Dr. Joel Tudman on Identity, Purpose & Struggles of High Performers | NXT Chapter with T.D. Jakes

He starts screaming and all. And they said, let's just tell him it's okay. He said, no, no, no. Here's what he says. I'm going to hell. Hello everybody, I'm TD Jason. I want to welcome you to the next chapter. Excited to have you here. We've got a very exciting guest. He has dedicated his life to developing leaders, unlocking potential and building bridges between where people are and where they are called to be. He's a husband, father, brother, and a true force in both the faith and personal development spaces. If you're searching for clarity in the chaos, this conversation is for you. Next chapter podcast starts right now with Dr. Joel Dudman. Glad to have you here today. Thank you for having me. He's a father, he's a brother, he's a son. He's played many roles in life, from a strength training coach to movie actor, to author, to doing all sorts of things that are amazing. He's got an amazing life, amazing story, and you're going to be inspired. Chapter number one, fight to find your strength. You've also got a new book. Tell us about that. I got a new book called The Fight to Find Yourself. And I think this book is going to help a whole lot of people that are dealing with being a high performer, but not necessarily taking the time to dive deep into self and to discover who you are. And I think what's interesting about this book, and it was birthed from your platform, you did a teaching one night on a plate on stage with myself, Vinchard Dobbins, and Mike. And we began to talk, and I made a statement in front of thousands of people online that kind of shook the male population. You said, I don't even know who I am. I said, I don't know who I am. And I cried. And so many men started emailing in saying, I can't believe you said that. I can't believe you would make a statement like that. In front of thousands of people, online across the world. But it came out without me even thinking about it. I had gotten to the point to where the performance didn't matter anymore. And you had coached me to a point as far as the profession and the skill that the skill could only take you so far until you dove deep inside of demand and started learning how to perform. And started learning how to pull out all of those issues and become vulnerable. And you told me that it would be so, it would be scary. But I had gotten to the place where the skill no longer mattered, and I really wanted to discover who Joel is and through all those years of coaching, teaching, therapy. I wrote about it. Well, let's talk about this, because I think it's a wonderful celebration that you now know who you are. A lot of people still have not found themselves, but maybe as they read the book, they'll begin to find more about themselves. It's a journey, and then you change. You change with age, different seasons to bring out different things out of your life, different people, different regions, different tests and trials. And so it's an ongoing process that you continue to go through. But I want to ask you about, if you remember the first time we met. Yes. And let's talk a little bit about that. I preached for you, and after the service, you had maybe 10 or 12 people in the room. And when I walked in the room, I never touched my food. I sat there and I looked at you and stared at you the whole time. Number one, I couldn't believe that you had invited me. Number two, I couldn't believe I was that close to you. And number three, I didn't think the phone mattered to answer any text messages. I didn't think anybody else in the room mattered, because it was the first time I had gotten close to what I would consider. You're actually seeing your dream face to face. I would love to be like him. I would love to accomplish what he's accomplished. Studying your journey, coming to your conferences, sitting in the back room when you were doing the conference for the men under 40, get in. And I was sitting in the back room, and I barely got in, because we were only letting 400 people in the room. And I barely got in the room and I would be in the back. But here I am sitting in the room with you, face to face, no registration. Your mother was there. Your brother was there, I remember. And I had nothing to say. He was just staring at me, just staring at me the whole time. Just staring at me like I was a pain in the neck. It didn't eat a bite of food. Nothing, and the food smelled so good. You know, but it was obvious that something deep was going on. I couldn't read your mind, obviously, but I could tell that it was a very important moment to you and for you. You preached to you, been a blessing to us, and then come upstairs for the kind of fellowship that we normally have. And that was the first time I met your father, too. I remember. Yeah, that was the first time I met your father, too. And you acknowledged him from the stage. And it was a great, great experience. You have done so many amazing things as you went back home to pastor in Oklahoma City and went back to work, strength training coach for Oklahoma State University. And you went back to your life for a little while. And then we talked about you coming here. And you wanted to come here to sit up under this ministry to see, you said, I want to see another style of ministry. I want to see what it's like. I want to learn, and I want to end up pastoring again, and so forth and so on. And so we knew when you came here, you came here as a student, but we did not know that you were going to go to Jake's Divinity School and earn your doctorate degree. And didn't walk with the other people, but we surprised you. Oh, that was a surprise. I'll never forget. Oh, my God, it shattered me. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I set you up on that one. Yes, you did. Yeah, but I did not think it was right for you to sacrifice such an important moment to be with us and us not reach out and reciprocate by acknowledging that sacrifice and making it a special moment that you could always remember and hold on to in front of thousands and thousands of people. Thousands of people. It was packed. Bishop, what I thought was why it was worth it was because I came to get the mentorship, but most importantly, you told me years prior that the model was important. So I wanted to study every facet of the model. I wanted to see how you move the ministry within the ecosystem, how you would take off the pastor's hat and put on the businessman's hat, whether it was for profit or not for profit, how you would deal with the different polarizations of politics, how you would handle those people yet stand in the middle, stay well respected, so that the voices could be heard so the people could hear from both sides. How you moved in chaos when COVID-19 hit, you were preaching two sermons, recording them, go up, change clothes, come back, preach it again. Nobody in the room but maybe 10 of us, and you're preaching as if the room was jam-packed. Right. Watching it, watching you when the vaccine hit and everybody was challenging it and how you met it, face first and was interviewing the Surgeon General. All of those things mattered to me. I didn't want to just see church on Sunday. I wanted to see how you made moves, how you pulled people in, partnerships broke, people in to make something happen. And the graduation was important, but it's the same thing everywhere you go. It's a cap and a gown and it's a diploma, and I had already earned it, so I wanted to see how you moved thousands of people with important guests that come across the world, how you led those people, how you stay out of the way of your leaders to allow them to lead. All of that, I think, was graduation. It was just as important. And it was a very unique model because whether you know it or not, I own several for-profit companies. I oversee a foundation that does work for the community. I pass to the church. I have a lot of different roles, good soil, where we train entrepreneurs, and he was interested in everything. He wanted to know everything. It was worth the risk because I walked away from my career. I walked away from my ministry. It was nothing at this level, but it was what I had built with my hands, but walking away and walking into something that you could learn so many different things. It was worth it. You have always had a hunger about you and a thirst for knowledge. You cannot feed a closed mouth. The mouth has to be open in order for it to be fed, and not everybody has an open mouth to receive. People who go to conferences often just come away with something that they can preach or that they can use when they get back home, but they really don't have the thirst to receive. They don't have the thirst to receive. They don't have the thirst to receive. The thirst to see how it was done, how it was built, how it was managed, how it was organized, how it was marketed, how it was handled in crisis and situations like you. You just want to see everything and take a panoramic view, not just of preaching, but leadership. Leadership and preaching and pastoring are all different things, and leadership is transferable truths that you can use, whether you're in the pulpit or whether you're a CEO. Leadership is leadership. There's a certain dignity, a certain excellence, a certain ecosystem that has to be developed in order for you to be functional, organizational chart, understanding that organizational chart, being able to flow from talking to a deacon and a trustee to a CEO, a COO, and a CFO. So you got to see a little taste of some of everything. Chapter number two, father figures. Let's go back. I'm going to talk about the father figures. Let's go back for a moment, though, and talk about a little joke, one I didn't get to meet. You grew up in a home in a situation where your parents went through a divorce. What was that like for you? It was traumatic for me because I was a really a daddy's boy in the beginning. I wanted to be around him. I would go with him when he preached, if not him, his father, Superintendent Harold Tubman. So he would pick myself up and my cousin, Jared, he was an old temporary Bible preacher. And he would carry, just like how you have this little box, he would be driving because his eight track didn't always work. So he would hold his tape recorder like this and drive the truck. And it would just be full of preachers. Whether it was Baptist preachers, Pentecostal preachers, it didn't matter. So he always would pick us up to be the musicians and we could play. He was terrible, but he let us play. He'd be proud. We backed him up when he preached. And so the hunger to be around wisdom, men of God, it was always there. And dad, if it wasn't with him, it would be with my grandfather. So when they actually split and he goes to Texarkana, my granddad is still in, and I'm unpleasant. So we still had an opportunity to be around him. So it was always wanting to be around my father. But when he left him at the Texarkana, then there was some distance and it was hard to get to see him. So we would go, I think, the first and the fifth Sunday or the first and the fourth Sunday at his church, and my mom played for a Baptist church. And we would be with her for the second and third or whatever those opposite Sundays were. After a while, it wasn't at first. At first it was okay. But when he couldn't make things, that's when it started getting bad. And I didn't understand as a child. When you say couldn't make things, you mean couldn't come to events? You know, playing in the band, track and field, I didn't understand as a kid his responsibilities to his marriage and the children in that marriage and the church in that city. I just knew he wasn't there for us. And that caused a lot of anger, a lot of resentment, serious anger issues too, so much so that I had to get on the pressing pills or something that had to calm my rage down so I wouldn't be so angry. I punch holes in the sheet rock. I got a lot of trouble because I couldn't control my temper. But I was really just acting out because I didn't like the situation at all. The reason I think this is important is because a lot of mothers who go through a divorce and are angry at their husbands that they don't let their husband be in the life of their child. And they don't always understand that it's often to the detriment of the child. If the husband is not deviant or anything like that, that a boy gets something and a girl gets something from the access to their father that's different from their mother. I'm not saying that mothers can't raise successful children because they do it all the time. The more desirable thing is to have both parents in your life that kind of balance each other out. It took a long time for you to get over that anger. I think when you came here you still had a good bit of that anger. Forever. I built a wall that allowed me to be safe with my anger. I had already lost enough with being explosive. I had already penalized myself with school. I signed a scholarship with the Razorbacks and I lost that scholarship because of anger. I lost a lot of people's respect because of anger. Even in my own family, I lost a lot of respect. It set me down a rabbit hole that disqualified me from a lot of opportunity because of anger. As I re-paired myself therapy at that time with anger management and still trying to complete college differently than the way it started, I recognized that that's not going to help me. I built this wall. Now, the wall crippled me because the wall kept me from being in touch with myself. Being in touch with my true emotions. The wall protected me from the expectations of my father because that's why I built it. He's not going to come. He's not going to show up, so I'm going to build a wall. I'm not going to worry about disappointment. But inside the wall in private, I'm going crazy. I was safe in there. But the only thing is I never developed emotionally because everything stayed trapped in that wall. We're going to talk about the emojis in a minute. We'll get to that in a minute. It's funny, the resentment also read as rejection. Yes, sir. The way you interpreted your family's off-putting and your family's off-putting attitude as a result of your anger and hostility, you became the victim all the while you were also the perpetrator. Absolutely. I think that's a very interesting thing to see because in your mind they rejected you but in their mind you acted out in such a way that they had no choice but to put them aside. At what point did you begin to get a breakthrough in your understanding about family life and to see things through a different lens? Well, this is going to sound very bad. I lived almost 15 seasons coaching that's 15 years not doing family things. Now in sports and football you played during the holidays. And so if you're playing during the holidays that's a great thing because it's been a successful season football season. The football season became an excuse for me not to deal with my family. So I had built a world where I did not have to be there and if we won at least eight games then I knew I wouldn't have to go to Christmas I wasn't going to have to go be around my family for Thanksgiving so I'll be praying that we win. Number one the money was good. Number two I wouldn't have to deal with it. So for 15 years for sure it wasn't that I didn't care I didn't have to. So after 15 years it's avoidance. I started realizing I'm getting older and I'm going to die alone if I don't fix the stuff that's been broken all this time. Do you know what we would call one we would call it avoidance and the other one we would call emotional intelligence because a lot of times with men they have emotions but they don't have words to put with those emotions. So the most acceptable way to express those emotions is rage. Because that is the one emotion that men are allowed to feel and still feel masculine. They're kind of concerned about crying or opening up or even finding the words to say I feel rejected. I feel ostracized. It's very difficult to find words for that. In fact when I first met you you didn't use many words with me. No. He would send me these emojis. I'd send him a heart at the end of a statement and he would send me one of those emojis in a strong arm fist. Strong arm fist. So it took quite a while to get him to admit that Two years. Two years. Yet and he would shake my hand and give me the brother thing and eventually he hugged me because in some ways I became a surrogate father. You became father for real and it's uh I was afraid to show that side of me. I think masculinity has so many different definitions. I think it's multi-layered. And how I was socialized into what I believe masculinity was was through the neighborhood because my father wasn't there. So whatever that social status looked like in my neighborhood that's what a man was. Street life. So I didn't have room for what at that time I would have called soft. Even though I would have been considered soft to the hardest person on the street but in my ecosystem, in my world I just didn't have the language for hey I love you or want to give you a hug or cry in front of you. Didn't have the language for that and to me that was just pure weakness. So then when I stepped into this world where you look at me in my face and you're talking to me like a father and you said things to me that my natural father never said so it checked me but I respect you so much I wouldn't talk back to you. I wouldn't go talk back to you but I didn't understand them the first time you asked me how much money I made. I thought that was so rude. You asked me how much money I made. And he was like I don't want it from you how much money do you make? But that's toxic. I hadn't become. Now some say there's a such thing as toxic masculinity some say it's not that's an argument and then some say there's toxic attributes I agree with that. My attributes towards my masculinity I know were 100% toxic because of how I was socialized and it wasn't until I got to you until I had to see the other layers of masculinity the other expressions and to understand it's okay. Which affects every area of your life it affects your marriage it affects your ministry it affects how you relate to your children it affects absolutely everything and honestly and frankly you were kind of failing at all of them. Every last, every last. So we had the family glued together with paper clips and scotch tape and masking tape and something everything. That's what I think was so beautiful about you you didn't run from it because I was so broken I was so fractured that I thought the skill was the one thing that could keep everything together but you show me that that's not true and that the better the other pieces got the better the skill would get and I didn't understand it I was so focused on the skills that all the other pieces were just fractured just breaking crumbling apart but when you start helping me fix the other layers then I started understanding that man the way I've been thinking is completely toxic and that's when the healing began. And it is also difficult for people who are very very talented not the camouflage behind the talent because we just love the talent. We love the talent but we don't necessarily pay attention to the person who is talented and so it's an easy camouflage for you to have behind the hand you remember when I called you out from behind the door? Yeah, when you tell the story it's way different than what I tell you. So you tell the story? He tells the story like he said hey come off of behind that door there was about a hundred men in the room and he said come off of behind that door and the whole room went silent and looked back and there I was standing behind the door so I was at the door and I was going to do one or two things and typically what I would have done is walked away just said man forget this I ain't gonna talk to me like that but I didn't. My respect for you was so high I walked in the room and tried to fit in. You know why I call you from behind the door because you look like a little boy hiding behind the door unaccepted afraid and peeking around the corner and I might have spoke a little more stronger than I normally do but I wanted to shock you into coming out from behind that door because as long as you hide behind the door or behind the football or behind the check or behind the house or behind the talent of preaching or whatever it is you do your PhD or whatever it is that you do as long as you hide behind that you can't get any better I wanted you to know that you can come out from behind the door you can join us at the table it was an invitation although it was a stirring invitation and I think that it sounded so hard to you because you were not used to the voice of a father No it was not A father's voice sounds different than a mother's voice to a young man and it is very important that there be a certain level of discipline because discipline is how we smell love Wow if we don't have any discipline we interpret it as you don't care Yes sir so we'll do anything we want to do I think what's important now that I look back over it and I'm not just saying this today this is a part of when I was writing the book I was behind the door Bishop I didn't know who I was everybody in that room that I knew they knew who they were I didn't know who they were I didn't know who they were I didn't know who they were it was hard for me to think that I could fit in I didn't have the capacity at that time to think that I could fit in so that's one of the things that happens to you when you don't know who you are and you're only known for what you can do you forfeit your identity I called it in the book identity foreclosure and you're so used to packing on these presentations and when you're in those rooms and when you run out of time when you run out of layers when you run out of masks you're stuck with what's left and if you don't know what's left you're in a compromising place I sat in the car with you one day and I spoke to the little boy inside of you and I said I'm not going to leave you I remember and you melted yes sir I felt like everybody had left you and I said I am not going to leave you and I haven't had no, not I have been able to tell you everything about my life and you've been sitting right here all this time I'm going to tell you one thing you didn't tell me you didn't tell me that you went out that you almost ended up in the NFL I read that in the notes I said I didn't know that well it wasn't that almost ended up I had different workouts and if they liked it I keep you fortunately they didn't like me but I did get the opportunity to work out with a few teams that had a lot of interest in me at that time and it didn't work but you ended up being a strength trainer you were still in that venue in that area still participating in that way but I'm wondering if these rejections are adding up 100% we're a multi-layered we're not dealing with a peanut butter sandwich this is a big mic not going to the NFL for men that go to college have a successful college career if they don't have a built-in transition for what's next it's one of the most horrific moments in their life even the guys that have gone to the NFL and have had a 10-year, 12-year successful career when they step out they haven't created a business it's hard what's next is one of the hardest oh that's a big subject it's one of the hardest things to face we got to talk about that for a minute because the whole podcast is called Next Chapter and I have pastored a lot of men who played football and when the game is over they don't know what life is after the goalposts and they often get lost and they often get in trouble and they can't find themselves and businesses and the businesses shut down they don't know how to handle money and part of my responsibility as a father was to bring some discipline into how you handle money so that you would have something when you got older and I was holding you accountable to do something with what you had and nobody had ever done that before never I think it's important Bishop what you have done, I've talked to several players that you've mentored some that are with me now and our stories are so similar even though we may be on different paths how you were direct, how you chewed us out how you pulled us back pushed us forward so that we could be solid in whatever next was so thank you for that I got a question for you why do you care? I don't think that you can help anybody unless you see a little bit of yourself in them wow I don't think that you can really be a therapist a pastor a leader or disciple or even a father until you see somewhat of yourself in them in the Bible we call it kinsman redeemer, you have to be kin you have to be kin to me I have to recognize the little boy in you having had the little boy in me and having dealt with the little boy in me still dealing with him from time to time I was able to recognize behind that hard exterior and you had many layers of heartaches here you were hard to get through you were one of the hardest ones to get through you get the trophy you get the trophy but up underneath there the man was raging because the boy was weeping wow, yes sir and the man was having children and playing the role of a father but a role he didn't have and that resentment was toxic and it brought a lot of pain chapter number three family and tragedy let's talk about your children and what you went through and what you're going through now and trying to be a father to them my kids are amazing when you're young and you're not disciplined and you have children in different places in the beginning starts off embarrassing as you get older and you start to try to fix pieces of what was broken because you're never going to be able to quote unquote fix it to be perfect what I had to realize is that I was not going to be able to be in every house every morning every night at every game on the same Saturday because there's only one Saturday and they all played on it they all played on the same Friday and they all had the same cry so you had different children by different women in different areas and now your task was trying to be how do I get there? and you can't and it would drive me insane him, I disappointed her if I pleased her I disappointed her disappointed him so there's a cycle of insufficiency and so as they got older and started to understand and recognize and we started repairing those relationships and those relationships have had their elves and foes but what I think is beautiful now that now most of them are all of age we have an amazing time talking about our healing process and what we've gone through and even the things that I've gone through as of the last 4 or 5 years losing my oldest son losing my father we all get on zooms and we all talk about it and they all texted me and tell me they love me and they all say dad we're here for you dad we love you even if they feel like they haven't heard from me they'll say hey dad you good hey call me but they know something's going on but it all started with me just being open and honest with them and I'll say this to any man in that situation because again when I was younger I was embarrassed but when I got older I found out it was actually normal or other men that are in similar situations you gotta figure out what works for you you know if it's calling the mother to talk to the son if it's calling the mother to talk to the daughter so that the son picks up the phone or if it's paying for the phone so the son picks up the phone whatever that is whatever works for you keep your foot on the gas and keep trying even if you feel guilty like you haven't keep doing it keep doing it because what's next is going to be beautiful when it actually catches when it actually settles something's going to birth that's going to be beautiful that would never happen if you don't try I was with you during the time you lost your son yes sir and that was a very difficult time yes sir tell me what went through your mind during that time so many different things my son came to live with us when he was in his 10th grade he was an amazing athlete and he graduated he was a yes sir no sir kind of kid he had some issues like any other child but he had gotten into some things that weren't like him and they were scary and when he passed I felt guilty of the years that he wasn't that he wasn't out with me you know I was like I should have been there I was playing college football his mom was a great mother she raised and the stuff that he was going through I couldn't do anything about it I felt I felt insufficient I called you I didn't know what to do and so when he passed I had an avalanche of emotions that I never felt before for instance guilt tons of guilt tons of guilt without just going into the details we had talked maybe three days before he passed and he had asked me something and I disagreed with him about it I said no you can't do that I wish I could have that conversation back I wish I could have it back so bad I can't have it I asked you about it this is what you should have said I I can't fix that I can't fix it what does a man do with things he cannot fix and cannot change I think that there are all of us have things where we have said or done something that we wish we had a chance to do it over and we can't do it over and that guilt is like cancer how do you cut out the cancer and leave the kidney because that guilt was overwhelming guilt was overwhelming I think number one you got to talk about it you got to get it out you can't leave it inside because that's going to cause that's going to make the cancer spread constant contemplation of it constant rehearsing of it makes it spread and creates worry and it rips you of your ability to even progressively move towards anything else that you're doing so fortunately I did have you to just tell the truth to the whole story that helped me moving from that of course prayer I think that's the normal answer so yes you got to pray but you got to have someone you can talk to I was able to talk to you number three I had to talk to my children because my children played a critical role in what happened they didn't tell me they knew and I had an extreme amount of resentment towards the children that knew and they're my kids they didn't tell me so when was the first time that you saw him dear well I had to go there as soon as they told me and they let me see him immediately and what was that feeling like what was that feeling like I don't have words to describe that I don't know what that would be like I can't he was not there his he didn't even look like him I mean life was gone I saw my kids reaction to him before I saw him because they ran into the funeral home soon as we part and when I walked in they were around his body and they were losing it so my immediate reaction was to comfort them and after I got them settled down then I went to him there is an association between our eyes and our memories what helps us to remember a particular situation is how we saw it and those memories continue to live with us and those images stay with us in our head and learning how to manage those images because they come without invitation they come at odd times they come while a song is being sung they come in the middle of a movie and all of a sudden you are right back there and you are again in that situation do they still come now and all the time I keep pictures of him he smile all the time so I have all of his pictures in my phone I have hundreds of pictures in my phone from his instagram page pictures that we took I have his pictures of him when he passed I rarely look at those I always think of him as he was now when he comes to mine to kind of go back to what you asked me earlier before I saw him in the gurney I saw in my mind what his grandfather told me how he found so whenever that is the most horrible one so that is the immediate thought when he told me how they found him that is what I always see I don't like that yeah there are a lot of people that are listening at us right now who have images that will not go away that cannot be erased that they have to deal with and live with all the time in dreams and thoughts I have them I was holding my mother when she died she died in my arms I can still feel her head on my chest and she died in 99 and I can still feel her head right on my chest to this day right now sitting here so life hands us some terrible situations and we have to learn how to manage and cope with those situations as best we can when you came to me and we started talking through this that guilt to me was also connected to you and your father and I could see a stair step between what was going on between you and your father and what was going on between you and him and it was all interconnected I know that was a painful spot I won't say I know how you feel because I've never lost a child I can't even fathom what that would be like but I know that there are people listening at us who are weeping right now because they have images of their child in their head and they know what you are feeling right at this moment it's not natural to bury your child it's natural for the child to bury the parent and yet unnatural things happen to us in life and we have to get around them and you get around them and applaud the fact that you get around it as well as you do but also understand the fact that people who see you on stage or in a film or in a movie or in a book or preaching a message don't know all the things you had to climb over climbing yeah, to be up on that stage and do what you do I believe that God turns pain into power I believe that some of the things that make us great are some of the most horrific things that we have ever gone through and that's why we ought not to envy other people because you don't know the price they paid to be who they are it is odd to me that often we see comedians who make everybody laugh and then they go commit suicide you see people on TV who seem successful living a golden life but they are also living with that pain I see that pain in your face right now the fact that you have that pain and not that rage that once would have masked it is to me a sign of healing when you look that pain in the face and call it what it is and allow yourself the humanity of missing your son is a very important thing chapter number four losing a father you shocked me I'm going to get off that you shocked me you really really shocked me when your father got sick all of this happened back to back it was one thing right after another struggling trying to put things together trying to hold things together thinking about staying, thinking about leaving going through all kinds of changes miserable, grief-stricken, guilty angry gifted, anointed singing, praising, worshiping and none of that fix that pain and I think sometimes people in the church oversimplify the cure to that kind of pain just praise the Lord praise your way out of it it's not like that it's not like that and there is a difference between what you do in your spirit and what you feel in your mind there are two different things my spirit is regenerated my mind is being transformed and that formation of that mind that potter fooling with that clay the indentations are often made through painful places it's not the highlights and the trophies that makes the dent in the clay it's the weeping and the wailing in the middle of the night that causes the indentations to make the clay begin to become a vessel that is fit for the master's use so when you looked at that and then all of a sudden your father got sick you had a decision to make we had had lots of conversations about him I didn't know him personally but being a father and being his age I could understand or help you to understand what it was like for him at that age not justifying or condoning what he did I think healing begins with understanding when you can understand when you can empathize and not just criticize you can criticize the person's actions and still empathize with the pain that led them to the action you told me you told me you told me you said your father was your age when he had you you said what you going through right now you said what you going through right now and when I when I realized all the stuff I was going through that I hadn't even said to anybody it gave me you know grace and I wanted to go sit with him and you let me yeah and when I went to sit with him I told you to stay as long as you needed to stay and not worry about it I knew that he was dying but you were healing and you went down there to stay with him till he died and called me almost every night telling me the ups and downs and the disasters here and until you have sat with somebody who was dying and sat with somebody that you loved but you never got to love and you're only getting to love them at the end at the end yeah it's a very painful thing it unlocked so many things that I didn't know and things I didn't know about myself I found out through him I was like looking in the mirror I was looking at my old self and he was looking at his younger self and I held his hand I fed him soup fed him fish washed his face cut his hair, shaved him lab listened to him try to sing his voice was deteriorating and I just like all of the stuff that I thought mattered it didn't matter anymore anger didn't matter anymore who's right, who's wrong doesn't matter anymore I wanted to spend those moments with him I held his hand he told me he was proud of me he loved me and my dad before that he had fell out of the bed and busted his head that's what I needed to do surgery to close the wound and my father was dealing with this I'm just gonna say these inner demons and goes back to what you were saying you don't know what he was going through you have no idea so my father who's in the church he got in crazy, he's a killer preacher when the nurses grab my father like two or three in the morning he starts getting prepared for surgery he starts screaming and all and they said, tell me it's okay he said, no, no no here's what he says I'm going to hell no I jumped up, I said daddy you're not gonna help me, yes I am I'm gonna have big old tears coming down his eyes I didn't do you right I didn't do your mama right I didn't do your brothers right I'm going to hell I did a lot of people wrong son he's screaming they're taking him down the hallway taking him into the elevator and he's saying no in his mind, he's on his way to hell you can see it screaming so extra nurses are like, well you give me a second with my father and they said sure, that's a daddy he said what I said, do you believe Jesus Christ God really said he looked at me and he said yeah do you believe that the same power that brought him back from the grave of the same power the savior he said, yeah I said daddy you saved me, not more than him you're fine I could not believe that that moment, come my father down who was a hardcore Pentecostal church of God in Christ, talking that moment changed me all of the religious dogma all of the talk, I didn't care about it no more because I watched a grown man who I watched, it was a marine break and snap because he thought he hadn't done enough to get to heaven so it changed everything this was a moment, not preacher to preacher son with his father right right so everything changed I don't see anything the same you who was carrying guilt about your own son got to see the guilt your father was carrying tormented yeah and you would call me every night and tell me what happened and I was trying to walk you through beginning to understand that if you don't deal with your own grief and your own guilt this is where you're going to end up you got a preview of a coming attraction and you said something a minute ago that I got to go back to because it is so strong, it is so powerful you said it didn't matter anymore who was right and who was wrong because he was dying there are people listening at me right now who haven't spoken to their son for years, haven't spoken to their wife haven't spoken to their mother because they feel like they're right and the other person is wrong they don't understand that some things are not about right or wrong it's about being old wow see, see, you see what I'm saying right there see, see, we're so in love with right that we can't get well wow and I wanted to go back and I wanted to snatch it and I want to dwell on that because we will split, we will move we will journey somewhere else all because we feel like we are right and we might be right, we may not be right it may be just our perspective of what right is and you're never going to get whole when you're in love with your perspective your perspective is there's only one perspective of a much bigger story that is multi-generational your father didn't get that way by himself no, he didn't things happened to him that brought him to the point that he became who he was and for the first time you got to see that you were on the same road same road and you were trying to heal him and at the same time it was healing you which brings us back to what I said before that you'll never be a great minister until you see yourself and the person you're ministering to yes sir that's where it begins that's where the drive begins that's where the thirst and the thrust of caring or mentoring forget preaching, just mentoring somebody you can't mentor somebody unless you see a little bit of yourself in them and I think this critical right and wrong thing that we have going you weren't there for me you didn't come to the ballet, you didn't come to the play you never supported me you like my sister better than me in the grips the cold grip of death as it begins to seize the neck of the person you love all of the things you said to yourself sing foolish it was foolish I got to enjoy two weeks of what if I had just let go of my pride I could have enjoyed for a lifetime wow two weeks I got to be a son two weeks I got to be the son I always wanted to be but that's my fault because I could have shut it down and just went on but I didn't I thought it was the most courageous thing I'd ever seen you do in my life and I've seen you do some courageous stuff but knowing how you felt and going down there and cleaning him up like you were a nurse and feeding him and loving him was the most courageous thing I have ever seen you do and I related to it and I was the most courageous thing I've ever seen you do and I've seen you do some courageous stuff I've ever seen you do and I related to it because I took care of my father who had kidney failure and climbed up in the bed and shaved him and fed him and we had a kidney machine in our house you see the connection yeah they're kids we're kids and some things you can't preach out of a person some things you can't lay hands on a person sometimes you can't put them out the house and you have to go through life and struggles and pain and tears and struggles and becomes something something better a better part of yourself is born you know what's so amazing number one I get to come here and see you yeah number two he's buried behind the church and I get to go stand on the stone I get to go talk to the stone I know his spirit is not there I get to go see him get to go stand on the stone talk to him I can't wait I can't wait I've seen him more in death multiple times that way because I lived here and I would always go after church and go stand on the stone at the service you told me that that surprised me every Sunday after service he would go down to where his father was buried the veteran's cemetery is right next door his father's veteran would stand on the stone and talk to his father while the blood yet runs warm in the veins of the people you love be courageous while they can hear you while you can speak don't be forced into forcing a lifetime into two weeks this is an opportunity forget who's right or wrong who heard, who betrayed who belittled and fix it while they can hear you you got to do some of that you face that that's more courageous than facing a guy with a gun you were facing yourself when you faced him yes sir that is courage I tell you what's beautiful that I had you so those of you that are listening to Bishop as he's coaching you it's going to be important that you get the language so that when you get there you have something to say you taught me what to say thank you so much for that it was meant to be yes sir I didn't know it was going to be what it is I didn't know it was going to be what it is I thought we were going to be talking about making millions yes sir this clears the way to anything else that will happen in your life this clears the way because if you make millions and you become successful and you're on the New York Times Best Sellers List and you're on the screen with Denzel Washington and all of that kind of stuff and you're still sick inside nothing you can buy with your wallet will stop you from wanting to take your own life that's the truth sir money is nothing compared to peace nothing compared to peace yes sir oh peace it's priceless yes sir you can't get it with an American Express black card you cannot pay for peace and if you have peace whether you got a car or not, whether you got a house or not, whether you got friends or family if you have peace you are rich I heard one buffett say something that stuck with me, he said if you get ready to die and you don't look around your bed and see somebody who loves you no matter how much your net worth is you are a poor man yes sir I paraphrased it but I came pretty close yeah you are a poor man your father died rich because you were there right there yes sir and even though it brings tears you should be proud of yourself yes sir you should be proud of yourself because you did not let him leave this world screaming with guilt and you earned the right to be forgiven yes sir because you forgave yes sir blessed are the merciful for they should obtain mercy and that's it there's no classes in school about mercy people hardly ever talk about it or read about it or write about it or preach about it people very seldom deal with mercy because mercy puts you in a vulnerable place where you don't get to get even shhh you don't get to settle the score mercy requires that you be big enough to love somebody over unsettled junk yes sir but it also gives you the gift that if you could forgive somebody then you can conceive that it is possible that you can be forgiven yes sir that's what it's all about chapter number 5 gaining a father so we're sitting here having this conversation and you got to spend and are going to spend some time with your father and went to his grave and talked to me on the phone all while he was sick and got to take care of him and then got a bonus father yeah I don't call you a bonus father, you just father but I have you and this has been different because now I have of course you your businessmen, your husband your pastor you are excellent in every field that I'm chasing and you have set the pattern I was talking to your team prior to coming in because I know how you think and so I say what is Bishop going to talk about and they says I said well I've been listening to the news because I know him he only listens to the news so we may talk about the war we may talk about what's going on but the government being shut down he's going to ask me what book am I reading what I'm consuming I said I wanted to make sure I got a good quote from that I said all of my ways my modus operandi of thinking, my cognitive approach to everything carbon copy of the pattern that he's laid out not just for me but for my brothers the sons of the church you've showed us how to approach business how to approach fathering how to approach the moment how to approach the preaching moment how to walk in a room and be friends how to walk in a room and be quiet what to wear in the room everything that I have learned I learned from you so you're not a bonus you a father period I think about the time when I tell you what you wear that for oh god I went to a business meeting with you it was downtown Dallas and I had a black suit on and you looked at me he said you don't wear a black suit to a business meeting this is not church I said what am I supposed to wear and you said put on a grey suit white shirt and a power tie or blue pinstripes white shirt, blue tie or red tie that's exactly what I thought brown shoes means business or no ties put it up and have the top puttin open I learned so much from you the simple little things simple little things that have changed my life completely my grandson and he was serious baby he's not grown yes sir and I said can you tie a tie and he said no I don't know how to tie a tie I said you're going to learn today little things that people wouldn't think to teach a boy become a reminder of him not having a father in his life yes sir whether it's riding a bicycle or going fishing or tying a tie or tying a bow tie there are these little telltale signs that you didn't get that and it becomes shame so I stood there in the mirror with him and tied the tie until he got worried and every time he puts on a tie he sends me a picture yeah you have to you have to care you have to care chapter number six blended family let's talk about this for a moment you got a blended family it's not Ozzie and Harriet and three kids and one and a half cars in the garage it's a blended family for all of us very few people have traditional families anymore okay they're on their second marriage and third marriage or they might not be married at all how do you take somebody who was raised by somebody else and put them in the room with somebody who was raised by you and put them in the room with somebody who was fathered by somebody else and blend them all together and make a family you don't make a family in the beginning okay you become roommates okay and you have to have a conversation and it takes two people in the room whether they're parents, guardians, cousins whatever they are that set the standard for what is going to be it's not going to happen overnight but it has to be said Tasha told her children at that time they were not my children she said this is what you're going to call them you don't have to call them dad what you're going to call them is what's going to be the one that does this and this and this she forced them to come to me really and so my kids they didn't already live with me they were already grown so they had it a little bit easier but they would come into town and so when they came with me I just simply told my don't disrespect her you don't have to call them on but don't disrespect her you want to call them Miss Tubman she's fine with that but do not call them by a first name well you know what the boys said hey mom, what's up straight up so there was no issues with the boys, the girls was the problem and the girls were more protective over her trying to make sure I wasn't trying to come in because Tasha had had some previous relationships that went up to marriage and then it didn't happen so they were more like watchdogs, lioness versus being these little girls that was looking to be happy to have this new father that came in their lives her son he was very very young he was like a baby so he was a mother's boy so she wouldn't really our biggest fights came from her from her protecting him from allowing me to father him because she was so protective so anything that I said that sounded like it was too much she would back off so you can see the tension spots him back away, the girls get after him but the girls at the same time I protected my mama my boys they was cool, like what's going on now we had a girl together okay there was the only child we had together she was the easiest because we both were her biological parents she brought everybody together because they all became her big, they were her baby sister so the baby girl became the drawing card our relationship how we treated each other it was very important that I showed the girls that I wasn't trying to do anything to their mother the boys again were very very easy but in the beginning they were all roommates and in the end, what I say in the in the progress of time as we began to go through fights and fits and buses, we became one thank you for your honesty because there are a lot of people who are going into the next chapter and they expect for it to be smooth sailing, whether it's a new job or a new spouse or somebody is getting ready, Mary and you've got this idealistic, romantic picture-esque situation and then you walk into this inferno you know and you think why did I do this? but I hear you saying that just because it's complicated doesn't mean it can't work I think the complication is what makes it beautiful, the complication is where the relationship is born in the beginning it's just a story we came together, we got married and we both have children and we came together, that's a story it's the fire that the kids started realizing he's not going to leave mama he's not going to walk away, mama not going to leave him he actually hear for me, when her daughters they're my daughters, now they have my last name they went to track practice I was sitting up in them stands yeah I was sitting up in them stands I will not leave you I was right there now here's the side piece Bishop I had two kids that lived here so my personal fire was I'm not in the stands every weekend for him but I'm in the stands up here so I have my own fire while I'm trying to put out this fire so it's never going to be just everybody it's the complexity that's what builds the relationship and then when they get older they start understanding it takes time it takes time it takes time even if it's not a blended family the truth of the matter is becoming a unit that makes up unconditional love that we're going to stick together come hell or have water it's not easy for anybody that's why marriages are failing families are failing because we advertised on movies something that people bought and then they took it home and found out it didn't work like it did on TV right it didn't work like it did on TV in fact you mentioned Tasha when you got ready to come down here she didn't want to come she wanted to come it's what happened when we got here my life exploded and I didn't recognize you told me something and I didn't recognize it I ripped her away from her world even though she said yes I'm going the truth of the matter is her comfortability was there her friends were there her ecosystem was there we were the senior pastors there here we had stepped into a 500 member staff with 20 pastors with a senior pastor that was big as the world so it's a completely different org chart a completely different level of ministry a completely different level of how things work and she got lost in this I didn't because I knew what I was coming into but I didn't think about that when I made the move right it's funny because sometimes in marriage you have to endure another person's decision for them to get healed enough to be the person that you really wanted them to be all the time and you had unfinished business and the reason you were staring at me at the dinner table is that some kind of way you knew that I could finish that business absolutely if you're getting ready to go to your next chapter it may not be easy it may be better it may be bigger it may be more money it may be entrepreneurship it may be a move across the country it may be moving into another country but it may not be the way you dreamed it but just because it's tough doesn't mean it doesn't work it'll work if you work it and if you learn how to work that thing it will pay you back in spades because now you moved into another dimension through our relationship you ended up doing movies you you're doing books you got three businesses three businesses and we're doing seven figures you know it's it's crazy to know you have a multi-million dollar business but I learned it being a student right here that's wonderful that's wonderful chapter number seven jail so you had this incident that landed you in jail altercation with a teacher tell us about that I was in class I had a reputation for cursing and I was cursing in the classroom on a regular basis this particular day I didn't curse and the teacher hears this curse word and she says, Joe get out of my class I said wow what did I do? she said I told you stop cursing in my classroom I said I didn't curse she said who is it? and I said it was this so and so she said oh my god I don't want to stay get out so I get out I go to the office when I get to the office we had principals by the year 9, 10, 11, 12 my principal wasn't there so the ninth grade principal was there who happened to be my aunt and she says Joe just go home get out of here your principal's not here go home I said please talk to him for me because the Texas relay was that weekend and I was going to run 100 meters and 200 meters and in our school if you got in trouble you could do anything for sports that weekend so I said I didn't curse it was this other guy she said go home so I'm walking down the hallway on my way out to go home a teacher comes out who happens to be the teacher next door to my room he looks at me and says I'm so glad I'm so glad that we get like you out of our school wrong and I looked at him and I said what did you say who you talking to he walks up to me puts his finger in my neck and he says I said I'm so glad that we get like you out of our school and at that moment all that rage that we was talking about yeah it's not I reached him up against the locker I thrust kicked him which is a kick like this, kicked him in the chest he kind of falls down kicked him into the locker so he kind of goes down the locker and then I stomped him probably like four times boom boom boom boom he had a heart attack now he didn't die but he had a thank god he did die I stomped him by the time people heard it the bell was ringing and somebody was in the hallway teacher saw it and we had cops on campus so the cops were running my aunts running they grabbed me boom take me into the little room and take me to jail and you know what I mean you can't beat up a cop that's against the law I mean not a cop a teacher he didn't press charges he admitted that he had done wrong but I took it to a whole other level so they took me to jail I didn't do time as if like a year or nothing like that my aunt was close friends with the correctional officer and they left me in there they left me so they could get an understanding of the world he does not want to end up in and I was in that correctional facility they closed them doors BAM and later on them lights turned out yeah I said I don't want this life and the food they brought us the next day was some vegetable soup that had no taste black coffee and a big old piece of cornbread and it was hard as a rock and she left me there eventually I ended up getting out the next day but that changed my life and I was positive changed it to negative because you would have thought it would have scared me straight but it didn't I lost that scholarship I didn't get to go to the racer bags and then my life just started trailing down a crazy path where I started making decisions that just took me away from who I was my character my family and the black sheep really started growing here I think had you got to go to the racer bags do you think your whole life would have turned out differently? Definitely and I don't know how I would have handled success at that level okay I don't know if I would have looked back and be honest two things I wish I could have exercised my talent at that level two with the way my character was knowing what happened up to me to that point without any significant impact and change from a positive influence I probably would have ended up in jail I probably would have ended up drinking crazy and smoking and ended up in the police because I didn't have any discipline but I had skill money just makes you more of what you already were that's very very true chapter number 8 Colthrell tell me about the time you took the pills and survived it and was sorry that you did I really thought at that moment I needed I needed love from the people that were supposed to be giving me the love at that time I'm trying to go back into my mind it was very unhealthy at that time but at that time I felt as if mama she never really showed love now my mom was a single parent and now that I'm older I understand she was working up behind trying to take care of us but she never was like I love you she just wasn't that kind of person you know and I had gotten in a trouble a lot but I just kind of fell into this spot to work man I wish I could feel that from my mom feel it from my father feel it from my siblings because we were kind of raised with the you know I love you gone that was just that was it that was the sum total of the love and so much had gone wrong for me I didn't want to kill myself I don't think I don't think I'm being honest with you I've told myself that I didn't want to die but when I go back and I look at and I recount the stories I don't know you can tell a story so much I don't know but I took the whole bottle of a leaves and I do remember the feeling the only way I can demonstrate the feeling is kind of like that that's what I felt and it just was like it was like and the next thing I know my mom's shaking me and then when I get to this facility I guess it's the emergency room at that time they tell me hey they're taking this oxygen over and telling me that they're going to have to pump my stomach from charcoal it was the most grossest thing I've ever experienced in my life and I'll just charcoal that to your body when that experience is over or while it's happening my brother my sister my grandmother I think but my mom was there and the first thing they tell me I love you I just broke down crying I was waiting to hear that I love you and I think that's why I told myself the story that I didn't want to die but maybe I did maybe I did want to die they told me that I was going to have to go to this clinic my mom couldn't sign me but I would have to do it and they thought it was the best thing and my mom says I think you should do it like an inpatient so I went there for seven days I didn't say anything for six days six days I was just in their room but the things I saw I couldn't believe I saw people trying to hang themselves cut the risk taking items to take themselves out and it was in that facility when I realized I have people that do love me these people were alone they had nobody and I would listen to the stories because we would go from counseling session to counseling session to counseling session go to lunch, counseling session counseling session then in the evening you go back to your room I remember waking up one night the guys in my room was hanging themselves sheets and he was angry with me because I saved him like super angry with me that next day because of that experience that night I think the third session the lady says are you going to talk and I said yeah and I talked and I talked and I talked I talked from one session to the next session from the next session to the next session and it was so funny because one of the guys in the room says god damn it when you shut up I'll never forget it and it was at that moment I said man it's okay to talk because I would never talk so I left out of that place thinking that I really didn't want to kill myself that's what the statement came from because of all the stories that I had absorbed from all of the people that were inside that facility with me I'll never forget it I think it's something that helped change my life I still ended up doing a lot of stupid things but it was a moment in time that I think I needed for where I was you have had the most amazing journey I don't know about that yeah this is still you got miles to go you got miles to go but you had some really tough lessons but they worked to this point and they served you well I'll listen at how you talk about your wife understanding now of why she didn't want to come here why she didn't want to come to Dallas and I listen at you with an empathy that I couldn't have your Lord Jesus Lord he had no empathy at all I couldn't find no empathy in your socks in your pocket in your shoelaces I don't know if you remember telling me we were in the meeting in Ohio you looked at me and said you scared me you remember that? you told me I don't know what else to do my face told me you're not going to scare me I don't know what else to say to you that statement messed me up you was hard you were no easy case you kind of stretch the parameters of my abilities and one of the things that I had to learn that I had to learn in life that led me to be able to say that to you is that I'm not Superman wow and that I'm not God and I can't fix everybody and the arrogance of thinking that I could fix everybody led to somebody dying in my life and so the reason I said you scared me is because I learned every man woman boy or girl needs to learn no matter how gifted you are and if your ego leads you to the point that you destroy somebody because you can't accept the fact that you can't fix them that's not a blessing and so keeping my I hate to call it ego though I guess it was it just sounds bad to say that but I thought I could talk to anybody I've been on death row I spent three days in San Quentin ministry to inmates I've done all kinds of things that you would not believe in snake handling churches I've done everything but all over the world in the bush talking to people that I didn't even speak the same language and I've forgotten a lot of good results but I've also had some failures and me saying that I was scared that I wasn't going to get through to you was me recognizing that some people are your kryptonite and you you got to know when you're outgun even if it means calling in somebody else or referring them to somebody else you have to know your limitations even in business you hire your weaknesses not your strengths but if you don't think you have any weaknesses you won't hire the right people you have to be strong enough to know where your limitations are to figure out who you need around you yes sir and so I was contemplating am I going to get through because I had to come through from that little boy and that bottle of pills and all those things that happened I had to come through all of those layers and I didn't have long to do it and you're asking me about theology and eschatology and pneumatology and all of this kind of stuff and you're curious about business and you want to know how to negotiate a deal and what type of contract and what's the trust and what's the 401k and how do you invest in crypto and everything just everything everything and I'm trying to answer your questions about business and about life at the same time I'm trying to get you off the edge of the cliff and it was a scary thing anytime you go to the wire trying to pull somebody back you always risk falling off yourself yes sir and that's the value of our relationship I love our relationship and I thank God why chapter number 9 advice to your younger self as we come to a close because we could talk all day we could talk all day as we come to a close if you could go back and talk to that gang bangin little boy you were if you could get a chance to talk to him what would you tell him that might circumvent some of the things he went through I will look him in his face and tell him you ain't for a ride of a lifetime and if you would stop being angry your anger is going to stop you from riding down some amazing rides there's some journeys that you're going to take that if you would just listen and I think you know it all and I think you know it all like we're trying to defend yourself you're in for one heck of a ride there's some things that you can experience that I didn't get to experience if you just be quiet and unball your fist so maybe that's your take away today for an next chapter to unball your fist to not be afraid to not let rejection rule over top of you to walk into a room that's not perfect and have to struggle with it to be able to clean somebody who didn't clean you hold somebody who didn't hold you to grow to the point that you overcome or come over the obstacle that's in your life today if you got that out of this next chapter then we have been successful thank you for being a part of my next chapter thank you I can't believe you brought me on here made me cry come get out of here hey everybody I want to take this time to thank you for watching the next chapter podcast if this conversation inspired you helped you reflect on an idea or spark something new inside of you make sure to like comment and subscribe so you don't miss future episodes remember life isn't about how you begin it's about how you finish strong so start your next chapter with us right here every week