Staying Grounded: Building A Life That Can Hold God’s Gifts

What if the only thing keeping you from holding your blessings is the way you train for them? We get raw about discipline, alignment, and the quiet work that builds a life sturdy enough to carry what you’re asking God to place in your hands. No hype. No shortcuts. Just principles, reps, and a reset that starts now.

We start with a theme that changed everything: stay grounded. That meant stripping away pressure, shrinking goals to daily non-negotiables, and letting consistency do the heavy lifting. A 45-minute boxing class exposes the myth of “I’m in shape,” replacing ego with breath, technique, and pace. The lesson translates: when the round gets tough, your conditioning carries you. From finances to health to mindset, simple reps compound into capacity—and capacity keeps you from fumbling gifts.

By the end, you’ll have a practical map: define your non-negotiables, remove artificial pressure, set a theme for the year, and train your purpose like a muscle. Track reps, not vibes. Guard your inputs. Choose principles that stand when feelings fall. If you’re ready for December to be your reset, hit play, share this with someone who needs it, and tell us the one non-negotiable you’re committing to this week. Subscribe, leave a review, and let’s rise to new heights together.

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Purpose Check

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yo, yo, yo, how you doing? Welcome to another episode of the Summit Podcast. Look, I'm telling you, this series on infrastructure has been changing my life so much that I took a little bit of a break. I had to figure some things out, but we're back with another episode. This is going to be another subtle episode. Jess Clifton here, the host of the Summit Podcast. And I am excited and elated for you to be here as we rise to new heights. Look, I have a conversation that I've been telling myself lately. Like, what is the purpose of me doing this podcast? What is the purpose of me coming on here, having these conversations, making sure that we are in alignment with our purpose, right? Because even this infrastructure series was supposed to be here to set the foundation for our purpose. And what foundation did I set for myself this year? Let's talk about it. So I began this year in January on a mission. My goal this year was to stay grounded. It was to stay grounded. Going back to the basics of who I am as a creative, as I am as a person, a man of God, a person that is geared towards his purpose. I would say for the most part, because I'm not perfect. Some Jesus out here is perfect, y'all. For the most part, I have stayed the course and I have completed the task and what I've tried to accomplish this year. Had a few distractions on the way, but one thing I can tell you, I didn't allow any of those distractions to derail me this year. It's super essential as you going through life that you align yourself with the purpose that God has for you. Can I get an amen out there? I know you might be listening, you might be looking at this on YouTube, but I want you to hone in on that. So just to set the framework. Last year, December, my birthday's in December, we're coming up on December again. I set a goal for myself. I set principles for myself, and I set a thing for myself. So the thing this year was to stay grounded. And I wanted to make sure that I live my life fearlessly. I live my life with faith and I stayed focused. Because this conversation came about when I sat down with in prayer and I was talking to God and I was asking him, like, look, 37, about to be 38 now, 37 years old. And I do not feel like I am anywhere where I need to be, whether that is health-wise, financially, spiritually, mentally, anything that you can think of, I did not feel like I was at that place that I needed to be. Had a really bad, I was in a relationship last year and had a really bad, well, not a bad breakup, but a breakup that was unexpected, right? And that kind of made me look at myself a little bit differently. And when I looked at myself differently, what I began to realize about myself is that I have to get me. If you can't see me, I'm pointing at myself. I had to get me together. And in this process of getting me together, I realized something. That in order to position myself for the right queen, I had to become the king that I need to be. What do I mean by that? Adam was already given his charge, his position, his goals in life when he came on this earth. His help me came along to help perfect that. I talked about this before. When Eve was taken from Adam's rib, the word rib means floor and ceiling, which means that selecting the right mate is important to your purpose and destiny. It helps you lay the foundation and the spouse that you choose also helps you with the ceiling that you're about to achieve in life. Why is this essential and important? So no matter what I do separate from a spouse or a partner, I have to be able to understand is that they have a pivotal part in my life and achieving in the trajectory of my life. So, with me understanding this principle, what am I going to do in this lifetime? What am I going to do at this time in my life to be able to change a trajectory in my life even now? So, in this conversation that I had with God, and I hope this resonates with you because this really helped me gear towards what I what I'm about to say this year. In this time that I had this conversation with God, I came to realize this. I'm not as disciplined as I think I am. What made me realize that is that I pride myself on having a routine. My routine was trash. I ate trash, I didn't go to the gym, I didn't read consistently. So I set a whole bunch of goals this year to be able to achieve better discipline in my life. Did it work? Absolutely, in most areas of my life. Look, but let me set preference to this. So the reason why it worked is because what I did in setting goals this year, and I'm about to free a couple of people here, is I stopped putting pressure on myself. I used to always set goals so aggressively in my life that it put so much pressure on me when I didn't achieve them, it allowed me to fumble other goals in my life. So what I end up doing in my life has changed the way, the framework, what I how I think, and how I achieve goals. And this is important for you to catch this part. You take the pressure off your life. You have control of taking the limits off your life. What limits us is our thinking, the way that we think about our goals and the way that we think about how we're going to achieve and go to the next level. That is what limits us in our life. The way that we think is about taking the pressure off. I talked about in the very first podcast how you have to stop going with the flow. So I'm not talking about just going with the flow of life. You still have goals, you still have destiny, you still have purpose in your life. But in the moments when you get weak, the moment that you feel like you can't go any further, the strength that pushes you forward is your conditioning. And how do I know this? It's because in January, I started this thing called boxing. You can see the boxing glove there, you can see the flex bag there. So you see these different items. And the reason why I have these different items in my background is to show how I got to this point in my life is about creating non-negotiables. So I picked up this thing called boxing in January. And I'm gonna tell you this. So I went to my first class. So I went to my first boxing class. And the way that the class is structured is that it's 45 minutes, it's seven minutes of warmups, eight, three-minute rounds, and then seven minutes of core and strength exercises. So what ends up happening in this class is that I went into this class thinking that I'm in shape. This is what this is what I'm saying to you all today. Thinking that I had it all together. So after the warmups, I'm like, yeah, I'm a little bit out of breath. I'm a little windy, like whatever. So I start punching the bag. For one, I realized that I had no boxing technique. Even though I used to scrap a lot when I was a kid, I had no boxing technique. I didn't even have the basic fundamental boxing, which is breathing when you punch. So what happens when you don't breathe when you when you punch? You get winded much faster. Now, I'm 5'7. Yeah, I'm a short candy. About 155, 160 pounds, somewhere in that range, probably a little bit more than that at this time because I did kind of gain lose a little bit, whatever. And this is a girl, she's about five foot tall, maybe a buck ten. And she is going in on the bag. So in between the three-minute rounds, you have a minute of rest, basically. But she wasn't resting in between those one, those three-minute rounds. She's doing push-ups, she's doing sit-ups, she's doing shadow boxing, she's doing all kinds of things in between the rounds. I'm like, she is going in on this bag. You know what? I'm not finna let this little petite girl outcondition me. Like, what is what is this about? You know, like I'm that dog, man. Come round three, I am on the floor and I can barely breathe. And what that taught me was, for one, to stay in your lane. Because she, I found out that she's been doing this for years. So her body was conditioned to it already, and my eyes was not. And then the next thing that I found out is that that's what happens when I used to set goals. I used to run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run. Try and try and try, try, try, try, try. Try to have these. And the reason why it's important to sharpen your saw when you're cutting down a tree is because when your saw gets dull, two things will happen. The saw will stop working and it takes longer to cut down the tree, or you will injured yourself. So you will cause injury in your life if you don't take a moment just to sharpen your saw. So, what I learned in that moment is that because my conditioning wasn't right, I could not get through the workout. I could not get through the routine. I couldn't get that second effort. That taught me something and that fueled me in that moment. I would never put myself in it again when I'm not conditioned to receive and to obtain and to hold what God has for me. That was another principle I asked God. I was like, okay, God, everything that I accomplished this year, do not allow me to fumble it. Do not allow me to let it go. But allow me to hold, put your hands underneath my hands so I can hold everything that you have for me. So I had to be patient. It's no coincidence that I'm wearing a shirt. Good thing takes time. Because I'm telling you today is that I am at a cus in my life where God has given me things that I can hold, and I refuse to fumble them. But it's some things that I had to get over, and I'm gonna talk about this right now. It's a book. His name is Gay Hendritz. He wrote the book, The Big Leap. And he talked about four barriers to achieving consciousness of what you want. And one of the barriers is feeling fundamentally flawed. I take that as imposter syndrome, meaning that I don't have the ability to hold whatever is put in my hands. I fumble it. I don't have the ability to obtain and to keep everything that God has placed into my hands. In essence, what if I told you this? That having imposter syndrome is actually us trying to control our own destiny when we are supposed to put our purpose in God's hands, when we are supposed to put our routine in God's hands. It's another book that I love that I always go back to. It's called Wild at Heart by John Eldritz. And he said in this book this the imposter is our plan for salvation. So God must take it away. So anytime that we try to rely solely on our flaws, anytime we try to bask in our own flaws and our own ability, we're actually causing God to take away the purpose and the destiny that is ahead of us. Hear me what I'm saying this. Stop allowing yourself to do that. It's a scripture that talks about in Matthew 16 and 25. It says this. For whosoever will save his own life shall lose it. And whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. Lose what you want to do. Lose the fact that you have a big nose. Lose the fact that you may stutter when you speak. Lose the fact that you may have a limp when you walk. Lose the fact that you think that you cannot achieve the goals because of this flaw or that flaw. Lose it. Because that is when you find your purpose and your destiny. Do you hear me what I'm saying to you? Stop allowing yourself to be in a position that you don't want to be in. Stop allowing yourself to be in a stature that you don't want to be in. This is something else that I want you to get. Preston Smiles once said this. I don't chase dreams. I chase alignment. And when I am in alignment, dreams chase me. The way that you unlock your destiny and your purpose in your life is aligning yourself with principles and disciplines to get you there. The principles and the disciplines is what's going to get you to your goals because when you don't feel like doing, I talked about this, we don't feel like doing it, or when you don't have the tenacity to do it, what ends up happening is that your muscle memory kicks in. And when your muscle memory kicks in, that is when you are able to achieve everything that you are set out to achieve. How do I know this? I achieve so many things that was unimanageable in my life this year. My financial awareness has increased. My health has increased. The way I look at myself has changed. And it all came from me adopting the principle of staying disciplined. An undisciplined man is not a man that's going to achieve his purpose. I have so had so many distractions along the way. Even this year, I had so many things that have tried to knock me off course, tried to get into my head, tried to tell me who I'm not. But I'm standing here today saying that I'm going to stand on principle. The Summit Podcast is going to be a beacon of hope for people that are trying to chase, trying to get their self in alignment with their purpose. You will achieve everything that God has for you. Believe it. So another barrier that ends up happening is that a belief that more success brings on more burdens. So empty success. So I achieved all this for nothing. I achieve all this to have more weight, to be more depressed. But in essence, when you do it the right way, you do it with the principles of discipline, you're not worried about the burden because you're able to take on more weight. Just like when you exercise consistently, you're able to carry more weight. So in essence, more success when you're doing the reps the right way causes you to be able to strengthen the strength training, it causes you to not depend on yourself, but depends on the reps that you already put in. The reps that you put in is what's going to save your life. Another barrier is that disloyalty and abandonment, you feel like you're going to have loneliness. I can say for me is that I had to shift a lot of relationships in my life and a lot of priorities in a relationship of my life in order to get myself in a certain routine. And it's difficult for me to say that because my strongest desire and the strongest relationship I want, I want to be a husband again. I'm just going to keep it a buck with you. I feel like God built me to be a husband. I feel God designed me to be a husband. I was married for 15 years. Whether it was a good marriage, bad marriage, a hopeless marriage, a great marriage, whatever it was, it doesn't matter. I put in the loyalty and the effort to be married for 15 years. And I went through a phase after my divorce where I just didn't care. And I realized that's not me. So with me understanding that, I had come to the realization that I am no longer going to allow myself to be tethered or be chained to the fact of being alone in a certain typical point in my life. Because loneliness is a state of mind. But being intentional about your goals, about your dreams, you're never alone. Because God is at the end, in the middle, and in the midst of every goal that you're trying to achieve in your life. Do you hear me? You're never alone when you are in the position of achievement, when you are operating in your kingdom assignment, when you're operating in your purpose, when you operate in how God designed you to be, there is no loneliness. Another hidden barrier is that the fear of outshining, false humility. I dealt with this a ton, is that I'm not going to rise up and achieve anything in my life unless I'm bringing everybody with me. What that does is allow you to be stagnant by other people's efforts. Sometimes you have to go ahead and then you got to pull the people ahead with you once you have achieved, that are willing to go. Because some people are still not going to be willing to go. Some people still gonna be living the life they didn't want to live, some people still gonna be in the same position that they want to be in. And it's not your fault. You cannot allow yourself to be subject to the standards of other people. That's important for you to get in this moment. You have to allow yourself to move forward in the life that God has designed for you to do. Why? Because He is at the center of it. I said all this to say this. December is here. 2025 is about to come to an end. Are you going to get the discipline to be able to achieve the goals that you want to achieve in your life? Or are you going to be at the end of 2026 and still be in the same position you are last year? I have so many things that is ahead. My goal, my focus this year was to set myself up, to be able to cater to the whole man. When I say man, I say it man and woman, the whole man, mind, body, and spirit. Stay tuned. I got some great things that are coming ahead. I got a great initiative, a great project that's about to launch very soon. And I look forward to you going to this journey as we rise to new heights. So I don't know if I'm going to continue this a lot infrastructure series, or are we going to just jump into another series starting in December? But either way, some of the podcast is on the move. And I hope you come with me. Love it with the love of Christ. Peace.