To Escape Poverty, Stop These 7 Things

On this video, I am going to tell you seven things that you can do so you don't have to be broke anymore. Seven reasons people stay broke. If you stop doing these seven things, you don't have to be broke anymore.

Now, I don't know about you, but that's some of the best news I've ever gotten in my life because I was broke for the first, well, more than half of my life. And not just broke with a lowercase B, I was broke with a capital B. You feel me? So, seven things that you can do to stop being broke, to escape poverty, stop doing these seven things. How many things? Seven. How many? Seven. Okay, here we go.

The first one, it's going to be hard for you to wrap your mind around because it's hard for people to wrap their mind around this, but I it it may actually be the most important of all of them. And that is this. Stop focusing on lack. Focus on lack perpetuates lack. It's amazing how um we went to um the Daytona Speedway with an organization that I used to be with a long time ago. This is this is probably 2004, 2005. No, no, it was before that. Uh maybe 2000, 2001. Um went to the Daytona Speedway and the cur like the turns are not just a road, it's like a wall. like the angle of this thing is crazy. And and the race car drivers were talking to us and one of the things they said is they said um um when you're going around a curve, don't look at a wall. You look at where you want the car to go. Because if you look at where you don't want the car to go, you're going to end up going there. That's how powerful focus is. That is very true. I know. Very true. And so what we what we have to do is we have to learn how we have to learn how to discipline our focus. We have to learn how to decide what we're going to focus on before the opportunity to focus presents itself. Because focus on lack perpetuates lack.

The very first temptation in the history of the world, and I know you've heard me say this a quadrillion times, but the first temptation in the history of the world was the temptation to focus on lack. Adam and Eve, God God told Adam and Eve, "Of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat." Does that Does that sound like abundance or lack? Abundance. That's like crazy abundance. Everything for free. It don't get any more abundant than everything for free. Okay, y'all track it. But of the tree that's in the midst of the garden, thou shalt not eat of it. For the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. The tree. How many isthe'? Like we can't say that 'the' is two, 'the' can't be three, can't be four, can't be 15. The is one. So, Adam and Eve had everything but one thing for free. But there was one thing they didn't have regardless of price. They leave this alone. So, Adam and Eve only lacked how many things? One. Can you imagine a life where you only lack one thing? We can't we can't even fathom that. We can't even fathom a life where we only lack one thing. But watch what happened. It says in Genesis 3 verse 1, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God made. And he said unto the woman, "Yay, hath God said ye shall not, there's a lack word, eat of every tree of the garden?" So God said, "Every freely?" The enemy says, "Not every." Now, you know what he said? Here's what the woman said. The woman said, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden." She took out every freely. Does that change the meaning? Now, let's let's talk about let's talk about those words for a minute because that sounds like like if if you're not if like if you're going a little bit too fast, you might miss it. Like, how could that that little change make that big of a difference? Here's how. Because the enemy knew something that Adam and Eve hadn't learned yet. And that is that words are not just a communication tool. Words are the window through which we see the world. M your ability to perceive reality is going to be enhanced or diminished by your ability to use words skillfully. Are y'all tracking? Yes. And so what we do is we will use ambiguous language because we're afraid if we actually state the things we actually believe that somebody might get offended. And so what we do is we file the edges off of God's truth to make it acceptable to people to whom God is not even acceptable. Am I keeping it real? And so the woman said, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God has said, "The tree that's in the midst of the garden, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die." God didn't say, "Don't touch it." She added that because she believed that if she used her willpower to not touch the fruit, then she wouldn't eat the fruit. But here's the problem. Anytime anybody believes that physicality is reality, it always leads them to an erroneous conclusion. Like reality doesn't begin in the physical realm. Reality is just manifested in the physical realm. Like her believing that I got like I got to touch it in order to eat it. The enemy knew that you don't have to touch it in order to eat it. Not you don't no touching it is not what comes first. There's something that comes before touching it. You know what that is? Attention, paying attention to it. See what the serpent did in his subtlety. Now, the serpent was more subtle than a beast of the field which the Lord God has made. What he did was he got Eve to shift her attention from her abundance to the thing she lacked. Why is he so bent on getting her to pay attention to the thing that she lacked? Because he understood that where attention goes, intention follows. And long before you set your intention on a thing, you start paying attention to that thing. I wish I had. Are y'all picking up what I'm putting down? Yes. And so, so when you start paying attention to what's missing in your life, it ends up causing more to be missing in your life. That's why I don't That's why I don't watch the news. Cuz the news is really the bad news. And it wants to show you all the stuff that's wrong in the world. As if you knowing all the stuff that's wrong in the world is going to give you the ability to fix all the stuff that's wrong in the world. And I know some of you are thinking because I say Marion, you don't watch. How do you know what's going on in the world? May I ask you a better question? If I can't fix what's going on in my world, what am I going to do about the problems going on in the world? Hey, I'm going to tell you what they tell you when you get on a plane. Put your own oxygen mask on first. You can't breathe, but you trying to help us to fix somebody else's problem. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't confused. And so he got her to pay attention to what was missing. Now, when he got her to pay attention that was missing, that it's it's interesting some of the details that this passage gives us about this tree that she lacked. It wasn't outside the garden. And it wasn't just inside the garden. It was actually in the middle of the garden. What does that tell us? That Adam and Eve had to do to get to that tree. They had to walk past all of their abundance, ignoring it along the way to get to the thing they lacked. By the way, I'm not implying nor am I inferring that you don't have anything missing in your life. But what I am inferring and implying and stating boldly is that you have things that are present in your life that you're discounting while you're focused on the things that are missing.

One of the passages of one my and this is not a Bible study but I all the stuff that I teach I get it from the Bible anyway so I'm not confused. Um one of the things it says in Psalms it says blessed be the Lord that daily loadeth loadth us with benefits. Hm. Daily loads us with benefits, which means every day we get loads of benefits. What if that's true? What if what if I actually did wake up this morning when other people who went to bed last night didn't? What if maybe that's a benefit? Maybe. What if when I open my eyes this morning, I can see? But everybody who opened their eyes this morning can't see. Now, one of the things I know how to make myself do is I know how to make myself look, [Laughter] but I don't know how to make myself see. So maybe being able to see is a gift. One of those many things that I've been loaded up with today. What if when the birds are singing outside my house, I can hear them? What if I could listen to music or have a phone conversation with somebody I love on my way to work this morning and my ability to hear them? What if I didn't give that to myself? What if it was a gift? And while I'm so focused on what's not in my life, I'm not even being thankful for what is in my life. And even if I had to if I had to choose between the thing that's missing in my life and the thing that's present in my life, if I had to choose between them, I'd choose the things I'd already have and I wouldn't be near so caught up in what's missing. Hm. See, maybe. Let me ask you a question. How do you feel? We going to make this about you. How do you feel when you give somebody a gift and they show no signs of gratitude whatsoever? I know what you do. You run to the store to get them another. Maybe they'll say, "Thank you for the second one, cuz they didn't say nothing for the first one. And then they didn't say thank you for the second one. Said, you know what? You know what? I need to spend more. I'm going to go I got them last gifts at Target. I'm going to Neiman Marcus. That's what you do, right? You go spend more and get them a better gift. Ain't that what you do? No. But that's what we expect God to do. While we're discounting the blessings that we have and only counting what's missing, we expect God to show up and give us more of the stuff he's already blessed us with, which we already have been unthankful for. H Maybe one of the reasons that unthankfulness is named as a sign of the times of the end times is because there's so much abundance in the world that while people are languishing in abundance they are still thinking that they are in lack. Wow. So stop focusing on what's missing. Stop focusing on what's missing in your husband. Stop focusing on what's missing in your wife. Stop focusing on what's missing in your children. Stop focusing on what's missing in your uh parents. Stop focusing on what's missing in your job. Stop focusing on what's missing in your bank account. Stop focusing on what's missing in your health and start focusing on what's there. If I start counting my blessings, maybe it'll give me some enough energy to go be a blessing. And then when I'm a blessing to somebody else, maybe I'll get some more blessings. Cuz we reap what we sow. Amen. Okay, just a thought.

I wasn't going to do this. I wasn't going to do this. I wasn't going to do this, but I'm going to do it. See y'all making me I I don't know why y'all listening so slow this morning. Y'all listen fast. I could talk fast. Okay, this is this is one of my favorite stories in the Bible. And I know this is not Bible study, but this is business. Like this is like people wonder why they're broke. One of the reasons you're broke is because you're so focused on what you don't have. You want to stop being broke? Start being grateful for the stuff you have. Like all of us can do that. You may not be able to afford a car that's like your next door neighbor's car. You might not be able to afford to live a house in the house like your brother-in-law who you can't stand. But but you can be thankful for the house you live in. That's right. Cuz everybody don't have a househ. That's right. Okay, so there's this story that shows us this so perfectly. I didn't realize I was going to stay here this long, but clearly somebody needs to hear this. Um, so um there's this story um in Genesis chapter 21. Pretty sure that's where it's at. Yeah. So in Genesis chapter 21, well before Genesis chapter 21, let's go back to Genesis chapter 12. God tells this man named Abram, he says, "Hey, if you will leave your country and you will leave your family and you will leave your father's house and go to a land that I'm going to show you, not the land I've already shown you." Huh? I thought of so many funny things to say just then. Um um then I'm going to bless you in ways you can't bless yourself. I'm going to give you something you can't get yourself. I'm going to take the source of your shame and make it the source of your fame. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. Abraham went to Sarah and said Abram went to Suri and said, "Hey baby, we moving but women have questions. Where are we going?" I don't know. God said he showed me when we get there. Right. Uh-huh. Hopefully my brother's got some sympathy for brother Abram, right? Cuz he didn't have the answer to that question. Well, when we leaving? Oh, we leaving in the morning? We're leaving in the morning and you don't know where we going. Well, how will you know when we got there? Okay. And the less answers we have. Can I get a witness, my brothers? The more questions they have. Okay, I got a witness on the front row. What? Huh? So, they leave 10 years. He said, God said, I am going to give you a seed. I'm going to give you a child cuz Sarah his Surai his wife was barren. Anyway, fast forward 10 years later, they don't have any child. Another 10 years go by, they don't have any child. Sai gets this brilliant idea. She says, "Hey, Abram, you know that pretty little handmaid I got in there. Why don't you just go have a baby with her and we'll raise him like he's our own?" He said, "You sure, baby?" Okay. Um, all right. If you insist, I would I would have never thought of that. But if you say so. Right. Right. See, see, we we sometimes forget that they were human. They were these are real people. Right. Okay. Okay. So, Abraham goes in, sure enough, she gets pregnant, has a child, name that baby Ishmael. Yes. About 12 years later, Sarah gets pregnant when she's 90. Abram's 100. I'm tired for both of them. What? I was in my 30s when my kids were young, right? Can you imagine being 93? No. Like dealing with a three-year-old? Anyway, anyway. Anyway, I maybe I'm seeing this in too much 3D. But but you feel me? And then it says it says that one day Sarah after their names were changed, Sarah saw Hagar say saw Ishmael, the son of this bond woman mocking. Didn't say who he was mocking, didn't say what he was mocking, but my guess based on mother son relationships. H Ishmael was mocking Isaac and we ain't having it. Not not you ain't gonna be making fun of my son. That's right. And so Sarah tells Abram, "You get that woman and her son out my house, but baby, that was your idea. I I ain't got nothing. I don't care nothing about that. They got to go." So So that's where we're picking up the story. Y'all tracking. Okay. I And I'm not I'm not be I I hope y'all understand I'm not being disrespectful to the word. I'm helping you understand the that this was an emotional situation for some real people just like us. Can I get a witness? Okay. They went through some stuff. Okay. Verse ver 21:14. Here it is. And Abraham rose up early in the morning and took the bread and took bread and a and a bottle of water and gave it unto Hagar putting it on her shoulder and the child and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersa. Wilderness. See, in America, when we hear wilderness, we thinking about a forest. We got all these trees. We got a little stream. The wilderness in the Bible was the desert. So, let me help you understand what's happening here. Gave her a loaf of bread and a bottle of water for her and their son and sent him out into the desert. Wow. Okay, y'all tracking. Oh, that's colder than a Subzero refrigerator. So, And Abraham rose up early in the morning. Okay, I already read that part. They wandered in the wilderness of Beers. Verse 15. And the water was spent in the bottle. Nuh-uh. Some of it they drank. The rest of it evaporated. They in the desert. The water was spent in the bottle. And she cast the child under one of the shrubs. And she went and sat her down over against him a good way off as it were a bow shot. And she said, "Let me not see the death of the child." And she sat over against him and lift up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad. Cuz while mama was crying, the boy was praying. Why? Probably because his father Abram, the father of the faithful, taught his son how to pray. And God heard the voice of the lad. And the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said unto her, "What you crying about? What kind of question is that for an angel?" He said, he said, "What alith, Hagar? What kind of question is that? You got a mama in the desert with a young child and no water and you talking about what you crying about? Yeah. So, if he's asking that question, clearly there has to be a reason it's not ridiculous because at first glance it seems utterly ridiculous. Yeah. And we're only on the first of the seven points. For Godath heard the voice. What athy. Hagar. Fear not. For God hath heard the voice of the lad. Where he is. Arise. Lift up the lad. Hold him in thine hand, for I will make him a great nation. I want you to notice these next five words. And God opened her eyes. Wait, what? And God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. What just happened? That was That was quick. I thought we was in the desert. See, the bottle was empty. But when you have a well that's full and you're focused on a bottle that's empty, it brings tears to your eyes. And I'm telling you, regardless of your dire circumstance, I'm not discounting that you're going through something. But what I am saying is while you're going through something, there's something in front of you that you are missing because you're focused on what is missing. What does that tell us? She God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. What does that tell us about the well of water? There. It was already there. It didn't say, "And while she wasn't looking, the angel digged a well and filled it up with water." It didn't say that. Now we're laughing, but but but this is this happened to a real person. It didn't say and God God miraculously put a well of water there. It doesn't say that God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So the well of water was already there while she was crying. The well of water was there before she was there. H. But guess what? She couldn't see the well of water in front of her eyes because of the water that was welling up in her eyes. And sometimes you can't see the resource that's in front of you because of the lack of resourcefulness that is in you. Okay, you want you want to you want to do something that's really going to change your life. Stop focusing on what's missing. Stop stop buying into the the idea or should I call it the lia that just because you don't have what you think you me need doesn't mean uh means you don't have anything. Stop buying that idea. Just because you don't have what you think you need means you don't have anything. See, she thought she needed bottle water in the bottle. But I'd rather have water in a well than water in a bottle. Cuz a well will hold more water than a bottle. So, seven things you stop doing if you don't want to be broke anymore. Stop focusing on lack. And if you do focus on lack, start focusing on what other people are missing so you can figure out how a way to get it to them and have them pay you. That is the only way I know of to benefit from focusing on something that's missing.

Okay, we still got six to go. Number two, stop focusing on distractions. Like I know it sounds like I keep saying this over and over. My I that's because I do keep saying this over and over. Myin, why do you keep saying this over and over? Cuz you're still focusing on distractions. Broke and distracted are are not very good companions. They do not cause things to end well. Like I cannot comprehend for the life of me how somebody who is broke as a joke and ready to choke has enough mental bandwidth to memorize the stats of sports figures who will never know their names. Now this is not a new idea for me. I couldn't comprehend it when I was in elementary school when other people when these other kids would they tell me how many home runs this person had, how many how many RBI's, how many like how much of your life you going to spend memorizing the stats of somebody else's and they don't even know you exist. And you knowing those stats don't put they don't put any food on your table. They don't put any water in your water bottle. What are we doing? And we're wearing a jersey with somebody else's name on it talking about my team won. You ain't on that team, baby. They don't know you. They ain't paying you. I don't want to watch them win if I'm [Music] losing. I'm I'm not even be I'm not even attempted to be funny. I I was broke. We didn't have cable television. We're going to pipe in fake people living fake lives and getting paid millions of dollars for it. And we can't even live a real life. Cow, you you got me confused with Byron and Silver. I ain't doing it. I am not doing it. It's a distraction. And you know why people distract themselves? See, we look at we look at the distractions that we focus on as I'm just having a good time. No, what you're doing is you're anesticizing the pain of the fact that your life isn't working by watching somebody else's life work. So you don't have to think about the fact that yours isn't. Do you know what? The time you spend watching a basketball game or a football game or a baseball game or a golf tournament when you're broke, the time you spend watching that, if you spent that reading a book to learn a new skill, it would change your life more than that one game ever possibly. More than watching 16 games ever possibly could. No, but you don't understand, brother. Like like I was betting on my team last year and they won the Super Bowl. Okay, good. That's your formula. Danger, Will Robinson. Danger. your little one. Stop focusing on distraction.

One of the things that I noticed about people who are uber successful is that we hyperfocus on intention and ignore distraction like it's the plague. Like we ignore it like uh why would I pay attention to that? It's not like distraction is not even distraction is not like a fly or a mosquito. It's like a gnat. It's like a noium with like a like a sandnat. It's like it's just there. It's just a distraction. Stop focusing on distractions. Focus on intention. I remember one time my brother told me, he's like, "Man, I remember when you were broke, I used to come by your house. You'd have all these books on the table about being a millionaire." And I when I was broke, I wasn't playing. I was all the way in. Sorry. I was I was like I was I mean I was It was bad. And he's like, I'm I was so he said, I was so mad at you. You're reading these books on how to be a millionaire. And I thought to myself, why don't you just get a job and be like everybody else? Cuz I didn't want what everybody No, he told me this. So he told me this after the fact after I helped him make millions of dollars. Um notice I said you he used to he used to Okay. Okay. Um he's like I was so mad at you. He said, "Why don't you get a job?" "Cuz I didn't want what the rest of y'all had. So, I was reading books about I was reading books written by people who were doing something I wanted to do. Are y'all tracking? Okay. Stop. Stop focusing on distractions. Stop entertaining yourself in your discretionary time. Use your dedicated time, the time you've already sold to an employer to make a living, but use your discretionary time to make a fortune. Like the reason we didn't have we didn't have cable television till my daughter's the youngest. We didn't have cable television till she was 16. Didn't have it. Why? We didn't want to watch other people live their dreams while we were living a nightmare. We're not doing it. But everybody else has it. Everybody else can have it. Everybody else ain't going where we going. This was a decision that we made that my wife and I made before we knew how it would turn out. But we believed it was going to turn out kind of how it's turned out. But quite we didn't know it could turn out this good. Stop entertaining yourself during your discretionary time. You know what? Broke people I don't I'm not being condescending when I say this. Broke people cannot afford to listen to music in the car. Listen to an audio book, a podcast, something that's going to help you figure out how to make your life work better. Use your discretionary time to learn something like I'm I'm doing all right. I use my discretionary time to learn something. I'm all right. My kids are right. My wife is all right. But why would I flush time, something I have in a limited amount, down the toilet of feelgood when I could be learning something that I didn't know that'll make my life better? Anyway, that's number three. Stop entertaining yourself in your discretionary time. Instead, educate yourself in your discretionary time. Spend most of your discretionary time reading and writing and implementing what you learn. I heard somebody say, "You make a living from 9 to5. You build a life from 5 to 9." You can go 5 to 11 if you want to. You're a night owl.

Okay, here's one that'll help you. Stop blaming circumstances for the fact that your life is not working. I'm going to tell you something about life. It's a synonym for circumstances. Like like everybody has circumstances. Can I show you something about circumstances though? This is really cool. I'm going to go to my digital blackboard and show you something really cool about circumstances. So the word circumstance is a compound word. It means circle and to stand. So if when you're blaming circumstances, what you're doing is you're focused on the things that are surrounding you while you're standing still. Are y'all tracking? Now, here's something interesting the Bible says. It says that a wise man's eyes are in his head. A wise man's eyes are where? In his head. In his head. Not on the front of his head. In his head. Why? Because God understands something we have yet to figure out. We actually see with our mind. Our eyes are just one of the tools our mind uses to see. Now there are two categories of animals and they both begin with a P. What are they? Predator and prey. Okay. Do you know you can look at an animal and tell whether it's I mean all I mean even predators can be prey but but an animal that's predominantly that's primarily prey has a very different characteristic than an animal that's predominantly a predator. What's the what's the what's the differentiation? The eyes. The predator's eyes are in the front of its head so it can see what it's pursuing. The preyy's eyes are on the side of its head so it can see what's being pursued. See you tracking. So everybody take your fingers like this. Put them out like this. Look at both fingers at the same time with your peripheral vision. Keep going until you can still see. Don't go past where you can see both fingers. Like my fingers are right there. I can still see both of them. Right? So my peripheral vision is about 162. Maybe 172, right? But it's not 180, right? It's not 180. Like I can't see both. Well, you know what? No, I can't. I can't. It's not 100. It's not 180. I was like, I see that one. Oh, nope. I don't see that. Right. So, so it's I can't see both when it's out here. I can't see both of them. Okay. So, I can't when But but if an animal has its eyes on the side of its head, it can probably see about 160 degrees that way and 160 degrees that way. It can see everything in the circle. Are y'all tracking? Yes. So, one of the things I believe that we have as human beings that animals don't have is we get to determine whether we're going to be predators or whether we're going to be prey. What is the determining factor? If we are going to be the prey, if we're going to be life, pray, if we're going to be prey, not prey, this kind of pray, but if we're going to be prey, P R E Y, then we are so focused on the circumstances that are surrounding us that it causes us to stand still. But if we want to break out of our circumstances, we have to look at what's in front of us, that thing called purpose. And we must passionately pursue our purpose so we can break out of the circle of sameness and no longer be surrounded by circumstances. That right there will change your life.

See, when when we blame circumstances, we're buying into this idea that all circumstances are the that all circumstances are the same or that all factors are the same. But there are two types of factors. There are contributing factors and this this goes very well with what we just talked about contributing factors contributing I have to write slower factors and there are determining factors determining the difference between determining the difference between a contributing factor and a determining factor is contributing factors are all outside of us but determining factors are all inside of us. We don't we can't control contributing factors but we can always control determining factors. What does that mean? I can't control what happens to me. But I can control what meaning I'm going to assign to the thing that happens to me. That's a determining factor. I can't control what happens to me. But I can control um what I'm going to do next. I can control what I'm going to focus on. For instance, I have polio as an infant. So, I walk with a brace on my leg. I walk with a limp. I only notice it if I'm walking past a door. Um, and I see the reflection of how I walk. Cuz to me, how I walk feels as normal as how you walk feels to you. Okay. And and so I had polio because I was born in a segregated hospital. My parents couldn't do anything about that because that's how it was here in Tampa back in 1961, right? So that is a contributing factor. But me that this brace is outside of me. The fact that I had polio, that's a physical circumstance. It's outside of me. What I'm going to do about it, what I'm going to focus on, what I'm going to allow that to mean, like I could mean, I could say like I was born in a segregated hospital. White people are evil. That could be the conclusion I come to, right? I could let's come to what conclusion. White people are easy. Evil. Okay? Or I could come to uh life ain't fair. It's been so unfair to me. I'm so bitter and angry because other people in running and I can't run. Yeah, but I can fight. Okay, I'm I'm done. Okay. So, cuz when you can't run, you learn how to fight. Yeah. Okay. Um, so so um I could cause it to mean God doesn't care about me. Or I could come to the conclusion there's no such thing as God. How could a loving God let this happen to me? Am I keeping it real? Oh, okay. Good. Just wanted to make sure I was keeping it real. But what if I say, what if I conclude, cuz here's the here's the reality. I am going to assign a meaning to the fact that I had polio and I've got six brothers and none of them had polio. I am going to assign a meaning to the fact that I was born in a segregated hospital when other people were other kids, other people who are my age right now were allowed to be born in Tampa General and they didn't have polio. I am like this was after the polio vaccine. So you say my like what are you saying? I'm saying like I'm the one that's ultimately going to assign the meaning to what this contributing factor means. So what if I decide it means that God in his sovereign wisdom who created my assignment and then created me for that assignment had something for me to do that was so important that he didn't want me as athletic as I am and I'm quite athletic. He didn't want me to be distracted by sports. And so he ordained that the enemy would afflict me physically thinking that it would stop me. But God ordained that the enemy do that so that my brain so that my body would slow down so my brain could speed up so I could serve millions of people one day. Now I'm not saying that's the way it is, but I'm saying I can assign that meaning to it. And guess what that does? That gives me the ability to use it instead of being used by it. Yes. Anyway, I I would give I could give you other examples. Frederick Douglas was born a slave in a time when it was illegal for him to learn how to read, but yet he worked he his his master's wife was teaching him how to read. If you've never read a narrative, I don't care if you're black, white, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, Asian, blah blah. You could be polka dot or pinstripe for all I care. It'll change your life if you read a narrative in the life of Frederick Douglas. You talk about personal development. You've never seen it on that level. Frederick Douglas, his master's wife was teaching him how to read. His master came in one day and caught his wife teaching these slave children how to read. He said, "Woman, are you out your mind? You can't teach a slave how to read. If you teach these slaves how to read, they're going to discover books. If they discover books, they're going to understand that the world is so much bigger than the world they live in now. They'll never be content to be a slave again. And whatever you do, don't you let them read the Bible. Frederick Douglas was about six. And at six, he had the wherewithal to think, if this man who owns me, who sold my mother away from me, who could kill me and not be prosecuted, if he is that dead set on me not learning how to read, it is the most important thing I must learn to do. Wow. And so, you know, you know what he did? He worked at the big house. So he'd take the leftovers from his master's table and he would trade the little white poor white children in the neighborhood in exchange for them teaching him how to understand letters. And every time he found a piece of paper on the ground with writing in it and every time he found a newspaper and every time he found a book he would take it back to his slave quarters and he would practice his reading by candle light. He became so eloquent that well first of all he learned some new skills. He learned the skill of carpentry. He started building things. He started selling the things that he built. When he sold the things that he built, he saved up enough money to buy his freedom. And when he bought his freedom, he had it stolen from him. And then he worked and saved up enough money to buy his freedom again. Had it stolen from again. And then he worked and saved up enough money to buy his freedom. So, and then he was finally a free man. And when he was free, he wasn't content just to be free because he knew the horrors of slavery. and he spent the rest of his life as an abolitionist gaining audiences with the president of the United States and the queen of England and was instrumental in the abolition of the slave trade in the United States of America and England. And this is a guy who was born a slave and now we think we have an excuse. Stop blaming your circumstances. Stop believing that contributing factors are determining factors.

Okay, now let's get to the money stuff because you can't teach somebody how to stop being broke if you ain't gonna talk about money. You got to say something about the money. So what we going to say about the money? Stop thinking the primary purpose of money is consumption. Stop thinking the primary purpose of money is to buy things. That's not the primary purpose of money. Marin, what is the primary purpose of money? I'm glad you asked. The primary purpose of money is to turn it into more money. The primary purpose of money is to acquire and build assets that produce more money. Like buying stuff. That's something you do with the money your money makes you. I used to wonder I'm going to do a whole video on this. Why are rich people so stingy? I used to wonder that and and it wasn't really stingy but they're like really slow to buy things and make find like I don't they like why because they understand the future value of money not just the present value of money. Stop thinking the primary purpose of money is consumption. It's like it's like a farmer who has a whole barn full of seed but he mistakes it for cereal and he eats it for breakfast every morning. And when harvest time comes, he doesn't have a harvest. Don't mistake the seed for cereal. Okay.

Wow. There's so like I'm what what which one of these is the most important? I don't know. Pick one. The one you're not doing for you probably, right? Stop letting entire days go by without learning something new about how life works. So, I was sharing with somebody um that I'm not one of the greatest speakers in the world. I mean, I I'm I'm decent. I but and I'm not I'm not fishing for compliments and I'm not trying to be humble. So just just hear me out. Hear me out. I can think of a whole bunch of speakers who I I can think of a bunch of speakers that I think are way better speakers than me. But that's because my primary purpose for speaking is not to be a speaker. Um and I like I I do I speak? I speak. But that's not how I think of myself. I think of myself as a student and I'm a student of how things work so I can make life work better for me and so I can come back and then report to other people how they can make their life work better for them. So I'm like I'm predominantly a student who practice or and a student practitioner teacher more than I am a speaker. Does that make sense? So sometimes like I don't say it the best way it can be said, right? The most eloquent way, the most the most dynamic way, but that's not my objective because I'm not like being a great speaker is not my objective. Being a clear a diligent student, a diligent practitioner and a clear communicator of the feedback that I got from life is what I desire to be. Okay, which is why so my good friend Kenny Grant, who I I can't wait. I I need to just invite Kenny come down here and just do a whole week full of Bible studies with us. But anyway, uh my good friend Kenny Grant um he said, "My m man, I'mma tell you something. M So, Kenny, if you see this, yes, I'm imitating you, bro. And I'm not even doing a good job of it because yours is way smoother than that. But my I'm going tell you something. Yeah. What's that, Kenny? A prepared man is better than a prepared message. Like, man, that like hit me in my soul. And I I modified it. Kenny, don't don't sue me. A prepared messenger is better than a prepared message. And so when I study, one of the reasons I think I'm not a great speaker, I'm I'm good. I'm not I'm not saying, "Oh, Martin, you're a terrible speaker." No, tell me I'm great. Tell me I'm great. That's not what I'm doing. Um, when I say I'm not a great speaker, what I'm saying is I don't prepare talks. I don't know if that makes sense or not. I don't prepare talks. What I do is I study principles to figure out how life works. Then once I find a principle, I go apply the principle and see what kind of feedback I get from the principle and then I report on the principle that I found and what happened when I applied it. And so that's how I prepare. So like I can I I like yesterday when I spoke at Crossover Church when I was before I like I had been thinking for weeks about the theme of what the the day was going to be about, you know, um uh standing on kingdom business, right? And so I'm thinking about this and so I'm thinking about it and I'm thinking about all the stuff I know about kingdom. I'm thinking about the stuff I know about business and I said, "Well, let me do some word studies on kingdom and business." I already know what the word for kingdom was. But I didn't know that what the word for business was. And then I want to study. I'm like, wait a minute. There's only one letter difference between the word kingdom and the word business. There's only one letter difference in Hebrew. It blew me away. I'm like, what is this? And I started looking up king and I'm like, this is amazing, right? And it kind of blew my doors off. And so because I discovered this new thing that I could put in a whole bunch of stuff that I've already taught, it opened up a whole cascade of learning for me that I was able to be like excited about when I taught it because I literally just discovered it that morning. And some, oh, you just you just waited till the last minute to prepare. You know, I've been preparing my whole life and I just found like this one new concept. It's not a new concept, but it was new to me that helped me crystallize all of these ideas that I've been saying for years. I was like, "This is in here. This is amazing." Right? So, um, don't let a day go by where you don't learn something new. Okay?

And the last thing I'm going to say is this. And the seven, um, reasons people stay broke. Stop making excuses. Stop making excus. Well, what had happened was nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. We ain't doing that today. We ain't doing that today. Stop making excuses for why your life isn't working. Like, go do something. Take an action. Observe the feedback. Measure the difference after the feedback before you did the input and see if you're going in the right direction or not. If you're going the right direction, do it again. If you're not going the right direction, go back to the drawing board. Just like Sherman and Peabody, some of you are. Okay. Right. Go back. Okay. Go back to the drawing board. Okay. And so like we keep it's so mind-blowing that we think that somebody's buying into our excuse. We think somebody's believing that and we don't even believe it. Let's just stop making excuses. What if we just said, "I haven't learned all the things I'm going to learn about this yet, but I'm going to keep studying." Right? I really believe these seven things are a good place to start so you don't have to be broke anymore. And when I was broke, I didn't understand. I wish I would have had somebody tell me this when I was broke. I would have gotten rich so much faster. At least I would have stopped being broke being broke so much faster. Hope this blesses you and your family. May it take you to places that you didn't know you could go. Elevate you to heights that will cause you to need oxygen and bless you in ways that you can't measure. Thanks for watching. We'll see you on the next video. Peace out, Cub Scouts. We'll see you next time.