This week, Brad is joined by Keion Henderson, a renowned pastor, leader, and visionary, to explore the importance of mastering the fundamentals in every area of life. Keon shares powerful insights on why consistent practice is essential, not just for athletes or business leaders, but for anyone striving toward excellence.

Their conversation dives into the role of resilience, showing how life’s challenges can shape us much like training shapes an athlete. Listen as they uncover lessons on personal growth, leadership, and the art of listening, all in the pursuit of true greatness.

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Welcome to Student of the Game podcast, where we help you master the fundamentals, fall in love with practice, and win at the game of life. I'm your host, Brad Knoll. Welcome to the classroom, and welcome back to another episode of Student of the Game.

Student of the Game's been around for two and a half years, and I gotta tell you right now, I was nervous to ask this guest to be on the show. But I tell you, I'm so grateful you're here, Keon. If there's nobody listening, I know my kids are gonna get something out of this.

Uncle Keon's gonna deliver a mess.

So, Keon Henderson, founder, pastor of the Lighthouse Church in Houston, Texas, and my former college teammate and roommate, appreciate you being here, brother.

Man, good to be here, man. I'm walking around this place and seeing all that you have done, man.

What's crazy is you were a student of the game while you were still participating. And so, like, what I see you doing right now is no different than what I saw you do. 20, man. What is it now? 23.

Long time. No, long time ago. Long time ago.

First of all, before we get into this, I want to talk a little bit about all you've accomplished, but we have a podcast for small business owners. You know, I believe that most people don't have a coach. Most people don't know that they need a coach. And you.

You and I have been coached all of our lives. You've done some pretty amazing things before you got to college. Preached your first sermon at 14 years old. Is that right? Thirteen. Fourteen.

Yeah.

Good.

I just celebrated 30 years a month ago.

Congratulations.

Yes, sir.

Tell us about. Tell us about what you're doing right now. We're going to get to your story.

We're going to talk about, you know, mastering the fundamentals just like we do with everybody. We're going to talk about falling in love with practice and what is winning at the game of life look like right now? But you're. You're.

You are a dynamic leader. You are influential in many circles, not just in America, but around the globe.

Tell our listeners what you're passionate about right now and what are you doing?

Oh, man, so many things. You know, in my line of work, you become passionate about the needs of the people that surround you. So, you know, if it's.

If I look up and I see I'm inundated with, you know, people who need help in the political sphere, then I skew that way. If it's, you know, fatherless sons, you know, then I Skew that way if it's religious upheaval.

So I'm kind of this chameleon that gets its colors from its surroundings.

Me personally, quite frankly, I'm passionate on a personal level about the game of golf, and not for the clubs and the sticks, but what I'm learning about myself in the process. I'm being taught life through the game. Your father taught me something. He said, through basketball, you can learn a lot about life.

And, you know, I've stayed with that mantra my entire time. I'm passionate about being my daughter's father. She's 13, and she fell in love with volleyball overnight. Didn't make the team last year.

I sent her to camp. She worked hard all summer, made the team this year, and is now a contributor. So she went from not making it to contributing.

So just a lot of things, and, you know, I'm sure it'll change from time to time, season to season.

Well, I'm sure she was a student of the game and she had a great role model in you trying to coach her up. But as we coach small businesses here, I want to get into a little bit. Now, I know you're humble. Humble, Texas.

There's probably some similar humble to being humble. Do me a favor. So for.

For my listeners, if they have not heard of Keon Henderson and you do a Google search, just tell them a little bit about some of the content you have out there on the Internet that they can go check out, and that I think that'll share a little bit of. Of your background of what you're into right now professionally.

Yeah, so I'm a pastor of a. Of a church in Houston, Texas. Been pastoring since 21. This is the second church that I've been a senior pastor of.

So you can go to Keon Henderson TV on YouTube, on Instagram, asterkeon. And so what I try to do is sit on the precipice of faith and culture.

And, you know, like, you love hip hop, but you also love God and you love business.

And it is my goal to let people know that you can be theologically sound and still be culturally relevant, that you don't have to exclude any part of yourself, because I think that you have to use everything that you have to be effective. So, you know, been pastoring for a while, preaching for a while, leading for a while. I'm an entrepreneur through many different myriads.

You know, authored three books, real estate. I'm really, really loving the stock market right now because everybody's running out, and I'm Running head first hand. I think you.

When everybody's running out of the burning house, if you're gonna win, you got to go in. So doing that, learning a lot about, you know, in small business, learning a lot about federal investments and the taxations associated with that.

So none of this stuff is native to how I was raised. I had to learn it like you being a student of the game and learning it through relationships along the way.

And the one thing that everybody that I know says about me, whether it's Clyde Drexler, who I just played golf with last week, or Bishop T.D. jakes, who I've got an opportunity to be close to, or many Deion Sanders, you know, what everybody will say to me is, he'll listen.

And I found out that my superpower in scaling is listening.

How do you teach yourself that? How'd you learn that?

Well, you know, I think a student. I think a student is a person who sits in life as a classroom and then creates a curriculum out of every circumstance. So I can't.

I can't quantify how I taught myself that. I just came to the realization that I had to convert life into learning because I didn't have a lot of teachers.

And so I think that a real student is somebody who builds. And I want to say it the way I have it in my heart.

Like, I think it's a person who is a builder through wisdom and treats every circumstance as a lesson from a textbook. Right. And every loss is a lecture, like every. Everything that I've done wrong was also speaking to me to help me to get to a better place.

Because I think that in order to get a yes out of life, you have to accept the nose. I heard one person say that for every one yes that you'll get, that'll change your life, you have to survive nine nos.

That right there was me turning life into a classroom. So I've just learned along the way from people who had already been places I was trying to get, so we could.

We could spend a couple hours, you and I, just talking and rapping about the good old days and whatnot. But tell listeners a little bit about where you're from, your upbringing, and. And how basketball got you to Fort Wayne, man.

So I'm from Gary, Indiana, born and raised. I had never really. I'd only been out of Gary twice by the time I met you.

Once for my grandmother's funeral and another for a family vacation that we took to Niagara Falls. Other than that, I don't remember being outside of the state Much. My.

My basketball coach, Bobby Miles, is trying to find a place for me to go to college because I wasn't heavily recruited out of high school, had no exposure back then. You had to send tapes places. Nobody was sending my tape anywhere. And I was just known as this freak athlete.

But, you know, I talked to Steve Alfred once at South. I think he was at Southeast Missouri State at the time, another school in Arkansas and ipfw.

And your dad, Coach Noel, told my coach, if you can get him down here, we'll look at him. And he drove me from. From East Chicago here. And when I got here, I met you, d' Angelo Woodall, and a couple other people.

And you remember coaches, Coach P, at that time, just threw a ball in the middle of the court and said, y' all go at it. And the first time we ever met, we had to play one on one.

And by the time we finished that one on one session, all three of us were committed to ipfw and the rest is history. Man, I, you know, I look back on was basketball that brought me here.

But I think you and I both know all these years later, it was way bigger than that. Like, you know, that's just what the plan appeared to be. But it was bigger than basketball.

Yeah, it was. It was unbelievable. I remember, I think it was our first week in school, and, you know, we're playing ones like you talked about.

I knew back then you were a visionary. Like, I saw it in you. I knew it. You remember our first weekend in town? We were all like, I don't know, what are we gonna do? Let's go to Putt Putt.

Let's do some go karts. Let's do something. I mean, we're 18 years old. You, you know, broke, don't know nobody, have nothing to our name. And we go putt, putt and go karten.

And there was this. There was this older man there. He's probably our age now, you know, but he felt old at the time.

And he was selling this Amway stuff, like, hey, come over to the house, watch this videotape. I'm gonna buy you guys some pizza. And we were just thinking, let's. I hope this guy comes to buy some season tickets and watches us play. And.

And we went over. I tell my kids that story to this day. I took my son to puppet last weekend and I told him that same story.

But, you know, you were a visionary early on, and you know, what you've done, you know, with your career. Right now I want to segue A little bit into, you know, mastering the fundamentals.

I've got some questions just in terms of, you know, the business of church, the business of ministry, you know, the business of changing hearts and changing lives. Because, you know, if you look at this from the outside, you know, it's a pretty traditional path, right?

I mean, if you're going to be a pastor, you're going to. You're going to preach sermons, but you've taken, I wouldn't say, an unconventional approach.

I would say that you've thought outside the box, and you're really, you know, ministering to a bunch of people in a bunch of different circles. So talk about mastering the fundamentals. What's. What's fundamental about running a church, Man.

What. What a great question. You know, you have to make sure that you really believe what you believe. That's the fundamental.

Because there are going to be so many different, pervasive, different belief systems that'll come in.

If you're not solid on the structure and the strategy of your belief system, then it'll wane and it'll get changed by the different winds that you'll encounter. I believe that skills without foundation typically causes things to fall apart. So, you know, I've.

I've fallen in love with the practice of perfecting the fundamentals of what I do. Not so much the outcome. The outcome is going to take care of itself. I fall in love with the practice. Repetition builds tolerance, right?

And then once the tolerance comes, then it gives you the sustaining power. So people come into church and they typically are not coming there because everything is okay.

They're coming there because they're at the end of some rope and they feel like they have lost. And it is my job, through what I believe, to get them to believe that they can win again and that failure isn't the end.

It's like the opportunity to begin again with increased intelligence. So my entire approach to organized religion is you can continue in spite of the fatigue that you feel like you can keep going.

I know you don't feel like you can, but there's always more. We learned that in basketball, right? Like you. You do one suicide or you do, you know, one pain party.

And we thought after a mile we were done, and then we went again. So it's my job to give people that endurance.

And I think that when life just continuously throws things at you and they just stack up one after the other after other after the other after the other, you have to get to the place where you realize that God himself is not measuring you on the wins and the losses, but just how you show up. The race is not given to the swift nor the strong, but the one that endures to the end.

So I'd say to anybody listening, you know, half of this thing is just not giving up, that you just gotta master showing up to practice. You'll be surprised how well you'll do at the game if you fall in love with the preparation.

That is so good. My guy Colin Henderson, says the body has limits, but the mind is limitless.

And I think what you're talking about here is we had some brunch today and we were chatting. I kind of feel like we're in a very similar business. Like, we're in the lifestyle business. We meet people when they're getting married.

We meet people when they're going through a divorce. We meet people when they're moving out of town and relocating. We're meeting people where they are.

Like the, the lifestyle transition people people are going through is when we start to talk about the housing change that they need to make. So part.

What I'm hearing is part of the fundamentals of what you do every day is understanding that you meet people that are going through some type of lifestyle change or they're going through something and they're reaching out for help.

Yeah. And, and helping them to realize that every delay is actually a lesson in time management.

Like, it's, it's, it's an opportunity to increase your, your time management skills.

It's like being a steward over resources or strengthening your patience, like realizing that there's another way to look at it, you know, and sometimes you got to slow down to be set up. I give this example of like a bow and arrow. Like the bow is only effective by the pullback. The further you pull it back, the further it goes.

It's like a golf swing. Right. You're excellent golfer.

Well, I know when I watch you that if you hit the ball right down the middle like you typically do, it's because you finished the backswing. And if you go too quick, it's going to go right. Or if, if you. So everything is about patience. Everything is about waiting until things are set.

Timing, timing and. And don't waste any season. Like you have to use it to build systems, study your market, sharpen your skills.

All of that is baked inside of the lesson. If you are willing to take the class.

You said seasons. I got to go back to a story real quick. So I don't know if the listeners know that I've won a couple Dunk contests during the season we were in.

Keon's laughing right now. If you can't see him, if you're not watching this on YouTube, but.

So I've won a couple dunk contests and the ones that I've won are the ones that Keon asked me to throw the ball off the backboard. Watch my head a little bit. And he was going to jump over me and dunk the ball with two hands.

So if you can just picture, I mean, I'm probably like what, 5:12, I'm pretty big guy. And Keon jumps over me multiple times to win dunk contests. So that's, that's my claim to fame when it comes to dunk contests.

But I had to, I had to throw that in there.

The only way I could jump over your head right now, you would have to lay on the ground flat. Then I could do it.

You know, I'm talking to my kids right now and if you, and if you get something out of this, I hope I, I hope you, the listener, gets something out of this. I'm talking to my kids right now. Be involved and build a community. Not for the results or the outcomes, but for the relationships.

Keon and I go back, we were 18 years old when we met. You know, I got an 18 year old daughter who's in her freshman year right now of college.

And it's like, that's the year I met Keon and D and some of my lifelong friends that we continue to stay in contact with, not on a regular basis, but we pick up exactly where we left off. Whether it's been six months, a year, it doesn't matter.

And so you out there, if you're feeling lonely, if you're running a business and you feel like you're doing it all by yourself, if you're rowing and you don't see anybody coming in for help, just know if you want some love, you gotta go give it away. If you want a friend, you gotta go be one. If you want a successful business, you gotta take action. You gotta take action.

That was one of the themes of our last podcast. Speaking of taking action, Keon, put a plug in here. You got a podcast?

Yeah, I got one. Call Take Action. You know, I, I teach that your, your network is your net worth right this.

You're no more valuable than the people that you have in your space. And all relationships survive not off of in kind gifts, but reciprocity. Like whatever I give, I get.

And it doesn't have to be the same thing that I give Our relationship has survived all of these years off of receiving and take you know I, I remember the day you changed my life and you didn't even know it.

You graduated a year before me because of my injury my ACL and I reassured it so we came in at the same time we were supposed to go out at the same time but I was a year behind and you left to go sell real estate and you bought a Lincoln LS it was this gray, gray colored Lincoln and we were in the bus getting ready to go on a road trip and for whatever reason I remember it was a cold winter day because you had a black trench coat on, you had some gloves and you showed up I lookin.

Like a back rack ad looking.

I look out of the window of the bus, I can still see you.

I look out of the window before we go on the road trip and I'm looking at you, the guy who came in at the same time as me outside of the bus in a car that my mother could never buy wearing clothes that, that I never could afford, selling real estate, selling houses that I could never live in. And it was the day that inspiration woke up in me and said you can do it too. I didn't know how successful you were.

I just know what it appeared to be and I think folks need to know that the, the Brad that they know and are listening to right now, that guy was there at 21, 22 years old he was doing the same thing. So that was an aha moment for me.

So it was etched in my mind and I still remember to this day and it kind of catapulted me into believing that more was possible.

Appreciate that. One of the things that we talk to our kids and even our team about is I believe we have responsibility. Right.

I mean you could talk about your faith this way, you could talk about your role in your family but I believe we have a responsibility to set high goals and go after them with every ounce of giftedness that we have in our bodies and the reason is not because you're going to hit those goals but it's the ripple effect that we create for everyone around us.

And I didn't know how to communicate that at 21, 22 years old when I'm showing up in the Lincoln I just knew that I had a job and had more money I ever had in my life because I was broke in college and made a couple sales and went out and got a nice car.

Yeah, it's what I call stewardship before scale like if you're Faithful over a few things. That's the litmus test for being rule over. Much like if you can't manage pennies, you can't manage a thousand dollars wisely.

If you can't manage a thousand dollars wisely, then you won't be ready for $100,000. So when you respect the resources that you have, stewardship itself attracts sustainability. And that's what I learned looking at you.

Man, I just told someone about that car the other day. Every time I stopped at a stop sign or a stoplight, the car was shut off. So I had to do these rolling stops.

So, like, I see the light change colors and I had to start slowing down because I knew if I stopped, I'm toast.

Wow.

I'm toast.

Wow.

We, we all have those, we all have those stories and, and I appreciate you in my life to help me recollect those. And, and like I said, if anybody's listening to this podcast, I'm grateful for you, but I'm recording this for my kids, man.

This is Uncle Keon and he's sharing some wisdom and some nuggets and, and you do, you do have a responsibility to go out, set big goals. You do have a responsibility to take action. You do have a responsibility to make sure that the people around you see you living out your purpose.

Yeah, Keon, you have a gift, man. Let's talk about it for a second. So do you ever get nervous speaking?

Yeah, every time I think that's, that's the way that I know that I'm.

Talking like stage fright. I'm not talking butterflies because everybody, everybody should get the butterflies. But I'm talking like nerves. No, that's a gift.

No, I get the butterflies every time, though. It's, it's the, the measurement that lets me know that I'm not going up in my own power. But stage fright? No.

Talk to the people, the small business owners here that need to go do a presentation or a proposal or I'm getting ready to put something together. And I don't do many proposals or presentations throughout the year.

Give them some behind the scenes tools on how to cope with that, how to manage that.

Yeah. So the first thing I think you have to do is you have to do what I call study yourself full. Most people are nervous because they're not prepared.

If you're prepared, that takes care of half of the fear. So you study yourself for every thing that you can discover about the topic that you're getting ready to talk about.

I want you to study yourself full. I want you to have so much information that you are quite aware that you won't be able to share it all. So you. You fill yourself up with information.

You study yourself full. And Bishop Jakes taught me this because I asked him a question, and this was the answer he gave me. He said, you study yourself full.

And then he said, then you think yourself clear. What is it about. What I have put together is meant for the people I'm going to talk to?

Because everything that I get in information isn't necessarily good for presentation. What part of this is for my system, and what part of this is for my audience? Because some of it is for you.

And you should never speak about things that you were meant to be taught by, not initially. So you study yourself for you think yourself clear.

And if you are, you know, a believer, I think you should pray, because praying humbles you and puts you in a position where you recognize that there is a power higher than you. So you pray. And then after you've done all of that, you just got to let yourself go.

And the best way I can say let yourself go is like, imagine you remember back in the day, the old bathtubs that had the rubber thing with the chain that you pull, and you just pull that thing out, and all of the water just starts to. And you just once, once you filled yourself with the right stuff, you let yourself go. I'll tell you, just like golf. I was reading.

I've been doing a lot of reading about golf. I realize that it's a game you could read about and learn, unlike others. You know, you can't read about basketball and learn too much about it.

But there's so much information with golf. The people who are the best at it are not the best athletes. They have the most information.

And so I've been trying to get the information, and I heard one golfer say, you know, there is the think box, and then there's the performance box. And the think box is behind the ball. The performance box is at address.

And the reason why most people are not good at golf is because they blur the boxes. They're in the performance box, doing thinking. The best golfers in the world, they pick the target.

And once they have picked the target, once they get over the ball, they're not concerned with what's 300 yards away. All of their business is 70 inches away from their nose.

And so I think that as small business owners, you've got to pick your target You've got to decide where you're going. But once you're in the think box, once you're exited the think box and get in the performance box, you just got to let yourself go, pull the plug.

If you filled yourself up properly, you got all the right information in you, then the right stuff is going to come out. And so trust what you put in you.

And once it's time to get up there and speak, you pull that plug and you say everything that you put in you, you'll have a. You'll have a successful moment.

That's amazing. I've heard that said in different ways before, but I've never heard it so eloquent as, as what you put in.

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If you know someone moving out of your area, there's a great chance we can connect them to somebody we know like and trust. Remember, relationships win. Now back to the show. I think a lot of times, you know, a lot of small businesses are in sales, right?

I mean, you're in sales, you're communicating to people why they should come to your church, why they should listen, you know, to your sermons online. And we're all in sales.

And I think one of the things we have in our culture today is nobody loves being sold to, nobody likes it, nobody likes being sold to. And a couple things, if I'm being a student of the game of this conversation, you, you said something that I think every listener can benefit from.

You're a master at listening, so you listen. But before the listening even takes place, you're filling yourself up with information and then you're being very clear on what it is.

The end user, your customer, your client, your, your prospect needs to hear. You know, it's. It's arrogance for me to share everything that I know.

It's humility in order for me to listen to what it is you need and to be and to deliver a solution.

And the smartest person in any room is not the person who has the Most answers, it's the person who has the most questions. And so being a listener has to be precipitated by filling yourself up with proper information. Because it also tells you what not to listen to.

Because not everybody who's telling you something is telling you something for you. So if you are empty and you haven't filled the tub, then you're going to listen to something that won't serve.

You well because you haven't filled the tub.

Because you haven't filled the tub. So you gotta. You gotta study yourself full. You gotta know all you can about the topic. That's what teaches you what the truth is.

So what you're saying, not to interrupt here, but what you're saying is somebody's going to fill the tub up. It's either you or some other voice. It's either you or some other vice.

That's correct. That'll preach just Absolutely, absolutely. If you don't. If. If you. You're going to be filled some kind of way. Right?

It's like the other day I went home and, you know, they would drive me up to the house and. And the recycling people had come and dumped the recycling band out. And when they put it back down, the top was open and it was raining.

I mean, raining hard. And I looked into the recycling bin full of water. I mean, full of water. And it let me know how much rain had come down.

I mean, you know, it's Houston. So when you're open, you're going to be filled by the thing above you. The recycling bin didn't get a chance to say, nope, not interested.

I'm only for cardboard. Nope, nope, I'm only for plastic. No, whatever you're open to is going to fill you.

And it is knowing what's supposed to be in you, that is an alarm system to say, that's not for me. But if you're. If you're not filled with the right stuff, you'll never know what you were created for.

I just forgot I was hosting a podcast for a second. I thought I was just listening to you here. That's unbelievable. I'm taking notes. Tell me a little bit more about practice.

So because you're an entrepreneur, you're writing books, you got some. You're not just writing books, you're writing best sellers. You've got some albums out there. What's your favorite song you've recorded?

The. My favorite song that I ever recorded was. Both of them are covers.

I did Holy by Florida Georgia Line, and I did A Change Is Going to Come by Sam Cooke. So since those were two of my favorite songs, I covered.

Now, I got to tell you that I've had some people reach out to me today, knowing that you. You're coming on the pod. Not a lot, because not many people know. This is a surprise for me that you're in town. So thanks for being here.

But a couple people say, hey, spill the tea. What was Keon like, you know, growing up? I. I don't have any tea to spill. What you see is what you get. He's a visionary. He's a leader. But I got one.

I got one thing I will share. We had for some. For some male student athletes, college, we had the cleanest apartment. And that's when I learned who Sam Cooke was.

That's who I learned who Al Green was.

Because Keon, on Saturdays, like, his mama, would play this music and clean the entire house by himself because he couldn't stand anybody else's mess. And a change was going to come at Trumper way, that's for sure.

5, 003 Trump.

Those are really good, too, by the way. So get on Apple or Spotify, wherever you listen, and check out a change gonna come by.

That's hilarious. That's hilarious.

Man, you're crazy. So. So talk. Talk to me about falling in love with practice again, because we talked about mastering the fundamentals of what you do.

Talk about falling in love with practice. What are you loving about what you're doing right now? I mean, your hands are in so many things. You're speaking all over the world.

You're touring, you're preaching, you know, you're writing. You're into. You're into business. I've been to a couple of conferences that you've been to where you. Where you teach on business.

Talk to me about, what are you falling in love with right now?

You know, man, it's still. It's still not the business. It's still the people. I think people are the business. I was coming to see you today, and I walked out of the front door.

I was waiting on the valet guy to drive the car up. I was on the phone with my wife, and she was telling me about what meeting she was on at the same time. So I had it on speakerphone.

And a lady comes across the street, and she says, are you Pastor Keon? I said, yes, ma'. Am. I told my wife. I said, hold on, baby. So she walks across the street, and she says, all of the people.

Well, she's working in a restaurant, and because they're not Paying you. I won't say which restaurant it is, but she says, you know, come over here and eat. She says, I live in a shelter.

And she says, all of the women in the shelter watch you every Sunday. Almost it. I mean it.

Let me ask you this. You're in mid thought, so I want you to keep it. But did she know you used to live in Fort Wayne?

I doubt it. I doubt it. She had no clue. She was probably. She's probably too young to even remember that. I did.

Right. And so people. So the people you are. You are impacting and improving their lives every single day.

Yeah, that's. That's it. Nothing more. Nonetheless. Wow.

I don't want this to go too long because we've got a lot to do tonight to get ready for some golf tomorrow. But as. As we talk about in business, I want to share one thought with you, and I want to see how this applies to faith.

My last question you can get ready for is, is what does winning at the game of life look like for Keon Henderson and for your family? But we came up with this framework in sales. Okay. How does this apply to faith? So we have this. And I'm going to pull this up for the.

For the people watching, they can see this baseball diamond. So we got this analogy, and we call this the relationships win framework, because in the game of life, we believe relationships win.

So in faith, how does this relate to sales? So what we created is we believe that first base is about connecting. It's about genuine connecting with other people.

Once you connect with somebody, that should lead to a conversation. All right? And this is all about how to grow a business and sell something. You connect with people, and that leads you to a conversation.

Once you have a conversation and you listen like, like you put so eloquently, once you listen to somebody's needs and you become somebody that continues to serve other people. You may pick up on something that they need that you have or a person that you know, and then you give them an introduction.

And when that introduction is made, you are adding value to that relationship. So you connect, you have a conversation, and then you create introductions.

Every once in a while, somebody, after a conversation is going to introduce me to somebody who's going through a lifestyle change that needs to make a housing change. And I'm going to benefit that by then going to home plate and making a sale only through advising somebody.

So is there a space, and we didn't talk about this ahead of time, but is there a space in what you do getting People who come to you who maybe are hurt or lost, connecting with them, having conversation, giving them introductions, and then the sales would be what?

You know, I think our strategy is the same. You said we're in the same business. Because when people come to our church, obviously they come because of a lifestyle change, right? Some.

And then people say, hey, I've got this pastor I want you to listen to. You know, he helped me. But what I've learned in 30 years is that if the person comes to the church for me, they'll eventually leave because of me.

Because I don't have 30 years worth of stuff to say to keep you, right? I got one message. Jesus, right? So I gotta say that thing over and over again.

So, like you, my goal is to make sure that anybody who's brought to me that I then turn around and guide them towards seven relationships that are outside of me. Because people will stay where they have relationships.

So the Bible says that Jesus could no longer perform miracles because he was no longer perceived to be the son of God. He didn't lose any power. But your power to affect somebody's life is lost by the perception they have for you.

And so my goal is to make sure that my good isn't evil. Spoken of, that they can always have a great perception of me. And then two, to make sure that they have relationships outside of me.

Every small business owner, if you hear what I just said, that's the same way you keep your business efficacious, making sure that you guide people towards experiences and people outside of you and make sure that the perception that they have of you stays intact.

The book that I've read that changed my life and taught me how to do this, I would say, you know, quasi prolifically would be Stephen Covey's book called the Speed of Trust. And he said in that book that when trust is high, cost is low. But when trust is low, cost is high. Here's the example he gives.

He says, do you remember the lady who got the cup of coffee from McDonald's? It was big news. She spills it on her lap. It burns her.

So McDonald's has to spend millions of dollars in R D to build another cup that has a lid on it. Because McDonald's coffee used to come without a lid. 89 cents. Now they've got to raise the price of coffee. Met Cafe is born.

Now you're paying $8 for something that's $0.10 in value. The cup is more expensive. All because people no longer trusted the process of getting a hot cup of Coffee through a window.

So trust went low, cost went high. Now we gotta do R D. We've got to do commercials we've got to do, let everybody know it's safe to come back again.

It goes from, you know, Ronald McDonald to Met Cafe. See, all of this is a result of low trust. And so in your business, it is too expensive for people not to be able to predict you.

So you have to make sure that you keep the trust high so that the cost of business remains low.

Ken, that's phenomenal. I said we'd come back to this question, but what does winning at the game of life look like for you? Like, how do you. How do you know you're winning?

I know I'm winning because I met a guy at 18 and we're still as close today as we were then. I think that I'm winning, like I told you at breakfast, if I. If my wife says to me, how can I help you today?

You know, I know I'm winning when my daughter, you know, asks me advice on, you know, things that, you know, fathers and daughters may not necessarily talk about. I'm winning if I'm just able to a little bit break into that barrier and.

And still be, you know, a source of information for her at 13 where, you know, she seems to want to have something to do with everything except for me.

So.

True. Yeah. I measure it by the response and reactions of people who I love and the longevity of our relationships.

I do not measure success by anything in a bank account. I do not measure success by anything in a garage. I do not measure success by the address that I have.

I do not measure success by what's on the hangers in the closet because I have been successful without all of that. I measure success by the impact I have on people and the longevity of the relationship after they know who I am. Period.

Point blank mic drop. I mean, we can end it right there. That's. That's phenomenal. Couple things before we go. I want your hot take on a few things.

I want your take on as a pastor, as somebody who pours into other people a hundred percent of your day. How do you fill your own tank? What do you do for personal growth?

I take away. Sometimes I just realize that I'm empty and I leave because I can't feel you if I don't have it. So I recognize that rest is a strategy.

So I've learned in the last three or four years to rest more. Number two, I don't hire smart people and then tell them what to do. I try to hire the right people and get out of the way.

And number three, I inspect what I expect. I am always asking somebody about something that somebody else is supposed to do without asking the person that I asked to do it.

I study, I read, I pray, I work out, because I don't know if you can be mentally healthy if you don't do something towards the physical aspect of it. And I'm not saying everybody needs to be some fitness model, but I think you need to find a way to keep moving. You gotta move. You gotta keep moving.

Yeah. So those are. Those are the things that I think I do try to eat as best I can, try not to take things personal.

I try to be grateful and have empathy because I think that gratitude is a life hack.

I think that empathy keeps you humble, because even if I feel good, I'm always keen on not resting because there's somebody somewhere around me struggling.

So I try to feel what people feel, not in an unhealthy way, but it keeps you balanced, to let you know that you can't get so detached from where the world is because you don't see it in your world, because there is a bigger world that we're all supposed to help make better. So.

And that's. That's a message that people need, and that's a message that if.

If you're not following Keon on some social site, get over to YouTube, get over to Instagram, please follow Keon. It's gonna. It's gonna help your mental. It's gonna give you some. Some motivation for the day.

And I'm just giving you the plug right now because you're right. And wherever. Wherever you see the world right now, it could always be 1% better. You know, that's back to being. That's. That.

Back to being a student athlete. That's back to, you know, our days of the. The body has limits, but the mind is limitless. Like, you can do more. We can do more together.

And I think that's the message, Keon, that you continue to share. So before we go, thank you so much. I'm speaking of gratitude. I am grateful that.

That.

That we can still be as close as we are.

I'm grateful that you take some time to come back to Fort Wayne and, you know, see the mastodons and what Coach Kaufman's doing, check out the community and all the buildings being built around here. Thank you for that.

But speaking of buildings, I've got one question for you, and I want you to comment on this okay, you didn't, you didn't know I was going to do this. But when I was early in my career, you trusted me. You trusted me with some real estate and, and I'm grateful for that.

I won't say the address, but I've got a piece of paper in front of me that has to do with the building that you purchased and started your first church there. And I just want to say thank you for trusting me to help you with that. Give the listeners some insight.

What was the 23 year old Keon Henderson doing buying a building and starting a church? First of all, all your YouTube subscribers, can we please say I was your first subscriber?

You were making CDs back in the day of your sermons, and I said, put me on the subscription list. I still got the box at home. I sent you the pictures of them. Your, your sermons are phenomenal. But tell me a little bit about what did you see?

What, what was your vision of buying a church at the age that you did and the risk that you were taking?

I didn't, Brad. It was no strategy, man. I just, I just didn't know I couldn't and I didn't know I wasn't supposed to.

I was inspired when I looked out of the window and I saw my college roommate driving to Lincoln, which was the best car that I have ever known anybody to have at that time, outside of my own father. Your car was better than your dad's at that time. He was driving the Dodge and traffic. You had a Lincoln.

And I saw that black trench coat and those black leather gloves and I saw my friend become something. And I, I, I'm telling you, that was when I said, I gotta go. I've got to work. So I owe it to you. Yeah. There's nothing, Nothing. I, I had no other.

There was nothing else to point to. I mean, I didn't have any wealthy family members. My mother worked at Taco bell. She made $6 an hour, raised four kids. My father was not in my life.

I had no wealthy aunts or uncles. I had, I had not. I mean, it was the best house I'd ever been in was your father's house.

When you guys invited me over for Thanksgiving and Christmas, that was my first time seeing a brand new home. I didn't know where the car lease was until your father got a new car every two years. I remember said, coach, you get a, you get.

Cause see, where I grew up, that was nil. Before nil, you bought one car and it lasted you until it was the next person's turn to drive it. And coach kept getting a new car every year.

And I'm like, what is. What is that? He said, it's a lease. I said, what's a lease? He says, it's when you purchase a part of a car and you can give it back, but you pay less.

For was technology to me. So that's why I said coming to Fort Wayne was more. It was not about basketball.

It was God's way of showing me a life that I desired, where I had no blueprint. So I owe the no family, your father, your mother, and you a great deal of gratitude, because it was the portal that showed me more.

I think one of the things that we fail to communicate in business a lot is the relational capital that we all earn along the way. And if you're. If you're truly. If you're really trying to.

To serve others, which is our number one core value, is to serve others, then what you do is the only thing you do every single day is build relational capital. Because we want to help other people win in the game of life. We want to help other people win. And I know you're doing that, Keon.

You're doing that at a big level. And I would encourage somebody. You don't have to be at Keon's level to do something. Go. Go do something for your neighbor.

Go do something for your friends. Any final thoughts before. Before we wrap up? Any final thoughts?

No, man. I'm just grateful. I think what you're doing is amazing.

To be more than a realtor, to be really a life coach that uses brick and mortar to express a message. I just think you're amazing, man. So my final words are to the people who you have influence with, don't just buy houses. Buy these dreams.

Because I promise you, you know, if you're faithful over a few things, you'll be ruled over much. And the biggest adjustment that has to take place in all of our lives is not our address. It's our mind.

And this is the biggest real estate purchase that anybody could ever make.

Appreciate you sharing that. It's an honor to create the ripple effects that you've benefited from. So I love seeing you win.

The kids these days say, give that man his flowers or give her her flowers, which just means, like, accolades and appreciation. So, Keon, when it comes to your life looking back, who are some people you want to send some virtual flowers to? Who.

Who are some of the most influential people in your life?

Gotta send it to my mama.

You know, My mother, Gwen Scott, the one that had me cleaning up after all of y', all, because she told me, no, she said, if you don't like it, then do something about it. If it bothers you that much, instead of complaining to people it doesn't bother, do something about it. I'll send the flowers to my mother.

I send these flowers to Bishop T.D.

jakes, who saw me as a young preacher and saw something in me and just poured and showed me and, you know, infused a work ethic in me that I didn't have ministerially. I'd send flowers to my younger sister. My younger sister, who I always thought was the smartest among all of us, and she is my encourager.

Like, I mean, consistently. My younger sister, who I should be encouraging. My younger sister is so good at it, and she knows when, where, and how to do it.

So I would send them to her. Obviously. My wife, who is one of the strongest women I've ever met. She's powerful. She is thoughtful. Just an amazing, amazing human man.

If I start sending flowers to people, you're going to have to just shut the shop down because you brought the whole flower truck. Yeah, yeah. We can start a flower business.

Absolutely. Well, again, I appreciate you. We'll wrap up now.

And I just got to ask the listeners, if this has blessed you, will you take a screenshot of this and share this on social media? Tag both Pastor Keon and myself and just let somebody know that this. This episode meant something to you. So that's what you could do for us.

We love helping other people win. Thank you for helping us win by subscribing to the show and by listening. It's my motivation every single time we get on here behind the mic.

So, Keon, thank you for being in town. Let's go play some golf.

Love you, man. See you in about three seconds.

Love you. And there's nothing you can do about it.

All right, my guy.

Thanks for listening to Student of the Game podcast. Whatever game you are playing, I'm cheering for you. See you in the next class.