Transcript generated via AI - Not 100% accurate

April: 0:00

I think naturally when you aspire to do things, then you become brave enough to put yourself in situations with people that inspire you. And so I've done a lot of things like reaching out to people that I normally wouldn't feel like, like, Oh, they won't listen to me, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Like, Oh, they won't respond, but I'm going to do it anyway. And then you find that a lot of people, more people are willing. To help your journey and be a part of your journey and encourage the journey. And so bravery, I think, is the key.

Justin: 0:48

Welcome to the amplified home-health podcast, where personal and organizational health needs. I'm your host, Justin Collier. And my goal is to bring you insightful interviews with business owners and leaders from a variety of different industries. We'll be talking about employee development, leadership, company, culture, and quality products and services and how they drive success in business. Thanks for joining me and let's get started. Welcome everyone. I appreciate you joining today. Don't forget to check out amplified whole health.com as well as like us follow us, et cetera on Facebook and Instagram and all of that good stuff today. I'm joined by April Patterson and just super thrilled to have you here. So thanks for coming on the show.

April: 1:37

Thank you for having me well,

Justin: 1:40

Trying to figure out how do I introduce you? You know, I have, if I look at your background and what you do you're an actress, you're a producer you own three businesses, three businesses.

April: 1:54

Yeah, I think that's about right

Justin: 1:57

top of that. You're a manager and you're a teacher now at an acting school as well as an instructor and Martial arts. You have a black belt and TaeKwonDo, if I'm not mistaken, is that right? Yep. That's correct. All right. So I've, I've thrown out a bunch of stuff, but I guess, how would you describe

April: 2:22

yourself? I don't know. People ask me all the time and I'm like, Ugh, how much time do you have? And it's not because I feel like, so great about all these things. It's just I just do so much. I get overwhelmed telling everybody all the stuff that I do, but I don't know. I think I would describe myself as an entrepreneur. It's like the best way to sum up all of it, yeah. Yeah.

Justin: 2:48

You are constantly on the go. For as long as I've known you, you have always got something going on between you and your family and you know, just a lot going on. And so I guess with that, maybe let's just start with family. You, you know, you're married, you have two, three children And how do you manage all of the things that you're doing? And and a house and a home and family and all, everything. Yeah. That goes with that.

April: 3:21

First there's a lot of ways. I think the most important way is having a good partner. My husband has been, yeah. Super supportive and helpful. And he adjusts when he needs to, just so that we can all do what we need to do. And we've been very blessed that he gets to work remotely with his job. And so he does have the flexibility to be able to pop in and pop out when we need him to. So that's been very helpful, but also. You know, he's right in the midst of running things with me as well, and he's still working full time at his other job. So without a solid tribe, I don't think either one of us survived very well. Yeah. My parents are very supportive. They pop in and pop out when we need them to sometimes with a day's notice and Man friends, family. I don't know. I think I, I don't think anybody can survive this crazy amount of things that we have going on without a really good stuff. Tribe. Yeah.

Justin: 4:27

How do you. How do you keep yourself moving with all of these things that you have going on? Where do you get the energy for this? Were you just born with this much

April: 4:36

energy? No, I was not. I asked my husband jokes that it takes me an hour to fully, like from the time I wake up to be alive I think I just thrive. I enjoy what I do so much energizes me, but yeah, I do have to take moments for a little bit of self care and rest often because I do get worn out and I do get tired. And I think a part of being able to do anything that we do is taking the time. For self-care and self-love and recognizing when my body needs rest and allowing it, that, that process and honoring my body because I'm not a young little muck anymore, back in the, in my twenties, I could go all day long and I'm starting to realize the older I get, I really do get worn out and tired. I do for the most part stay energized. I have a three year old four, she just turned four. So I have a four year old. So I have to have, be able to keep up with her and yeah, I just make sure that I honor my body and get wrists when it tells me it needs to rest.

Justin: 5:51

Yeah. Speaking of keeping up, just trying to get on your schedule is somewhat challenging. I'll be honest. And not a bad way. I just, it was really funny because we had scheduled this for, I don't know, like a week or two ago and you're like, yeah, Friday sounds great. We're going to set it up. And so I'm like, all right, here we go. We're going to be rocking and rolling on Friday, and then I get a message from you. And you're like, yeah, I'm in Atlanta. And I'm thinking. Yeah. Wow. All right. So you're in Atlanta and then you're like I've got to drive back. So this is probably not going to work on Friday. Yeah.

April: 6:22

The crazy thing. Yeah. I probably still would have made it work, but I, like I said, I wouldn't be, I would have been tired, but I still. So part of, also part of just like being able to do what I do is being very honest with the people in my life and, letting them know when I need to take time or reschedule and stuff like that. And everybody kinda knows how crazy our schedules are. So they're very supportive and flexible with us. But yeah, we got that notice to get to Atlanta within a day like that morning, our agents called us. Say, Hey, you book, can you be here tomorrow? I was like, and with, with COVID, it's very the restrictions on when you can be on set and flying it's very strict. So our only option was to drive. So yeah, by that morning we got noticed. And then by four o'clock that afternoon, we were driving to Atlanta. 14 hours.

Justin: 7:19

Yeah, it's a long way. My folks live in Atlanta and obviously we were in Austin before that. So I understand it is a long way.

April: 7:28

But no, before, before we started doing all of this and even, honestly still, I don't really, I never, before the virus, I never really drive anywhere. I used to. If it was more than four hours, I was on a plane. So this has definitely forced us to take some road trips, but I'm realizing that I've missed out on a lot of this beautiful country by hopping on a plane and not just driving through it, I'm enjoying it. Honestly. It's it's more peaceful than I thought it would be.

Justin: 8:00

Yeah, it is. It's a beautiful country. And there's lots to see here well, let's maybe talk a little bit about your. I guess, acting career and and the producing part of it. And how did you get started in this.

April: 8:18

I actually started managing my kids. So my children I've been doing it a lot longer than I have. And actually my daughter who's 14 now has been doing it since she was six. And she's only been doing television and film probably the last two and a half, maybe three years, but she started off doing commercials and then and she trades very hard. She's probably trained at least two to three days a week since she was six. You know, she doesn't take it lightly and this is all self-motivated, by her assault driven. And my son jumped in on a class with her, loved it. So he wanted to do it and they they are some hard workers and it shows because they booked quite a bit. And so they kept me very busy and I've learned to navigate this industry all by trial and error. And I learned, I had a lot of lessons learned and. A lot of things I wish I could take back, but a lot of moves I'm I'm glad I moved on faith went for. And just watching them be grow into these beautiful, very empathetic, mature little children and You know, going through, I wouldn't call it a mid-life crisis, but I had a baby 10 years after those two. And so I definitely went through this phase where I wanted to do something for myself and they just looked like they were enjoying it so much. So I joined them and decided to jump into acting and just absolutely fell in love. And from there, we just had so much experience on set. I didn't even. Seek to be a producer, but I started getting requests to help with sets and then help to produce. And then it just snowballed into that. And people just kept approaching me about different projects. And before I knew it, I had about three projects under my belt since, last year. And. People ask me how I get into it all the time. And I'm like, gosh, how did don't know. People just started requesting. And I'm the type of person that loves a challenge. So anything new you know, especially dealing with our industry, I'm really excited to learn. And I think you become a, even more well-rounded actor when you have your hands behind the scenes. And as well as in front of the camera, Yeah, no, it's just definitely has done nothing but encouraged and helped our careers by me and B being behind and producing as well.

Justin: 10:49

Yeah. So what's the strategy. When you think about these projects that you're taking on, not only for you, but also, you're managing your childre, that are in the industry. What's your strategy for making decisions?

April: 11:03

When the. First and foremost, it has to sit well in my spirit. When someone approaches me about a project and I actually did turn down one project because it didn't fit very well with my space. I have to, I have to be okay with what's being produced and I have to be, I've had, I've even had lessons learned with that. I've had to. Too. I've learned that I've had to be proud of the work that I produced and want my name tied to it. And I also made it a personal goal of if I produce something, I want my children to be able to sit and watch it. So that's really important for me. But just I always approached any project, letting anybody I partner with know that. First and foremost, I'm a manager and a mom. And so they have to be extremely flexible with me. I have to be, have the ability to work remotely. I do a lot of kind of administrative behind the scene, things talking to a lot of people, getting funding and stuff like that. So it doesn't necessarily require me to always be on set. And so I think the most important thing is having people who understand what I do and are very flexible and allow me the freedom to work, how I can work. And also being able to be proud of the project and have it sit well with my spirit, you handle

Justin: 12:31

communication on a set. One of the things I always talk about on the show is communication with employees or you shareholders, stockholders, that kind of thing. And so I'm just curious how does a communication structure work on a set where you're trying to move a lot of people. And the same direction not unlike a business, but in a very different kind of way. Could you maybe share a little bit about that?

April: 12:58

Oh, wow. You know, each project is so different and obviously you're learning more and more about how to be more productive with each new project that you get. So that's a really interesting question because every, everyone has been very different. I think the most important thing is to be as available as possible with respects to just still being able to be very present for my family. So just, letting people know the best ways to contact me. Sam. Just stand very open with my communication with everyone, letting people know what I need from them right up front. And then most importantly, trying to get as much as I possibly can get done before we reached like the production phase of everything too. So that's really important. I tend to procrastinate a lot. So the one thing that producing has taught me and has. Encouraged me to do is all, is getting as much done as I possibly can get done, at the beginning of the process. And that's helped too. And just making sure that I have really good partners that are that are good communicators as well, easy to work with. And when I tell them what needs to be done there, they're on it. So that has, that always helps, is having really great people to work with.

Justin: 14:25

When you think about, you got started in business, I think originally, right? You said that you're an entrepreneur, and so when you got started, that's your major, so you majored in business and then you ended up starting a business. Now what you start off doing?

April: 14:45

Well, my husband and I own a skills mastery learning program. Started off with tw, brick and mortar locate. Like we had a retail locations right now. We currently just have our main center. But one of the things that my husband developed, just because we saw a need for it. So we had a lot of international students. So he developed an online version of that. And from that, we decided to convert one of our centers into full online version program. And we realized how cost-effective, it was to do that and how there was such a big need for it. So that's where I started all of my business ventures and it just exploded from there.

Justin: 15:32

When you got started with your. Brick and mortar buildings. I know you, you had one there in the Austin area and then you had another one up North, like in Dallas maybe. Is that Roscoe, Texas. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So how did you manage remote? At a remote office in that scenario?

April: 15:50

When we had the one in Austin, I actually managed center here. So for most of the beginning parts of when I started that business well we had an established brick and mortar in Frisco. So when I started it here I was in a physical location. But when we went remote for the most part, my husband and I partnered together. We. This, we worked together on strategies to help grow the online platform to, to help develop it. We, we had a lot of lessons learned as far as what worked, what didn't work. So we tested a lot of tablets. We tested how different ways to, for the kids to work remotely. We took, it was just all kinds of things that we've had to work on together with becoming a, an online platform. So a lot of it is just Finding the best ways for the online platform to be as efficient and as, as great as it can possibly be. And a lot of marketing

Justin: 16:50

parking. Yeah. You talked about a lot of trial and error and learning, and so I'm curious. I'm going to use the word fail. Yeah.

April: 17:03

Okay. With the word fail, because I feel like in some ways it's necessary to fills so that what works and what doesn't work. And I think as long as you don't let that discourage you from continuing on, then it's just a necessary thing that happened for progress. Yeah. I

Justin: 17:23

always liked the term of fail

April: 17:25

forward. Yes. Fell for, I always say that.

Justin: 17:29

Yeah, because it's such a great representation of what it really means. And what failure really means is failure is not a

April: 17:38

setback. No, it's not, and it's, it's inevitable. It's going to happen and it's necessary in order for growth. I believe so. I'm totally okay. With failing forward.

Justin: 17:50

Yeah. Do you have a failure that you can think of that you would be willing to share

April: 17:55

as in what business? Which one? Just pick one. It doesn't matter so many. Yes. Yeah. Well with, with my Gosh, let me see. That's such an interesting question. I'm trying to think of which one with our acting career. I definitely have been in situations where I've considered compromising what I'm comfortable with in order to get a role. And I think one of the failures was, is that I did in there is accepting something that didn't. That I wasn't okay with, for the sake of thinking that it would give me exposure and growth and then honestly it didn't, and I didn't feel great about the project. So I think that was definitely a forward film in knowing that what I'm willing, what boundaries I'm willing to set for myself as an actress or not with our business. Gosh, that was such a learning process for us. This was, it was such a new thing. I think period, we hadn't even really found too many programs like ours. We might actually be the only one of its nature in the way that we do it. Or very there's very few out there. So it was literally just figuring out what worked and what didn't work in. A lot of it didn't work. There was a lot of conferencing apps that just didn't work well with the kids. We learned that there are certain things because of the age of the kids, the older kids can handle it better than the younger kids. And so a lot of that, it was a lot of just learning how to navigate what worked for all of our age demographic,

Justin: 19:41

how important is being able to adjust and these scenarios.

April: 19:47

Like you have to be in a state of constant adjustment with every, in all of our businesses, especially now with this virus, because I this whole year has been about adjusting right. To navigate the world now. With our karate school, we had to figure out we've never done. We've always been like an in-person, kind of. Program and we had to figure out how to do that online and still motivate the kids and still be able to be present virtually. How do you be present virtually, so we had to figure out how to do that. With acting, we actually, it was good for us because we spend a lot of time traveling the callbacks to different States. And it can be very expensive. And you're not always guaranteed a role. So sometimes it feels like a waste, but we never say that we always say it's an investment. But we had to adjust being able to do things that we do in person virtually With our business, just learning too, to not only figure out what works for our system, but also encouraging our clients to just walk that walk with us. We had some very dedicated clients that it was kind their first entry into something like this online academic program. And so part of The adjustment was us encouraging and motivating them to just stick it out with us until we figure out what works for everybody. And, Oh, we have the best clients in the world. The program just it's grown into something so big and beautiful, and I'm so proud of it, but, Oh my gosh, in everything that we've done, we just, we're in a constant state of adjustment.

Justin: 21:45

Yeah, I think you just mentioned your clients and, encouraging them to stick with you because change is

April: 21:51

difficult. It is. Yeah. Yeah. And not everyone is as invested in your passion as you are, in your business as you are. So yeah. Part of our strategy is to be a very Hands-on family oriented type program, where you have a lot of interaction, even though it's virtually with our instructors, they call you by name. They know their clients. These are kids that they work with three days, two to three days a week. And so they know, Oh, how was soccer today? We try to encourage our instructors to, to invest in our students. Especially the kids, they get so excited, they know they have their favorite instructors. And so they'll, they'll ask, how'd you do today and how was your soccer game this Saturday? And then, okay. Let's get to work. Yeah, we just, it's definitely been a it's been a. An adjustment this whole year and then also ha hop in and having people around us, especially with our acting, being able to adjust to our crazy schedules, because things pop up within an hour or a day. And so people in our lives are in constant state of adjustment with being flexible with us too. Yeah. Thank you Justin.

Justin: 23:18

Oh, it was my pleasure. I'm glad. We can

April: 23:20

do this. We are always no,

Justin: 23:24

it's good. You know, I was just, I guess maybe thinking a bit about your employees at the. At the online learning. And have you been responsible? I would say responsible. Have you been involved in the hiring process and looking for employees?

April: 23:42

Yeah. Yes. Yes, we have. We, we, I have, yes. I don't know how to ask that. We definitely look for people who have who love children. This is all about, the kids. And we want to make sure that they feel very comfortable with the people that they work with. And so the people that we hire. Have to have a great personality. We give them a very strict test academic tests to pass. So we know that they know what they're doing. They, they go through the training process. And absolutely we run everybody, every candidate through all of the people who are in charge of the company. Yeah.

Justin: 24:24

Yeah. And I. You have so much going on, right? You have multiple businesses, you're an actress, you're a producer, you're a manager. You're how do you find balance? And let's just start with, from the business side of things, you have all of these different businesses and things that you're running. How do you find balance in those things?

April: 24:51

I think. Preparation is the key. I think the more that I can set myself up to be prepared to take on so many different things the better. So I, I started investing. I used to have a calendar and then I would force myself to write everything down, but I used my phone and I realized I spend all day, every day looking at my phone. I did not want, my calendar to be another reason why I looked at my phone. So I invested in this. Really cute Erin Condrey, calendar, calendar very detailed. And so I have this, actual physical calendar that I open up every day and I plan out my day and prioritize my tasks. And I try to spend a designated amount of hours on each different thing that I'm involved in. Obviously some of them require less of me than others. And some of them can pop in, need me to pop in randomly. And so I think the best way for me to balance it all out is to just start my day and prepare myself as much as possible for the things that are priority within each business.

Justin: 26:11

I think a lot of us fall into the habit of just. Living through life rather than being intentional about our days. And it sounds like you have an order for you to be successful. You have to be very intentional about your day.

April: 26:30

Absolutely. And it's still a struggle. I'm not gonna lie. It's still a struggle. But I have to force myself and intentional is like the word of my life because along with. Being intentional in my businesses that we run it in our careers. I'm also very intentional about my health. If I don't take good care of myself, I will physically just it starts manifesting itself physically. I have a condition called BCD vocal cord dysfunction, and it causes me to have a lot of respiratory issues. So my diet. I'm very intentional about my diet, because that helps the condition. I'm very intentional about staying physically moving and in shape if I, so all of that I'm intentional about. And so it, it forces me to prioritize things in my life and to put more effort into the things that are important to me. But that also means that I got to spend less time in the frivolous things in life you're, you not lolly gagging around. And I got to say a lot of nos and that was really hard for me at first to tell people, no no, I, you To set boundaries, not necessarily no, but set boundaries. You know, no, I'm not going to do lunch with you every day, this week. I'm just, how about we do this once a month and I'll put you in on my calendar, and it's scheduling people in because that's also very important. Relationships are important to some really intentional about maintaining my relationships, but I've learned that a lot of my relationships that have. Lasted in my life are the ones are the people who absolutely understand my life too. And you know, it, I'm very intentional about making sure that I can put everything that's important to the forefront. Yeah.

Justin: 28:38

How have you surrounded yourself with the people that you want to become? If that question makes sense.

April: 28:47

I find that I naturally find myself, like God just brings all these people that inspire me to my life. And it's all grace. Cause I'm like, gosh, how did I get missed circle of people? They're so amazing and inspiring and worthy. No, that's not the case. I always feel worthy, but I think naturally, when you aspire to do things, then you become brave enough to put yourself in situations with people that inspire you. And so I've done a lot of things like reaching out to people that I normally wouldn't feel like, like, Oh, they won't listen to me, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Like, Oh, they won't respond, but I'm going to do it anyway. And then you find that a lot of people, more people are willing. To help your journey and be a part of your journey and encourage the journey. And so bravery, I think, is the key. I think I'm very brave. I approach a lot of situations and a lot of people that I'm very like scared of, but I don't let fear keep me from doing those things.

Justin: 29:58

I'll tell you, fear is such a, an overwhelming. Feeling and one that can absolutely stop us in our tracks. And in some cases it sends us backwards.

April: 30:14

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the one thing that my husband says about me all the time, which I didn't recognize in myself was he always says, you're so brave. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes You just see a situation and jump right in. And I'm like, yeah, because aren't we all supposed to, he's if you want something bad enough, you just go for it. And he's no, that's you aren't scared to just jump into something like, yeah. But I guess my desire to be, to fulfill my purpose in this life is greater than my fear is I don't let it keep me from doing the things and reaching out, that are necessary and reaching out to the people who are necessary and. And in a lot of ways, you don't always get their response. You won't, you don't always make the connections that you want, but you just keep going. There's always new opportunities. There's always new connections to be made. There's always different jobs to be had. There's just, there's always a way there's always,

Justin: 31:19

you've got 10

April: 31:19

jobs. I got a lot of jobs I'm trying to get rid of some of them not. That's

Justin: 31:27

awesome.

April: 31:28

I think the thing is I really enjoy every single thing and we didn't even mention my husband and I have this health and wellness center. That's literally right next door to the learning center. And it's it focuses on red light therapy. So that's another one of our, I chunk those two together that I know. Cause then people would be like, they lose count and be like, wait, what? So you got this business too, but we did have a wellness center as well. Yeah.

Justin: 31:55

How do you make decisions about the businesses that you get involved in or the activities that you get involved in?

April: 32:05

You prayer. I pray about it, but a lot of our biz, like our wellness center and then our learning center that the learning center was a family business that I married into the red light therapy was just, Dre bringing up an idea and, and I was even a little hesitant about that one, but I think Jerry and I are both brave in that way. I think we're very motivated to just create our own destiny and legacy, financially and whatever else, just for our kids for ourselves. And and so we just, we just go for it, if it sounds very good and we can see a way we can make it make sense, we absolutely will go forward and God has provided. Sometimes, I don't even know how, we are able to manage to get in to start up these companies, but God has always given us that blessing right when we need it. And so it's always a matter of being brave enough to step into that.

Justin: 33:12

You've mentioned faith several times. And so I'm curious, how did you find balance between Acting and moving forward on your own fursonas. Maybe letting God drive things forward.

April: 33:32

So you're talking about my faith in acting. How do I let God drive? No,

Justin: 33:39

I just mean, so you've mentioned faith a few times. And so how do you find. The ability to move forward on things that you might be interested in or passionate about. How do you make a decision, says I'm going to do this or this, you might have a couple of options. And then where does that balance with your faith come in and versus almost like you driving and making a decision to move forward on something versus God driving and making a decision to move?

April: 34:09

I don't, I don't, I think every opportunity we get w so when we first started acting. I don't think that I was wise enough to approach this career alongside God. And so it was like, Oh, this was a, this is a really fun thing to do. Let's just do this and jump into it. And we did it. And then I realized I made God in this journey with us. And so one of the things that I did. Kind of early on when we started, this was I, like I said, I had this, this physical calendar and I do this every year. I buy this calendar and I say, and I pray over it. And I asked God, this is, this means nothing. If we aren't serving you, this means nothing. If this is not for your purpose. And so I asked him to guide us. And I asked him to bring the opportunities that he wants us to have. And I asked him to walk the journey with us. Cause I'm very clear on that. I don't want us to be in this industry for the sake of just being in this industry. Chances are, we'll never, I don't know, there's like a. 0.05% chance that people will see me on the streets. You'd be like, Oh, you're eight. Like recognize me in that way. I don't know if I'll ever be famous, but I do know that, we, we absolutely love doing it. And so we want to walk. We want God to walk alongside with us on it. So to answer your question, I don't, I feel like everything that comes our way that we consider is. Brought to us by God. And he allows us to make the decision on that, but I just let him lead. And I don't know if that makes sense, but I do let him lead. And I don't feel like he'll bring us anything that we can't handle. Yeah, so I let him lead every opportunity and I feel like I'll find balance because he brought it to us.

Justin: 36:18

Nice. So you feel like the doors are presented to you as an option for you?

April: 36:24

Absolutely. There are opportunities that have come our way and I'm like, how in the world did we get here? And I'm so grateful. Thank you God, for bringing this to us. I mean even how my kids got their agents in LA, a typical story. I, it wouldn't have normally ever happened. And to this day, I'm still like, Oh my goodness, how did we get such amazing actors? And I agents, and I think that's got, God literally was like, I was being very brave reaching out to people that normally would say no to so many different, People. And, and I just walk on faith and I kept pursuing we ended up in this wonderful agency. And to this day, I'm still in awe of God. I send people to them all the time and they're very hard to get into very hard. And so I'm just like, I'm so grateful that we're here. They accepted us or my children. I'm not with them, my kids.

Justin: 37:25

How important is gratitude when you think about not just from a faith perspective, but also with other people.

April: 37:35

Oh my goodness. It's so important. I think no one should ever get full enough on them on themselves to, to forget, to show gratitude to the people who had helped, who helped them get where they are. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful, not just for you know, for the people who have given us a hand up and has created a table of opportunity and welcomed us there. But for the people who I consider. People that I mentor and my clients, because it reminds me so much of how hard we had to work to get to where we are. And it's always a constant reminder of how grateful I need to be, that we have had the opportunities we have, because I'm always reminded of the start of that process. And I'm just so excited to help them. And I'm so excited to, to get them on, started on their journey. And and I'm just so grateful to everybody who sees something in us and trust us with everything that they hand us.

Justin: 38:48

Talk about people helping you along the way, and being grateful for those folks. They've provided yo, Opportunities and giving you options maybe that you didn't necessarily have before. How did you get over that? Maybe initial fear of reaching out to people. And the reason why I'm asking this question is because I think so many people are afraid to get started. That they just never get off the starting line because they let fear get in their way. And so what, maybe, I don't know if this is like a trick or a tip or something. Well, no. First

April: 39:33

of all, the minute you acknowledge that fear is not of Christ. I think that's what you need. And I. Well within our, within any of our businesses, we have not just you know, our wellness center and our learning center, but also our acting careers. Like I think I accepted very early on that failing forward was part of the process and the minute, and I had to, like, when I made it, like that's just necessary in my mind then. I was a lot more brave on moving, like getting those out of the way. Let me just hurry up and fell for it, and so that the fear wasn't there. Cause I already knew it was a necessary part of the process. But I, I just knowing that knowing your purpose, when you are so sure about What you're capable of, but not just what you're capable of, but that God has a purpose for you and all of these things and gifts that he's presented to you or given you, I don't know. I'm more afraid of not serving my purpose than I am of moving forward with those obstacles that I have to get out of the way I'm more afraid of like facing God and him being like. Aver, I gifted you all of this stuff. What did you do with it? And me being like nothing. I'm more afraid of that then a million nos before I get to that one. Yes. That matters.

Justin: 41:12

Wow. I would say most of us live the other way. I think, I think so. Yeah. I think folks, are afraid to move forward and do. Get hung up on where to go or how to go. And, and maybe this is maybe a good follow-up question for you is how do you look at something that is so big, like getting into acting or starting a brick and mortar store. How do you look at one of those things and not get intimidated by the size of it move

April: 41:53

forward? I don't think it's not. That I'm not intimidated. I am always, I'm always fear is definitely. I'm not saying that I don't get fearful. I just don't let it keep me back because I know I'm so sure about my purpose in God and my purpose in Christ and, I'm so sure like about. W I feel like honestly, with a lot of hard work and dedication and just walking with Christ, achieve so many things far past what you think you're capable of. And so I just I just hang on to that so hard. So when I do have moments of fear, I just keep thinking about. Like the end game. Nope. It will. You got to keep pushing. Yeah. That fear's not going to do anything for you. You know what you're capable of? You work really hard, really hard. And it's just a matter of time. You keep walking this walk with God and you'll get there and it's about patience. Which I am not good at. I am like the most impatient person. Yeah. I think it's a

Justin: 43:14

virtue.

April: 43:18

Yes. But I've learned how to be patient and I definitely, I trust the process. I trust the process more than I hear it. A process. I mentioned purpose. No, no. Go

Justin: 43:35

ahead. I was just going to ask your, you mentioned a purpose, so how did you get to your purpose? How did you find your purpose?

April: 43:46

I think there wasn't like, it's I, so how do I answer? That's a trick. I my ultimate purpose is to use whatever talents and gifts. That I have here on earth to make this world a better place, to bring light to Christ and to honor the people in my life. And and, and to help others. And I think I can do that in so many different ways. And as long as whatever I choose to do is heading towards those goals, then. Then that's my purpose. And so like from an earthly stance you know, that might look very different. In so many different ways that like somebody might say her purpose is to have this really, crazy big or her family to have this really big, crazy wellness center that introduces her. It like therapy to the world. And that encourages someone or changes someone's life, which it has. I've seen people who haven't been able to walk again because of the pain relief they're getting from this therapy. And to me, that is. That's God right there. That's bringing God's with people. I've you know, in acting I'm able to be a part of telling these really great stories. And then I get messages all the time. I don't, I'm not even like trying to do anything, but just do the, you use the gifts God gives me. And so I'm always very surprised sometimes when people like message me and I forget, but people are watching me. I forget all the time I do, because I'm just like, Oh, I forget. Even with my kids, so they just did that show and I had that show has been out for a year and the girls never seen her scenes. Cause I'd like just was like, Oh, it's a job. We're going to keep walking around and keep doing it. And then people were like, messaging me. And some lady's mom, I've never seen it all. I was like, Oh yeah, I forget that. Like people are watching this and I'm constantly reminded about that. And so if that encourages anyone. So you walk towards their purpose. If that makes anybody life better. If I can enhance the quality of someone's life, anything like that, I'm, that's my purpose, and it looks different for so many different people.

Justin: 46:23

That's good. Maybe as we wrap up, I'll ask you one final question. How do you encourage your children? With the type of schedules that you all have, how do you find time and balance to teach them the things that are important to you and did your husband, I mean, like, what is the process or how do you think about that?

April: 46:56

Wow. You know, that's a good question. How do I do that? I don't know. We, we, we make it a point to stay. Involved, however we can with our church. So obviously we don't make church every day, but find that, every Sunday just cause we're busy all the time, but you know, so like for instance just got paid and I always, I tell her, Hey, I put the money in our account. I said, now go make sure you go to Detroit website and pay your time and money because. We got a gift, what we need to give to God, stuff like that. So we always just remind him what we're doing it for. We always remind them what's important. And we absolutely this is a family journey. So we do it together and that makes it easier. And it's my kids that got me busy. I'm not making them busy. This is dim. Like they put all this. Obviously we have the businesses you know, they'll say stuff like, okay, mama, we take over and I'm like, Oh, thank you. And they'll say, like my daughter who wants to do everything, I literally have to be like, Hey, back cause I, we can't be a million different places. A lot of it is motivated by them. But one of the things that we've been very intentional about family is making sure that we spend time together. And we're always together because we do this as a family, but we like, we love board games. So we'll spend a lot of time playing board games. We love movies, so we'll spend time watching movies. And we wait, we spend our time, we spend our time together as a family. We pray together. We, even if it's on the go like Xavier and I hopped in the car, drove to Atlanta, we prayed on the way, so we're constantly reminding him of the things that are important and why we do this. Yeah, and for the most part we let them lead. It's their career, especially in our industry. You don't see that happening a lot. You see a lot of parents pushing their kids to be something that the kids aren't really sure if that's what they really want to be. And it's very important for me, for it to be like, self-motivated like for them to, to be motivated by what we do. And any time they're ready to let it go. And they feel like it's not serving their purpose anymore. We're completely okay with it. You know, Xavier's quit like twice already. He's changed up what it looked like, emails. So they're kids, they're gonna, I'm like. I'm about to be 40 and I still change what I, like, Oh, I feel like my purpose needs to look. And so they have the right. And it's important for me to support that for them to encourage them to constantly discover what that looks like for them, what their purpose looks like. But also understand that family is important. And that God is important and none of it matters if you're out there doing it for all the wrong reasons.

Justin: 50:01

I'll ask you one final question. Board games. What's the family's favorite board game. And if you don't know off the top period, that's fine. All right.

April: 50:14

So the, our new favorite one. It's not even, it's not necessarily a board game. It's called Mexican. Yeah. Dominoes. Have you heard of it? Okay. I know. I don't know. It's so funny. We will stay up for hours and play that game. And then Dre just bought, I haven't played this with them, but Dre and the kids they get, they're like, so animated and ridiculous. I'll walk in and they're doing like African ceremonies because they play with condoms. And so the black Panther game. And so part of the game is that they have to battle each other as different tribes. And they'll have like low ceremony, like where they're fighting and I'm like, y'all are ridiculous I mean, anything we do, Who knows, always a staple, but our fate, our new favorite is the Mexican domino.

Justin: 51:01

All right. I'll have to look that up. I just, I want to say thank you very much for taking the time to come on the show. I know you've got a very busy schedule and I'm just grateful for your time and grateful for your family. You know, having the opportunity to get to know them over the years has been a blessing to our family. So thank you. And thanks for being an inspiration for, for so many of us.

April: 51:24

Thank you for saying I'm an inspiration, like I said, I was like, Oh, okay. I'm just living life. That's really, that's encouraging to know that I am an inspiration and just doing what Christ is telling me to do.

Justin: 51:40

I'm grateful you chose to listen. Please help us out by following, liking or subscribing to our content at Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Spotify, Apple podcast, and Google podcasts. Take care and have a blessed day.