706. Time Management for Career Growth & Jackie Hill Perry Comes Back to Music

[00:00:00] Music Hey family, welcome to another episode of the Coiling Solutions which was truly James Russo, aka trick. Yes, I'm even going to say that here on the podcast. I always said already, I'm going to say it here as well where my goal is to

[00:00:21] empower you with awareness and actionable insights. This is an exciting episode of the podcast as I'm covering two things. One time management for career growth, time management for career growth. I just want to unpack a couple

[00:00:34] points, maybe three points around what you can do to better manage your time and service of your career. And the second thing is I have Jackie Hill Perry with me who's making an exciting announcement and it's an artist but she

[00:00:48] does so much more than that. She's an author, a speaker, a piecaster, etc. And I think it's interesting always to watch people kind of open the aperture and talk about what they're doing in their career. How those things intersect

[00:01:00] etc. So let's jump in family. Hey, this past weekend, last weekend I got to go to Chicago and be a part of the variety universities, graduation session and it's always such a special time of the year for me. I love it. I've been a board

[00:01:15] member of the variety for about eight years. I believe it's been and without a doubt the graduation ceremonies are so awesome. It's so incredible to watch people who just come from so many different walks of life and start as so many

[00:01:29] different places. A lot of people who are graduating may not have but leave they could even make it to that point. Before they enrolled to go to school, maybe have had given up on a college education, had thought maybe it's not

[00:01:42] possible for them, etc., etc., etc. And had a number of different reasons why they may have believed that. I think most of you have heard my story, but I went from high school to college in my 12 year of high school. I was the guy who was

[00:01:56] somewhat failing. We just had a horrible number of things happened with an our family. I deserted school for a minute, tried to work full time. My grades plummeted of course. Couldn't make the money. I thought I'd need it to make to

[00:02:09] take care at home. It's such a, etc., etc. And I finally went back to school that year and became the most improved student in the city, if you could believe that. Channel 10 came out. Auditor Boy did all those different things. Wonderful.

[00:02:21] But then I wanted to go to college. And I wanted to go to a top of university to focus on communications. Got the temple. And I lasted two days because my financial aid didn't come through and unfortunately my mom made too much for grants. So we

[00:02:33] returned to small sliver. And I abandoned the idea of college for a moment. I went to computer learning center. Did some things there. Decided I didn't want to be a programmer after that. Man, you talk about a rough patch of time. And so

[00:02:46] nevertheless I found a strider my career. I was doing well. But always had this itch of shouldn't I get this formal education. Shouldn't I avail myself of that education? And I went back and I didn't finish my undergrad graduating until

[00:02:59] I was 34 years old and I'll never forget it because even though I was quote unquote doing well with them, I career the degree added a different dimension. And you've heard me talk about the value of education. So I won't

[00:03:11] go into that right now. We'll come back to a later. But I'll tell you that it was so rewarding on so many levels. And so it's a personal thing for me as well, when I'm sitting on stage, watching folks come across the stage and

[00:03:22] watching their excitement, whether they do it through a dance, whether it's the tears they shed, whether it's just saluting their family. And then their families are losing their minds in such an appropriate way if you ask my

[00:03:35] opinion. They are jumping up and down there screaming out so funny because the person leading it always says, hold all your applause to the end and we all sit there. Look at each other on stage. You got year right? That's not going to

[00:03:46] happen as their loved ones come across the stage. There is just too much excitement to hold and so it goes wild. And so I say all that to say, all of those individuals coming from different places, starting at different places,

[00:03:59] many who are the first time college attending a family now have a different trajectory in front of them. If you ask my humble opinion, they're drive to pursue their full potential is on another level. And so I just encourage

[00:04:14] you to think about being a lifetime learner. So many of those folks who graduated plan to continue to do more. I may not be next week, next month, even later this year, but they have a plan to take their learning

[00:04:25] to a next level and do that on a continuous basis. And there's four things to remember about life, time learning, being a life, a time learner. One, it teaches you adaptability as you continue to learn and have an

[00:04:38] appetite for learning. You become more adaptable. You're taking a more information with intention and your use that information to constantly create a better youth, constantly shed things that no longer makes sense and embrace things that make a lot of sense too. It enhances your

[00:04:55] creativity. As you get to learn more, it opens your aperture and how you think about things. Family is so your creativity can't help but expand because you've availed yourself to more thought processes, to more fundamental basics, to more options if you will.

[00:05:12] And so it expands your creativity. Thirdly, if fosters resilience. And I mean, if that the first two weren't enough, just think about resilience and sometimes the lack there of that we sense in our culture. Resilience, that ability to take a shot and come back off

[00:05:29] the ropes, the ability to have a plan but then find that as you go to start executing. Some of the things you thought would be true or just not true. And so you have to adjust resilience is to me.

[00:05:41] Equality is so needed over all for us. And man, just think about learning and its attachment or and how it lifts resilience. It last but not least, it opens up career opportunities and isn't that

[00:05:55] what most folks are looking for? Whether you want to take the leap or not right now, whether you satisfy with you doing right now or not, here's the secret. Opportunities come to you. The best ones typically when you are not looking for them.

[00:06:10] I mean, just I just want you to take that in. When you are at a point where you're looking for the job, it's that much more difficult. When you quote on quote, I don't need the job next with this new opportunity or this new business venture.

[00:06:24] It's such a man, that is when the best thing show up. So being a lifetime learner family is so, so value and value ball. Excuse me, and I encourage you to consider what are you

[00:06:37] learning today? What are you planning to learn tomorrow? What's your plan to be learning next month and so on? By the way, if you want more information on how to be a lifetime learner,

[00:06:48] some of the four things I just talked about are they going to much more detail on the cooling solution site. Simply go to the corelinksolution.com and you can read more right there.

[00:06:59] You know, when you think about time management, I'm sure a number of different things come to mind. Whether it be how to avoid distractions staying on the narrow course of chasing and pursuing your purpose, your passion, how those things distill into clear goals for you, how you chase

[00:07:16] those goals, etc. You probably also think about work life balance. All of those thoughts are valid, all of those thoughts are good. What I do want to do today is go through maybe two

[00:07:26] or three, maybe even four. No, two or three tools or approaches that might help you in your time management for your career growth. I'm going to keep saying that to four-year career growth.

[00:07:37] And the first thing that comes to mind for me, simply comes down to the calendar. How do you manage your calendar family? I found myself several years ago feeling like I was reacting

[00:07:51] to my calendar and since that, I will be going to different meetings and such and not sure they were always productive and I wanted a way to change that. I didn't control it at.

[00:08:04] So I sat down and came up with this quick system for me that helped me out a lot. If you use a tool, for example, Google Calendar or Outlook, one of the beautiful things that it has at least

[00:08:14] in my mind because I'm a visual person is the ability to color code your meetings. And so I started a color coding system. I tested it and then I worked with my admin and did it

[00:08:24] and please don't misread because I had an admin that it was, you know, that's what enabled me to implement this. No, no, no. I don't have an admin today and I can still do the same thing.

[00:08:35] And so it's not about having an admin tonight. It's about the process and choosing to adopt the process so you can control your calendar. So here's what I did. I started color coding

[00:08:46] items in my calendar as green if they were aligned with my priorities. They were helping me pursue a goal, helping me pursue an objective that I had in my annual plan, etc., right? The priorities

[00:09:00] for me were color coded with green. Our color coding yellow things that I felt were somewhat non-discretionary, right? My manager has asked me to do it. My boss has asked me to do it.

[00:09:12] It's a teammate on my team and they need my help with something, etc., it's one of those things where I feel like I should be there but it is not directly aligned with or pushes forward one of my goals.

[00:09:25] And that doesn't mean that it's bad. It just helps me understand it. And then a color coded red. Everything else. The red almost were things that suggested the question of why am I there?

[00:09:37] Things that people may have asked me to show up to but they're not, they're not aligned to my goals. They're not even aligned to my bosses goals and or my goals and my team members across the team,

[00:09:49] etc., and I'm not sure why I said yes. I'm not sure why I'm committing to this time. And what that helped me do each week is look forward to the week ahead and see what colors were

[00:10:00] dominating my calendar. If the week was largely green, I felt good as a start. Right? If I could look at the count and again, I'm a visual person so if I could see largely green,

[00:10:10] it was like oh my god this is good. But if I'm seeing it dominated by yellow, it feels like maybe I've said yes to too many things or maybe I need to go have some conversations with people again. I feel like they're not discretionary items but are they?

[00:10:24] Guys, one thing about when you say things are discretionary, not discretionary. Many things we feel like we quote on quote must do have to do etc., that may not be the case,

[00:10:35] fam. And so for me it allowed me to take a step back and say there's yellow may not be dominating my calendar, but man, there is a lot of it. What is going on with that?

[00:10:48] And then the red became the areas of man, you know how you start a week with something in your mind and the three or four things you're going to accomplish that week. And then life happens.

[00:10:58] And we're going to talk about some of that too, how we deal with when quote unquote life happens. But it allowed me to say okay those are the places where if I need to get more time

[00:11:08] to focus on priorities, emergencies that pop etc., those will be the first thing to go. All those red items. And then the other thing was how do we quote unquote attack those red items and remove them from the calendar, as well as prevent adding them going forward. Right,

[00:11:25] week over week. What are we allowing to get on the calendar that we have now color coded and deemed red? And I'll tell you, turning the crank on that process week after week, the calendar became more green.

[00:11:36] Lash yellow, Lash red, let's say great conversations with people that helped I think prioritize not just my calendar, but even help some of my colleagues think about their calendars and what they may want to do differently, include my boss by the way. And so it's

[00:11:52] something I've kept with me and quite honestly is I'm talking through this, something I need to better implement in today's world because you know it's interesting, I love the corporate world in 2018 and ran out started running around nine, nine, profit full time. And I'll be honest,

[00:12:06] I think some of that discipline, I've let dissipate and I'm going to grab it back. So that's the first thing really, thinking about your calendar in terms of a coding system, a way to understand

[00:12:16] where you're spending your time. The second thing I'd ask you to think about family is please use a tool. Please be intentional about using a tool. Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, whatever the case

[00:12:27] may be, use a tool that allows you to effectively put things on your calendar, manage it so you understand time and again, God is the author of time ultimately. We don't get to buy more time.

[00:12:38] In fact, we are stewards of our time while we're here on this hear earth. Using that time in the wisest way is being a good steward. And so this is not about grinding more, this is not

[00:12:49] about going from 40 to 60 hours. In fact, I would encourage you to think about what if you could pull back to a four day work week and not four tens, but maybe 32 hours. What if you could do that?

[00:13:00] What if you could be more efficient? And so using a tool again helps you see what's going on. So please use a tool. And last thing I will say, this is low hanging fruit, probably hyper obvious

[00:13:10] to most of you, my calendar has been a blessing for me. You could use the free version, but one of the things calendar allows you to do is set up your free and available times and then send people a link

[00:13:23] so they can schedule a meeting with you in the beauty of it is. You get to control all the underlying attributes of that. So you could say, well, look, from Monday through Friday, I'm available from

[00:13:35] nine to five for meetings. You could say, well, no, may change. You may say, well, it's really Monday through Thursday. I don't take meetings on Friday. You can say, actually, on Tuesdays,

[00:13:43] it's only from nine to noon and then three to five. I block off noon to three for whatever the case may be. And I think that's the beauty of it. Part two, then you get out of this back and

[00:13:55] for people about what day in time may work. You say, hey, glad you want to meet. I want to meet two here is a link you could use the drug convenience number three. It's since people were minors

[00:14:04] based on what you said and want for those reminders. So you can have it set 24 hours before that they reminded that they have a meeting and they have to click a button to reconfirm. Think about

[00:14:13] how many meetings you showed up to whether physically or on a Zoom and people let you the late or don't come because they kind of forgot they had it until 10 minutes before the meeting. So you

[00:14:22] can set up something that says the day before, I wanted to get in at two hours before the meeting that sort of person knows or they reschedule. For thing, I love about it is also preventing the

[00:14:35] quote unquote same-day emergency meeting. All of a sudden this is now an emergency we have to meet today. You can set it. So once you send the link, there's a buffer period that people cannot

[00:14:47] use it untools. So you can say, well, today plus 48 hours right? So I don't want anything to add it for the next 48 hours when I send this person this link. The last thing I'll say to is

[00:14:59] you can also set quote attributes such as time you want buffer before meeting and after meeting. So you don't run from meeting to meeting the meeting. So if you're a person who before meeting,

[00:15:09] you want to look through the agenda materials. I'm sure you're ready and you want 15 minutes to do that. You can set that. If you're a person who after meeting, you need 15 to 30 minutes to

[00:15:18] debrief, take copious notes, whatever, you know, whatever your rhythm is, you can do that. And so calendly c-a-l-e-n-d-l-y dot com free tool you can use, check it out fan. Again, God is the author and

[00:15:32] finisher of time. He's architected it all. We don't get any extra. So all of this I want to make sure is undergird it with man. Start everything with prayer. Start everything asking for God's

[00:15:44] guidance. Start every day asking that God helps you do what He has called you to do within His will. Amen. He helps you endure through the day. Some days are harder than others, man. And I get it

[00:15:58] trust me. I get it. So the second thing I want to share with you is sticking with priorities. One of the difficult things that we all have to do is deal with distractions, things we didn't anticipate,

[00:16:11] understand. Man, keeping ourselves along with priority. Some of us, I know I'm prone to. I know I'm susceptible to urgent things coming out and me wanting to hop to that urgent thing. And one of the

[00:16:21] tools that's helped me a bit. And I love talking about this right now because making me be honest about things I need to go back to with a little bit more discipline. And this is one of them.

[00:16:35] One of them is the Eisenhower Matrix. Now if you've never seen the Eisenhower Matrix, I'm going to throw it on my screen for those who are watching the video. But it's simply a matrix

[00:16:44] that allows you to look at things and falacca about a term segment a little bit and put things in their proper place. Right? And so there's four quadrants. The upper left quadrant is important

[00:16:59] and urgent. So is this important? Is this something that aligns with my priorities? But it's also urgent. Something that must be taken care of right now. If so, the box is appropriately colored green.

[00:17:11] Take action on it. If you've been working on a gold issue and that gold issue is obviously it's important because it's a gold but two, there is something maybe putting that gold at risk.

[00:17:23] And or there's a fabulous opportunity that showed up today that would help you move down the field towards that gold by all means. Treat it as such and do something. But the next box is

[00:17:34] critically important and I love the distinguish between the two. The next box is this urgent but not, excuse me, it's important but it's not urgent. So it's important relative to your goals.

[00:17:47] But you know there's new thing popped up but it's not urgent. It doesn't have to be taken care of right now. Fam, that's a great opportunity. Schedule it. Put time on your calendar tool

[00:17:57] to work on this thing when it needs to. So you can say, well hey, I'm going to put that on next week's calendar and I'm going to block out two hours to work on this thing. That is

[00:18:06] important but it's not urgent right now. And that is one of the things I think happens most often. Anything connected to something important is then addressed in the moment and you totally dis

[00:18:18] and push to the side what you were working on. And one, we're not great multitaskers. The data has shown that but two, you had a plan for the day. So now things you pushed to the side

[00:18:27] just start to stack up. You just bumped it to the next day or bumped it further and the next thing you know you look up in a week or two when you say into yourself, what happened to those things?

[00:18:36] How was supposed to work on? They were important too. And so family is important but not urgent schedule it for your calendar. The lower left box is not important but it's urgent. So not connected to your goals and priorities, not connected to your passion, purpose work,

[00:18:53] but it's urgent and you can ignore it. It must be addressed. The question asked yourself is, do I personally need to address it or cannot delegate it? Now some of you may say, I don't have a

[00:19:06] big team. Delegation does not always mean someone who quote unquote that you supervise. It could be colleagues, other people of departments, etc. The point is to ask the question and make that a principal response, I need delegate this. It may be urgent but it's not

[00:19:25] my origin. It's not my goal and my priority, I want to be responsible but how do I help get this to the right person? And then last but not least that bottom right box is not important,

[00:19:38] not urgent. Bottom line, that sounds like a distraction. Sounds like a unnecessary task. Why are you spending time on this? How do you spend minimal amount of time on this and move it or ignore it?

[00:19:51] And so this could be junk email, sales, solicitation, it's interesting but it's not important and it's certainly not urgent. You weren't hunting for this, you weren't looking to buy this product or service but it tickled the ear. And so that's the caution. Be careful of things

[00:20:09] that tickled the ear and put them through the lens of the Eisenhower matrix. Is it important? Is it urgent? If it's not, that's a box for lower right. We're moved at distraction because

[00:20:20] it is unnecessary for you to deal with. Fam, this technique can help you a lot in terms of dealing with things that pop up because life does happen. I want to keep this conversation moving and

[00:20:33] give you my final tip to consider. I've talked about the calendar management and how you use tools to manage your calendar, I talked about the coding system, how you pick a calendar tool out

[00:20:44] look Google Calendar, whatever tickles your fancy and as well as calendarly to help with calendar ring meetings and such people want to have what you also talk about priorities and how you stick

[00:20:54] priorities even as quote unquote life happens because it truly does happen. But how do you deal with things that they pop up? Talk about the Eisenhower matrix. The last thing I want to end with

[00:21:04] is dealing with also when things pop up and or planning time, something that I've come to learn to use. I do not have affiliate marketing set up for this. I should note to self but one of the

[00:21:19] things I love to use is the Pomodoro technique and so when I'm sharing on screen for those who watch a video is this little cube bamboo wood cube that I've come to love to use over the

[00:21:32] years. It is so helpful. So why a couple of reasons? One studies have shown that we can only concentrate on things for so much time and then we just need a break. Family, we need a break particularly

[00:21:43] dedicated. Now don't confuse the point earlier about void distractions as well as multitasking. We're not good multitaskers, so multitasking for long period of time doesn't work but even focused on a particular thing for an extended period of time you may have diminished productivity and so

[00:22:02] experts have said it like 20 25 minutes is really a good time. I got this this wooden block. I want to say about 10 years ago, love it. It is in my home office at home. I need to get one here for work.

[00:22:14] Again, another reminder for me as I'm talking to this topic but when you go to work on something and say yes, I'm going to put my head down on this. I usually turn the block over about 25 minutes

[00:22:22] and at the end of 25 minutes it's going to give you a buzz and it's just a good time to get up. Take a quick walk around and office, refresh yourself, get some water, etc and then come back

[00:22:31] to it and it is helpful from a productivity perspective. In terms of those cycles of grinding mentally on a project, a big task, etc. Part one. Part two, it has intervals of 5, 10, 20, 25 minutes.

[00:22:49] I found the different intervals to be helpful in different ways as an example. Have you ever been in the meeting where the meeting has a very explicit purpose topic, etc. In other individuals

[00:23:00] and somehow you see things start to go off on a tangent that is somewhat related but not really if you're being honest. But you feel like maybe that piece of the conversation or rabbit hole

[00:23:11] folks are going to deserve to be talked out for a second. One of the things I found really useful is to say the folks, I think we're going down a rabbit hole. However, there could be some merit

[00:23:21] and let you talk this through for a second. I just want to time box this to five minutes though. And there's some magic in telling people that you acknowledge that you're kind of going off

[00:23:32] script a little bit down a rabbit hole. But two, you want to give them time to talk about it of three, you are putting a time limit on it. Now, you don't have to be the meeting facilitator.

[00:23:41] Some people feel like I can only do that if I'm the quote unquote manager to boss, meaning if you're a participant, you are there, you have a voice implementing good practice and good methodology is welcome, trust me. And so saying that and people people really go after,

[00:23:57] right? So then you turn the clock over and you tell them I got five minutes and if I'm on a zoom I would hold it up and say I'm putting this on the clock, bam. And people will start going through it,

[00:24:07] right? Unpacking their point of view on the issue so on and so forth. And then even like self regulating and starting to drive towards what they're going to conclude on and or at the next

[00:24:18] steps. And then listen, if they do it before the timer goes off you'll be kayayay thank you. If they don't win the timer goes off you didn't say what are your next steps? What will you two, three,

[00:24:29] four, folks? Whatever do to continue this conversation later and then you're back to the meeting. So for me, family, this bamboo wooden block that I think at an on paved 20 bucks for has added tons of productivity again. It's a technique that maintains, helps maintain concentration and

[00:24:47] prevent burnout but also helps you deal with things as again life happens. Fam, I hope these tips were helpful. Send me your tips please change your soul at HolyCoach.net. What love to hear

[00:24:59] what you're doing? Well she's here. She is an author, a Bible teacher, a poet, a hip hop artist. She's also a mother to press in an amami to eat and then autumn I've got the one and only Jackie

[00:25:12] Hill, Perry and the house. Jackie good to see. Thanks for having me and I got two additional kids even autumn sage and August. Oh wow okay we got update the bio okay. Yeah we got so.

[00:25:25] We're a bit busy. So I know you're on tour right now. Tell us before we jump into uh because I want to t-this up and help you make an announcement um but before we jump to that tell us about

[00:25:36] the tour you're on right now. Yeah so me and my husband have a podcast called with the Perrys and so we're going on a 14 city just podcast tour or have a conversation about biblical literacy, apologetics, idolatry, discipleship all the things so we're in New York today and tomorrow

[00:25:56] and we have all four kids with us. It's a it's a family tour. Oh wow. Yeah. Oh wow okay playing strings automobiles huh. Just one bus. Well two buses and then we got a dog and then my mama

[00:26:10] and a really good team so where God has been he's been helpful. Yeah praise God for that. Well listen uh and I hope to see you in New York by the way I'm going to head up to New York this afternoon so hopefully

[00:26:19] I'll see you live but I wanted to make sure yeah I wanted to make sure for the Holy Coach audience which uh I would characterize as faithful Christian hip hop listeners and you've been a part

[00:26:31] of that fabric for some time tell folks what they can expect what's coming up what's the announcement. I mean well I've been away from music since 2018 when I was a sign with humblebeast and I stepped

[00:26:44] away because I felt like the Lord was creating space for me to teach primarily and right and that is really my that's the thing that gets me going the most but because I'm taking a break for writing

[00:26:56] I have space and room and margin to create music again for a season and so I've signed a partnership contract with reach to release some music in them between time so it's gonna be a good time.

[00:27:10] That's good you say it so uh so casually I just didn't have contract with reach tell us about if you don't mind I mean because you you have so many things going on like I said in the intro

[00:27:21] your author your poet your speaker well regarded highly respected great following what led to you feeling like you wanted to come back into music and specifically what led to you doing to

[00:27:33] what reach yeah so um I've all for the last few years I started to limit that I couldn't create music because music is just a big part of who I am I love you like even when I did it with humblebeast

[00:27:49] it was never about touring it was never about making money it was always just the art form itself and so because I couldn't make music it actually made me sad and so it was probably a couple months ago

[00:28:00] where I was just processing with the Lord and I kind of started to feel like he would be okay with and was creating space for me to get back into that again um like like I had margin for it and so

[00:28:12] for ace they aren't reach went to my church and we connect it for the Stalo remix remix and when we connect it I don't know I have there's this thing where sometimes when I enter a space I have conversations

[00:28:26] where there's this nudge where it's like I feel like there's something more to this connection than whatever I be so I ask God I said Lord literally I'm not even guessing I was like if you want me to

[00:28:38] sign with reach if that's something that you're cultivating they make it happen you know and he's did and so I think God handed on this and I think for me I think reach puts out quality music

[00:28:49] they really do when you listen to Hobi and one k few and one day and a craze like it's not even just the style it's the quality it's the mixing it's the the album artwork it's the social media

[00:29:03] reads that they're able to develop as they do roll out stuff so to me I wanted to partner with people who could do stuff in excellent ways and I think reach does that that's good when you think

[00:29:14] about now the creative the creative rule that you're on and the you know the arc of the work and what it might look like what would you would you tell people to expect from you in this new season

[00:29:24] of music I think it will sound different so art of joy and crescendo was more boom that more hip hop and that was because the label I was with that was kind of their style right but I'm from

[00:29:38] Stagos so I grew up listening to you know A ball mg the mjd 36 mafia yo gody like you know twist the like that was the style I grew up on so if anything I'm gonna I think I'm gonna make music

[00:29:52] that reclaims my heritage stylistically where it feels good but I think I know more now I've been through more now and so I think it still will have the depth and the kind of intellectual

[00:30:07] lyrical style to it but they don't have more vibes I think that's what you can expect Gotcha yeah more styles were vibes little maybe a little less boom that so for those strictly

[00:30:18] wet the boom back they may need to expand their horizons a little bit it'll be in there a little bit but you know No we can buy a be Jackie so I mean you haven't been going that long but I mean now

[00:30:31] You know you look at three months so much changes in the world and the course of three months I mean it's just the way things move when you think about re-entering if that's the right term to use into

[00:30:41] the music space are there any things you contemplate in terms of from a music industry perspective that top of mine for you? No not really I think I think to me yeah if anything I see it as another

[00:30:57] avenue of influence right like music is such a powerful medium on the mind and the affections and the behavior of people and so that's really I'm not even thinking I'm not even thinking about

[00:31:12] anything other than how can God use this as another avenue by which to renew people's minds about his character in this nature that's really what I'm on yeah that's good you know you mentioned a

[00:31:25] couple times really you know one you mentioned lamenting right as a part of the process and coming back to it too you mentioned even the interaction with ace and and being thoughtful enough to ask

[00:31:35] God man God what what can come out of this what what might should come out of this what would you advise people do particularly somebody younger artists coming up right I think that that look up to you

[00:31:45] no doubt look up to you in terms of how you are spirit led and your work how you are God let what of what if you simple things you would say hey you know what I struggle with some of these things too

[00:31:56] and maybe you know as an artist not paying as much attention what's help keep you grounded following God's footsteps in your work yeah I mean I think I just don't want to do nothing

[00:32:12] if God is with me you know and so I think God gives good gifts to people and there are some of us who have many gifts and many options like I feel like I'm one of those people I have a lot of

[00:32:25] options but which it's expressed my creativity but it was around 2018 when I stepped away from music that I felt like the Lord was like just because you can do many things it doesn't mean you can do

[00:32:36] everything so I need you to pick I need you to decide and I think that took a level of courage and humility to just trust the Lord you know and so my work then for creatives and artists would be

[00:32:50] just because you can do everything he may not he may not create space or open doors for you to do everything all at once all the time because he knows what's best for us right and so from me

[00:33:02] to step away from music is what happened I was able to produce a lot of books a lot of literature that God used to help people think well about who he is and all the things so it's not like God

[00:33:14] limits us just because he's a meany if anything he's creating space for us to be more fruitful and so being intentional on the siren and gods will on what gifts we decide to walk in is

[00:33:25] up it's just important because if I go around his will to do what I want to do I might be out there without his help and I don't want no part of that I need to be out there with him as I do

[00:33:38] her there period yes Lord yes Lord yeah and you know I think there's something again something else you said I don't want to to get miss you said and you felt you had margin to do it right and

[00:33:52] that's so important not only were you prayerful about it but just also practical about it right I'm a tool I got a book we got this podcast that's killing I got four kids but you're doing

[00:34:03] things that create margin for you to do more creative work and so that's the one one thing I really love about what you said and the second thing that it works together right these things are separate

[00:34:12] streams necessarily but they could be a great merging of this work so so I'm really excited what one other question before we go into this new song a yours are there any potential collaboration you look for to either want a production side or behind a mic with you

[00:34:29] I'm a keeper in my pocket for now but yeah I think I have people in mind but I also even when my previous albums I tend to want features I get I think of the features after the music is made

[00:34:44] because the music the sound the vibe that kind of instructs on influences who I think could like lift this up a certain way so I got people in my head but ultimately the music is going to

[00:34:55] just decide who I call so that's interesting so do you do you typically start with writing kind of writing and having a concept would you like the music first or does it go both ways

[00:35:08] what's your creative process? The music drives everything so you know whatever the sound is if it's melancholy then that helps that like that sparks the lyrics from me which then just so I think however me and Ace structure our sessions that just level influence the direction

[00:35:30] of all the stuff and I'm super open like I don't really have no strong vision per se have ideas but I'm also like hey I feel humbled I didn't get this in a long time

[00:35:42] so to me it's like let's see what happens let's just throw a much stuff on the wall and see what we can create from it. Let's go let's go alright well listen before you leave out here

[00:35:54] you have to introduce this first single tell everyone about it. So I like writing free styles while I'm driving is actually very unsafe but it does something to my mind I gave Shree and so I wrote

[00:36:08] I wrote two verses to some just because I was figuring stuff out and then we ended up doing the part of Shree at we reached and I was like hey let's just put out these free styles create some beats

[00:36:20] and that can be the first single and so the first single is what I call first draft which is just a sneak peek of I think the kind of content you'll be receiving. That's what so that's what's up. Hey listen

[00:36:31] y'all we're going to jump in the first draft before that A just want to thank you for stopping by I know how crazy this for you right now so look to you everything you're doing personally the

[00:36:41] Perry's podcast if you haven't checked out the podcast got to go to youtube channel or Jackie hill Perry's channel and you'll get some clips there powerful powerful content thank you. Thank you

[00:36:51] family. Hey family as always thank you for joining me on the cooling solution podcast and if you tune into the show thank you for that if you don't know now you do you can join me live from my show

[00:37:02] every Friday at noon Eastern Standard Time on Holy Culture Radio which is Shree's Exxm channel one four zero listen if you've got comments suggestions tips you sit your feedback on some of the

[00:37:15] things I share today please drop me an email at James Russo at HolyCoach.net or James Russo at thecoilingsolutions.com either works or hit me on any of the socials at James Russo as

[00:37:25] so let's at James Russo think it's senior and until next time you know what it is being for being powered be accountable much love.