Two-time Emmy and Three-NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald, interviewed T.D. Jakes.
A bestselling author, entrepreneur, and senior pastor of The Potter’s House. The discussion focused on faith-driven entrepreneurship, second chances, and building a lasting legacy.
🔑 Key Themes & Highlights
Faith & Business Leadership
Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative (T.O.R.I.)
Entrepreneurship & Wealth Building
The Wright Brothers Metaphor
📘 About Bishop T.D. Jakes
Bishop T.D. Jakes is a New York Times bestselling author, filmmaker, and senior pastor of The Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas. His television ministry, The Potter’s Touch, reaches millions worldwide.
He has produced Grammy-winning music and hit films, including Heaven Is for Real and Miracles from Heaven. His latest book, Soar, provides practical strategies for entrepreneurs.
#BEST
#STRAW
If you're about to make a change in your life and you feel uncomfortable, that's the best feeling you can have because for the first time in your life, you'll make a new decision that's.
Going to be best for you and not what somebody told you to do.
And that's when all bets are off. Welcome to Money Making Conversation Masterclass. I'm your host, Rashaan McDonald. Our theme is there's no perfect time to start following your dreams. I recognize that we all have different definitions of success. For you and maybe the size of your chain, it's time to stop reading other people's success stories to start living your own.
Cape Wedning my first guest.
He is a New York Times number one New York Times bestselling author of more than forty books, and founder and senior pastor of The Potter's House, located in Dallas, Texas. His television ministry program, The Potter's Touch, is watched by three point three million viewers every week. She u was Grammy Award winning music as well as hit films from such movies as Heaven Is for Real, Miracles from Heaven, and Jump in the Broom. Please welcome the Money Making conversations Bishop TD Jakes.
Hello, Hello, thank you for having me.
Bishop. Did I lay you out there? Did I lay you.
Out that I wondered.
Your story is.
I've been fortunately and blessed to have met you over the years in my working relationship with Steve Harvey. You've never disappointed and you you've laid a path of opportunity for individuals like me to say I can do this.
And when I look at the book that we're going.
To talk about, Soil build your vision from the ground up, it is truly a person's blueprint for success as an individual and especially in entrepreneurship. Why did you decide to do it this time, sir?
You know it was It was really a lot of pun in prayer and ever went into it because my liability is my own career. People see you as clergyman, they have difficulty seeing you as anything else. And yet the elephant in the middle of the room is I've done over five hundred million dollars worth of films grossed at the box office, continue to be in that arena and now during television with Lifetime, done a lot of projects and outside things beyond the pale of clergy. And when I look around at our communities. It's not just preaching that we need. We need information about business, about entrepreneurship, recreating our lives. People who were a second chance citizens, ex offenders, how do they get back up on their feet again? Mothers have empty nests, people trying to subsidize their income, looking for a job when you may have to create the job that you need. And I wanted to have a conversation with my generation about it.
It is important.
And before we even get into the book, it's two sections I want to talk about. It's the front of the book, in the back of the book. In the front of the book you talk about the Texas Offenders re Entry Initiative, which I knew nothing about. Let me give my listeners the background. Launch in two thousand and five, the TORII program has served over ten thousand formerly in cost of radio adults across the state of Texas in healthcare, employment, housing, spirituality, education and family.
But ten thousand, Bishop Tdjakes, it's not.
The number is actually up to seventeen thousand now that have gone through our program. We meet them once they get out of prison. We put them into a year to two year training program that helps some of them to get GEDs. Fifty percent of them have gotten jobs as a result of being there. We direct them into housing, We work on their family skills, we do anger management classes, we do very practical dress, how to address for an interview, that sort of thing, and we continue to enhance it. I meet the CEOs and corporate leaders about giving a certain amount of job allotments to second chance citizens. And we have had accommodations from the Obama administration down through the years. We've been appreciated by the criminal justice system, and we're getting ready to have a graduation and still for a whole new match of students who are coming through the program. So it's alive and.
Well, if you ever need me to speak to them, you know, I'm about motivation, about uplift. You know my life. I come from the inner city fifth Ward. I've been fortunate. My degree is in mathematics and corporate trained and IBM, and I just know that sometimes you need to hear a person just came from a community that wasn't supposed to be the blessed community right stepped out there, was pushed in the right direction.
You know what I'm saying. We all are pushed but sometimes we don't.
We ignore that push or that renovation and the right people motivated me. And when it was at the front of the book, I wanted to bring that out because if it's important to be in the book, the only thing I would say, I bought the book on Kendle, I bought your book, sir.
They could at least go.
Online and update ten thousand and seventeen thousand.
Okay, it's digital. They can go in there and change that ten thousand and seventeen thousand.
You know, the number is so staggering. And people who have been following me for years, some of them knowing, some of them don't. If you follow me on social media, you get to see the graduation and the clips of the graduation, or if you're a member of my church, you're knowing. But if you just watch my television show, you would never know that we're doing anything like that. We've been doing this for years, I know.
And that's another segment before we get in the book. I want to talk about is the back of the book.
Okay, because it's an appendix section called where you it's called definition of term section? Will you really break down explain to people what a sole for propriortoreship is corporation, is cash flow, balance sheet And these are statements that scare people because they don't know where to go, they don't know what to term. So and then you have another section called other resource section, will you explain to people what a small business administration is and what website to go to?
You know, all these A score website to go to, Black.
Enterprise, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur magazine, all these things. Why was important because I read a lot of books. I've been motivated a lot over years. I've been fortunate that I have done talk shows like you have, so I've gotten a lot of books come my way over the last ten years of my life. I've never seen this in a book. Why did you?
I did not want to write a puff piece, a fluff book, but you know you could make it and name it and claim it and go after your dreams and all that kind of stuff. Because at the end of you know, motivation without information least to frustration. So I did not want to further motivate people without providing the kind of information that would cause them to end up with frustration. Every And you know this, well, if you've done entertainment business, like you have. Every genre of business has its own lingo and language. You can't function in that genre if you don't learn the language. You wouldn't go to Spain to live and not learn Spanish. You wouldn't go to Paris and not learn friends. And if you're going to go into business, you have to learn the language. And I've tried to make it simple enough. It's not like a whole foreign language, but there are some terms so that when you're in a meeting, you have some sense of what they're talking about and you're not intimidated. So many people are going in business because they have a talent. They have the talent, but they don't have the terms. And the terms helps you to be able to escalate the talent because then you can craft the business model to protect you because business is a jungle and you can get divied out there if you don't know how to protect yourself and you.
And that's why I'm telling everybody right now.
The show Money Making Conversation is designed for entrepreneurship. Free information that I provide to my listeners and viewers. If you're on my Facebook page. This is the first book I've ever encountered.
That is a book.
You go to the shelves, you walk away, and you can build your career, build your life not only through your faith, but all through to principles. Throughout this book, it's about sore and the analogy is taken from the fact that as a kid, which I was related to. I related to the fact that my dad, my Disneyland trip was to go to the airport right and watch the planes take off. When I read that, I said, this is my book.
It was cheap entertainment back then. We go to the airport and watch some flights take off. My kids wouldn't think we were crazy if I took them to the airport to watch some planes take off, but it was the only kind of entertainment my parents could afford. It led to me becoming fascinated with the Right Brothers. The Right Brothers become the metaphor for the book because they built their airplane in a bicycle shop, and it just it's a great conversation.
I love writing the book, and that's the type of terminology.
It's going to be relatable, you know.
The next break, we're going to go into more detail about the actual book because I want people to understand that it's broken down into four parts. I'm just gonna set everybody up. It's four parts. Expand your vision, Bill, your wings, clear the clouds, soart a new high. And when I when I, when I'm engaged in this next don't go nowhere because you got to hear the profound words of leadership, fellowship, and in entrepreneurship. That's going to let you know that you can win in the game of small business and game of life. And the one thing I also took away from the book is that if you're the employee, you should read this book because you are a brand and you should consider yourself an entrepreneur. On the pog is Bishop Tdjkes, and we're going to go in more detail about sore New York Times bestseller build your Vision from the ground up, And I'm telling everybody it truly is a person's blueprint for success.
Bishop.
The reason I want to really start with your mom and your dad, because see, when people write books. The one thing I don't like when they write books, it's like they have no history and.
They don't have any resume.
Your mom was a real estate was involved in real estate, and your father had a janitorial service.
So you learned this as a young As a youth, it was.
A conversation in my house every day. It was the environment I grew up here. And my mother was always looking for a deal on real estate and buying these pieces of property and collecting rent from them, and in fact, she did it when I was a child. She maintained that property throughout her life. My mother finally died at seventy three with Alzheimer's, and even as she was fading away, my mother had rent money coming in that she from houses she couldn't remember anymore. And it left an indelible impression upon me because my mother was not at the mercy of social security. She was not at the mercy of her teacher's retirement. Though she received that, she subsidized her income, and she becomes a catalyst for conversation, particularly for women of color who have had to scratch their way up and fight them to fight the tide and the male dominated disconnect that exists in our country today. I think my mother is the social greate inspiration.
We'll be right back with more from Rashaan McDonald, and money making conversations don't touch.
That, though.
Welcome back to the Money Making Conversations Masterclass hosted by Rashaan McDonald. Money Making Conversations Masterclass continues online at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making Conversations Masterclass on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
You better believe it.
And that's another reason I'm gonna I'm gonna keep putting notches on why you should read this book. You should read this book about your mom because of the fact that you know, in the times of racism, you know, and it was you know, this still doesn't exist today, but back then, you know, for her to have the inspiration to understand, Okay, I'm a school teacher, but I'm gonna put a lot of money over here, and I'm gonna go go get this one house, get this one house. That is to me is that's just have to experience that lets me know why you're successful today.
My mother bought so much real estate that they ended up niming the street after her. She owned all the property on the street and property in other areas of the city. So I had her on one hand and my dad was on the other hand, who started a business with a mom and a mucket and ended up with fifty two employees in the sixties in West Virginia, the second poor state in the Union, five percent black in the sixties, and he still want in the art of business, my friend with lease.
That's to your book, my friend. So build your.
Vision from the ground up. You broke it up in the four chapters I'm just named these chapters. Just give me a short synopsis on why that chapter is important. The first part one expand your vision.
You know, you are no more than the thoughts you think, and it's very, very important that you span your vision. I see so many people who are even working good jobs. We mentioned before the break about people who are on a job and they're building a vision for the company, but they have not built a brand for themselves. And when the company gets finished with you, they tossed you aside. You're back to ground level zero. You have not used those principles that you use for the company, you don't use them for yourself. I think that's a very important place to start. The fact that African American women and Leatingo women are going into business more readily than any other people group is important to discuss as well, because they're also going out of business because they don't really have sustainability or access to finances in order to be productive. So I start out by talking about vision. Everything starts with the vision. Expanding your vision, going to new horizons, always being progressive, not being so busy doing the work that you don't get to think the work you do. Lost entrepreneurs the same thing that made them greatest killing them. They're so busy doing the work that they don't get a chance to think the work. And they cannot confuse busyness with business.
Wow, you have two chapters here, chapter two and chapter three. Bill your wings and clear the clouds.
You have to bill your their own wings. I use again the metaphor the right brothers. And it took them forever to get the plane in the air, but they had to build their own wings in order to get it done. It's not going to happen through magic. It is a building process. It is not going to come through osmosis or just because you put a nice picture on social media. I deeply believe in marketing and social media, but that it's not going to come through magic like that. And I talk about building those wings because when you think of a business, a business is not a destination it's a transportation. The destination was to get in the clouds. The transportation was the plane. So your goal should not be to have a business. Your goal should be to have economic equity and your flight pattern and your wings is through your business. If the goal is to have a business, you can have a business to starve to death. The goal should be to have economic liquidity so that you have something pass on to your areas and be able to us your community, your generation, show into your charities, whatever you that's the goal. Now what are we going to build to accomplish the goal? Too many people see the business as the goal. The business is not the goal. It is not the ends. It's the means. You have to build those wings to get you to the end of where you're trying to go.
Wow.
In the last chapter, last like I say, is four parts, expand your vision, billion wings, clear the clouds, and the final one is sore to new heights.
Keep evolving, keep growing. Whether you build a business to sell, and there are logical reasons why many people build a business with selling in mind, or whether you build the business to pass on as a legacy to your children, you have to keep momentum. You have to keep momentum. It is the thrust that keeps the plane in the air. If you lose your thrust, the plane will fall. The law of aerodynamics supersedes the law of gravity. And this is the issue in all of our lives. We have a gravitational pull that's always try to pull us back down to where we came from. In order to escape that gravitational pull, you must maintain momentum. So you must be airborne. Must maintained momentum, keep growing, keep building, keep going forward, because if an airport, if an airplane stops his thrust, it will immediately fall to the ground.
Ladies and gentlemen and sore, build your vision from the ground up. Bishop TDJS reveals how to build a uniquely personal vision within you, within you, listen to me, within you into your own special and have you make your own special contributions to the world by blending common.
Sense and information.
That's what this book brings to you, common sense and information, and he wraps it up with faith. Don't ever walk on out that door thinking faith does not play a major role.
That's what I loved about this book because from.
A ministers from a ministrels from a preaching standpoint.
You know, we know what you do. You're a bishop.
You didn't start the book out like that, you go through it all. I'm gonna lay it out the stores with Oprah Michelle Nicholas as the lieutenant or hurl. You talk about Miss Robbie, you talk about Patti LaBelle, how she saw an opportunity, she just pray on it, she acts on it.
She acted on it.
And that's what I love about this book because you're telling people, Look, i'm gonna tell you about business first, and then we're gonna pray in a minute though we're but I'm gonna tell you this is the business principle. Don't put prayer before business now. And that is why I love this book, sir. And wow, I know it's I know it's I know it can't stay on the shelves. I know it cannot stay on the shelves.
God bless you. Know.
The thing about it is that I've always been a fan of what you do.
And actually, you know, cause you can call.
Me a jaded book reader and then read a book where I gained so much information, so much knowledge, and I'm just gonna share to the world when people hear this show. The fact is you have the blueprint. Stop stop looking at it anywhere, Stop reading other things. This man was born in the house of entrepreneurs. Her success is Google him.
Google him.
You will see and the consistency and the fact that he's given back. In two thousand and five, over seventeen thousand men and women out of Texas incarcerated a living a positive life, with over fifty three percent of them getting jobs. Sir, thank you for coming on my show. I'm a fan. I'm a fan, and we're gonna keep selling these books.
Probab We're going to sell these books come out.
Bishop, thank you for joining us for this edition of Money Making Conversations Master Class. Money Making Conversations Master Class with through Sean McDonald is produced by thirty eight fifteen Media Inc. More information about thirty eight to fifteen Media Inc. Is available at thirty eight to fifteen media dot com. And always remember to lead with your Giftstett