How To Build Your Vision From The Ground Up | Q&A With Bishop T.D. Jakes

Bishop T.D. Jakes and Pastor Steven have an inspiring conversation about entrepreneurship and leadership. Learn how to build your vision from the ground up by making the most of your God-given opportunities.

I

want to read you something, and this was written
by Judd Apatow. He was writing about the comedian

Albert Brooks and how he got a chance to work
with one of his heroes. And just a couple

of sentences, but he said something that I
would love to say about Bishop Jakes before

he comes and … He said, “In your dreams
as a young guy, you imagine your heroes to

be one thing, and then you get a chance to
work with one of them, and he’s actually even

better.” He said, “Deep down, all comedy nerds
hope that at the end of our lives we will

have made one movie as good and true as Albert
Brook’s best movies.” I’ll modify that a little

bit. Deep down all preachers and leaders hope
that at the end of our lives we will have

preached one sermon as good and true as Bishop
T.D. Jakes worst sermon. Would you put your

hands together Elevation Church and welcome
to the stage the one, the only, Bishop T.D.

Jakes.

I don’t know how we’re supposed to do this,
but I want to tell you right off that bat,

this is my Steven Furtick outfit. This is
me trying to be cool like your pastor. Did

I do pretty good? Cool, man.

So I inspired you?

You inspired me.

Can we call it even now for all of the stuff
I’ve ripped off from you over the years?

The only problem is my thighs can’t breathe.

That’s a problem. So if we see you leaning
over …

Yeah, I need a EMT for my knees, but I’m good.
Woo.

Woo.

You can’t dance in these things, man.

You can’t?

You know you just got to jump up and down.

Can you soar?

I can soar in them. I can soar in them.

How would you like to hear Bishop T.D. Jakes
and Pastor Steven Furtick sing I Believe I

Can Fly by R. Kelly, a duet to begin this
interactive experience? Is that something

you might be interested in? All the millennials
are like, “R. What?”

Right.

Maybe we’ll do that at the end.

No, let’s not.

Do you like that song?

Yeah, I like the song.

What are some songs that you like to listen
to, Bishop Jakes, that don’t get played in

church?

That don’t get played in church? Woo. Cut
the cameras.

Oh, you guys can be seated, we’re hanging
out now. They’re so excited.

I like Luther Vandross. I like Anita Baker.
You know. I like, lesser known but extremely

talented is, Keiko Matsui. Keiko Matsui is
a Japanese jazz pianist that is absolutely

out of this world. And I listened at her this
evening before I came over here, so I’d have

my international flavor. Yeah. So I like all
kinds of music. I like classical music. I

like gospel music, of course. I like just
about every kind, every genre. Even some country.

I’ll go country on you every now and then.

Greatest rock and roll band of all time?

Oh, god, now I’m in trouble. I don’t go rock
and roll.

No?

Though it’s funny, I grew up in the Jimi Hendrix
era, so you know, anybody call you Jimi Hendrix?

No. Big poster over on my wall. My life’s
ambition was to have his Afro. I had women

braiding my hair till my eyeballs were up
like this, trying to get my hair to grow.

It never happened. I didn’t hair till the
Jheri curl.

That was your moment.

You don’t know nothing about the Jheri curl.

Yes, sir, I do.

You don’t know nothing about that.

I mean not from personal experience, I’ve
seen pictures.

You’ve seen pictures of it. Well, when I used
to preach years ago, I wore a Jheri curl and

I had a towel around my neck. And when I got
to really preaching … you’ve seen some pictures

or something? Yeah. And the Jheri curl, the
juice would fly across the center aisle, and

everybody would get … in the spirit. Those
were the days when the power of God was falling.

Is that the secret?

That’s the secret, you’ve got to get a curl.

I’m in trouble. I’m so excited about this
new book, “Soar.” Excited to talk to you about

it tonight.

Thank you.

I’ve been reading it. It’s kind of weird,
though. I had to do my research to interview

you, and so I put in Amazon, because the book
is subtitled, “Build Your Vision From The

Ground Up,” and focuses on leadership, entrepreneurship.
So I put entrepreneur in Amazon search, and

over 56,000 results. Over 56,000 results.
And then I put in leadership. Over 257,000

results.

Amazing.

Which made me wonder, for my first official
question of the interview, what was missing

from the conversation that made you want to
add your voice?

Timing. What we need depends on where we are
in the history of this country. The topography

of this country has changed in terms of how
we make a living quite a bit from agricultural.

We went through that phase to the Industrial
Age to the Information Age, that we’re currently

in right now. And people have had to retool
themselves in order to keep up with trends

they didn’t choose. Now we’re in an era where
people of my generation sent our kids to school,

because we trained them to think ‘a job.’
And we said if you go to school and you get

a good education, you’re going to come out
and you’re going to get a great job, and that

was true when I was coming up. But that’s
not true today. Today, you can … am I right

about it? Today you can go to school, you
can get a great education and come out with

a good bill. A whole lot of debt, and end
up working at Burger King. Nothing against

Burger King. But, how do we … I have to
be careful, brother like me gets sued on a

regular. The
question then becomes how do we, with our

education and our disappointment, living in
our mother’s house, sleeping on the couch,

eating cereal at noon, retool ourselves so
that we can be functional in the 21st Century?

I listen at the argument that our country’s
having right now. It’s hard to listen to.

But, beneath all of the chatter, the Red Belt
states and the inner cities are crying about

the same thing, the lack of opportunity. And
we’re looking to the White House to solve

the problem. And the reality is, that’s not
going to happen. That’s not going to happen.

And we need solutions. And this goes beyond
… we like to talk in terms of, we have nice

terms for it, but it’s really black and white
… urban and Red Belt states is really black

folks, white folks. But now, we’re both getting
broke. Okay, which is a scary situation. And

you’ve got smart, bright, gifted, talented
people who can’t find an opportunity. Also,

in our community, and even in other communities,
you have this dilemma of people who made mistakes

when they were young, some criminal justice
issue, and 25 years later they can’t get a

job or a place to stay.

Right.

That’s a real problem. So rather than to go
get a job, I thought it was important to talk

about being a job. You know, yeah, about being
a job. About hiring yourself, about the opportunities

that exist to create your own reality, your
own business, your own company. To be the

CEO of you. The CEO of you.

Yeah, and I think it surprises a lot of people
to hear you talk like that, who are only familiar

with you as a preacher.

Right. Right.

I mean, there’s no doubt, okay, when I go
to preach for Bishop Jakes, I’ve had the privilege

to do it three times, I think, I spend as
long trying to figure out what I want to say

in my introductory remarks to honor him because
of what he’s meant to me, as I do on my message.

And I never can quite find the words, but
the last time I think I was with you I gave

you a nickname. I don’t know if you remember-

Oh, yes.

I called you the Slasher.

Yes. Yes.

And I called you that because-

got me arrested.

I called him that because no matter what title
someone would put with the name T.D. Jakes,

they would have to put a slash after it.

Yes.

So, you’re a pastor slash author, New York
Times best-selling, multiple number one, 793

weeks author … slash producer, slash record
label executive, slash philanthropist, slash

father, slash husband, slash … so I call
him Slasher. Probably the first time you’ve

ever been called that.

That got me an FBI investigation, that’s good.
Thank you very much.

At the heart of that nickname, though, is
a lot of admiration. I wonder, when did you

decide not to be limited by one title or one
function?

I never knew that the way people described
you would become a prison, until they did

it. When I met me, I was not a preacher. So,
I didn’t know that they would incarcerate

me with the title. You are at your best when
you are authentic to your core, and you have

to be what you are, not what they call you.
Sometimes, you understand what I’m saying?

Sometimes people will call you a name and
you start living up to the name, and it limits

you from what else God wants to do in your
life. And by the way, I get a lot of credit

for inventing this, but the credit is really
misplaced, because when you think of the Apostle

Paul, he was a writer. He was a thinker, respected
by the thinkers of his age at a time when

there were profound thinkers in Paul’s age,
known for his ability to be progressive intellectually.

He was a speaker, he was a writer, he was
a tent maker. He was able to influence Aquila

and Priscilla, not because of his preaching
but because of his business. They shared the

same business. And out of that business influence
and affluence, a relationship emerged that

affected the kingdom. When you look at Jesus,
who was a carpenter’s son, and later they

called him a carpenter. He who handled wood,
ended up nailed to a tree. And what happens

in life, as we evolve as a person, we cannot
allow ourselves to be incarcerated by anything

that people would describe us with, because
we limit then what the Holy Spirit can do

in your life. You understand?

I do.

Let me jump in, say this one quick thing.
I think if Jesus had come in our day, he would

have been a filmmaker, but because they didn’t
have films he told parables. But if you think

about it, parables are movies made of words.
If he were to come today, he would have done

films. Imagine how that would look like today.
Most of what we call church, we would have

to teach Jesus. Jesus never saw an usher.
He never saw a greeting committee. Jesus never

saw a choir. Jesus never met a deacon. Jesus
never had a board. Jesus never had a whole

lot of things that we would have to go through
and say, “Now, Jesus, don’t sit over there,

that’s the reserved section. And Jesus, when
you get ready to leave, put your finger up

and tip out.” These accoutrements that attach
itself to religion often block our view from

revelation. Because I was raised by a dying
father, born in between two dead babies, I

really value the preciousness of life. The
baby before me died, and the baby after me

died, and my mother clutched to me as only
a mother can who has lost a child. And an

appreciation for the value of life and a refusal
to allow anybody to take away the great privilege

of being alive. I will think for myself. I
will move in my own direction. You can say

whatever you want to say about it, but I’m
going to be me. You see what I’m saying?

Yeah. Yeah.

At the core of everything “Soar” is saying,
don’t be limited. Don’t put a period, because

you did one thing that you can’t do something
else, that you can’t be something else, that

you can’t evolve as an individual, that you
can’t explore other idioms of thought. Let

me shut up, because I get to talking, I’ll
talk to

No, that’s great. I want to dig deeper into
that, because the arc of your teaching and

one of the most influential messages that
I’ve received from you is, get out of your

comfort zone. I mean, if you open your mouth,
some version of that’s going to come out.

Maybe from the Old Testament or maybe from
a chicken’s egg, there’s some way that you’re

going to tell me ‘get out of your comfort
zone.”

Mm-hmm.

I wondered though, because I’ve also heard
you teach so much about your capacity, that

each person has a God-given capacity … for
the person who is trying to decide, “Who am

I? What can I do? I don’t know yet. I haven’t
tried yet. I think I know what I have. I don’t

know if I have it or not,” how do we know
the difference between staying in our comfort

zone versus going beyond our capacity?

You’re only measured in terms of success by
his investment, in terms of contribution.

If He gave one man one talent, another man
two talents and another man five talents,

He didn’t expect the man with one talent to
produce ten. But at least give me two. The

man who had two talents came back with four.
The man with five talents came back with ten.

The man with two talents came back with four,
the man with five came back with ten. Those

are the same things. That’s a hundred fold.
The man with one came back with nothing. Now,

the Apostle Paul says that when we compare
ourselves with one another, in so doing it

is not wise, because we don’t have the same
starting place. So if I’m going to make success

predicated on what my neighbor had, that is
only fair if I started with what my neighbor

started with.

Let me ask you this. What if I’m not clear
about what I’ve started with? Because, I’ve

heard you do this thing before, too. Okay,
the advantage I have interviewing you is I

have a library of things that you’ve said.
I don’t think there’s been a sermon-

That I don’t remember, by the way.

Yeah, so I have.

I’m scared to death

The upper hand. But you do this thing … All
right, I saw him do this thing at a preacher’s

conference once, and he said … I won’t imitate
your voice.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

He has this really intense mode. There’s a
wide open Bishop Jakes, and then there’s a

very intense, very … it’s many gears, but
with equal intensity, and it’s terrifying.

But, it was a pretty big moment and you say,
“There’s nothing that I have that you don’t

have. I have one mouth. You have one mouth.
I have two ears. You have two ears.” And you

know how descriptive he is. He went all the
way to the toenails. And I’m just being honest,

Bishop, respectfully, I was thinking, “That’s
not true.” You have this mind and this ability

and this voice. Even as a preacher who admires
you so much, there’s a part of me that goes,

“I know the point is that God has given each
of us a calling, but I think a lot of us,

when we hear about the parable of the talents,
we don’t know. Well, do I have one? Do I have

two? Do I have five? I don’t want to get out
there and do something stupid that I wasn’t

meant to do, but I don’t want to stop short.”

You’re really hitting on something. First
thing, I am in touch with myself in a way

that a lot of people are not. I know me. I’ve
dated me. It’s funny, but it’s true. I’ve

dated me, I know me. You know when you date
somebody, you explore them to see who they

are. Most people are so busy dating other
people they’ve never dated themselves. You

understand? When God says to Adam, the very
first command God says to Adam, is to be fruitful.

You can only be fruitful if you are seedful.
Okay, so we’re talking about the difference

between fruit and seed. Identifying your seed
is what causes you to be fruitful. The first

revelation of seed should happen in your family.
You should have parents who are looking at

their kids looking for seeds. I’m going to
give you my grandbaby story, you asked for

it. You’re going to get it. You’re just going
to get it. So, we’re in my church and it’s

dark and my grandbaby’s in there, and a bunch
of friends are in there, and we’re taking

pictures and can’t find the light. The lights
are complicated and I can’t figure out how

to turn all the stuff on. And so we’re trying
to get some pictures. And so, my grandbaby

ran and she says, “Wait a minute, Pa. I’m
going to get a flashlight.” She went up under

the pew where we have hidden flashlights,
snatched down a flashlight and brought it

over, said, “Now take the picture.” I said
to her, “Baby, don’t you want to be … Kensie,

don’t you want to be in the picture?” She
said, “No, I don’t want to be in the picture,

I want to hold the light.” That’s the seed
right there. That’s a seed right there. So,

we came back to the house and I was getting
ready to take her picture, and I’m trying

to keep up with you millennials, it’s so hard.
And I was trying to take a selfie, and I’ve

got a timer where you can back up and … you
know. If you follow me on Instagram, you know

this is true. And so, I couldn’t get my phone
to sit up, and she went and got some books

and propped it up. And I told my daughter,
I said, “Put her in leadership classes. Put

her in management classes. She’s a problem
solver.” That starts early, early, early.

Her instinct in a situation is to solve the
problem. She says, “I don’t want to be picture,

I want to hold the light.” Those are seeds,
directing that child toward an area where

you can cultivate what God has planted down
inside of them, is important. It’s very, very

important. There are people in this room that
have dormant seeds laying inside of them,

that if they get in the right atmosphere,
they’re going to turn into things you have

never seen before. They didn’t always have
the benefit of parents who could see it or

had time to see it or knew how to see it,
but even as adults, there are still seeds

down in you that have not been touched yet.
That’s what happened to Elijah. He was fulfilling

his parent’s vision, plowing in the field.
That boy wasn’t no farmer. Just because you

can run a plow doesn’t mean you’re a farmer.
But, sometimes we get stuck in what people

expect.

Right.

And we never found out who we are, because
we’re living somebody else’s dream. And so

there he is plowing in the field, doing what
his daddy wanted. Going around and said, “I

guess this is all life has for me.” And he’s
going around and around in circles, like many

people who are listening to me right now.
You go to work, go to church, go home. Go

to work, go to church, go home. Go to work,
go to church, go home. You’re plowing around,

around in a circle. Until Elijah passed by
him, and then he was exposed to something.

The moment he was exposed to something greater,
he dropped something lesser. You understand

what I’m saying?

Got it.

That’s why conversations like this are important.
Because, really, I’m not throwing seeds, I’m

throwing fertilizer. And if it hits a seed,
it’s going to give birth to companies and

businesses and books and artistry and drama,
and all kinds of stuff that’s in this room

that people never have given themselves permission
to burn their plow. That’s what this book

is all about, Pastor. I’m not against people
working a job, but we have entrepreneurs in

a job, and you’re frustrating the company
and you. Nobody likes you. They don’t like

you.

Let me ask you this, because …

Because you’re scared of what I’m getting
ready to say.

I just think that’s a very Tweet-able moment.
‘They don’t like you.’ @Bishop Jakes. So true.

They don’t like you. Touch your neighbor and
say, “They don’t like you.” No, I just want

to clarify, because it seems like entrepreneurism,
entrepreneur is a trendy title these days,

you hear it more and more. It’s not a weird
thing anymore. It’s kind of sexy to post ‘on

my grind’ and … What do you think about
that, Bishop, because I would imagine that

generationally, I know enough about how you
grew up, maybe people would like to hear a

little bit about what it means to you. What’s
the essence of entrepreneurship to you, your

value system, versus how you see it being
portrayed culturally now, especially in a

younger generation?

Uh, oh. Well, most of the time today, when
people say they’re on their grind, they overslept,

they’re laying on the couch and they’re eating
cereal.

That’s what it means?

Yeah, that’s what it means today. That is
not what it meant in my day, and that is not

what makes people successful. I have had,
I have to be careful about even going down

this road, I have been so blessed to get in
the room with some of the most incredible

people on the planet. I had lunch the other
day with the CEO of AT&T, and we sat for hours

and hours talking and interacting with each
other and became friends. Last Sunday I was

invited to Oprah’s house as she launched her
book, and I’ve seen her behind the scenes

and seen how she operates, who she is and
what she does.

Pretty nice place?

Instead of burning my plow when I came home,
I started to burn down my house. I said, “I’ll

set it on fire, the insurance will pay for
it.” I’ve seen people who were on their grind.

I’ve seen Steve Harvey’s on his grind. I’ve
seen people on their grind. What on the grind

really is, is a work ethic that would blow
your mind. It would blow your mind. I’m 60

years old, and everybody who works for me
is younger than me, and they’ll tell you I’ll

work you up under the table. I’ll work you
up under the table.

Where does that come from?

My father. My father. Absolutely. My father
is real … Let me tell you, this chair is

about to break. My father’s sitting here and
my mother is sitting here, and they’re fighting

for the mike from moment to moment. My grandmother
talks to you every now and then. All of my

ancestors are sitting on this table, all the
way back to Nigeria. All of them. My ancestors

were Igbo’s from Nigeria. And Igbo’s are called
black Jews, that they’re industrious, that

they go after things, that they’re hard working
people. So all the way back in my DNA we were

self-sufficient. And all of them are sitting
here. Folks who’s name I can’t even call.

So, what we’re talking about is culture. Not
racial culture, family culture, where the

demonstration of what … My father decided
what grinding was. You weren’t grinding till

daddy said you were grinding.

Got you.

“Take your hands out of your pocket, boy,
like you got a million dollars in your pocket.”

They trained us not to be lazy. They talked
about lazy like it was a disease. I mean,

like-

The worst thing you could be.

It was the worst thing you could be. And two
things to this day … I shouldn’t say that

in your church, I can say this in my church,
so I’m going to say it in your church, and

I’m going to let you figure out all … Two
things, to this day, I cannot stand is a stinking

woman and a lazy man.

They like that.

There’s some folks that are agreeing with
me out there. A sister got to take a bath,

praise God. A sister got to throw some water
here and there, I ain’t talking about baptism.

I’ll give a brother a pass on the smelling
good if he works hard. But don’t tell me you’re

on the grind and you’re not really on the
grind. Here’s the problem, the Bible said

Benjamin … Jacob was dying, laying in the
bed, talking about fathers to son. He’s laying

in the bed and he’s dying, and he sat up.
The Bible said Israel strengthened himself,

noticed that Israel strengthened himself,
sat up in the bed and he said, “Benjamin,

show raven as a wolf. In the morning, he shall
devour the prey. And in the evening, he shall

divide the spoils.” Notice the time clock
there. In the morning, you devour the prey,

while you’re young. Argh. See there.

That’s the intensity thing I was talking about.
Imagine when he has a steak knife across the

table.

One lady jumped back three rows. In the morning-

I see a lady really scared out right here.

My mother was a school teacher, she was dramatic.
In the morning, you should devour the prey.

In the evening, you should divide the spoils.
If you don’t devour when you’re wrong, you’ll

have nothing to divide when you’re old.

It’s incredible.

I am scared to death of people who are young
and say, “I just can’t figure it out. I haven’t

made up my mind yet. I tried that, I didn’t
like it. I don’t know.” I think you better

hurry. You better shoot something right now,
because youth goes quick. I mean, like it

goes like a runaway slave. It goes … Youth
is an underground railroad with Harriet Tubman,

it gets away. Okay?

These are things I would not say.

You can’t say, so you just sit there and nod,
and have the white man’s liability of turning

red. See, we get embarrassed and you can’t
tell it, but when you’re embarrassed you turn

red. God bless you. It’s going to be rough
tonight. It’s going to be rough tonight. It’s

going to be rough tonight. In the morning,
hear me people, in the morning, devour something.

Throw your whole self at something. You’ll
never know what you can do and what you can

be until you throw your whole self at it.
Devour it. I mean, devour it. Don’t try to

devour it, attack it. Attack it like you’re
going to kill it. Devour the prey. And in

the evening, you divide the spoils. We have
it backwards today. We want to divide the

spoils in the morning. So we’re blinging when
we ought to be devouring. See, don’t worry

about whose name you wear when you’re young.
Worry about your name. God told Abraham, “I

will make your name great.” I will make your
name great. There is an old person down inside

of you that’s depending on you to be smart.
It’s the person you’re going to be 30, 40

years from now. Do not disappoint that person
by being foolish through the strongest years

of your life. And then when your back is out
and your knees are swollen and you can’t move

around, now you’re out there going to get
your grind on now? Here is the message you

tell yourself. “I’m tired, I can’t do that.
I don’t feel it.” We become what we say to

ourselves. You will never win the Olympics
talking about, “Oh, no, I don’t feel like

working out today. I don’t know, I’ll do it
when I feel like it. But I don’t feel like

it, I don’t do this, because I’m not into
working out. I want to get the trophy. I want

the trophy but I don’t want to go through
what it takes to get it.” You devour in the

morning. You divide in the evening. And if
you try something and it doesn’t work, it’s

okay. Try something else. My son said to me,
he said, “Daddy,” he said, my baby boy he

said, “Daddy, I’m going to school.” He’s finishing
up a four year degree in musical engineering.

He said, “I think it’s the thing I want to
do.” But, he sat at dining room table with

me, he said, “But suppose I’m not, and suppose
it’s not. Suppose I throw everything at it

and it’s really not the thing?” And I leaned
back over the table and I said, “Don’t worry

about it, son. If it is not the thing, it
will be the thing that leads to the thing.”

Okay, let’s go into that. What been, in your
life ministry or business, what’s been a thing

that led to a thing. I love the part in the
book about Viagra, by the way. It’s in the

book, you have to get the book, it’s just
an example. You’re talking about Coca-Cola

and other products that were discovered by
accident. It’s the idea that sometimes in

doing something that fails, you lead to something
that you didn’t even know, that was really

the whole purpose all along.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So, give us one, ten, twenty examples of those
in your life, things that you accidentally

succeeded at.

Everything in my life I stumbled into.

Is that right?

I stumbled into. I never thought I would be
producing films. My wife and I started out

doing gospel plays and going on tours doing
gospel plays. We had no intention that we

were ever going to do movies. We were trying
to do plays and trying to figure out how to

do that right. And losing, and losing money.
We went to Atlanta and just lost our shirts

for the first play. And in the process of
stumbling around, we finally figured out how

to get the play kind of going good, and then
I met this dude that I said, “Let’s collaborate

and do it together.” And the dude was … what
was his name? Tyler Perry.

Oh, yeah, right. I heard about him somewhere.

Tyler Perry was fresh out of sleeping in his
car, and I was fresh out of money. And so,

we got together and collaborated. And then
a play called Woman Thou Art Loosed, and we

toured the country doing Woman Thou Art Loosed.
And then we went to L.A. and did it, and a

guy named Reuben Cannon was in the audience,
you never know who’s in your audience. Footnote

to preachers, speakers, singers, anybody on
a stage, never adjust your performance to

the crowd, because you never know who’s in
the crowd. You never know. Always respect

your audience with your best performance.
I don’t care if it’s three people. One of

those people might change the trajectory of
your life. So, Reuben Cannon was in the crowd

and he saw the play, and he said, “I want
to make it a movie.” He said, “I want to make

it a movie.” Nevermind, I didn’t have any
movie money. Movie and money both start with

an M for a reason. When you have one, you’ve
got to have the other. But he said something

to me that becomes the way business people
think. They don’t fail to do something because

they don’t have the money. He says, “We’ll
raise the money. Let’s do the movie.” Listen

to the difference in attitude. “I can’t do
it because I don’t have the money.” He doesn’t

see money as an issue. If you see it as an
issue, it’ll be a stop sign. He says, “We’ll

raise the money.” So, Cedric the Entertainer
and I can’t remember who all. Oprah put some

money in it and different people put some
money in it, because he knew them. Relationships

are your greatest resource. People who don’t
like money, don’t like resources. Because

everything that’s ever going to come to you
is going to come through a person. That’s

why you’ve got to be careful how you treat
people, because it’s not guaranteed that it’ll

be somebody you like, your friend, they won’t
necessarily be your color, and they might

not have your theology. But God may use them
to bless you. You know, the ravens didn’t

go to church, but they fed Elijah. So, we
put the money together. We put the money together

and we did this little low-budget film, Woman
Thou Art Loosed, and just on a whim submitted

it to the Santa Barbara Film Festival and
won the festival. And all of a sudden the

movie that we were going to put on TV went
to screen. You see how you’re stumbling into

it. It’s not always that you planned it, but
if you honor where you are with your best

effort, even if it is not ‘it,’ it will lead
to it. So as you walk along, you stumble into

it. I was telling my church Sunday, if you
go to my stream and stream our service Sunday,

you get to see a big, ugly six foot two man
that starts whimpering and lips start trembling

about to cry. I had no idea when I pastoring
in Smithers, 40 people, 50 people-

Smithers, West Virginia.

West Virginia. On Easter. On Easter. On Easter.

40 on Easter.

On Easter, bro.

On Easter.

On Easter. That’s counting pregnant folks
and dead members. We had about 50 people.

I had no idea that the Potter’s House was
in me. You stumble into it. But, until you

dignify the 40, you don’t get the 40,000.
The problem today is that people are so busy

going after the 40,000 that they don’t respect
the 40. And if you don’t do your best with

the 40, you won’t get to the 40,000. So, all
of my life, I stumbled into relationships

and situations and circumstances that I had
no idea were going to happen in my life. But,

as you dignify the present with your intention-

Yeah, I like that.

To be present in the moment-

I like that.

That is so important. And sometimes I have
to make myself do it, because I’m such a planner,

I’m so strategic. I’m really 10 years ahead
of where the cavalry is right now, I’m waiting

on them to catch up. I have plans.

You are so strategic. That’s what blew my
mind about you. I thought you were just a

cyborg before I met you. Do you know what
I mean, though? I thought you were just-

Look that up. Did he curse at me?

I thought there was this force of nature,
Bishop T.D. Jakes was a force of nature. And

some little things that I’ve seen, some little
things that I’ve noticed, there’s … I thought

I would use a prop, bring me that … yeah,
that one, that one. This is from the book.

I saw … Thanks, Jonathan. See, he didn’t
want to come all the way up. He just stopped

short. You won’t get blessed like that, will
he, Bishop? You’ve got to come all the way.

He fell short of the glory

Fell short of the glory. … all of sin. But,
I love the quote in the book, you compare

our vision to architecture, and you talk about
how if you plan it with a pencil, you can

weld it with steel. And that’s what surprised
me about you, because you’re so gifted, there’s

no denying that. When I saw the systems, the
structures, the thought process that goes

behind who you are, it almost made me depressed,
because I realized, “Oh, this isn’t magic.”

You may stumbled into it from one perspective,
but from another perspective, it was strategic

stumbling. At least you were trying to do
something. I-

Let me interrupt you.

Please.

You stumble into it. God gives you an opportunity,
and what you do with that opportunity is your

gift to him.

Got it.

You understand? When God gives you an opportunity,
instead of just jumping on the opportunity,

you’re supposed to see what it can be. I tell
them all the time, God never made not one

table-

Yeah, I love this. Do this. This is really
…

God never made a chair, in all of his years
of being God, He’s never made a chair, He’s

never made a table, he just made a tree. And
the rest of it was up to us.

Right.

When God hands you a tree, imagine a table,
a chair. Imagine a wall in a room, imagine

a log cabin, imagine what it can be. Imagine
what it can be. Imagine what it can be. God

of mercy. If he hands you a child, imagine
what it can be. If he hands you a spouse,

imagine what he can be. Oh, God, I feel his
power. I feel his presence. I was out … your

church is rowdy, they shout and stuff.

A little bit.

I didn’t know that. I was out-

What did you think we did over here? This
is Elevation Church. We love you. Just see

them at University City. Look at University
City.

What’s up University City? So, I’m in South
Africa and I’m on a safari. I’m really like

tripping off of this safari and I’m out here
with all of these big animals and stuff. And

I notice the elephant is moving around. The
elephant is strong and he’s big and he’s tough.

And his power and his weight, he threw is
weight around. And he throws his weight around.

What can you do with him, because he’s so
big? God made him big as a defense. The lion

roars. When he roars everybody’s almost paralyzed
in fear, because God gave him his roar as

his defense. The cheetah says, “I can’t roar
like that, but I can run like the wind.” The

cheetah, woosh, it goes running through the
woods, because God made him able to run because

that’s his defense. The eagle spreads his
wings and soars into the air and says, “I

can’t run, but I can fly.” God let the eagle
be able to fly, because it was its defense.

And I’m walking around in the jungle and I
said, “Well, Lord, I can’t fly like the eagle.

I can’t fun like the cheetah. I can’t roar
like the lion and I can’t throw my weight

around like the elephant. What did you give
man as his defense? In the whole ecosystem

of human, of life force, what did you give
me?” He said, “I gave you a brain.” Your brain

is your defense. That’s why God doesn’t make
chairs. He only brings it halfway, and then

let’s you imagine

Collaboration.

Develop. You understand what I’m saying? The
problem with church people is that we are

taught that God makes furniture. So we pray
and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray

and pray and pray and pray and pray, “Oh,
I need a table. I need a table. God, give

me a table. Give me a table, Jesus. Just one
table, Lord. If you give me a table, I’ll

praise you. If you give me a table, I’ll serve
you.” And God says, “I don’t do that. I make

trees.” I want you to look around your life
for trees, not tables. God’s going to bring

within the reach of your mind and your creativity
is going to take it the rest of the way, and

it’s going to turn into apps and it’s going
to turn into Apple phones, and it’s going

to turn into computers, it’s going to turn
into satellite systems in the heavens. Look

at what all we were able to do. No other creature,
no other species has sent satellites up into

the air, created smart phones. Look at what
we did with our head. Why are we in church

not using our head? I don’t understand it.
You know, in my neighborhood they’ve got this

song that the young people used to sing, it’s
dated now, but they say shake your money maker.

Yeah.

And they go to twerking, you know.

Yeah.

I ain’t go to show you. I’ve got a couple
of show you, but they go to twerking. I told

my church, “The next time you hear that song,
play your money maker, don’t shake nothing

down here, shake this up here.” As a man thinketh,
so is he. When you start talking about the

type of strategic that I am, God gives me
raw elements and I stare at them. I stare

at what I’ve been given, like I stare at a
text. I preach the way I do not because of

what I know about the text, how long I stare
at the text. I just stare at it. I stare at

it. I stare at it. I look at my life. I look
at my wife. I look at my kids. I look at my

age. I look at my stage. I look at my influence.
And I stare at it. And imagine what it could

be. And I build my strategy from my stare.
I don’t have time to be gazing at what you’re

doing. Understand? Because that’s not going
to help me, that’s none of my business. God

bless you, if I can help you, you know I will.
But, I’m not over in your business. I’m never

going to be over in your business, because
every time you turn around, I’m staring at

mine. For this season, for this stage, for
this age in my life, what could I do with

what I have left? Your miracle is never in
what you lost, it is always in what you have

left. If you’re down to a handful of mill,
that’s all you need. If you’re down to two

fish and five loaves of bread, that’s all
you need. And so, when you start looking at

what you have left, stop grieving over what
you lost. Because if you needed it, you wouldn’t

have lost it. It might only be a pot of oil,
but if its left, the miracle’s always in what’s

left. So what can you imagine with that woman,
that pot of oil would have never done anything

if you didn’t pour it. It would pour as long
as there was capacity to receive. So when

you start talking about being strategic, and
this is going to help you a whole lot, for

me, once I envision where I’m going, then
I can tell what I don’t need.

Talk about that.
You see, if I packed to go on this trip, based

on where I was going, I’d check the weather,
I looked at the places I was going to speak,

and everything that I thought I would need
for where I was going, I put in the bag. And

anything … I didn’t pack no swimming trunks,
because I figured I wasn’t going to need them.

Why do I load down my bag with things I don’t
need. I want to circumspectly, with great

precision, tailor my life down to the things
that are necessary to get me where I’m trying

to go. Stephen Mansfield, who is the CEO of
Southern Methodist Hospitals, this chain of

hospitals throughout Texas, a multibillion
dollar corporation. Healthcare is a business.

He also was the former President of the Dallas
Regional Chamber of Commerce, and as he moved

out of office, I was there. Incidentally,
I am the first clergy to ever be on the executive

board of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. And
there I am on the executive board, they control

all the wealth that comes in and out of our
city, and all the planning and all the preparations,

to be able to move the city of Dallas forward.
And there I am in a room full of CEO’s and

executives, and I’m listening at them talk,
and I’m staring. I’m staring. I can tell a

great preacher sitting in a crowd by how he
stares while I’m preaching. It’s all in the

stare, brother. I’m staring, and Stephen says
something. He says, “All of us CEO’s know

it is not where we’re trying to go that is
the problem, you can get great consensus from

all of your staff on the goal. And we spend
all of our time talking about the goal of

where we’re trying to go.” He said, “But,
all of you CEO’s know that’s not the problem.

It is not where we’re trying to go that is
the problem, it is what are you willing to

leave behind to get there?” When he said that,
I ripped out my phone like I had to call somebody.

And I had both phones. I very seldom use both
phones. I had both of them. I was just a pecking

and a pecking and a pecking. He said, “What
are you willing to leave behind?” If you’re

going to soar, if you’re going to soar, you
have the break a law to soar. The law is the

Law of Gravity. The Wright Brothers had to
figure this out, that every time they tried

to go up, Isaac Newton was right, something
kept pulling them down. There are people in

this room, that every time they go after their
dream, something keeps pulling them down.

They want to open up a not for profit, they
want to open up a healthcare, they want to

open up a home for unwed mothers. There’s
some lovely, good things. It’s not about being

rich, it’s about purpose that they’re trying
to do. But every time they try to do it, something

keeps pulling them down. There is a law that
always wants to pull you down to where you

came from.

Yeah.

You came from the dirt. And where you came
from will always call you back. You have to

escape the gravitational pull of where you
came from, and in order to do that you have

to break through into a higher law. The higher
law is the Law of Aerodynamics. But you have

to break into it. And what I need the force
for, the reason I need the runway to get my

engines ramped up, is because when I come
up against it … and this is where young

people make a mistake … they underestimate
the pull to fall backwards. They saw planes

take off and they said, “I can do that.” But,
they underestimate how much force it takes

to break through the gravitational pull that
brings you back down. So when they fall back

down, they give up on themselves and they
stop believing in themselves. Whereas if you

would just go faster at it and go harder at
it, you would break through the Law of Gravity.

Oh, hallelujah.

Wow.

Everybody has something that’s trying to pull
you back to where you came from. And so, when

the Wright Brothers built the plane … and
the book is built around the Wright Brothers

… so when the Wright Brothers built the
plane, they built it and didn’t know how.

And they built it in a … There’s three old
ladies over in the corner, they’re from Dayton.

They’re so happy.

I’m teasing. I can’t even see. They were in
Dayton, Ohio, and they figured out … they

built the first plane in a bicycle shop. They
couldn’t say to themselves, “Well, when I

get what I need I’m going to build a plane.
We don’t have a manufacturer, we don’t have

any backing, we don’t have any money, and
by the way we don’t even have a degree.” But,

none of that stopped them from building. I
wrote this book to people who don’t have what

they need. I didn’t really write the book
to big time entrepreneurs. Because all of

those books you were talking about? They got
them. I wrote this book to people with big

dreams and little resources. I wanted you
to build your plane from a bicycle shop. And

then they got it all built up in Dayton, and
then they figured out something. And I can

cite … I do in the book … I cite examples
of things that I did that succeeded or failed

off of this next thing. They said, “We have
to move to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.” There

were two reasons. One, if it came back down,
it would fall in the brush and the landing

would be better. And the second reason was,
the wind was right. There are times you can

do the right thing in the wrong wind. Okay.
Some of the things I tried didn’t work because

I didn’t study the trend, I studied the plane
but I didn’t study the trend and the wind

that’s necessary. Success has a lot to do
with wind. If Colonel Sanders came along today

and started KFC today, he’d go broke. Because
today we’re all worried about carbs and fat

grams and all this stuff. I’m a vegetarian,
you know, all of this stuff. We’re reading

the labels and all of that stuff. But he started
his business at a time that women had just

gone to work and families were used to home
cooked meals. His business solved a problem.

The stats say that people who go into business
because they want money are apt to go out

of business 80% of the time. People who go
into business who are successful don’t go

into business based on their need, they go
into business based on their customer’s need.

If your business or church or ministry solves
a problem, it requires less marketing. You

don’t have to talk me into wanting something
I need, but when I don’t need it you got to

spend a whole lot of money talking me into
something. So, you want your business to be

a solution. In fact, you want your life to
be a solution. Nobody sends for a problem,

they only send for an answer. If you’re feeling
lonely and you’re feeling rejected, figure

out how you can be an answer to somebody’s
problem and they’ll always invite you. Because

people invite answers, they repel problems.
So when you come in the room giving problems,

it is the most unsexy thing you can ever do
in the world.

It’s true.

Somebody far less cute can get much further
than you, because they don’t moan and groan

and complain. Really when people ask you how
you’re doing, they don’t really want an answer.

We’re not serious. Don’t sit down there, “Well,
I’m doing fairly well, but my knee is hurting

and my back has been hurting from time to
time. And when it rains, my eye starts twitching.

I got a little pain going on right here, it’s
driving me absolutely crazy. And I just don’t

what in the world I’m going to do, because
I’ve got a thumbnail growing on me here. That’s

why I didn’t wear the shoes I wanted to wear
with this dress, because …” Ah, get out

of here!

Bring solutions.

Bring solutions.

Bring solutions.

Bring solutions as a person. Bring solutions
as a business. Bring solutions as a ministry,

and you will always soar.

When’s the first time you saw yourself as
a solution?

I wrote Woman Thou Art Loosed and I didn’t
even know how to write a play.

Really?

No, I didn’t know nothing about writing a
book. I didn’t know a thing about writing

a book.

How old were you?

In my 20’s. Somewhere in my 20’s. Late 20’s.
I wrote the book in a PC study Bible notepad,

because I didn’t know what a word processor
was. So there was a friend of mine named Pastor

Clifford Frasier, who we were just getting
into computers and stuff, us old guys, we

was getting to 28, old guys. We were just
getting into and he said, “Why did you write

all of this in the notepad?” He said, “It’d
be so much better if you wrote it in a word

processor.” I said, “What’s that?” I had written
almost the whole book in the notepad of a

PC study Bible. So it wasn’t that I was proficient.
It was that I had heard the cry of women who

were hurting, sexually and emotionally abused,
who were hidden in our churches at that time,

and the church was ran by men who were deaf
to the cry of the women. And when I heard

their cry, I thought that there were Biblical
solutions to sociological and emotional issues.

And so I started trying to get an answer out.
And when I started teaching, it was a Sunday

school class. And more and more women came.
And more and more women came. I didn’t know

it was going to be a movement. I didn’t know
it was going to be a book. I did it first

as a Sunday school class. And then I called
Archie Dennis, and I told Archie, “I’m teaching

this class, and people are going crazy over
it. My church is packed, I just got like maybe

150 people.” 150 people meant some people
were outside. That’s my bicycle shop. Never

laugh at my bicycle shop. … small beginnings.
Great things come out of small places. Woman

Thou Art Loosed came out of that bicycle shop.
So I told Archie about it, Archie said, “You

should bring it to Pittsburgh.” He had this
big rich voice. Archie … used to sing for

Billy Graham and … and all those people.
This big melodious voice, “Bring it to Pittsburgh.”

And so he announced that I was going to bring
it to Pittsburgh. No, he said, “I’m going

to have you in Pittsburgh.” And he said, “What
do you call it?” And I thought, “I don’t know.”

I’m on the phone with him. This is exactly
the way it happened. I said, “I don’t know.

I guess I’ll call it Woman Thou Art Loosed,
that’s what the Bible said. I’ll call it Woman

Thou Art Loosed.” He said, “Okay.” So he announced
that I was going to teach Woman Thou Art Loosed.

Like that.

And so many women came, they had to move it
out of the church into the hotel. So, I took

the CD’s from the Sunday school class and
put it with the, they were cassettes at the

time, and put it with the cassettes and all
that, and put it with the cassettes from Pittsburgh

and I had a two tape series. This is the truth.
This is how it happened. And when I got ready

to do the book, I couldn’t find a publisher
that would do it. I finally found a publisher

that would take my tapes and transcribe it
into a book. But, when I saw what they did

with my answer, I got mad. Because it wasn’t
in my spirit. They were saying, “What women

ought to do is such and such. And what women
…” that was not my spirit. So out of desperation

to protect the integrity of my spirit, I started
pecking and pecking and pecking. And nobody

would publish what I was pecking. So I told
my wife … see, I’m talking about things

that would stop you. Nobody wants to publish
it. The first version would did it, did it

wrong. Now, I’ve got all of this stuff crammed
into this PC study Bible. Now, I’m trying

to pull it out and put it in a word machine.
And I told my wife, I said, “Nobody wants

to publish it. And if I publish it myself,
they want $15,000.” $15,000 was all the money

I had in the world. We were saving that money
to get our first house. We didn’t even own

our house and I was trying to get us a house.
And I said, Serita, I want to publish this

book and it’s going to mean that I have to
drain our savings to do it.” She said, “That’s

okay.” And so she agreed and we took the $15,000
and we published the book. And we got 5,000

copies. And I sold out in two weeks. I didn’t
go out and buy me a suit, though I needed

one. The lining had come out of my suit, because
she was washing it in the washing machine,

because we couldn’t afford to go to the cleaners.
So, I didn’t buy me a suit with it. I took

the money and put it back in the business
and published another 5,000. I had no idea

that that book would end up selling over five
million copies. Be translated into 10 different

languages. Be known to this day around the
world in places I have never been. And it

all started in my little bicycle shop. So,
when I talk to you about the Wright Brothers

soaring and catching the right wind, I’m talking
to you about things that I know that happened

in my own life. I never let not having enough
stop me from getting up.

When you mentioned it’s not where you want
to go, it’s what you give up to get there,

what have you given up to get where you are,
that people in the room might be surprised

to know?

It reminds me of a statement that somebody
asked Catherine Cooman. Do you all know who

Catherine Cooman is? Catherine Cooman was
a woman preacher when women preachers weren’t

cool. And she was preaching in California
and to some people, they’re still not cool.

And she was preaching in California and preaching
for …, she was dramatic, “Oh, my God, look

at him walking. The amazing …” anyway, okay.
It’s the dramatic side of me, I do movies

so what do you say? They asked her how much
did it cost to be who she was. And then she

laughed, she said, “Simply everything, darling.
Simply everything.” That was so true. When

you start talking about … I was walking
through the airport when my ministry first

started to explode. I was so distracted by
the explosion that I didn’t see the damage.

An old preacher was coming through the airport
in Charlotte … .When you live in West Virginia,

if you wanted to go heaven you either had
to go through Pittsburgh or Charlotte. And

I was in the Charlotte airport and this old
Bishop walked up to me and he looked at me

and he shook his head. And he said, “Oh, you’ve
lost something.” And I thought, “What did

I lose?” He said, “You’ve lost something that
you’ll never be able to regain.” I said, “What

is that?” He said, “Normalcy.” It took me
about five years to unpack that simple conversation,

that you become a target by people who have
never met you. That they will say the most

hideous things about you, that your children
will suffer from the things that they wrote

about you trying to get their points up there,
their Nielsen ratings up, that they would

eat you for dinner, and save the story until
sweeps month. And drop it because you had

a big audience, so that they could get big
ratings, and that my kids would have to grow

up in the middle of all of that. I was distracted
by the explosion. But I would come to see

the damage. I would see it in the tears of
my children. The pregnancy of my daughter.

The pains of my son. Holding my wife in tears.
And I would hold her in tears and preach faith,

and go home and lay down in a bed of fear.
I said, “God, where have you taken me.” I’m

going to tell you this, it won’t cost you
nothing, I’m going to throw it in free tonight,

… . I’m going to tell you all. Nobody else
can hear this, just us. Y’all going to keep

it? I almost quit. I’m a country boy. I’m
from West Virginia. I don’t know nothing about

this big time stuff. I never even asked to
be big. I wanted to be effective, not famous.

Famous is the consequences of being effective.
I didn’t know nothing about being famous and

I didn’t like it. And so there I was, and
when you’re first new, everybody attacks you

first and figures you out later. Because,
though we say you’re innocent until proven

guilty, the reality is you’re really guilty
until proven innocent. But I didn’t know that

then, and I was a young upstart. And you have
to understand that you’re looking at a 60

year old man, but you’re talking about something
that’s happening to a guy in his late 20’s

with little kids. And the first time I was
in the Washington Post, the article was so

vicious it made me nauseous. I was so shocked
that you could say that stuff about somebody

you didn’t even know, based on assumptions
and little bit of this and a little bit of

that, they piece it all together. And you
don’t get to say anything back. So I decided

I didn’t want this. I was preaching for Pastor
Bishop Donny Mears and nobody knew it, because

preachers can override their feelings and
function. I’d preached to places on fire,

but inside I wanted to quit. I told God that
I’m through with this, I’m not going through

this, I don’t need this. See, I don’t need
that. I’m a guy who likes to go get his own

chicken wings. I don’t have to have all of
that stuff to be happy, because I wasn’t raised

with it. I can make it. You can throw me in
an apartment and give me just a little skillet,

a cast iron skillet. You know what I’m talking
about? And some seasoned salt and stuff and

a couple of wings. I will run you out of here.
I will run you out. So, I said I’m not doing

this no more, I’m not doing it, I’m not doing
this. I’m not doing this because I don’t need

this and I didn’t ask for this. I’m only doing
this because of what happened in my life,

of the circumstances of what happened in my
life. He put me on stage, I didn’t ask for

it. And when I saw how much it cost, I thought,
“You can have that right back here. You can

have that right back up in here. I don’t need
it.” So, I was mad inside and I was hurt.

I stayed up in the fellowship with the pastors
because I didn’t want to go back to my room

and sulk in my own sorrows. And they said
there’s this lady downstairs waiting to see

you. The service was over and the fellowship
was over, and the pastors were starting to

leave. I was trying to out wait her. I thought
she’d give up and leave. And when I finally

came down the steps, she was there. And she
was just a willowy bit of a woman. And she

said, “Bishop Jakes, I’ve been in the hospital.
I was pregnant in my Fallopian tubes, and

the baby died in my tubes, and I was carrying
around a dead baby, and the toxicity from

the baby almost killed me.” And she said,
“The only thing that kept me alive was hearing

you preach.” She said, “If you hadn’t been
preaching to me every day, I swear I would

have died.” And then she looked at me and
she said, “It’s for us. It’s not for them.

It’s for us.” It hit me so hard. I didn’t
even get her name. I got in the car and cried

all the way back to my room, because she reminded
me why I was there. I just left, last week

when I texted you, I was up in Baltimore and
D.C., and I was doing a book signing, and

this woman came up to the table to buy ‘Soar.’
She said, “You don’t remember me, do you?”

I said, “No.” She didn’t even look like the
same person. She was all dressed up, had gained

weight, she filled out. She said, “I met you
in the bottom of Donny Mears church years

ago. And I burst into tears. I lost it. I
stopped the signing and I jumped up and hugged

her. If it were not for that woman … When
you talk about what it cost? I’m going to

go into my Southern stuff now, “Child, simply
everything.” What being a public figure does

to you, everybody has an opinion about everything.
What you wear, whether you shave your head

or not, what you look like, you gained weight,
you’re fat. I mean, they say anything to you.

And what has to happen to survive it, you
have to get tougher. Not meaner-

Tougher.

Tougher.

What’s the difference?

Mean is when you lash back, because in a fight
like that if God when turn me loose … If

God would turn me loose, I could hold my own.
I could hold my own in a street fight. Oh,

holy God. Hallelujah, I got to settle myself.
Sometimes I … , I said, “Please let me get

them. Please let me get them.”

Just one time.

Just one time, Lord, just one time. Sometimes
I’ll type and I have to delete it, because

I swear, I pull a little bit of paint off
the wall if you turn me loose.

You should release a book, Things I Almost
Tweeted.

Yeah, it would be good. It would be a best
seller. It would be a best seller, for sure.

But, when I say tougher, your resilience and
your resistance to the irrelevance of things

that have nothing to do with your destiny.
Our Satanic distractions to move you away

from where God has placed you. When I do a
pastor’s conference and we do Q&A, because

I like to do Q&A because I like to talk to
you. And then they start asking me questions

and stuff, generally somewhere along the night
somebody’s going to come and tell me about

or somebody who said something about somebody
who hurt them like that. But when I’m talking

to CEO’s, incredible successful people, when
I’m talking to President’s and kings from

around the world, I’ve set across them, talked
to. When I get a chance to be in the room

with executives and corporate executives,
and stars whose names if I would list in here

everybody would know them, they’re never talking
about what people said. Because they have

developed the toughness that is necessary
to survive. Can I say one more thing real

quick?

Just say a lot of more things.

I took my son up to the Rock of Gibraltar.
My baby boy was with me. And his mom and I

took him to the Rock of Gibraltar because
we were on our way to Africa and we stopped

over in Spain and went to the Rock of Gibraltar.
And the guide took us up to the top of the

Rock of Gibraltar where all the battles were
fought, and all of the enclaves are filled

with the outposts where you could defend the
southern most tip of Spain before you faced

the northern tip of Africa. And there, as
we went spiraling up to the top of the mountain,

the higher you went there were monkeys, and
they were jumping all over the cars and everything.

And the guide said to us, he said, “You know,
in certain seasons, it gets so cold up here

that when monkeys first migrated up here in
the winter, their tails would freeze off.

That’s how cold it was.” He said, “But eventually,
when they started birthing their babies, they

were born without tails, because they had
adapted to their environment.” That’s what

I mean about toughness. If you are exposed
to it long enough, you’ll freeze your tail

off.

It’s amazing.

Tweet that everybody. Say I got blessed at
Soar, I froze my tail off. To those of you,

however you define soaring and success, success
to you might be raising two great kids. Success

for you might be opening up a spa. Success
for you might be opening up a home for unwed

mothers, or it might be a corporate office
on Wall Street. If you don’t freeze your tail

off, you won’t be able to withstand what success
costs. You have to freeze your tail off. And

I can tell that a lot of people are not ready.
See, when I first started writing this book,

I thought I was writing that entrepreneurship
was about a business and a company and an

address and a location, and getting a building
or facility or starting an e-corp from your

laptop or something like that. But, when I
got to writing it, while I was writing it,

not when I started, while I was writing, I
realized it was a mindset. It’s a mindset.

It’s the way you think about things. It’s
taking control of your destiny. See, if I

come to work for you, and I would, if I come
and work for you-

You would?

Oh, yeah, I would. I’d come and teach your
Sunday school class. Yeah, let you have the

problems, I’ll teach the class. Yeah, it’s
a great deal. You can decide what you’re going

to pay me as an employer to an employee. But,
you can’t decide how much I’m going to make.

We have turned our income over into the hands
of somebody who has no vision for our needs.

Right.

You can pay me whatever you think the job
is worth. But, you can’t pay me what I’m worth,

you can’t afford me. So, I can have all of
these multiple streams of income to subsidize

your limitations.

Right.

Because, if I have an entrepreneurial spirit,
I am not limited like an eaglet to waiting

for the mother bird to drop food in my mouth.
Being an entrepreneur means that I have lifted

up into the air and found my own wings.

I’m so glad you said that, because I don’t
think you’re talking about claiming our rights

as much as taking responsibility for our own
lives-

Absolutely, that’s what I’m talking about.

It’s a different mindset.

Absolutely. Do you know what’s funny, you
know what’s funny about this conversation

here? This is exactly how we talk on the phone.
Most of the time it’s text. And he will text

something that makes me get carpal tunnel
trying to text back to him, because it’ll

be this long exhausting book that I’ve got
to send back to this answer, because he thinks

so deep. You can tell how deep a person thinks
by how they talk. He thinks so deep, and so

you’re just eavesdropping tonight on a conversation
we would have whether you were there or not.

Do you like it?

They like it.

This is how we do it. This is how we do it.
Whoo, I’m back. It’s about taking control

of outcomes. It’s about not allowing your
destiny to be controlled by your circumstances

or your situation. It’s about getting a vision
for where you want to be in your life with

your family, with children, and setting a
goal and dropping off things that are not

relevant to where you’re trying to go. So
that you can focus on what is necessary, so

that you can have some spoils to divide, so
that you can send your kids to a college,

so that you can figure out where you want
to live when you’re old and how you want to

die. This is not about diamonds and gold and
Rolls Royce’s, unless that’s what your vision

is. This is about choosing where you want
to go, whether it’s a cottage in the hills

of West Virginia, in a log cabin, and you
want to die with chickens in your backyard,

that’s your business. It’s your life, it’s
your business, it’s your business, it’s your

thing. Do what you want to do.

Do what you want to do.

That’s what this is about. Whenever preachers
start talking about anything other than preaching,

religious people just …

What do they do?

…

That’s what they do.

They do. But let me tell you something, the
reason I must do this. Because I serve a people

who have a prayer list full of things that
God doesn’t do. Half of the things they’re

asking God to do is tables and chairs and
He does trees. If they could catch what I’m

talking about, we could go to praying about
stuff that really matters. About the kingdoms

of this world becoming the kingdoms of our
God and of his Christ. We can start praying

about North Korea and what’s going on over
there in the … . We can start praying about

things that will change the world, about cleaning
up the air and cleaning up the water, and

leaving this planet better than we found it.
We could start praying about things that would

change the world, the way we interact with
people. We could start praying about things

that brought crack out of people’s arms and
delivered them and set them free, and set

them on the street called straight. I’m tired
of praying about rent and house payments and

car payments and school bills and college
tuition. God doesn’t do that. You do that.

Let’s soar. Let’s soar. Spread your wings,
it’s time to soar. It’s time to soar.

I believe I can touch the sky.

Think about it every night and day.

Spread my wings and fly away.

Come on, help us out, we’re going to get in
trouble.

I believe I can …

Come on through the open door. You going to
run through the open door?

I’m going to run.

Do you really? Make some noise if you really
believe it.

Come UC make some noise.

I’ll say this and I know it’s time to go.

I was going to say, I don’t know what your
schedule is. Like I don’t want you to become

an entrepreneur by accident, by staying too
late and missing work, and then needing to

start your own company. But, I feel like one
thing I really wanted to make sure that you

talked about is the cost of hesitation. This
is a very tactical book. Oh, you’re … . We

won’t be much longer. I want to thank, again,
everybody who’s online and want to encourage

everybody to get the book, because I think
you’ll be surprised how Bishop Jakes is a

Ninja, so it’s from laughing about Oreos and
… I even brought some Oreos.

Did you?

Yeah, because … All the way. Spread your
wings. But, there’s the example of innovation,

you talk about … I love this line. “Innovation
isn’t just changing the flavor, it’s changing

the form.”Whatever. That’s so good. You just
say stuff like that. Like that would take

me 30 more years to think of that line and
it’s just in your book. But, what I wanted

to mention is, these are so many tools. It’s
very tactical on one level, very inspirational,

a lot of great inspiring prose. And then get
into some things that will really help you

to do it in real life and not just say it
in a book. Yeah. I wanted to get into business

plans, I wanted to get into grants and foundations
and concepts, and real meaty stuff that I

don’t get to get into on Sunday morning.

It’s all in here.

It’s in the book.

Yeah. It’s in there.

Because, this is something that we do in church
that I think is dangerous. We inspire people.

Right.

Every Sunday morning.

Try to.

We inspire them. Oh, I see you do it. Don’t
try to wiggle out of it. But if we inspire

people and we don’t inform them for Monday,
then they’ll just come on Sunday to get high.

And I thought I need a way to get beyond preaching
everything’s going to be all right, it’s going

to be all right. Every Sunday, it’s going
to be all right, it’s going to be all right.

And show you how to make it all right. Show
you how to make it all right. You talked about

the cost of hesitation. You can’t understand
hesitation if you don’t understand rhythm.

I never thought I was going to be a preacher.
I was going to be a musician. I started playing

piano when …

It’s hard for us to believe that you never
thought you’d be a preacher.

I didn’t, no.

And then one time, you said that you never
felt like you were a good preacher when you

started.

Lord, no. That’s why I preached so hard, because
I didn’t think I was very good. I said, “Well,

I’ll at least be hard.”

That made me cry when I heard you say that,
by the way.

People who are gifted cannot see it. See,
I can see him and I can see you, I can see

the lights, I can see the carpet, I can see
the table, I can see the roof. The only thing

I cannot see in the room is me. And when you
are gifted, when you are truly gifted, you

are blind to yourself. So it makes you ask
questions like, “Who do men say that I am?”

You’re vulnerable to the voices around you
and you have to be careful who you have around

you. Because you could walk off a stage and
you want to slit your wrists because you can’t

see whether you had any effect at all. That’s
the truth. And be careful who you have around

you, because they become a mirror. And if
the person around has an agenda, they’ll distort

the image of who you are. You understand what
I’m saying? So I was thinking, this watch

I’ve got on is turning around and around for
time, it’s imitating the solar system, because

everything is turning. We don’t feel it, but
the earth is turning. It’s moving around.

The sun is moving. Everything’s moving. Everything
is moving. When I went to the Wailing Wall

in Jerusalem, the Rabbi stood at the Wailing
Wall, and they were rocking back and forth,

because they understood that in order to reach
God, it’s a symbol of understanding movement,

that blood is moving through my body while
I’m sitting here. It’s moving. It’s moving.

It’s moving. If I have an emergency, they
feel my pulse. A pulse is a rhythm, a rhythm

, a rhythm. Everything is a beat. There’s
a rhythm and the rhythm determines days and

evenings and seasons and suns. It’s a rhythm,
it’s a rhythm, it’s a rhythm. Everything is

a rhythm. And when Christ came, he came in
rhythm. In the fullness of time. Tick, tick,

tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. In the fullness
of time, he comes, in a rhythm. Everything’s

done in a rhythm. So, God says, “The day you
hear my voice, do it in a rhythm. Harden out

your heart. Because, there’s no guarantee
that you can do later what you can do today.

You’ve got to do it in a rhythm. You’ve got
to do it in a rhythm. When you hesitate, you

break the rhythm. It’s the same thing that
a nurse is feeling for when she grabs your

wrist. She’s checking the rhythm. The rhythm
is a sign of your health. If the rhythm is

off, the heart is off. If the heart is off
beat bad enough, they have to do something

to it to get it back to its rhythm. Because
being out of rhythm affects everything else

in the body. If we didn’t have our children
when we had our children, at the time we had

our children, we would have broke the rhythm.
Everything has to be done in a rhythm. Business

has to be done in a rhythm. A woman’s body
operates in a rhythm. Before we had all this

fancy stuff, people controlled child birth
by rhythms and cycles and systems, and that’s

why the woman is so akin to the heart of God,
because she has cycles. And cycles are systems,

and cycles reflect the universe, and God is
a God of rhythm and everything’s full. When

God said, “Let there be …” everything started
beating and beating and beating in a rhythm.

And boom God is a God of rhythm, and if you’re
going to walk with God, you have to catch

his rhythm, and when you hesitate you break
the rhythm. You understand what I’m saying?

There is nothing worse than dancing with somebody
that don’t have rhythm. There’s nothing worse.

It makes you want to back off the stage. My
wife says, “It looks like they’re dancing

to the words, not the beat.” The beat. The
beat. The beat. The beat. The beat. The beat.

The beat. The beat. The beat. The beat. The
beat. The beat. The beat. The beat. The beat.

The beat. Don’t hesitate. You break the rhythm,
and what would have flowed is now off. The

enemy comes to break the rhythm. So, when
you talk about hesitation, you’re really talking

about Satan, because he’s a rhythm breaker.
He can’t stop God from gifting you, calling

you, blessing you. He cannot even curse you,
because God had blessed you. The only way

he can sabotage you is to get you to break
the rhythm. When you do break the rhythm you

have to repent. You have to repent. Not just
because of sin. You have to repent because

you missed the rhythm to do the right thing.
I’ll show it to you this way. Samuel lays

down on the bed, and he says, and he hears
a voice say, “Samuel?” And he gets up and

runs to Eli, he said, “Did you call me?” Eli
says, “I called you, don’t lay down again.”

He lays down again, “Samuel?” He goes, “Eli,
did you call?” No. The third time, Eli perceives

that the Lord has called him. He has missed
the rhythm three times. But he says this time

when you lay down say to him, “God, if you
call me again, I’m ready.” Somebody in here,

you’ve missed the rhythm. There’s a thing
that should have happened five years, ten

years, three years, six months ago. Do you
hear what I’m saying to you? But all hope

is not lost. Go back and lay down again. And
say, “If you call me again. If you just give

me one more chance. I won’t go to flesh, I
won’t go to Eli, I won’t go to humanity. I

won’t go to my fear or my doubts or my shame,
if you just call me again, give me one more

chance. This time, Lord.” Whoo. There is a
timing factor on everything. And every time

we break a rhythm it has consequences. Can
I show you one thing? It’s kind of shocking,

but I’m going to throw it out here. God did
not intend for us to reproduce in our old

age. Children. Because he wanted us to be
here long enough to take care of them. So,

when God gets ready to shut down the factory,
he’s shutting down the factory so that the

child will not be uncovered. Now, through
medicine, we have jimmied the lock and broke

the rhythm, so that you can be an 80 year
old man and have a two year old son. Now,

you might have a lot of fun, but in breaking
the rhythm, the son pays the consequence.

Because, by the time he figures out what to
ask you… That’s the problem with rhythm,

it’s not just about you. Everything else is
depending on the beat. Everything around you

is affected by the beat. And even though you
can create things that will break the rhythm

for your own pleasure, in so doing you run
the risk of creating someone else’s calamity.

Because the rhythm was developed so that everything
starts at a certain time, everything goes

down at a certain time. Because God is not
just looking at you. It’s for us. It’s for

us. When God gives you your next opportunity,
move. Move. If the woman with the issue of

blood had hesitated, she would have bled to
death, because Jesus was not coming to her,

he was passing by. Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm,
rhythm, rhythm. And she says, “If I can just

catch the beat. If I can just catch the beat.
It’s going to all of my strength to get there,

but I got to catch him, because he’s not breaking
his rhythm. He’s not breaking his rhythm,

he’s still moving. I got to catch his rhythm.”
So, she had to crawl to catch his rhythm.

She said, but if I can just catch his rhythm,
the miracle is in the rhythm. And the Bible

said she pressed her way. And the way she
did and got up to speed is that she kept encouraging

herself. If I can just touch, if I can just
touch, if I can just touch. If I can just

catch his rhythm, I’ll be made whole. … was
sitting by the highway side begging, let me

stop. I’m going to stop here. There is one
thing, I know we’re running out of time. They

said no, no. I was on a flight that got stuck
on the runway. And I tell you, we sat on the

runway too long, that it took all the scriptures
that I could think of. Now, I tried to talk

to myself. I said you were sitting at the
house, and then you got in the car and you

were sitting in the car. And they drove you
to the airport, and you were sitting in the

airport. And now you’re sitting on the plane.
Why are you so irritated. You’re going to

sit anyway. And I said if the plane were to
take off you’d still be sitting. When you

land, you’ll go get in a car so you can sit.
And you get in the car and sit in the car

so you can go to the hotel and sit. So what
are you mad about? I think my frustration

was, I was sitting in a place of movement.
The agony of life is to sit in a place of

movement. You spoke of hesitation, but the
word that leaped in my spirit that I want

to leave with you is frustration. I think
that there are people in this room who are

frustrated. And you try to make yourself feel
content, and you feel guilty that you’re not

content, and you say I ought to be thankful
for what I have. And like me, you’re trying

to use rational to put up with a situation
that you’re not called to. And what keeps

needling you is I belong up there, and yet
I’m stuck right here. And there you are in

a place of movement watching other people
take off, wondering what in the world is wrong.

And you ring the bell, “Excuse me.” We’ve
been sitting. We’re out of peanuts. They don’t

have no more Diet Coke, the potato chips are
stale. Can we go? That frustration is God

nudging you. That he has placed you in a position
of movement. And if you are not moving, something

is broken. And I want you to understand this,
there are people who stay on the ground and

they’re happy to be there, because they never
imagined themselves in the air. But you are

not one of them. You are not one of them.
You go to the airport with people who love

you, but when you get to the checkout point,
because if you don’t have a ticket, you can’t

go beyond that point. Some folks you have
to leave behind that you love, because they

have not paid the price to go into the next
dimension. You understand? Don’t you get on

the runway now and get stuck on the runway
and tell yourself it’s all right. It’s not

all right. Because you belong in the air.
Whatever that air is. I wanted to write … when

you get about my age, you get all nostalgic
and stuff and you want to leave something

behind that matters. I didn’t want to be one
of those people who flew and never taught

flight. Most of the people I’ve seen who ever
did anything never told anybody how they did

it. And since I got here by God’s grace, I
promised him everything you teach me, I’ll

teach it. Everything you show me, I’ll show
it. Everything I’ve learned I’ll pass on to

somebody else. There’s somebody watching on
the campus or streaming or sitting in the

balcony or sitting out here in front of me
right now, you’ve got a dream. You’ve got

a vision. I won’t lie to you, it’s going to
cost you everything. You’re going to hurt

in places you didn’t know you could hurt.
And you’ll have a thousand chances to give

up, but don’t do it. Keep on moving. I tried
to leave some tips about who you need around

you, so that you could pick your associates
more carefully, because it does have something

to do with your success. I tried to speak
to your need to have a rhythm, so that you

cannot lounge around here and let this moment
pass you by. You are not as young as you think

you are. You don’t have as long as you think
you have. It takes longer to settle something

big than you think. You’re thinking in days,
I’m talking in decades. You don’t have many.

If you don’t do it now, you’ll never do it.
Because you may not ever see that cycle come

back again. The only reason Saul wanted to
kill David is that he was mad he missed his

turn. Touch everybody you can reach and tell
them, “Do not miss your turn.”

Bishop T.D. Jakes everybody.

When you go to work or you go home or you
go in the mall or you go someplace and you

run into somebody who heard this or read the
book or followed the study guide … incidentally

it’s out in Spanish as well … and you run
into another Eagle somewhere at the checkout

counter, just look at them and go …

They’ll know what you mean. Thank you man.