Steve K.

Welcome everybody to another episode of Wealth Transfer TV. My name is Steve K. I'm the founder and president of Cast Your Nets Ministries. And tonight, friends, tonight, I, I couldn't be more excited. I'm excited about every guest, but this is, I feel like I just met my, my, my younger brother, you know, like someone who I've known forever. Uh, we're going to talk to, uh, Blaise and Christina Foret. Now they run an insurance agency called Wake Up and Win Insurance, and they serve independent agents, uh, who contract with multiple insurance companies and they serve clients nationwide. They also run wake up and win media. And you're probably recognize Blaise from his YouTube channel where he's been covering, and in my opinion, doing a phenomenal job. He's been covering without bias, the IHOP situation with Mike Bickle. Now I had seen them before this and what interested me about Blaise and Christina is the fact that Blaise for lack of a better term was an IHOPer. He was in the prayer room doing the midnight to 6am if I'm not mistaken, praying, I mean, six hours a day, he bought in to the whole vision. And we love IHOP, right? We love, I think. Mike Bickle was a great teacher, although I'm very saddened in the way he's handling this currently, but he was in this and for the common church person, you got this intercessor totally sold out who then goes and starts an insurance agency. And he's been doing that for seven years. Well, I want to bring him on because I want to talk about that transition. And I want to talk about the freedom that you have to run with your vision. Everybody. Welcome Blaise Foret.

Blaise Foret

What's going on guys. Great to meet you guys. And, uh, thanks for having me on bro.

Steve K.

Y'all. I am so excited. I could-, when Dr. J said, Hey, Blaise and Christina are going to be on Christinas not, I'm going to have her for part two. I was like, Oh, this is great. This is great. And I think most people would want to interview you about the Mike Bickle thing to IHOP. I don't, I want to talk about your transition. First of all, I want to talk about your history with IHOP. And then I want to talk about that transition from being this intercessor from 12 to 6 AM to starting in a very successful insurance agency. So give me your history on IHOP and when did you start? How long were you there? What was that about?

Blaise Foret

Yeah, man. So, um, so my background, you know, preacher's kid growing up and, uh, really had my own, uh, encounter with the Lord at age 16 or 17 changed my life. That was like the real deal moment for me. And, uh, you know, it's one of those kind of environments growing up often ought to be in different churches where my, like I'd get prophesied over and things like that and uh, funny thing was it was never really about business It was always about you're going to be a this to the nations... you get all the all the regular stuff, right? And um, and so I I knew that the lord had something for me And so I was immediately in ministry at 18 19 20 and ended up in kansas city at age 25 in 2008 and uh Went full on with their, their staff, did the midnight to six night watch prayer room stuff. Um, bought in hook, line and sinker to a lot of stuff. Now that's a bigger conversation on the IHOP stuff, but I will say that was just part of my journey in ministry. I launched out right after IHOP in 2012, started my own ministry and for the next two, probably two to two and a half years, was traveling nationwide and speaking in small churches, some larger churches, and, uh, and did that full time. And on that process, during that process, I met my wife, Christina, who is my more beautiful half, uh, who she'll be on next time with me. But, uh, we've got three kids and I couldn't get the, couldn't get the childcare in line today, but, but we, um, when we first met, you know, You know, sometimes God brings you a spouse that you would think like, Oh, maybe she's going to be a worship leader or a preacher like me.

Well, she was a full time photographer and she did, she had her own photography business. She would travel to Hawaii to do wedding photography things. And I mean, she was, she was crushing it. And I'm over here like this little preacher, dude. I'm like, that's pretty cool. Um, but, but I, you know, we, what I found and a lot of, a lot of your audience will, will totally resonate with this, especially if they have been pastors or preachers in the past or like a lot of itinerant guys or ministry guys, they have that entrepreneur bug and they just don't quite know what that means. But that is, I mean, when you start your own ministry or you're doing this stuff and all of a sudden you're having to run a business while you're preaching and ministering to others, there is that entrepreneur bug in a lot of us. And I found that that transition was pretty easy. Now, I will say there was a season right there in 2015 slash 2016. I got married in 2014, so I've been traveling for two and a half years. And suddenly things just started to slow down sometimes. And you'll, you'll know what I'm saying here. Uh, but like when you're following the Lord and you're doing what you feel called to do, and the season starts to shift, or some would say the grace lifts or whatever you want to call it. Like, it can be confusing, you know, okay, uh, things are not happening like they were, or I even had some theological just, like, bumps in the road where I was going, I'm not sure what I think about, you know, this message I've been trumpeting, and I was just questioning some of the different ins and outs of some of the pillars of certain messages, and I went, not the gospel as a whole, but just going, I'm not sure where I land right now, and I feel like the Lord's putting me on a pause, and that was really tough to kind of hear because that's all I had known from age 18 to age 32 was just full-time ministry.

So my immediate go-to, Steve, was I went to, I went back to like leading at a coffee shop, like a, like literally pulling shots and being a manager at a small coffee shop. And because in my mind that's all I knew prior to ministry and I had to go through that short season of six months for the Lord to expand my mind and go, Hey buddy, just so you know, you can do way more. I know you think you're just a little Christian guy in church ministry, but you can do way more, and the world needs what I've imparted to you. And so, next thing I know, I just put, like, started putting my resume out, started, and I felt like my resume was full of nothing but church stuff, but somehow I benagled it, got a little sales job. Somebody saw me doing the sales job and said, Hey, come work with us. And I worked with this insurance agency and was able to build out my own company within. And, um, and we've been doing that seven years and it's, it's been those first few years. It just kind of seemed like, well, maybe this will just be like a thing before I get back into ministry.

But eventually the Lord really showed me like, Hey, this is like ministry is where you put your hands and ministry is more important, like, as you build a family and you live out your values in your home and your walk with Jesus and you bring that to the table in your business. And we can circle back to this later because I'll pass it back to you here, but like, I-, even when I was at that coffee shop, I remember the Lord clearly speaking to me, the way you serve this coffee, the way you clean these bathrooms at night, the way you do this is the way you're going to do anything. And so I carried that through even to the insurance business when I was making 8.25 an hour at the coffee shop, couldn't pay my bills to all of a sudden, you know, going over six figures for the first time in my life. And then going, Oh, my gosh. And the Lord showed me like, it's all how you do these different things. Cause it's not, you know, you're faithful with little, you will be faithful with much. So that's the, that's the short recap there.

Steve K.

That that's so true. You know, if you're going to do anything, do it as if you're doing it unto the Lord, right? Anything.

Blaise Foret

Yup.

Steve K.

Uh, there's so much in what you said that I want to unpack. What I want to Go back is to the first thing that caught my attention Is you said when you were younger you grew up as a pastor's kid. Sorry to hear that, i'm just kidding But you you gotten prophesied And I noticed something that, um, is that when they're probably were prophesying very accurate, what, what was lacking and what I see lacking still is a language, uh, to prophesy, like, for example, I'll give you an example. My wife is an example. My wife is a documentary maker. She's investigative journalist. And for years, we'd go to these conferences or be at my event and some speaker would come there and prophesy. She's a prophet to the nation. She's got a voice and she's going to be a prophet and she's going to influence all these people with her prophetic voice. And that's the language they're using. Now, my wife knows, well, yeah, of course I make television. I make movies. I sell them. It goes all over the world, but there's no, it's kind of like we box everybody in that. Uh, this, our ministry prophetic, where it has to be to something with evangelism or healing as opposed to our ministry could be making television.

Blaise Foret

Right.

Steve K.

Starting an insurance company, right? Helping entrepreneurs. And I think the church is getting better, but overall, mostly they don't have the language to equip. Entrepreneurs are normal everyday people. It's still this, you're a prophet to the nations, you're going to be, you know, it's like, and I get the gist, but there's like, it's almost like there's this narrow minded. I can't see that.

Blaise Foret

It sets people up, Steve. And I think you'd agree with this, but it sets, it sets a young generation up for feeling like they failed when they get out of ministry school and they can't land the first big speaking gig the first big pastoral role And I saw this happen through IHOP KC. I saw it happen in different ministry schools I would teach at or see these people it's like you get these big prophetic words And suddenly you leave that school and you think because you got to get a job you failed God It's like no, no, no, no. No like this like there's such a small percentage of people that are called to actual just full time ministry in the way that we've created it and and that's frankly, I mean in heaven's perspective I think I think it is a role in the body of Christ clearly But there is so much more.

I mean I work- so in our agency we've got 50 to 75 agents give or take and i'm- I run weekly calls for our agents And my, my job is to literally facilitate these training calls and take care of these people and, and I'm not sitting there preaching at them the whole time, but what's in me comes out of me and my team knows it. And they're very clear on where we stand as in our faith with our family. We've made it clear, like, Hey, yeah we want to grow a business, but we're not going to leave our family behind, and we don't want you to either. We don't want you losing your marriages, we don't want you losing your kids, just so that you can make the extra buck. And we don't want you losing your faith, and we don't want you thinking that making the extra buck means you're losing your faith, because that's a whole other conversation about money. Right?

Steve K.

Oh, yeah. And that's kind of where we're, well, I'll comment this is, is we've also set up all these young people with this weird idea of what a successful ministry is. And unfortunately, it's tied to, in my opinion, a lot of worldly standards, like how many people, how much money, like. Really? Like, there's nowhere that I see the founder of our movement, Jesus, measuring His success based on how many people or miracles He did. It's always about seeing the Father, listening to the Father, and obedience, and serving, being a foot washer. Let me go now to, you start working, and you start You start questioning your theology, which I love. I love man. Uh, and that's really what this whole Mike Bickle thing that I get out of your videos. I'm like, well, wow, we really got to take a step back and review how we've been doing this. Right. But I found, and tell me what your experience was, Once you get the revelation that, okay, I'm still called, not in that traditional church role, evangelist, preacher, I take it minister, pastor, but into business, the struggle that I had was trying to explain myself to everybody around me. Everybody around me was like, well, you're an evangelist, you're a healer, you're a prophet, well, I'm also a businessman. That's the devil. It's like, how did you, did you struggle explaining yourself and, and what helped you explain this transition?

Blaise Foret

Oh man, those first, honestly, bro, those first three years were, were so tough for me in that exact thing that you're saying because, you know, I was, I was full time pre- and I had had people, you know, I was pretty active on social media from the get go, like 2007 2008 with Facebook came out, and I went to Facebook probably 2008 ish. In 2009, I just started, I was very consistent, and uh, just posting, and just, so my, everywhere I'd go, people would add me as friends. I grew this little tiny, you know, big fish in a small pond type of thing on Facebook at the time. But I had this following, they just knew me as always the full time guy. The pastor, leader, preacher, prophet, prophetic guy. Always doing meetings all this stuff and um, and so when I suddenly went and got into- I mean at 2016 got into business It's like people started asking me like dude, have you abandoned your calling or what? Why are you into this? Why are you into this motivational thing? you know what I mean like people be like are you just like- because all of a sudden i'm like I'm, you know, you start thinking a little bit different about things and you're like, you realize that sometimes, well, you call it like, they call it the self help side and in Christianity, like watch out for that self help, those self help guys. And you're like, I'm not trying to be into self help.

I'm just literally trying to help my business people get better, you know? So it's not like I'm throwing it. So not everything has to be a theological point. And that's what I found in the church world is it was all so intense about like, what do you believe about this? I'm like, dude. I'm just trying to help my people make money and take care of their families. And why have you left this or that? And I think in those early years, I've all, one thing I'll say to that, Steve, I had to feel like I had to justify myself a lot in the early years. Right. So I continue, I would write blogs about it, but like, this is why. And eventually I threw my hands up and I was like, y'all just go do your own life. I'm doing my life. Like, and I realized that less people, you know, there's going to be the haters and the people, but over time, Uh, what is, what does Jesus say, the, you know, fruit of your ministry, the fruit of your life, the fruit of that tree proves the wisdom of that, you know, so, so over time it began to show itself and I think that's where eventually garnered that respect and people started seeing me that way. Not even that I was trying to be that, but people just started seeing like, oh, you can be, and when I, and honestly, the other thing too. Is when I went full business, I think, you know, sometimes my life works in pendulums and I'll be the first to admit it.

But like when I got in business, I just went- So so you'll you'll laugh at this. I was like Gary Vee, Grant Cardone, you know, like everybody that's like the big shot on it on these things like yeah And then you find within those whole things. There's like their own sex in those other things where they like in fight about what business and stuff. But what I came to over about three or four years I came to this place where the Lord it's like He reminded me Hey, you don't have to be those guys either. Same way in the ministry world, we try to be the the next prophet like you don't have to be like these guys you be you with Me, walk with Me, talk with Me. And so I started to share prophetically again online, or I started to share the things that were on my heart scripturally and almost pastorally. And so I found this beautiful marriage, Steve, eventually I had to come into it of ministry that wasn't paid ministry. I didn't have to get people to pay me to do it, which was so freeing. And business taking care of my family taking care of others families, taking care of our clients. And it's just like it's blossomed to this whole thing by year seven where i'm like I feel free to do anything the lord could take me here there the other I feel very very free It's just awesome, man.

Steve K.

Okay, I recognize myself in everything you just said, you know, which is why I think I, I connect with you the way we're connecting. You said something about being yourself. It's Todd Bentley, Patricia King. Those guys had really had massive influence, like, and Bill Johnson. And at one point. I get someone heard a recording of Todd Bentley and they thought it was me speaking and I thought I'm just a copy. Not-, I have nothing against Todd Bentley, right? With all his faults, that guy has influenced, has done so much good. There's a lot of character stuff he's still dealing with, but he had this influence. He was the first guy I saw that was just doing this stuff like Yeah, yeah, and uh, so I could do that if he's doing I could do it. But I found that I was I guess I guess we have to- Paul says imitate me follow me as I follow Christ I guess there has to be a lit- when you're starting You kind of imitate your spiritual father or the influence but being yourself I found that to be incredibly difficult, and it took me a long time to be comfortable in being myself because I was just so insecure about me and what I looked like. I thought I had to be a certain way and have a certain, you know what I mean? How did you overcome that?

Blaise Foret

Dude, that's so, that's so good, man. That's so good. Even just how you said, Even how you bring in that scripture with Paul and, uh, the idea of spiritual fathering and the idea of, you know, imitate me as I imitate Christ. I think there's, there's so much to that. And I also think the church has really, um, and this is something I'm, I'm tackling right now, not necessarily publicly, but internally and theologically. And. And looking at it with eyes wide open and going, I think the church has really taken that messaging of covering and spiritual fathering and, you know, to, to such an extreme that it's put, it actually doesn't empower it, it, it entraps. And, um, and I'm not saying everybody, I'm just saying that's something that I'm noticing that it's so easy to become a copy. Because, like, even, well, I mean, just to get a little controversial here, you see these things coming out about T. B. Joshua right now. I mean, these documents about T. B. Joshua. How many people do you see on YouTube and online that do the T. B. Joshua things? They kick, they do this, and it makes the demon manifest, or this, that, and the other. And they're being copies of, and then all of a sudden the minister gets exposed, and you're like, Holy crap, I don't know if I want to be copying that what kind of mixture am I? You know what i'm saying?

So like I think for so many years I I did the same thing I went to I went to bentley in 2008 got just whacked in lakeland and and uh came back gold dust came We were at a I was at a different ministry at the time probably 500 students at that ministry And like gold dust started breaking out, all the miracles and stuff, but I found myself being copied at times, copying at times, and I think, you know, some of that is natural, but, um, but, but so much of it can be unhealthy when we get our eyes off of Christ. We have our eyes so much on, so, so in one instance you see Paul saying, imitate me as I imitate Christ. In another instance you say you see him saying, you say, I'm a Paul. You say, I'm Apollos. You say I'm this. He's like, I don't care. I don't care who baptized you. Like where is Christ the head of the church. We got all these apostles, prophets, pastors teaches like which one's are real, which ones are, I don't, I'm not in this to try to figure out which ones are all this and that and the other. However, information keeps coming my way about all of them somehow in this season, and it's very sad.

But I will say this, that the body of Christ is stunned right now because the level of our stunnedness when we see a minister fall is, is sometimes revealing to the level of our focus that's not on the head. And, and so the more I can get focused on the head, which is Christ. The less I'll feel the necessity to become like others, even in my business. Even in my mentor relationships in my business to become like or to act like or to imitate. And so character wise and are, you know, practices and things like that. There are practices you want to imitate. There's like character you want to imitate. But sometimes like personalities, we can get out of ourselves and end up. So that's my really, really long answer, but it's great. It's a great topic.

Steve K.

That's a whole topic we could, we could do by ourselves just on that, focusing on that. And one of the things that I love about. What I seen and heard from you is it's God family.

Blaise Foret

Mm hmm.

Steve K.

Then everything else. Yeah, somehow Somehow we've made it with it. I think it's just um, well, it's the abuse of Scripture I think you know saying that that Those who have left, you know, everyone behind for the sake of the ministry But our first priority is our wife and our children if we're gonna disciple anybody Right? In Romans, it talks about elders and deacons need to have their house in order. They have to rule their house. How many ministries have put the goal of ministry being big at the expense of family? And we've missed it, man. We've just missed it. I want to comment on that. So I love that you put family first. That's where we are. We're family, children first. Um, you said something earlier that struck me and I wanted to get, I wanted to get a distinction here. You said now God can send you, do anything he wants. You have this freedom. Here's, here's what I want to know. Is the freedom Is it the freedom that you're talking about? Is it because of the revelation you have? Is it a mentality you have or is it because you're financially more secure or maybe it's a combination of all of it?

Blaise Foret

It's a combination of all of it, man. It's a combination of all of it. Like one thing that's nice. And, and, and, and frankly, I think, um, I mean, this is a great topic here, but I'll say- the Lord has shown me over the years that for me, when I first got in business, I definitely got in this mentality of grip my teeth, get in the fight, you know, 10 X and, and it's my responsibility, which all those things are true. But when I was in ministry, what I found is there would be times when I'd be like, Lord, bring it about. And all of a sudden I get like a. 10, 000 check in the mail, you know what I mean? Or just like something crazy would happen. And I think we're sometimes so in those first few years, it was like a lot of grit and bear. And then, and over the time the Lord just reminded me, He's like, Hey, just, I just want you to remember that the same God who provided for you in this season. 10, 000 is the same God that can provide for you 200, 000 in this season.

And to me, it's no different, the Lord would say. And I definitely had to go through a time where the Lord had to really work that in me because, you know, the fear for a lot of guys that are Christians is like, well, I don't want to get in the spirit of mammon, you know i don't wanna get in the spirit of mammon. And like, and you can, that's possible. But I think in a lot of ways, it's like, I think the spirit of mammon in some senses and don't quote me on this or anything is some ways It's just it's reliance on self versus reliance on the Father. And the Father's given us gifts and we'll be faithful with them, then He'll bring about the result and we walk in our our space and our calling um, but yeah, I think the freedom in a lot of ways has because Something that something I can roll back to you know, when I said I first left the ministry And I, my first job I got out of ministry was working back at a coffee shop. So here I am at 33 or 34 or something and uh, whenever the heck it was. And here's my last job was at 18 at a coffee shop. I kind of reverted and I didn't realize the value I could bring to the marketplace through the skills that God had given me over the years. Just by the experiences.

And so I think I found kind of the same thing even over the years. And even in insurance, what's wild is that I look and I go, wow, Lord, you have given me so many things that I didn't even come here to get. And so many, so many different, uh, values that I've learned and so many different skill sets that I've learned. There's just so much freedom to be able to put my hands in this, that, and help other things and as well as being self employed and financially able to do different things or even ministry without having to beg. So that would be the, you know.

Steve K.

Amen. How about we-. We don't need ministry to pay our bills, our mortgages, our car payments. And I-, that's something that happened to me early on when I started preaching. I remember once a month I would go to this homeless shelter where they, they ministered to prostitutes, gangsters, drug addicts, homeless people. They fed them. They gave them food. They gave them, we gave 'em clothes. I was there once a month and I remember I got invited to this church and. They were going to, it was 5, 000 people. They were going to give me a big offering and probably that, you know, they could probably come back at partners and I had to make a choice. And so I chose to go with the homeless people, but I thought, because that's really my heart. But I thought if I had to pay my mortgage. Or my car payment. I would have taken that 5, 000 seat church because I need the money as opposed to what God was saying, which is I want you to go with the homeless today. And I feel more pastors need a job.

Blaise Foret

Man. What do you, what do you think about, what do you think about that? Do you think, what do you think about, uh, not to turn the question to you, but I mean, this is a great topic. Like, cause I'm thinking about a lot of this these days with, with just, I wonder if the way we've set up- you know, in the west and I guess it's all over the world, but I live in the west so this is what I see, right? I see the path the the 501c3 the structure the business the church and all of a sudden, you know, you got this it's just like large businesses. And um, I just wonder how I'm not gonna sit and say it's unbiblical like it's bad because there's things that are not in the Bible that are still Biblical because you can't say everything that's not there is unbiblical but I'm just going is this the way it was intended and how many more pastors might be more healthy if they had a job or if they were bivocational, you know what I mean?

Steve K.

Oh, my, I think we have it completely upside down. I really do. We've turned the congregation into supporting the pastor or the head minister, as opposed to the pastor and the minister equipping the saints for the work of their ministries upside down. I think we've created this idea of successful ministry. We've used worldly standards, corporate standards. And it just doesn't work. If I look at Jesus's standards for success in ministry, it's the exact opposite. I mean, by worldly standards, Jesus is a failure. He died on a cross, like it's over, you know, like, you know, if we judge by worldly standards, it doesn't work. And I don't know how this creeped in, but it did. I liked a small home group. I'm not against big gatherings, right? I'm not against it. But, I see more value in relationship, gathering with your neighbors, sitting together. Like I have barbecues with my, I live on a farm. I have barbecues, the whole, they come to my house with big barbecues. I got worship music on. We're talking about God. And, um, I see that more church, more relational. We've lost this relationship, right? Jesus was so relational.

Blaise Foret

Yeah.

Steve K.

And we've lost, I don't know, we've kind of lost it. The other thing that, that in my opinion is we've made the pastor, we've forced the pastor to be a teacher, to be an evangelist, to be an apostle, when most of these pastors want, they're, they're just shepherds and they want you to come in their living room and hang out, you know. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of good things, but there's a lot of room for improvement. One of the things, So that answers your question. I want to go back to something you said.

Blaise Foret

Yeah, go for it. Yeah, go for it.

Steve K.

Because, you know, what I learned is hanging out with Todd Bentley. You know, for, no matter whatever you guys think, right? The guy had a big influence in my life. I don't regret it. I feel bad things happened the way it did. But, When you're standing, when you're standing there and you call somebody up who has a blind eye or a deaf ear and you're praying and you're commanding deafness to go or for this person to be healed, it takes the exact same amount of faith for that as it does to start and run a business.

Blaise Foret

Wow.

Steve K.

It takes enormous faith, confidence. And I got-. I learned so much from being an evangelist that I brought into business. One is prayer. Like, how come I'm praying for all these miracles when I'm going to Africa and India, but then I walk into my office and I'm right away just looking at the market, checking, you know, what the graphs are saying.

Blaise Foret

That's so good.

Steve K.

When did I drop this? You know, it's the combination of both. Like you said.

Blaise Foret

Yeah, you know, it's crazy, man. I got a guy in my agency that we were off seeing together for a little while. I mean, everybody's independent. So I had an office in downtown area where I live and, uh, had one of our agents come in for a while and- and it was cool because he's like a, he's a really prophetic dude, really cool guy, and he starts working with us, and he would just come through every now and again and be like, hey, you want to pray? I'd be like, yeah dude, let's pray. So we pray, guy literally gets a prophetic word, I mean, out of the, I'm telling you, and I'm not going to get into the details of it to disclose, but like, Out of nowhere he gets this prophetic word about something that was going to take place in the business two weeks later he didn't give me a timing on it. He didn't even know we didn't know what the heck he was seeing He just says I see this I see this. I don't know what it means.

Well, bro a week and a half later this this and this starts happening and it was actually it was actually some struggles some bumps in the road that that when it all started to go down I was able to look and go wow the Lord tipped me off and my wife and I both were like, This is one of the hardest things we ever went through, but wow, God tipped us off to it, and He actually revealed that He was doing something within our business that was necessary. So, like, I say that to say, you know, it's the same thing like you're saying, we're on stage praying for the sick, healing a blind eye, like, if we would welcome that same spirit of God into our business, into our homes, like, What could He speak to us? And, and it's not even a miracle that we stand on stage and shout to everybody, but it's a, it's a miracle that we look at within our own life and go, wow, you're the same God in each of these places. And He's not worried about a stage or about just the office building. He just wants to be there.

Steve K.

Yes. Relationship.

Blaise Foret

Yeah.

Steve K.

Relationship. That is the key. That is the key. If you could-, you're 41 right now?

Blaise Foret

Yep.

Steve K.

If you can go back to the 18 year old Blaise, what would you tell him?

Blaise Foret

Man.

Steve K.

It's a lot, right? Like, what would you, what do you tell your 18 year old self knowing everything you know now?

Blaise Foret

I would- Man, one thing I would say is, I would say hang in there. You're gonna hit some bumps in the road. Don't get discouraged. Be patient, you know, be patient. And I would encourage myself not to value, I would encourage myself to define the calling differently. I really want to go there.

Steve K.

Go there. Go there. How like-, in what way? How does he only know one way? How do you break that open to them?

Blaise Foret

I'll tell you, and dude, I'm all for hearing for God, personally, individually, and I love the dream journal idea, going in and just saying, Lord, what are you saying to me? Like, I did that as a 17, 18, 19 year old. I wrote down things. We, you know, did some fasting and praying, and Lord, what's my future? And so I'm all for it, but here's what ends up happening sometimes, okay? In just the same way a prophet can can have some mixture of his own soul to prophesy over somebody else, we can do the same thing to ourselves based on our knowledge, right? You said at the beginning before we got on the line you said, you know, sometimes we don't have language, right? So the language of the prophetic calling or the calling to the nations looks like we might be hearing from God this stirring about our impact and influence in the future, and we see it through the lens of what we've seen and we go like, Oh, this guy-. So we hear like stages or impact or influence or prophesied to the nations and I see a guy with a mic getting a stipend at, you know, not a stipend, but a check from the church at the end. And like, And, and I just think I'd say, hey man, listen, there might be some of that in the near future, but it's not all it's cracked up to be. I'm not saying it's bad, because some people are called to that full time. I'm just saying it's not all cracked up, it's cracked up to be.

Don't get it, let it fill your head, because the same, I'd explain what we just said, you know, the same God on that stage. Is the same God in that bedroom and the same God in that office space. And I would say, listen, bud, the value of having a wife and children and treating them the right way is way more valuable than doing a miracle. And if like, so prepare yourself for that, because if you-. The sad thing I see, I'm going to just throw this in here because, because I, it was, I was 31 before I met my wife and got married and dude, I wanted to get married from the time, I tell my wife all the time-. I was like, I was trying to get married when I was 17. I was ready to get married. I was like ready, you know, and, uh, and as plus being like a serious Christian, I w- I was not bouncing all over the place, but I was like, Lord, come on, you know? So like, but when I, when I met her and then the Lord brought us together and all this stuff over the years I've learned over the years that it's just so like, valuable, and you could probably agree with this. In your twenties, you don't always see it that way, but in your thirties, maybe even forties, you start to realize, man, the legacies in my kids, the legacies in my marriage, and everybody goes through bumps and bruises. People, you know, people, it's like that Corey Asbury song, you know, people, people get divorces, marriages fall apart, kids die. Crazy things happen like life happens.

But what I'll say is like. In the moment that you're in, valuing that marriage covenant, like, I think the body of Christ really needs to go back to looking at that. I feel like we've lost it, and I could cry, honestly, talking about it. I feel like we've lost it, and I feel like it burdens the heart of the Lord. And it's not to say if you failed in the past, you can't, like, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying today, as the body of Christ, we've got to get over this idea of, like, of the way that we've, Demoted it as second. It's got to be first, you know, one thing that that's really hit me so strongly and not to bring up the IHOP thing much, but like what I've watched when that happened with Mike in the way that, that, that, um, you know, he's admitted to certain things and so on and so forth. And I go, man, the Bible says, Peter says, if, if you're not treating your wife with understanding you treat your wife with understanding, living with her as the weaker vessel so that your prayers would not be hindered And so if I'm building a business and praying over my business, or if I'm building a ministry and praying over my ministry, and I'm always gone, I'm always doing this, and my wife is there, and I've not really, really invested the same or better energy into her, then how in the world can I pretend like God's hearing my prayers about this and that and the other, and like, I want at the end of my life, you know, you know, I believe as men of God, we should look and go on my gravestone on my legacy.

There's this- I got to go into a story here. My wife's uncle, he died at age 79. He built a large church in Virginia. Amazing guy. He actually was in insurance years before he got into real estate, built a huge church. At his funeral, it was over and over and over. They were, people were just coming up and talking about his marriage and his kids. It was like mind blowing. I was going, I was going, dude, you have this massive ministry, this massive business. But all people keep saying is, wow, the way that you loved your wife. And he would, man. He would brag on his wife. He's 79 and she was, she was in her seventies. He just bragged on her till the day he had, uh, early onset dementia. He would forget that he said the same thing twice and he would compliment her in front of us all twice. Yeah. So that was in 2020 and it struck me at that funeral, bro. The Lord actually told me to, to-, there was a, there was a lot of things I had my hands in. He made me drop about three things. He said, Blaise, I want you to stop doing these three things. And I want you to only do your family and your business right now. That's it. And so I was just going, I want that kind of legacy. So man, that's what I'd say to my 18 year old self and uh, hopefully a much shorter form right there. But-

Steve K.

I would, I would say the same. Um, at the end of my life, like I don't give, I don't give a rip. I, I created a companies, I made millions of dollars. Um, was I a father to my children? Was I there? Was I there for my wife did I love her? Was I present? Um, That to me is God. That, that is our first priority. We are to love our wives the way Christ loved the church. Well, Christ loved the church by laying His life down, washing the feet of His disciples and then dying. And that means I, and so that type of love is I value my life, my wife's life first over mine. And. If we could bring that back, can you imagine what would it be like if everybody just focused on their marriage and on their Children? What society would be like? Crime drops. I mean, everything changes because we go back to the way it was intended, which is relationship, loving on one another, being there, as opposed to working 80 hours a week, right? Just, just to scrape by. And there's, there's a better way, which is why I love what you, what you did is there's a better way.

Christians have access to unlimited wisdom and creativity. There's all sorts of ways to make money and, and to support yourself where you can devote all this time to your family. That's my number one priority. Is the reason I started as an entrepreneur is I made the commitment when I got married that I'm going to be a full time dad and a full time- and whatever I do has to, has to fit in around that. So I make it so that I can take my kids to school. I can pick them up. And I will tell you my son, who's 15, my daughter turned 14. My youngest is 11. It has been worth. All of it. I don't regret, you know, not being able to, you know, to make 10 million on that trade or buy this company, everything, everything that, that I have given up for the sake of my family is worth it. It's worth it. And I think, wow, what, what would the world, what would our country look like if we focused back to loving God? Loving our spouse and loving our children and teaching them the Word of God. Telling them our stories, our testimonies about Jesus, you know.

My kids, my kids love, they love hearing-, every time we're eating dinner, Can you tell us something else? You know, like what else? You know, sometimes I'll do a Bible quiz with them and um, So, I'm with you man. At the end of the day, I want my children to say he was an amazing father. I want my wife to say, this was the best husband. This was the best man I've ever had. And, um, it requires laying your life down, right? Saying no to self, right? Right. Being because the way society teaches is the exact opposite, you know, be a type A and build a big business and money first. And I asked my kids several times, would you like it if I made more money, but wasn't with you? But no, no, like, and now, now that they're teenagers, they don't even want, they don't even go out. They hang out at my house, and all their friends come over to hang out at my house.

Blaise Foret

That's amazing.

Steve K.

Because it's so cool to be at my house. Well, I didn't want to hang out at my parents house when I was a teenager. I wanted to be as far away from them as possible.

Blaise Foret

Right.

Steve K.

I- so kudos to you, man. You- I will tell everyone listening, all you younger folks, you entrepreneurs, you know, you will never regret the time you give to your family. Never. It is so, so precious. And don't underestimate the influence you have on your children, sitting there talking with them. That's one of the greatest things. I-, people come over, we talk about a lot of things. We do deliverance. We talk about business. My kids are there at the table with us.

Blaise Foret

Wow.

Steve K.

Their just in the conversation. Like, yeah, I love that. I love that.

Blaise Foret

Well, I'm going to say real quick on the, on the thing of what you just said there. Cause I'm thinking with, you know, with our kids, they're six, three, and one. So we're in a whole different season, but like, it's. You said never underestimate the value of what you of investing that time in your kids and and I've had times where the Lord's really shown me and convicted me about like just because I mean being an entrepreneur running your own business It's always like this, right? You're just always like Yeah, it's always on.

Steve K.

You're always on always on.

Blaise Foret

But like there's definitely times the Lord's like hey, dude just put your phone over there and just be here. She's saying something to you right now. It's not always me telling her the Bible verse or telling her this. Sometimes it's me listening to her about her Barbies, about her friend, or about her, like, those are the valuable things that I look and I go, man, this time is so short. That she's six talking to me about this, if I can't show that I'm interested in this, she might not talk to me about the boys trying to talk to her when she's 14. And so as entrepreneurs, it's like, again, it's like going, okay, am I going to make this next deal or am I going to listen to my kid? And how am I going to set up my life so that I can do, still do both, but keep this one as the number one priority. Does that make sense?

Steve K.

Oh, it does, bro. But you know, it's brutal. I would say about four years ago, I had a company and I was selling to this giant essential oil company. It was a 10 million deal. And, uh, my daughter was sick, bro. I didn't go and I lost the deal. And my business partner was fuming. He's very successful by the way, but he was fuming. And, uh, I don't regret it. I don't, man, I don't read because the thought is, okay, I can make this 10 million and then I can, I can give her more things and then I can spend more time, but that's not true. There's always something else to do. There's always another person that has a demand on your time. You're under, they want to have your information. They want to speak to you. And, uh, I'll never forget that. It was the best thing I ever did. I ended up getting, one of our dogs, Guinness, for her thatsame weekend because she was having such a hard time also at school. Her sickness was because of the stuff that was going on at school.

Blaise Foret

I so appreciate that you told me that story because, you know, being, being like a decade in front of me, It's been, and literally with your kids, a decade in front of my kids, it's just like such a, that story is a testimony to why your kids want to hang out at your house and want to bring their friends over.

Steve K.

Yes. And that is so valuable because then, because then that opens the door to the gospel because their parents are like, Why do my kids always want to hang out your house?

Blaise Foret

Wow. Yeah.

Steve K.

Are you okay with this? I'm like, I love it. Cause I play Fortnite with my kids friends. I'm playing like all these, you know, PlayStation games with them.

Blaise Foret

Yeah.

Steve K.

And you know, what's interesting is I've made a ton of money. Paying attention to my kids. It's in some weird way God has brought even more than that amount that I was gonna sell four years ago.

Blaise Foret

Wow.

Steve K.

It's this- you can't- if you try to explain this to like a Goldman Sachs MBA type how spending time with your kids you actually make out financially. It doesn't make any sense but to us who follow Christ, well, yeah, He owns everything right? He already knows we have and I think making a choice for your family first, above ministry too.

Blaise Foret

Yeah.

Steve K.

Above church, above ministry, man, be a pastor to your family first. I'm sorry, I'm preaching to the choir. Friends, be a pastor to your family first, love on them first, demonstrate the love of Jesus to them first. Blaise, a young guy, young gal who feels called, preach the gospel and, but also be in business, any advice you could give them?

Blaise Foret

Yeah. Yeah. So number one thing, don't wait for a mic to get in your hand. The gospel is the word in your mouth. So at the end of the day, I mean, man, Jesus is with you all day, every day. So don't wait for a mic, um, but go for the business opportunities. You feel called to start a business or do a bit- like reach out to somebody that, you know, that's doing something like that. You would want to do and ask them for advice. The best thing to do is get a mentor and you might not find a, like a christian mentor that spirit filled and if it's all the the the qualifications for you, don't let that like push you away find somebody that's doing what you do Or what you want to do and ask them for help ask them for advice. Hey, how did you get started? Or, hey, do you have a job opening or could I, you know, sweep your floor every day in your office? And I mean there's so much that you could do to find your way into an opportunity If you'll go and learn close your mouth, open your ears, and serve somebody. And then that is the gospel.

That is that is literally when you start doing stuff like that, that's the gospel and then of course preaching and wanting-. If you do feel because you'll hear us in this talk a lot of times like, You know, don't go for the stage, don't go for the mic. But there are legitimate callings to the stage and the mic and there will be times that God will call you to that I would say if you really do feel that calling then uh, then immerse yourself in the Lord anyway, immerse yourself in the word and as a relationship with Jesus because you can only give out what is truly in you. And I've been through preaching programs when I was in my early 20s and there's even these seasons where I'm just putting together this stuff and it's like and it felt dry as a bone, you know, and so there's there is like things you can learn as far as public speaking all that stuff, but at the end of the day, it is your relationship with Jesus that you're going to bring that well from. And uh, and don't be afraid if things don't happen until later in life. I mean sometimes He's trying to you know, the diamond's got to get crushed right and then the uh, like you've got to marinate in the wine. Like so that so that God can really utilize you and use you in the ways that maybe you feel called so be patient.

Steve K.

Amen, I say you got to go through the fire man. You've got to go through character building There's a lot of gifting out there and very little character and what we need is character with gifting, especially right now. The other thing that you mentioned is don't be afraid. I just had a gal contact me today. She texted me and she said, can you help me? Like I was afraid to text her. I'm like, Oh, I'd love to help you.

Blaise Foret

Yeah.

Steve K.

Contact me and say, Hey, can I just. Can you talk to me about something about crypto or investing or business? I love it because in a way I'm discipling them. So don't be afraid to ask somebody. You know, um, most of the time they love, most entrepreneurs I know love giving and pouring into people. Guys, check out, I want you to go. And I want you to click the link below and I want you to subscribe to Wake Up and Win Podcasts. You go here, you hit all. All right. You don't, if you haven't followed him, you got to follow, uh, Blaise and Christina. There are, they really are a power couple. You've heard a little bit about it. I'm going to bring Blaise and Christina back on. I have a lot of things I want to talk to them about specifically with family, um, and how we can change the culture. to be family centered, right? I really believe we can change culture. But for now, go to there, click the link below, and you're going to come here, subscribe to the channel. And if you're interested, go to wakeupandwin. co. And, uh, there's a lot of you guys, we have a lot of insurance people here. Check them out, connect with them. I, I really, I, I can't say enough good things about Blaise. Um, even though I've just met him, I feel like I've known him forever. We're cut from the same cloth and thank you, Blaise, for taking the time to come on. I know you're very busy with family and being an entrepreneur and I really appreciate the honest conversation

Blaise Foret

Definitely, man. Steve has been a total blessing and uh, definitely look forward to it again I appreciate everybody tuning in.

Steve K.

God bless you guys. We will see you next Thursday, later.