Your 2026 Declaration: I’m So Focused On My Assignment That I Don’t Have Bandwidth For Yours

Your peace is too expensive to spend on distractions. We unpack a bold, practical way to protect it: mind your own business—not as apathy, but as disciplined alignment with purpose, character, and wholeness. From the opening minute, we share why our show is shifting into audio and video and how coaching, personal development, and spiritual growth anchor every segment.

We then ground the theme in Scripture: “Aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs.” Managing what belongs to you is stewardship, not selfishness. We explore how divided focus robs productivity and how shalom—peace as wholeness—shatters when we meddle. A simple story about a carpenter who keeps building through criticism becomes a playbook for modern life: build, don’t broadcast; work, don’t whine. Along the way, we look at Jesus and Nehemiah as models who refused petty arguments that would have pulled them off mission, without ignoring mercy when urgent need called.

The heart-level issue is validation. Unhealed rejection can drive us to insert ourselves into rooms where we don’t belong, chasing approval instead of purpose. We talk candidly about how that leads to burnout and bitterness, and how to re-center on calling. To make it actionable, we offer five field-tested tools: set emotional boundaries, stay mission-focused by writing your goals and whys, respond instead of react, keep your circle clean so gossip doesn’t set the tone, and embrace quiet progress where consistency speaks louder than commentary.

If you’ve felt scattered, drained, or stuck in everyone else’s storyline, this conversation will help you reset your attention and recover your peace. Test your own work, carry your own load, and let your life’s focus speak for itself. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs stronger boundaries, and leave a review telling us the one distraction you’re cutting this week.

Transcript

The Case For Minding Your Business

Biblical Foundation: 1 Thessalonians 4:11

Stewardship And Managing What’s Yours

Guarding Peace And Avoiding Division

The Carpenter Story And Focus

Knowing Your Lane: Jesus And Nehemiah

Validation Wounds And Busybodies

Five Practical Tools For Focused Living

Peace, Integrity, And Final Charge

How To Support The Show

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome back to the Inspiration Station and your Everyday Edge podcast. I am your host, Mr. U. Glad to have you in the box with us again today. Excited about what's been going on so far already this year. I'm gonna get into a little bit more. But just so you know what we're doing here, you're seeing some things that are a little bit different, and you're hearing some things that are a little bit different than what we've been doing. Uh, we thought we'd be an audio-only podcast again, but that's not what's happening. We're gonna be doing audio and video content for you from the Inspiration Station and your Everyday Edge podcast. You many of you know I am a high performance coach for Everyday Edge Coaching, my new practice. Uh, started it late last year. So we're gonna be sharing a lot of things from the standpoint of coaching, from the standpoint of personal development. So you're gonna hear a lot of that come through as messy, if you will, from our podcast. So thank you for being patient with us as we evolve and grow into this new area. Definitely excited about what we're doing with you guys. And just so you know, we're here to sharpen how we think, live, and lead with purpose, power, and presence. So that's what we're doing here. I want to talk to you about something that sounds kind of simple, but I really feel like it is a necessary tool for those that care about their emotional intelligence in situations and who care about being spiritually mature and being spiritually present. So we're gonna talk about that. Uh, the topic for this episode, if you're looking at that, if you're taking notes. I know a lot of my friends and family that listen to our show does like to write things down. So I know I'm a writer as well, so I commend you for doing that. Minding your own business, the discipline of peace focus and character, minding your own business, the discipline of peace focus and character. How many times has somebody told you to mind your own business? Where were they coming from when they said that? Were they doing something illegal and didn't want you involved in it? Were they fearful of your safety or for your safety and told you to mind your own business for your benefit? Why did they say mind your own business? Why did somebody tell you to mind your own business? Why did you tell somebody else to mind their own business? We're gonna get into what that looks like in the most practical of senses and hopefully gain some insight into what that actually means when it comes to you as a person and being the best version of yourself that you're supposed to be. So we're gonna get into that. But before we do that, you know, I want you to understand something about this. We're gonna get into the details, we're gonna show you it biblically, we're gonna show it to you in practical terms, we're gonna get into all that stuff. I promise you, we'll take all the time we need to get you there. But I want you to understand that this is about a lifestyle, a posture. Uh, people want peace, and they say they want to walk in integrity and they know you need discipline in their life. People who I look at who are potential coaching clients, these are the kind of things that they talk about. And honestly, this is how you get there: a lifestyle of peace, a lifestyle of minding your own business. We're gonna talk about where people get that right and where folks get it wrong. We're gonna get into all that stuff today. I'm not talking about staying out of drama and avoiding gossip, it goes deeper than that. But this mindset, this lifestyle that I'm talking about, if there was a one sentence to describe this lifestyle, this is what it would say. I'm so focused on my assignment that I don't have the bandwidth to meddle in somebody else's assignment. Did you hear that? I'm gonna say it again. If you are on your computer or on your phone, drop that in the comments section if you can catch it. I want people to see it, see what you're hearing as well. I'm so focused on my assignment that I don't have the bandwidth to meddle in someone else's. This actually, and literally a biblical call to mind your own business. I know my mom used to tell me that when I was a young kid. There were a lot of reasons why, because of where I grew up, a lot of reasons why she said that. I didn't understand it at the time, found out the hard way in some areas, but minding your own business is not a bad thing under certain contexts. There were times where in the city I come from, because it was such a big city, a big melting pot, so many things going on, you wouldn't believe. It's literally a whole world in one state, in one city. And that's good, and in many cases, not so good. So you see a lot of things, you watch and witness a lot of things that you probably shouldn't be beat, or you had to go into a witness protection. So minding your own business made sense to a degree in that setting because you don't want to put yourself and your family in danger. So a lot of story behind that kind of stuff. I'm gonna leave that there. We catch up at a different time to go into more details about that if I'm led to do so. But minding your own business, let's go to First Thessalonians, the fourth chapter, verse 11. You use the ESV version of the Bible for this one just to kind of so you can get how it actually read in what I'm sharing with you today. But it says, Aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we have instructed you. First Thessalonians 4 and 11, basically telling you to mind your own business, mind your own affairs. What's that mean in the Greek? It means manage the things that belong to you. Did you catch that? In the Greek, mind your own affairs means manage the things that belong to you. That speaks to stewardship. That speaks to proper order and sound judgment, it speaks to responsibility. A lot of people are busybodies in other men's matters, and they are some of the worst people to be around because they're so busy trying to get somebody else to fix their house and fix the situation that theirs is a mess. Usually, these folks are so busy in other folks' lives that they have forgotten about how to attend to their own situation. They're the ones whose houses look like trash, they're the ones whose cars actually have literal trash inside of it. So much so that they don't even, it stays there for months. That's because their focus is not where it needs to be. It's divided in a sense. Mind your own affairs, manage the things that belong to you. That car, your house, your children, and how they act in public settings. Are your kids the ones falling out in Walmart because they can't get a toy? Manage the things that belong to you. That's responsibility, that's stewardship, that's order, that's sound judgment. Tend to what God has given you is the whole point of all of this stuff. Before you decide to critique what somebody else is doing or covet what belongs to somebody else, tend to what God has given you. Question on the floor today for Mr. U Have you done that? Have you tended to what God has given you? I know so many folks that have such deep revelations. They had dreams, they were going to be this and do that. Are you tending to what God has given you? Are you cultivating the ground that God has given you seed to plant in? Are you doing that? A lot of folks are in your business, they're in other people's affairs, they're on phone calls talking and gossiping for hours at a time about things going on with somebody who's not on that phone call. People are in rooms talking about people that are not inside the rooms. There's a wisdom that God gave me. And honestly, I know I'm going off a little bit, but I gotta I want to share this because I hope and I pray that what I'm getting ready to say affects your life and administer to you in the appropriate way here. I don't always share personal revelation that I get, I only share it in context where I think I need to, but in this case, I think it's applicable. I got a word I believe came from God. If you can get a word from God, separate conversation, we can talk about it at a different date and time or privately. I'm open to the conversation. Reach out to me. I believe I have a word of inspiration from God that told me this is this is this is just for me now. And essentially, without going into all the details, basically the word was if I am not in the room, my voice doesn't need to be in the room. Think about what that's saying. If I'm not in the room, if I'm not invited into the room, my voice shouldn't be in the room. When people ask me about things that take place or that are instituted in rooms that I'm not invited into myself, I'm no longer giving my opinion. I'm no longer sharing my voice in those rooms. That's personal wisdom for me. You do what you gotta do. But for me, that's personal wisdom for me personally. I can't do that anymore. I've been given inspiration and revelation regarding that, and I can no longer do that. So people ask me for advice, and they're in spaces where decisions are made and they are not something that I can speak into. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna offer free advice and random advice because of people dealing with something that they think, you know, they want to just talk about. I'm very careful not to put myself in places that I haven't been invited into. Case in point. And this is a bit of a shift from this, but I think it's still valid. I know personally many situations, and I've shared this on other episodes as well, where I know where people who I know that call me friend and love me have sat in rooms where people were talking about me. Now, that might butter some of you guys' biscuits right now, and I'm not trying to set you off or incite you or anything. I'm just telling you that this kind of stuff goes on. They love me so much, every time they see me, they love me so much, overflowing with I mean effusive love for me. But they sit in rooms where people talk about me in a negative way, not in a positive way, in a negative way. And they sit there in silence and don't say anything. Don't ask me how I know because I can't tell you. All I just say is that I do know this, I have seen it. And that's just a lot about a person who said they love you so much. Okay, they won't fight for you in private, they definitely won't fight for you in public. That's a word for somebody out there. If they don't fight for you in private, they won't fight for you in public. But the Lord is saying in this, mind your own affairs, tend to what God has given you. Paul wrote that because the believers were distracted by other people's work, critiquing what they were doing. They had their own assignment, they had their own work, their own field to tend to, but they were more focused on what other people were doing, how they were living, overly concerned with what they were doing and how they were showing up in their situation. And honestly, that's called that's a divided focus. It's called a divided heart. You really can't function like that. People talk about oh, I'm giving it 100%. People's math is not good in these in this day and time. Your math's not good. And the new math doesn't help out that our kids are learning right now. It's not helping you. You can't be 50% over here doing your assignment, the things that belong to you, managing those things, and 50% in somebody else's business. That's not, that's not you're divided, and you're less fun, you're less, you're less functional, you're less productive, you're less fruitful when you're divided like that. Paul spoke to that because that's what was happening. People were so losing their focus on their purpose because they were more concerned with what somebody else was doing, what the next man was doing. And that brings you to a place where you could end up potentially losing your peace. What does peace mean? In Hebrew, where we all should know the word, it means shalom. Peace, wholeness, completeness, nothing missing, nothing broken. That's peace. And that's not peace is a thing, it's a real thing. It's a state, I believe it's also a posture. When we start meddling in other people's affairs, you divide your wholeness. You take your wholeness and you break it apart. It's called wholeness for a reason because it's supposed to stay whole, not segmented and fragmented, which is exactly what happens when we start getting involved in other people's business and not focusing on what God has assigned us to do, where we're supposed to be, what our focus is supposed to be. You end up becoming emotionally invested in situations that have nothing to do with your purpose. You derail your destiny by getting emotionally tied and invested to situations that have zero to do with you. That's not social commentary, that's just formatter the scripture. That's what peace actually means. Some of us are so drained because and life is so hard in our estimation, because we are involved in areas that we're not supposed to be handling. Is that word hitting anybody? Any of my friends and family out here listening to this? Are you are you getting something out of that? Life is is is hard in its own way, but we are personally dreamed more because we got our uh priorities a little bit mixed up. We're invested in areas that we shouldn't be invested in, if that makes sense. There's a story that I think is so profound, very simple. Not sure if you heard it before, but it's called The Carpenter and the Gospel. I want to share the story real quick. There's an old story of a carpenter who's building a home and a man on the street, not building anything, it's a man walking along the street, beginning to criticize his work. Think about that context. He's talking about your cuts are and straight, you're wasting wood. That's not even, that's not level. That's not how I would do it if it was me. The carpenter looked up and smiled and didn't say anything back. One of the workers was so tired to harass me, he said, Why don't you say something back to him? And the carpenter said, I'm being paid to build a house. That's the spirit of minding your own business. It's not about arrogance, it's about focus. And until you get to the point where you understand that your peace is so expensive you wouldn't spend it on distractions. Your life will be dramatically different. The moment you get to that place, you recognize how expensive and how important, how valuable your peace is. I believe that Jesus Christ modeled that for us. There's been so many times, countless times in scriptures where people try to pull him into arguments, get him to stop doing his mission to pull him into arguments. I mentioned Nehemiah before as a great example of that. He was building a wall, trying to rebuild, you know, heritage in his homeland. People want him to come down off of his work, put his weapons down, his tools down, and come talk to them about trifling arguments and opinions of men. And he would never do it. He said, I'm not going to stop doing the work I'm assigned to do to come and deal with petty stuff that you want me to deal with because you're uninitiated or you're immature. And there's a message in that with whether you pick Jesus or Nehemiah or both. There's a message in that. They were just avoiding the distraction. They understood what their lane was in life. I know people who, especially back home in New York, that everything, everything that went on around them, none of that was their lane. They were just so focused on work and home, work and home, and everything in between, they didn't care nothing about it. Stuff would happen on the subway, big incident that you see on the news. And these folks were like, I'm not getting involved, I'm changing subway cars, I'm staying out of this. I ain't trying to help nobody. I ain't trying to call 911. And we over we overdo it in that regard. That story of the good Samaritan, that was a powerful story, and I never heard anybody preach about this particular part of this stuff. All those folks, the Samaritans, the Levites, they were all going to a place where it was important for them to go and do their work, but it may not have been more important than the heart of God in that moment. To stop what they were doing, divert from their Jedi focus and serve somebody at the lowest levels who were in need. And that's the thing that the Samaritan did, and that made him a fishy inscriptor that you can't take you can't you can't get rid of now. He's a legend in scripture now because of that. It's not it's no problem knowing your lane. Jesus knew his lane, Nehemiah knew his lane. They understood the assignment. They never let random people define their assignment. And honestly, you gotta know what your role is in all of this stuff. Our goal needs to be to be a lion. And a lot of times, minding your own business just simply means I'm refusing to be dragged into matters and issues that would take away from my mission. I'm not saying don't serve people and help people that might need it in that, might be desperate in that moment because that's the heart of God. If Jesus did that, which if you read scripture at all, you know he did, walked long, took long journeys walking and met people along the way. He had a mission. Stop, healed them, spoke life to them, encouraged, lifted people up, and then went on with the rest of his mission. Unfortunately, some of us we forget that stuff. And all we care about is home, mission. Home mission. Everything in between, we don't care about it. It's a distraction for us. I don't have time for that. I'm getting to one of my lower-level employees and let them deal with that. Yeah, I'm looking at you because it's not right. I don't believe God is in that. Let's keep going. Often we struggle with minding our own business for one very specific reason. I think this is a deep one because we haven't healed from rejection. We haven't healed from the areas where we have issues with validation. You had to ask me how I know. I've got podcast episodes all about it. I've shared it more times than I need to. It's available. Look it up. When you feel unseen or undervalued, you tend to overextend yourself into other people's issues. Everybody that's a busybody, they're busybodies for a reason. It's not because they just want to be around you. This reason, this reason, this background reasons for this stuff. And some of that stuff is because they're trying to prove their own work. Some people are dealing with validation and they want to get it from anywhere they can find it. That's how desperate they are for it. People start inserting themselves in spaces they were never called to be in. They want to speak and control situations, they want to act and give advice and take over responsibilities that have nothing to do with them. They're not even, they haven't even been invited into that world, but they create. Significant so badly that they can't help themselves. But you don't have to be involved in everything to be valuable. I believe I shared a story a few times before, but I was in a ministry where I was doing everything you could think of. Ordained minister, Bible study teacher 12 months out of the year, Sunday school teacher six months out of the year, outreach leader, minister of music, leading worship, music director, hospitality. I was doing everything. But because I came into that church wounded, I came into that church broken. I felt like that was my way to be valuable until I got burnt out and didn't want to go back to church ever again in life. Because I thought that my value was in the things that I did. But it was too much for me because I was doing it in a fleshly state and not doing it for the right reasons. I was doing it to be validated by men, to be pleased by men, or to be pleasing to men, excuse me. Life lesson that was learned there. Hope you learned from that as well. You could have anxiety, or you could have an assignment. You're not gonna get both. You gotta pick one. I want to give you five practical tools that you can use to live out your destiny, to have the kind of peace and integrity that comes from mining your own business. You are taking notes, it's a good time to do that or catch it, record it, use the snipped app or whatever you use to kind of retain information from podcasts. But number one, set emotional boundaries. This is straight up probably one of the most important ones in this list because it's the one that people fail at doing the most. Not every conversation requires your input. I know, I know. You're so smart and you're so wise, and you have so much to bring to the world. I get it. You should have your own TV show, you're so great. Not every conversation requires your input. Know your lame. Proverbs 17 and 27 says, the one who has knowledge uses words with restraint. Those are the why the wise folks are the ones that don't say so much. They don't overshare, they don't over talk, they don't over-indulge. Sometimes wisdom looks like silence. Number two, stay focused on the mission. I tell folks all the time, write your goals down. They're in your head, it's clock, it's cloudy in there, it's foggy in there. We can't tell what's going on. We can't see it. And there's no accountability in there. Write it down where people can see it, where your mentors can see it, where you can see it. Write your goals down, write down your spiritual priorities, write down your whys. Are the things that you desire to do directing you on the on the mission? Are you on path? When you're clear about what you want to do, you have less time to overindulge in other men's matters. Make sense? Let's keep moving. Number three, respond, don't react. We heard that a little bit. Jesus had many opportunities to clap back, but he took time to pray instead. Went away to distant locations to pray alone and and and solicit God's time. He took the higher ground. That's character, that's integrity under fire. We can stand and do that for ourselves here, also. Number four, keep your circle clean. Who is to the tight one? Watch your toes, watch your toes, watch your toes today. Swimmy a tight one. Short but sweet. The kind of pieces I was talking about earlier, the kind of piece where I was talking about wholeness and completeness, nothing missing, nothing broken, the shalom. That works best when you have clarity in your relationships, where you understand who's around you, what's going on, what feeds you, what does not. Surround yourself with people who inspire you to elevate, to grow and develop. Not only as people, but as leaders, as ministers. Surround yourself with those people. I know people who love the drama, so they stay around the drama. They love the chit-chat and the and the and the water cooler talk and they love that stuff. You're not growing, you're not going anywhere with that kind of stuff. There are people who are so broken, they hide it with talent, they hide it with skill. And they surround themselves with yes men and yes women, thinking that you know what, I'm building something great with all the folks that are following me. But most of them are enablers, not encouragers. So surround yourself with people who are inspiring you to grow and to stay focused. If gospel, if gossiping, if gossip is the soundtrack in your relationships, time to change the playlist. Put that in the comment section if you can. Drop that hashtag in there. If gossip is the soundtrack in your relationships, time to change the playlist. Last one, number five, learn the power of quiet progress. You can use Proverbs 14 and 23. In all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. Ooh, I love that. It's your consistency, speak louder than your commentary. Work, don't whine. Work, don't whine and complain. Work. Build, don't broadcast. All right, let's keep on moving because we're almost out of time here. So, one of the things about mind your own business, just a thought here, it doesn't mean ignoring the storm, it just means not letting it become your home address. I feel like you know, minding your own business, and I said a story earlier because I wouldn't put that out there so you didn't have that excuse. This is an excuse for moving podcasts. That's what we do with all our shows. We remove excuses. So I've been doing that for you today. Today, minding your business doesn't mean isolation. That's an excuse. We're removing that today. Amen. Minding your business is about integrity, it's about being whole and complete in Jesus. You can't be whole if your attention is fragmented across all these people's stories and lives and experiences. I will not be defined by how much I know about other people, but be faithfully handling what God has given me. It's easy to talk about other people's lives and stories, but it takes maturity to weather your own. So I want to just close with this uh thought as we get to the end of the episode today. Just some things to think about because it's not easy to mind your own business in such a reactive, noisy, crazy world. And I get that. Mind your own business, minding your own business in this context is all about the discipline of peace and character and integrity. You gotta stay focused when other people are distracted. You stay kind when other people are cruel. You stay disciplined when other people are drifting off, chasing revelations and chasing dreams and chasing gurus. You stay disciplined. You take responsibility for your own growth, for your own words, the ones you say and the ones you don't say. Take responsibility for your own reactions to situations. And you can't really attain that if you haven't chosen integrity over interference. And we're in a world full of interference, things trying to stop us from accomplishing our goals and growing and learning and deepening our relationship with God. And lastly, Galatians 6, uh verse 4 to 5, I'm gonna read this for you. I don't have the version, so I don't know where it's coming from, so forgive me on that. But it's really perfect here. It says each one should test their own work, then they heard that test their own work, not somebody, not somebody else, not say not manage somebody else's work, test your own work, then they can take pride in themselves alone without comparing themselves to someone else. Each one should carry their own load. There's gonna be a day that's gonna come, we're gonna have to account for what you've done. And you can't mention Scott and Jimmy and Bobby and Sharon and Gene. You can't mention them. You're gonna be asked about your work, and you better have something better to say than I started this project or I started this group. You better have something better than that. If you're a leader, who's following you and where are you taking them? Carry your own load, mind your own mission. I think that, well, I'm pretty positive of this, that your piece is going to preach louder than your opinion. If you want to follow the rest of our shows from the inspiration station so far, in the upper right-hand corner of your screen is a QR code. Grab that with your cell phone, and you have access to all of our episodes, present, past, and future in that QR code. And if you're listening to us and this show has resonated with you in any significant way, I want you to do a few things for us. Jump to Apple Podcasts and find our show there. Drop us a comment, let us know where you're uh messaging us from and what you know about the show for our podcast. Let people know they know age and it changed things for you. So do that for us. If you're on YouTube and you enjoy using YouTube, we have a channel there at theycallmeister. You love for you to subscribe to our YouTube channel and help grow us, it'll help out a lot with things for the future. So thank you for doing that. If you have any questions about what we heard today, or you have some things you'd like to talk to me about privately, hit me up in my DMs, social media, or however you can reach me. But thanks for watching and listening to our show. Wherever you're doing that, have a fantastic day. And thank you for checking out the Inspiration Station and your Everyday Edge podcast. Have a great day.