what's going on growth squad welcome to another episode that's right of the eugene hamilton podcast hope you're doing well hope you're having an amazing week hope that life is treating you fairly. Hope that life is treating you well. Hope the kids are fine. Hope the family is doing fine as well. But most importantly, I'm hoping that you're getting exactly what you need. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your likes. Thank you for your comments. Thank you also for subscribing. That's right. The analytics are telling us that some of you are still not subscribed. Thank you for being a faithful listener. But the algorithm, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, they know that this thing is about something important if you subscribe so don't forget to subscribe share out let folk know that we're growing we're glowing we're going rather we're growing and we're glowing every single week and every single day let's pray and let's get going today god we thank you once again for another shot yeah we woke up we can breathe in we can breathe out we still got a chance. When other people tell us that we can't, there's no more shot for us, that we're out of chances. Thank you, God, for renewing us and for reminding us that when we make that wake-up list, that means you've still got your hand on us. So thank you again for all that you have done and all that you're going to do through us. In your name, amen. Have you ever struggled with finding true joy in life? You ever struggled with that? Now, when we think about, and this is in my, this is my understanding of it. And feel free to drop in the comments, let me know your thoughts about what I'm about to say. But check this out. Happiness, I think Kirk Franklin mentioned it by the way kirk franklin's a trip shout out to kirk he's been blessing the culture with lots of awesome music but man i was so upset last week or um two weeks ago kirk franklin was on the reunion tour and he was scheduled to be in anaheim california uh for another stop i'm talking about that power packed latest reunion tour some of this yeah this a few weeks ago right where he had uh yolanda adams fred hammond the clark system i'm doing a heavy hitters in the gospel industry and i'm getting these emails right all these emails were coming to my inbox saying click here here's how you download your tickets it was through ticket master and so i'm like okay and my wife and I were going with another couple and we were planning on having an amazing time. We had a babysitter set up and all that good stuff and not because we were going to be out all night. We were going to get back so late that we didn't want to wake our son up. And so we were like, just let him stay at my brother-in-law's house. And man, it was just, we were planning on having an amazing time. So we're getting these emails and I don't go to a lot of concerts. I don't go to a lot of events, right? and you know i've used ticket master a few times but they kept sending these reminders hey here's your tickets your tickets are inside here's how you upload to your wallet blah blah blah like cool so i get one last one and i don check it because i saying to myself it the same thing lo and behold the day of the concert I mean I think we had dropped our son off already We were getting ready My wife was getting ready to do her hair, and I opened up that last email, and it said, due to unforeseen circumstances, some disagreeing between the event organizer, the promoter, the event was canceled. I mean, I'm still waiting on my refund right now. The event was canceled. And I was like, oh, you got to be kidding me. Kirk Franklin gets on IG Live. To my knowledge, didn't say a word about the concert being canceled. Doesn't say a word about, and I am highly upset. I mean, I am. I'm upset. I mean, I think I had, I didn't buy anything new, but I got everything cleaned. It ain't free. Right? I don't have my going out clothes on too much. So I had to go get them freshly pressed, dry cleaning and so forth. And so, man, I'm saying to myself, I'm upset. And my wife, when she got the news from me, she had a totally different response. She was like, let it go. I said, what? She said, let it go. What you going to do? You'll get upset. You'll get mad. Okay. The concert is not happening. and they're not going to be swayed by the amount of people that express their unhappiness or anger about the fact that we missed this concert cool it's canceled so all right let it go and i went back to something that he said he said in one of his songs i can't remember the name of the song but when i mentioned this maybe you if you are avid uh kirk franklin listener if you're a fan if you've listened to any of his music he said i don't want you to have happiness because in order for you to have happiness or to experience happiness, oftentimes you got to have something in your life happening. In other words, oftentimes happiness is brought about as a response to something exciting happening in your life. A job promotion, money in the bank. I've got a new relationship. I've got a new car. Oftentimes in life, something is my understanding, oftentimes something has to be happening, exciting, in order for you to experience happiness. But then joy is something that you have in your heart. It's almost as if joy is something that no matter the circumstances, no matter what's going on, no matter who's around, no matter who's not around, I've got joy. No matter who says what to me, no matter who disrespects me, no matter who appreciates me or don't appreciate me. Man, I got joy in my heart and the joy that I have, the world didn't give it to me. And the world can't take it away. Sometimes in life. We cannot experience. True joy, number one, because we think we're undeserving. have you ever met somebody in your life who has a habitual like bad attitude or they are always talking negatively not so much about other people even negatively about themselves like they don't deserve certain things or they don't deserve to to to enjoy x y and z and i'm saying to myself, wow, we were not, we did not come on this earth, we were not created to walk around in a posture that puts us in a place where we never enjoy life. I want you to understand that true joy does not come our way based on our ability to acquire things to buy things or because certain people have given us the okay the next time you think about joy springing forth in your life the next time you think about having joy think about the things that may be in your life check this out that might be stopping you from experiencing real joy number one as I mentioned some people don't experience real joy because they think they're undeserving but number two people sometimes don't want to experience or have a have a a different posture toward joy because they fear what joy will bring that sounds so confusing they fear that sometimes joy especially you gotta watch the company that you keep because i've been in situations where i was smiling i'm upbeat and there are people around me who are not smiling, who are not upbeat, and they're upset with me because I've got joy. I'm like, bruh, sis, you tripping. They're looking at me upset because they want me to adopt their posture, let's say, toward our boss. They want me to be mad at the boss because of hours cut, because of whatever. And I'm like, our supervisor is only taking orders from their boss. I can't be mad at them. It's almost like the person who's at the cash register who's at a restaurant or at a grocery store and you're upset with them because the store don't have milk. It ain't they fault. Are you all out of ketchup? And you want to go off and curse them out or do all that. That is beyond me. I don't understand it. If you want to experience real joy, pure joy, identify the things and or the people in your life that may be stopping you from moving forward. down the path of joy because they can't experience it too there's no saying misery loves company and people sometimes feel as if if they can't experience joy if they can't experience whatever you're experiencing why do you think so many people lose friendships when they may gain fame or they may get a little bit of money or whatever because people can't you know they want to tear you down who you think you are excuse me and I referenced this before there's a famous comedian talked about the fact that he had like success remorse in his life because he made it out of his neighborhood and he'd go back to his neighborhood and expect his friends to be excited for him and they weren't excited because they were still there and he made it out. They were still doing and not realize, not taking accountability or ownership of the fact that they are still doing things that will only keep them where they are. And in order for them to get to the next level or to get out, they had to change their ways. So check it out Let me give you two more things real quickly then I be out of your hair because I want you to get to work I want you to get to school I want you to get to that to those babies I want you to get wherever you going safely Right And also with a renewed purpose, because I don't want you to hang on to this episode. And just this, if you listen to the last episode, you'll know why. I don't want you to just hang out right here and not put the information into play. when the coach draws up a play he don't want you to sit in the huddle and be like oh tell me to play over and over again no go out and execute go out and put the play on the court right so you think about the fact that you want to you desire to you need to experience joy not only should you check the people and the things that may be draining you and pulling you away from pure joy but check yourself yeah do some internal work you might need a therapist i don't know what you might need at this point i am not here diagnosing people but check yourself because sometimes we do something called self-sabotaging we rob ourselves of joy we rob ourselves of hope and we rob ourselves of what we need in order to experience a life that's overflowing with joy. So if you're part of the Grow Squad, and I know you're on the line right now, I know you're listening right now, I know you're tuned in right now. If you are an official member of the Grow Squad, you have no excuse every single day but to go boldly, but to grow broadly, but to glow brightly. if you're part of the growth squad, if it's ingrained in you, if it's a part of who you are, I want you to know without a doubt that as you do the internal work that you need to do, as you check the people that are around you, as you check your crew, so they say, as you check those who influence you, as you check, check me out, as you even check those things that you allow into your mind and into your heart, you'll discover sometimes that we're doing it to ourselves. And the only way to turn around is have a real conversation with yourself and do something that, hey, we often have difficulty doing and that is setting boundaries. Yeah. That's it. That's one point. That's it. If you want to experience more joy, more life, and more of what life has to offer in a positive way, you have to learn how to set boundaries. Don't let people trample on your joy. Don't let people come into your space and your place snatching your joy away from you. Watch family members who try to drain you of your hope. Watch people that are in your inner circle who always got something negative to put. No, watch, watch, watch, watch and pray. Set boundaries and keep living a life filled with joy. All right, I hope you were blessed and hope you were enlightened by this episode today. Hope that you will share this out as well. And I hope that you would check the show notes. There's some additional goodies. In fact, we're doing a giveaway right now with my new children's book called Go Grow Glow. Find out more information about that at EugeneHamilton.org. And I'll see you again next week. In the meantime, keep going, keep growing, and keep glowing. That's my time. Peace.
