I'm Oprah Winfrey.
Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.
I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.
Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now.
Tim's story is an ordained minister who has shared his inspiring words in 70 different countries.
He's written nine books, including his most recent, Come Back and Beyond.
He's also a motivational speaker and life coach who's worked with Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, Robert Downey Jr, Kanye West and many others.
Well, I love every word of this book.
It just feels like...
I should have it running on a tape in my brain all the time.
So congratulations.
Thank you very much.
How did you come to this?
To understand that we all have setbacks, but that there's always a comeback for all of us.
You know, when I was a little guy, my father passed away when I was 10.
And before that, I had so much energy and joy.
I was playing baseball.
I was a dancer.
And then to have to hear my mother crying because of my father passing.
All of a sudden, I went from a rhythm of life a glide, a skip in my step, and then I was in the middle of a setback at 10.
Yeah.
And I saw that my siblings, they kind of got stuck right there.
Really?
And they began to medicate themselves rather than find ways to solve the dilemma.
So you knew at 10 that you were in a setback?
Yes.
But could you call it that?
Were you, like, clinically depressed as a little kid?
I didn't have a name for it.
A language for it.
I just knew that everything changed.
Because there was a lot of humor in our house.
And then all of a sudden, the rhythm of that household was gone.
Because I heard sounds from my mother's room that I'd never heard before.
And that was crying.
Everything felt like it was out of sync and out of rhythm.
I love the way you say the rhythm of the house, because when you're that age, if you're pretty attuned obviously you were you can actually sense the vibration of the household.
It's so true.
Yeah.
And so you use that setback literally to have not just a comeback, but be able to use that to empower other people to see themselves differently.
When you feel the sting of a setback, whether it be divorce or abuse, there's a feeling to it.
There's almost a scent to it.
And everything felt different.
It kind of covers you.
Yes, it covered me.
Because now, even if you went to school on a day where your parents are supposed to show up now, my father was not there.
So there was that void.
And I knew that my family was in trouble.
And I didn't know what to do at 10.
But then I began to figure out what to do in my 20s that I had to somehow be a leader.
Obviously, you deal with all kinds of people, wealthy people, famous people, people who are not.
Is there a common denominator in that experience of getting stuck?
It doesn't matter who you are.
Yeah, I think so.
And part of it is I've never been here before.
So when they fall down.
They don't know what to do to get back up.
So they sit in their setback, and then they settle in their setback.
Because they're not trained.
They don't have the tools to get back up.
And they try to live from the past and have the past define whatever is going on now.
That's so true.
Yeah.
So they're living in the shame and the guilt of what they've been through.
And as you know, religion can almost do that to you if you're not careful.
Yeah.
Because there's so much talk about failure and sin and mistakes that you can keep going back to what you did.
And you can believe that that's what God wanted because that's the way it happened.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And so a comeback is not a go back.
I can't go back now. and fix things.
And I meet so many people like that that want to go back.
That's such a tweetable moment.
That's a big, hey, let's take a breath there.
A comeback is not a go back, which is what most people try to do.
You try to go back and try to make it like it was and try to fix it the way it was.
I'll give you an example.
I'm on an airplane.
And I'm talking to a gentleman from Dallas.
He tells me he's wealthy.
And he's telling me about all these things he's done.
And he says, you know, my daddy, my daddy, my daddy.
I said, well, how old is your father?
Because this man seemed about 70 himself.
He said, my daddy has passed away.
And he was trying to prove to his father that he was worthy, but his father had passed.
And he's now 70.
And he was 70 already.
Yeah.
So he was trying to fix something even though his father had passed. to prove something.
And so many people are there.
You know, they've been through something, and now they're going to go back and fix it.
But you cannot do that.
Because isn't it true Tim, that most people spend the time like, for example, You go through a bad relationship and you spend so much time blaming yourself?
And what if I did that?
And why didn't I see it?
And how could this happen to me?
And so that's how people get stuck.
Right.
Correct?
Yeah.
And it's a phrase that others have used.
We nurse it, curse it, and rehearse it.
And a lot of people late at night, they are nursing their problem, cursing it.
Why did it happen?
And then, as we know, rehearsing it.
Over and over.
Over and over again.
But the first thing you say is in Come Back and Beyond, is that the first thing you've got to do and every spiritual teacher says this, Eckhart Tolle especially you've got to accept the now.
Exactly.
So you accept it, and you take an inventory.
You say, OK, I was there.
Now I'm here.
Yeah.
You must first recognize you're in the setback.
Yes.
I've lost my job.
I've lost my marriage.
Whatever is going on.
I thought I was going to get this promotion.
I thought whatever the setback is.
Yes.
Acceptance is first.
Right.
So now you have choices.
So you're in a setback.
I accept it.
And then you have to say.
And acceptance doesn't mean I like it.
It doesn't mean you like it.
And I think a lot of people think, well, if I accept it, that means I'm saying it's OK.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
They almost don't want to sign for the package.
That's right.
But if you look around... The package is here.
The package is right there.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, quite often, when we, you know, lose our way in a setback, one of the ways you describe it is and i see this all the time, as you do, as we all do yes, that people have lost their shout.
I think you call it.
It's like we need to get our shout back, or turn up the volume.
Yes, on our lives and yes yeah, don't you see that there's this kind of dullness that people have?
Most people, You know, when we were kids there's a shout right.
Yeah.
Parents always go, shh.
Just coming in and out of the door, you're shouting, yeah.
And parents never go into a kid's room and say, turn up the volume.
They go, shh, in the classroom, shh.
Because kids, there's a volume to life.
But the more we get challenged and disappointed, disappointment is an amazing thing.
The scriptures say, that disappointment can make you heart-sick.
Well, that's bad because the heart is the center, it's your core.
Joy comes from the heart, peace, faith.
So when you're disappointed and your heart is sick, it could take away your shout.
So life can knock the shout out of you.
Knock the shout out of you.
Yes.
And so with my father passing, that could have knocked the shout out of me.
And I could have stayed that way.
Or someone who's been in a car accident.
Or someone who started a business and it didn't work.
Or someone who thought, you know, certain things were going to happen in their lives and now they're disappointed.
But there are ways to get your shout back.
Yeah.
When life tries to take me downtown, to a whisper, just shout on purpose.
Just intentionally shout.
Sometimes I am driving on the freeway and I'll just think about things that are going right.
So it's not always a verbal shout.
It's an inward shout of choosing to say, hey, this is something to shout about.
I'm still alive.
You know, a lot of people like to complain about their age.
I'm already 52 or I'm 71 or 93.
Hey, that's something to shout about.
So we could take and have a little, just a shout moment every day and just remember thank God, we're still alive.
You realize that your calling was be able to help people literally find their own calling.
Yes.
I feel like I'm called to inspire.
That, you know, there's a scripture in the Bible that says, live a life worthy of your calling.
To live a life means to be alive in your life.
Most people are not alive in their life.
Today, this moment, be alive in your life.
Something you say that really struck me on page 211 of this book.
And I used The Oprah Show for years, this platform, speaking around the country.
And this is one of the things that I think people most don't understand that your life isn't about a big break.
It's about one significant life transforming step at a time.
Because often you know, when you speak about calling people think, well it's, I don't know what it is I'm supposed to do.
And how do you get people to see and recognize this major tweetable moment that your life isn't about the big break?
It's about one significant life transforming step at a time.
And you teach this as well.
Today's decisions are tomorrow's realities.
For you to get to where you are today, it was one step at a time.
So it's a daily decision that creates my realities of tomorrow, whether it be I'm going to get up and exercise, I'm going to get up and do yoga, I'm going to get up and meditate.
So it's a step-by-step process.
When people say to you, like I don't know what my purpose is, or I don't really know why I'm here, or I'm trying to figure that out, your response is
In that case, I think that people need to stop, look, and listen.
We have become human doings rather than human beings.
And we need to slow down to the speed of life.
And if you will slow down and stop, look and listen.
Every dream that's inside you is speaking to you.
Your dream has a voice.
So even when I was little, little Timmy story running around, you know, first started from Compton California, then to another part of Los Angeles.
My dream was speaking to me because it has a voice.
So stopping, looking and listening to what God is saying.
So there are things that are calling you because I think that they have always resided in you.
So I believe that God put those in us.
It's our calling.
Okay.
So that's the difference between a good thing and a God thing.
Right.
The God idea, it's something that God put in us even while we were in our mother's womb.
So scripturally, the Bible says, while you were in your mother's womb, I knew you.
Then there's a scripture in the Bible that says that you are his workmanship.
That's a work of art created to do good works that I had already predestined for you.
OK, so from what you know, is there a supreme destiny for everybody?
And that supreme destiny would be the God thing.
Yes.
Not necessarily the good thing.
I believe that.
And it doesn't mean that you have to walk there in perfection.
You may go to the right, you may go to the left, and then you may show up there.
Okay.
So if you're called to something, you're going to get there no matter what?
I believe that that calling will pull you there.
You may have some delays, some denials.
That's right.
But I believe you'll get there.
You might take the back road.
We've all done that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
Can you also be called away from something?
Yes, you can.
So I say it this way.
You could have the right plan, be the right person, have the wrong partners, and then you're in trouble.
Sometimes you have the right plan, you're the right person, but you put the wrong people in your life and they take you off your yellow brick road.
All of us have had friends in our life that kind of took us off that pathway.
And that's why it's so important to find God idea partners who are people who get your dream.
See if you didn't step out to be Oprah Winfrey.
There's a lot of people all over the world that would not be changed the same way.
So you stepped out in your God idea and somebody was waiting for you on the other side.
I love that.
So, so, so many tweetable moments.
Let's see how many you can tweet.
I love them all.
Okay.
You are a mighty person in the making.
I love the choice of the word mighty.
Yes.
Because sometimes we don't feel mighty.
Yeah.
But we are a mighty person in the making.
A masterpiece in progress.
A miracle in motion.
Although you may have had many mistakes in your past, God still has a great plan for your future.
If you'll do things his way, if you let him, he will mold you. into a vessel of honor.
Love that.
Vessel of honor for his purposes.
Yes.
He will breathe life into you and change you.
Love that.
A vessel of honor.
Yes.
And I'd never heard that phrase before.
How?
And I thought, gee, I want to live in that space of being a vessel of honor.
How do we do that?
I think part of it is, as we've said earlier, is being true to yourself.
That I may not be what I want to be, but thank God I'm not what I used to be.
Yeah.
And that you really are a miracle in motion.
Motion is movement.
So we're not there yet, but we're in motion.
At all times, we are all going through recovery and discovery at the same time.
Some people stop their lives because I'm in recovery.
I just went through all this, and I'm in recovery.
But you should be in recovery and discovery.
I love where you say, too, that we should not waste our failures.
Right, right.
There's a lesson in every one of those failures.
But the great thing about it is that we could fail forward.
We could fail forward.
It's not final because of these mistakes.
How do you know, Tim, when you're on the right path?
How does one know?
I believe that there is an innate peace that comes, that even if there's turmoil around you, there's a peace inside of you.
There's a peace that says, this is where you're supposed to be.
In other words, you're gonna be okay.
I'm with you.
To me, that's Psalms 23.
That the Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want.
The word want means you shall not be anxious for anything.
So, even in my darkest times which I face them, I feel that I'm not anxious, because I feel like truly, he's there.
Because you know no matter what, there is the divine hand of the shepherd.
The divine.
Yeah.
So tell me this.
Do you believe that God has an idea for everybody?
Yes.
I believe two things.
One, you're made in His image, in His likeness.
Number two, you're made with His imagination.
I love that because I don't wanna be someone else, because I've been born in original.
Why do I wanna die a copy?
So I'm made in His image, okay? but I'm also made with his imagination.
Okay, what does that mean to you when you say made in his image?
I think people then think, okay, God looks like us.
No.
What does that mean?
Okay, so let's take an artist.
They may imagine something before they paint it.
Right.
I believe that God imagines something And then creates and speaks a certain life for every single person.
You've been spoken over.
You've been spoken over.
And that everybody, that makes me want to cry really, that everybody who comes has been spoken over.
We have.
And that's why when somebody devalues you.
Yeah.
See, when someone devalues you.
Yeah.
You're devaluing someone that God spoke over?
Yeah.
But isn't it so interesting that in our culture speaking of America, I know people are listening in other parts of the world, but the American culture we think that I mean it concerns me how kind of celebrity obsessed we are.
We've now become the how many likes you've got on Facebook.
We've become how much stuff you have, how many square footage.
And so the idea that because you were born and spoken over gives you value is something that I think we've lost.
It does.
And as you know, the word celebrity means to be celebrated.
So young people want to be celebrated.
But everybody wants to be celebrated.
Don't we all want to?
We all want to be celebrated.
But if you know, as we are saying, that you've been spoken over by the divine.
Yeah.
See?
Then I'm okay being funny or being happy or being quirky or being creative or being nerdy.
Have you discovered that...
All pain, struggle, setback is the same because obviously you work with a lot of famous people.
You're famous for, you know, very well known for having helped Robert Downey Jr.
And Leigh Iacocca gives you a quote on the book.
Do famous people, rich people fall as hard?
Does it hurt as much?
They do.
And the thing about being famous.
Yeah. is everything's just amplified.
Yeah, that's how I see it.
Yeah, because you may be having trouble with your son, but now it's on the news.
Your marriage, but now it's on the news, so it's amplified.
But what I do with celebrities is I say, let's knock out the noise for a while.
Let's not listen to the noise, and let's deal with the situation right here locally.
Because if you're not careful, you'll get dramatic in the midst of the drama.
See, drama could come, but that doesn't mean I need to participate.
So don't get dramatic in the midst of the drama.
Sure, there's a dilemma, something happened.
This happened to your daughter, your son, to you, to your marriage.
Let's play it down and pray it up and look for the wisdom.
And most likely, you're going to need some help.
There's that power in partnership.
You better have some God-idea partners.
Yeah.
And so being able to have that person, persons or the team to go to is how you begin to set yourself up for the next success.
And that's what I've been to entertainers athletes, all types of people is to be that partner that comes there and lifts people up.
And usually with...
Answers that they already know.
So to me, it's not like I'm coming up with something so spectacular.
I think sometimes the answer is already inside of us.
Yes.
Is that why, when you show people their baby pictures grown people, grown successful people they start big men break down and cry.
That is one of my techniques.
And I love to tell a story.
There's a well-known NFL player.
And he said, everything is wrong.
Everything is wrong.
I mean, he's making millions of dollars.
Everything is wrong.
And so I said, here's what we're going to do.
You told me you lived right down the street from where I'm staying.
You grew up there.
It was a tough neighborhood.
So we went to his old elementary school.
And he goes, what are you up to, Tim Story?
This is crazy.
We get into this elementary school.
And he goes, well, that's where I was in second grade and that's where I was in third grade.
And then we got on the swing set and he just began to weep.
Because I'm taking you back to the place of innocence.
I want to take you back to the place of innocence.
And whether it be through pictures, through thoughts, through memories, through watching home movies, take you back to that place where things were all right.
And the reason people cry is because they're remembering the truth of who they are?
Is that why they're crying?
I say it this way, that the real you will remind you of the person you're supposed to become.
So the real me is always talking to me, that I started off funny, happy, full of joy.
Yeah.
So if I get hit by life's challenges and I start to lose that, the real us is talking to us.
Tim, be alive.
Be alert.
Be awake.
And is the challenge itself a way of talking to us?
Is the reason why you're in the challenge?
Because do you believe that everything is happening in divine order?
Yes, I do.
And I don't try to avoid difficult situations.
And even if I... You don't?
Not on purpose.
I really don't.
And I mean, I don't want them to come.
I don't want them to show up at my door.
Yeah.
But if they're there, I've had enough of these things.
I want to figure out why is it here?
Yeah.
What's my lesson?
That's the first question, right?
Yes.
Why is it here?
Why is it here?
What's it here to teach me?
And what's my lesson?
Yes.
One of the things that you teach and repeat in this book is that I think a thing that most people people think things are supposed to go well, but you're saying there are corners.
There are known corners and there are unknown corners.
Yes.
I call it in my message, just around the corner.
Just around the corner.
Just around the corner.
A corner is a bend or a curve.
Every day you go around corners, known corners or unknown corners.
The known corners we know.
I know how to get home.
I know how to go to my job.
So we become creatures of habit.
But the great thing about life is that the divine could take us into places and spaces we've never been.
Who would ever thought when you were growing up in Mississippi that you would travel the world?
I mean, it's an interesting thing.
That was the just around the corner, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean when I think about the fact that as a kid I was watching a slideshow and the second grade teacher was showing us Europe and she showed me the Eiffel Tower and I got all excited to think a little kid that didn't have much money that one day I'd stand in front of the Eiffel Tower.
That's my just around the corner.
Just around the corner.
But there are things that try to stop us from coming around that corner.
And one of them is I don't think I deserve to go around the corner and experience this great life because of setbacks and challenges that I've had in my life.
OK, can you?
Because I have found that that is sort of a common thread that so many people have, even when they don't know they have.
It is a sense of unworthiness.
Yes.
How can you ever fully step into the destiny that God has designed for you if you don't feel worthy.
Well, you really can't.
So in that case, you need to then renew the way you think.
And in this book, I talk about... Isn't it be renewed by the... What is that passage?
Yes.
Romans 12.
Okay.
Thank you.
Be renewed by the spirit of your mind.
Spirit of your mind.
And then it says that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and the perfect will of God.
So let's say if there's a satellite dish.
You remember the old dishes that people would have at their home?
I remember going to this guy's house.
He's like, if I turn it this way, I get Canadian TV.
This way, Russian TV.
But wherever you shift your satellite dish, that's what you pick up.
So if I shift my satellite dish towards this, what God thinks about me.
See, God's opinion of me makes man's opinion irrelevant.
If anybody could ever really get that in them, what does God think about me?
Psalms 103 says, he knows your frame.
In other words, he knows you're a work in progress.
I don't think God is really that upset over some of these things that people do.
Really?
I really don't think so because I think he's a merciful God.
So the things that we, that resonated with me, I got that.
The things that we often beat ourselves up about and live in the past about and continually go back about.
God has already forgiven us for
Okay, so you preach this, you teach this.
Are you able to live it?
Well, here's the interesting thing about life is that if I was to ever say that, I would go through some of the things I've gone through when I was young.
I would say, that's not going to happen to me.
So let's say I've been through a divorce, and I have.
I didn't see that coming.
I never got married thinking I'm going to get divorced.
I got married to be married.
But then I had hardships, I had problems, I got divorced.
So now the comeback coach... had to start understanding his own teaching.
And boy, that was hard.
So what is the message that you think is essential for people to be able to step into the frequency of God?
I think number one, understanding that God wants that kind of relationship with us.
Prayer is communication.
But to me, it's communicating with my Father.
I believe that God is my father.
I believe what the Bible says that he's my father.
So when I come to God and I pray to him and I communicate with him, I feel that he downloads purpose to me.
He downloads destiny to me.
He downloads compassion to me.
Yeah.
And aren't we...
Isn't our sadness, our setback, our challenge, our feelings of defeat in direct proportion to how far we are away from the center of God?
100%.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And the great thing about life is you can go from nowhere.
People come to me, Tim, I feel like I'm nowhere.
Well, you can go from nowhere to now here, just like that, by changing the way you see things, by understanding that this nowhere feeling and this nowhere destination could be part of God's plan.
So what is the world's greatest wound?
I think one of the greatest wounds is misunderstanding to be misunderstood.
Everybody is voicing their opinion because they feel misunderstood.
Whether it be one country to another country, one religion to another religion, one race to another race,
Misunderstanding.
How do we heal it?
By listening.
I need to listen.
I need to stop and listen to someone else's point of view.
Even on religions for a man like me, raised Christian.
When I go to these countries I go to, I wanna listen to a Muslim.
I wanna listen to a Buddhist person and hear what they have to say.
Okay, here's a good one for you.
What is the root of racism and prejudice?
What's the root of that?
Ignorance is one.
Another would be people wanting to be right so badly that they're not willing again To listen.
We live in a world of polar opposites, darkness and light.
Is it possible to always stay in the light?
It is.
It is?
It is.
Because darkness will surround, but that doesn't mean it has to get in you.
I really do believe that we can create Boundaries.
And that's why you have to watch what you listen to, right?
What you watch.
What you let into your sphere.
What you let in.
Yeah.
So it's like driving down the street and you listen to the radio.
Turn a little bit country western.
Turn a little bit hip hop.
Turn a little bit talk radio.
I have to really watch where I put my dial.
Because I cannot let that stuff seep in.
You're my kind of guy.
Did I not just say that this morning?
I have a rule that when I'm picked up by anybody in any city, the radio's off, because I don't want to have to be in a space where you're energetic, whatever.
You can't have it.
I can't have it.
See, to me, you're a carer of a calling.
God called you to carry a calling.
Yeah.
So I can't put that stuff on me.
Thanks, Tim.
You explained it.
That's it.
And my friends think I'm crazy.
Like we get in the car, oh, we can't listen to the music with you on.
I can listen to it if I choose whatever it is to come into my spirit.
Yeah, that's great.
Because if I let that come on me, if I then go to go speak to a thousand people.
That's all in you.
It's all in me.
It's going to seep out.
Yeah, that is so true.
Okay.
Here's the biggie.
Your definition of God.
Father.
Father.
I'm fatherless.
He's a father to the fatherless.
I go to the father side of God.
The difference between religion and spirituality.
Religion to me is man's man doing his best to get to God.
Abide in God, follow God, please God.
Relationship is resting, yielding and accepting.
See, I've accepted the love of my Father.
I'm not religious.
So you live a spiritual life.
Yes.
Yeah.
Spirituality for you is accepting... Right.
...God's love for you.
I'm not trying to climb the ladder.
I'm not doing the rituals to get there.
I'm yielding to my Father and accepting that He wants to have a relationship with me.
Finish the sentence, I believe.
That all things are possible.
That, even in the midst of your biggest challenge, while you're feeling the sting of your setback, God is preparing your comeback.
All things are possible.
Amen. and you are most grateful for?
I am most grateful for the opportunity to help change people's lives.
It blows me away.
I mean if I'm in an airport and someone comes up and says I was in your meeting and your words changed me.
I am grateful for that.
I'm grateful for our time.
Thank you.
I'm Oprah Winfrey and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.
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