Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: There was this. There was this particular time in our marriage. You had seen some money in my wallet. You had a plan for that money.
Oh, my goodness.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: I planned for it before we even left the house.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: And I didn't know. And so we went to church. I saw this lady. She was supposed to be in school. I asked her why she wasn't in school. She said she had not bought abcd. I picked my wallet and just took everything and anything. Dashed it to her so that she would go to school. I was sat in a car. I had no idea. You had planned. You had. You had planned to cook with. With the money in my wallet. I had no idea.
We sat in a car. We didn't have a. We didn't have a car at that time. So we sat in the taxi. The driver got to a point. You said, oh, they should stop. You went to the shop and you actually entered. You went about the things. You came to me and said, oh, you wanted to have my wallet. And I said, for what?
You're gonna use it to pay for the things? And I. And I said, well, I. I don't have much in my wallet. And she says, no, you.
You had a lot of money.
And I said, oh, I am giving out. I've given out that money. And it was terrible. You. You were angry. I. I mean, of course. This. You. You guys know what happened? I sat in a car. I didn't see a word. My head. I was just. It looks straight.
Goodness.
Hello, and welcome to my growth club. Thank you for tuning in. My name is Emmanuel.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: And my name is Grace.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: And we are your host and your partner in growth and effective living. If you've not subscribed to our channel yet, please hit that button now. Just now hit the subscribe button and turn on your notification. We have so many things to share with you today. We are talking about something that I think you're going to enjoy, you're going to love. We're talking about principles and priorities.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Now.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: This thing changed our lives. Like, I know that all these other things change our lives, but this one, you're gonna love it. If you can get your lover, your friend, someone you care about to watch this, that will be great. Let's get it.
Principles and priorities.
Jesus. Yeah, I. I think a lot of our problems were solved by this. Yeah, A lot of the issues we've ever had were solved by this.
A lot of the things that I have done in my life, I think they were because of this.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Either the lack of them, like, if they're Good stuff because I have them.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Or if they're both stuff because I didn't have them.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: The worst. Some of my worst memories if in fact some of the things that I regret most were because I didn't have principles and I didn't have priorities and I regret some of them. And now I'm in with the general. You get to, you know, practice gratitude. You go through some of these experiences.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: And like, okay, I'm thankful that it happened. Right.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: I'm thankful that it happened. But I still have regret, deep regret for them. And I think having regret is good because again, a lot of the things that you would not want to do again is only because you have those negative emotions associated with those experiences. And. And that could be helpful.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: But it's because I didn't have principles. There are places I should not have gone, there are things I shouldn't have done, there are things I should not have said.
And that is why this is important to talk about.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, similar to me. Right. I also have had things that I've regretted again, coming back to not having certain principles or even when it comes to priorities as well. Right. Not being able to get certain things done right on time and all that. So it's a very important. Like you said, almost all the things that we discovered on this journey has been life transforming, has changed so many. And this is no other. I always say that. Let's take this simple analogy, right. To understand what principles and priorities are, imagine you just sit in your car, you start driving, you have no navigation system. You just keep going and going. As you keep going, any turn that you come across will seem to you like this is a good turn or it's a good choice. Right. And on top of that, if you don't even have a destination, then you just keep going.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Without a destination, every turn is a good turn.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Where are you really going?
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Even going. Right. And this can be likened to principles and priorities. We can view principles as that navigation system.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: That the guiding values that determines your choices, your decisions, even how your relationship and marriages fail.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: While priorities, on the other hand, can be likened to the destination you put in that navigation system. It determines how you are using your time, your resources, your energy. And remember that we talked in our third episode, right. That these things are not unlimited. So having clear constraints of life. Exactly. While priorities on the other side can also be likened to the destination you put in your navigation system. It determines how you use your time, your resources, your energy. And these things are not Unlimited. Like we shared in our episode three. Right. So knowing or certain thing, the right principles and priorities. Right from the word goal helps you a lot. It doesn't make you aimless. It's not like you are going in circles. You don't have any principle. You don't have anything. You are prioritizing your energy and your time on.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. That's. That's so important. I. I remember early on in our marriage, you. You make calls anytime. Oh, I. I would talk to anyone anytime. Yeah. Any moment.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: And.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: And most of our issues were because of that. Yeah. And I remember, like, those days, you. You thought I cared about too many people. And I will spend time chatting with people and talking to people. I'm like, oh, they were my friends. I mean, before we even married.
And one day we had had one of those moments and I went to sit somewhere and, you know, it was almost like I was meditating or praying sort of thing.
Like, I guess the Holy Spirit was just talking to me and he says, like, why are you so angry? And I said, I just. I just want my peace of mind. I. I don't know why she can just get this. He says, and it came back to me. Like, these words just came back. Do you really want your peace of mind?
And I, like, immediately, I was like, do I want my peace of mind? No, I don't. No, I. Yeah, I want it. But what I'm doing doesn't, you know, it doesn't show that I want my peace of mind. Because if you really wanted your peace of mind, what will you do? You just cut them away. Yeah, cut those things away. The things that are bringing those issues, just cut them away. And so I came back home and I'm like, you know what? You're right.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: And. And since then, I. Whether you were really right or not, I still don't know. But one month came and I had never been, you know, more happier, and I had never been more at peace.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: At peace. And it started even bothering me. I'm like, I hope I'm not the reason why you are not being there for people.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: I said, no, you actually opened my eyes, you know, but before that, I was just all over the place. And that's the thing about principles and priorities. You know, you have to be able to be sure what is important to you. And that's why when you look at our effective living model in the general right above wisdom is values.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Values. Yeah.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Values are so important. It is everything. But what fit into your values are your principles and Your priorities and your priorities. Let me say this, let me say this.
Let me look at the camera. See, we cannot, we cannot just talk to anybody.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Anytime.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: We cannot just go any place anytime. We just cannot do anything anyhow.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: We just can't. Like the people who wake up in the morning, the first thing they do is they pick their phone and they're talking to someone. Yeah. The people. I also share this. One of the issues. I mean, people who have, who have been close to us know this, or people have lived with us, know this. That we always talking about food. Because you and I are at odds when it comes to food. You, you came from a family.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: I mean, your mom and I must say this for many people who are watching to be sure that it's not because you are rich. You are rich. It's because you were poor. Yeah. I mean, just like I was, I wasn't rich either. But, but you, your mom had to cook every day.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: And so your, your taste is for fresh food. You want food. That is.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: And my friend Kofi and I will say we eat for our tongue.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: No, that makes, that makes no sense. And so you wake up, in fact, every single day, you want to cook. Yeah.
And it's never made sense to me. And so I remember one day, just like we talked about this, and I said, listen, I don't have a problem with your cooking. What? I really have a problem doing it. You cannot just wake up and cook any day, anytime. That's you. If you want to cook on Saturday, you say, I'm cooking on Saturday. If you want to cook on Wednesday, I'm cooking on Wednesday. At this particular time. And you stick to it.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, previously, I, I, I didn't understand where you were coming from. I thought you were complaining.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: That you did. But when we spoke about it, and I mean, it didn't change one day. It took me time. And as we had the general, as we were on this pursuit, I decided, okay, let me, listen, let me try and at least have one day. I wake up early in the morning, not randomly, because sometimes, let's say I'm working from home, you see me, ah, maybe I have some break. I just come every day. I just put something on the fire. And you're like, every day, have a time. So I decided. I know. And that's the thing we've been talking about. Growth, mindset. I decided that. Okay, let me just try this.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: And I put in my calendar that I wake up early at 6.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: Has it not been Helpful.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: It's been helpful. It's like now I have time to do so many things. Like I'm able to do even a lot within that nature. Time I'm able to finish and I have time to do so many other things.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: And, and I think a lot of. Like you talked about a lot of relationship problems. That's why I. I want many people to actually get your lovers, get them to watch stuff like this because it's going to be very helpful to them. A lot of our relationship problems are because of that.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Priorities, principles. Like a lot of marriages will experience a lot of fight when they have children.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Because they're going to compete for the very same slot. Many things work. It's going to compete. So. So you have so many things in life and you want to bring it down to the things that are essential.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: It's not because they're not important essential. Like you talked about the navigation system, which I think is so profound. But. But it's also.
It kind of sets the boundaries determining how far you can go. Y. Because sometimes I'm telling you this without, without having clear principles.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: You just might be caught up in even doing what is right but not know to how far you can go. So for instance, if you don't have financial like principles governing your finances, you can, you can give, but you will just keep giving even though it's a good thing. Yeah. You just keep giving and you probably wouldn't save anything.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Anything.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: And we've, we've had a lot of issues like that. I think I'm a. I'm an extreme giver.
I don't know, probably terrible giver because I can just, I can just, just go overboard. There was this, there was this particular time in our marriage. You had seen some money in my wallet. You had a plan for that money. We had. Oh my goodness.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: I planned for it before we even left the house.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: And I didn't know. And so we went to church. I saw this lady, she was supposed to be in school. I asked her why she wasn't in school. She said she had not bought abcd. I picked my wallet and just took everything in it and dash it to her so that she would go to school. I was starting a car. I had no idea. You had planned, you had planned to cook with. With the money in my wallet. I had no idea.
So we started like. We didn't have a. We didn't have a car that time. So we sat in a taxi. The. The driver got to a point, you Said, oh, they should stop. You went to the shop and you actually entered. You went by other things. You came to me and said, oh, you wanted to have my wallet. And I said, for what?
You were gonna use it to pay for the things. And I, and I said, well, I, I don't have much in my wallet. And she says, no, you have, you had a lot of money.
And I said, oh, I am giving out, I'm giving out that money. And it was terrible. You. You were angry. I, I mean, of course, this. You. You guys know what happened. I sat in a car. I didn't see a word. My head, I was just. It looks straightforward.
Oh my goodness. It was terrible. It was terrible. But that was clear lack of principles.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: I also remember when we came to the United States, I, you know, I still had my quest for African meals. So I would always go to the African store and shop, buy snails, buy everything.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: And you are, you're a random cook?
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Random cook. I just cook Anytime, Anytime, any day.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Shop and buy things. Any day.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: I, I would go. I mean, I see all the things I'm missing from Ghana and I want. And they were very expensive. So I kept buying, buying, buying. I'll just cook. And then before we started using our notion system, we had this Excel tracker.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: You asked me, okay, let's track all this.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: I said, go and import them.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: I did. I was like, what?
[00:14:50] Speaker A: I saw the value.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: I was like, what? Oh my God.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Like you spent all this on food.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: And I was buying. So I mean, subsequently, when we started on this pursuit, trying to make sure we are being intention, having principles around everything, including our finances, we had this percentage approach. I mean you can adopt percentage approach helps a lot, but you can determine what works for you as a couple. But we adopted that and we say, okay, how much income is coming in? How much are we budgeting?
[00:15:21] Speaker A: How.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: What's the percentage that's going food, going to family, going to our kids, going to ministry, ministry, everything. And that's what we do. So we stopped being random. I know you have. I think you're the biggest. Yeah, you have the biggest heart I've ever seen. But at least, I mean it was.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: I don't know, I don't think it's even big hat. I think it was just plain stupidity. I was just spending. I have terrible.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: So we have like percentages for even given. Right. So it's not like randomly people are coming and then we are just.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: People are going to be mad.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: People are going to.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: When you are not able to help.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: But but it's fine. You know, stick. Stick to your principles. And. And it's okay. I. I think that's so helpful. And it cut away a lot of unnecessary fight also, because now we know exactly what we are spending and you're not now coming to call. Exactly. And we have a system that allows us to have a wish list. So if you want to buy something, you can say, okay, fine, and you can start.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Have you seen my wish list?
[00:16:20] Speaker A: On the notion I have decided not to look at it.
I'm not gonna look at that. So, I mean, the good part of what Shella says, that you kind of saved towards it. I'm not. I'm not gonna look at that. I deliberately have decided not to. And that's so important. And I think. I think people need to have principles, they need to have priorities. It must be so clear and important. You know, I'm gonna share something that I hope, I think, that a lot of Christians are going to love because it's from the Bible. One time I was studying the book of Genesis, and, you know, the story of Adam and Eve is one that doesn't make any sense. You know, many people say, why would God instruct them not to eat of the tree? And so I was kind of curious, like, why would you even do that? Like, you don't put a tree there.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: And tell them not to.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: You just don't put it.
And the Lord said to me that Adam was made in my image. I wasn't going to hide anything from him.
But. But. But the kingdom is a kingdom of principles.
And, And. And that means that there is what you can take, there is what you cannot take. There is what you can do, there is what you cannot do. There is what belongs to you, what is for you, and there is what is not for you. And he says, son, Adam didn't have principles. And that. That really hit me. He says, all righteousness and sin are built on principles, or the lack of it.
And he brought my mind to Joseph. He said, look at Joseph. Joseph was caught in a similar situation with Adam. In fact, his was more tempting because Adam was. Who can resist apple? Anyone can resist apple. Adam. But for Joseph, that's the king's wife.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: I can't begin to imagine how beautiful she probably looked.
But then Joseph says. Joseph says, my master has given me all that, but my master has not given me this one, and I will not touch it.
For Adam, God says, I've given you all that. I have not given you this one. Adam says, I will touch it that's the problem. And that's the foundation of all sin. Let me say this to guys, guys, listen.
At some point in time, and I know that, I mean, with social media right now, you're going to see a lot of, you know, porn and a lot of stuff. You need to make a commitment to yourself. You need to have a principle that tells you what you can watch, what you cannot watch. You know, for instance, like I said, if you're a Christian, the nakedness of another woman has not been given to you. When you see another woman's nakedness, tell yourself it belongs to their spouse. I get it. Why have they put it online? That's true, but that's not your business. Your business is for you to say, you know what? That is not mine. I'm not going to look at it. And that's principles. You see, that's the thing about the kingdom. The kingdom, it's about what has been given to you and what has not been given to you. When I saw that, it changed my life. So I, I, I told you like we, and it's, I mean, if you have the general, you're going to love it because there's this hope, there's a place where we've divided your, you know, personal development, relationship management, financial management, energy management. You need to have principles that governs these areas of your life because those areas are important. Your spirituality. You cannot just make calls anytime you want. You cannot talk to just anyone anytime you want. I'm serious. Like, you cannot call people, just anything you want. You cannot text anybody any. You cannot just go on Instagram and no, you need to make a commitment and say, you know what, if I'm going to chat with people, I'm going to chat with people this way. I'm not going to chat with people that way. I'm not going to go here, I'm not going to go there. I'm not going to do this at this time. Yeah, that's the beauty of having principles on your phone.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: I remember one time I picked your phone, I think I was trying to assess Instagram or Twitter and I just clicked on, on the app. It was like, now it's not the time for that. A pop up came out like, wait, what? And then I came to you. Yes.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: And you told me of other apps like that.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: So I mean, you can get an app like that or you can have that principle in your mind and be disciplined about it. That I have a time where I'm assessing social media when you have work to do, whether you're working from home or in the office, or you are in church or you are doing some. Maybe even sitting with your kids, spending time with your kids. That's not the time to be browsing. Have even a time for it. I. I need the app, actually.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: I'll put on my phone, as I think you do. And I think you have to also keep the phone away from your bed. You know, if, if. Listen, it's the rest time is rest time. What do you have the phone doing by your bed? Put it out of reach. It's a simple alarm.
Come on. Stop that. I use Alexa. You can just buy Alexa. How? You can just get a normal. I. I gave you one. You broke it anyway. Yeah, you can. You can just get a good app that will, that will really wake you up. Not a mobile phone.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: No.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Because if you have the mobile phone within your reach, you're gonna just kind of take it right before bed. You're going to look at that. Or maybe in the, in the course of, like, especially now that we have a baby.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: You know, you wake up at dawn, you just have a. Have a. Have a prince. Have some principles in your life that govern the things that you do. I think it's so important. The story of Solomon, for instance, is a story of wisdom. But if you really look at Solomon's life and pay attention to his story, like the Bible says that the Queen of Sheba, head of Solomon's wisdom, traveled and he's. You know, the Bible talks about the things the queen noticed. One of them was the food on the table.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: And I've shared with you. Even the kind of food you eat will tell your wisdom. You just cannot eat anything. Africans. I'm. I'm sure you're going to be mad at me, but we cannot eat. We cannot give too much carbs to our body at every time. You can eat whatever you want to eat. Proportions. When you are a person of principles, you begin to. Your brain loves it.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: I tell you, your brain loves principles because your brain doesn't want to waste a lot of time. Yeah. Trying to figure out what to do every. Every minute. That's why you don't consciously think about how you walk.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: There are many things you don't consciously. What your brain does is things that you do continuously or repetitively. Your brain will kind of relegate that into what they call the subconscious mind. And so you begin to do them without even thinking about them. Like, if you are talking, if you practice a lot, you begin. They did a research on A lot of athletes, and what they realize is that people, the more people practice, like for instance, Steph Curry.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: He throws the ball a lot of time and then I get to a point where he, his brain develops a pattern that works and then relegates that. And so mostly they even, they do them unconsciously. The moment they even try to think about them, like the moment they move that action to their conscious, sometimes they make a mistake.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: And he, sometimes I've noticed that he's even able to tell if the ball.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: Will enter or not enter because it creates what is called patterns. And, and the brain loves to, to think in patterns. It loves to. Because what your brain, like we talked about in the previous episode, is it's predicting the next course of actions. Yeah. So if your brain can predict what is going to be the next action, it's better. That is why we plan and that's why I'm going to tell everybody. Set yourself down. Take a calendar. You can take a sheet of people. If you get our general effective living journal, links to them are going to be in the description. Or if you get our notion effective living system, or if you, a family, get the notion effective living family system, you're going to love it. What you're going to do is that you're going to sit yourself down and you're going to take these areas and you're literally going to determine the principles that are essential. I don't want you to just pick any principles. You can think about all the things that, you know, what we have been doing for some time now, even, even with our spiritual system, is when we study something, we ask ourselves, what are.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: We doing to do with this?
[00:24:30] Speaker A: And we convert knowledge into principles. Convert all the things you've heard about financial management and energy, convert them into simple practical principles and begin to live by principles. Just stick to them. I think your life is going to change when you begin to do that.
People don't do that.
I, I don't know. I, I, I, I, I struggle to understand how people live when they don't live by principles like people show up in your life. And, and I think we should talk about some of the financial principles. Like we have set principles for our relationships.
[00:25:09] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: You know, the things, for instance, no problem will go over the night without being resolved, no matter how you feel. And then we also have set a principle that if it's going to involve a lot of emotions, we are not going to talk over it. And so someone is not going to say, you know, why are you not talking about it. No, no, no, no. We have clearly stated and we pick them out of some of the things we learned that it is not the best way to go about them. But some things. Do you really want the person to speak up so you want them to talk, even sometimes after we've written them down? If I realize that now this is something you really should talk about. I'm like, okay, now I'm. I want you to talk and I want to listen.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Those are principles that govern your relationship. And I think if you, if you're a young couple, if you're a young, maybe you are even in a relationship, do this, both of you. You know, if your husband or your boyfriend is not watching the. Send a video to them, tell them to watch it. You know, set yourself down and begin to determine what will be the principles, you know, that will help our relationship get to where we wanted to get.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: And those principles shouldn't be abstract, like maybe like honesty.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: No, no, very specific.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Specific. What about honesty? Do you like.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: What about maybe here? We don't like, we don't talk about people just anyhow in this house. Yeah, we just always.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: I mean, if, if we're gonna say something about people should be. It's gonna be something that is. Either we are praying about it, but.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: If we don't know, we just don't talk about those. It should be so specific things that easily come. Like we just said, we don't sleep over it.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: That helps.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: It's always with us. Right? We did. We don't slander people in this house. It's always in our mind.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: You, you are not God. You don't judge anybody. You're not going to slander anybody. You're not going to say something negative and bad about people. I mean, unless it's by divine revelation. Some people, the Lord has said to us like, hey, we're like, you know what? We're going to pray about this person and it helps. And the reason is not because you're not gonna. I think sometimes again I have to make sure that people are aware of how challenging these things can be. Because you're some. You as a human being, you like to be lawless. Like, you, like, you just want to be lawless. You mostly want to just live and go with the flow and do whatever you want. So sometimes it's. It's very challenging to stick to them. But you want to. You. That's the whole point of growth.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: And that's the whole point of this, my growth club, you know, you want to be able to challenge yourself, to stick to the things that, you know that are important to where you want to get to. And this is why I love these conversations because I really wish I knew them earlier. Yeah, a lot of that, like I said, a lot of my mistakes in life, most of my regrets came as a result of the lack of principles. And I, I, I should have probably. I should have. I should have had principles in some areas of my life. You know, sometimes we do have in some areas, and sometimes we don't. Or sometimes we don't even, you know, we know them. They're just knowledge.
But principles having principles are different principles. It's like, for instance, Adam knew he wasn't supposed to eat it. It was not a principle. Jesus had a principle. Jesus says, I will not turn the stone into bread. I will not listen to anyone who is not my father. So Jesus had principles. Adam didn't. Adam knew. So people think just because they know means that they are doing it. No.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: The beauty of principles is a deliberate, intentional conversion of what you know. Yeah. What, what you can do.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: What you should not do. Into guiding light, into boundaries. Yeah. You know, into like you call navigation system. And I think when people do that, that's really gonna change their life. I remember back in the university, some guys came to see me and they, they said, oh, they were having this porn addiction. You know, they started rolling out routers everywhere on campus. And. And I said, like, that's, that's a bit odd and strange. I said, why, why will you see Internet everywhere and think about porn?
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: What is important to you guys?
There was nothing. And that's the problem when you create a vacuum, your brain get bored and it's trying to find something else. And that's the thing when you lack principles. That's why I said, principles are so good. Yeah. Think about principles as your best reward for your brain. It loves it. It loves until it loves. It loves you telling it what to do, at what time.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: And so I shared with them, I said, whenever I sit, you know, in a room, the only thing that I think about when I get an Internet is downloading photo Photoshop videos and video. I only care about skill acquisition at that time. I'm watching debate, I'm watching public speaking. I'm learning about this. And what you think you can watch is porn. Hey, buddy. Really? That's the problem. The problem is because they didn't have a priority.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: They didn't have principles. And that's why I said this is also subject to time.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: What is important at the university level may not be important when you marry. And so many people, if they do not have principles now and they don't have priorities now, they're going to be in trouble the moment they add another person. Oh my goodness. They marry. That's when all their struggles are going to happen. Many people will soon find out that it was sweeter when they were in a relationship than when they married. And the reason will only be because of lack of principles and priorities. Yeah, the same thing will be true when you have a child.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Principles and priorities, like when we're just two now.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Yeah, principles and priorities. You always want to make sure that what you're doing with your energy in relation to time, what you're doing with your money in relationship to time are in line with your priorities and they're in line with your principles. Now what that does is that they feed into what we call values or your value system. And that is everything.
That's what makes the difference.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: Well, that's all time will permit us. Thank you for doing this with me, my beautiful wife, and thank you all for sticking around. Here is something that we have for you. We are sharing with you for free our Bible study system. Gracie and I over the years have put what we want to learn into a system in notion and it has helped us greatly. You know, we just talked about principles and priorities. If, if your spiritual growth is important to you, get it. It's absolutely free. We are putting a link to that right in the system. For many of you who have not used notion before, this is going to be be kind of your introduction to notion system. You're gonna love it. It's a system designed for a family or friends.
You just want to make sure that you bring some someone in and then you study together. There's a place where as you study, you take. You are just gonna love it. I'm gonna demonstrate right now, as you are seeing it on your screen, how the system works. So you just go. Grace and I have already finished all these days in January and we continue every day. We have this for 365 days. Guess what? We're giving it absolutely free of charge. Oh my goodness. Just for free. So get it. And if you want the complete spiritual system that we use, which includes our prayer journal, our dream journal, you know, prayer intercession schedule, you can also get that you on notion. And if you want a complete system, a robust system that just works, that will help you manage your organizations, manage your family, manage your health plan your vacation, do whatever you have to do. Your school, everything. Get our Effective Living System and Effective Living Family System. You're gonna love it. And the Journal is on Amazon. Come on, go get that. It's gonna help you take on control of your mind like you've never done. And you are going to change how you live your life for good. Thank you. And don't forget to subscribe. We'll be back next week. Do have a wonderful day. Bye.
