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I need people in my kingdom that will lock the enemy out of their family, lock the enemy out of their marriage, out of their children, out of their grandchildren, out of their businesses, out of their sales calls, out of their city, out of their state, out of their government, and open the door to the Holy Spirit to bring comfort, to bring peace, to bring truth.
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Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back.
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This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast and I'm your host, john Gallagher.
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Today, I'm joined by a truly inspiring guest, kevin White.
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Kevin is not just a dynamic leader within his company that he founded, but he's also an intense supporter for spiritual formation and professional development.
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His unique approach blends mission and purpose with professional success, insisting that the true measure of impact is both spiritual and professional growth.
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We also dive into Kevin's prolific writing career, with seven books published and an eighth on the way that he wrote in just 24 hours.
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Get ready to be inspired by Kevin's unwavering dedication to making an impact spiritually, professionally and globally.
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Let's get started.
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Kevin White, it's so great to have you on the Uncommon Leader podcast.
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My friend, how are you doing?
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today I'm doing great, John.
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Thank you so much.
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What a privilege it is to be with you.
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Yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation.
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No doubt about it.
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I know we have some really good things to talk about.
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Even before we hit the record button, we talked about some cool things that you got going on and God working in your life, so I'm looking forward to that conversation.
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I'll start you off with the same first question I always ask my first time guests on the podcast, and that's to tell me a story from your childhood or from your youth that still impacts who you are as a leader or as a person today.
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Yeah, yeah, I was just thinking about that and today I really feel anointed as a fundraiser.
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I really sense God's call to multiply kingdom wealth for kingdom impact.
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And that's fundraising, whether you do it in generating profit through a business or donations to a nonprofit.
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And I've done both.
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And so, looking back, as a child, I was one of the top fundraisers in Royal Rangers.
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If they gave me a box of popcorn, I was selling out and looking for another one.
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If they gave me candles, I was selling out, ready for another box.
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And we lived in a very rural area.
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I grew up in Sunshine, north Carolina.
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It literally has a welcome to Sunshine.
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On both sides of the sign there is no stoplight, no major markets or anything.
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The elementary school, k through eighth grade, was about 300 people, and so it's a very small community.
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And I would get on my bike and ride the rural roads from neighbor to neighbor and sell whatever was put in front of me.
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And so I look back and just see seeds planted, that God really birthing in my DNA before I even thought much about God's plan and purpose, and call on my life.
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I can look back and see that he had wired me certain ways for his kingdom good, so I'm thankful for that.
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Kevin, that's so funny, I mean, as I think back as I listened to your story.
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It takes me back to selling those Saris candy bars as a kid the big fundraiser for St Anthony's School that I was growing up in as well and I get a sense that maybe you do.
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You don't have that fear of knocking on the door to get that sale.
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Or, in the case of business, when we stay in it as business leaders as well, hearing that no, what is it in that gift that you think you have that gives you the confidence to make that happen.
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Let's kind of stay on that story for just a little bit.
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Well as it relates to nonprofit.
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You hear this in the nonprofit community, money follows vision, and that is so true and that needs to be brought into the business arena as well.
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I have met so many people with a great opportunity for business, but they don't articulate their vision well enough to really keep it going and it fizzles out, Something happens along the way and they lose sight of it and it crashes around them and, as we all know, most businesses fail.
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And so the ones that succeed, in my perspective, succeed in casting their vision, articulating their vision, talking out their vision.
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And so somehow, by the grace of God, I was given a vision of conquering the yes and wasn't intimidated by the no.
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And I would.
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You know who wouldn't buy a box of popcorn from an eight-year-old on his bicycle that had sweated out a half a mile to get to you?
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And people would.
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Maybe it was out of the compassion or the kindness of their heart, but they would buy whatever I would bring to them and I would have a lot of success in that.
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But I wasn't afraid to, to go out and to ask and to cast the vision, to articulate hey, we're raising money for summer camp and I, I need you to buy a box of popcorn and help, help me to go to camp, and they would.
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And, uh, I was successful at that.
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Interesting.
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We're going to stay on.
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We're going to stay on that just a minute.
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I know we're going to get a chance really to talk about.
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What I want to learn more is some of the spiritual gift you have in writing as well.
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But you think about?
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You're the founder and chief spiritual officer of Spirit Media and you founded that a few years ago.
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So you've got to have a vision for your organization to be able to sell that business as well.
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So tell me a little bit about that process and how you found a spirit, a little bit of what you all were doing there and helping others out with.
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Yeah, yeah, when I was 17, god said I had a plan for your life.
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And that was revolutionary for me because no one had ever spoke vision into my future until the Holy Spirit did at age 17.
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Until the Holy Spirit did at age 17.
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Loved my parents, they loved me, but they weren't really big on high education and didn't really point me to any career or anything.
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But all of a sudden, senior in high school, I really began sensing God say he had a plan for my life and I began to trust him in that.
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And so, 12 years prior to COVID, I was going back and forth to India taking a thousand people on short-term trips, raising millions for God's work over in India.
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And then COVID shut down international travel and I really sensed God calling me to write.
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I had witnessed something over in India that I had never seen in a book, and so my very first book is Audacious Generosity.
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And so my very first book is Audacious Generosity, john 3, 16,.
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And just really seeing that God's strategy has always been generosity for God's so love that he gave, and really bringing that out in the book, I've seen village doors open to generosity where those same people would throw rocks at the pastor if they tried to share the good news of Jesus with them.
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But if you brought in a free medical clinic and address the fevers of their babies, those same pastors could shake hands with the same people that would be throwing rocks and offer to pray to the same Jesus that he wanted to introduce them to anyway and give them the same Bible that he hoped that they would receive.
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But it would all be on the hands of generosity instead of what we might describe as traditional evangelism.
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And I watched that over and over and over and wrote about it in Audacious Generosity, and so still couldn't travel in 2021 and worked on my second book, had worked with a company in Texas to help me get my first book on the market, and when I couldn't, when I went back to them they were now 12 months behind because of the pandemic and I got frustrated.
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It was June.
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I really sensed it needed to come out this that fall and on November the 9th 2021, we published my second book, get to the Point, in ebook, paperback, hardback, audio book everywhere books are sold and put 700 copies in the mail that day and I just knew God had given us a great gift, and so I held this book up in a magazine in January of 2022.
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And I said I published two, I can help you publish your first.
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I still couldn't travel, I wasn't really thinking about becoming a publisher.
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I wasn't really thinking about becoming a publisher, but 250 people responded and I started coming to a point of having to write, or the opportunity to write publishing contracts, even before we incorporated.
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And in May of 2022, I'm crying out to God Okay, god, I really see this opportunity.
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I don't know.
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I sense you're bringing it to me.
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I thought I was going to go back to India and yet everything that you're doing today is published, published, published.
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And so God led me to write a business plan and again, that was articulating a vision and took in a round of investments from a friends and family round and built out the production line and we went from one book to 38 books in 2022.
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And that began.
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We incorporated two years ago, june the 6th 2022.
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We incorporated Spirit Media and have really seen God really blow it into a full service publishing and marketing company.
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Now.
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That's fantastic and I love that story, even going back to your first book, in terms of that vision side.
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You mentioned John 3.16.
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And I love that story, even going back to your first book, in terms of that vision side.
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You know you mentioned John 3, 16.
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And I know that the vision even in that verse is pretty clear uh, that if we do believe, you know, we will have eternal life, and I love, I love that verse and I love the purpose behind that verse.
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But there's vision, uh, in many of those verses that we learn.
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And now so you're.
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You're in 2022, you have a vision to.
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In essence, maybe it wasn't what you had for the vision, but a vision placed in your lap to be successful and a gift that you had to help others to make that happen.
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So you're on book two for yourself in 2022, but, going back and folks heard this in my introduction as well as you've now written seven books and actually just are getting ready to come out with your eighth book as well, and we'll get to that in a minute.
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But tell me about the gift just of writing and what's been there for you and what that means for you to be set to write and publish seven books in the matter of just a few years.
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Many people try to write a book in their entire life in terms of getting their first book written and things that happen.
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You've written seven in about four years.
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Tell me about that process and how you really feel about writing books.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So the original verse God gave me to get me to write was Psalm 96.3,.
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Publishes glorious deeds among the nations.
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Tell everyone the great things he has done.
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And as a missionary back and forth to India, that verse really resonated to me.
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I had been captured for the nations, the great commission, really seeing people far from God brought to life in Christ.
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And so this verse got me to write.
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And I was publishing my first book, my second book, and then God kept pounding.
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I had given you the word publish, and so, as I'm praying about all of this, the vision just kept expanding to publish, and even now the company Spirit Media.
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But it starts with writing.
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You really, you know, I think sometimes we miss some clues from God because we have our human, earthly expectation of what God's saying.
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And he's saying oak tree, and yet we're only focused on the seedling and we can't really see the oak tree, for instance.
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But he has already prophesied.
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So he had given me a word that I then was able to see.
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This is a visionary word.
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Publish is visionary.
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You start with writing, but the word is publish.
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And for me it actually turned into a publishing company which was even bigger than my own books, but he had really birthed that vision of helping others tell the story of what God had done in them.
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So all these trips of taking people over to India, we would capture that.
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We would use that as recruitment material to get more people to go over to India.
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Every donor, we would capture that We'd get more people to donate India.
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Every donor, we would capture that We'd get more people to donate.
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And so I'd already been capturing stories throughout several decades, and so now it was just a matter of taking that to a new level within Spirit Media.
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Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you.
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Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations.
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If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me.
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It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team.
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Okay, let's get back to the show.
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I mean ultimately, again a challenge.
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I don't even want to take down a path of my desire to write one book in some period of time, but let's just jump right into really the purpose for this call is your next book that's coming out real soon and that's one.
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Just tell me the story.
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What's your eighth book?
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What book is it going to be?
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And tell me the story behind it.
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Yeah, so just had gotten number seven out on the market.
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Yeah, so just had gotten number seven out on the market.
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It's the book Gifts and it really studies every passage in the Bible where God promises to give His people something.
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And really having a witness out of my own walk with God Again, if you go back to Sunshine, North Carolina, I grew up very poor.
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I remember going to school with shorts under my jeans because it was not popular at the time to show your underwear through your pants, and so I grew up very poor.
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Now, having gone to India 55 times, I've witnessed the miraculous generosity of God to give us everything that we have.
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And I've really lived my life dependent on the gifts of God.
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And had just gotten that book on the market, had went on holiday with my family, read three books.
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I was so grateful that I could unplug for the first time in several years and just read and refresh and rest and enjoy family time.
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And I was doing all of that and got up early one morning, had a great time of prayer and by 6 am that morning I really sensed God was saying you've got to write this down.
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And I started writing and 24 hours later I had a book entitled Stepping Into the Kingdom as Kings of the King and it was really one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had with God.
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I remember really sensing being adopted by God spiritually and being considered a child of God.
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Some of it was just from my upbringing considered a child of God.
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Some of it was just from my upbringing a broken, dysfunctional family.
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I knew my dad loved me but he really lacked the skills to show affection and his love.
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And then coming into the family of God, really finding our Heavenly Father so affectionate toward us and declaring us to be the sons or the daughters of God.
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And then I remember maturing to a point that I really began sensing him, identifying me as a friend, and how humbling I was, how humbled I was.
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You know I would expect Billy Graham to be a friend of God, sure, and Mother Teresa to be a friend of God.
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But, kevin, are you serious?
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But I really sensed he bramed me to a place of really receiving that gift of Him, declaring me His friend and then this year really having a sense of Him saying, kevin, my son came to introduce the kingdom of heaven and he is king of kings, and really challenging me, specifically Matthew, chapter 16, verse 19.
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And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
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And I really sense the spirit just asking me whose keys are they?
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Whose hands are my keys in?
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And really showing me the keys have been put into your hands.
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And if Jesus is truly King of Kings, why do I think he's king of all the evil kings?
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You know we live in a demonically driven world.
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Many times Bad news, everywhere, horrific painful events everywhere we turn.
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And you know the Bible teaches us we're not at war against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities.
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And I just assume, for the majority of my adult Christian are called by my name, entering into my kingdom as a king of the king and really showing me that I've been getting my butt kicked spiritually because I've been putting up with so much hijacked authority that the enemy's been putting in my face that but Jesus, my Lord and Savior, had said all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to me.
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Therefore, go and lo, I will be with you always and just really challenging me.
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Kevin, I need my people to exercise my authority in my kingdom.
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I put the keys into your kingdom and so into your hands, and that verse really became practical for me, of showing me how to pray.
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I've always had a high value of prayer, but it says and I will give you the keys to the kingdom, and whatever you forbid or lock up on earth will be locked up in heaven.
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And whatever you give permission to or unlock on earth will be unlocked in heaven.
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And the Lord just really teaching me I need people in my kingdom that will lock the enemy out of their family, lock the enemy out of their marriage, out of their children, out of their grandchildren, out of their businesses, out of their sales calls, out of their city, out of their state, out of their government, out of their city, out of their state, out of their government, and open the door to the Holy Spirit to bring comfort, to bring peace, to bring truth and all of this.
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And when I began to pray that it's like every single day the Holy Spirit's showing me this is what you need to be locking up in this area.
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This is how you can be welcoming in the Holy Spirit in this area and nitty gritty prayers and individual lives and sales calls and business transactions and companies and really sense the favor of God to step into the kingdom as a king and to call you and all of us to do so.
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Kevin, I sense your purpose in your writing and then listening, through your ability to tell the stories of how God has impacted you and put those words on your heart to get down on paper.
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Leaders listen in.
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No more excuses.
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You can write a 16,000 word book in 24 hours while on vacation.
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Don't tell me you can't get a book done in five or six years.
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Kevin has shown an uncommon way that when you find your zone, when you find what you're really good at and gifted at, that, it can be done.
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They can execute that, Kevin, when you think about the person who's reading the books that you write as well who are you writing for and what do you want them to feel when they've read your books?
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Yeah, I really feel called to write to brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.
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Maybe it's my trips over to India 55 times on flights that were 24 hours or more, and just really having that call to go and there it being ingrained in me that we are to encourage each other in the Word and that that Word strengthens.
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And I've seen that with my own eyes.
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People strengthen as a result of you just giving them the word of God and speaking a word over them and praying for them and then comforting them.
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Many people around the world have lives and livelihoods and are facing persecution on levels that we can't even comprehend, and they live in hard places.
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We sleep on soft mattresses, they sleep on bare floors.
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We have multiple changes of clothes they might have one change of clothes.
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We have multiple copies of the Bible they might have pieces of the Bible.
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And so just really seeing the opportunity for we who are so blessed in our faith you know we have endless libraries and yet many pastors have very few books that they can study from and that they can be encouraged from.
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That we would share that, that we would really really provide words of comfort and encouragement and strength to our brothers and sisters.
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So I really write to my brothers and sisters around the world and just encouraging them in their faith and to be strong in the Lord.
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Thank you, Kevin.
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I appreciate you sharing that.
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I am just a touch curious, as if you will the kryptonite to some of our success.
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I got to believe that there are distractions that come up for you as well, that try to prevent you from doing some of the writing, especially some of the purposeful writing that you're doing.
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How do you overcome those distractions that exist there and how could you encourage leaders who are feeling those things as they go, as they try to be successful?
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Yeah, yeah, great question, and I know what I'm about to say is going to sound so trite.
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But when, going back to 17-year-old Kevin, when God said he had a plan for my life, I didn't give him a 25-page manual of my plan.
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I really offered him a blank slate, or at least attempted to, and to say, okay, god, you fill it, show me what you see, let me hear what you hear.
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And I just began believing Jesus is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do.
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And I've lived my life now really dependent upon God to make the decisions of my life.
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And so when I was speaking earlier about this discipline of prayer, I wish that I could have said when I was 27 years old, it got in my spirit and I started getting up before sunrise and praying, but I didn't.
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And I didn't when I was 37 and I didn't when I was 47.
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I just turned 57 and I'm just now understanding that there is a call of God to really put not just prayer as a value but to make it the top priority.
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And so if it really is the top priority in my life, it really should become the first thing that I do and it shouldn't be rushed and so it should be scheduled.
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And God really brought me to that.
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I mean, if there's any good in any of us, it's because God has really birthed it and walked us into it and instructed us and brought it into existence, and so he really was calling me.
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You know, kevin, aren't I worthy of you setting your alarm clock?
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Aren't I worthy of you getting up before sunrise?
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Aren't I worthy of you scheduling this If you schedule other things that are a priority throughout your week?
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And I again, I was getting my butt kicked because the growth of the company had become so demanding that I was really feeling like a monster swallowing me up.
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Now, and this is no longer a gift from God, now it's really controlling me and it really required this level of discipline of God calling me and showing me the need to schedule prayer.
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And I knew that if I scheduled it at two in the afternoon I would be very distracted, and if I scheduled it at four in the afternoon I would have all of these intrusions upon that.
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And the only time I could find and hopefully other people can find other pockets, but the only time that I could have, where it was extended, it was not rushed, it was prioritized was before anybody else would wake up and I would be up, and so it took some lifestyle changes, had to learn to fall asleep earlier, set my alarm clock, be very disciplined.
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The first month was hard, like on anything, but after that I can't get enough now, and you know I used to struggle to know how to pray 15 minutes at a time and I've always Jennifer Kennedy Dean, one of her discipleship books, really taught me the life of prayer and that prayer can happen 24-7, 365.
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We can go in and out of it.
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But and I value that, but this is, this was really the first time in my life that I found a place of discipline and freedom that had really that has really become a game changer, freedom that has really become a game changer.
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The bottom line is I just am willing to let God make these decisions and I seek to follow Him in that, and he has given me plans.
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So even in writing my book, when I wrote my first book, I had to make a commitment before the Lord that I would set my alarm clock and get up an hour earlier, and I did it, and in 90 days my first book was done, and so I'd seen that value and so now, now I just determined I'm going to set my alarm clock and make that my time of prayer every morning.
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And it has been a total game changer in my life and my marriage and our family and our company to be leading out with that prayer first priority.
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Kevin, I appreciate that and as I listened through and folks rewound that just a little bit, there was one word that you said in there that many leaders I hear from don't quite understand that, but ultimately that discipline equates to freedom and that's something that really exists inside of that space.
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And I have a quote that I folks that I get to coach or consult with they get tired of me.
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I say you know, good intention without discipline leads to excuses, but good discipline with intention, being very intentional about that, leads to excellence.
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And that's what we're really shooting for in terms of being purposeful, being intentional with the habits that we create and, to your point, not allowing the dismiss button to come up on our screen and just say we're not going to let that go, to be able to get up and to change lifestyle, go to bed earlier, whatever that requires for us to do that, but it generates more freedom with us.
00:28:10.818 --> 00:28:13.190
Kevin, we were able to reconnect recently.
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We had uh at an event, the life surge event.
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And when.
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I had a chance to tug on your arm and ask you how you were doing.
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You mentioned your spirit media team was there as well.
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So you mentioned, uh, reading books.
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You mentioned some of your habits that you go forward and also developing your team is very important.
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So a little bit to the side, if you will, of the writing process, but what are some of the ways, or some of those ways that you develop your team to help you do that away as well?
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One of those things might be an event like Life Surge, where you get a chance to hear encouraging speakers, inspiring speakers that share words that we can learn from.
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But what are other ways you develop your team?
00:28:52.031 --> 00:28:58.037
Yeah, yeah, someone recently said do you know anybody that's growing that is unhappy?
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Professional development is certainly a key gift that we can give ourselves and one another, a key gift that we can give ourselves and one another and so one of the best things that we can do is dive into a book and read a book or you know some form of personal development, go through a video series with a small group or whatever it is, and so just really seeking to offer that to our company.
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We meet at 11 am every Monday for company devotions.
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I lead most of those.
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There are other team members that lead so that I get a break and whenever I'm not available.
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So it doesn't pressurize me to be there every single week, but it's my honor to really speak into their life out of God's Word.
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Every single Monday we pray together.