Black Entrepreneur Blueprint 644 - Jay Jones - Are You In Alignment For Your Assignment - 7 Questions To Ask Yourself

[00:00:12] Welcome to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, the number one podcast and resource for black entrepreneurs. I'm your host Jay Jones and Black Entrepreneur Blueprint was created specifically to educate and inspire black entrepreneurs to launch, build and grow successful, sustainable businesses. Join us as we help build an economic power base in the worldwide black community by building and supporting black owned businesses.

[00:00:41] If you're currently an entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur, you're invited to join us each and every week here at Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Welcome to the BEB family and get ready to elevate your entrepreneur IQ. Welcome to the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint episode number 644.

[00:01:08] I'm your host Jay Jones and today we have another outstanding and informative show in store for you. Today's show topic is titled Are You In Alignment For Your Assignment? Seven questions to ask yourself. Are you in alignment for your assignment? Seven questions to ask yourself. Guys, when you are not in alignment with entrepreneurship, with your business or in life, things aren't going to move as smoothly as they're supposed to move.

[00:01:35] You're not going to work at maximum efficiency and your life isn't going to be lived the way it should be lived. So it's about alignment. And today I'm going to give you seven questions to ask yourself to help you determine to find out if you are in alignment or not. Now, being in alignment, guys, is like if you ever driven a car that's out of alignment and you take your hands off the wheel, you know, your car could veer to the left and you can go right on into oncoming traffic.

[00:02:04] You could veer to the right and you can go off the road. So alignment is necessary, guys, for you to move the way you want to move and to build and develop the life that you want to live. Now, before we get to today's show content, let me just share a few things with the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint family. First and foremost, I want to welcome all first time listeners to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Welcome to the BEB family. Please stick around until the end of today's broadcast.

[00:02:29] And I'm going to share all my social media contact information and resource links such as the link to the website blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Guys, make sure you go to the website. It should be updated by the time that you get that you listen to this. We have a brand new update on the website and we have all types of content, free content to help you learn, build and grow your business.

[00:02:56] So we're going to help you take it from point A to point B with actionable steps. So make sure you go to blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Now, let's get ready for today's show content. Are you in alignment for your assignment? Seven questions to ask yourself. And before we get into the content, guys, this episode is for entrepreneurs, but it's also for life. So it doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur or not.

[00:03:21] Please share this with your network, because obviously entrepreneurship is a big part of your life, but it is not your life. And you're trying to use entrepreneurship to build the life that you want. So it doesn't matter if you're out of alignment with your business or out of alignment with your life. And many times they coincide. So please share this episode with your network. It's going to be a short episode speaking from the heart.

[00:03:47] And the way this episode came about is I'm kind of out of alignment right now. I'm finding myself doing things that aren't necessarily things that I want to do. And they're not really helping me get to where I want to get to. And so I'm kind of out of alignment. And this came from a conversation that I had with one of my good buddies, one of my brothers. And we were just talking about life in general. And I thought it was super important for me to share this episode.

[00:04:15] It's not going to be a long episode, but I think it's going to be super impactful. So we're talking about are you in alignment for your assignment? Seven questions to ask yourself. The first thing I want to do, guys, is break down the definition of alignment from the biblical standpoint. Now, I'm not going to get here and preach to you or anything. So whatever you believe is what you believe. And you have the right to believe whatever you believe. You may be an atheist. You may believe in Buddha.

[00:04:42] You may believe in some other deity or whatever. That is your own free will. So we're not going to discuss that. But what I want to talk to you about is the definition of assignment from a biblical standpoint. So a God given assignment is a unique purposeful role or task that a person is believed to receive from God to serve others, glorify him and impact eternity.

[00:05:36] So in terms of having an assignment, guys. Sometimes your assignment may not necessarily be something that you thought it would be or that you even turned out or wanted it to be. And you can look in the Bible at Moses. So when Moses was was assigned to set his people free, he was like, God, I'm not equipped for this. I don't even necessarily know how to do this. How am I going to do this? That was his assignment. That was his assignment.

[00:06:03] But what I will tell you is that the creator gives you everything you need to complete your assignment. And like I said, many times your assignment is aligned with your purpose. I always talk about chasing purpose versus chasing paper. And there's a big difference. So you have to understand what you were assigned to do. Now, each of us were given different gifts, talents, desires, wants.

[00:06:30] And these are things that make us uniquely different. Everybody is totally different. Just like your fingerprint is no same fingerprint for the billions of people that are in the world. We are uniquely different. And what we have to understand is that our assignment has been given to us. It hasn't been given to your wife, your husband, your partner, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your mother, father, brother, sister, cousins, aunts, uncles. Your assignment is given specifically to you.

[00:06:58] And one of the things that my buddy and I were talking about is many people don't understand your assignment and they don't understand why you're making the moves that you're making. But you know why you're making these moves because you understand that you're chasing purpose and not paper. OK, so right now I'm just going to give you a little background before we get into these seven questions about what I'm dealing with in terms of alignment.

[00:07:26] So you guys know if you've listened to the show for any period of time that I enjoy a lot of different things. I wanted to get to the point where I can work on the projects that are fulfilling for me, do things that I want to do. I'm also in the stage right now where I'm trying to slow down a little bit with the work. I'm never going to retire, but just slow down a little bit with the work and be able to enjoy life in the fruits of my labor. And once again, work on things that I feel are important for me.

[00:07:55] And it doesn't necessarily have to be entrepreneurship. It could be civic duties, could be volunteering and a whole lot of stuff. But but what I came to realize, I'm a teacher by nature. I've always known that people have always come to me and ask me, you know, how do you do this? Hey, Jay, how do I do that specifically as it pertains to starting businesses and entrepreneurship? Because ever since I was little, I always had a side hustle going on.

[00:08:24] And even in corporate America, I had, you know, side hustles working before I stepped out full time as an entrepreneur. So I understand that I'm a teacher by nature and I enjoy it. So I'm in the mortgage business. I have my own boutique mortgage shop now. This is my second mortgage company. And I was contracted out to do teach continuing education.

[00:08:49] So a company flies me around the country to teach the eight hour CE course, one hour for the individual state continuing ed and seven hours for the federal continuing education. And I hadn't really been on the stage a lot during a lot of of live presentations. But as I began to do these presentations, I just felt myself becoming alive again.

[00:09:14] And I know that where I really need to be is in front of people, be it a live audience, be it on webinars or whatever, teaching, sharing my expertise, my ups and downs as an entrepreneur, almost losing everything twice, being blessed to be able to come back and rebuild after those devastating losses. And just sharing my know how from being an entrepreneur in the game over 25 plus years.

[00:09:42] When I started as an entrepreneur, it wasn't even cool to be an entrepreneur. Nowadays, everybody is a founder. Right. But when I started back in the late 80s, early 90s, you know, as an entrepreneur, people were like, yo, you leaving this nice job in corporate America to do what? You know, so it was a whole different whole different land, layer of the land back then. So this is something that's super important to me.

[00:10:08] And I realized that I become alive when I'm on that stage. I could be dead tired. But when that light comes on is go time and I'm in my element. I am able to connect with people. I'm able to get the message across. And once again, I'm not about, you know, that that rah rah BS. I'm about giving people actionable steps to move their business from point A to point B. You know, if you listen to this podcast, if you want rah rah, you at the wrong spot.

[00:10:38] I'm not going to give you that. You know, you go, go, go to church or something if you need all of that. I'm talking about giving you actionable steps and content that are going to actually move the needle. And so as I started thinking and I said, man, I would love to be able to get out there more on the stage. It doesn't have to be a large crowd or anything like that.

[00:11:00] It could be 10, 20, 50, 100 people, whatever sharing my experiences and know how helping people launch, build and grow successful, sustainable businesses. And I'm like, man, that's really where I shine. So I tell people all the time when I go speak and I do workshops and all that good stuff. And I do have a workshop that that's coming up shortly in a couple of weeks. And I'll tell you guys about it on the next episode.

[00:11:27] But I said the most important and impactful part of those workshops or me speaking is the Q&A session. I said, that's really where you're going to get everything that you need to get is the Q&A session. And when I'm up there, I'm in my element. You ever do something and you just know this is what you were designed to do. It just feels natural. It's innate. You don't have to necessarily practice it to be good.

[00:11:56] Obviously, the more you practice, the better you're going to be. But literally, I could go into a room and if somebody said do a 30 minute lecture on entrepreneurship, you pick the topic. I literally could get up there and I could do a workshop or a lecture on entrepreneurship. Not because I'm smarter than everybody else because I'm not, but it's because that is my assignment. My assignment is to teach.

[00:12:20] My assignment is to help elevate my people, my brothers and my sisters when it comes to entrepreneurship. Launch, build and grow successful, sustainable businesses. And what I found myself or what I found happening is that I've been moving away from that and not really focusing on what my true assignment is. Yes, the podcast is a part of that.

[00:12:44] But where I really shine and where I really come to life is live and in living color in front of people. And doing these continuing education classes, you know, it just it just reaffirms or confirms what I already knew. So every time after I do a class and these classes are super boring. But what I try to do is what I call edutainment. So I'll share experiences in the mortgage business. You know, I'll tell stories.

[00:13:13] I'll sprinkle in some marketing lead generation. And every time I do something after the show, every time I do a show, I've got 10, 20, 30, 40 people coming up afterwards or in between doing breaks, wanting to connect with me, wanting me to coach them, wanting me to help them in their business. So I know unequivocally that is where I need to be.

[00:13:37] So in the latter part of 2026 and 2027, I'm going to be doing more live events, be it live and in person or also on webinars and workshops, because I know that's what my assignment is. And so I've been out of alignment, guys. You know, like I said, I'm going to tell you all the truth. It ain't no I'm not a guru. I'm a guru. So everything I talk about, I do right or have done.

[00:14:05] So I just want you to know if you are out of alignment, you are not the only one. And we're going to talk about or I'm going to give you seven questions right now to see if you're in alignment or not. So question number one, are you pacified by a paycheck right now when you know you should be doing something else? Are you pacified by a paycheck right now when you know that you literally should be doing something else? And this is very common.

[00:14:34] I speak to prospective entrepreneurs or people that never started a business that always wanted to start a business, but they've been pacified by a paycheck. Now, don't get me wrong. Getting a paycheck on a consistent basis is nothing wrong with that. Right. Because when you build your business, you want consistent income. You want cash flow. You want to know every week or every month or every two weeks that you can draw some money out of your business. Now, obviously, most times it's not going to start like that, but that's what you're trying to get to.

[00:15:04] But are your dreams or is your assignment pacified by the paycheck? Many times people don't start businesses until they lose their job. Right. And I tell you, the best time to start a business, guys, is while you have steady income coming in because it doesn't put that pressure on you. Now, yes, you're going to have to spend more hours and devote and be committed to building your business.

[00:15:30] But you're not going to have to worry about, oh, man, you know, I start this business and and I can't, you know, pay the electric bill. My car note is behind my my mortgage is behind. That's super stressful. And that's one of the reasons or one of the biggest reasons that businesses fail. So if you have a business, I mean, have a job, a nine to five and you want to start a business, the best time to start is while you have a job. I have a good buddy of mine who I call a reluctant entrepreneur. He lost his job.

[00:16:00] This was years ago. And then he's decided, hey, I need to be an entrepreneur. And I get it. You just can't sit there, you know, and wither away and lose all your assets. So he tried to start a business. Didn't work out. He didn't quite understand what was going on and how much of a commitment it was. And as soon as he got a job offer, even an offer that he didn't particularly like, didn't pay him what he was worth. He took it because once again, he was pacified by the paycheck. And I get it.

[00:16:30] Been there, done that. Question one. Are you pacified by a paycheck right now when you know you should be doing something else? If you go to work and you can't stand your job, you can't stand the people you work with, you know, and you know you're not in your lane, then you're probably pacified by the paycheck. And I get it. You know, you got responsibilities and you have to take care of things. But the best time to start a business, guys, is while you have a job.

[00:16:59] Question number two. Are you living an unfulfilled life? Are you living an unfulfilled life? And this happened to me years ago before I went out on my own. You know, I was in corporate America, you know, making a decent living, but I was not fulfilled. I was empty inside. And life shouldn't be meant to be lived. It's not meant to be lived empty. You should not be unfulfilled. And that's why we always try to talk about pinpoint and monetize your genius.

[00:17:29] And your genius is the intersection between your passion and your talent. And if you can monetize that, you will never be unfulfilled. OK, but if are you living an unfulfilled life? This is question two. If you're just going through the motions, you know, blase, blase, blase. Go to work, come home, you know, do whatever. And you keep repeating it. There's no excitement there. There's no fulfillment. And all you're looking for, waiting for is the weekend.

[00:17:58] Been there, done that. So question number two, are you living an unfulfilled life? And you can pretty much know that as soon as I ask you the question, you're going to say either yay or nay. And if you are not living an unfulfilled life, that God bless you. That's beautiful. Now, your job doesn't determine if you're living an unfulfilled life. You could have a job that you don't particularly care for, but maybe you volunteer in your spare time. Right. You're fulfilled with that.

[00:18:25] But you want every aspect of your life to be in alignment. OK, question three. Are you bored or uninspired with life and work? And this is kind of similar. Are you bored or uninspired with life and work? So are you inspired by your job? So I couldn't go back to corporate America only for maybe a few different types of jobs. Right.

[00:18:50] If I got a job working with the Philadelphia Eagles, say in marketing, that's something I may look at because I love football. I love sports. And obviously, I love my birds. Go birds. We in trouble right now. My boy Jalen is out with a blood clot. So we'll see what happens with that. But are you bored or uninspired with life and work? And a lot of times, guys, that's why you get depressed. Depression is real. So it's a spirit, the spirit of depression.

[00:19:19] And when you're uninspired with your life and work, and I know life happens, so stuff happens to people. Right. You know, you could have you could be sick. Your health could be messed up. You could have a sick loved one. You could be going through relationship issues, family issues or whatever. But are you bored or uninspired with life and work? And a lot of that has to do with not being aligned with your assignment. Are you in alignment with your assignment? And that's the name of today's episode.

[00:19:48] Are you in alignment for your assignment? Seven questions to ask yourself. Question number four. Do you feel that you have more to offer than what you're currently doing? Do you feel you have more to offer than what you're currently doing? So if you've ever been into in a job and you know the job is I'm not going to say below you, but you're overqualified for your job. Right.

[00:20:14] Normally, that's because you you have more to offer and you're not able to do that in your current position. So that's number four. Do you feel that you have more to offer than what you're currently doing? Number five. Do you feel that you are utilizing all your gifts and talents? Do you feel that you're utilizing all your gifts and talents? So we're all designed differently, guys. So everybody's gifts and talents are different. So it's almost like a thumbprint, right?

[00:20:44] Everybody's thumbprint or fingerprints are different. So do you feel that you're utilizing all your gifts and talents? So, for example, I talked about, you know, wanting to be out there more teaching and I know that's a gift I have. That's a talent I have. And that's why I'm going to start doing more speaking and live events in 2027. That's a goal of mine. I feel alive. So that's something that you really want to look at.

[00:21:12] You know, do you feel that you're utilizing all your gifts and talents? Number six. Do people tell you that you should be doing something else because you're good at a specific thing? So are they validating or confirming you're in the wrong lane, right? Do people tell you that you should be doing something else because you're good at a specific thing? Are they validating or confirming you're in the wrong lane?

[00:21:37] So if you have people over a period of time tell you, man, you're good at this. Boy, you should be doing this for a living or whatever. Then you probably should be doing whatever they're telling you. People tell me all the time, oh, man, you should be a public speaker. You should be a teacher. And that's really I know that. So that's what I need to be doing. So listen to what people around you say. People that you know, people that meet you.

[00:22:05] Are people asking you the same things all the time? Are you a person that people come to for advice about a specific thing? Are they asking you advice about relationships? Are they asking you advice about entrepreneurship? Are they asking you advice about how to fix a car or whatever? So be cognizant of what people ask you and what people tell you and also how they how they talk about you. Oh, yeah.

[00:22:32] You know, well, well, well, Jay is great at doing this or or Larry is good at doing this. Every time I have a problem, I'm going to talk to Mark, you know, so think about that. So number six, do people tell you that you should be doing something else because you're good at a specific thing? And that's really a confirmation, guys, if you get that for more than one person. So like when I do my continuing education classes, they have to give us a grade at the end of the class from one to five.

[00:23:01] And so almost exclusively, I get fives. I've got a four one time because it was this cranky old lady sitting in the back of the room. I think she was in Charlotte. I was doing a class in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I kept telling her, hey, you got to pay attention. Put your phone down. Bye, bye, bye. And so I think she gave me a four or three. But, you know, it is what it is. You're never going to please everybody. All right.

[00:23:27] And number seven, question number seven, what we're talking about today, guys. Are you in alignment for your assignment? Seven questions to ask yourself. Number seven, what does true alignment in your life and work look like in a perfect world? What does true alignment in your life and work look like in a perfect world? Remember, guys, I always say this. You're building a business to support your lifestyle. All right. You're not.

[00:23:55] You want to build your business around your lifestyle. You don't want to build your lifestyle around your business. So if you enjoy camping on the weekends, you want to make sure you build a business where you have weekends free so you can go camping. If you have kids and you want to make sure that you're at all of their stuff, you know, their sports games, all of their educational stuff, anything they're doing, then you want

[00:24:20] to build a business that you have passive or semi-passive income so you can fit that business around your lifestyle. So question seven, what does true alignment in your life and work look like in a perfect world? So you want to kind of use reverse engineering. What does this look like? So for example, I always wanted to be, um, you know, I always wanted to be in my kid's

[00:24:45] life in terms of being able to, uh, be at their games, being able to be at the school, being able just to be engaged with them, take them on field trips when they were little with the class. And I was blessed to be able to do that. So I wanted to build a business that gave me freedom and flexibility. And that came with passive or semi-passive income. So, you know, I used to go on a lot of class trips with my girls when they were younger, you know, elementary school.

[00:25:13] And, um, I'd always be one of the dads that was there, me and a couple other guys that I knew. And everybody was like, Oh, cause most times it's moms that go on these trips, but it was me and a couple of the other dads. And we were always on these trips. And so once again, you want to build your business around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your business. You know, I've built businesses that I've hated, you know, that where I call them Frankenstein businesses, businesses that get out of control and they control you.

[00:25:43] And that's a real bad thing, man. It's a bad feeling. You're going into your own office and you don't even want to go in there because the culture isn't good. Uh, what you're doing, you're, you're unfulfilled and you were chasing paper and not purpose. So number seven, what does true alignment in life and work look like in a perfect world? Figure that out and then work backwards to build your business around that. So these are the seven questions you need to ask yourself in terms of your alignment for

[00:26:12] your assignment before the last segment, guys, let me just share all my social media contact information and resource links. I mentioned at the top of the show, go to the website, guys. It is free black entrepreneur blueprint.com. We have all types of resources. And hopefully by the time you listen to this, the new website will be out and we have an assessment right on the front page. That's going to show you where your business gets blocked. It's like a two minute assessment and it'll help you, you know, break through that glass ceiling.

[00:26:42] All right. If you don't see that on the page, then that means the new site isn't up yet. We're almost done. And hopefully it'll be up by the time this drops. Also, if you want to connect with me guys, anything long, hit me on my email. Jay Jones at black entrepreneur blueprint.com. J A Y J O N E S at black entrepreneur blueprint.com. Facebook black entrepreneur blueprint Instagram. I have two IG accounts. Excuse me. The first one is Jay Jones for real. J A Y J O N E S.

[00:27:12] The number four R E A L second one is black entrepreneur blueprint. Also for X formerly Twitter. You can connect with me at Jay Jones zero zero one J A Y J O N E S zero zero one. LinkedIn. You can connect with me. Jay Jones, a SAS entrepreneur, S A A S entrepreneur, black entrepreneur blueprint. Just type that in. You should find me on LinkedIn. Also YouTube. Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel.

[00:27:41] We have additional content on YouTube. That is not on the show. Also for all you first time listeners, wherever you're watching this or listening to this, make sure you hit that subscribe button. So you'll be alerted for the new episodes. We drop new heat every Monday morning, 5 a.m. Eastern standard time on all your major podcast platforms and YouTube. Now let's get ready for the last segment of the show. So the question is guys, are you in alignment for your assignment?

[00:28:11] Not somebody else's assignment. Your assignment. Your assignment is very specific. It's designed specifically for you. Your gifts, your talents, your wants. Everything is specific to you. All right. We are unique. Everybody is unique. If we all were good at the same thing, that'd be a boring world. Right. And once again, remember your gifts, they're given to you specifically. Your assignment is given to you specifically.

[00:28:40] Many times people aren't going to understand your assignment and they're going to think that you're crazy. But remember, it's given specifically to you. So ask yourself the seven questions. Are you pacified by a paycheck right now when you know you should be doing something else? Are you living an unfulfilled life? Are you bored or uninspired with life and work? Do you feel that you have more to offer than what you're currently doing? Do you feel that you are utilizing all your gifts and talents?

[00:29:08] Do people tell you that you should be doing something else because you're good at something specific and they're basically validating or confirming you're in the wrong lane? And number seven, what does true alignment in your life and work look like in a perfect world? You reverse engineer what you need to do. Guys, I'm telling you right now, when you're out of alignment, things don't feel right. You still may be successful, but when you get into alignment and I've gone out of alignment,

[00:29:36] I got to go get my car tuned up because I'm veering to the left right now, right? And I'm ready in this last stages of my life and my career. I'm never going to retire, but I want to be able to focus specifically on things that are fulfilling for me, things that move the needle, things that God has designed me to do. I'm a teacher by nature and I love the interaction with the audience, live interaction.

[00:30:05] I love being able to share my knowledge and know-how to help entrepreneurs launch, build, and grow successful, sustainable businesses. And so I need to lean in on that in 2027. So I'll be doing a lot more live workshops, webinars, also in-person events. And I'm trying to figure that schedule out and I'm trying to figure out what I need to teach in terms of what is something that's most impactful to the BEB family.

[00:30:35] So look forward to me being on the road more in 2027 and also being more impactful in live audience settings. All right. Now, I say this each and every week, family, because it is true. We get more and more downloads because of you, the BEB family. I couldn't do it without you guys. I love you guys and appreciate you so much. Please continue to spread the word about the podcast, the new website that's about to drop,

[00:31:00] the online courses, the books, the whole ecosystem designed to help you elevate your entrepreneur IQ. Remember, it's not about me. It's not about you. It's about us. It's about building an economic power base in the worldwide black community by building and supporting black-owned businesses. Love you guys. See you same time next week. Peace.