Bricks And Better Networks

Our team thought it was a great idea to start rewinding previous (but timely) episodes of our show during the times that Mista Yu is away from the microphone. All of these beautiful Blasts from the Past were previously broadcast, but we are sharing them with you at a time when you might need them most. Hope you enjoy the review!

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Tired of networking that feels like a numbers game and leaves you drained? We take a frank look at what it means to build a network that actually helps people grow, with stories from the trenches, hard-won lessons, and simple practices you can use today. From social feeds to small groups, we dig into why motives matter, how unity unlocks possibility, and where shortcuts quietly sabotage trust.

We start by reframing social media as a two-way stream: your inputs shape your outcomes. If you want less toxicity, curate for it. Then we move into the brick metaphor—each day you can throw it, hide behind it, or build with it—and what that choice means for your community. We unpack cliques, copycat culture, and the subtle ways networks turn into echo chambers when leaders seek clones instead of complementary strength

WANT A SHOUT-OUT ON THE PODCAST? SEND Mista Yu a text at: (904) 867-4466. Leave your first name and the city you're reaching out to us from. We'll shout you out on the next Fan Mail episode.

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Chapters

• 0:29 Building a Strong Network
• 8:48 Building a Strong Network Ethically
• 29:14 Navigating Relationships in Network Building
• 41:01 Building Networks Through Serving Others

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:31

Welcome back to the all-purpose pod for an all-purpose life, wherever you are and however you're listening to the Call Me Mr. You the podcast. We thank you once again for making us a part, making us an intentional part of your morning, your day, and your week with your weekly mirror check before you change the world. We thank you so much for your continued support of all of our programming, all of our broadcasts from the The Call Me Mr. You brand of shows. We're definitely appreciative of your listening to us. If you're listening, audio listeners only, of course, you can find us on Pandora, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Spotify, and of course Apple Podcasts, which is one of two places along with Stitcher, where you can actually subscribe to our show. Please subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts. It'll help us out greatly, help move us forward to where we believe God wants us to be. So we definitely would love to have your support there. And of course, if you are a listener and a watcher, of course, you can also find our YouTube channel at They Call Me Mr. You. You can find our show there, full-length episodes as well. Audio and video, of course. Love for you to subscribe there as well. That'll definitely help us out with moving forward from a monetization promotional standpoint. So we definitely appreciate all support there. I want to jump into a few things here. We talk about a lot of things over the past four seasons or so. We've gone a lot of places. There's some areas that we dare not tread, but we've gone many places since this show started in 2020. I'm kind of excited and nostalgic because we're about to hit our four-year anniversary in the month of September. So I'm pretty excited about what that looks like. At the same time, I want to try to stay fresh, stay creative, and continue to bring you guys some of the things that I think you find to be valuable content, things that I hear from you guys about that you would like us to discuss, or you'd like me to discuss. So happy to do that. I hope that you're enjoying that Monday thing or at Monday at 9 a.m. And of course, the Thursday night triple threat, which is our professional wrestling broadcast every Thursday night at 9 p.m. Uh, I do co-host and guest frequently on a couple of other shows throughout the course of the week. Well, essentially at this point, we're down to one of those now on the Tuesday night, which you can find on YouTube at the Sports and Money Podcast, which you can also definitely subscribe. So I definitely encourage you to do that. Uh, and our His and Hers podcast will be back out in the fall. My wife and I, the Queen herself, will be back in conversation mode talking about topics that we believe matter to you. We'll be discussing those probably on a Friday evening or Friday afternoon, but you'll be seeing that in the fall, this fall this year. Um, but I want to kind of get into a few things here. I think I'm hoping they're gonna be able to help you out. Uh and just to be just to be honest and just full disclosure, you know, despite what people think, because I think that people people think that I think I really enjoy social media. I've got comments like I'm the king of TikTok. I don't have enough numbers to even be the king of a portion of TikTok. But I think my frequency in my promoting our shows and our content, our YouTube channel and the podcast, I think people think that I'm on this so much and I'm enjoying everything I'm seeing, and I'm just fully engaged. Well, I struggle with the whole social media thing. I think part of me is still an introvert, believe it or not. And the idea of being all over the internet doesn't send excitement shooting through my veins. I don't really feel that. Uh, I think a lot of it, because of what I'm trying to build, is a necessity. So you have to put in the work and add bricks if you want to have a house. And I just kind of feel like I need to be consistent in that area and develop that. And that's just that's fine. I understand the assignment, but it's not something that I particularly enjoy for a lot of different reasons. But I definitely want to learn how to understand it to a greater level, and it's just making me think about networking as a whole. Uh, I've shared episodes in the past, uh, probably within the season two and three, about as a matter of fact, probably the first three seasons, if I'm accurate about it. Where I've discussed networking in great detail, broke down some examples, some analogies we use, and some real life examples of what it means to network. I think that this is important to you. Hopefully, it won't be boring to you guys, but this is something I think we need to be taken into consideration because this is something that we actually do. We've been networking ever since we were little kids. Nobody called it that. It wasn't uh it wasn't called networking, it might have been a club or group or even a family, but we were networking since we were little kids. What I'm trying to figure out in today's times is how do we forget why that was important? When we were little kids, we understood that networking was important, it brought us together, it allowed us to have people who have shared experiences, people that we like to be around, people that we can work with and build things and grow together with. As little kids, we figured that thing out without anybody teaching us. Did we learn it from Sesame Street and Electric Company and Wonderama and sh and uh hit shows of that nature? Perhaps that might have played a part, but we learned it and we put it into action and we did it. Now, I'm not gonna say that we're in problems in the neighborhood with us young people being young people, but we understood how to network. So it baffles me that we're we're adults now and we still haven't quite figured it out, and we've done it when we were kids. How did we forget so quickly? 30, 40, 50 year olds that don't understand the importance of networking, don't understand the importance of sharing and and giving and and things of that nature. So, what I want to try to do, this is probably a little bit more lighthearted than most of the episodes that we do. Hopefully, it comes across that way. I can be a serious guy a lot of the time because I think about things seriously, and things are important to me, specific things. So that may come across, but hopefully this is lighthearted, it's definitely intended to be. But my question, which is the topic of this specific broadcast today, how do you build a network? You can go on Google and get examples of how to do that, and we'll kind of help out a little bit with that during our time together. But how do you build a network? How do you specifically the listener that's hearing my voice right now? How do you build a network? I'm curious about that because I want to understand what we do, how we're doing it, why we're doing it, the way that we're doing it. Now, networking is a uh it's an interesting uh case study because it requires a lot of things from us. It requires us to do things that you know aren't really about us. Now, I know on your social media platforms you don't see that. You got people from different backgrounds, different walks of life, different upbrings, different socioeconomical statuses. At the end of the day, we're all part of one network. We can try to deny that and say, oh, this is mine's and that's yours over there, but we're really all part of one. And to the degree that we understand that is the degree that we can grow together, excuse me, and be the best us that we can be, creating a better network, a better community, a better neighborhood, and down the line, a better world, hopefully. Uh, I really believe that. I hope it doesn't sound too idealistic, but that's really what I believe. I believe that the individual responsibility falls on us. But how do you build a network? I can give you some examples of this stuff on social media, but I'll just share this. Uh now I know that when you go on social media, you see probably what I see. You see clicks, you see people that are coming together, but for their own purposes. They're trying to build their brand and they'll step on whoever they got to step on to continue to build that brand. They don't care who it is, you know, they don't care how they got to get there. They're gonna get that to that pinnacle, they're gonna be uh a leader or influencer in that regard, and they're going to get a million likes and subscribers, and they're gonna get ads and advertisements and promotional stuff, and they're gonna be internet famous, and it's their goal in life, and they don't care how they get there, they will step on whomever and and however they have to do that to get to that place. That's something that we see normally on social media on our platforms. I don't think that's a good thing, I'm not advocating it, I'm just telling you what we've been seeing. I know I've been seeing, I hear it from you guys on a daily basis, so I know it's not all in my head. It's not just me seeing it, you guys are seeing it as well. When it comes to social media, we got to understand a few things, and I'll be sharing tips throughout the course of this little uh brief episode. But social media in that regard, it's a two-way stream, and what that means is what we give is what we receive. You know, it's about reciprocation. And if you want to have the kind of world where you can get on your social media platform and not have to run into a whole bunch of toxic stuff, that's who you need to surround yourself with. That's that's that's who you should fill your timeline with. The kind of individuals that you're not ashamed to see stuff on their timeline, like, wow, how did I get connected with this person? It's a two-way stream. What you put out there is what you're gonna get back. It's kind of a boomerang effect, if you will. What you put out there is what you're gonna get back. How do you build a network? We don't think about ourselves as builders in any aspect a lot of the times, but we are builders. We build something every day. Every day we get a brick and we have to decide how we're gonna use it. Some folks of a base mentality, they're throwing their brick at people, using their brick to assault people every day, especially on social media. But some people who want to operate with integrity and with honor recognize that their brick needs to be used for building. That's what bricks are for. Now, some folks can take those bricks and build a fortress around themselves so that nobody can't get to them. And they're covered and protected and insulated from everything going on in the world. That's the second category. The third category are the persons that recognize that they have a purpose in life, and their purpose in life doesn't have everything to do with them, but everything to do with others. So they build something with that brick every day that can house the dreams and ideas of other people and create opportunities for them as well as for themselves. Three different categories. One person of a basic mentality may throw their bricks and use their bricks to hurt, the next category may use their bricks to insulate themselves and hide from the realities of the world and cord themselves off from what's actually going on. And the third one will build something that will be a blessing to other people. Those are the categories that we see on the social. And honestly, that's where that's where networking begins to start coming in and start to uh take shape. I don't know if we realize that we have that responsibility, but we have that. We're builders, and we build something every single day. The question you gotta ask yourself is is the what you're building, is it worthwhile? Is it made of gold, silver, and precious stones, or is it made of wood, stubble, and hay? Something that can't hit the fires and the trials of life that will eventually burn down. They had to start all over again. What are you building every single day? How do you build a network? We don't think about ourselves trying to build a network, but if you ever seen a movie Mean Girls, it's not my favorite movie because I don't like stuff like that. I don't like seeing people denigrate others to that level. So it's not on my top 10 movies list, just to be honest, but I reference it a lot because the concept that's in that movie is the same thing that we see on social media also very often, probably way too often.

SPEAKER_00: 16:31

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

SPEAKER_01: 16:35

Thanks again for listening to one-on-one with Mr. You and your inspiration station. I'm really excited about today's episode and a chance to share another compelling story with all of you that I really hope changes your tomorrow. Let's not waste another minute. Let's get into it. Hi, friends, it's Mr. You. Welcome to a very special fan mail episode of our show. Uh, fan mail is super important to me personally because I want to always connect with our viewers and listeners, and a lot of times this will give me a chance to do that. So, fan mail is a way where you can text me directly. The link is in our show notes for every episode that we do. Hopefully, you'll find that either in the beginning or at the end of the show notes, but it's definitely there. And you guys send a text me personally, I will answer those texts in the upcoming fan or episode. Give you a special shout out, just add the information you wanted to have to that uh to that text, and I'll shout you out on an upcoming episode. I definitely encourage your support there. This is a show that it's still growing, the brand is still growing, and your involvement, your thoughts on topics and episodes mean so much to me personally. So please continue to do that. Please continue to use fan mail to let me know what you think and how a topic or episode has resonated with you. We look forward to hearing for more of you guys regarding that. We got some friends in Jacksonville, Florida, that send a shout-out to us, 7253, that said everyone should listen to Mr. U. Well, that's really really, really nice and very humbling. We pride ourselves on being the all-purpose pod for an all-purpose life, so we're excited whenever our work here in podcast land resonates with somebody. So thank you again for our friends down in Jacksonville. We know the more friends that have been giving me shout-outs, just haven't been using fan mail, but I encourage that. The links in the show notes. Send me a text, let me know what you think about our show. Happy to shout you out on the upcoming episode. So thanks again for listening. Don't forget the link to fan mail is in the show notes. Look forward to hearing from you guys really soon. Have a great day. Thanks for making us part of your week. Hi, it's Mr. You. Hope you were inspired by what you heard today. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts and on our YouTube channel, and please leave a comment and a review. This episode was made possible by support of viewers and listeners just like you. Thanks. But the point is that those girls in that movie, you call it a click, but they were building a network. Everybody that came into their group begin to take on the mindset of the leader. Begin to do the leader's bidding or do what they think the leader would approve of in order to gain favor with the leader. They were building a network. They were in networking. Now, we can talk about whether that was a good thing or not, what kind of what kind of heart that came from? Probably all valid questions. But the bottom line is that they were building a network in that moment. And we do that all the time. Even you where you are right now, you're building a network. My question is, is that network that you're building, and everybody that's in that network, in said network, are they all capitulating to what you want? Are they all carbon copies of you? Is your network so homogenized that anybody that's from the outside looks at it, all they see is you, and they don't see anybody that's individually unique? All they see are clones of you as the leader of the network? Are you a clone of the network that you're in? Have you been immersed so much into the network that your thoughts and your ideas and your goals have been shelved, and all you have left is whatever it is you think will please the leader of your network. So you do whatever it is that they want you to do at the expense of your own thoughts and goals, dreams and purposes, etc. Those may be negative examples, but those are all real things that are actually happening to people around us, where we are right now. So this is not made up hyperbole, this is real stuff happening, and unfortunately, we do see it mostly on social media. Not great, but it is what it is. There's a scripture in the book of Genesis. I referenced it many times during our episodes, but I want to share this because I want you to understand something regarding networking. I want you to understand where we're going throughout the rest of this episode. But I'm gonna read it for you uh all the way through just nine verses, shouldn't take too long. But Genesis chapter 11, verse 1 to 9. I'm gonna read this out real quick. Hopefully, you can follow all this going on. I'll take my time here. I know I talk fast sometimes. But verse 1 says, Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shannai and settled there. Verse 3. They said to each other, Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They used bricks instead of stone and tar for mortar. Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth. Verse 5 says, But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, If as one people speak in the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so they would not understand each other. Verse 8. So the Lord scattered them from there all over the earth, and they stopped building the city. Verse 9, that is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. Now there's context for why this went the way it went. I'm not going to get down to a big uh biblical breakdown, but what I want you guys to understand from this, it was a a lot, a lot happening in this. To you, this may sound like a noble gesture. These Babylonian people wanted to build a tower to reach the heavens so they can make a name for themselves and not lose their legacy. They felt like that because of the influx of God's chosen people moving into the territory and beginning to take over. They felt like if we don't make a name for ourselves, we might get swallowed up in this. They weren't thinking about cooperation, they weren't thinking about community, they were thinking about their own personal legacies and nothing else. To the point that they were going to try to do something that was so drastic, so majorly over the top, to build a tower that would reach the heavens. Could you imagine if a plane was flying over your house and you looked up? You know how many miles away that plane is from where you're standing? So imagine uh a a tower that would actually reach the in the heavens, and because of the unity between them, this was possible in their mind. There's a little pro-chip for you. When you got unity, you can do anything. A little pro-chip. When you got unity, you can do anything. But the motive for this was wrong. It wasn't about God trying to mess up their party and confounding their language because he just felt like screwing them over. That's not what was happening. There was a lot of stuff behind the scenes, motivation-wise, that wasn't what it was supposed to be. He wasn't trying he he wasn't trying to hear them separating themselves from the rest of the people and trying to make their own whatever. But there was a shortcut trying to be taken here to access the heavens. Why do you want to access the heavens? What's your goal and what are you trying to get in the heavens that you don't have on earth? This is just something about, we'll break it down on a different day. Why are you trying to access the heavens? What do you want there that you don't have where you are? And then you're trying to have make trying to have gain access to a place that you're not authorized to gain. How many times have we done that? Try to create something that we shouldn't be trying to create. If we do things with selfish motives, it's always gonna come out in the wash. That's what this was. Whenever you have a problem or a challenge that you're running into and it's not working for you, and I know this firsthand in recent months, why is this working out for me? Why am I struggling in this area so much, no matter how much I do, no matter how hard I try, there's always a root cause to why you're running into that roadblock, why you're running into that wall. Be bold enough, be courageous enough to sit to ask yourself the question and be prepared for the answer. Be bold enough to dig enough and burrow down deep enough to get the answer to why you can't do what you've been trying to accomplish all this time. See the person that I think is a fool, the person that it's not working, but they continue to keep slamming their head against that same wall, trying to make it work. I talk to people who are in social networks, in business networks, and I would ask them those questions. Why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you in this job all this time when you told me your original goal was to do this? Why haven't you started it? Why hasn't it happened yet? And they get resistant about it, they get kind of standoffished about it.

SPEAKER_00: 27:42

They get kind of uh stay with us. We'll be right back.

SPEAKER_01: 27:50

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They've been beating their head against that wall so long that it's become the norm, and they don't realize that you haven't done what you're supposed to be doing. And that's why you're in this place. That's why it doesn't work out for you at times. You're in the place where you should not be, doing something you should not be doing. It's a power of network as well. Sometimes you could be in a network doing something that after some years, five, ten years, you're like, Why am I doing this? How did I get here? You didn't even realize you made a left turn, and it's like, here you are. Like, how'd I get here? You didn't realize how far off track you already were because you were doing something you shouldn't have been doing. But I see this kind of stuff on social media all the time. But I hope Genesis 11 and the Tower of Babel account will help you out with some of the mindset there. But there's a lot of tips in social media. I want to try to get through these really quickly. But I see people who are doing stuff in the in the realm of networking. I see it especially in my social media, especially since I entered into the realm of doing podcasts and media and marketing and such. Everybody has a network next to their name. Everybody trying to start a network. Everybody trying to be like an ESPN or trying to be like the next Fox Sports or the next Colin Cowherd or Stephen A. Smith or whatever. And it's like to start a network, certain things had to be in place first before you can start a network. You can't just get five, ten people together and say, hey, let's start a network. That's not how that works. When you were a little kid, you didn't even do that. If you got five or ten people and they were meshing, you didn't like where they were coming from, that network wasn't happening. You gotta start off from scratch and get new people before you can start planning and building anything, you gotta make sure the personnel was right. That you were on the same page from a value systems, a value system standpoint. Some things, some tips just to kind of think about when it comes to building a network. Like we said earlier, social media is a two-way stream. What you put out is what you get back. It's all about reciprocation. Don't be selfish. It's so common for everybody to look out for themselves, as we've seen in that Tower of Babel account in Genesis chapter 11. And look where that got them. Avoid the shortcuts. That was a shortcut with the Tower of Babel. But we do that all the time. We try to find a quick way to get to the status of being an influencer. Avoid the shortcuts, it always comes back on you. Be authentic. So many folks are copying each other and trying to do what others are doing because it worked for them, but it's not you. Do you realize how unique and special you are? Do you realize that you were made like nobody else? Nobody has your fingerprint. Nobody has your same palm print. Do you realize that? How special you are? Nobody has your exact retinas and irises in your eye. Do you know how special you are? Nobody has your exact same facial features. You are uniquely and wonderfully made. So you can't do what everybody else has been doing. Even if you share that interest, you can't do it the way they've done it. It's not gonna work. You're that different. In the world of networking, we gotta watch out for counterfeits. There's so many folks that are saying, you know what, I can do that, I wanna do that. I've met people in this media game that have said all the right things. I won't call their names out because they're not even that relevant to do that. He's just being honest. They hit me up, sliding my DMs, like they say, that's exactly what they do. And they hit me up, tell me about how they believe in this and they agree with me on this, and they love what I'm doing with this, and they want to do the same thing. But when I go and look at what they've been doing, they haven't been doing anything like that. But they say that's what they want to do. I'm sorry, that's suspect right off the top. That's suspect. Because if you're not doing it, why should I believe that you're gonna be doing that? It's like going to a job interview and telling your your potential new employer that this is what matters to you, you're you you're concerned about this, this is how you live your life, this is what you want to accomplish. But when they go back and double check, you haven't been doing any of those things. It might lead them to believe that you want to just do it just for the sake of getting this job and not because you really believe and you have a conviction that this is what you actually want to do. It's not hard to make that leap. So watch out for counterfeits. I've met them, talked to them. They have no intention. They just want somebody to ride on the way to wherever it is they really want to get to. They don't really care about my goal and my vision. They just want to just get to where I am or get to where they want to be and use me as a vehicle. Not that I'm so great and I have so much clout. I don't. But people will use whatever they can use to take five additional steps that they probably wouldn't take on their own. Just being honest. Look for and assess and add value to people's lives. One of the reasons I tell people this all the time, I not sure they believe me or not, but it don't matter. It's the truth. I believe it. When I started this show and it eventually began to evolve into the brands or the Thursday Night Triple Threat, That Monday thing, and the His and Hers podcast, just for examples. I did that because I want to provide a platform for people who want to get into media and do what we're doing. Now, I'm not saying that from a standpoint that I'm a mentor and a coach and I got this down pat. No, I think it's even weird that I even want to do that when I don't even have my own foundation firmly laid, and I don't even have everything I want to have yet. I'm trying to invite people to help them get to the place where they can be able to uh work with me and move into these directions and accomplish some things in the media space. I think it's weird. I think it's weird that I want to open the doors for people for people to do that when I'm still feeling like I'm new in this, and I'm still trying to figure out how I even got here for the most part. But that's what my heart is. I want to open those doors and I'm looking for value. I'm looking, I'm trying to assess it the right way and make sure it's not about me and make sure that I'm helping people get what they need, the same way as if it was me, and making sure I get I give what I would want for myself. We got to make sure that we recognize that the personal and the private personas need to match. We can't be out here trying to be this in person, but public, but privately, we're not that. Integrity matters even in the realm of networking. Because eventually what is private is going to be found out. And it can damage the entire network you're trying to build. And on top of that, one of the most important things, I think this is probably as important as anything I just said. More important or as important as being authentic, assessing value and adding value to people's lives, but it's also actively building relationships, man. Now I know I hang out there in relationship plan, my entire adult life was about relationships, teaching about it, learning about it the hard way, and even in honest podcasts, it's all about relationships. It's what I talk about more than anything. Almost anything. It's in the top two for sure. Actively build relationships. Actively is the key word here. Build relationships. Put in some work. Notice in the middle of networking, the word work. Put in some work, put in some efforts. Don't expect everybody to come to you because you're so great and you got it going on and you're influential. Actively build some relationships. Actually put in some work. Talk, take the time to talk to people with your face turned to them, your body turned to them, not turned away. Look them in the eye, listen to what they're saying. Don't try to anticipate what they're gonna say. Listen to them, speak to them, understand, attempt to understand at least, and then respond accordingly. Actively build relationships. Be there for them, even if it doesn't serve you. If it doesn't provide you any kind of benefit. I really feel that's important. How do you build your network? Is the emphasis on duplicating just you? Is it homogenized to that degree? Are you the sole focus? Should you be the sole focus of the network? Even if it's your idea, should you be the sole focus? Or is it wiser to invest in the areas that you're weakest in? I'm asking that for a friend. I started a group, I'm not sorry about it. I'm just casting the net wide, like I think I need to right now. But I started a group called The Connection. It's a men's group here locally that we meet every quarter. It's not designed to be a men's Bible study or a men's fellowship or anything. But what we do there is we deal with issues that are germane to men. Uh, it's not a session for us to gripe and complain. We don't do that there. It's not something that we're saying hide it from your wife. We're not doing that either, but it is confidential. It is uh out of respect for the men who are sharing sensitive things and dealing with issues. We keep it all in-house, but we talk about issues regarding sex, we talk about issues regarding finances, issues regarding blended families. We talk about issues regarding uh serving in ministries, uh in the workplaces, uh in the military. We talk about things that men are affected by the I guess the uh the image of man in the media today. We talk about and we deal with all that stuff personal development things, things to read and to help you as men. We've recommended books like the Wild of the Heart series, Father by God. Those books have been instrumental for me personally. I've always shared those with our men in our group, but I've had a rough history when it comes to men's groups and things of that nature. So to do this with a big departure from that for me. But what did that tell you? That tells you that I didn't view this as being about me, because if it was up to me, I wouldn't have done that because of my issues, because of all my hangups. I started this group because I want to serve and help men get what I didn't get and help us be better at who we need to be in our households, in our marriages, if we're married, or even in our singleness. Even if we're coming off of divorces, our communities, our neighborhoods, our ministries, our organizations. I want us to be the best men that we can be. God's the one that's doing all the fixing. Let's let's get that straight. But I want to help us as much as I can from a personal development standpoint. My background as a coach and a mentor do come into play. Some ministry aspects do come into play, but this is about men supporting men and being the men that we're supposed to be. Not what the world says we're supposed to be. So those are the kind of things that come into play. But the point of that is that I'm actively building relationships, and I'm actively not making it about me. The focus is on the men, the focus is on the cause, the focus is on the needs, not about me. Or I wouldn't even do this. So I hope that makes sense. It's really, really important. Like I said, I've seen networks, I've seen people try to build networks in the business realm, in the realm of podcasting and media, and the focus seems to always be about them. It's never about what it's supposed to be about. People trying to build networks, and they're so selfish and it's so ingrained in their own mind and so immersed in their own culture of themselves that they can't even see that they're not growing anything. You just got an amalgamation of people that are just there and involved, but you're not really growing anything. Nothing's changing. And most of the reason why there isn't any change, the biggest reason is because the person that's leading the network isn't changing. So they're not changing, nothing else is going to change. I love this quote from Zig Ziglar. It's one of my favorite quotes in the entire world. God rest his soul. I love his books and his motivational speaking talks. Fantastic. But one of the things he said that I love it says, if you want to achieve your goals, help others achieve theirs. Get that in your spirit. If you want to achieve your goals, help others achieve theirs. That's a total antithesis of what's going on in the world around us, the total opposite of what's going on in the world around us right now. We're doing the opposite of that in the world. But this is kingdom minded, these are kingdom principles right here. If you want to achieve your goal, help others achieve theirs. What I'm doing with the connection, it's exactly the foundation of that effort is from quotes just like this. Because I don't have what I need right now. I don't feel like I have all I need, all I desire to have. But by serving these men who got some issues, who got some problems, who got some challenges in life that are not perfect at all, and they own that, and they want to have the kind of community that we're trying to build. This is why I do it. So off the soapbox, that's just kind of why I do that. Some uh passages just kind of close the show out just for some encouragement. So you kind of understand the heart of what I think networking should be looking like and what we need in it. First John 4 and 12. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. Another scripture that lines with that is like if we know, if we we know we're known by the love that we show to other people, that's how we're known who we roll with. If you say you roll with Jesus Christ as Lord, you can talk about it all day. Wear t-shirts and have fish on your license plate. It ain't gonna matter if you don't show love to people. Philippians 2 and 4. Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others. Almost the same thing, and that's exactly a quote right there. And lastly, 1 Peter 4 and 10. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others. You heard that? Use the gift that you have, even though you may have thought that gift was for you, to benefit you. Use that gift you received to serve others. I'm telling you this like I know it, and I didn't intend to share this story, but I'm gonna share with you real quick. Let me read it with the passage first. First Peter 4 and 10. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. Okay, so I like the picture of the person with the microphone in their hands. Really important to the story. Okay, so most of you that have been walking with us for almost four years now, you heard the story many times about my musical journey. You know that I was uh a sign artist on an independent record label back in New Jersey. Uh I was surrounded by and in collaboration with some very famous artists at the time. Let me get this figure of what a hair because Bruh Stokes Dry. Good stuff. Okay. So I was uh in the I was in the industry. Put it like that. Uh we weren't uh rolling yet with a lot of uh traction, but we did have a 14-song album that was completed, getting ready to work on a video for the first time. We had some things rolling. Uh a good part of me at the time, because of what I was dealing with in my life personally and in my family dynamic, I looked at this opportunity with a mic in my hand, just like that one, as my ticket to feel better about myself, to get some traction in life, to get some things I didn't have, and kind of make up for the areas that I feel like I was deprived in. I saw that music as a ticket to that. Yeah, the guys that was in the group where they had their own motivations for it as well, probably just as selfish as mine. But now, fast forward, probably 34 years later, about approximately over three decades later, I still hold a mic in my hand. But what I'm trying to do is the last part of that passage in 1 Peter 4 and 10. I'm trying to faithfully administer by serving others. So now when I hold a mic, I don't care about applause. Now when I'm holding a mic, I don't care about whether I get a contract or a record deal out of it, or somebody wants to slate me to do uh a single or a video. I don't care. That's not why I do that. So when I hold that mic now, it's for a whole different reason and a whole different purpose now. Now I'm doing it because I want to administer out of the gift to serve other people. I believe that the music that comes out of me is valuable to somebody that's listening, and that's the difference. But I hope all this makes sense. I hope you have a better idea of the answer to the original question. How do you build a network? Honestly, you need to know because you're building something. You can deny it all you want, but you're building something, and I hope and I pray that it's something of value and something of worth because you're building something. Are you building it the right way? Hopefully, you're not the person that is taking the bricks and using them to harm other people. And hopefully, you're not the person that's taking the bricks to surround yourself and make a fortress to insulate yourself from what you need to experience in this life. Hopefully, you're the third person that's taking those bricks and building something incredible. Whoever you are and however you're listening today, call me Mr. You the podcast. Thank you again for your support on this episode and for listening to our show. If you're an audio listener, you'll find us on Apple Podcasts, please subscribe to our show there. If you're already subscribed already, but you want to hear through a different platform, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music. You can find us there. And of course, if you're watching and listening, our YouTube channel at They Call Me Mr. You is a great place to start to see a lot of those new episodes we had this season so far. But thank you again for listening and supporting our show. We definitely appreciate it. Enjoy the music.