podcast

The first chapters of Genesis are a richly sown garden of revelation. Digging in with desire to discover more of God’s grace and character underneath the surface soils reveals endless delights.

Here are five more thoughts on slowing down and discovering your gold…

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I am so happy to share five more beautiful thoughts from the early chapters of Genesis about slowing down and discovering your goal today. I’m just absolutely loving these chapters, man, what an amazing book we have. What an amazing book the Lord has given us and put in our hand. It is an endless supply of wonder for the soul. And so I’m going to share five more thoughts that I’ve drawn from these chapters that have ministered to my heart, ministered to my thinking, and I think that they can Minister to yours.

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Number one, beautiful and useful out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the site and good for food. Now, I think to a large degree the creative life is all about bringing beauty and utility to the world. God made the natural world both beautiful, pleasant to the site and good for food useful as artists and entrepreneurs, I think that we do the same. We’re in the business of bringing beauty and utility to the table and often in the best cases, both together.

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I think utility, something being useful, something being helpful becomes even more so when coupled with beauty.

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Mary Kondo of the life changing Magic of Tidying Up, a book that I am amazed that I found absolutely fascinating and really loved. Who would ever have thought Tidying up could be so exciting, speaks of objects sparking joy, and that joy really is the determining factor as to what is ultimately and truly useful in our life and our environment. And I think this is a real key to creating an atmosphere.

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The atmosphere and the environment that we create for ourselves to create in is so so powerful and such a helpful thing to give time and thought to when we create an environment and we design our surroundings to Minister joy to our soul, creativity can flourish in that kind of atmosphere, really. Our spirit works in an atmosphere. I don’t know about you, but it’s just when we come into spaces of prayer, spaces of worship, spaces of devotion and creativity, where there is flow taking place, it develops and creates an atmosphere that draws and continues to draw more and more from airing a man.

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I believe that we can design our environment to do the same. Beauty is purpose in itself.

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The idea that something must be useful as well as beautiful. Forgets that man was made for joy. Sometimes it is just spot on to create and to do things for the sheer joy of them, not because they have some stated end in mind. That’s why I love some of the I’m a modern art fan. Yeah.

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When I lived in London, here in the UK, my favourite place to go and spend time was the Modern Art Gallery there in Tate Modern in London. It was so wonderful. I mean, the funny thing is, it was great that it was best when I took my wife along because I would be stood looking at some bizarre canvas and like completely enraptured by it. And my wife would be looking at me like thinking, what in the world do you see on that canvas? It’s interesting, isn’t it, how one person’s art can be another person’s at best.

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Question Mark and at worst worthy of throwing in the trash. But I believe that beauty is purpose in itself. The Bible tells us that man was made for joy. The worlds were created to bring pleasure to their maker. The Scriptures say in Revelation four, verse eleven, you are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, honour and power for you have created all things and for your pleasure they were and are created elsewhere in Ecclesiastes, there’s a verse that speaks of this godshaped hole that only relationship with the Creator can satisfy.

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In the beginning of that verse in Ecclesiastes three, verse eleven in the amplified says he has made everything beautiful in its time. Everything beautiful, everything made for his pleasure. Pleasure that I believe God longs to share with his friends. There’s a wonderful again, a great verse in Psalm 16, verse eleven, you will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand.

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There are pleasures forever more. I believe that we can create environments and atmospheres in our lives, in our homes, in our businesses, in our offices, in our workplaces, in our Studios, wherever we can create environments that are both utilitarian useful but also beautiful that Minister to the soul and draw the very best out of us that brings me to .2 atmospheres that promote artistry. Genesis two, verse eight says the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

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The environment we cultivate is the garden in which we grow. Atmospheres are really important.

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They influence how we feel, how we think, how we operate. The wonderful thing is, we often do have a level of control over what our environment is like. I operate best personally in a clean and tidy atmosphere, but I’m not really that much of a tidy person. The way that I have tackled this is through a minimalist approach, ridding myself of unnecessary clutter, and then that way there’s simply less stuff for me to be untidy with. It really is amazing how accumulation can junk up the atmosphere and leave us sometimes feeling out of control.

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Now, God told Adam and Eve replenish the Earth and subdue it and have Dominion. In the first instance. I think that our immediate environment is a place that we can exercise this creation mandate in taking hold of the outside Larna in which we operate work live. It will also help us do the same inwardly. And I’ve often found if my internal world feels disordered and for whatever reason, I feel unable to really address it directly.

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Putting my hand to subdue my outer environment, tidying organising uncluttering seeps through bringing peace to that internal world. Our outer life and our inner life work in tandem with one another. And this is just a real practical Avenue to restore and replenish somewhere that promotes that creative flow that we desire. I really encourage you to give thought and consideration to the environment in which you’re working the surroundings. Do they Minister peace?

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Do they, Minister joy? Do they Minister? Are they speaking the message that you want to hear in your own heart and the message that you want to bring to the rest of the world? Number three, unashamed. They were both naked and the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.

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Genesis 2:25 naked and unashamed. This is the natural state of mankind. This is how God made us to be no need to hide or run, no compulsion to be something that we’re not in order to please the creative life thrives on authentic connection to the real self on the inside, this sanctified self stripped of fear and worthy to be heard. Stepping out creatively still takes courage because the fallen world seeks to keep wild souls like you in cheque through conformity to explicit and implicit rules designed to dumb down your originality.

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I believe, because honestly, your authentic self is dangerous, dangerous to the devil.

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And a pure and loud declaration that God is alive. The terrible shame that Jesus endured on the cross, naked and exposed to ridicule means we now can be clothed with confidence. He was stripped so we could be clothed. Hallelujah. The exchange that happened 2000 years ago on Golgotha brings us back to the garden where we can now be naked in a soul sense, in a spiritual sense and completely unashamed.

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No shame, nothing to hide, ready to freely express our inner heart without fear of what others will say. Number four. And this is an interesting one for me being thankful for what God doesn’t give. I’m learning this recently in that I had all sorts of high hopes for this year that’s just gone. I’m hearing me like believing and expecting to triple my income.

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I actually halved my income. He is me expecting for this vast expansion of my tiny Empire. But really, in many ways, I diminished is too strong a word. But let’s just say that some of the things that I’ve been asking, believing and expecting didn’t quite come to pass in the way I had hoped, and in that it brought me face to face with myself and some of the ambitions that I carry. It brought me face to face with myself, and maybe some of the values that I had been buying into.

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I don’t know. It was just an interesting kind of time of self reflection that probably would not have happened had the Lord given me the very things that I thought I wanted. And actually it’s driven me into this incredible new fresh season of thankfulness and worship and submission to the person and the presence and the will of God that I am honestly incredibly excited about and really thankful for. Here reading in Genesis Two verses 16 and 17 of every tree in the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat it.

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And as I say, I’m going through a season right now and learning this important lesson to be thankful for the things that the Lord does not give, even when I think I want them speak exceed God’s agenda is that he would have complete possession of your heart.

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He would be completely welcome in every way that your life would be founded on a rock of hearing and a rock of trust and a rock that is not like moved by every wind that blows Hallelujah. And that doesn’t happen always by getting your own way or by me getting my own way. Jesus will use circumstances to drive us deeper into His heart and to take us further in our relationship and friendship with Him. And speaking of a life of peace, I have absolutely found that the desire for things can be a diversion from the delight that God wants us to walk in.

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The Bible says this Mark 419, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things entering in choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.

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At this point all the materialists just say, Switch it off, stop it, stop. Don’t tell me that Paul, we’re told, was able to prosper whatever his external circumstances, contentment was his prize. And I so wanted to be mine too. Philippians Four verse Eleven Not that I speak in regard to need for I’ve learned in whatever state I am to be content. There’s a real interesting proverb and it’s one that really in a culture hell bent on accumulation and expansion and increase is one that is definitely worth pondering.

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And it just reads like this Proverbs 31st eight remove falsehood and lies far from me. Now that alone is something that’s a great prayer because there is a lot of falsehood and there are many lies that we can easily buy into because our heart desires things and that’s just one area of it because this proverb then goes on to say, Give me neither poverty nor riches. Now that may not be a prayer that many of us are keen to pray. We might pray, don’t give me poverty, Lord, but definitely like this.

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Give me nor riches.

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Hang on, Lord.

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The one tree that our Father ring fenced in the garden. This tree that he said you can have everything else except this one tree, I believe, has now become many. I think that that tree that Adam and Eve, like fatefully ate from has spawned a forest of lying branches seeking to entangle our heart and causing our peace to be upset. Learning to be thankful for what the Father gives is great. Absolutely.

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We should live lives of deep gratitude, but learning to be thankful for what he does not is something that I need. And I’m sure most of us need maybe a bit more practise at and Interestingly, I think the Lord will give us plenty of opportunities to do that, too. I don’t mean that from a place of unbelief. Believe me, my pursuit is of His presence and anything that would detract from that, even if I don’t know it, I really don’t want him to give it to me.

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I don’t want him to grant me things that would divert my attention and divert my heart from the tree riches that he offers in his presence.

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Seriously, what is more precious? And it doesn’t mean that I’m not mean I want to make it clear this is not an either or equation. It’s a both, and our heart has to be prepared to carry that both. And I believe that sometimes when our heart is not prepared for it where our heart might get caught up and get diverted by these other things that the Scriptures talk about, then it’s the Lord’s mercy that he allows us to be driven back to Him, that our desire would go back and we would come back to the throne to reexamine how we are living, what we are asking, why we are praying and the things that we’re pursuing anyways.

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I think that that one’s still in the oven cooking, but nevertheless, that’s what came out of that scripture for me.

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And then finally, gold. This is funny, coming off the back of what we’ve just been saying. The Lord says here right in Genesis, right at the beginning. And there’s no reason for this other than I think that the fact that the Lord really loves gold. He talked about Rivers and he said the name of the first is Pyson.

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That is it which compasses the whole land of Havila. And there there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. And there’s also bedlim and Onyx stone. God sees the gold and isn’t shy to share it.

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He points it out to Adam. The scriptures are really not down on prosperity again and again. We see God’s blessing exalting his people, an abundant provision and influence being carried by his followers. The idea that poverty is a blessing is an absolute Lee. Poverty was never part of God’s original design and remains a painful testament to our selfishness as human beings.

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There is more than enough for every person on this planet. Of course, prosperity on the other side. We shouldn’t define it by the world standards when one man has three flat screen TVs and another does not even have a ball of rice to feed his family, something is amiss. But the gold that I really want to highlight today because we’re talking in respect to a restful, peaceful, blessed life, a prosperous life in the most real sense of the word. And a life of creativity is the river of gold that is flowing from your heart.

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The Bible says, from our inner man will flow Rivers. You have something on the inside that the father wants to point out to you and then to the world. He stands with his arm proudly around you, saying, hey, see here, this is my son. This is my daughter in this heart, and life is worth and wonder. He saw these Rivers in the book of Genesis, and he says, hey, this river.

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Take a look at them. There’s gold in that river and the gold is good. And I think that he’s saying the same of you is saying, hey, look at this river that comes forth from this heart. There’s gold in that river and that gold is good. Now, discovering your own gold so you can share it is one of the first and most important steps we can take in the Christian creative life.

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It’s a real principle that we work with in the Christian Creative Academy is that recognition of the gold that we carry on the inside and unashamed naked celebration of it. Sometimes it gets lost in the flow and the grit in the riverbed and sifting through can take time and attention. Some heart searching definitely and boldness to then bring it to the surface when we discover it. But as our father said, the gold of that land, the gold that dwells in you is good. Well, thanks for listening.

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Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website. Davidleemartin.com have a great day.

The Christian creative life is one of growing trust and deeper connection with Heaven’s storehouse of treasures. Let the world do the chasing, you concentrate on the trusting. God is bringing to you exactly what you need.

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Over the past week, I’ve been sharing some thoughts about slowing down and the creative Christian life from the first few chapters of Genesis. I want to continue down that road. It and actually just look at just a couple of verses from those chapters today in Genesis 2:18 through 22. We get this incredible story of God’s creating from Adam’s side, the helpmate that he had designed for Adam Eve and the Scriptures tell us that the Lord God said it’s not good that man should be alone.

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I’m going to make him a help meet for him and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept.

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He took one of his ribs, closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord got it taken from the man. And from that rib he made a woman and brought her to him. And although I’m probably stretching this allegorically a little bit kind of broadly, I think there’s a lot that we can pull just from these few verses regarding working from a place of rest and creative Christian life. If you stick with me for a few minutes, I think that there’s going to be some nourishment in what we pull from these verses and what we share.

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Number one, I got five points that I’ve just brought out of this and extracted from these beautiful versus this historical see, Genesis is a historical document, okay? It’s not philosophy. It’s not some farfetched allegory. It’s actual history. And so the principles that we’re pulling from this are lessons that we can learn from it.

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But in reality, Genesis and these first chapters of Genesis are a historical document primarily. I just want to stress that because there’s so many lies and so much kind of buying into this bizarre idea that things can cut like that beautiful, perfect, exquisite design can arise from accident. And it’s just like so beyond comprehension and so beyond reason that it actually takes a great deal more faith to believe that than it does to believe that there was a supernatural hand of a designer who brought this wonderful world into existence.

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But I digress number one, it is not good. That man should be alone as stewardship is not solitary in a life and light are meant to be shared.

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And your walk with Christ is inevitably and by design, connected to others, the giving and receiving. So everyone benefits from the blessing that we’re called to become. And we benefit from the blessing that others are becoming. At the same time, we’re growing together. There really is strength and creative unity.

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And by that, I don’t mean conformity. We’re different. And that is one of the things that makes us strong. Each has their own voice to bring to the choir, and the Symphony that we sing is only complete when we learn to work together. But this brings me to my next point that God will connect you with your tribe.

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I love that it’s not good that man should be alone at first point, but that verse continues and says, I will make him a help meet or perfectly designed for him. It may be a bit of a leap from a wife to a band of warriors, but the principle here that I want to draw out is that God has a tribe that he will connect you with. Unity and diversity works great in theory, but in everyday practise, they’re going to be those you resonate and connect with on a deeper level than others.

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We may be one body. We may be connected in this universal fashion as the capital sea Church of God.

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But within that there are going to be connections and relationships that really do gel where we can kind of really knit ourselves together in love as the Bible encourages us to. That’s absolutely fine. And it is to be expected. Don’t be fearful to be yourself and certainly don’t try and please everyone. And if you’re looking to live a bold, creative, fearless life, it is going to not be easy to live a life that pleases everyone.

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If you try, you can try as hard as you like, but you’re guaranteed to fail in this process, this creative process of becoming who we already are in Christ. That when you find your voice or begin to find your voice, you become magnetic. But we’ve got to be aware that being a magnet both attracts and repels at the same time. I want to encourage you that God has your people out there ready to connect with a tribe of like minded, like hearted believers who will shoulder a similar call and will be a help meet for the season that you are in.

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We help one another and God will connect us with the right people in the right place at the right time for that to happen.

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Number three, your best work will come from faithful rest, and I like this one again. I’m like being pretty expensive in my interpretations here, but the Bible says the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And I got to thinking about this. And what came to my mind was the fact that God sometimes does his greatest work. When we get out of the way, producing your best work comes from a place of faithful rest in the provision of God and trusting yourself entirely to Him.

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Now Hebrews speaks of entering into God’s rest and cease in from our own works. Hebrews four verse ten. What a powerful picture of the life of trust and the ultimate creativity and creation that comes from it. We find here in the slumbering Adam. You could not get more yielded to the hand and the purpose of God than this picture of Adam.

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And it is a picture of rest, not of slaveish obedience, not of endless work, but one of complete rest. And I believe that there is a place in Christ where we cease from our own works. But in that our activity may well increase, our active engagement may well increase our productivity may well increase, but it’s no longer coming from that selfgenerating anxious movement on the inside. But from a leaning back into a life of deeper trust in what God and number one, God has made you. And number two in what he can bring forth from you as you give your life more and more completely to him in that place of trust.

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Number four, God took one of his ribs. Okay, so he has Adam laid out. God took one of his ribs, closed up the flesh thereof, and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man. From it, he made a woman. The crowning creations of your life will come from those things that are close to your heart.

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The raw material for God’s best creation was taken from what was closest to Adam’s heart. God took from his side. God took a rib from his side. And from that place, that area closest to Adam’s heart, he made something remarkably beautiful and later named her Eve, which means lifegiver. And what I want to ask you right now, this is just in keeping with our kind of unpacking the idea of the creative Christian life.

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What are the things that you carry close to your heart? What gets you out of bed in the morning now? I’m not talking about the alarm clock. I’m talking about that internal alarm clock that causes you to get up and begin to move your feet with purpose. What stirs your passion?

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What makes you angry? What are the causes that cause your inner man to rise up and take a stand? What are those things that you find consuming that maybe even other people don’t? What are the drivers that make you the person that you are distinct and different from others? Yet at the same time connected to a bigger purpose, that others can connect with these kinds of things, these things that we carry close to our heart, and that really kind of move us affect us.

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These are indicators of areas that you might be able to tap your life giving flow. And then finally, number five, it’s not a chase or a race. It says here that God brought her unto the man God brought his best to Adam. Adam did not have to chase Eve down. Although the picture of it is quite funny, he didn’t have to endlessly seek, earn or deserve this ultimate gift from God.

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Consider the following Scripture, for we are God’s own handiwork, his workmanship recreated in Christ Jesus born and knew that we may do those good works which God predestined and planned beforehand for us, taking paths which he prepared ahead of time, that we should walk in them, living the good life which he prearranged and made ready for us to live. Ephesians two verse ten in the amplified Bible. Sheera Basso Tolo Macayne What a verse. See, God has already prepared paths for you to walk in planned beforehand that you should walk in them, living the good life which he prepared prearranged and made ready for you to live.

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And your good life is going to be different than my good life.

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Sometimes we can slap a worldly kind of paint job on God’s word and think, oh yeah, the good life is the same good life that the world is trying to foist on us all. It may include some of those elements, but I can assure you the good life in Christ is far greater than anything the world can put on your plate. Sheila Carabao Latanda It’s a life rich both in the natural and in the spirit. But it’s prepared. God is bringing you into his prearranged plan and he’s bringing to you all that you need to walk successfully in.

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It the right places, the right people, the right resources. The life of faith certainly may be one where we pursue, but the pursuit is ultimately of God himself seeking deeper and knowing his ways and his will more fully and better. Chasing the world and your tail. Really? Certainly, I found.

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I mean, you may have a different story to tell, but it just leads to frustration, but seeking first God’s Kingdom and his righteous way of being and doing will bring you face to face with your destiny in Jesus name. The Christian creative life is one of growing trust and deeper connection with heaven. Storehouse of treasures that are there reserved for you. Let the world do the chasing. You concentrate on the trusting God is bringing to you exactly what you need.

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Matthew six eight, nine. Your father knows what you need before you ask him, pray. Therefore, in the place of prayer, your life and your message will be perfected to hit the Mark God is bringing to you the very best and all that you need in order to fulfil what he has prepared and planned for your life. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today.

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If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.

Limitless creative potential exists in the human heart filled with the Holy Ghost. His infinite indwelling lifts the lid on our little lives and makes them expansive in ways that defy natural reason.

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Continuing to draw from the rich soil of the early chapters of Genesis. I want to share with you five creative prompts for a peaceful and productive life. Nothing like a bit of alliteration to get the day started. I really honestly believe that limitless creative potential exists in the human heart when it’s filled with the Holy Ghost. The fact that his infinite indwelling is a reality in our life lifts the lid on what otherwise would be pretty small lives if we’re honest God’s presence, God’s power, God’s equipping make us more than we would be without.

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In fact, the Bible goes as far as to say, you can do nothing without me. It really is that dramatic. The change and the distance between what a mere man or woman can accomplish and what can be done in and through a man or a woman yielded to the presence of God and to the Holy Spirit. It really does take our little lives and makes them like endlessly expansive in ways that go beyond and defy natural reason. Creative life in Christ is also one that brings together peace and production flowing from this foundation of faithful rest in God’s ability to work in and through us as we yield to Him.

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It’s not just that kind of endless hamster wheel of energetic productivity that’s going to produce the richest fruits. Number one, God is endlessly and infinitely creative. Now. The reckless creative imagination of the Godhead is quite mind boggling. Everything from the Shia beautiful to the incredibly bizarre found its Genesis in his infinite mind inside the mind of God.

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It really is quite an interesting place. I would imagine some of the things that we even see now on some of the nature programmes in the depths of the ocean out there. You wonder, really, what was God thinking when he was concocting those experiments? The invisible and invisible words are the work of his genius. And it seems to me that when we read about some of the creatures in heaven that actually his imagination went ramped up like about ten more gears to create these invisible beings that we will one day experience and look upon.

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Yeah, there’s no limit to what God wants to do in Genesis. It says God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly, the moving creature that has life, the foul that fly above the Earth in the open firmament of heaven. And so he created great whales, every living creature that moves with which waters brought forth abundantly after their kind and every winged foul after its kind. And then later it talks about how he created every creature, the living creatures after they’re kind cattle, creeping things, beasts of the Earth.

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God did not just create one kind of dog or one kind of creeping thing or one fish or one bird, one kind of bird. He created such a multitude, such a rich variety, such an endlessly creative because it’s an expression of his heart and I think that the same creative spirit lives in us. There is a craving for creative expression that will show up in a multitude of ways. There is not one right way or wrong way to do things. When we speak of God’s creativity, we are talking about something that is boundless.

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The sheer abundance and diversity of the natural world are quite beyond that comprehension and science discovers new wonders every day and really is still just scratching the surface of the infinite mind behind their inception. Everything that’s made was made through Him by Him and for His pleasure. God takes great pleasure in his creative work. And so should we both take pleasure in his creative work and the creative work that he allows us to do and that he does through us. Now.

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I think that modern education and society try and crush the Jews out of kids to seek to conform them to conform their supernatural creative nature into a safe box that can be channelled into some useful servitude to a system that is often designed to limit individual expression. In the coming years, there is coming a deluge of divinely inspired ideas and inventions that will flood the world, each one of them pointing to the great mind, the infinite mind who conceived the universe behind those ideas and placed all of the laws of the natural world in motion.

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Is it not like incredible to remember that the question is asked in Scripture, who was known in the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him. But we God’s people have the mind of Christmas. We as the people of God.

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The Christian creatives on the planet right now be open and willing to act as conduits for this creative Renaissance. May the Church become the magnificent hub for heaven’s solutions to a broken world and may wonder come again to and from the house of God. Number two, be fruitful and multiply. Genesis 128 fruitful multiplication. God is a multiplier.

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There’s a synergy that occurs when man and his maker connect. That really blows the lid on expected metrics. Add Infinity to any equation and all things become possible. While we may scratch around trying to add things to our life, accumulate things. God awaits devoted attention so he can accomplish something far more remarkable.

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Yeah. I love this. Matthew 13:23. He received seed in good ground. You see that he is a word, understands it, and then goes forth and bears fruit.

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30 61 hundred fold. Now the deep, abiding connection to God is the source of all that we make. He is the inspirer, breathing brilliance into the hearts and minds of his people. Like Isaac. In the Old Testament, we can receive supernatural abundance even in times of drought and famine.

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Genesis 26 relates how there was a famine in the land, and the Lord appeared to Isaac and said, Go not down into Egypt, dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. Then Isaac Sewed in that land and received the same year 100 fold. And the Lord blessed him. I want to encourage you to dwell and serve. And sow in the place that God has planted, you allow him to bring the increase that you seek.

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This is not always going to be easy, and sometimes it’s going to take all of the faith and inner resource that you could muster to resist running down to Egypt and doing things the world’s way servitude to a system that is designed to create slaves is not a great strategy. I think that that has to be the tweet of the week. Man servitude to a system that’s designed to create slaves is not a great strategy. I love this verse from Isaiah chapter 30, verse 15 in quietness and confidence is your strength.

00:09:14.270]
God wants to do something far beyond anything we can do in our own power.

00:09:19.190]
Supernatural gifts, insights and directions is the norm in the streets of heaven, and we as Kingdom people bring that Kingdom to Earth. Number three, dust and dignity. And this is so amazing. What a verse we find in Genesis two, verse seven, the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils. The breath of life and man became a living soul.

00:09:53.570]
This wig frame, this dusty frame that we walk around in is dignified by the life and the breath of God working within us. The Christian creative life is, on the one hand, one of deep humility knowing who we are and brilliance boundless brilliance on the other. We know that we’re dust, but we’re dignified by the humility of God’s Spirit choosing to dwell in us. This out of frame is just a temporary residence, but it’s one that’s been sanctified for magnificence by the King of the universe. It really is a mystery and a balance that only God can bring into being and bring to fullness the fact that we are made from dust, weak in so many ways.

00:10:48.160]
And yet we have become the temple of the Holy Ghost. The members of your body are the creative weapons that he wields to bring his brilliance to the world and show forth his good, perfect and acceptable will in the realm of humanity. There’s so much we could say about the wonder of the human body, but for now let’s just focus on its proper use as an instrument of worship and worship turns up in every aspect of life, not just when we stand in rose singing songs of the overhead projector or whatever in Romans twelve, verse one and two in the amplified it says, I appeal to you, therefore, brethren and bear view in view of all the mercies of God to make a decisive dedication of your bodies, presenting all your members and faculties as a living sacrifice, Holy, devoted and consecrated and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable, rational, intelligence, service and spiritual worship.

00:11:55.150]
Do not be conformed to this world and this age fashioned after and adapted to its external superficial customs elsewhere. Romans 613 says, Use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.

00:12:14.050]
And as an aside, thinking about slowing and living more present to the moment. He is a great place to start your worship service. A good, healthy breakfast after adequate sleep, washed down with water. Self care is. I know this is such a kind of trendy thing right now, isn’t it?

00:12:41.570]
But honestly, self care is not a sacrifice or selfishness. It is part of your reasonable service to ensure that your body will serve the purposes of God for many, many years to come. Number Four Hallelujah, God breathed brilliance again. Genesis Two verse seven, God breezed into Adam’s nostrils. The breath of life and man became a living soul.

00:13:13.050]
This lifeless husk, this empty frame became a vibrant living being when it was filled with the breath of heaven. In a soul dry. Living in the desert is the norm for many today traps in heavy footed seeking rest in the parched valleys of the world that has really forsaken the living waters. God has a better way for you, a way infused with his breath and his life. And it’s not the way of the world.

00:13:46.770]
Heather Cook, two verse four in the message says, look at that man bloated by self importance, full of himself, but soul empty.

00:13:59.850]
But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive now. The creative life of Christ is one of utter dependence on the inbreathing of the Holy Ghost, and as such it’s one of yielding, not striving learning. The rested ways of faith is counterintuitive and certainly countercultural but cannot be beaten. Loyal and steady. Believing is the way of the master and the pathway to becoming fully alive.

00:14:35.790]
And then finally, number five flourish where you are planted. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. God plants us where we will flourish. For some, this may be in the cities for others, in some backwater village, or even a hidden life dedicated fully to the purpose of prayer. The idea that the grass is greener on the other side is a lie that prevails in many lives.

00:15:08.790]
Flourish where you are planted. Put down your roots to recognise God at work in your own garden of influence rather than pining for what others have or where they have been planted. I’m planted here in this season of life to encourage Christian creatives to take hold of God in prayer and production and bring their best to the world. What is your sphere of influence? What garden has he planted you in?

00:15:44.670]
Knowing what you are formed for will kill this FOMO that we all get so caught up in this fear of missing out and allow you to flourish where God has planted you in the garden of his making for your life.

00:16:02.670]
Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to kick next any further, you can do so through my website davidleemartin.com have a great day.

I like to think of the creative life as the gradual unveiling of God’s glory, His outshining, in a person’s life.

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00:00:03.170]
Okay. I’m going to call this episode five more slow down and smell the roses. Reasons to create from a place of rest. There’s a tendency to think that everything depends on us. I mean, I don’t know if you fall into that trap, but I know I certainly do.

00:00:24.330]
As a capable human being, it’s very easy for us to lean on our own strength and understanding and fail to realise that there is actually a far greater source that we can draw from. The production and fruitfulness of our lives somehow leans entirely on our efforts. I do believe that there’s a better way, a more peaceful way to live and contribute to others. The way of Jesus is not burdensome. His creative nature is not something that we have to grasp for earn or deserve.

00:01:03.750]
It is something that is granted to us by virtue of being created in his image. The idea that just the sheer absurdity of the idea and concept that human beings could have come about as a result of, like, millions of years of odd genetic weirdness, like really beyond the joke, we are made in the image of the Creator. He is the creator of all things. He made the universe. He made the planet.

00:01:42.390]
He made the stars. He made the sun, he made the moon, he made the Hills, he made the grass, he made the sea. He made the insects. He made the birds. He made the animals.

00:01:52.360]
You name it. If it’s a made thing, there is a maker behind it, a designer behind it. The Creator did it full stop. End of conversation. There is no other answer.

00:02:09.490]
There is no other explanation that is even vaguely reasonable for the wonder that we enjoy and that we inhabit right now. But here are five more thoughts from the creation narrative about creativity and working from a place of rest. Number one seed time and harvest. Genesis one verse twelve says the seed was in itself. God places seeds inside everything that is living that’s capable of production.

00:02:50.390]
The created world was not searching for something outside of itself to fulfil its nature and destiny. When in the creation narrative we find God saying, I made the trees and the fruits and the herbs and the grasses and their seed was in themselves. Well, I believe that the seed of greatness is in you. You are not looking for something outside of yourself to fulfil your nature and destiny. The world wants you chasing after things.

00:03:24.730]
The world wants you running from one thing to another, thinking that if you obtain this, if you purchase something else, if you look this way, think this way, do this way, then somehow you will become the person that you are designed to be. But the reality is you’re actually already in the process of becoming who you already are on the inside. It’s more an unveiling that’s taking place. You are God’s workmanship. We are told in Ephesians created in Christ Jesus for good works that he has already prepared for you to walk in.

00:04:05.340]
The seed of your greatness and contribution to the world. Your fruit, if you like, is already in you. Now. The beauty of the creative life is in the discovery of who you already are and the beauty that God has already planted within you. It may be a small seed in the first instance, but tended and nourished, it will grow out and then reach and stretch out branches that touch many, many lives.

00:04:33.950]
I wholeheartedly believe that there is a unique contribution that each one of us has to bring a creative aspect that needs to be brought to the table that we alone can bring to the party in a push button world, the idea of patiently tending a seed until it’s grown and flourishing is kind of unpopular. But the way of faith is really not about the speed with which we can genetically modify our own growth. It just is not going to happen. The pictures in scripture are agricultural, not mechanical or digital.

00:05:17.650]
I love this verse from Luke eight, verse 15.

00:05:20.710]
It says, but that speaking of seed on the good ground, speaking of the heart, that on the good ground a day which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it. And here it is. Here it comes. Get ready and bring forth fruit with patience. Number two, Genesis One, verse 29.

00:05:47.170]
And God said, Behold, I have given, behold, I have given he gave all of the trees and the fruits and the herbs, et cetera, to the animals and to man to eat. Behold, I have given what really strikes me here is God gives first. He is the first instance in every endeavour. He is the prime mover, the prime directive, and the prime director. The beauty here is that this releases us from this incessant need to be original.

00:06:24.770]
Nothing we make has not already been thought of. Jesus has been there first and we simply follow. What do I mean by this? Well, the creative life is one where we tap the genius of heaven. I honestly believe it.

00:06:40.740]
He is for you. He is with you and he wants to create through you. There’s a joy in discovery. What you bring to the world will be as much a delight and a surprise to you as it is to others. This is the wonder of creative life.

00:06:59.050]
I like to think of creative life as the gradual unveiling of God’s glory is outshining in a person’s life. God has given abundantly and because of that, we can now generously give as well of ourselves and of the gifts that he has entrusted to us. Number three, rest upon completion, the heavens and the Earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the 7th day, God ended his work, which he had made. He rested on the 7th day from all his work, which he had made.

00:07:35.840]
Now there’s great delight and satisfaction in completion. I believe that you are a finisher just like your father. And when you finish, I urge you to stop and to appreciate what you’ve made. There’s a crowning of your work with Thanksgiving and gratitude that will add a whole new dimension to the creative process when you apply it consistently. The Creative cycle.

00:08:03.470]
I see the picture from a good number of years ago now, but that picture of the water cycle where the water comes down and then goes back up. And there’s this cycle that God put in place in creation in the natural world. And I think the creative cycle is one similar to that. It’s one of flow from and to God in constant Communion and celebration and appreciation. I think complete the cycle and allow the clouds to form again, ready for a new reign of ideas and blessings to fall into your heart and mind.

00:08:41.880]
So you can continue the creative process. It’s very easy in today’s world to run from one thing to the next. But instead of kind of that hasty sprint, take the time to slow down. When you complete pause, to appreciate and recognise the source of your power and production. Don’t be in such a hurry to run to the next thing on the list.

00:09:08.330]
Take a moment to look and see how far you’ve come and to enjoy what you’ve made. Number four, four of these five rest is blessed. God bless the 7th day in Sanctified. It Genesis two, verse three. You know, two things are specifically blessed in these early chapters of Genesis People and a day.

00:09:34.150]
God blessed a day. And it was a day of rest. Sometimes we think that the blessed day is the one where we’ve done so much and completed so much and produced so much and gone so many places or whatever else it may be. But like God is just so just not us. He looks and he says, Well, I’ve got these six days.

00:10:00.840]
All of those other days were good, very good. But this 7th day, oh, man, I’m going to bless this one. And it was a day of rest is blessed. And the people whom he blessed, they blessed a day. And then the people whom he blessed only just moments prior stepped directly into that blessing.

00:10:27.490]
There’s a pace of Grace that we’re invited to enjoy. And I believe that this should be the starting point of our every endeavour. If we hear God and we move according to His direction, there’ll be a rest and a peace that we enjoy even in the midst of, like, a lot of activity. And it’s interesting to note that mankind’s first experience of life with God was restful rejoicing in his rich provision. There remains arrest.

00:11:01.100]
We are told in Hebrews four, verse nine, there remains a rest for the people of God. If only we will choose to believe him and step into it. And then from that blessed place of rest, we then work. Hallelujah. Oh, Jesus, Jesus.

00:11:40.110]
First everything else follows. Hallelujah number five formation. The Lord God formed man. Genesis two, verse seven, formation by the hand of God. I believe that God still forms men and women inwardly.

00:12:02.610]
You’re not just a cookie cutter copy of the next person in line. You are uniquely formed for purpose by a personal hand. God is carefully shaping your life and preparing you for eternity and eternal stewardship. The formation of our hearts begins when we stop fighting against God and recognise that he knows best what will make us into the people we need to be to walk fully in His Grace.

00:12:39.150]
We’ve all faced this, and I’m not in any way saying that this is easy, but even the hard circumstances and testing can act as tools to cut away the pride and self reliance. So we throw ourselves more fully on the provider. And I mean to it to a very small degree. I have experienced that over these past months. And, oh, my Jesus, thank you so much because it’s brought me into a place of fresh dedication, but just a fresh dependence on Him.

00:13:20.850]
I tell you something, man, it is a great deal more enjoyable being dependent on God than dependent on my own genius and whatever I can bring and do and be there’s not words only.

00:13:42.810]
Yes, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there’s a rest when we cease from our own works and trust God for the outcomes in our lives. Hebrews four verse ten. He who is entered into His rest. He has also ceased from his own works. I mean, like, wow, you could camp out there for a long time and dig a very deep well drinking from that one verse.

00:14:16.390]
This is not talking about passivity, by the way. I really don’t believe that it’s an active striving to enter into the mystery of faith, God and man working together in close Communion, one in which God Thankfully does the heavy lifting. Hebrews four verse eleven says, Let us Labour, therefore to enter into that rest, to strive to enter. But seriously, once you’re inside, don’t be in a hurry to return to the frantic pace of this self obsessed world. There is a greater, richer, Fuller contribution that you will bring when you relinquish control and allow God to fill and flow through your willing frame.

00:15:03.790]
He wants to speak in you and through you. He wants to do in you and through you. It’s not easy to discover this. And I think that that’s why we’re told Labour, therefore to enter that rest. It’s going to take some work to disentangle ourselves from the common wisdom.

00:15:26.560]
And they are like the multitasking madness that we find all around us. It’s not easy to discover this rest in a culture so bent on speed and consumption. But it is possible. Just listen to this beautiful verse. Hebrews four verse nine.

00:15:45.060]
There remaineth, therefore arrest to the people of God. It’s ready and waiting. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully. It’s been an encouragement to you today.

00:15:59.090]
If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website. Davidleemartin.com have a great day.

Enjoy this fireside chat with Brennan Dunn, where we talk email marketing, selling with integrity, and the beauty of design.

Link to Brennan’s newsletter and products

https://christiancreative.academy/go/brennan-dunn

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Today I’m speaking with Brennan Dunn, who is someone that I’ve been following and learning from over a number of months now. He is an expert email marketer, but at the same time, a very ethical and integrity swamp, which has really kind of turned me on to what he is bringing to the marketplace. As we know, Internet marketing can be somewhat of a swamp and with all sorts of different ways that people express themselves. And I just found Brandon to be very genuine in his desire to help and to equip people to really leverage email marketing in ways that we can walk away from feeling proud of ourselves, not kind of scratching our heads and thinking.

00:00:52.240]
All right. Should I really have done that? He described himself as a recovering agency owner, probably in the same way as I would describe myself as a recovering pastor. He’s the founder of Your Freelancing, a community of 50,000 plus freelancers. That is an incredible stat there, Brennan. That’s a lot of people that you’re helping cofounder of right message, which helps creators build their lists faster and learn more about their subscribers. And the founder of Create and Sell, a community of creators who sell with email. And it’s really through the create and sell side of things.

00:01:33.380]
Brennan, that I think I came into your world because I use some of the tools that you’ve been producing and putting out market, and it’s absolutely transformed, certainly the way my emails look. But also in that I know that we kind of spoke briefly beforehand. Design and content tend to work in tandem with one another. And when we find beautiful design, I think we discover new ways to better communicate what we want to say. Brennan, it’s great to have you with us. Thank you so much for the time that you’re taking, and I just bring value to our community here.

00:02:27.110]
Tell us a little bit about yourself. I know that you’ve moved to the UK, an honorary Brit here. Even drinks tea in the morning. He’s the real deal.

00:02:40.530]
It’s out for milk when we can’t make tea, I’ve acclimated.

00:02:46.320]
Well, yeah, I think definitely. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Brendan. What is it that really kind of lights your fire.

00:02:56.020]
Well, thanks again for having me, David. I really appreciate the invite. And yeah, thank you for. I know you didn’t personally accept me to the country, but thank you for the warm hospitality that your country may have given me. Yeah. Okay. So who am I professionally? Let’s put it that way. I used to be a software developer. I still kind of do like the Temple Pack, for instance, that you were referencing is software, but I primarily identify as a business owner who happens to have had to learn how to do marketing.

00:03:36.290]
So that said business could actually stay afloat and pay me money and keep the lights on. So yeah, for the last 1213 years or so, I’ve been working for myself originally as an agency owner. So I started out as a freelancer and got too many clients. So I hired people and friends who had an agency, and I eventually got kind of a bit worn out by building things for other people instead of building my own things. And I had friends who ran software companies and they didn’t seem to have the constraints or the issues that I did having a few clients, they had many customers who couldn’t.

00:04:20.720]
None of them could have too much control or power. And I envied that. So I ended up actually starting a software company that was called Planscope. That was a project management tool, which most agencies end up starting something like that. So I did that. And I officially exited the agency to focus on that. And a big part of planscope was I had to find out how to get people to find the product and buy it. So that was kind of my crash course on marketing online because with the agency stuff, it was all local.

00:04:56.570]
And I started writing. I created material on Freelancing, which the hope was people would find it and then read it and buy the software. Well, that didn’t pan out like I wanted it to. A lot of people read it, wanted more information and didn’t really care with the software. So I ended up actually selling the software side of things and turning the blog for planscope into what’s now Double Your Freelancing, which has had conferences that I’ve run, used to have a podcast and quite a number of courses.

00:05:28.450]
And that’s what I’ve been doing really professionally for the last few years. And then when doing that, I kind of got deep into email marketing and email personalization. And that’s what led me then to start Right message because frankly, I kind of missed having a software company. And I partnered up with a friend of mine who’s also from the UK to start that. And over the last February, I’ve been working on this new venture called Crete and Sell, which is really my outlet. That’s outside of right message.

00:06:03.720]
That’s outside of Double your Freelancing. That has nothing to do with Freelancing, where I can just talk about interesting things about using email to build an audience and offer interesting things to that audience.

00:06:18.830]
Yeah. Tell me, Brandon, the email marketing because I know that with the rise of social media, a lot of emphasis and a lot of the kind of fanfare nowadays is around building social media followings. You’ve got to be on clubhouse, you’ve got to do your TikToks, you’ve got to kind of tweet here. And I know Twitter is a platform that you kind of leverage a more Facebook based. I feel like an old guy because Facebook, my kids tell me Facebook’s role people. And so a lot of people I think are under the illusion that email marketing is maybe dead is too strong.

00:07:06.780]
A word, but a kind of dying beast. And that social media is where you’re going to find traction. Why email?

00:07:15.930]
So first off, I think we’ve seen first hand what happens when I don’t know if you remember. But few years back, there was this big issue online where people who had Facebook pages with a lot of likes and followers started noticed that their reach was getting was diminishing. And Facebook because they own the platform, ended up making it. So they became more of a bit of a play and pay model or pay to play model where you had to promote posts and boost posts or whatever they called it.

00:07:52.960]
And really, ever since then, I’ve been a bit sceptical of the fact that with social media, you ultimately don’t own your audience. You can’t export a list of all the contacts you have and get all their information in any meaningful way and bring it over to Safe from Facebook to Twitter or whatever else. With email, you ultimately own the email list. I can go from Convergence today and I can switch it to another email provider tomorrow, and it’s completely portable. It is effectively mine. So that’s one thing, which is the control thing, which worried me.

00:08:28.310]
But practically speaking, I don’t want to say any. I never want to be too absolute. But when you look at most people who have done proper tests between, say launching a product on social media versus launching a product over email, usually email has the highest ROI compared to social. And I’ve seen that firsthand, and I think the difference is with the email. So for instance, when we’re talking now, any tweets that are happening at the moment, I’m probably not going to see but any emails I’m getting at the moment, I need to deal with it in some way.

00:09:07.370]
I can either ignore them or I need to archive them or read them or something like that. So email is a bit more task list oriented where you get an email from me and you need to do something with it, whereas Twitter, Facebook, or whatever else. They’re all a bit like a firehose where they’re kind of ephemeral. If you don’t see the things going on, if you go on a holiday for a week, you’re not going to come back and see that launch that happened on social media.

00:09:34.390]
So I’m very GungHo on email. I’ve seen first hand how it’s helped my business, and granted, I serve professionals. I’m selling really to other business owners, and the inbox is where work happens for most of us. So I think if I was selling a jewellery to 14 year olds, I probably wouldn’t use or put too much focus on email marketing.

00:09:59.590]
Yeah, a lot of my audience. Brennan, I work largely with Christian Creatives. I’ve run a number of different businesses, nothing quite so deep in the geek trenches as you, Brandon, you’re a master of things way beyond my pay grade. But my focus nowadays is I run something called the Christian Creative Academy. Believers feel they’ve got a real message or an idea that they want to crystallise and put out to the marketplace in a way that others can consume. And with email, there’s a lot of very spammy tactics that tend to take place.

00:10:54.830]
Email spam is like epidemic levels. It’s very difficult to keep. One of the things is very much there was a couple of things, actually, Brennan, that have really stood out for me in your communications. And this is largely the reason we’re having this conversation now is number one, you come across very personal, and I know that you’ve even built software and a business around making email less generic and much more kind of connecting with the people who are actually reading the things that you’re sending out.

00:11:36.950]
And number two just very integrates. Could you just talk a little bit about how you approach? Because one of the things I think with email that’s very powerful is it gives opportunity for relationship building that runs far deeper than just someone catching a tweet or happening upon a post that’s going down a scrolling screen somewhere. Could you just speak into that this kind of almost obsessive love of actually making email less generic and much more relationship oriented?

00:12:24.690]
Yeah, that’s a great question way of looking at things. I think that I think many of us miss, especially when we’re trying to make the sale or get that conversion or whatever we’re looking for. I have to say, for me. So I mentioned that I used to run conferences and events, and I always found it so flattering when I remember I was in Stockholm at a conference and that I was running. I was at this resort and it was a freelancing conference that I used to run.

00:13:03.720]
And I just thought it was so interesting when I would meet people there talk to natural human being face to face, and I would find out who they were and the story would never be something like, oh, I heard you on a podcast four years ago, and then I ended up getting your emails and just kind of really enjoyed what you were sending. And I liked that you weren’t kind of aggressively trying to get me to buy anything. And I just really got a lot out of it.

00:13:34.600]
And one email in particular helped me in some transformative way. And then that kind of propelled me to then say, buy one of your courses six months long. And then now, three years later, four years later, here I am now I just paid $1,000 for a ticket, plus all the expenses to get to Sweden. And now I’m standing face to face, hanging out with you and learning from at your event. And I’ve always liked this kind of self selecting way of selling where the idea is, they call it education based marketing, whatever you want to call it is the material.

00:14:11.440]
But at the end of the day, what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to show people establish a problem. So here’s something you might not have thought about. Here’s something about the design of emails that is something I find interesting that maybe you’ll find interesting too. And then you basically effectively create a customer in the sense that you show somebody to be specific through the template pack. I talk a lot about email and format and structure and block these things and the digestibility of being able to read an email and why we should be thinking in a certain way about how we structure what we send and what I’m trying to ultimately do is give somebody almost Socratically, but done over email very informally, where it’s very hard to get somebody to change their opinion or change the way they look at the world by telling them that they’re doing it wrong.

00:15:23.470]
Politically, I doubt any whatever side of the coin you’re on. I doubt Facebook posts have ever really, truly converted somebody to think a different way about a political issue. But this comes from my background in the classics. When Socrates would wander around ancient Athens and try to get people to think like he did, he wouldn’t tell them you’re thinking wrong. He would use questions and get people to kind of eventually get to the point where they decide that this is the right way of doing things, and that happened to be what Socrates one of them to think from the get go.

00:16:01.110]
So my thinking is always, well, if I could do that in a way over through the content I send, if I can establish this way of looking at email marketing that I think is a really good way and is better than a lot of the alternatives, especially the CD Internet marketing alternatives. If I can get people over on that side, and then I put in the sweat equity to build products and services that help them implement that worldview, that’s a win win for both of us.

00:16:29.980]
So rather than cornering somebody and saying flashy flashy buy by buy, I’d much rather get people to self decide to buy when they’re ready to buy, if that makes sense.

00:16:42.260]
Yeah. It’s much more of a long play, I think, isn’t it? I would very much look at it as value based marketing that we give first. Really, before we ask for anything to be given back in many respects. And I would totally buy into that, Brennan. And at the same time, I also want to balance that with certainly in Christian circles there’s, like sometimes such an incredible reluctance to actually sell anything ever. Seriously, you got to feed your family. It’s okay if you’re bringing value to the table to place it before people in an integrous way, but ask for that sale.

00:17:28.070]
And so you clearly Brennan got a real passion to help other people as well. Though, because it’s not just that you are kind of seeing these things yourself and building out your business. A lot of the content that you put out there, as you say, is educational. But I think that that flows from a real heart to help other people, doesn’t it? I think a lot of but when people are coming into the Internet, marketing online products, selling courses, even writing books, doing podcasts, et cetera, it can be quite a confusing place to be in.

00:18:07.950]
But if we boil it right down to its essence, a lot of the driver, certainly I find behind what I do. And I’m sure that you would probably agree really comes from a heart to help other people, sometimes from the pain that we’ve been through. We think, man, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone because entrepreneurialism is not an easy. No, it’s not an easy choice, is it? Just talk about your heart to kind of help and equip other people, and maybe some of the products that you’ve got in the marketplace that can help them do that if they’re looking to build their lists.

00:18:47.790]
Yeah, I know you’re right. Then I do genuinely like helping people because I found that it’s not if I help somebody that doesn’t. I think a lot of people fear. Well, if I give it all away, why would they buy for me? And you see a lot of course, graders who think that. So they kind of do very superficial marketing with the hope of lowering people in. But my thinking has always been, honestly, maybe I could have done better financially if I would have been more like that.

00:19:19.920]
But I think at the end of the day, if I can make it so people feel like when they get an email from me and they read it, they’re better off than they were before they read that email, I’ve succeeded. But obviously, that’s not going to pay the bills. So if I can establish that equation where you give Brennan time and energy and he gives you back something that outweighs the input. Well, if that can be established, then what happens when you give Brennan $100 for a Temple pack?

00:19:54.870]
What output comes from that? And that’s the kind of thing that I want to have established, because I’ve never found that by giving things away or by being having too much good free stuff that that’s ever hurt me. But then again, I might be wrong, because even though I’ve done well for myself, I could have maybe done better for myself quantitatively had I done that. But I find this to be the model that works best for me. It’s something where I can actually sleep well at night, not thinking that I’ve taken advantage of people or anything like that.

00:20:28.040]
And at the end of the day, if I can find ways of putting in focus time, if I can spend a few hundred hours building something like the Temple pack, and then somebody can get it for comparatively cheap compared to the one I put in. But then I can give that to a lot of people or sell to a lot of people. I win day when we all win. And that’s kind of how I look at business. That’s how I’ve always tried to do this. And again, it might be if you’re looking to be the most successful person in the world of this stuff, it might not be the best model, but I find it the model that again works for me.

00:21:07.050]
Yeah, I’m all for kind of living peaceably and peacefully. Life does not just comprise a business alone, but there are some metrics that are often and actually far more important than just our bottom line. It’s like our self worth is not equal to our net worth.

00:21:35.070]
Especially in the internet marketing world. These people who obviously do very, very well for themselves. But you do a Google search of them and you land outside of any of their very carefully curated landing pages and you find scathing reviews about how they’ve been ripped off and this and that. And again, I know they do well, they have say, like a zero tolerance refund policy. They are very ridiculous amount of upsells and this and that and their bank account is probably much nicer than mine. But at the end of the day, I’d much rather have a clean reputation because I’m not using those sort of tactics.

00:22:17.750]
And again, I’m not trying to be an absoluteist ever. I’m not trying to say the way I do it is the only way of doing it. But I’ve found for me and the kind of people I like to be around, namely, the audience that I’ve built and the people who sit around and don’t leave. That’s the way I like doing things. It’s much more comfortable for me. And that’s ultimately what I’m optimising for is I’m optimising for personal comfort and yeah, financial stuff is one component of that.

00:22:44.420]
But also knowing that I ended up having in my mind, done good work is another component.

00:22:51.730]
Yeah. I know that you work oftentimes really work with people who are kind of way into the email marketing game, potentially before they even meet with you. Brennan, I speak to people at all sorts of levels, but many of them would be just coming into the online space, looking to begin to share their message, looking to begin to find out. Okay. How do I actually take what’s on the inside of me and get it out to the world if you can just kind of rewind your own experience right back to those days where you are thinking, man, how do I actually begin to build an email list?

00:23:36.780]
How do I begin to build an audience through email? What kind of advice would you give people who are just coming into this space and looking to begin build to leverage email as a way to add value, build an audience and then potentially kind of lead that audience to kind of consume more of what they offer.

00:24:04.100]
Yeah. So that’s a great question, because I think it’s one of these things I’ve been struggling with myself, both on the I kind of see my job with rate and sell to be very holistic. And part of that is, well, what if you get somebody who’s an absolute beginner who wants to kind of make their Mark? How would I help them do that? And I’ve struggled with that because I struggled to empathise with that, because it’s been years since I’ve been in that situation. And I think one thing that you can do is the people that I think I’ve gotten the most out of and that they’ve been helpful to be have not been the academics have not been the Ivory tower, people who are Masters at something who are so far beyond where I am that they can’t relate case in point.

00:24:55.310]
Right now, I’m getting into woodworking, and there’s people like actually another brick called Paul Sellers, who have been doing this for decades, and he knows what he’s doing. But I’m so intimidated. And so the gap between us is so big that I find myself drawing toward people, say on YouTube, who are just a little ahead of me, very close to me. In a sense, they can help me. I don’t feel intimidated by them and so on and so forth. So I think let’s say that you have a particular angle that you want to share with the world, and you’ve got a way of looking at things you want to share that angle the first thing that I would help that I encourage people to do.

00:25:43.760]
And again, it’s been a while since I’ve been completely from scratch. So take that with that context. But the first thing that I would do is first up, I wouldn’t be put off by the fact that other people are doing kind of what you want to do. I think that there’s a lot of reluctance to be another voice in a crowded room. But I think at the end of the day, expertise is ultimately relative, and authority is also relative, meaning that there are, say, people on my email list who probably potentially think that I am extremely authoritative in all things email, but they’re not actually looking at anyone else who’s talking about maybe they stumbled upon me by chance.

00:26:28.050]
Somebody told them that a friend said, hey, you’re starting with an email, go cheque out, create and sell. They’re there. But they haven’t really branched off. So for them, I’m both the expert and the sole authority. And I think the mistake that I’ve seen people make again and again is thinking that they’re not expert enough or that if they’re not the global authority on a subject that they’re not going to be able to help anyone at the end of the day. I think ultimately you don’t need a large group of people who see you as both an expert and an authority to make an impact.

00:27:04.630]
And I think a lot of people get put off by others are doing what I want to do. Others are a lot better equipped at teaching it than I am, and that kind of stops people from the get go. But I really think that I understand why people think that because there’s always this kind of nagging demons that are trying to tell us like that we’re not good enough or that it’s going to be a waste of time or whatever else. But really, at the end of the day, I would just start putting stuff out there, spending the time to either create or to curate.

00:27:43.670]
So look at what other people are doing and synthesise it down into something that is nice and easy to digest for an audience or come up with your own original content. Start with that. And even if you don’t have a massive list overnight, which you probably won’t just be consistent. When you have a portfolio of content out there, you can start maybe pitching podcast hosts or blog people who accept guest posts and ask them if you can be on their podcast or read a guest post for them, because then what you’re effectively doing is you’re in turn syphoning off part of their audience, hopefully to yours.

00:28:24.760]
And that will just help you boost yours. And then over time before you know it 100 people, then you’ll have 1000 people and so on and so forth. But I think at the end of the day it’s hard because everyone wants that overnight success. We all have been buying Amazon and for wanting things immediately.

00:28:43.630]
I think you got a great point there, Brennan, and as well, a lot of the productizing and commoditization of the way our soul responds to things, tries to lay a lot of those kind of press the button and everything will magically change. Just if you buy this or follow these three easy steps and you fail to realise that the person’s overnight success actually took ten years to get to. There were plenty of kind of days before that overnight and being of a mindset that understands that certainly in the Scriptures, it talks about sewing and reaping, and there’s a rhythm to that that is not kind of press the button.

00:29:45.010]
And two minutes later your meal is going to be on the table. There’s actually a level of cultivating and really tending to, and I think that plays into how we communicate with other people. The kind of products that we create are often we discover how they can best meet the needs of people by actually meeting the people whose needs they meet. And that relationship building that trust building honestly doesn’t happen overnight. And I’ll often tell people that we discover our voice by using it, right? Not waiting like sat under a tree for something to drop up on us.

00:30:40.750]
And suddenly we are thrust into kind of the limelight of influence. But it’s something that we build over time that we recognise that we actually have something valuable to bring to the table. And I think the difficulty, as you touched on, comes because when we first start bringing it to the table, either, the table seems very crowded with other sumptuous looking offerings. And what we bring to the party is like a little bowl of peanuts, you know, and it’s easy in that process to get discouraged.

00:31:23.930]
It’s just so important, and I really want to kind of just jump off the back of what you said. It’s so important for anyone listening who feels that insecurity feels that sense of inadequacy that a part of this process of just putting content out there consistently is as much us finding our voice and finding our confidence and making kind of those incremental steps to where what we share really does begin to land with the people that were called to speak to. And that doesn’t always happen in an instant, because actually we are finding ourselves in the process of trying to find the people that we’re looking to reach.

00:32:19.930]
Absolutely. I think the things you need to kind of extend that. I think when I started creating sell almost the area, I didn’t really know what I should be selling. So I just started with my usual thing of geeky out on things I’m interested in. But I think one thing that’s again, I know one thing that’s helped me tremendously has been incorporating different feedback loops and asking people to actively reply back and share with me things and this. And that because I think if you’re just propelling out content, it can be a bit intimidating in the sense of like if no one’s responding, are you doing something wrong?

00:33:03.090]
Well, no, you’re probably just not doing a good enough job asking people to actually respond. I’d say, and I found that I’m very driven by a bit, like elaborate where if I’m fed, I’m happy. So when I’m fed back when people reply saying, oh, that was really interesting. Or if I put a specific reply and tell me X kind of call to action at the end of an email, I find that that makes me more motivated to do it again and again because I know that there are somebody’s listing.

00:33:35.190]
I’m not just publishing to the void. So that’s one thing I’d say is try to think about how you can create feedback loops. One thing I do, which I think is really helpful for me. When somebody joins my list, I ask them to share with me if I could dedicate next week’s email to you specifically, what would you want me to read or send you? And I found that works well. And another thing that I want to talk about, too, is the issue of originality, and I think this is something I struggle with.

00:34:05.620]
And this is something with I think a lot of creators struggle with is that I’m not original enough or I can’t consistently create original content. And I think that there’s so much that could be done with spending the time doing some research or doing some curation where you’re looking, what other people said on the subject, and just to filling that down for the audience that you have where it doesn’t need to be. David’s brilliant insights he thought of in the shower this morning. It could be a little more systematic in the sense that you’re saving your audience time by making it so they’re not Googling around like you’ve been for the last few days.

00:34:50.830]
You’ve done the Googling. You’ve put it down into a specific, well laid out message, and that’s your contribution. And I look at things now. Like I mentioned the woodworking thing, my new little hobby.

00:35:05.290]
I saw a picture of something that you’d created on last night.

00:35:12.170]
It’s very new to me. But what I’m realising is there’s this concept of a jig, which is just a way of, like a canned way of achieving an output again and again and again. And the email marketer me is thinking that’s constant snippets. And I think that if I ever wanted to have my niche fee, how do I help marketers get in the woodworking, which would be super niche. But I could do that. And I could be thinking, yeah, I’m not going to create original content on how to cut boards or whatever else, but I can think like, oh, how can I take this expertise that I learned from someone else and distil it down into something that my specific audience will understand really well.

00:36:03.730]
And I think there’s just a tonne of room for that. And it doesn’t like you’re the first person ever to think of how to cut a board instead.

00:36:11.060]
You’re just making it relatable based on me. One of the arms of my business is a fiction publishing company, and I can tell you 100% in genre fiction, originality is way overrated. If you write two original people just won’t buy it. It’s like they want what they want.

00:36:34.540]
And they want her journey.

00:36:36.330]
Yeah, this is it again and again and again with a different name and different clothes, different place, but the same story. And this is it as well. It’s like the idea that we have to be blazingly original or, like, 10,000 miles down the road before we qualify to actually bring something helpful to other people. It’s just such a lie. It’s just not true. I loved what you said earlier is like, sometimes the guy kind of on the mountain top in the distance and you’re still down in the Valley thinking, What’s a spanner or what’s a screwdriver.

00:37:19.910]
It can just be like, I’ll never get there. But someone who’s just a few steps ahead and turns around and puts a hand out and says, hey, let me give you a hand. Let me show you the next step you need to take, not the next 25,000 steps, and we can build. Now you’d mentioned content snippets and things I’m aware of time here, Brennan. One of the ways in which I’m benefiting from what you’re putting out to the world is both yourself and I use ConvertKit for our email marketing presently.

00:38:02.450]
And the email pack that you template pack that you put out has really transformed the way that I am. Certainly the look of my emails. But even the way that I so enjoy how beautiful the emails look that my emails are becoming more like a mini novel because I want to utilise all of these beautiful sections as many times as I can. Brendan, you have courses about kind of leveraging email with ConvertKit. You’ve got the template pack. Feel free, Brennan. You’ve created them. I would love you to sell them right now.

00:38:52.910]
Just tell people a bit about how they can benefit from the content that you’re bringing into the marketplace and the way they can find you. I mean, I’ll put links in the description for the podcast and everything, but yeah, please go ahead.

00:39:07.160]
I’m a horrible marketer. I try to always never be too self promotional on things like this, but since you asked me, too, I will. Yeah. So create and Sell Co is kind of the hub of all things that I’m doing nowadays with content and courses and products on email marketing. So the two things now that I have there, which are going to be greatly expanded in the coming year, are I have my kind of flagship product, which is mastering convergent, and that’s kind of what I’ve had before I had it before great and soul started, and that’s a beast of a product.

00:39:47.950]
It’s 20 plus hours of tutorials on literally all these strategic and technical things you can do with convert it. And that’s what kind of started create and sell, to be honest. But since then, I’ve released the template pack, which originally was just a downloadable thing of here are some templates and not just the structural templates, but also this interesting way that I’ve discovered that you can use content snippets to dynamically change themselves. And again, if you don’t know what that is, basically what I’m getting at is just the ability to have reusable components like a testimonial widget or a referral widget or a call out or something that you can mix into all of your different emails.

00:40:33.890]
So you’ll have if I can just briefly jump in here, that is totally what sold me, because although I was using content snippets in their bare form, there wasn’t that dynamic component. If you had a snippet, it was like set in stone. You dropped the snippet in and it was like, okay, so I was having to kind of really think carefully around. Okay, well, I can create a specific header or a specific kind of layout. But there’s not that dynamic component, but what you’ve created here really has kind of taken snippets from something that was a side dish and made it kind of the main meal in many respects.

00:41:24.850]
I really love it. That’s where, like this kind of I call it geeky, but that’s this incredible way to leverage technology and see what’s possible is just so powerful. And yet I also want to say to people as someone who uses your template pack Brennan, for someone who is very much a front end person. Once you start digging into HTML and Snippets, and I think you talk about liquid code and all sorts of things that I just have no clue about. The beauty of it is someone who with a very limited understanding of those things, can actually utilise what you’ve produced here to get remarkable results without understanding all of the clever things that happening in the background.

00:42:27.290]
Yeah. Well, that’s the thing. I’m sure if you’ve looked at some of the actual code, you’ve copied it from the template pack and you convert, it can be a bit overwhelming, I’m sure. But that’s what I’ve tried to do is I’ve tried to create this abstraction layer because the problem is ConvertKit ticks in a certain way that expects liquid code. If you want to do mathematical operations to say, calculate a progress bar for how many referrals you sent me thing to show a progress bar, and to make it the right width, you need to know how to write liquid code to do some division and this and that so what I’m trying to do with this pack and what I’ve done with it is said right.

00:43:12.870]
Well, here are some components that I’ve created that I think are kind of best practises that do this stuff for you. You can tweak it like you said, the front end stuff where you can change the colours, you can change the font stuff, you can make it fit your brand, but at the moment, you can’t do much beyond that which that is changing, and then you give it those inputs, and then you just click a tab and it gives you the exact thing that you need to just load directly into ConvertKit, and then now convert.

00:43:40.950]
It has fancy progress bars that are using the data of the subscriber getting that email.

00:43:45.670]
Yeah.

00:43:46.120]
And that’s the thing that I think in a perfect world. I hate saying it’s because it kind of ruins that business of mine. But converted should have this stuff built in, but it doesn’t. So this is the next best thing for having that outcome that I think a lot of people want. And funny enough, it’s been a bit of a runaway success for me. I don’t really talk about this much, but I’ve had close to 400 people buy it, and I haven’t done hard selling of it much.

00:44:16.530]
I mean, usually I’ll put in my emails, like in my footer. I say if you like the design of this email, click here and I’ll talk in my email sometimes, but it’s usually casual reference. I don’t really push it that hard as you’ve seen, and it’s largely word of mouth at this point where people are either getting emails that have been sent that you or a friend told them.

00:44:41.030]
Yeah, well, it’s amazing, Brennan, really, as I say, it’s transformed the look and just some of the ways in which I’m actually leveraging kind of what I want to put out to the world has been affected by what I can now do and the ways in which I can actually present those things in a manner that I feel really happy to put out to the world. I wouldn’t be putting out the kind of volume of content I do a weekly email. Now. The template pack actually led me to really reconsider how I am doing my email marketing that.

00:45:35.290]
Happened with this little side project of mine.

00:45:37.660]
Yeah. So people can go to createandsell co.

00:45:41.120]
Yes.

00:45:41.600]
Co they can see the different courses that you’ve got available. They can pick up the template pack. I recommend that they pick it up quickly.

00:45:51.460]
I don’t know when this episode goes live, but basically at the end of the month, the final Monday, the month I’m removing right now it’s effectively a lifetime deal where you buy it now and you get it forever, including all the updates. But I’m turning it into a software product that’s going to be a lot more powerful and it’s going to have a proper monthly billing model. But obviously.

00:46:17.710]
I’ll do my best to edit it. No, totally. I’ll get this out to people because I would love to see people benefit from what you’re putting out and how they can begin to utilise it in what they’re doing. Brandon, thank you so much.

00:46:35.350]
A lot of micro things I’ll be creating on different workshops and hosting might even do a live workshop, probably in the UK at some point, but yeah, but thank you, David.

00:46:47.410]
I might be one of those guys that comes up to you and says like, oh, well, three years ago.

00:46:52.390]
Well, I put a face on the name now. So my wife, I have this weird knack for I’ve seen somebody’s Twitter profile picture, and then I see them in person at a conference and they come up and we start talking, and I immediately know who they are and all this stuff. I’ve seen their thumbnail in Gmail. That’s my one gift, I think, is the ability to once they have a face. I’m good at in person recognising them.

00:47:23.410]
Well, Brandon, thank you so much for your time. Really has been a blessing to just get opportunity to see you face to face, speak with you and just enjoy some of the wisdom that you brought, and hopefully we will continue to connect in other ways. And other places.

00:47:43.530]
Of course.

00:47:44.320]
God bless you, Brandon. Thank you so much.

00:47:46.200]
Thank you, David. Yeah. Thanks.

00:47:49.210]
Well. Thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at davidleemartin.com.

00:47:58.850]
Have a great day.