Hey, what's up everybody? Listen, if you have not heard about anchor, it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me explain. Number one is free. Yeah, I got your attention now, right. Number two, there's creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Number three anchor will distribute your podcast for you. So it can be heard on Spotify, Apple podcast and many more. Number four, you can make money from your podcast. That's right. You can make money from your podcast with no minimum viewership. Number five is everything you need to make a podcast in one place. So right now download the free anchor app or go to anchor dot FM to get started. What's up everybody you are listening to the what now podcast where we discuss ways of effectively addressing life's most difficult moments.

Yeah, Okay. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the What now podcast. My name is Clinton Pettijohn or you know you can call me cliff for the sake of the podcast here on the What now podcast we discuss strategies or we discuss opportunities or we discuss whatever it is we discuss of where we can face life's most difficult moments and we use that word difficult loosely because we have substituted that were difficult with defining, we understand that those moments are not difficult. They're just defining and sometimes defining moments stretch us and require something greater out of us. But the awesome thing about it is it's requiring it out of us, which means that the answers that we need are locked up inside of us and sometimes we need a conversation with a conversationalist like myself to unlock those things in your life and that's what my prayer is about this podcast and everything that I do.

I pray that the revelation is unlocked in your life for you to understand the gifts, the tools, the talents, the abilities that you have lodged inside of you, the decision making skills that you have lodged inside of you to make decisions that are productive and conducive or conducive for a productive future and not productive future. A productive now, as I always say, what now, what are you doing? What you're now to produce a future connected to your purpose? So again, thank you all for joining us on the last episode, I forgot to do this. If you want to reach out, please reach out at info at Clifton's Pettijohn dot com, info at Clifton's Pettijohn dot com. If you would like to advertise your business, your ministry, send birthday, shout out all of that on here, reach out to me at that address. If you want to connect for business and whatever you need a key Does speaker you want to have a conversation even about your personal life, you can reach out to me there or you can text 30 to 6485544.

If you want to talk, you know you need one of those conversations, you can text help to that number if you want to connect and you want, you need me as a speaker then type text speaker to that number and want somebody from our administrative team will get back with you in an expedited manner. Okay, anyway, let's get to the topic at hand. Today it is Pride month guys, it is Pride month, it's Pride month and some of us have a negative connotation when it comes to the word pride. But what I love about my community is that we honestly have to have a time where we take pride in who we are and the reality is we should do that on a daily basis. We should do it on a daily basis. But sometimes the fight in the journey, it's hard right now. We have the Black Lives Matter movement and I'm listen Black lives Matter and until our country understands that then we are always going to be at a standstill and I believe some people are getting it, it's gaining momentum but I also want to talk to my black brothers and sisters and I want my black blood brothers and sisters to understand that along with your Black Lives Matter movement, understand that that also means that those that are part of the lbgt, you know and the not disrespecting anybody.

Sometimes I forget all the letters honestly and I did not write them down this time, but everybody that embodies that movement regardless if you agree with it, regardless of what you think about it, regardless of all of those until you understand that they are part of the black lives that are, we are part of the black lives that matter, then you're missing the point as well, you're missing the point as well. And I've heard so much stuff this month, it's been rather disturbing to me, I heard somebody said man can y'all just forget for a moment that you're gay and just focus on being black, and I said, and I'm like, are you serious? Like that's your mindset and you don't see a problem with that mindset, but yet you have a problem seeing racist people and the mindset they have and if we're ever going to progress as a country then we have to embrace everybody's divert diversity.

I have a radio show, transformation radio where we transform lives through purposeful conversations regardless of how difficult and unpopular those conversations are on this platform on this platform, I have a wide variety of guests. I have some guests that have strong traditional christian values, that's who they are. Okay, I have some guests that are a member of the lbgt community that have strong christian values as well, then I have some who are of the lbgt community that you know have different backgrounds, they're into spiritualism, but they don't, they're not into it from a mentality or mindset of a christian type of movement, then I have some that are not a part of the community that, that are the same way as those in the community. It is diverse. I don't race is not thought about when I'm scheduling gas, nothing's thought about, I just want to create a space where we all can have conversation.

Why? Because one thing I've learned about each and every one of us is that we all have a story that can add value to each other. If we can learn to get past some of our differences, we don't have to completely agree with each other. However, what if you have the solution to my uh to my problem, to my question, but I can't see past the fact that you are in love with someone of the same sex. So then I don't have a solution because I'm that stubborn to think that because you decide to be or you decide to love or open yourself up to be loved by someone that I don't agree with and here's the thing, why do we feel as if people have to do things that we agree with and somebody say, no, it ain't even about that and it is about that many of us, it is about that if somebody goes against something that you disagree with, then now you feel as if you have to spend your whole life showing how much you disagree with it, can I be honest with you and speak for uh those in the lbgt community that have learned to love and embrace themselves.

We don't need you to agree with us, you're not a third member of our relationship. I've had three people in my life whose opinions really mattered to me from my honest standpoint, like what her opinion really mattered to me. That was my mother, she passed. Okay then it was my yeah. Mhm Anthony baker Jr is the ceo of a nonprofit community organization called helping the homeless as an organization. They are committed to changing lives and making other smile in addition to providing hands on services for the homeless community all over philadelphia, they also have a Big Brothers mentoring program where participating youth are taught the value of giving back to their community to learn more about the organization, call 2154878589 or email them at H T H Philly at gmail dot com, a spiritual mother and father, you know who I was a part of for years, for years, those three were the only three whose opinion honestly mattered and four I would say the young people that I mentored um you know, back in the day when I was at the boys and girls club and I was like Richard Allen and all those, you know, places and spaces, their opinions matter to me.

However, I came to a place in life where I understood I respect your opinions, I respect your thoughts, I respect your theology, I respect everything that you represent, but I cannot represent a lie anymore. I have to respect myself more. So I said that to say, I personally don't care if you agree with who I who I love or who I'm in a relationship with right now. Nobody but you know, I don't, I don't care because has nothing to do with you. And if we can learn that in life, we could really, really, really, really, really begin to set a atmosphere that's conducive or an atmosphere where we represent equity and equality and manners in ways we never thought into imagine.

But the reality is that some people just think that and I said this about social media, some of you may disagree with me and that's okay. That's okay. Social media has made people feel as if their opinion is more valuable than it really is on social media. It encourages you to give your opinion on everything. Regardless of how uneducated your hypothesis or your assessment is. It has taught you to freely give your opinion about it. And I'm all about free speech. I'm all about all of those things be you be great But understand that your opinion is not the end all for everybody and don't get mad because people don't take your opinion as gold or platinum or uranium or whatever you feel it should be taken out. The reality is that we have to do our own soul work. We have to work on ourselves. And one of the things in life. I realized if I spend the time, energy and effort on focusing on me and my personal growth, I don't have time to worry about what it is that you're doing.

You know, diversity is dope and I'm gonna tell you, I didn't realize that all the time I grew up close minded. So if you didn't look like me, walk like me talk like me, make decisions like I was taught to me to make, then I did not associate myself with you. But the more I grew, the more mature I became, I began to realize like, oh man, I'm missing out on the possibility of getting to know people and the possibility of forming friendships and relationships with people that are connected to my purpose, in our purpose, in my heart that I would never, never, ever, ever, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever again discriminate against anybody regardless of what they believe, contradicts my own personal belief system.

And then some of us, we revisit our belief systems because let's be real. Let's be honest, we don't believe half the stuff we say. We believe. We were told that to hear what I said. We weren't told it. We were told to believe that because we were told to believe that it shaped the framework of our minds. It shaped the framework of our thought processes and our interactions with others and that same thing with racism and other things, hate for whatever reason. Many times that stuff is tall. It's tall. The framework of it is taught and I refuse to teach another generation. I've never taught hate anyway. Um, definitely not intentionally. I don't think I've ever taught hate. If you've been out there, you've been a part of teachings or I meant towards you or you looked at me as a father, a big brother and I taught you hate reach out to me so that I know because I've always taught to embrace and love everybody and learn from everybody, even in times when I did not display it myself, I've always told it, even though I may have struggled privately with it at times, I've always taught that because I believe, as I said, even all constantly say this, everybody has a story.

Everybody has value. Everybody can add weight and value to each other. Don't you miss out on who can add weight to you or even who you've been designed to add weight to. Some of you are struggling with being rejected with the gifts, talents and abilities that you have in your life. And the reality is you're being rejected because you're attempting to force feed it to a people that is not connected to or don't want to connect with it when there's a group of people that you haven't even thought of that would connect to it, but you know, no, no, no, no, no not them not them. And I'm not even just talking from, you know the lbgt community with that I'm talking about, you know, as a whole, that there are prejudices inside of us that were placed inside of us that have caused us to hinder or to uh yeah.

Mhm. Are you thinking of selling or buying your dream home then contact Harrison Dominic in the people's agent as a licensed realtor and both Delaware and Merlin, Harrison desires to help you sell or buy your home and he promises you that your experience with him will be great call or text him today at 3022600659 or email him at Harrison dom market at gmail dot com. Yeah, yeah. Boxing our purpose and boxing, the ministry and boxing the business and boxing, whatever it is, there are things inside of us that have been taught that we need to unlearn. There's some things you need to unlearn and some of you already know something being stared up in you to reconnect with family members to reconnect with loved ones to reconnect with friends that you honestly walked away from.

Not because of something that you personally were convicted about or personally believe, but because of the opinions, the thoughts and the quote unquote prophetic word of others and you've been struggling with that and you know that you know that you know that you know that you know that they are connected to your purpose. I did not mean to talk about this because it's pride. Man. I wanted to talk about owning who you are. I've been talking about that a lot lately and I've realized a lot of times with me that I haven't fully owned who I am, everything that I embody, everything that's great about me, everything that's beautiful about me, the things that are not so beautiful about me. I haven't embraced the totality of who that who I am and I'm doing that now. That's why I'm real fervent about encouraging you to do it. You are awesome. You are amazing. Everything about you is awesome and amazing.

Even the things that are not perfect, they don't have to be perfect, They can be perfected, but they don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to submit to the process of perfecting and each day you become a better version of yourself. So those of you that are out there, celebrate your pride. My community celebrate this month, celebrate, celebrate celebrate and I challenge and encourage those who have family and friends and loved ones that are part of the community celebrate them them on this month. Even if you can't celebrate the totality of who they are, find something about them and celebrate that and that begins to rebuild or build that bridge. I'm all about being a bridge. That's one of the things the creator told me I am a bridge that will bridge the gap between many organizations and family, friends, loved ones where that bridge has been broken down.

I come stand right there in the middle and rebrand and yeah, become that bridge rebuild that bridge so that they can cross together. And as they cross together, the communication begins to be built up once again. And as the communication is built up once again, then they begin to build each other once again. I can't stress in the time that we're in right now. How important it is to embrace diversity. If you're not embracing diversity, then you're part of the problem. If you want everybody to look like look like talk like think like you act like you make decisions like you and some of us know we don't make the greatest decisions all the time. Shoot. Let's say we know that. But if you want everybody to be like you, that's part of the problem. Let's begin to embrace the beauty of diversity. Let's begin to love individuals for who they are. Let's not make people feel as if they have to pretend to be somebody in order for you to love them.

And the reality is many of us who grew up like that. I know I did that for years pretended to be somebody that I wasn't because I thought that's what that's the only thing that's gonna cause people to love me and want want me around and I rejected myself for people that were rejecting me too. But the reality was they were only rejecting me because I refused to be me Now. That doesn't mean that when I came out and became myself and gave people the opportunity to learn who I was, that everybody embraced me now baby, everybody's not gonna embrace you. And that's one of the things you've got to get to a life to understand that is their loss. The people that don't want to be a part of my life, that's your loss, baby, not mine. That's real talk. I am I am a gift to those who lives. I'm in. You don't believe me ask them. I haven't now don't do everything right. You know, I'm not perfect, but I'm a gift. If I'm in your life and you have access to me, that is a gift.

And I realized that and when you realize the gift that you are man, you won't even care about who rejects you. You'll focus more on those who are embracing you as you embrace who you are. So, as I always say, create a great day, what would purpose and by all means execute your vision piece? Yeah. Yeah. Many people define stagnation as not producing or being at a standstill. I get it. However, I would like to add a little weight to the definition and say that I may be producing. I may be moving. However, my production and my movements are disrespectful to the purpose that's inside of me, to the greatness that's inside of me, that that's going on. That stagnation as well. And that's okay. Guess why? Because I have developed a tool. I wrote a book called from stagnation of transformation.

And that book was written specifically for individuals that feel stuck, that feel lost, that feel like they're just wandering in the wilderness. They feel like they just need something, it's just missing. It's okay. I want you to hit over to www dot clinton petty john dot com forward slash transformation there. You're gonna find a complimentary portion of the book. That's right. A complimentary portion of the book. I want you to read that portion after that. It's gonna ignite such a fire inside of you that you're gonna want to purchase the, your personal copy of from stagnation of transformation. So I want you to do that as well. Why? Because I believe that it will give you a 21 day jump start to fulfilling or re identifying purpose and whatever core area you find yourself stagnant in. So again, visit www dot clinton Pettijohn dot com forward slash transformation