spirit and i don't know what it is for every individual but everybody has to be able to um evaluate that in their own life and i think that is something that is key to everybody being healthy i think i heard on an interview you talked about where you had a mentor that taught you about or just told you hey listen as you continue to grow it's gonna be important to have space time every year that's just for you and family yeah so when was that who was that and how has that process been so i am grateful and thank god for mentors ones that i've met and ones that i haven't met through books and all that other stuff um because you don't know what you don't know yeah but you can learn from people who have been there before and uh i became the lead pastor of a church in 2015 transformation church um and shout out to transformationnation anybody ever watching i love you um but i uh became the pastor of that church and what ended up happening was a mentor set me down his name is tim ross out of dallas texas and um this was such a divine moment in my life how old are you i was 27 26 when he told me this and i'm about to take over this church i didn't know anything about leading this type of congregation i was a music producer i was supposed to be at the grammys and now i'm about to be a pastor of a church i'm like what in the world is going on and he said listen you're going to need a month break every year so that you can be able to calibrate what has happened to you how to heal from it and how you move forward i'm like there's no way i can do this it's february and and i'm about to be over the be the pastor of the church and i'm leaving in june for a month i was like i'm gonna come back there's no church gonna be there the building's gonna be burnt down all that he said no no no i'm telling you if you don't take time he's like even if it's not a month whatever you can get if you don't take time to do this he said you're going to look up and be somebody you don't want to be and i had the presence of mine to say all right i don't know that when i tell you lewis that this has given me more mental clarity about my calling my relationships my my family my future and my success than any other thing it's better than meeting anybody it's better than networking it's i get to be with me and my creator and decompress and relax and celebrate and grieve and be able to grow and and it's like it's like being flushed out and ready and open for whatever's next and it has been the most life-giving relationship goals happened after i was on sabbatical like every great thing that i've ever done came after i took a break and it was almost like the blessing of like stepping back and creating margin and saying like i could be working i could be doing more i could do on but i what does it all mean if i gain the whole world and lose my own soul my own mind will and emotions are bankrupt and corroded and and and jacked up what does it mean if i get everything but i feel empty on the inside and the truth is that's how many people are living right now they got it all yeah but they're it's hollow and um every year like clockwork in the summer i take a month month and a half off i make sure my team is equip we build a whole year around it and everybody doesn't have that um luxury to be able to do that but you have more than you think you do right there's two weeks of vacation that you're going to be stressed out one of those weeks trying to create a family memory for this one week with the family you haven't seen all year that's the hard the hard truth about it and now it's a hard vacation you go into debt for it you spend money doing stuff and it doesn't come out the the way you could spread that out and every friday yeah it's family day and you create that margin and the first part of the day you spend time by yourself so you don't choke your kids when you get with them and then after school you've planned something like i'm just saying that our society has become so driven so go get it so grind so all this stuff and people are going to achieve success and lose significance they're going to achieve the thing they wrote on their dream board and it's going to be powder it's going to be so hollow on the inside i counsel people all the time that have everything and more that they ever wanted and they're still searching for more how it's because maybe the focus we were sold a lie success doesn't always mean bigger more greater now i know i'm gonna lose some people right here because everybody thinks success is bigger more greater but what if success is fulfillment what if success is doing that thing you were purpose to do even if it doesn't pay a lot yeah what if success see i know this is counter cultural the school of greatness everybody wants to be great but what if great is raising your kids and making sure they're whole on the inside so that they can do what they've been called to do like and i just feel like we try to do this one size fits all that everybody has to have a million people on instagram and a huge youtube and be affected in magazines and everything and that's not necessarily greatness for everybody it might be greatness for you it might be greatness for me it might be great this for the next person but greatness for people is fulfilling their purpose and once you figure what that is what god's divinely um a wired everybody to do and you're actually walking in that and that's where for me i am if nobody watches anymore if we sell no more books if if if nothing happens but i'm with me my wife and my four kids and i'm helping somebody in their their life their faith walk their relationship i'll be fulfilled wow i'll be doing what i know i was created to do the sad part about this statement is many people it's not enough to just do what you were created to do you have to be applauded to do it you have to have the extra the audience the audience the money the everything i have found out specifically with having a son with autism that all of it's hollow it's great it's nice it's awesome but there are things in life that are way more important than the things that i used to make very important and now that i've found those things i just want to give that away to other people i want to help them discover what that is in their own life so that they can win in relationships when in business when everywhere else and i just feel like that's my mission what's the biggest challenge you've had uh with this opportunity with your son yeah in terms with your relationship your marriage what's the biggest challenge you've had as a couple with that opportunity of your son um what he's going through yeah i think one of the things that every uh couple has to figure out for themselves is how you communicate during trauma um a lot of people have one style of communication when everything's going good but when there's trauma your communications change um for my wife um in trauma she wants to communicate about it and talk about it in trauma i want to think about it and so and and fix it that's my uh nature and that's most men's nature is to try to figure out the person you love is suffering or hurting like and so there's been a lot of times that i've had to learn to just listen and just sit with you and just get down in the hole with you and just say i'm sorry you feel that way and i understand and that at the beginning of this process was very difficult for me it was very difficult for me i'm like well let's let's call every doctor and let's dunno like like and and but that wasn't helping her what she needed to know is that somebody was with it in her with her at the place she was at and so we did um probably three four weeks of intensive counseling and when i say intensive i'm not talking like oh we go once a week like we went every day for three hours a day for a week straight like you and her just me and her and a counselor every day for three days for a week three hours four weeks what did you discover or what did you heal or what did you create for that process number one thing that i learned about myself is that i don't like um discomfort and so i will i will i will run out of it i'll avoid it i'll fix it let's go on the trip let's go like and um she the counselor one day said to me she said you're not going to be able to finesse your way out of this one you're going to have to feel it it's going to be uncomfortable and then you'll be able to walk together through it and i think for me that was like nah there's got to be another way like there's a guy like you know what i'm saying there's got to be something else and um why don't you like to feel these things i think for me is my mind always works like there's got there's there's got to be an easier way to make everything better and for me um i'm always i'm a problem solver so what happens when you tell a problem solver don't solve the problem like what what like don't solve the problem and i think it's been one of the most powerful things it's been strength under control meekness um i've tapped into another level of power to know that i could do something but i'm choosing not to because the other person needs this when you talk about sacrifice in relationship that's a lot of times what it looks like it's you know you could get over this really quick but doing the thing so both of you cross the finish line together see a lot of times when there's a problem the thought process is hey like you ain't over that yet like that was easy for me to get over like come on and so then you put pressure on that person and then there's resentment frustration and anger and now you've created another problem that was not even the root issue yeah and what i've learned right now is that for me and natalie in this situation i had to slow down i had to not sprint across the finish line of whatever that moment was and maybe we lost the race but we finished together and my question to people in relationship how many times have we won the race but lost our partner yeah because we wanted to be so done with it and over it i found that we are so um united and get each other so much more this process has brought us together it sucks it's horrible i don't wish it on on anybody i have a whole nother level of um um empathy and and uh just care for parents with special needs children and all these things that i just had no concept of before until it knocked at my door but me and natalie's relationship is so much more galvanized so much stronger because i had to learn like don't fix it just be in it with her and now because i've been in it with her she trusts me with it now now she can be transparent i was just thinking about that little boy in the park that's playing catch our son doesn't play catch so that made me think about how mj doesn't play catch and i just wanted you to know how i felt used to be she didn't she wasn't safe enough to just be able to be transparent it would bottle up and then again with no margin as soon as life hits you mom explodes so what i'm saying all of these things go with each other but what ended up happening because i created margin for her to be safe with me and she trusts me then she could let that thing out she can cast her cares she doesn't have to carry it all by herself the level of growth and health that has come in me and my wife's life over the past three years has been insurmountable and um the situation hasn't changed but our relationship has how important is counseling or therapy for couples when they get started i've always said you know i wish i start a relationship in therapy like going together in the first few months of dating saying you know what we're going to be together let's start therapy let's do it then not when things are troubling and there's challenge let's do it when everything is great yeah so i tell everybody how important is it in the beginning middle forever everybody should be in counseling forever like and i i say it like this um the the bible says there's wisdom in the multitude of counsel like there's wit like when you counsel that's a place you find wisdom processing out loud allowing somebody that knows how your mind your emotions your brain works that's not in it be able to just observe and suggest different things being able to understand like hey you keep saying the same thing and you don't realize it but we all see this pattern like how many someone hold you accountable like that is some of i say it like this it's a better investment than real estate it's the greatest investment your your emotional mental piece there's no better investment people don't think that though there's no greater investment than your emotional piece people don't think that they'll lose it's man i will spend any amount of money to feel peace and that's why people drive their piece instead of actually have it do you understand what i'm saying like people would rather buy things they don't want to prove to people they don't like that they actually have something they don't have they don't need and they don't need right then actually get the help the soul care the the the the um healthiness the healing that they actually need and so i encourage people because this is a big topic in church as well like people taboo in a lot of churches is like you don't need counseling you know and i like wear shirts that like therapy and jesus like you need you need to pray therapy and coffee like you need like like i'm just trying to help people understand like this is um a practical tool that can help you unpack you 30 years of trauma 15 years of trauma 20 years of trauma and you think that you can unpack those bags by yourself you need help doing that and um therapy has been and counseling has been some of the best investment that me and natalie have ever made we're different people we're like no i'm i'm dead serious we are different people and now um women are different you're you're different human beings and you're different people because of that because of therapy and now we choose friends differently because we know now we cannot have good friendships with people who aren't aware of themselves because you can't have a conversation with someone who's like focused on something that's not even like i can't be transparent with you i can't even tell you how you made me feel because you don't even now you're triggered from seven years old because i said something to you and you actually need to deal with that and yeah and so it has now shaped how we do everything like part of our interviewing process is we just ask people are you in counseling it doesn't mean you don't get the job or not but we strongly suggest to all of our staff members for our staff members at our church we paid for two sessions of counseling for every staff member just to get them to try it and now i got a dm from one of our staff members um last year and she super fashion person and all that is like i miss all of the sales that i uh used to basically be able to go to but nothing is worth how i feel right now the sales spinning shop shoes and going on sales but she's now decided to make the investment in herself instead of the shoes nine things to make you feel good for the moment but things that will actually make and change how you actually are for a lifetime for a lifetime and not just your lifetime it shows up with your kids impacting everyone around you shows up in your business it shows up in everything we are a product of the people who raised us if the people who raised us were emotionally immature were emotionally traumatized did not know how to communicate when you were going through bad situations passive aggression passive aggression all of those different things it showed up in us and now we're dealing with many of us three and four generations of trauma and that's where you bring that to every relationship like you bring that to every business deal and that's why my hope is that people would really start winning in relationships by figuring out principles to help them um release reach their relationship goals what's the thing that you have yet to fully heal me wow that's a good question boy you do this it's uncle it's like you have a podcast or something um about the school of average here yeah no it's the school of greatness um i think the thing that i'm still trying to heal is my performance-based um scorecard tell me more i just i have been raised to think that how good i do is attached to how good i am um so your self-worth is attached to good job yep and and nobody expected that and we knocked it out of the water and it went number one new york time bestseller and it's your first book ever and all like i it it is a tension for me and all transparency and i don't even know who's watching this so i'm you this is how i am but it is a tension for me to continually daily detach who i am in what i'm worth from what i do and what that's worth oh my gosh this is powerful i got it every day what does that process look like for you what do you think about when someone famous calls you and say you're amazing yeah you're incredible yeah we want you here we want this how do you detach your ego or your desires or your i'm something greater than i am yeah but not diminish who you are at the same time yeah how do you do that so it's a couple of things for me the first thing i have to do is be honest that i'm feeling that most of times transparency most times we oh no that's just man you know what i'm saying a little something i did like no like i'm getting significance from this yeah such-and-such saying that this book changed their life made me feel good so and so reposted about the book target made relationship goals the front stand book all of the month of february like i'm all that i like something came i felt something my my my meter moved yeah you can't heal what you won't reveal if you won't acknowledge it there's no chance of it actually being addressed and so the first thing i have to do is reveal like whoa that i felt that like there's something there and then start reminding myself of things um that had nothing to do with what i produced but who i am my identity and for me it's my identity so so like okay um hey not i wrote this new york time best thing no i didn't write this new york time best-selling book i am a person that loves the people around him that that is not based on who came around me and how big the platform is but i really love the people that are around me and i have to remind myself hold on not that i just love the people that are around me i am loved like if i don't have another fan i am loved by the people around me by the people that are around me by god by by my church like okay the internet goes off like i'm loved by a group of people like yo i'm worthy like i made a bunch of mistakes in my life and there was grace that was extended to me that that allowed me a second opportunity to do something like i'm worthy to like actually try and i'm i'm worth being good i'm worth like i'm needed like not because of what i do because of who i've been entrusted with i have three beautiful kids and one on the way that need me that need me to be present not just my presence not the gifts i can give them but the gift of me like whoa i am more than what people see i'm not just a pastor or an author or a producer like there's more to me like and i have to literally out loud say these things to myself and say things like if nobody else buys another book i'm good yeah if nobody else ever invites me to speak if i never get another podcast i have purpose like it's disconnecting yeah like looking at the bank account and not thinking that my actual net worth is my worthiness because one day that can be gone yeah but what do i still have and that's why i go back to that that scripture that says all the time that what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul i gotta disconnect to protect my soul and the soul is my mind will and emotions i gotta protect that i gotta guard my heart above all else because out of that that flows everything that happens in my life i gotta protect that and it is dangerous to connect my heart and soul to things that are successful in this moment to things that are feeding it from a thing i love all of it it's great it's awesome and it's why i'm here talking to you right now and it's giving me a platform to help a lot of people but if and when because it's a real win we're we're we're the voices they're listening to today but one day there's somebody else yeah and are me and you and drunken stupers in high rises because we were connected so um intertwined and entangled to the adulation to the acceptance to the applause of people that we didn't even know and now we lived our life from metrics and now the metrics mean that we're not worth anything or we're worth everything right if you if you live for man's applause you'll die by it yes and how do we believe we are worthy if we don't get all these other outside successes and acknowledgements how do we how does someone learn to believe in their worthiness yeah period whether there's success yeah or not success because sometimes people achieve everything and still don't believe they still don't believe in worthiness so how do we get to that place so for me this is an answer that goes back to what i really believe and i'm a pastor by nature i work in all types of different fields but there was a place in my life that i didn't feel worthy of anything and i believe that there is a higher power a divine creator god jesus for me is what i believe with my whole heart that transformed my life and what ended up happening in this process for me louis i was a bad person like how i became a pastor like the whole nine yeah addicted to all kinds of different things all that other stuff and at my lowest moment um i was reading the bible and for the first time in a long time i felt loved i felt worthy i felt like you know for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son whosoever believes in him could not perish but have everlasting life and like hold on like all of this happened on a maybe like whoa like hold on somebody while i was yet a sinner doing everything that was filthy and jagged and raggedy and horrible like you loved me and i started reading these scriptures and and something connected in my heart i can't explain to people like that's not real that's a nobody can take this experience away from me because i know who i was and i know how jacked up i was and i know how backwards my thinking was and i know how perverted i was and i know how manipulative i was the person i am today is only because i found my worthiness in a creator not from a creation a car is a creation but but but there's a creator our phones are a creation that ipad's a creation but the creator of people are people creations but from the creator that's where you only can find identity and so i went back and i just went on this journey of discovering my faith and discovering god and discovering and what i came out of that with bro nobody could ever take anything away from me i got not happiness i got joy i didn't get relief i got peace i didn't get a sexual satisfying experience i got love and from that place i began to take steps of progression on my purpose i started forgiving people do you know what type of weight it is lifted off of your life when you walk forgiving people it's amazing well it is like holding your grudge is heavy man it it is devastating but it gave me the ability and the power to begin to forgive people that i was holding grudges get to say sorry to own up to stuff and it's crazy how when you become a better person moving and maneuvering in the image of of christ in my opinion and in my belief and in my experience it changes everything around you i'm able to be a light anywhere i go like people don't have to believe how i believe or anything and i come in like man i like talking to you i was like bro you would have hated talking to me seven years ago but let me tell you what happened to me and that's where i say like you cannot find identity in something that didn't create you and and and if my iphone breaks i don't go to honda to figure out how to get it fixed not because honda's didn't make something it's because they didn't they didn't make that right i would go to apple the same thing with me and you i really do believe when you need to find the origination even if you have bad parents had a traumatic past you did things that were horrible like when you go back and you connect to your faith and you see what god says about you how you're fearfully and wonderfully made you're the head and not the tail you're beautifully and wonderfully made there's a purpose before you were even formed in your mother's womb god knew you and that he has a plan and a purpose for you when you start taking off the lies and believing the truth i'm telling you from that place it starts to transform and change everything and the only reason i'm sitting here talking to you is because i went through that transformation process and now i'm able to live in joy hope peace and um i just hope that everybody experienced that at some place in their life i love that man and you you said you can't heal what you won't reveal uh about eight years ago i started to share my shame the things that i was afraid to reveal and i wasn't able to heal i realized that statement that you said right there is so powerful for me because for 25 years i was holding on to pain shame resentment anger frustration and i've talked about this many times publicly about dealing with sexual abuse as a child holding on to that for so long it wasn't until i started to share the shame where i was able to start the healing process and i think a lot of people hide uh their shame and it's hard to heal if you're hiding right it's really hard to see so how does someone get to a place of sharing opening up revealing so that they can heal when it is so dark so painful so traumatic from something in the past so this is where counseling comes in heavy you know what i'm saying or good um in my opinion godly community like people who you can tell that won't trash you while you're pulling back this onion like you don't understand well you're super vulnerable and i just i people make circles based on success a lot of times in networking instead of making circles based on um insulation when you have a circle around you you need an insulation you need people you can be your 100 self with and they protect you and cover you not cover up but cover you and help lead you to the right place and for me i had that i had a good godly community as well as we had counseling yeah and um sometimes you've got to be able to be put in positions that make you answer questions you don't want to answer and talk about things that nobody wants to like when they start asking you what's one thing that happened to you when you were younger and i encourage encourage everybody to ask you this what are what's one thing that happened to you when you were younger that negatively shaped who you are today yeah a lot of things for me but see if you answered that question honestly you start opening up the things that probably there needs to be some more conversations about what happens if we don't open up and talk about those things it's the same thing that happens when uh you put food that was good at one point and you leave it by your bed for three months it festers yes it spoils it rots and then it attracts i don't watch it attracts things that will eat off of it this is what some of our relationships look like and then it becomes the aroma of your living becomes your environment it becomes your environment it doesn't matter how many millions you spend on the bedroom if something's rotting in the corner it doesn't matter how many gucci prada it doesn't matter how many maserati it doesn't matter how many times you 10xed it it doesn't matter if your soul is rotting if your love is spoiled if your emotions have eroded and that's what i tell people a lot of times we dress up something that is completely contaminated and i just didn't want to live like that i was affecting people could smell the aroma stuff my life have you ever met somebody like something i don't know that's what a lot of us look like spiritually emotionally and in our relationships is because we haven't dealt with the things and it's been there since you were 6 7 15 22. they don't teach us how to deal with these things no no and that's why for me especially in my context especially in church and business and all that i'm like yo we got to talk about relationships we got to talk about counseling we got to talk about inner healing we got to talk about our faith we got to talk about this because i've seen too many people get to what they thought was the mountaintop and it feel emptier than a different season in their life i want to bring it back to jealousy for a second let's go why are we jealous human beings and is there a place in which we can be completely not jealous of our partner or someone else yes so jealousy is our nature we are all born with a nature that you do not i have kids i don't have to teach them how to be bad like all of my kids learn no mine i never taught any of my kids those words i have to teach them share i have to teach them give their contributions yeah we're all born with what i call a lower nature a sin nature that's in us and jealousy is the primary nature that is formed there all the way back to cain and abel it it you the first two brothers kill each other over jealousy like it's our nature and so what you have to do is fight that nature with the thing that is countered that nature so um when you think jealousy um when you think competition when you think selfishness you have to do the opposite of those things you have to celebrate others you have to be generous you have to give the only way to put out um the fire is give it the opposite thing and so i found in my life that again you gotta be we can't act like this stuff is not real cause we'll never deal with it a lot of people won't even admit they're jealous of something jealous that the friend got a new house or everybody's getting married and they're not or jealous that that that doesn't even happen so those people they just tuned us out right now but for anybody that would actually admit hey there's areas in my life that i i wish i had what they had i'm coveting those things um when you start to give what you wish you had somehow those things begin to come into your life in a different way or you don't desire him anymore and that's how i found for me that i give what i desire to have it's the the principle of sowing okay so when we when we were in a season i'll talk about it business-wise when i was in a season of not making a lot of money and um was trying to really figure out like how am i going to like i'm i want to marry this girl i'm going to do this savings i need investments all that other stuff and i heard so strongly in my in my time of devotion hey you need to give something to somebody who's where you want to be they already got it that doesn't matter that doesn't make sense and it was almost like instead of looking at what they had and trying to be like i wish i had that okay become a part of it sow into it give what you desire um to somebody else and help their journey and it's the the principle of sowing and reaping you you're always going to reap whatever you sow so you might as well sow good things because everything you give out is coming back right with friends like and and hopefully it's good friends if you sow a good seed but if you didn't it's coming back yeah with friends and that was a game-changing moment and i've become generous um generosity kills jealousy like like when you start helping people giving to people networking with people and then the other thing that's very practical with jealousy if you don't see it you won't be jealous of it so many people are jealous because of overexposure there are certain things i'm not supposed to know about somebody else's life but because of the culture we live in today i'm jealous of things that i didn't even know existed it used to be in the i guess 50s and 60s the jones is where it's like the neighbor yeah you saw the neighbor's house and car you didn't go see everyone's house and car on social media and that's where again i think we come back to the idea of margin yeah like there are days of every week that i cut off my social media like there are there are time periods when i go on that sabbatical i'm off on social media the whole month a month are people posting for you though or content i think i tell them to go black wow now think about this when i'm talking to book publishers and people i've made contracts with and everything like that and telling them hey just just before we sign this i want you to know that um once a year i go black i won't be posting i won't be promoting i won't be doing anything and i'm telling you they freak out and i said but i promise you when i do this it's going to make me more fruitful in everything else i do and now any partner that's been with me they're like oh we understand now they're still scared to do it but but and again i went off the num i was by the grace of god i was um on the number one new york times bestseller for three weeks and we were in the top 10 new york times bestselling list for 15 weeks in a row i went off on new york times bestseller list because i went on sabbatical so i knew i was going to take myself off of the new york times best sellers list because i was going to stop promoting my book and i did it now for some people that would seem stupid for me that was success i was unattached yeah my work to the results yeah was not based on being on new york times sellers bestseller for 30 weeks never went back on it yet haven't got back it's not like i'm trying to no the fact i'm just grateful the fact that we did it once yeah it happened but i'm still worth it i'm still a good guy i'm still loved i'm still no matter if i'm somebody in the book publishing more may think i'm nothing but i know who i am and those are the type of decisions that are counter-cultural that people don't understand but that's why i have my peace that's why i'm full of joy that's why when i talk to you i don't gotta put on any type of allure and act like i'm bigger than i am because i'm actually when all of this is over i'm gonna be good like i'm gonna actually go back to the hotel with my daughters take them to the pool i'm actually going to enjoy and be fulfilled in what i believe god has called me to do and so um it really is one of those things that jealousy many times comes from being overexposed so if you would if you would uh limit your exposure it would help you think about it when horses run in the preakness and in uh the kentucky derby there's a very inexpensive piece of equipment that is is is very blind very f um um intentional and effective to the horses winning blinders and the reason is because if they could see the other horses they would go into their lanes and be disqualified oh my goodness think about how many of us are distracted and getting ultimately disqualified because we're jealous of somebody else is lame when we already have our own to run we gotta run our own race come on bro we gotta run our own race come on bro and and for some reason it's not sexy enough to have one lane you gotta have ten lanes you want every land you want the track what you want the world you want and i'm just saying like maybe just maybe i'm saying i know everything but maybe the end result of running in several lanes is not um the fulfillment in the success that we think it is how do you create a financial abundant mindset as a pastor you have a church where it's probably i'm assuming taboo to be talking money yeah or be thinking let's build wealth and abundance as a pastor as a church you guys have publicly announced acquiring this 40 million arena center in tulsa which is amazing and creating communities and opportunities for people there how did you one go from not acquiring a lot of wealth and an abundance mindset maybe you had before how did you transition that knowing that i am a pastor where people are going to judge me based on how much money we bring in based on these things how do you manage that stigma maybe and also be at peace with creating financial abundance yeah and how can we learn to create financial buzzings in a spiritual way yeah yeah so i love that question that's a good question bro i think the first thing that you have to realize is i'm aware of the landscape of most pastors in uh the world when it comes to finances where there's been a lot of abuse there's been a lot of misuse mistrust mistrust and so the first thing that i did when i came in as a pastor as i decided it goes back to what i've talked about in relationships that i was going to be completely transparent yeah so like every year we tailed the church every dollar every cent that came in we tell them that every dollar that comes in 10 plus percent is going out in missions we let people know what we're doing how it's going to happen and you can't make anybody give to a non-profit you cannot make anybody i mean they have to do that on their own we don't make a big deal about any of those things we decided that finances would be the fruit and not the focus and i think that's something that everybody needs to adapt a lot of times money and finances is the focus but i believe that if you make the focus people the focus reaching purpose the focus helping others then finances is the fruit not the focus yes and for us that has been our entire mission when i took over our church we started in a converted grocery store in the hood of tulsa so like i didn't come from this big machine of people understanding there was less than 300 people that came to my church and most of them were sitting there like he's not gonna make it like you know what i'm saying like let's be honest and um i just told people that this is going to be a generous church and i remember it i remember the day everything changed for our church i was reading a book by uh another pastor named robert morris called the blessed life and he um was talking about how many churches and nonprofits talk about give to get give to get and really the principle of the bible and god is give to give not to get like we're giving just as an extension of love not because not expecting something like for god so loved the world that he gave like without an expect expectation of return and i said that's what we're going to do i went to our platform less than 300 people in our church and i said hey guys today i just really feel that we're supposed to raise money and none of it's supposed to help us is supposed to go out and help other people and you should have seen the faces of those people they were like huh like what do you mean like how are we gonna do this and i was like i just i want us to be a generous community that blesses people in need blesses other churches blesses um non-profits and people who are helping with sex trafficking like let's just do it and we raised 833 8 300 and something dollars that day that day wow and we gave it all away and that was the seed that went in the ground that i believe transformed our mindset around the the thought that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive and from that point on keeping transparency teaching being honest and then being prepared see this is the big thing people don't understand is preparation is really the the avenue that you're ready for the big things that are coming to come in your life when this arena came open it was because we had years of preparation being generous giving to people teaching and then saving and then being ready and then this 50 million dollar arena came available we were able to get it for like 10.5 million dollars and pay it off in six months crazy that only it is crazy it's crazy faith it's crazy crazy it doesn't make sense at all the only reason it happened though is because we had practical preparation with principles of generosity yes and i think those are two things that everybody can take practical preparation you can't give what you ain't what you don't have right but then you have to have principles of generosity and i was interviewing some people because i i do a series on this every um of every year and i'm in one right now even as we're taping this um talking about being a paper chaser or a purpose chaser because most people are paper chasers but the paper without purpose is pointless oh and uh um i've been doing a series on that and just helping people understand that purpose is more intentional than paper and the crazy thing about it is when you get in purpose when you're doing that thing you were created to get the paper the paper follows you you're no longer on a treadmill trying to get it it comes that's our story is that we decided we're going to help homeless we're going to help widows we're going to help orphans um last year because of the amazing generosity of the people in our church in one sunday we gave away 3.5 million dollars what 3.5 million dollars we paid off people's houses we um canceled student debt we did all of these different things in one day one day one day we bought people who had special needs um um vans that they could get into their car we partners with an organization for the homeless to get shower trucks to be able to go around and shower it was nothing for us it was all to get now that all came from that eight thousand three hundred dollars that six years ago we sowed in faith and that's the thing that this my mantra is i always say all you have is all you need everybody thinks that one day when i have more then i can do more but right now do you know how much five dollars could change somebody's life today and and there were many times when i was at the gas station if somebody would have put an extra five dollars in my cake that would have that would have brought me you could be somebody's answered prayer now right now today today with whatever you have and it don't even take money it can be a smile it can be a smile it can be helping them move it could be like just think about all of the different things and i've been doing some interviewing of people because anytime i do a series i want to feel i want to feel like i know where people are doing some surveying and do you know what everybody's second dream job is to help people be a philanthropist oh right so what everybody thinks is like hey i'm going to do this profession career hopefully you can be so i can give it so that i can give and help people and i said if you do not work the muscle of generosity today it will have alpha what do you call it atrophy it'll have atrophy by the time you're ready to use it you'll keep hoarding your money you'll say ah it's not big enough yet it's i want more yep and it's not just money it's your time it's your energy it's generosity is not just about giving money generosity is about giving of yourself it's about giving time it's about having that phone conversation conversation giving back to somebody who is where you were at like think about what you would have done to have a call with some of these people you meet with 10 years ago do you understand what i'm saying so who now looks up to you that if you took 30 minutes out of every week and or every day and you called a young aspiring and gave them what you had like what would that that's generosity but many people again we don't have margin for that we we we've made all of these life goals and successes more important than the things that actually really matter and so for our church we're a product we're living a blessed life because we bless others and i'm just grateful to be a part of it like honestly it's not something that i'm doing on my own there's tens of thousands of people that call transformation church their home and trust the authenticity authenticity and the stewardship that we have and we get to bless um i'll tell you this last story you know coronavirus has hit everybody and um there was a couple in our city that had a church um and the pastor of the church five kids two adopted um died of coronavirus just a month ago oh man small church heard about this story um white family um nothing no connection no affiliation we just heard about it and she just lost her husband the provider father to all the children all this other stuff our church last sunday because we heard about the need and saw that we could help paid the husband's salary to her for the rest of the year six months of the year and then paid their house off wow so that they could have a place to not have to worry and this for me whether you believe in jesus or not like our hope is that you would see the love and generosity of a group of people that doesn't want anything from you and hopefully that would lead you to a greater love yeah and so again like when i say i'm just excited to be a part of it yeah i might be the leader but like i'm just like yes for me it uh it's a beautiful thing you're doing amazing work man i got a couple a couple final questions for you uh this was a question i asked you before we started the camera roll and i asked said what's the thing you wish more people asked you you said why do i do what i do so i'm curious why do you do what you do because i wish i would have had it i'm trying to be everything i wish i would have had growing up growing up i wish i would have had somebody who would have been completely authentic and awesome completely authentic and honest about their journey that showed the joys of living a life of integrity [Music] that actually loved their wife and family and were committed to a calling bigger than themselves because you didn't see that i didn't see it there was always anybody great had to be a rapper or an athlete like there was no people that were like regular people that didn't have some um you know amazing gifting and then they made their life that i just didn't see it that wasn't what was glorified and i definitely didn't know anybody like personally that was there and nobody talked to me about relationships i went through so much crap just because i didn't know and i think a lot of things um the bible says that the older are supposed to tell the younger and they're supposed to teach and a lot of times there's not margin for that so how many how many things have you not learned not because you didn't want to know but just because nobody at the time or or was generous enough to actually take the time to share it and so i just said hey if i ever get an opportunity i'm going to be what i wish i would have had what would have saved me hurting people what would have saved me making mistakes and bumping my head to getting addicted to those things and making those wrong decisions like i'm going to say and that's why i i'm authentically who i am i feel like i've been called by god to um help people and help people win in relationships help people discover um their purpose and and that's why i do it because there's a mike todd somewhere that is watching this interview right now and it's like that's what i needed to hear to make this next decision that doesn't seem big but it's going to affect me forever and that's why i do it i appreciate this conversation man this has been really powerful this is fun i want to ask you a question i asked everyone at the end called the three truths okay it's a hypothetical question and scenario okay so imagine it is your last day on earth many years from now all right and you've accomplished given become everything you've wanted to do okay but for whatever reason it's the last day and you've got to take everything with you to the next place so no one has access to your books this conversation or your message anymore yeah it's all gone to the next place wherever it goes yeah and however before you go you have a piece of paper and a pen and you get to write down three things you know to be true the three lessons that you would leave behind and this is all we would have to remember your lessons by got you i called the three truths okay what would you say would be yours wow that's a good question i'm gonna go with this um my three truths all you have is all you need that would be my first one i don't believe that god will ever ask you or require something more than that's in your hands to get to the next place um my second truth would be progression over perfection that if you take a step every day you'll get to the place that you're supposed to be at and then my last one would be jesus loves you and the reason that that would be my last one and really if i only had one that would be the one is because um i believe that that is the truth that has transformed me from who i was into who i'm becoming yeah i noticed i didn't say who i am it's who i'm still becoming and um there's a love that is not like man's love that can transform everything and i think those three truths take away every other accolade that i think somebody could have a really um fulfilling life with those three truths and actually it would impact where they're going to end up so that would be me michael i acknowledge you man for the journey you've been on for the journey of taking chances for the journey of diving in deeper in relationship when it's challenging and hard for your authenticity for being transparent and real about the challenges you face even today uh i acknowledge your generosity through what you're doing with your church with your platform i acknowledge your child-like energy everything about you i'm really grateful that you're here right now and i acknowledge the gift that you are for the world and uh hopefully we can have many more conversations oh bro you're coming to tulsa that's awesome let's do it i want people to get your book relationship goals how to win a dating marriage and sex and this book as well uh relationship goals challenge 30 days from good to great with lots of different practical challenges and exercises on how to enhance the quality of your relationship so make sure you guys check these out you're also blowing up on social media even though you're detached from it i am uh my todd everywhere twitter instagram facebook your youtube is the same thing yeah so it we have transformation church youtube and represent tv okay and you can represent yeah so um that's our mission to represent god to the lost and found for transformation in christ like that's what i feel like everywhere i go not represent well so i kind of in my mind i took that word i kind of hijacked it it's all three of them it's represent re-present and represent it's all different emphasis but that's what i feel like i'm supposed to do is show god differently to give him differently and then to promote him differently that's all those different things but that's for another podcast you know what i'm saying i'll tell you how to do that on the next school agreement exactly so we got you on youtube we'll have it all linked up as well okay cool um and the final the final question then even though you already answered it but let's hear it again what's your definition of greatness man my definition of greatness greatness is actually fulfilling what you've been called to do and i've i to my core i feel like everybody's wired for greatness i i don't think that is a select group of people it may look different but it is in your dna and i think that the sooner you discover um who and how you were created to impact the world because it's always about somebody else it's not about you it's always about somebody else the only reason you're sitting here is because you decided in la traffic you wanted to help other people who are feeling like you yeah the only reason i'm here is because i've decided to live a life of service and help people with what i've been through and now us moving in purpose has created a level of greatness and we haven't reached the pinnacles if we stay humble enough to continue to do what um what we're doing right now so that would be my definition of greatness michael todd my man my god appreciate you brother love you man this is good thank you brother appreciate it if you're looking for more greatness in your life make sure to check out this video right here and also check out our free pdf the three secrets to unlock the power of your mind to help you change your life download it right here joy is when you see how fragile temporary fleeting this experience is

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 30,937

Rating: 4.8196573 out of 5

Keywords: Lewis Howes, Lewis Howes interview, school of greatness, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, success habits, success, wealth, motivation, inspiration, inspirational video, motivational video, success principles, millionaire success habits, how to become successful, success motivation, find the perfect relationship, relationship tips, relationship advice, love advice, love tips, love, relationship issues, Pastor Michael Todd, sexual desire

Id: MG_s3uk4kVg

Length: 90min 21sec (5421 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 29 2021