BraveMen S4E127: Michael Phillips: Wrong Lane, Right Turn

I'm glad you're part of Brave Men Today. Remember hope is alive. Hope has a name. Hope's name is Jesus. We've got a tremendous friend here that's on today. Wrong lanes have right turns, Michael Phillips is here. Great to have him on Brave Men. You're going to be inspired, but also I believe you're going to find some revelation. He's been on the State Board of Education for the State of Maryland. He is a director of engagement for the TD Jakes Foundation. He is an advocate for education, but where he started wrong lanes have right turns is, and here's the cut line of his new book, a pardoned man's escape from the school to prison pipeline, what we can do to dismantle it. And I love this theme that when he was on the today show, he said, I went to jail as a teenager. My son went to Harvard. How did that happen? And how did his life get radically changed? He grew up as a pastor's son right there in the middle of Baltimore, Maryland. He grew up with a sense of identity and direction, and then it just came apart. He had what all of us would want if we're in athletics. He had a D1 scholarship. He had all kinds of things going right, but he ended up in the wrong lane. And that's the title of his book, Wrong Lines Have Right Turns, and Michael Phillips today. Remember if you need tools to disciple your family, your small group, or within your local church, go to cmn.men, CMN.men, Christian men's network, everything you need to disciple, others to get fired up about life as a man, to see some of the things happening around the world. We're in over 100 nations around the world. And exciting to see the reports are happening in Indonesia. You've gone to Peru, Afghanistan, other places around the world. So today, Brave Men, Michael Phillips. This is going to be awesome. Make sure you stay here. Listen to the whole thing. Great to have Michael Phillips today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. Talking with Michael Phillips, who's the Chief Engagement and Fulfillment Officer for the TD Jakes Foundation, and also a longtime friend and a great brother, pastor out of Baltimore for years, right? 18 years? 18 years? 18 years, pastor in Baltimore. Yeah. Church that your father founded? Actually, my great, my grandfather, my grandparents. Really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. My grandparents started a, it's a very funny story. My grandmother comes out of the AME Church. Okay. My grandfather comes out of the Baptist Church. They get married and start a holiness penalty. Well, there you go. So in other words, it was, it was emotional, but with some boundaries. Exactly. Yeah. Fantastic. And you've made a big move, man. And we're going to be talking about your book, which is Wrong Lanes Have Right Turns, which is a tremendous book. And I want to mention that right now. Penguin came out on Penguin. Congratulations on that. That was a big thing. Thank you very much. You know, and we're going to, we're going to talk some basketball. Oh, great. Because that, that was your, was your thing growing up. We'll talk streets and education and those things. But thank you for being on Brave Men today. Oh, it was a pleasure, man. It's always, always great to be. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Now, your father was pastor in the church then. Yeah. My father started pastoring in 1977. Yeah. And I'll never forget it because I was a little kid when I was born in 1974. But I was a little kid when he became the pastor. I vividly remember that. Really? Right. It was like four or something. Like a big shift in your life. Yeah. Totally. And, and my fondest memories of my dad was watching him go pray. Really? In the mornings. Really? Yeah. Because when he wouldn't move the whole house would move his ass well. And he would have to go past my room and he would go downstairs. And I would literally follow him. Wow. He didn't know all the time. Sometimes he did. And he would go into, like, this little portion of the living room and pray. And I would sit there on the steps and listen and watch him pray. Wow. So yeah, it's amazing. What a great memory now. Yeah, absolutely. When did your father pass away? So I was 12. So this is 1986. 12 years old. Yeah. Now, by then and because I've actually read your book, unlike a lot of interviews, you probably didn't. Where the guy read the Amazon. What is it? Where are you from? So, but so by then you'd already seen trauma streets of Baltimore. Yeah. I mean, 10 years old, Raymond. Oh, I have a story of Raymond. Yeah. Well, you know, my, you know, we lived in a working-class neighborhood. My father was a pastor and a truck driver. He was his own operator of his own rake. And so during the week, he would be all over, mostly between Florida and New York. And sometimes I would take trips with him. Really? And then of course, on the weekends, he was a full-time pastor. Preaching. Yeah, man. So he had two full-time jobs. He really is. I mean, that's really what I know. Seriously. I have a great respect for men who are doing businesses. And particularly if they're working for somebody else. Yeah. And pastoring. Because it is two full-time jobs. Yeah. And so he did that. Yeah. And still to this day, if I'm not wrong, it's a large percentage of pastors who are not full-time, well, consider full-time passes because they have a full-time job. Yeah. But they're also really full-time pastors. They're in a marketplace. Exactly. And on the other side of it, you know, with what you're doing with the TD Jakes Foundation, I see that also as a future for a lot of ministry. Where a lot of people were told, a lot of men in particular were told, unless you're a full-time, getting all of your income from your preaching, you're really not in the ministry. Right. Right. Yeah. And I think that's a misnomer. Exactly. And I think that particularly today, part of the shift that we're seeing is I believe God really putting people where they fit best in the body. Right. Yeah. It's, you know, the reason why there are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers is for the edifying of the church. But those titles are not titles, they're functions, like your heart, your kidney, or your liver. So they're not silos. Exactly. You're in this one spot. That's right. That's right. Wow. It's right. And so you got to be fitly framed in the body to be effective in not so much caught up on Am I a full-time pastor? Am I this? Am I really in the ministry? If you're serving people, you're in the ministry, man. Period. So you're 10 years old and you see a man get murdered right in front of you? Yeah. It's something that Raymond, no one can ever forget. That, you know, they say trouble don't last always, but the trauma that trouble causes does. There you go. And I can still see the corner. I can still see you're coming out of a grocery store. That's right. Really? And my friends coming out the little corner store. I can still see the brown bag of penny candy I had in my hand. Wow. And how frozen I was when I saw him get shot in the face. And it felt like forever for his body to hit the ground. And I just stood there. Everybody scattered and everybody ran, but I just stood there because I just I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And then it took me, you know, probably in real time, it was probably only a few seconds, but it felt like my feet were in submit. And I was just standing there watching, you know, this bloody scene. And then I ran, then I ran home, but it was horrific. So that's actually become part of the filter of your life because you you mentioned it right near the front of your book. Yeah, it had such losing Raymond who was really kind of a, he was a, he was a neighborhood drug dealer, but he was really kind to me always look down from me. I didn't let anybody really mess with me. And so it was kind of like a big brother. Wow. And someone that I did look up to, losing him. And then a few years later, losing my father. You know, it was even more traumatizing, but the beginning of losing him was like losing my protection around my neighborhood. Right. You know, it became easier for me to dabble and mess around doing the wrong thing because I didn't have that one guy who would tell everybody else, don't mess. Don't mess with. Wow. Leave him. And by don't mess with him, I don't mean don't pick on him. I mean, don't allow this kid to get involved in anything. Wow. That was sort of what he did for me. Yeah. You know, wow. And you know, even though a few times I took a bag over to somebody for him and got a little bit of money, it was enough. It was, I didn't know it was in the bag. I didn't know what was going on. Yeah. Now, so your 12 years old, your father passed his way. Yeah. Chromatic. And tough for your brother too. Oh, for all of us. My father was the anchor of our family. He had a vibrant church in the 80s. But he would, he had a mega church. What would we consider a mega church in 84 in Baltimore? Yeah, in 84. He was doing four services. Wow. On a weekend in 84. Yeah. You know, he got, he got hold of word of faith. And, and can if Hagen became his pastor. And he dragged us to Tulsa every year, by the way. That's a whole nervous story. And so he went to this and cracked the broken arrow. Yeah, man. He went to this thing called word explosion. Yeah. Yeah. And so back in the day, he came back and changed the name of the church and had a vision to really impact people significantly. Not just spiritually, but socially as well. And he felt like the word could really do that. Right. And back then, you know, denominations were very heavy, particularly in the African-American. Yeah. And so it was right in that, that beginning cusp of the transition to charismatic, you know, renewal within African-American church. And people were leaving denominations and trolls. And so his church really, really, really exploded. So for him to die at that juncture, that almost at the height of what he had envisioned was incredibly painful for the church, for my mom, who was like in her 30s at the time with four kids. And for all of us as kids. And, you know, you have people like Miles Monroe and Dr. Benson either host Archbishop Benson either host or from Benin said, yeah, exactly. You should pick it. I mean, the list goes on. Yeah. Yeah. Highly influential people were coming through your house, coming through my house, sitting in my living room, as a child. And we sit there, listen to them have their conversations and stuff about scripture and about the world. And to see my father, garnering all of those type of people to come sit at his table was amazing. Yeah. And so he passed away. And so basically you stayed at the church, became the pastor, lived a perfect life. Oh, yeah. A little journey after that wasn't it? Which is what the book brings out. It really is a great book. And I know you're an educational advocate. And I want to talk about that. But this journey, in fact, I put it in a book I wrote called Just a Bartender about identity and how God brought you to your personal identity. But your journey was this thing spun you out. It did completely. Totally. The first thing that happened was I lost, I don't want to say lost. My faith became disorganized. Because you can't lose faith. Yeah. It became disassembled. Yeah. And dis-disorganized because when you suffer tragedy like that, you are looking for answers. You're trying to figure out why, right? And for me, at 12, you know, why is my day gone? Yeah. I just couldn't wrap my head around it. This is God's man. Yeah. Like he's helping all of these people. This is not supposed to happen to him. And a preacher gets up and he says he quotes Job and he says the Lord gives the Lord's takes away. And he just leaves that that, right? And I understand he's trying to grapple and search for words himself to figure out why his friend is gone. But at 12 years old when I heard those words at the funeral, I just my anger turned to work on it because I thought, oh, that's what happened. You took, you took them. And, you know, I'm sure the man met well, but he did. Well, we read that in a linear mindset. Thank you very much. It is. And the Lord gives and he takes away. And it's as if like really, you know, you just take away and we don't see it in the way it was written in the Eastern mindset, which is a circle of life that Lord gives and takes away. And any gives takes away and gives. And there's this, there's an ebb and flow of seasons of life. Yeah. And not only that. And so in that sense, there's a setup for that next gift. That's right. That's right. And when we do it that way, man, we rob people of the beauty of the seasons of God. And of his true heart because there's not one thought that God's ever had about you that it wasn't encased in love. Absolutely. Now one thought. Yeah. And he's never had an unsuccessful thought. Ain't that something? Right. So where does that put us? And so at 12, he's spent out. Now, you're a basketball player at this point. By this point, you already know you can play. Yeah. I was already an athlete. I was athlete my whole life. Right. And my father was huge. He was a great basketball player himself. My brother too, for that matter. And, you know, beating my brother was my greatest great because he was older than you. Yeah. So yeah. So when you did, it's my greatest joy. Yeah. He got me though. He got me one good time. Here I am. He got you one time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But one of the top basketball players in this country. And we have a family cookout and he just gets hot and he's like lighting it up, man. Yeah. And I'm not even really guarding him to be honest. Okay. And, you know, for the last couple of points, I say, you know, when I got my brother and he is like two big shots and they went and I'm like, let's run it back. And he's like, no, he leaves. Of course, he's like, no. And he has never stepped but back on no court would be ever. Why would he? Why would he? He's got the story. He's got the headline. He's got the story. He's a guy. So, so basketball we came in out and really hanging with some of the guys in the streets became a place to. Yeah. They both were sanctuaries. Yeah. You know, my athletic ability gave me outlets to really process my pain, hanging out on the street corners were also my sanctuaries. The guy on the corners were really the preachers and pastors for my life even though they stared me in the wrong direction. Yeah. But it gave me solace and because of the realness and the honesty and the transparency and the candor of the street, you just can't fake it. You know, you know, real when you see real. Yeah. And I couldn't say the same thing for church at that time. And I don't know if I can still say it today. But first is an easy target. Right. Right. But there's fake. There's there's real and there's fake everywhere, right? Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. But the thing, the thing, the allure of the street is that people are really honest about their pain. They really are. Wow. Yeah. They really, it's not like how you're doing. I'm doing great now. Yeah. Nobody else. Yeah. No, which was basically I was sharing with some men the other day, the other morning, and I said, didn't you get to ask the second question? You go say, no, really, how are you doing? Yeah. And that's what we have to do for our friends and our brothers. Absolutely. So you go through this basketball career, start doing well. Your mom is now trying to hold a church together. Correct. Right. Yeah. It impacts your family. It impacts your brother deeply. Yeah. You end up with a D1 scholarship? I did, man. And really, really strange about that, talk about ordered steps and got never having unsuccessful thought, particularly when it comes to us. Right. Yeah. He really got me there. And a toolplace I always wanted to be. Yeah. To a place I never thought I could arrive. And here I am, you know, 17, you know, with all of these opportunities to go to college. And I go. That was Virginia. Yeah. It was up in West Virginia. And it was short lived. Well, very short lived. I never, I never actually got to play. Right. I played in one scrimmage. I had 19 points in tennises. And now that was all of my basketball collegiate career. Well, right there. Yeah. Why is that tell the story? So I went home for, I was homesick. I went up to school early over the summer to work out and to just be on campus and to get, you know, I had never been away like that. You know, you know, when I got to school, I ain't got to my dorm. I said, where are the sheets? It was always there. I was like, like, where did she sit there? Who does what's going on? Who does this for me? Right. He wanted that. What is that? That's funny, man. It was like, what do you mean? I was like, he's like, you didn't bring sheets? I said, where, yeah, what is sheets? Where are the towels? Where are you? So he had to take me to Walmart. It's the first time I ever saw a Walmart. He had to take me to Walmart to get sheets and towels and stuff from my room, because I didn't even know I needed those items. So that's what this is what bill is. Okay. And so I decided to go home for a weekend right before the semester started because I was just homesick, you know. And I'm up there by myself. I'm just a young kid, you know, I really don't have a lot of support around me other than coaches and teammates. And so I say, I'm going for the weekend and just hang out and celebrate with my friends. So I did. And we went out Friday night, we went out, you know, no drinking, no drugs, just having a good time. Literally no drinking, no drinking. Really? And just having a good time. But we were out all night, like to like five in the morning. And we had this brilliant idea to go to an amusement park, you know, on Saturday. I was about three hours down the road. And so we were like, you know, let's go now. Yeah, of course, of course, you know, you're 17. It's not a problem. Who needs sleep? Who needs sleep? And so we all decided, yeah, let's get in the car and go now. So one set of friends was like, we're going to go grab some clothes and we'll meet you down there. Me and the guy that was driving said, you know, we can make it right now. And we hopped in the car, literally start driving down the road. And he fell asleep behind the wheel. And I woke up in the hospital. I didn't really, it was explained to me later what happened because I was flown shot trauma real into asthma. So when he fell asleep on the stretch of highway, there was some rocks that came out, protruded out of this retaining wall. And when he fell asleep, he hit those rocks. And it spun us all the way across the highway to this guard rail, which really dropped off to the steep embankment. The little car we had was a little sports car. And the hood of the car got caught underneath of the guard rail. Back then, I'm dating myself. The seat belt was connected to the door. Oh, wow. Okay. So it's like this electric thing goes up the door. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Across the church. My seat was laid all the way back as far as back as you can get it, because I was kind of asleep. You know, we were going to take turns. He was going to drive a hour. Yeah. I was going to hop in the driver. So when we hit the guard rail, the connection of the seat belt to the door, literally the whole contraption snapped off the door. The belt snapped across my chest. Wow. And I went, was flunk forward. But the problem with that was, you know, I would have just went through the windshield. I'm probably wouldn't be here because I probably would have went down the night down the ravine now. But my, my lower half of my body got caught underneath of the dash of the car. So you just got that's right sandwiched. And so then my head pushed or something went through the windshield. Wow. And my right legs particularly stayed there. My right leg just stayed there. Oh. So broke my tibial in my fibula. Three toes, a bunch of bones in my foot. My Achilles snapped. They said my knee was shattered, but my knee cat was shattered. It wasn't shattered. It was just really, really dislocated. Like my knee just around the side, which is around the side. Nothing I ever want to see. I didn't get to see. I mean, I can feel it as you're telling me. It just hurts to talk about it with as many injuries as yeah. And as I've had. So when I woke up, I was on a, on a gurney and all I could see is bright lights. And they were rushing me in the surgery. And I was, I couldn't feel anything. So I thought I was paralyzed. Like literally I couldn't do anything. My hands, I could feel my hands, I could feel my arms, but nothing in my legs. And so you know, they put me out, put me in surgery. When I came to my mom and my family were standing around me. They were all crying. So I'm thinking this is, this is not good. This is really bad. And a doctor comes in and he tells me the news that I would never walk normal again. Wow. And I certainly wouldn't play ball again. Yeah. And that was crushing. Yeah. Absolutely. That was your dream. That was my dream. It was your dream. And you'd already had, you know, coming up through athletics and through AU and high school and all that stuff. Yeah. You know, you're on your path. And then you're going D1 and 19 and 10. Yeah. You know, in the scrimmage. And you know, you're already thinking about that first contract. No doubt. Right. It's like what's the bonus. Marty looked like. No doubt about signing bonus. You know, I mean, right? Because that's you're thinking of all that and then bam, it's a shattered. Yeah. It's over. Talking with Michael Phillips. Michael Phillips is a remarkable leader, speaker, a thought leader. He's the chief engagement and fulfillment officer for the TD Jakes Foundation. And doing a great work with really engaging community faith in the marketplace and helping people who are marginalized, people re-entering out of the prison population, all sorts of incredible projects that you're doing. But one of the things that was said about you is you broke the, and the way this writer described it, they said, and I saw it a little different, but they said the education to prison pipeline. I kind of looked at it as a street to prison pipeline. But what did they mean by that? The education to prison pipeline? Because now, because you're not going to prison, you're heard. Do you want basketball player all this? Where does that comment come from? Yeah. So, school to prison pipeline really is a term that came of light when we started to look at disciplinary practices in our school system, particularly as it relates to students of color. So, because of those disciplinary practices, such as zero tolerance, a child as early as kindergarten could be put directly in front of the criminal justice system for an argument, or not even a physical altercation, but a verbal one. If they talk back to a teacher, if they throw something, if they have a tantrum, which kids have to do. So, what they found was that disproportionately, children of color were being expelled, and then simultaneously being incarcerated at disproportionate rates because of zero tolerance proletes. That's the birthing of the school to prison pipeline. When I thought about it for my own life, in reflection, I thought, man, that thing has been around for a long time, as early as first great for me. So, we're talking like, you know, 79, or whatever, right? 1980. My first great teacher told me that I couldn't be a lawyer. I wanted to be like Darker Marshall, and she told me it wasn't possible. And I was sent to the office and almost expelled for argument. Because you argue with that. That's a fascinating thing. And I thought, on the reflection that you mentioned about that, was that perhaps her comment was not, oh, you'll never make it. Maybe her, in one sense, she said, perhaps her comment was more in the sense of the systems against you. Right. Yeah, yeah. Because that's what, because she lived in her neighborhood. Yeah. You're right up the street. Yeah. So, she wasn't saying you'll never make it because she had an economic disparity or or a color disparity, whatever it may be. It really was, nah, now it won't happen because of the the way the system started. Yeah, I think she was trying to bring you back to a place of reality. Yeah, she was, you know, but still just to say that to a first grader. Yeah, nothing, it still stings when you have a soft bigotry of low expectations. There you go. Right. I love that. Yeah. And that, that still stings to, to be, to try to tell a child regardless of their color, regardless of the ethnicity, regardless of their gender, to try to tell them they can't become something when they have all the innate tools to become everything dark, created them to be good. They got created. You don't get to make that. That's it. Yeah. It's a soft, biggest, bigotry of low expectations. Yeah. That's been alive for a long time. Exactly. So, here you are hospital, you come out of there, you're not going to do the D1 thing because you, you know, you're injured. Right. And you end up in, do you end up getting arrested? Yeah. Yeah. Tell me that story. How that happened? So, that was the craziest, and I'm not disclosing something that you didn't put in the book. No, it's all in there, man. It's all in there. I'll even give you you got some pieces that are on. You know, that was the craziest, almost two years of my life. Yeah. And so, really that all happened in 24 months, all that? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, I had, so I get injured. I go through a six-month recovery period and to cheer me up, my friends wanted to take me out. So, we go out one night. I'm still in a cast, man. You know, literally, I'm still, I'm still, I'm, I'm just learning to... Oh, no, that thing's, that thing's a long, it's a long recovery. Yeah. It's a long truck back. And I'm still getting to try to walk and stuff, to get my strength back. And we go out and run into an old friend of mine who was a great athlete himself, lefty, you know. That was a streetnut. Yeah. And he was left-handed, quarterback, man, he could, he could throw that rock. Good ball player too, just too short. Yeah. Yeah. But he did tell Trey Young that. Right, right. But he did get a spud. Right, a spud, right? Mugsie Bugs. There you go. But he did get a football scholarship and lost it for some reason. Yeah. And so we meet up at this club and I asked someone he was doing for money and he basically told me, man, I'm doing whatever I have to do, which means I'm selling drugs. Right. So I had some money saved up and I linked over and I said, you want a partner? Wow. Just like that. Wow. And he said, yeah, man. And so we started meeting and cooked up this game to distribute crack, basically. And to do it on the east side of Baltimore because at that time, one in four people in Baltimore were addicted to heroin. Wow. So, and in the reason I'm explaining this way is because I want you to hear our entrepreneurial minds think, right? We're going, okay, here you have this market of individuals who already obviously sick and suffering. But they're sick all day because they don't have an upper, right, for their downer. Yeah. Basically, heroin is going to bring you down. cocaine is going to bring you up. Right. So they will call it the street names with boy and girl. Okay. So, so we wanted to go over and start distributing crack on the east side of Baltimore. The problem with that is that we're both from Park Heights, which is a west side neighborhood. So you do not go to the east side of Baltimore. Okay. If you're not from east Baltimore, first of all, if you're in a family over there, somebody don't know you, you don't want to be caught over there, right? Certain areas. Yeah. So, so we basically negotiated safety to go up with the guy who was like the number one heroin dealer. Yeah. And he needed our product. So, that's how we did it. And before I know it, I mean, yeah, basically, 90 days. Well, 90 days, we went from one key echo to 10 in 90 days. And it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger to the point where we took over a whole city block, basically. Madison and Collington, on the east side, literally right behind John Hopkins Hospital. And it's one way and one way out. Now it's beautiful. It's like if you went there today, it's like what? But back then it was like you know, war territory. Yeah. It's where Ben Carson was. Yeah. Yeah. John Hopkins. Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of great physicians, great doctors. Yeah. And so right behind the hospital, literally, we wanted a hospital bill. It was anyway. We were operating back there. This little nook in this little corner. Yeah. Then we did it successfully. And I was always trying to figure out how to, okay, how do I get out of this mess? Right. Because what I knew immediately, I didn't belong there. Yeah. Well, I did not. Were you helping your mom at the church at the same time? So church became my cover. Yeah. It really became. And to this day when I tell a story, I have friends going, that didn't happen. Like that couldn't possibly. Like that wasn't you. And I did a good job acting. I went to church on Sundays. Yeah. I still played piano in the drums and stuff like that. And I was the good boy. Hey, we learn to play the role, don't we? Oh, all day. All of us. All every man. Yeah. Every man deals with that. We deal with the man we want others to believe we are. Yeah. We deal with the man we think we are. And then we have to deal with the man we really are. That's right. And you had to get to that. I did. And getting arrested. That kind of pulls you up pretty quick, doesn't it? It does. Because you know, most people do not succeed at who they think they should become. The way you succeed is to accept who you are. Who you are. And who I was was a hurt, tired, terrified, traumatized young man. Who carry this pain never processed it, simply transmitted it to every person I came in contact with, to the society that I was living in. It became very easy to become angrier and angrier because anger is an easier emotion to regulate than sadness. So to be sad and to tell yourself that you're sad is to then step into that deep space of loss and of yarning and of things you're really longing for and the space of honesty that's required for that. And I didn't want to do that. It was just easier to be mad with everybody. Right. And so I put it in the book, but we got caught by chance, to be honest, even though the feds were already investigating us, but really they sped their investigation up because some kids, some just random kid, ran into one of our stash spots, run it from local knock police. And we were so good at what we did. Nobody knew we were there. It was it was really it sounds terrible, but it was really an amazing accomplice. But the thing is God uses a man's gifting. Okay, God gives a man gifting. Ephesians 2, 10 years has mastered peace. So he's giving you these giftings and then we use them for the wrong thing. That's right. It's it's kind of like, you know, you think about some of these guys that or let's say they're dealing drugs. Let's just use that as an example. I mean, this guy has to deal with with supply and demand. He's got to deal with receivables, payables, and he's got and he can't write anything down. Yeah. Okay. And then he's got to know who his clients are, where the stuff is, you know, where they're going to get busted, all these different things. Some of the best entrepreneurs in the world, they're just the enemy has ripped off their gift. Yeah. Yeah. And they believed the lie that you can't do it the right way. Yeah. Like, this is the only way to do it. I believe for a long time myself. So you end up in court and you're given a choice. Yeah. So I did six months of pre-trial detention. I turn myself in, which is why the book is called Wrong Lane's Half-Rite Turns. I was on the run, headed to, I had an exit strategy, by the way. And I had some cash and I was on the run to get to Florida because I was literally on my way to Cuba. Wow. My mother called me. Wow. Because the, you know, federal officers rate her home and she just told me to come face it together with her and it'll be okay. And I hung up, you know, it was a next-to-two way. And I hung up and said, hey, I'll just, I'll call you when I get somewhere safe. And I got in my car to go down 95 self and I just couldn't keep going. I just couldn't. And so I decided to turn around, but the problem was I was on the wrong lane. And that's the day I discovered Wrong Lane's Half-Rite Turns. Yeah. And so I turned myself in, called my attorney and told him what I was going to do. He said, that's your smartest good idea. And he told me, he said, you'll be out by Monday. I said, great. You're at the, right? You know, we'll post bail for you and you'll be out by Monday and we'll go to court and, you know, we'll probably play the hell and then you're not, you know, you don't have a record. You're not a violent offender. He's giving me all the, you know, and I'm like, man, that sounds great to me, you know, a couple months. I'll be out. No problem, right? Well, they did not bail. They transferred me from the Howard County detention center to this place called The Cut, which is in Jessup and put me in a 23-7 cell, which means you can only get about one hour. And I was there for six months. Well, pre-trial detention. So it was probably some of the best time that was gifted to me, to discover who I was, right? And I started reading my Bible again. Wow. I started calming down. Yeah. And I didn't read my Bible like to say, God, get me out of this. It was like, okay, this is going to be my life. I'm going to be here for a minute. Who do I, what type of man do I want to be when I get out? Basically, it was my thought process. And after six months long, behold, on a Sunday, they come and get me out of my saddle and take me to the federal building to this judge's chambers. And he gives me this ultimatum. You want to go to jail? You want to go to school? Wow. Like, hey, school, man. Let's do that. What kind of jailer do you want to go to school? Let's do that. Yeah. And so this guy named Bill Ones, who I never got to think and wish I could have. But Bill Ones had this program called Give Me A Chance that he ran out of an old Robert's University. And he got a coach bail self to write a recommendation along with the president of school, which was Richard Roberts at the time. And a few other pastors and board members and all that good stuff. And they put me in this program instead of giving me prison time. So all of a sudden, you go from Baltimore to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Culture shot. Complete a total at utter culture. Yeah. Even though I had gone out there as a little kid, it's completely completely completely. That was a camp meeting in the summer and you had fun. Exactly. Yeah. Different vibe. You're actually out of school. Yeah. Yeah. In Tulsa, Oklahoma. Exactly. And I never saw, I never saw any place so pure, like literally. Not because everyone was perfect, just the spirit of the place, the heart of the place, the intent of the place. You felt like I felt unworthy just to walk around that. How did you make the decision to come full term? You've been reading your Bible. Your mom is still holding the church together in Baltimore. Yeah. Right. Yeah. She's got different people speaking. She's speaking. Yeah. Is that what's going on? Yeah. And she's past her in the church. In the church. And Miles Barrow had came on board and had become our pastor at that time. Wow. And so they, you know, he was there a lot. Wow. Book there just about every year. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And yeah, because he wrote some amazing books for men. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Amazing leader. It's gone too soon, like you're that. And then, uh, but you, you had this big turn at Oral Roberts University. Yeah. It's been, you know, I had an encounter with God for myself. Yeah. You know, for you, it wasn't the God of my grandmother. It's the God of my fathers. Yeah. It was my God now. And uh, or, or you had this, uh, you know, I'm sure it's not an effective day, but back then you had to go to church, like on Sundays. Yeah. Or if there were chapel service, it was mandatory. Yeah. And so I had got kicked like I had gotten in trouble a few times kicked out of a dorm for not going to church because I beat up the rest of the resident advice. I'm not proud of it. But I beat up the advice. So you go to Oral Roberts University and beat up your R.A. Yeah, man, because I told him I thought I was a do not knock on this door. I just got back into my dorm room. So you brought a little Baltimore man. I was terrible. Oh, they used to call me the demon seed. I was so bad. It was, it was, I was belligerent. But you're carrying that anger. Yeah. You're talking like you're still carrying this thing. Yeah. So, so changing from one location to another didn't change you. No. How to change? No. Where to change? So I got tired of me. You got a God encounter. Yeah. I got tired of me. And I was at this, this, I was at my limit of just me. I don't want to beat this guy. Yeah. Because I'm not this guy. Right. And it was spring revival. Okay. And I'm just, here's the good thing. Like I'm coming back like physically. Like I'm working out again. I'm starting to practice routine. Wow. Like, okay. You know, I played in the murals that year. I'm okay. I'm, I'm, I'm, I might be able to make it back. And here they have the spring revival. And they tell me it's mandatory. You've got to go if you don't go, you can't get your grades. Yeah. And I'm like, really? So I said, and at that time, I still didn't want to go to church. Yeah. So I said, all right, if I got to go to church, I'm, I'm going to be numb. You know, and I was never really a, a big drinker and stuff. I could do it. Um, I would smoke weed every, you know, one day I smoke a lot of weed. That's all I'm still but I'm not going to lie. But, um, but, uh, I, you know, I say, you know what? I'm going to get drunk and I'm going to smoke as much weed as I can to go to church. This is at the spring revival. I already revival literally. And I said, if I have to go into that atmosphere, I don't want to feel nothing. And they had like this, who's who? Yeah. Grace of preachers and singers and everyone that was going to be there. And, you know, the, the, the, the, the diets, the people that were on the stage were just incredible. You know, and, um, I mean, I know who they are today. Yeah. Back then, I care less. Right. Right. And so I didn't, man, I smoked five. What, what, what, we call blunts. I drank a fifth of great Guzwaka and I chased that with a half a case of what it was. And I don't even like what it was. Okay. And that's the posture that I went to spring revival in. Wow. Uh, and in that posture, uh, Darnie McClure can start singing how great that Oh man, and I was sober, right then, right in there, completely, wow, sober, wow, crying, you know, speaking in tongues, wow, and I knew what it was, but I couldn't contain it, I couldn't do anything with it, and I was so terrified by it, I literally leaped up and ran out of the chapel, wow, right up the middle, because I was like on third row, and back to my dorm, shut the door, call my mom, and she hung up on me. Before she hung up, she said, oh baby, guys, just dealt with you, and she hung up the phone. Yeah, what had happened? And after she did that, I just got down on my knees and I said, okay, God, okay, oh man, and that encounter with God lasted three days, wow, I was in that room for three days, literally, oh man, he's felt like 30 minutes, and he just took all that away, all that pain, all that trauma, it was like not a burden, but it was, I can't even describe how light I felt after that encounter, my RA, my new RA, it's got him Kenny, I'll never forget, from Kentucky, he knocks on the door, and he's like, are you okay? I said, no, I'm fabulous, what's going on? He was just like, man, we thought you were dead, old D to something in there, and I said, why? He's like, you've been in there for three days, I'm like, what are you talking about? And on young blood floor that day, it was the first time I shared my testimony of what happened, and led some guys to the first time I led people to Jesus, right in there. So, had this God encounter finished up at all Roberts? Yeah, so I didn't finish, I actually started speaking all over the country, wow, at that time, because all of a sudden, you know, it was like, yeah, I just stepped right into my colony. Where'd you meet your wife? So, Edward, are you? Yeah, so that's spread. At an event there, or something? She was in one of my class, my ex-classes, and she came and sat next to me, you know, with all these empty seats up there, she would come plow, plow right next to me, sit up there somewhere, yeah, and yeah, so that's where we met, and ironically, she worked at at this restaurant across the street, and I would go over there and sit at the bar and stuff, and she would come and witness to me, right? Really? And she would say, you know, you should really give your life to Jesus, and then, I'm sitting there drinking like, yeah, okay, smoking this, and I was like, yeah, okay. And so she watched that change house? Yeah, totally, completely. Wow, yeah, completely. And then, you know, because I was speaking all over and stuff, she actually moved from Tulsa to Maryland. I finished out her degree at University of Maryland, and by that time, I was speaking everywhere. I was doing a lot of big youth rallies and it's like that. Well, Joseph Jennings. Yeah, but the one thing you weren't going to do is past her. No, no, I had no intention. I had been seeing your dad go through the best of times and the worst times. Yeah, and I really had no intention of doing that. I didn't even know where all that speaking was taking me. I was just doing it, you know, to help people and to share the good news, and didn't realize that this was going to be my trajectory to a little later on. Yeah. And when did you make that decision? Where did that happen? I was around the past. So I was around 25 years old, and knew I was called to ministry, but didn't know I was going to pastor, but around 25 years old, I've got up to pray just like my dad. And I'd never forget the Holy Spirit saying to me, it's time to start preparing to pastor. Wow. And so I went back, I went to seminary and started getting myself ready. And at 29, I was pastor. Wow. Yeah, and did it very successfully and now moving into the area with the TD Jax Foundation. And with the other things you're doing there, in particular, an advocate for those who are marginalized in this place and don't have the ability to get great education. Yeah, and that's what all starts really, man. Education is supposed to be the great equalizer, and it's like many of our systems. It's not broken. It's just built on unstable foundations. Wow. And they need to be re-tooled, re-imagined, and reconnected to their original purpose. You know, the education system, as we know it today, was a non-existent thing in our society in the 1800s, right? You had to be really rich to get an education. It wasn't until two things happened, really. So the emancipation of slaves and the proliferation of immigrants moving to America that we then started to say, we need a public education system. Right. And the reason why we developed it was because specifically Catholics were really educating people. And so Protestant government officials decided if we don't do something about this, then the Catholics are going to have all the educated people, right? That's interesting. They developed the common school era, which started out a public education system, but really that was the impetus for it. Yeah, you mentioned something in your book, and I'm talking with Michael Phillips, who wrote wrong lanes, have right turns. It's a great book. It's out on Penguin. You can get it on Amazon. And in working with Bishop Jakes, and you've pastored for how many years there in Baltimore? 18 almost all really almost 10 years. Built a great school, been there at the end of the facility, had had miracles happen with the facility itself. Oh yeah, that place is a walking, walking miracle literally is 158,000 square foot building sitting on 10 acres of land in West Baltimore. You can't get property like that. And at 29, I went and got that building, bought it back from the city, with the state really, and started, and my father and my mother and all of the leaders for generations, you know, four years, had laid the foundation to make that all that possible. So I don't want to make it sound like it's just my... But you had miraculous things happen. Oh no doubt about it. You know what you talk about. And so I mean there's so much more of the story in that sense, but now you move into this place of being an education advocate. And what was the impetus for that in your own life? Because you really are passionate about that. Yeah, so here I was, pastoring this great church in Baltimore. We had thousands of people, and we had all these great programs. And I was completely oblivious to how our education system serves, particularly children of color. And so a young man came to me and asked me, would I be interested in having a lunch with some pastors around the idea of us having some interest in serving our local schools? And I thought that was a great idea. How can we partner and connect and support? And so he began to share some data at that meeting. And it was stood out to me, was that at that time in Baltimore, it's approximately 86,000 students, 46% of them were African-American male. Wow. So that's really... Half of our student body population is young black male. And then he says only 9% of them are proficient in reading at that grade level. So what that means is that a third grader can't read a third grade level. 91% of them. So it's already behind the curve? So you mean to tell me that 91% of the 46% are not proficient? So that means that we are failing a generation, of course. And continuing and widening all types of gaps, of achievement, of opportunity, of who is my daughter-go-marie? Well, you know, that's the real stuff. Who is my daughter-go-marie? Because she's going to be educated. And so who's she's going to be? And within that constraint is you've got that, this, depending on the stats, here in Dallas where I live, 78% of the young men who are in junior high age, regardless of their racial background, 78% of the young men in junior high in the Dallas, independent school district have no father in the house. Wow. 78%. So now you're talking about disparity, you know, because of the education, they're not getting the right education, proper education. They're fatherlessness, you know, stuff going on, which is the leading cause of poverty we know worldwide, leasing, excuse me, leading indicator of poverty, and probably that one of the leading causes of poverty worldwide, fatherlessness. And so you're dealing with all these things that are at some level solvable. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt about it. Absolutely solvable at some level. And that was why I decided to start advocating for education and really, really digging deep into, okay, how do we get here? How do we get out of it? What are the solutions to this, right? Well, the same skills that made you good on the street. Exactly. Right. And strategic thinking, which you have to be, where you're a point guard student guard, point guard, point guard student guard. So to be a one or two, you've got to have a sense of the whole court. Yeah. What's going on? So the same gifts that God gave you, right? You begin to turn into this, you ended up in the state board of education. Yeah. For the state of Maryland. Yeah. And, uh, and now with, uh, with the Bishop T.D. Jakes foundation advocating for education, but education is not total answer. No, it's just part of it. But it's part of it. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's just part of it. And put it, but if we have, it's a three-legged stool concept, you know, yeah. If you can, if you take a young man, you get him to church, you get him, you know, filled with the Holy Spirit, saved, fallen across, but if he's not educated, he's still, he's still got one leg of that thing missing, right? So it's going to tip over. Yeah, exactly. If you can't get a decent job, if you can't hold a good conversation, if he doesn't know how to shake hands with a guy, you know, it's all those things, right? That you're talking about. Absolutely. And, uh, so my thing is what I've really discovered, man, is that I was really called to affect change in structures, right? Systems. Wow. You know, um, those are the mountains that I'm called to speak to. Yeah, because it's like, it's like influence is like water. It runs downhill. Yes, right. So the issue is if you keep working at the bottom of the hill, you, you keep bailing. Yeah. Right? But if you can get to the top, you, you can then direct the flow. Exactly. And, you know, change to that point, right? It's a wonderful little anecdote about that, right? There's a group of villagers and they're out, you know, mending nets and, and washing their clothes and this river that is community-based. And all of a sudden, one day they see a baby coming down the river and everybody runs out to save the child. Um, but then the next day they're three and the next day they're five. And so they develop an entire system to stop these babies from flowing down the river. About a year later, all these babies are being rescued, but they see one villager going upstream. And they say, Hey, man, what are you doing? Why are you off your posts? He says, doesn't it make more sense to go find out where these babies are coming from instead of just developing systems? Yeah. And so I'm like the man going upstream. Yeah. Okay. How, what's going on here? Yeah. Who has done this? How do we get here? How do we solve it? How do we fix it? Yeah. And how do we fix it based with not just, uh, information, but a revelation of who a person is. That's right. That's right. So it's because, you know, I was just in Germany. And one of the things that one of the men told me, he said, you know, uh, the people that followed Hitler, he said they were, were the most educated people. Wow. He said, the guy didn't have like it wasn't like all the, uh, people just off the streets. Hey, let's take over this country. It was the most educated. Wow. And what they were missing was that component of character and faith. Yeah. And, and self identity and say, wait a second. This is not who we are. Yeah. This is not what we do. So we need to talk about education. You're not just talking about and reading and writing in that sense. No. Obviously important. No. But it's the whole person. It's the whole person. It took the word educate comes from Latin. It means it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, etymology means to lead out. So when you're educating somebody, you're leading them into the understanding and knowledge of who they are. You are not filling them with information. You are uncovering their identity. Wow. Their gifts. Wow. Their talents. Yeah. Their skills. And then you're showing them how to hone those skills, how to craft them and how to put them to their best shoes so that they can give their highest contribution to the world. That's the first two parables in Luke 15. You've got, you've got the lost sheep. They don't know their lost. Right. Right. Right. The lost sheep don't know. Right. They don't know their lost. They're just walking around. Right. Right. It's and then you've got the second one, which is the lady who lost the coin. And to me, that always speaks of value. She would, she did everything. She pulled a house apart in order to find that place of value. So we've got these, these young men and women in our nation who, in, in talking about the United States, in every country, who are covered up and their value has to be uncovered. Well, that's the role of, of the fathers. That's the role of the father is what father does. Yeah. It is. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. And so the spirit of a father is what you're really talking about. And now I mean, that's in a, that's really in a, in a larger, bigger sense of the kingdom of heaven. Yeah. Right. The spirit of a father that always looks into the heart of a young man or a young woman and says, you have greatness in you. Absolutely. That's what a father does. That's spirit. That's spirit. That's right. And so your goal is to bring that spirit, if you will, into the process of education within all the different areas of culture. Yeah. Because it has to become part of our practice, right? Right. It has to be that, that, what you just said about showing children who they are has to become a part of our practice, not just a part of our curriculums, but a part of our practice that every day, particularly for children who don't have that, right? Yeah. To be able to come to a place where they realize and recognize who they are, what they're capable of doing, and getting all of those different types of supports that are necessary for them to develop and grow. That's really the spirit of what I'm talking about. Yeah. That's it right there. You know, and that, that's when we speak of that, Dr. Leonard Sweet, friend of ours, that wrote a book called The Well Played Life, and he talked about the Harvard, you know, Harvard has no certification. It is not accredited, right? Because it's Harvard. Right. It's called the Harvard accreditation. And then years ago, they began intake. They began to develop all their intake based on test scores. And the reason that they're known as Harvard is because the people coming out of the other side do great exploits. Their explorers are scientists, heads of corporations, whatever it may be. They, you know, they're achievers. And they begin to see people not achieving coming out the other side of Harvard, never wondering what is going on. And what they had done is they fully committed to a person who knew how to take a test. Yeah. Test scores. And they had to begin to reevaluate. And their reevaluation came back to, we've got to begin to look at people based on their character, based on what they've done in the community, based on what their potential is. One of the interesting things, a little sidebar here, one of the interesting things that they found was that a person had a more developed character and had had a greater potential for success if they had had at least two meals a week with their family. Wow. Dinner is talking about supper. You know, they're not fascinated. Yeah. So they had to come up with this matrix, right? What's this look like? Yeah. And one of the little pieces of the matrix, and I don't even know if it's like published, but it is something they use, is does that does that young person have a meal with their family? Yeah. Twice a week. So if that's one of the potentials, makes sense for success. Yeah. Then we see why the enemy's trying to break down the family. Absolutely. Exactly where I was about to go, that makes so much sense because that's where you're going to get your first sense of identity. It's where you're going to develop your social skills. It's where you're going to develop a how to handle conflicts and conflict resolution, right? That's where your dad and mom says, right? That's where your dad and mom says, we don't talk like that. That's right. Do we? That's right. So now you begin a sense of who we are. That's right. That's right. This is who we are. Yeah. It's where you hear the stories about your your grandparents and your great grandparents. That's right. Where we came from then. Yeah. Yeah, your sense of history. It is so funny. I had a not to take us down this road, but have a dear friend and he's from his family hills from Kentucky. And you couldn't find two more polarizing people. I'm an urban guy. He's a rural guy. Yeah. You know, my family is from New York, you know, Long Island and Queens and Harlem. Yeah. All of you know, his family is from Abolation Mountains and in Bluegrass. Very different, right? Completely different worlds, right? Yeah. But we're great friends and and he's and there's a, you know, each gap between us. And he's 20 some years, my senior. And so he was telling me about his family history and that his family goes all the way back to Daniel Boom. Wow. And that, you know, for generation to generation, they learned how to hunt and how to survive and pass the stories. That's how they made it. Dad talked about that song. That's right. Wow. That's right. And so each father taught the son how to how to hunt and how to make it with a knife and how to do all this. And it was about survival. And when he was he was telling me about it, my, you know, all of my preconceived notions about, you know, and misunderstandings about who this man was was brought all the way down, right? And go, okay, I really understand it now, you know, I really get it. And so that's how impactful having family can be in your life. Yeah. That it causes you to survive for generations. Yeah. You know, for generations. That's legacy. Yeah. See what a man does in life he comes history. Yeah. What he puts in the motion becomes a legacy. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And tell me about this. I want to kind of land on this on education, disparity in education, still a real thing in the United States. As much funding. What is it? It's white water or some schools districts as long as as long as our system. Funding modders are based upon housing in taxes and houses. There will always be inequity. So it's house tops. Taxes on house tops. Yeah. So if you get it, so we're well, the area can come in Holland Park is going to be completely diverse than in tax income in South Dallas, right? And on the same note, even though you can get subsidy and federal help and support, it's still called per pupil spending. So each child is allocated a certain set of money that's going to be a mixture between state and local dollars. But then you can't equate for the inequity of not having access to certain things that are just normal to other people, like facilities and books and technology. And if you have a single mom who has three or four kids, right? And you know, she's getting the same per pupil that a mother in the affluent county, a part of the town is getting. However, you know, there are no laptops in her house. Yeah, no, that's totally different. That might not be really Wi-Fi there. And so if there's Wi-Fi, they're borrowing it from the next store. Well, and then if you say, well, just go to the library or just do this. No, you can't. Well, you know, what if one of your kids have special needs? And you just left the laundry mat because there's no washing drying up. I mean, little, you know, to speak, you know, chronic absenteeism, right? The number one reason for chronic absenteeism is dirty clothes, right? Because a kid doesn't want to go to school with dirty clothes. Wow. You know, it's real life issues and stuff that that continues to perpetuate that. And with fatherlessness and particularly in poorer areas, my understanding, again, the stat out of where I live locally, it's, if I remember correctly, the stat was 18% of the young men in junior high were functionally homeless. In other words, they're living with an uncle for two months. Then they're living with their grandmother for three months. Then they're living with their auntie, who's in a different school district. So now they can't get back to the other school where they were at. That's right. Right? And then, and then now their mom's able to pull it all together again. And so now that two of those three kids come back. That's right. That's right. And it's, it's basically what you'd call functionally homeless. Yeah. Yeah. Those are real life things. How do you fix that? I mean, given that we all know, Chris shields are producers here. And we're talking, we all know fatherlessness. And we all know that men becoming followers of Christ will change a lot of that. Right? How do I, how do we do that? Those are culture. Yeah. So there's a scripture that I'll use to make my point. You have many instructors, but few fathers. Yeah. Paul to Corinth. Right. Yeah. So in our structures, we have many instructors. We have few fathers in our institutions. Education, you know, let's just take this one institution has to take on a father's role. Not a institutional role. Yeah. Which means that the word father means source and sustainer. Wow. Right? So not just not just my source, but also my sustainer. Right? Any man can make a baby. Right? But that's not make you a source and sustainer of a human being. If we could take on that ideology as in our institutions as fatherly, then it would allow us to be open to the solutions that are available to us to solve some of these problems. For example, when the pandemic hit and everybody got a front row seat, meaning all the parents got a front row seat of what school was like for the kids. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because they were in the middle of it. It was like, oh, you know, and again, families who had resources were able to hire tutors. Right. And supplement their child's education. Well, they had a computer in the house. Yeah. Not only that. They got some of them. Some of them pulled together and started pot schools and their backyards and had these little microschools. Well, all of those ideas needs to become part of the fabric of our education system for every child to have an education that fits them. You know, brother, we we have gotten so Western thinking in terms of when I talked about test scores, I'm talking about left brain, right? We got so focused on metrics that we forgot people. Yeah. So when you talk about Paul talking to Corinth and he said, here's how I love you. I love you like a father. And he said, you have many instructors. In fact, he said you have 10,000 instructors, right? But not many fathers. And the key is an instructor tells you what he knows, but a father gives you who he is. That's right. Right. That's right. So it's head or heart. And what we've done is we've developed these metrics and I understand how we get there. Okay. I understand how we get there because we got to have a system. We got to have this and that. But there has to be a place where our heart speaks. Yeah. I mean, it's like it's like food deserts. We've got we got somewhere in neighborhood of 17 food deserts in the Fort Worth area where I live. And we've lowered it by about two, which means a person is not within three miles of fresh produce. That's right. Okay. So in their buying stuff at a higher price because they're buying it and it's all canned and it's all at a little local, you know, mom and pop store or something. And the fact is is that when you start changing that, it actually changes and let's go back to this. And it's called the the thinning of the cortex. And the thing of the cortex is that's your that's your ability to remember things quickly, right? So in places of higher poverty, there's a thinner cortex because they're not getting as much fresh food. Sure. So the thinning of the cortex, you go, I don't know, it's a .02 to a .04. So whatever the numbers are. But the fact is where a person has and basically comes back to I remember in Belize, they said, hungry, hungry kids can't learn. Right. Right. A bottom line, hungry kids can't learn. So we're talking about education. We also have to talk about, you know, food supply, right? We have to talk about and it comes down to this and this is a study that came out of seems to me, came out of Stanford, which I don't have a bias towards a West Coast because I grew up there, right? So I know your East Coast guy, but but it came out of Stanford and it was a study in which they were talking about single moms. And this and they said, okay, here's a single mom and she can't get the tennis shoes. She can't get the Jordans or whatever they are, okay, for her kid. But what she can do to be a hero is, hey, before you go to bed tonight, I've got some Cheetos and a Dr. Pepper for you or Pepsi. And man, that's like the kids got a soft drink and some Cheetos and stuff and like mom's a hero. Right. Right. So she's trying to, she's not thinking about in one sense, it's going to be this certain kind of, you know, nourishment. She's thinking about, how do I help my child feel better about the situation we're in? I can't get this, I can't get that, but I can have, we can have a party tonight at home. And this is a study from Stanford. It was absolutely remarkable in beginning to read this because then it all relates back to the Harvard study, which was the thing of the cortex in urban settings. And the fact that then you go to school, you can't remember stuff because you're not, you don't have the right nourishment. Yeah, not only that, the information, even the information you're receiving is not even relevant to your, to your everyday life, right? There you go. It's not even relevant. You're trying to teach me something, which is why I think they had a stop, stop teaching geometry anyway. I thought that since I was in sixth grade, it's like, dude, what is this? Triangle. It's a Y plus X, right? Just tell me what Y is, right? If it's 20, it's 20, right? It's like, what is that? What am I going to use? And then telling me we're no longer going to have recess in elementary schools for young boys, and we're going to try to teach them Y plus X. Yeah. Dude, come on, seriously. I've got, I've got somebody in my family who's younger and they're not doing as well in school and just talking to my sister about it. And she said, yeah, you know that, you know, he's, he's a loving your old boy. He says, yeah, you know, they're not doing recess that is schooling anymore because they want to get more of the educational things. I go, dude, for an 11 year old boy recess is education. It is, gotta move. Right? And if he's not doing that at least twice a day in the school day, and then that comes back to facilities. Yeah. So what do you, what do you have for them? Oh, well, you know, a lot of kids, nothing, just go out and hang out and stay around talk, push each other around. Yeah. And, you know, so we're talking about the whole person here. We're going to redo education. And you can still have rigor, academic rigor, and of course, things that we're talking about. So it's not either or it's, it's, it's both and, right? Absolutely. It's both and and we continue to, you know, sacrifice one for the other at the expense of generations because we're, we're free to embrace both and, you know. And so when it comes to the complexity of how connected our systems are. So from education to housing to health, yeah, you know, to, to, to criminal justice there, they're all interconnected, to be honest. I made the argument in the book. And so when you're touching one thing, you're touching the other. Right? That's all connected. Yeah. And that's why we have to keep touching those things. Exactly. Because as a Christian, just as a, as a follower of Jesus Christ, it, it has to be, it has to be for me, unacceptable for a child not to have food. Yeah. It has to be unacceptable. Yeah. As a follower of Jesus Christ, sitting in a church, it has to be unacceptable that somewhere within my purview, within my area, that there's children who don't have enough food. It has to be unacceptable. Yeah. It can't just be, well, you know, it's a government or that's a thing or whatever, you know, it's the way democracy is or capitalism or all these different things. No, it's unacceptable. As a follower of Christ, it's unacceptable that a young child is not educated properly. So thank God for Bishop T.D. Jakes. Yeah. The foundation that you had up talking with Michael Phillips, who heads up that foundation, you're the, well, I'm, I'm good at the head of it, but I am chief engagement fulfillment. Chief engagement. Right. And Hattie Hill is the CEO of the foundation. And it's, it's a great little team that we got there. And it's, it's been an absolute blessing to be a part of a Bishop's vision. Yeah. And, and of course, the significant impact that he has already made in the earth. Oh, it's been, it's been really phenomenal, particularly in particularly around the church and touching people. I, you know, I just can't, it just wipes me out that people would drive to a church and pass people in need. You know, it's a story of the good Samaritans. Yeah. No doubt about it. Right. So we have to be engaged. We have to start where we're at. Right. But we also have to, it's, it's, you start where you're at, it's Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and our most parts of the world. That's right. Wait a minute. I said it wrong. Samaria, Judea, and other parts of the world. So basically, it's the places that we're comfortable at. But then it's also the places we don't normally go. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's why disciples, Jesus, trying to get disciples always go to that side. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Let's go to that side. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Man, it's right. And so there's, you talk about in the book, we're talking about the book, Wrong Lines Have Right Turns. Uh, Pastor Michael Phillips, two else and find a book on Amazon. Yeah. Right. And your website, Michael Phillips dot com. Yeah. You can go to Michael Phillips book dot com dot com also go to Michael Phillips dot com or that info. Uh, and get all the information you want. Uh, Instagram at Mike Phillips official Facebook. Yeah. Mike Phillips official. Yeah. So there were a bunch of unofficial guys. You just said that. So I took the passage off. I used to just be passing Michael. Right. That's what I thought. Yeah. But man, let me tell you the, uh, the trolls out there, serious business. And that just fake account after fake account after fake account. I mean, just Instagram. Give me my blue check marks. I plan around. Stop playing around. Really? Man. Well, I just, I gotta tell you, man, I appreciate the, for you and your wife, Dr. Anita Phillips and the courage that you've had, uh, to make a huge shift in your lives. Yeah. To go from Baltimore to, uh, the free nation of Texas. Yeah. Uh, you know, it's, it's remarkable. I just got to commend you guys for that. Thank you. Huge major change. It really was. I actually just preached as much as called, um, well, the points were season cycles and shifts and shifts. The title was, it's just a matter of time. But I was talking about, uh, Elijah and him running from Jezebel. Right. And, uh, the habits that he formed, uh, during the famine, uh, he was told to go down to the Brook Sheriff to hide. He was right. I told him to hide. Right. Uh, but then it came time to come out of hiding. But when, uh, he accomplishes the great feed at Caramau and finds out Jezebel wants to kill him. He goes back into hiding. Yeah. But this time, God didn't tell him to hide. Right. And so seasons are, and he became suicidal. He did. Yeah. And depressed. It was jacked up. And, um, seasons are orchestrated by God. No. Summer, spring, winter, fall, components of time. God created time in Genesis four, uh, for our benefit. Right. Yeah. Signs and seasons. Yeah. Uh, but he can move chronologically. And also he can, he can move, uh, outside of the chronic chronological elements of time. And he can move in with in the Greek called chyrostime, opportune time. Right. And so those are seasons. But then we have cycles. Cycles are within our purview. We have the power and the ability to break cycles. Wow. God has the power and the ability to shift seasons. Wow. And the reason why we have to break our cycles is so that God can put us in his shifts. Come on, man. And so it was going to be a great shift for Elijah because the shift was generation. And so when we decided to move from Baltimore to Dallas, we knew that this was going to create a generational shift. And it was a huge undertaking. And it's, it's difficult because there are some habits you create in your season of survival that you're going to have to let go in your season of thriving. Hmm. And the only way to do that is to really face your cycles like what do you perpetually do? Whatever you do habitually will always have the power to defeat what happens occasionally. So you know, I developed this, this pattern of serving things that I no longer needed to gain my time and energy out of loyalty. Right. Right. Yep. Just being loyal. Right. To a phone. Yeah. To a phone. Yeah. Because that season was over. It was over. Yeah. It was over. And the grace was lifting forward. And it would have been a detriment to the church in Baltimore for me to stay. You know, I'm telling you, man, we get so into that. It's, it's basically we miss so often. Yeah. The push or the pull of God. How everyone we, it's like it's like a purpose driven or purpose led. Yeah. So anyway. So, but we miss that because we're in particularly as men, dude, if somebody, you know, if you're in a place and you've got your apple remote or whatever the remote is, if somebody jacks with that and moves it, like you're upset. Yeah. Like, hey, who were? Don't touch. Where did I don't touch that? I was a friend of mine's house a while back a few, a couple of months, two months ago. And it was somebody I hadn't been to, somebody I knew, but it hadn't been over to this house and someone over and we're hanging out. And I go sit down in the, in the, like the family room. And I sit down and then I look kind of to my left. And there was like a little cup holder thing. And then I looked to my right and the remote was there. And I looked up and I go, dude, I was setting your chair tonight. He goes, yeah, that's okay. I'm worried about it. I just sat down. You know, I just sat. And then I was sitting there, looked at all the stuff around me. Right. Right. Like that's his place. Right. Like his deal. Right. So that's what we do. It's that, that old thing I think Benjamin Franklin said years ago, he said, most men died at 40, but we don't bury him till they're 65. Yeah. Wow. You know, and so most guys just quit that growth, that capacity, that stretching, that push, that thing of being led. And if we're going to break the cycles of poverty and and miss education and the cycles of young men going to prison. Yeah. You know, and misproportionately out of the black community, right? If we're going to break that stuff, we have to get out of our comfort zone. That's right. I mean, if you go to church right now, if you're, if you're listening right now, I'll bet if you went Sunday and you walked into church and you were five minutes late and somebody was sitting in your seat, you'd go like, dude, that don't they know I usually sit there. Right. Okay. There's, I don't care if there's 50 people or 5,000. Yeah. You got your spot. You got your spot. You guys go, yeah. And you know, and so that's what happens to us. And if we're going to do that, we have to break out of that. Yeah. Totally. Right. Absolutely. And thank you, Pastor Michael Phillips for doing what you're doing, man. Oh, man. It's, I'm holding this. And it's nothing like, you know, knowing that you're absolutely in the right place at the right time. Yeah. And God's will. And you know, it's, I just need to feel like I need to say this, you know, for somebody that's listening, you know, God's will is not something that you need to find is something you have to prove. You don't find it. You prove it. Rome is 12. Proceeds you there for a brother, by the mercy of God, percentage of body living sacrifice is a reasonable act of motion, right? You know, don't be conformed to those where we'll be transformed by the river. Change the way to think. Then you will prove. Prove what is that good and acceptable will of God. Not you will find it. You prove it. You prove it by taking the steps of action and the step of faith to say, God, I trust you. Yeah. And I'm going to step down from this position and take this one or I'm going to let go of that anger and that resentment and and and and be open to be healed. I'm going to reconnect to my family. I'm going to take the the the the honest and necessary steps to face what I have done wrong so that I can start doing things right. That's proven as well. Wow. Yeah. Ronald Lane's have right turn. It's been talking with Michael Phillips. It's been a great conversation. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. I'm brave man. Always a blast. And you know, you've you've I hope for all of us stirred some things up. And we can find you Michael Phillips dot com. Michael Phillips book dot com. Michael Phillips book dot com. And then also the the things that Bishop Jake's are doing. Yeah, man. You know, it's we just Google that up. Just Google it because we got some really phenomenal things that are about to take place and happen. And you know, he's in legacy mode. And so just thrilled to be a part of all of those efforts that he's doing. And it's amazing. Yeah, it's remarkable. I mean, when you think about where a woman there are loose, you know, in one sense, a ministry was why if up in West Virginia? Right. Right. Right. Sister Serita. Yeah. Out of you know, cold miners daughter. True story. Yeah. True story. And for him and coming out of his stuff and then for that to happen. And it'd be a ministry in his own family that ends up touching people around the world. And that's something crazy. Right. There's only only one way to explain that is God kissed it. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. No doubt about it. Yeah. Yeah. And so to see God do that and see the things you guys are doing. I'm just man. We're all behind at Christmas network. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate it. Love you too. You've just experienced Brave Man with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian Men's Network. Connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man.