Prayers & Blessings The Podcast
Welcome to Prayers & Blessings: The Podcast.
Hosted by Mark Tyson, this podcast is where faith, flavor, focus, and real-life conversations come together.
Each episode dives into growth, discipline, healing, purpose, fatherhood, motivation, and personal transformation — all while bringing authentic energy and powerful storytelling from the heart.
Whether we’re talking life over a plate of food, sharing lessons through struggle, or pushing each other toward greatness, this is a place for people looking to grow mentally, spiritually, and personally.
Faith. Flavor. Focus.Feed the Soul.
Prayers & Blessings The Podcast
Development: Trust the Process, Not the Timeline
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Everyone develops at a different pace.
Development: Trust the Process, Not the Timeline
We spend so much time looking at how fast everyone else is growing that we forget our own purpose.
You are the container.
What you pour into yourself every day—your discipline, your faith, your knowledge, your habits, and your mindset—is the nourishment that determines what you’ll eventually produce.
Just because nothing has broken through the surface doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Seeds don’t sprout the day they’re planted. They first develop beneath the surface where no one can see.
Stop comparing your timeline to someone else’s. Focus on feeding your mind, protecting your peace, and remaining consistent. In time, what you’ve been developing on the inside will begin to show on the outside.
Development isn’t about speed. It’s about preparation.
Prayers & Blessings: The Podcast — because what you nourish today determines what you become tomorrow.
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📱 Follow @PrayersAndBlessings for daily motivation, encouragement, and inspiration.
“Discipline obtains excellence. Stay faithful. Stay focused. Stay developing.”
What's up with the wash-ups? Welcome back to another episode of Prayers and Blessings the Podcast. I am your host, Mark Tyson. Let's start with a prayer before we get the discussion to start it today. Heavenly Father, I want to say thank you for waking us up this morning. Thank you for bringing us here and thank you for this moment. Thank you for every person that's listening today. Thank you for anointing my words. May they uplift, encourage, and reach some person out there that's in need. May this message give them the courage and the strength to become a better person that you have called them to be. In your name's sake, I pray. Amen. Are you developing intentionally? Are you intentionally developing yourself? Are you taking the time out to develop and to become the person that God has called you to be? The person that you want to be. Not your bank account. Not for all the materialistic things around you. Are you becoming, are you intentionally developing to be a better father? To be a better husband, to be a better son, to be a better wife. If you had all the opportunity, if the opportunity that you prayed for presented itself to you today, are you ready? Are you ready to receive any and everything that you pray for? Have you developed yourself? Have you taken some time to develop yourself? See, today we're going to discuss development because I honestly believe that you have been watching me develop. And I'm going to use myself as one of the best analogies ever, as always, because I can't tell you something somebody told me. I can only tell you and explain you and give you the guidance from the things that I've been through. And you've honestly witnessed this. If you've been following me, you'll watch me start with Morning Motivations, What's Up with the What's Ups, Radio, Podcast, TV. First I started with cooking. Then I left the cooking alone because the cooking was taken away from the message. I was too busy focusing on recipes. But now the message is at the forefront because I've been developing over a period of time. I've been developing to become a better father. Intentionally. See, some of us want to become these better people for ourselves, and then we want our family to reap the benefits of it, but we're not developing, or we're not taking the time to develop ourselves intentionally. Or we think what we're doing because you can't see it is not happening fast enough. What comes with developing, right? Let me give it to you from a chef's point of view, inside the kitchen. If you put a brisket in the oven, in a smoker, it requires pressure and time. Every time you open that door, you're restarting the process. You're not leaving the door closed long enough for the smoke to grab it, grab on to this brisket. That's like your life. You keep releasing, you keep opening and releasing and checking, but you have to develop these flavors. A cheesecake must set. You can't keep opening the oven and looking at it. It must have the proper course of action. It must take the proper time in order for it to flourish to come out. But you have to develop. See, with development comes, discipline. Development builds character. Developing is not about what they see on the outside. That's the beauty of the after. But you have to take some time out and develop who you are. I'm proud, you know, of the person that I'm developing right now. You see what I'm saying? Because if you look at it, when a lot of us don't want to develop and don't want to take the time to put ourselves away, right? We don't want to put ourselves away and develop to become to the people that we want to be, the person that we want to become, because we should work, we work, we're worried about people judging us and not being accepted. But when I was ripping everyone in the streets, throwing all the dirt up under the sun, I wasn't worried about nobody judging me. I wasn't worried about nobody uh looking at the negative person that I was developing, that I was crafting, that I was molding this all this negative energy. See, we don't worry about all that when it's something that's gonna benefit you in a negative manner. I'm sitting outside throwing rocks at the penitentiary, telling them to let me in, open the doors and let me in. It didn't bother me, you know, to be developing this ill character. So why should it bother me now when I'm developing myself right in front of your eyes into a positive individual that's going to rub off to somebody else? You shouldn't let things around you bother you when you're developing who you are. See, in Philadelphia, I come from Philadelphia, right? We are very, very, very, very big on respect. You must respect us by all means necessary. But ask yourself this. Do you respect yourself enough to develop yourself into the person that you want to be? You'll go upside somebody's head if they disrespect you. You ready to break somebody on, break somebody back if they disrespect you. But you disrespect yourself every time you put your life on hold. Every time you procrastinate, every time you second, you make your legacy come second to your temporary pleasures. Every time you don't move on impulse to better yourself, you disrespect yourself, you disrespect your babies, you disrespect your wife, or you disrespect your husband, you disrespect who you are every time you don't take time out to develop yourself and put yourself in a better light and a better space with who it is that you want to become. See, me personally, I don't have no pride in this. There's no pride in me swallowing and me trying to help someone else out. See, right now, you can't for those that cannot see me right now. This is out there in podcast land, only can hear my voice. I'm standing in my bedroom recording this. Because it doesn't matter as long as you get the message. I'm not too proud. I do whatever it takes for me to evolve. I'm doing whatever it takes for me to develop myself to become a better speaker. If you notice, for the ones that can see me, I'm not sitting down. I'm standing up doing this podcast today. That's growth, that's developing, that's doing whatever it takes to get better. Paying my dues, being seasoned, motivating myself to become a better me. When you want better for you, you have to do better for you. It's nobody in my air cheering me on. I'm cheering myself on. Because I want something. See, a lot of us want the respect and the honor, and they want to, and we want somebody to tell us how good we've been doing. And we want to celebrate. Celebrate what? You've been doing good at what? You popping bottles and celebrating what? You going out partying for what? What have you developed? See, this is called prayers and blessings the podcast, where luxury motivation. See, I say it's luxury motivation due to the fact that I'm not one of them personal motivators that's gonna scream and yell and hoop and holler and snatch you up and all that. I like to sit down and talk to you because some people you need to talk to, need to bring them closer to you, sit down and deliver your message with so they can grab it. Other people, when you yell them, they ears, they close ears, they can't hear it. They immediately become on defense. They immediately become offended. This is luxury motivation. I'm talking to you. I'm letting you know that you can do better than what you're doing. And you are better than who you are right now. You're not the same person you were yesterday. If you turned this on and you listen to it, you're looking for something. You want some answers. You want something that you want the light bulb to come on. You're trying to develop, you're in the stage of developing a better person. These are the things you want for yourself, and I'm here to tell you that don't get it. You've you you you if you have followed me or you've been following me, you have watched these steps that I've been taking with myself every morning on my way to work, work clothes on, positive motivation, putting on good energy because that's who I am. Slowly but surely, it's just been developing, been developing, been developing. I developed a knack for speaking. I enjoy it. I enjoy being able to help someone else. I've been I enjoy being able to tell someone something that inspires them to become the person that God has called them to be. I'm inspired to become the person that God has called me to be. That's why I put away all my childish things. There's a there's a there's a there's a story, right? About a bamboo tree. I heard Les Brown tell this story, and he tells, he's he tells it amazingly. Let me run it back to you, to you, to you, to those that have not heard this. A bamboo tree takes five years to grow, but you have to water it, you have to nourish it, and you have to attend to this bamboo tree. Now, after the five years of watering and nourishing this bamboo tree, in 60 days it grows 90 feet tall. So ask yourself, was this bamboo tree growing 90 feet under the ground, or did it grow 90 feet above? See, nobody can see what is pushing through down there. Nobody can see somebody going to nourish this bamboo tree every day, doing what it takes. That's you. You have to nourish yourself every day. You have to put something into you. So that when your 90 days, when your 60 days come, you can sprout out 90 feet tall. But it's development stays, it's the development stage, it's the development stage. You have to develop who you are in order to receive the blessings that God is pushing, that God is gonna give you, He's gonna deliver it to you. See, you see, you're a container, right? And God is gonna fill your container with blessings. But God can't fill your container with blessings if your blessings ain't ready to receive it. If you're not a developed container, you got doors hanging off, but you're complaining about the way the door is looking, and you are in the proper perspective, and you are the only person in power to fix these doors, you can't complain about not receiving things. Or when the because I can guarantee you this the opportunity is gonna present itself. Are you gonna be ready? All these years, God has been preparing me slowly but surely for these speaking engagements. He's been developing me for these voiceover engagements that I've been praying on. Say, God, I want to do voiceovers. I love to do it. I can speak to, you know, my voice is what you have blessed me with. And I can speak to the people through characters, say something positive to the things that gravitate to their attention. As long as they get the message, I don't really care how they receive it or what it's coming through or how they get it. I just want to help somebody else out through these words. So slowly but surely, he has been developing me. He has been nourishing me. I've been this bamboo plant. So have you. But you have to nourish yourself. You have to take the time out to swallow your pride and be who you are. You cannot worry about anyone around you. Because, like I said before, when I personally was ripping around in the streets doing all the negative things under the sun, I didn't care about who was looking at me, developing this negative image. Do you know people will talk about you day in and day out, no matter what you do. But if you are in a space in your life that you're not comfortable with it, then why wouldn't you do something to change that? If you're not developing, you're staying the same. If you're not developing, you're staying the same. And nobody wanna hear your complaints. 80% of the people don't want to hear nothing you got going on, they want to hear nothing about your bad complaints, they don't want to hear nothing about what's devastating that happened to you. And the other 20%, they happy that it's you and not them. Let me say that again for the people in the back. 80% of the people don't care about none of your gripes and grammars and problems and none of that. They don't hear nothing you going that you got going on. And the other 20% of the people, they happy that it's you. So what do you have to lose to developing yourself and going for what it is that you need to be successful, not just for you, but for your babies, your wife, your husband, whoever it is that is in your circle. Whoever it is that's in your circle that's you developing yourself for to benefit yourself, that they're gonna benefit, they're gonna reap the benefits of you becoming this person that you already been wanting to be. There's somebody that you've been wanting to be. This is so this is a person that you already been said you wish you could move differently, react differently, and think differently and respond differently. You could do it. You just will take the time out to develop yourself. You won't, you won't not isolate yourself. You have to isolate yourself and tell yourself, look, I'm gonna think different, I'm gonna move different, I'm gonna do things differently for me. Do it for you. That's where your blessings come in. You are this container, you are this bamboo tree that's been planted that been needing nourishing over the years. Over the years, over the years. Just keep nourishing you. It takes five years. And when this bamboo tree shoots up through the ground, and in 60 days, it grows 90 feet tall. But do you know how firm or how sturdy this bamboo tree is? From everything that it pushed through, how solid it is. See, with the when you develop yourself to become somebody better, right? Not only do you become a better father, better uncle, better nephew, better son, better husband, better mentor. But you have the ability to rub off on other people. That's the beauty of it all. The beauty is that you have the ability to rub off on other people, and then you it's it's like a domino effect. You make someone else better, and then they make someone else better. See, my purpose is to make someone else better, I pray, I received blessings, and now I'm passing it on. See, I was that bamboo tree, and God just kept nourishing and watering me. And it took me years and years and years to push through all the dirt, the trials and tribulations. But when I come through, I'm 90 feet tall. You have to nourish yourself, you have to water yourself, you have to take care of yourself. Like I said before, you can sit around and sulk and tell people your problems and how things ain't going your way. I got a friend of mine. Every time I talk to him, something is wrong. Every time I talk to him, he's telling me about somebody who got hurt, somebody who got passed away, somebody did this to him, somebody did that to him, somebody he just not. He just it it I can't never talk to him. I talked to him in five, six years. First time I talked to him, he wants to tell me about somebody that did something to him, something sad, something. I stopped answering the phone for him. I don't want that energy to rub off on me. I don't want that negative vibes to start coming my way. I'm not gonna fight with that energy. You see, it's like you have to develop yourself into a person that cannot receive that. You speaking that because you're receiving it. You that's the only reason why you're receiving it. Your container is full of negative negativity because you're receiving it. Developing and receiving, right? For years I really couldn't uh develop a relationship with my father because I didn't know how to receive him. I couldn't even tell you what kind of father I wanted because I didn't have a I didn't I didn't have a painter, I couldn't even paint a picture of what a father should be or how he should react. So I didn't know how to receive him because I didn't take the time out to nourish the relationship and develop something with him so I could receive it. So you have to develop something with yourself so when the opportunities present themselves to you, you know how to receive them. It's just you against you against the world. This is the message that you needed today. This is the inspiration that you needed today. I had to I I the other day, right? I reached out to my daughter and I just text her. Thank you, I love you. She texts me back. She said, You're welcome, dad. Is everything okay? I've thanking her because there's no there's no directions, there's no instructions that come with being a father. And I don't have no problem with taking accountability, right? If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but if I'm right, I'm gonna stand on that. And we had a long conversation. And when after she got finished with the after I got finished with the conversation, and we went our separate ways, and I sat down and I thought about it. She is a part of my development. She helped me see fatherhood from a different perspective. She helped me understand that I'm growing to be a better father because of the pushback that she gives me. And when I say the pushback, she helped me see things from her point of view, from from not just a child's point of view, but from a female's point of view. And I can honestly say, well, you know what? I'm thanking you because you're helping me become a better parent. Because everything I thought I was doing wasn't always right. If that ain't growth and development in me, to be able to honestly say, you know what, you right, thank you because you're helping me become a better person. You're helping me see things differently. It ain't, I'm not always right, it ain't always my way. That's that's that that comes with growth. That comes with parenting. That comes with development. That comes with understanding yourself that you want to be, you're not, you never gonna be perfect. You're never gonna have, you're never gonna be a perfect human being. I say practice makes perfect. Nah, it doesn't. Practice makes you better. So if I keep practicing at this parenting thing, I'm gonna get better. I'm gonna get better, and I'm gonna get better. I ain't never gonna be perfect, Dad, but I'm gonna be better than what I was last year. My commutative level was gonna go up. My boundaries have become more firm because I was loose with the boundaries at one time, because I was too busy trying to be um a friend and not a father. I was too busy trying to, you know, be accepted as a dad. So these things are helping me develop to become a better person. So to those fathers out there, just keep developing. Keep nourishing your relationship with your children. Yeah, you're gonna get fed up and you're gonna get upset and you're gonna get ready to throw the towel in. Don't. You have to keep nourishing the relationship, you have to keep watering this bamboo plant. It's gonna take time. It's gonna, but you have to understand this though. It will sprout. It's gonna come through all that nastiness, all the dirt and all that. That's strength pushing through. To any father out there that's having a rough time with your child or children, just keep nourishing it. And don't be afraid to be a take accountability because we're not always right. Now, I'm not saying don't stand firm as a father. Always be their father and not their friend, but you have to understand times have changed and we look at things differently these days. I know I was. I was nurturing the ways that I thought that they should be. But that's bringing me back to developing. You have to have to develop the relationship so you know how to receive the person on the other end. And then you'll be received well because it goes both ways. She's developing, she's becoming into a young woman. You know what I'm saying? So if you throw the child away and stop it right there, you stop watering this plant because you feel like you haven't seen anything come through the soil, it dies. Who you are will die. Your legacy will stop. It will be comp it will it will deplete. You must keep nourishing, nourishing who you are. You must keep developing. If you stop developing who you are, you had a standstill. If you stop moving, you stop. Make sense? If you stop moving, you stop. You stop developing, you stop. Those cameras, you had to keep flicking it like this to help it develop. The minute you set it down, it came out all blurry and and and unmanageable. You couldn't see what was going on. Take some time out for you. Take some time out for you and do research on what it is you're trying to obtain because it's not gonna fall in your lap. All these things come with development, all these things come with strength, all these things will come into your container that God has, you are the container. God will fill your container with blessings and opportunities. But you have to develop yourself in order to be ready for you. You don't have to develop yourself in order to be ready for it. If the opportunity presented itself right now and today, would you be ready? You say you want this mansion, five-bedroom house, you want the pool, backyard, you want the basement, the movie room, you want all these things. Tomorrow morning you wake up with it. Are you ready? You got a two-bedroom apartment you can't even keep clean. You can barely pay the bills on that. You out partying all night, messing up money. You got the you you can you can you ain't complain about the uh the light water and the gas in the heat building is five-bedroom apartment, five five-bedroom house, are you? Are you ready for the opportunities if they was a land smack on your doorstep tomorrow? Some people say, yo, I want to be rich. If you were rich, what would you do differently? Because you ask yourself this. If you're not striving right now to become rich and to become somebody, the person that you want to be, not something, not somebody, not a person that someone else said you should be, but the person that you say you want to be. You will get rich tomorrow. What's going to change about you? You're gonna have some money to spend, but you're still gonna be the same lazy, dirty, filthy person that you was without no money. You can't hide that. You're gonna have a bank account with money, but you're still gonna be lazy, dirty with the same nasty thoughts, and ain't gonna be able to sustain and maintain it. You're gonna lose it like this. Because you ain't developed nothing. You ain't develop an understanding of money. You ain't understand, you ain't developed the understanding of cleanliness. You don't have an entrepreneur body bone in your body. See, some people are are content with where they are in life. This ain't for you. If you're cool with where you are in life and you're content with the things that you do, then this ain't for you. If you're cool with coming up by the mom's basement and living in her crib and and I mean never being on your own, then that's you. I'm I'm not knocking anyone. This is not, this is this message is not to knock anyone. This is to inspire, uplift, encourage the people who want it. There's a person out there that's like, you know what? I want more, but I really don't know what I need to do. You need to sit back and develop yourself. You just sit back and start turning things off and turning some other things on. I would have never thought in a million years that I'd be sitting in my car, riding down the street, listening to Les Brown, listening to Eric Thomas. I had to turn off some other things, turn some other things on, and get my mind to a different frequency. I had to develop myself into another person that I wanted to be. I like being smooth, I like being cool, I like being chill, I like being laid back. I like being able when somebody asks me some questions that's positive to be able to give my positive, some positive feedback. I like the fact that I overcame a lot of the obstacles. I like the fact that I overcame, you know, um alcohol, drug selling, womenizing. I like the fact that I overcame these things. And I know somebody else out there that want to overcome them. I don't have a problem with reaching out to help them and touch them and say some things that can motivate them to becoming a better person. I like to see young men and women strive to become better. I like to see them doing things that's going to benefit them without having to take that negative route. And if I can stand behind them and say, keep going and tell them no, you're going in the right direction, that's beautiful, you know what I'm saying, and uplift them, then that's what it takes, that's what I'll do. Those that don't know what to do and want to do it, then I can I would like to step in and help them as well. Because like I said before, I've prayed and I got blessed. Prayers and blessings. This is luxury motivation. I ain't snatching you up by your collar, yelling and spitting all in your face. I'm sitting back talking to you. Everybody don't need that. Everybody don't need that. Everybody needs to talk to them calmly, they got some sense and give them some information they can use and push forward. Just a reminder. Let them know. Stay prayed up. Somebody else is praying for you. But it also takes actions. I'm a prime example. I'm right here. I'm a prime example. A lot of places I could have been and I didn't make it to. I changed my way of thinking, got a riddle, got from around the people I was around. You know what I'm saying? Put more time in where it's needed. With the kids, with the wife. It's hip to be square. Some would say I'm square. You ain't going out to watch the fight tonight. Nah, I'm cool right here where I'm at. You know, I stopped going out on New Year's Eve to celebrate New Year's. My whole thing was, I'm gonna sit in the house because I'm gonna watch the news and see all the negative nonsense I dodged last night. That was my way of thinking. I'm gonna sit back and catch it the next day on the news. Everything that I missed, everything that I dodged, all the nonsense that I was not involved in. Because of the decision I made to stay home. One little, one bit one good decision leads to another good decision. And then you become a great decision maker. Don't worry about nobody judging you. Develop yourself, take some time out, nourish yourself. Don't forget you can find prayers and blesses on all your podcasts. You can find us on Amazon, you can find me on Apple Podcasts, you can find me on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, prayers and blesses the podcast, but faith, flavor, and focus feeds the soul. It's luxury motivation, baby. I'm developing myself. God is developing me. He's preparing my container. So when an opportunity presents itself, and they say, Mr. Tyson, do you want to come speak at this event? I'm ready. When they say we got these voiceovers for you, you want to come do this voiceover? I'm ready. I've been the God has been developing me over the years. What's up with the Walsour's prayers and blessings? Don't pray for a lighter load, pray for stronger shoulders. I'm just saying, holla at your boy. Yeah, yeah, that's me. Don't pray for a lighter load, pray for stronger shoulders. Merch on the website. God, merch for the women. I'm building this positive community. I'm developing the community. Because I want nothing but like-minded people around me. And when my kids grow up, I want nothing but like-minded people around them. So if I could benefit, if if if it benefits me to become a better person, and then I can help somebody else become better, and help somebody else become better, and we all become better as a group, and then my kids are growing up around better individuals. I didn't did my job. My legacy lives on. Take some time out and develop yourself. A little bit every day. Just a little bit every day. Remember, keep watering, keep nourishing who you are. And you will sprout out. You'll be 90 feet tall. Thank you for tuning in to prayers and blessed the podcast. Remember, hug somebody and tell them you love them. Their chest might hug you back and tell you they love you. I'm just saying, I like your boy.
