Speaker 1: It peaks of the planet charlamagnea god here And as
Speaker 1: we come close to closing out this year, I just
Speaker 1: want to say thank you for tuning into the Black
Speaker 1: Effect podcast network. There have been so many great moments
Speaker 1: over the past year. Take a listen to some of
Speaker 1: those captivating moments in this special best of episode.
Speaker 2: Y'all listen.
Speaker 3: I am very excited to have on checking in pastor
Speaker 3: Mike Todd.
Speaker 4: I am so excited to be here with you. I
Speaker 4: feel like you're my sister. We got to meet for
Speaker 4: just a little moment in Atlanta and it was like,
Speaker 4: where have you been all my life? And it's just
Speaker 4: really one of those cool, cool moments to connect with
Speaker 4: people who actually care about doing the inner work as
Speaker 4: well as all the things that are happening in public.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I wrote a book about relationship goals about
Speaker 4: me and my wife, who I've been dating since I
Speaker 4: was fourteen years old, is when I met her, and
Speaker 4: literally all the ups and downs, trials, tribulations, crazy moments,
Speaker 4: and our story of redemption and just some things that
Speaker 4: people could be helped in relationship because people kind of
Speaker 4: fail at that a lot in this day and age.
Speaker 4: And I put it out in the middle of a pandemic.
Speaker 4: I'd never written a book before. I barely passed math,
Speaker 4: math and English in high school. So it was like,
Speaker 4: I mean, let me just share something that I think
Speaker 4: is valuable. And I mean it went crazy and people
Speaker 4: bought it all over the world. And to think that's
Speaker 4: the first time I've heard the two million number, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Like the fact that book has gone on. I just
Speaker 4: pray that it's a blessing to people for a long
Speaker 4: long time and help people win in Mayorage, dating and sex.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 3: And he smiled really big too when you got to
Speaker 3: say that, because he got somebody, he gets to go
Speaker 3: home to his woife.
Speaker 2: Glory to the living guard. Listen, listen, listen, Lord help
Speaker 2: me too.
Speaker 3: Oh don't and I have it wasn't It wasn't y'all listening.
Speaker 2: It wasn't none of your business. But yes, okay.
Speaker 3: Any Another fact is that you are the lead pastor
Speaker 3: of Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: I am, okay, I am. And there's so many ways
Speaker 2: I can go.
Speaker 3: Relationship goes the faith testimony of how you guys acquired
Speaker 3: the building and just your whole journey it would take
Speaker 3: hours to talk about it.
Speaker 2: But I also want to tell.
Speaker 3: People, y'all, he is a phenomenal musician, producer.
Speaker 4: I say, a musician, Michelle, you're doing too much to know.
Speaker 3: We're here to talk about damage but not destroyed, from
Speaker 3: trauma to triumph. I get it, and we're gonna get there.
Speaker 3: But y'all, he's more than.
Speaker 2: Pastoring.
Speaker 5: Is call.
Speaker 2: That's the thing.
Speaker 3: And we'll talk about a choice that you might have
Speaker 3: had to make. Okay, let's just let's do that.
Speaker 2: The choice. Just let's do it.
Speaker 3: The choice that you possibly had to make to lay
Speaker 3: down music to go into ministry. Yeah, now music can
Speaker 3: be ministry, but I'm just saying in the form of
Speaker 3: ministry that you now you had to lay down the
Speaker 3: desire to be the artist and producer musician.
Speaker 4: So part of part of my journey is I tell
Speaker 4: people all the time, you are not what you do
Speaker 4: only and a lot of people so many times they
Speaker 4: wrap their entire identity off of whatever became successful. And
Speaker 4: one of the things that.
Speaker 2: I own, they walk in heavy six minutes in Oh.
Speaker 4: I thought we was I thought we came to do
Speaker 4: it like I thought this was that podcast so we
Speaker 4: could go all the way in. And so the truth
Speaker 4: of the matter is a lot of people, whatever successful,
Speaker 4: they think that's where they should rest all of their
Speaker 4: identity and purpose. But the one thing I learned very
Speaker 4: early on is that God never gives people just one seed.
Speaker 4: He gives so many seeds on the inside. It depends
Speaker 4: on what you water. And on the inside of me
Speaker 4: there were so many seeds music and speaking and creative
Speaker 4: and all these things, and I decided that at a
Speaker 4: young age, I was going to water all of them.
Speaker 4: And so when the fruits started coming from all of them,
Speaker 4: I had to make a decision to begin to ask
Speaker 4: God what was my assignment, not my opportunity. And a
Speaker 4: lot of people right now are caught because they have
Speaker 4: so many opportunities and they don't know what an assignment is.
Speaker 4: And that's where I'm here to really tell this generation
Speaker 4: that you only can get an assignment from God, but
Speaker 4: if you good, you can have tons of opportunities. And
Speaker 4: so my journey took me to a place where the
Speaker 4: greatest thing that I do is never what can I do,
Speaker 4: It's what does God want me to do? And that's
Speaker 4: where I think a lot of people are off right now.
Speaker 4: Somebody could offer me a lot of money to do
Speaker 4: something I'm good at, but I knew it wouldn't be
Speaker 4: my assignment and so that thing wouldn't be blessed for me.
Speaker 4: And so I just know that for me, that's what happened.
Speaker 4: In the music and ministry. I would have been successful
Speaker 4: as a music producer. I probably would have produced your
Speaker 4: third album. I probably would have done all of those things.
Speaker 4: It's done, and now there's still an opportunity I would
Speaker 4: have been I would have been there. But at the
Speaker 4: same token, God's timing is perfect. When you obey him,
Speaker 4: he brings everything back around. He wastes nothing. There is
Speaker 4: nothing that he's going to put on the inside of
Speaker 4: you that he's gonna leave on the inside of you.
Speaker 2: It's just about timing.
Speaker 4: And so now is the season where I'm getting to
Speaker 4: walk into a whole bunch of music opportunities. People that
Speaker 4: I love, like Michelle Williams, I'm sitting on the phone
Speaker 4: with So if I had a track, I could text
Speaker 4: it to you right now.
Speaker 2: Do you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 4: Like, following his purpose leads me into the thing that
Speaker 4: I love, and that's a passion.
Speaker 2: Wow. I don't have no title or anything in church.
Speaker 2: But I'm hearing siki.
Speaker 3: First the Kingdom, Oh yeah of God in Matthew six
Speaker 3: thirty three.
Speaker 4: Yes, and then everything else gets at it. And a
Speaker 4: lot of people are seeking the things. They're going after
Speaker 4: the things instead of him, and they go after the
Speaker 4: things what I say, instead of the king. And the
Speaker 4: King actually knows the playbook, he knows the lay of
Speaker 4: the land, he knows what he wants for you to do.
Speaker 2: And I've just found in my short.
Speaker 4: Little life of a lot of impact comes from places
Speaker 4: I didn't think it was gonna come from, because I
Speaker 4: did it in the timing that God wanted it to happen,
Speaker 4: not in the timing that I wanted it to happen.
Speaker 2: And the more you.
Speaker 4: Like lean into that and get into that lane, you
Speaker 4: don't have to worry nothing I'm doing right now. I
Speaker 4: have to hold up. I just got to show up
Speaker 4: like I'm not trying to hold things together. I'm not
Speaker 4: trying to finesse and do all of these things that
Speaker 4: a lot of people have to do. And that's what
Speaker 4: causes stress, that's what causes burnout, and that's what causes trauma.
Speaker 4: And so a lot of people have to really reel
Speaker 4: themselves back in to figure out what's my assignment, not
Speaker 4: just what's my opportunity.
Speaker 3: Executive producer, pop culture expert. Once again, did I say
Speaker 3: executive producer? Executive producer of the Emmy nominated amazing show,
Speaker 3: The Sherry Shepherd Show.
Speaker 2: Please welcome My and John and Murray.
Speaker 6: Sherry Shepherd was a friend of mine and also a client,
Speaker 6: and so like the we met.
Speaker 2: At Doctor Bobby Jones.
Speaker 6: Funny enough, I used to do an artist and treat
Speaker 6: price a year in Las Vegas, and Sherry was a
Speaker 6: big reader of my column. She came up to me
Speaker 6: in the hallway one day and was like, Hey, I
Speaker 6: know you don't know who I am, but I'm a
Speaker 6: big fan of your work. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 6: you're the little black actress and all the big white sitcoms.
Speaker 2: Of course I know you. And we became friends.
Speaker 3: John and John really, John really will say that like
Speaker 3: that line, go ahead, and she left and we.
Speaker 2: Shary's information and we became friends.
Speaker 6: And so whenever Sherry would do appearances when she was
Speaker 6: co hosting the View, sometimes whenever topics and stuff she
Speaker 6: wanted to work through, she'd bring me on to help
Speaker 6: her figure that out. If she had to go do
Speaker 6: a promo run for a movie project or something, she
Speaker 6: had me come and help her finess her sound bites
Speaker 6: and stuffing. And so what I did not realize then
Speaker 6: was that it really was setting me up for my
Speaker 6: life as a producer was now it was teaching me
Speaker 6: how to get the best out of people. It was
Speaker 6: teaching me how to connect with people so that they
Speaker 6: could be their best. And so when I was a
Speaker 6: prior to this executive producer roun with Sherry, I had
Speaker 6: done a bunch of consulting, producing for some awards shows
Speaker 6: and some specials. I have both produced and directed some
Speaker 6: episodes and TV ones uncensored. But the executive producer role
Speaker 6: is you're the boss. You know, you hire, you fire,
Speaker 6: you have one of the final.
Speaker 2: Says on creative. You're leading the team.
Speaker 6: And so there were people when Sherry said I will
Speaker 6: only go on this journey with John that was looking
Speaker 6: like how did he get the lete for a whole
Speaker 6: of all those people?
Speaker 2: And you know, how is he in this position? And
Speaker 2: the truth of the matter is.
Speaker 6: The late great Bill Getty who helps create the view
Speaker 6: with Barbara Walters. He helps mentor me through this process
Speaker 6: of going on this executive producer journey along with Twitch.
Speaker 6: He was at Ellen, along with Heather Gray who was
Speaker 6: at the talk, and along with my dear friend Kat
Speaker 6: mackenzie who was at GMA three. But Bill says something
Speaker 6: to me, he said, John, Throughout the course of my career,
Speaker 6: I've seen celebrities give their hairdressers executive producer credits.
Speaker 2: Their dog walkers executive producing credits. He said.
Speaker 6: Sometimes crazy celebrities would sometimes want to give people EP
Speaker 6: credits just to put money in their pockets so they
Speaker 6: wouldn't have to pay them.
Speaker 2: This salary directly. He said, But you have a superpower here.
Speaker 2: There's nobody who knows Sherry as good as you do.
Speaker 6: There's nobody who's going to get the performance out of
Speaker 6: her the way that you will because of that relationship.
Speaker 2: And you, guys are.
Speaker 6: Going into a situation where people who need to learn
Speaker 6: her and you're almost like the Sherry whistler. He says,
Speaker 6: that's an invaluable asset. So, he said, despite the fact
Speaker 6: that you know this genre, despite the fact that you're
Speaker 6: great with people, you're going to be a great leader
Speaker 6: and you're really going to help produce this wonderful content.
Speaker 6: If they were just paying you for the relationship alone,
Speaker 6: he said, it's worth every day. And it really shifted
Speaker 6: my perspective walking into this space, and it prepared me
Speaker 6: for a lot of what I was going to encounter
Speaker 6: as we were embarking on the journey of the Sharferry Shop.
Speaker 2: So so good.
Speaker 3: And you have been walking with Sherry Shepherd for a
Speaker 3: number of years in a four way to some of
Speaker 3: the shows. She was say, call host on the View. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: and now you two. She if I'm not mistaken, correct
Speaker 3: me if I'm wrong. I think she made a promise
Speaker 3: like John, when I get my talk show, you're coming
Speaker 3: with me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So you know, Shery and I had a very unique
Speaker 6: relationship because when Cherry was approached to join The View,
Speaker 6: she had aged, she had managers and all that stuff.
Speaker 6: She said she was praying and she asked, he I
Speaker 6: want to talk to somebody who's now on my payroll
Speaker 6: and I really want to get objective advice from them.
Speaker 6: And literally I was in Chicago, I was doing a
Speaker 6: speech at Burrell Communications. I was out shopping, walking down
Speaker 6: Michigan Avenue, phone rings and Sherry, I answer it, and
Speaker 6: she told me about her offer to join The View
Speaker 6: and we talked about it, and that particular year it
Speaker 6: didn't happen because they brought Rosie O'Donnell on the show
Speaker 6: and they didn't want to add a second co host.
Speaker 6: Fast forward about eight months later, Sherry started guest co
Speaker 6: hosting on The View again. The whole Rosie and Elizabeth
Speaker 6: blow up happens, and then all of a sudden, they're
Speaker 6: looking to bring Sherry on the show again as a
Speaker 6: permanent co host. Well her team at the time. The
Speaker 6: negotiations didn't go very well and ABC took their offer
Speaker 6: back from her, and Cherry called me and she cried,
Speaker 6: she's really upset, and I coached her on how I
Speaker 6: thought she could resurrect the deal. I basically told her,
Speaker 6: I need you to call Bill Gaddy. I need you
Speaker 6: to share his heart, your heart with him and tell
Speaker 6: him why the financials, the MAFE math.
Speaker 2: And so she did exactly as I said. Bill Gatty told.
Speaker 6: Her, if you take this deal, the rest of the
Speaker 6: money's going to come, and she said those were the
Speaker 6: exact words I had said to her.
Speaker 2: So it was almost like.
Speaker 6: God was using him to confirm what I said. The
Speaker 6: deal happened, and the rest is history, and Sherry's never
Speaker 6: made another major decision in the entertainment industry again without
Speaker 6: talking to me. So that set the foundation of our relationship.
Speaker 6: When she went into guest hosts for the Wendy Williams
Speaker 6: initially in twenty nineteen, Cherry said, Hey, can you come
Speaker 6: in and help me? In addition into you just helping
Speaker 6: produce me and my approach to the questions, I want
Speaker 6: you to come and help write the show. Helped me
Speaker 6: structure the show, and so I came in. I helped
Speaker 6: write her monologue for the top of the show, you know,
Speaker 6: helped her with the guests and things like that. What
Speaker 6: most people don't know is this particular company had offered
Speaker 6: Sherry a deal in twenty nineteen to embark on a
Speaker 6: talk show journey.
Speaker 2: And things didn't work out.
Speaker 6: The pandemic didn't happen, and so twenty twenty one, Sherry
Speaker 6: happened to be in New York City. She was filling
Speaker 6: in at the View that week for somebody who was
Speaker 6: out all week, and she got a call to comment
Speaker 6: and fill in for Wendy again. This was the season
Speaker 6: which Wendy didn't have everybody was guest hosting that particular season.
Speaker 6: As Sherry called and said, do I really want to
Speaker 6: do this? This is something I should do. And I
Speaker 6: said to her, well, don't look at it like you're
Speaker 6: going back to co host this time. How about go
Speaker 6: in and do a five day pilot show.
Speaker 2: America.
Speaker 6: What the Sherry Shepherd Show would look like. You've been
Speaker 6: taking all these meetings. People are uncertain about the market.
Speaker 6: They want panel shows. Let's show them that you can
Speaker 6: do a single host show and that you can.
Speaker 2: Own this space. And she said, well do it if
Speaker 2: you come and do it with me again. I came
Speaker 2: in five shows.
Speaker 6: I helped her write the shows. You know, it was
Speaker 6: a tough time. We're coming out the pandemic. There are
Speaker 6: all these testing and protocols, and we got to sit
Speaker 6: in the hotel for hours and build out this show
Speaker 6: and we helped her hand picking to the guests and
Speaker 6: the segments that she did. And by the end of
Speaker 6: the first week, the ratings were through the roof. The
Speaker 6: research was great, and everybody was saying this should be
Speaker 6: the Sheriffy Show. And so Sherry came to me and said,
Speaker 6: I know you're talking to one of the news agencies
Speaker 6: about coming on as a contributor. I know you're off
Speaker 6: for another cable show, and I know this big company's
Speaker 6: talking to you about a podcast. What would it take
Speaker 6: for you to walk away from everything that you have
Speaker 6: going on to come on this journey with me? And
Speaker 6: I said what, I got to pray about it first,
Speaker 6: and so I came back to her the next day
Speaker 6: and I said, listen, come on this journey with you
Speaker 6: if I have this title, if I have these responsibilities,
Speaker 6: and if they pay me my money.
Speaker 2: And she said, cool, I won't have a deal unless
Speaker 2: you have a deal.
Speaker 6: And Sherry called our team and said, listen until John's
Speaker 6: dealers don't send me a contract.
Speaker 7: Give it up for producer, singer, singer, writer, binger.
Speaker 5: And the most gospel artist ever in history, Yes, the
Speaker 5: most amazing.
Speaker 2: Y'all know his voice? Producer, What do you want me
Speaker 2: to say? Artist, artist, artist, he.
Speaker 5: Does it all and she is gospel artist. Life was
Speaker 5: life thing and twenty three life was life thing. It
Speaker 5: was a lot that happened. And you know, we you know,
Speaker 5: we're just still taking it one day at a time
Speaker 5: and still trying to figure out, you know, what the
Speaker 5: new normal looks like you know, you know, it's very
Speaker 5: much kind of like how life was after the pandemic.
Speaker 5: You know, you you had to figure out what the
Speaker 5: new normal was for you.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, you know, that's what.
Speaker 5: I'm having to do and and I'm having to do
Speaker 5: it at my own pace and own race. Uh, you know,
Speaker 5: it can feel very daunting, but one day to time,
Speaker 5: one day at a time.
Speaker 3: You say, at your own pace, at your own race.
Speaker 3: But you decided to share.
Speaker 2: It with the world.
Speaker 3: Why did you decide to share that portion with us?
Speaker 5: Well, because I was already in the creative space. I
Speaker 5: was already documenting the making of the album. And so yeah,
Speaker 5: so as a creative, you don't know how not to
Speaker 5: translate what you go through like it's someone like, as
Speaker 5: a creative, I was going through that. Then it's going
Speaker 5: to affect the songwriting. So if I have a camera
Speaker 5: front of me, I'm going to naturally incorporate the moments
Speaker 5: that I'm experiencing in the moment that I'm in. I mean,
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, for you know, in my humble opinion,
Speaker 5: I think for real, deepcore creative people, they don't know
Speaker 5: a separation of art in reality. You know, there are
Speaker 5: is there reality? So you know, uh, you know, you
Speaker 5: just you just naturally continue in the lanes that are
Speaker 5: very organic and very second nature for you. And you
Speaker 5: know that second nature for me.
Speaker 2: Did the album change?
Speaker 3: Like did you were your album starting off in one
Speaker 3: way and then things happened with your father?
Speaker 2: Did it kind of? Did it change the album? New album?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: The name of the album originally was called The Rebirth
Speaker 5: of the Fearless Hero. That was that was the name
Speaker 5: of the album. I was taking different titles from different albums,
Speaker 5: and and uh, yeah, it was it was going to
Speaker 5: be one project that was going in another kind of direction,
Speaker 5: and uh, this ended up being, you know, the background
Speaker 5: music for a very tumultuous, life changing experience that I
Speaker 5: was having in real time.
Speaker 3: I can only imagine that it was scary for you
Speaker 3: to release that information to us, right, But at the
Speaker 3: same time, you became, if you weren't already, a lot
Speaker 3: of people's hero for being able to share, especially a
Speaker 3: man to share and be vulnerable on camera. I always
Speaker 3: say there's a difference between being transparent and vulnerable. When
Speaker 3: you're transparent, you can tell the world anything. Hey I
Speaker 3: stelled my toe, Hey I was late for a meeting today.
Speaker 3: But being vulnerable, you actually told us how it made
Speaker 3: you feel, which being.
Speaker 2: Vulnerable for me feels yucky.
Speaker 3: I hate feeling vulnerable and then having to voice how
Speaker 3: it made me feel. I feel like I'm watching it
Speaker 3: all over again, just talking to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know what other way to be is.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Me talking and me sharing is very much just a
Speaker 5: part of my nature. It's very second nature for me,
Speaker 5: so as I don't know how to have the separate
Speaker 5: space where these things in my life exist over here.
Speaker 5: But then I'm going to do music and share the
Speaker 5: gospel and yeah, and talk about Jesus over here. Now
Speaker 5: they are synonymous in the expression of who I am
Speaker 5: as a broken individual, and so I wouldn't know different
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like every time you come out with a project,
Speaker 3: it's like we're hearing Kirk for the first time. It's
Speaker 3: like you somehow you keep our anticipation, you keep everybody
Speaker 3: so excited, and you're all.
Speaker 2: Well to us.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you ever feel that way, but
Speaker 3: it seems like you're always winning.
Speaker 2: Except for that, of course, by the grace of God
Speaker 2: his hand on your life.
Speaker 3: And every time you come out, you stay relevant.
Speaker 2: Just I just y'all.
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here almost fanning out because this is what
Speaker 3: I've been wanting to say to you. It's like you're
Speaker 3: fresh still, like you're new. How do you keep that energy?
Speaker 3: How do you keep us like literally on the edges
Speaker 3: of our seat, Like, what is Kirk Franklin gonna do
Speaker 3: for us musically?
Speaker 5: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: I have no idea, Kirk, you'd be so humble. But
Speaker 2: I'm also keeping it a buck.
Speaker 5: Nobody, nobody knows what Listen, you have been doing music
Speaker 5: all your life, you know, like I know, don't nobody? Oh,
Speaker 5: think about all the big producers that you as artist,
Speaker 5: You were Destiny's child. You you seeing your other sister
Speaker 5: do and there every records you think, oh this record
Speaker 5: is out of here, and it don't.
Speaker 2: I mean, nobody knows.
Speaker 5: So why would I get on here with you and
Speaker 5: even act like I have some divine intervention spiritual hookup
Speaker 5: number from God that I can just tell you something
Speaker 5: that is going to be so divinely supernaturally different.
Speaker 3: Everybody wants you to bottle up the secret sauce and
Speaker 3: sell it.
Speaker 5: And there is no secret sauce, I don't is that
Speaker 5: nobody knows you know?
Speaker 2: I guess, sir, I can't.
Speaker 5: You know, like even with you know, even with the
Speaker 5: new music, you don't know you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, you don't know, you don't know, you.
Speaker 5: Know you know, But you're mad, grateful, and overwhelmed that
Speaker 5: in spite of you, in spite of your mistakes and failures,
Speaker 5: are sins and struggles that you know there's something in you,
Speaker 5: in spite of you, that God would choose to use
Speaker 5: in some kind of way.
Speaker 2: It's it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Once again, thank you for tuning into the Black Effect
Speaker 1: Podcast Network. See you in twenty twenty five for more
Speaker 1: great moments from your favorite podcast