The Living Room with Louis Jackson III
🎙️ Welcome to The Living Room Podcast! 🛋️
Join us for an inspiring and insightful discussion with Louis Jackson III—Author, Speaker, Social Entrepreneur, and Founder & CEO of Redefined Life, Inc., also known as The Village Anderson. Louis is a visionary leader dedicated to empowering communities through mentorship and social equity.
In addition to leading The Village Anderson, Louis is the CEO of NEXT Enterprises, LLC, where he serves as a mentor development coach, training everyday people to become life-changing mentors who transform their communities.
Through his unique blend of experience in ministry, social services, and leadership development, Louis offers practical wisdom, heartfelt stories, and actionable strategies to help you step into your purpose as a mentor and leader.
Whether you're a seasoned mentor or just starting your journey, this conversation will leave you inspired and equipped to make an impact where it matters most.
🛋️ Pull up a seat and join the conversation!
The Living Room with Louis Jackson III
Breaking Free: Resilience & Self-Motivation
Ever wondered how to break free from life's toughest ruts? Join us as Eren Davis, shares his powerful story of transformation from homelessness and unemployment to a life marked by resilience and success. We uncover the vital role of mindset, the influence of mentors, and the unwavering support of family in propelling Eren forward. Together, we revisit wisdom from Proverbs and offer practical steps to help you overcome your own life's challenges.
Learn the art of self-motivation by taking a cue from an unlikely source—the ant. We unpack the analogy of a star player learning from a fundamentally sound teammate and emphasize the value of humility and continuous learning. This chapter is a call to action for all entrepreneurs and self-driven individuals to push through natural feelings of laziness and thrive without the need for constant supervision.
Finally, we tackle the importance of preparation and foresight in "Preparing for Winter," drawing lessons from the story of Joseph in Egypt. The cyclical nature of seasons reminds us to save during good times for the inevitable challenges ahead. We round off with "Overcoming Laziness Together," where we stress not letting feelings dictate actions and staying committed to personal goals. Join our community and coaching sessions to stay motivated and continue your personal development journey.
what's up, family? It's your boy, lewis, and I am glad to welcome you to the living room. The living room is a place where we level up. It's a safe place for us to have those hard conversations to make sure that we can get to our next level, whatever area of the next level you need to be in. And, man, I'm so glad that you tuned in on today because this is what I love to do, me, and my special guest was just talking about that. I love to help people and I love to take people to the next level, and so I'm glad that you allowed me to do that with you today.
Speaker 1:But before we jump forward, I want to make sure that, right now, pause this if you have not liked and subscribed to the living room. It is necessary, y'all, because I wanted to be exposed to everyone. I want you to like, subscribe, and then I want you to write a review. Let hold on, it got to be a good review, y'all. If it ain't, just email me and let me know what I need to do better, so I don't need you to be giving me no, like, no ones or no twos. You know I'm saying I need you to help me out, uh, because I'm trying to. I'm trying to get to that next level. You feel me, and so, as I'm helping you, you help me. Well, as we're getting ready to jump right into our particular topic on today, I brought my boy back, my guy aaron davis. He was with us last week. Uh, he was spitting some crazy knowledge and it was so wonderful. I brought him back again this week. You know what I mean. And so, aaron, welcome back bro appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Appreciate you. I'm glad to be here yeah, man.
Speaker 1:Um, they our audience. I want them to really get to know more about you because I feel like, uh, you have such a wealth of knowledge, um, just because you've been through a lot, and so do me a favor before we jump into the topic for today. Why does this particular topic about getting out of a rut? Why does it mean so much to you?
Speaker 2:Simply because I'm not speaking from a perspective of somebody who's had it all, coming from a perspective of somebody who's had it all coming from a perspective of somebody who's been through homelessness, who's been through unemployment, who's who's not.
Speaker 2:Had it all figured out, uh, but just wanted more for myself, so uh that's, uh, the reason it means a lot to me because I've I've been pushed back in the rut. You know I've been uh, going up and slipped. You know I didn't sat in the rut. You know I've been going up and slipped. You know I didn't sat in the rut, so it's like I didn't been through these different stages. So my wealth of knowledge just comes from my teachers as well. As you know my life experience.
Speaker 1:Man. It's interesting because one of the things that I told Aaron and I'm telling him on live um, I love his resilience. Some of the things that he has been through uh has it. I don't know if I could have made it out. You know what I mean, appreciate that um, I don't think I could have been able to get knocked down and then jump back up and say, yeah, it hurts, but it's going down. Yeah, I'm about to go make it happen Again.
Speaker 2:Great teachers. You know, like you, like you know my godfather, somebody who's also a mentor to me, just really man. You know family. I have a cousin I'm really close to, so you know he's acted as a mentor for me at certain points too. So, just using all this different information and just wanting to go in the right direction I talked before about that mindset- yeah. You know it's, it's, it's vital.
Speaker 2:I mean you just, it's just something that just starts to grow in you and you can kind of feel it Um, feel it um, but but you have to put effort in and uh, and that's that's what I did, that's how I got here, that's how I got opportunities. Uh, ie modeling, yeah, you know, uh, I've been a part of an improv group, um, okay, here in indiana too. So, uh, they would just all these opportunities come from, just, you know, wanting more for myself and just having that inner like it's something more to me than just what I've been through.
Speaker 1:If.
Speaker 2:I can provide any inspiration. You know that's. That's what I want to do.
Speaker 1:Man, as you are listening today and you may find yourself in a rut, I I pray that you will hear some of this wisdom that we're going to talk about today. If you've been rocking with me from a couple of weeks ago, we started this series and we started talking about how to get out of a rut and we were using Proverbs as our base point. Right, and I ain't gonna lie, I hope you got some great things last week, but it felt like we could have had like a whole nother conversation A whole nother conversation Like we needed about like two or three weeks on Proverbs, talking about guarding your heart, man.
Speaker 1:Oh, man Like it felt like we could have just really deep dive even more into that. But what I want you to do as a listener, my job is to just kind of get you going, kind of, you know, pump the prime, the pump a little bit and then hopefully you will actually go and read it some more and give us your feedback. If you go to mynextcoachingcom, man, hit me up and give me some feedback on what you, what you're learning. But today, today, man, we got something that's going to be great. We about to show you something in the scriptures that maybe y'all never seen before, out of Proverbs, that I believe is going to give us some more principles of how to get out of this rut, how do we break free. And it's coming out of Proverbs, chapter six, verses six through 11. And if you've been rocking with me, y'all know I'm all about this passion translation, and so I'm going to read it to you and then we're going to, you know, begin to talk about it verse by verse, and then I'm gonna let you up out of here. Here we go, proverbs 6, 6 through 11. It says this and enter into wisdom.
Speaker 1:The ants have no chief, no boss, no manager. No one has to tell them what to do. You will see them working and twirling all summer long. Stop piling their food in preparation for winter. Verse 9. So wake up, sleepyhead. Oh, if you hear me, right now I'm talking to you. Wake up, sleepyhead. How long will you lie there? When will you wake up and get out of bed If you keep nodding off and thinking I'll do it later? Or say to yourself I'll just sit back a while and take it easy. Just watch how your future will unfold by making excuses.
Speaker 1:Listen to verse 11. By making excuses, you will learn what it means to go without. Poverty will pounce on you like a bandit. Oh, listen to the words of the ant. Oh, man, I'm trying to tell y'all. I can't wait to unpack this. We got a few minutes, so I'm going to start with verse six. Aaron, I'm going to start with verse six, and it says when you're feeling lazy, come and learn a lesson from this tale of the tiny ant. Tell me, bro, what jumps out to you just from those few words?
Speaker 2:You can learn from the smallest insect, if not the smallest insect.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:But the power in it is just that it's an ant. It can come out of its hole and somebody can step on it and kill it right then, before they even got to what they're trying to get, wow. So, as this goes, you have to be able to learn, and we were talking about the analogy of the most talented player on the team having to learn from the guy that is less talented than him, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So that's the ant in the situation.
Speaker 1:That's the ant.
Speaker 2:But he's very fundamentally sound. He makes all the right passes. Come on, he does all the right things, so the coach loves him. That's why he's on the team, but he's sitting at the end of the bench.
Speaker 1:And then to hear the thrust of you got to learn from him. Yes, you the star.
Speaker 2:But you got to shoot, you got to do shooting drills, all the shooting drills with him. You got to do all the defensive drills with him Because, yeah, he's slower than you, but his footwork better than yours, Come on, so you have to. You know there's nuances. There's nuances that he has and that he may have learned in his life, um, that you simply don't have, because talented talent has made you, uh, less fundamentally sound. You know what I'm?
Speaker 1:saying yeah that's.
Speaker 2:That's what jumps out to me first, like when I first hear that you can learn from the smallest um or the the lowest on the totem pole.
Speaker 1:What jumps out to me, man, as I was looking at this, was those first four words in the Passion Translation when you're feeling lazy, you may say if you're listening to me, you're probably like Lewis. What in the world? Why does that jump out to you? Because it did not say if you're feeling lazy. He actually, the writer, was actually presupposing that, as a human, you're going to feel lazy. I want to free somebody, man. Yeah, can I free somebody? Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Just because you feeling lazy, don't beat yourself up on it. Yeah, one of the things, as I'm one of those type A personalities that I'm a go-getter, I feel like if I'm not going, I'm not with it.
Speaker 2:I'm not doing nothing. I'm not doing nothing, yeah.
Speaker 1:But then there are days man need to. I feel lazy yeah and I feel guilty natural for feeling lazy natural right, but here in the scripture that blows me away. He says when you feel lazy, but here's the deal. Here's the deal. He said when you feel lazy, come and learn another words. He's saying you cannot allow your feeling to dictate your movement. Can I, oh, y'all make me want to get my preach?
Speaker 2:Well, you got to understand the risk that the ant takes when it comes out of the dirt. So it leaves and it's going on a mission to store up some stuff for the fam Right, come on. But it's taking a risk leaving the hole.
Speaker 1:So he can't allow the feeling of fear to stop him that's an emotion From leaving the hole you can't you can't Because I got to eat.
Speaker 2:I got 5,000 ants back here. Come on.
Speaker 1:I got to make sure they good. I got to do it.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter. What I'm feeling right now doesn't matter, but here's the deal. I can't feel guilty for feeling it, no, but I cannot allow it to stop me. Exactly, here's the deal. That's what I want you to see. So if you interrupt right now and you feeling like I'm in this rut, I'm tired, I may be dealing with some mental health issues right, you know what I'm saying. Don't feel guilty. Guilty, right, but here's the deal. Here goes the good news you can't stay there. Yep, uh-uh.
Speaker 1:Wow I can't allow my feeling to keep me where I'm at.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because here's what the scripture tells you. Yes, all you lazy bones, it's okay. Come learn from the example of the ant and then you will enter into wisdom. Come and look at this ant. We could go deeper in verse 6, but I got to keep moving.
Speaker 2:I got to keep moving. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So now verse 7. The ants have no chief, no boss, no manager. No one has to tell them what to do. On, aaron, tell me what you feeling, bro. Okay, that's some good words it's excellent.
Speaker 2:So what it's saying is the ant has moved from. I'm not being emotional and I'm moving regardless, and I'm moving because this is something that I understand, that I have to do. I have to do this. So if, in order to get to that next level, like you guys are wanting to do, you have to understand first.
Speaker 2:Okay, I got to pick myself up first and foremost then, on top of that, you got to say hey, I'm not doing this for x, y or z, I'm doing this for me. So he's not even doing it for the 5 000 ants. Come on back at the crib, right, he's. He's doing it because it's like no, this is what I got to do. I actually don't even know how to operate any other way. You know what I'm saying, so it's like that in itself is a lesson to learn. You, lazy bones, come on. Everybody has these moments, right.
Speaker 1:Everybody's feeling emotional.
Speaker 2:Everybody's kind of going through some form of uh, mental health right. Everybody has their, their deal right. But you have to move out of that. And then you have to pick yourself up and you got to say, hey, I don't need X, Y or Z to hold me accountable.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do this on. Can I tell you, man, I've as a, as an entrepreneur, a business owner okay, one of the things that I look for when I'm looking at people to connect me with is I'm looking for people that got self-motivation.
Speaker 1:You feel me like I am not here to be over and trying to micromanage you. I don't have time for it. I got too much going on in my own life. I got too many things that I've got my hand in and if I put you in a spot, I need to know that you can go. You got some inward motivation and you're not going to be deterred by external circumstances Because here's the deal. Can I keep it real with you? I know this is going to be some hard coaching for some of you. Life is life and everybody going through it. Can I holler at you? Just because you're dealing with life, don't give you a right to end up saying like, well, woe is me, and then you, you drop down and you don't do what you got to do. Right, I'm sorry now. Now, here's the deal. There's a balance to this. I'm not saying that we are not empathetic to your situation, but what I am telling you you can't stay there right and you gotta have inner motivation.
Speaker 2:How many times have you talked to me? Come on and you told me all right, brother.
Speaker 1:Hey, I understand, I ain't saying, I don't understand.
Speaker 2:I actually may empathize with that. You better get up. You better get up what you going to do, stay there. You know what I'm saying. So it's just like you said hard truth, but life is life and when you deal with that reality, you just got to understand I have to move like the ant. I have to do this regardless. I got to do this because if I don't do this, what's the?
Speaker 1:alternative. Hmm, see, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a. Let me throw something at you, and this is parenthetically.
Speaker 1:Some of the people that are listening to me, um, are minorities, right, right, some of the people that you may be listening to me and I got to holler at my minorities right now. Um, I know that our circumstances that surround us is not always picture perfect, right, I'm gonna keep it real with you. I understand that we didn't always grow up in the perfect circumstances exactly, but this scripture tells me something here that the ant will move. I don't need somebody to tell me that I need to get up out of this. I should not have to have the government tell me I should not have to have. If some of you are in DCS or you in probation or something, I shouldn't have to have somebody tell me to go do what I know I need to do. I should get myself up and go handle my business. But because we don't do that, we allow everybody else to tell us what to do and we wait on them to tell us what to do, even though we know what to do, and so we're like wait, you can't be like that.
Speaker 1:Do you see the lesson?
Speaker 2:from the end. Oh, yes, A thousand percent Again. You know you got to have some type of self-starter in you. So even the person that's going to work the nine to five right, he has to make a decision, she has to make the decision. I'm getting up and I'm going to go to work today and I'm going to work eight hours. I'm going to work to 12 hours.
Speaker 1:Hey, it is what it is.
Speaker 2:This is America.
Speaker 1:I don't like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nobody does.
Speaker 1:If you had a choice Lewis.
Speaker 2:What would you done today?
Speaker 1:You probably slept in with your wife, right? I'm trying to tell you, I'm trying to tell you Cuddling is nice. You know what I'm saying you know what I'm saying and my baby is, that's my girl. Hey, exactly. But you know what? I gotta go work. I gotta go get it, I gotta go do something.
Speaker 2:I gotta put that potato chip on my back as the end and I gotta bring it back.
Speaker 1:I gotta bring this potato chip bank man man, I want to stay with verse 7, but it goes even deeper. Verse 8 says this You'll see them working and twirling all summer long, stockpiling their food Listen to this word in preparation for winter. Oh man, aaron, I got to hit this, and then I'll let you get to a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, here's the deal. This, and then I'll let you get you a little bit. Yeah, yeah, here's the deal. What that says to me, man, is that you cannot be so short-sighted that you don't see the next step. Here's the deal. They know that right now, in summer, it may be feeling good, but they do know this. You, a dog, winter is coming. You, a dog summer. Right now I'm doing good. Here's a, here's what I'm hearing here, and this is another thing that I'm still learning myself.
Speaker 1:Y'all because I told y'all I've been in this rut and I'm in the scriptures is even helping me out. The lord is like hey, bro, it's just like with, uh, uh, joseph in the bible, joseph was leading egypt, but here's why he was leading Egypt. He knew that they're going to go through seven years of plenty. But here's the deal, what the Lord told him through a dream that he told Pharaoh we got to stockpile during the years of plenty because there's going to be seven years of famine. And he told him here's the wisdom Joe Joseph, if you go ahead, I'm going to give you a lot in the summer because I'm going to let you take some of that and prepare for the famine in the winter. We got to learn to get out of ourselves. Stop getting so caught up in having the good times in the summer and forget that the winter is coming.
Speaker 2:It is a season, just like everything else is coming, whether you like it or not a thousand percent and again, that's what jumps out to me when I hear that is having the vision and understanding that the winter is coming, it's coming. So, for example, my independent contractors out there, right, you get that big lump of money in the summer help me jesus, so so.
Speaker 2:So when you get that big lump of money in the summer, you got to understand winter's coming, my brother, winter is coming, so you got to make sure you got enough bread put up to where it's like, hey, I can make it through the winter and I ain't gotta work come on, if my job. If I work a construction job, come on, you know what I'm saying so it's like, but these are things that take conditioning too yeah we want you all to also understand this takes conditioning.
Speaker 2:I'm telling, I'm talking from a perspective of a brother that is you know what I'm saying going through it in the rut, like you said, picking myself up, but just having that vision of, oh, I know it won't be like this forever.
Speaker 1:It's true, the snow, might the snow, it might be enough snow to where it lift me up to the top, to out the rut come on, but I, if I'm not preparing myself for even that, you know um, it's real, you can come up short, you can come up short, you can come up short. So I want to stay there, but I'm going to read 9 through 11. Right, so here is what it says. So wake up, sleepy Dang. I'm trying to. I can't even get past it.
Speaker 2:Wake up.
Speaker 1:You know what we're going to have to do part two of this. Yeah, for sure, off just of this one. Come on, yeah, okay. Oh for sure, off just of this one, off of this one, because I know it's almost time for me to get up out of here, but here's. I gotta tell somebody wake up. Yes, you are in a rut and that rut has lured you to sleep because you've been in it for so long. You've been in a space for so long that you haven't had prosperity. You've been in a space for so long that you haven't had prosperity. You've been in a space for so long that you have not been able to do what you know that you could do. So what it done it has made you go to sleep and we're sleeping at the wheel, peeps.
Speaker 2:Now let me say this what about the guys? This is for the guys, too that are picking themselves up and then they're falling right back down. Come on, this is for the guys, too, that are picking themselves up, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and then they're falling right back down. Come on, this is for that guy, too. Yeah, that's me. I'm that guy. I pick myself up a million times, come on, and I fall right back down. Why? Because you got to change habits. Come on, you have to change habits.
Speaker 1:And that's what he is meaning by wake up, wake up, wake up. You cannot stay where you are. There is more to life than where you are. There are blessings that God is like. I got them here, but you can't get them staying asleep. Yeah, you got to wake up, sleepyhead. And if you wake up and no longer be lazy because again, I the feeling don't feel, don't beat yourself up because of the feeling, because the feelings are actually an alert from your body to let you know, hey, something is wrong yeah so ain't nothing wrong with the feeling, but here's the deal.
Speaker 1:Here's gonna be that champion is when I don't want to go get up and work at six o'clock, I gotta get up anyway. I cannot let the feeling dictate what I'm gonna do. Yeah, right, and hey, here's the deal. Y'all we at the end of today's lesson, and I'm but I wanna show you that I'm empathetic. I don't want you to think that I'm perfect. I don't want you to think I, even though I'm teaching you this and we're talking about this, I don't want you to think that I'm doing it all the time that's why you?
Speaker 1:can come to the living room. It's a safe place, yeah, it's a place that we can say you know what, man? Oh, this was a hard one, lou. Yeah, I know it, man, but we can move forward together. Yeah, together we gonna pick this up, because right now you, you know, I'm on verse nine and I still got like three more verses to go. So, holler at me next week.
Speaker 1:I want you to jump on here next week and I promise we're going to finish this one next week, because I don't want to leave you, I don't want to go beyond my time, but hey, if you have not liked and subscribed to this podcast, I need you to go do that right now. Right now, I want you to go give me a review and if you want to go deeper, if you want to be coached by myself and our team, I want you to go to MyNextCoachingcom and hit me up. Look at some of the programs that we offer, because we believe every potty has a next level. You got to go get it though. Right, aaron? It was awesome, bro, always, brother, it seemed like you got to come back here again next week, man, I got to come back again Because we ain't done yet, let's do it.
Speaker 1:So for Louis and Aaron, come back and ho.
