Sarah Jakes Roberts on how to tap into the power of your potential

It’s not necessarily that you ever get to a place where you no longer have the fear, where you no longer have the insecurity, but you stay on the frontline long enough to realize that that fear is just a boogeyman. Because when I allow my faith to be on the frontline, when fear starts talking, I outlast the fear. I keep showing up regardless of what the inadequacy says, because at the end of the day, I have made a decision that I am not going to move out of the position where God has placed me. Come on faster. Sarah Jakes Roberts delivering a sermon on overcoming insecurity. In addition to leading congregations, Sarah is also an author. She’s a speaker, a philanthropist, and Time magazine named her an emerging thought leader for this generation. Yeah. If her name sounds a little familiar, she’s also the daughter of Bishop TD Jakes. And now Sarah has a book out. It is a beautiful book. It is called Power Moves. Pastor Sarah, good morning. We’re so happy you’re here. Morning. I’m glad to be here. Even though I missed the cookies. We should have brought some cookies. Bring some for you. There’s something about your resilience, you sitting across from us at at this table at this moment. And I think back to your childhood. And you describe it eloquently. At 13, you were pregnant, and at 14 you became a mom. And I bet you in those days you were thinking, what is my destiny? Yeah, it can’t look good. You know, I could not see past this idea that I would never overcome shame, that I would always be defined by this one thing for the rest of my life. And I feel like I spent 10 years grappling with the power of shame, the power of insecurity, the power of things of anxiety, which is why I wrote this book, because we have powerful opponents in fear, insecurity. It’s not just something we should normalize, but when we see it as powerful, it helps us to bring our power to the table as well. So let’s go back to that time You’re 1314. Your dad is a very famous pastor. Yeah. How how did that affect your relationships within your family? Ohh goodness. I think that there was a lot of grief. I think, you know, no parent is hoping that this is the path their child will take. We want them to have the easiest Rd. possible, but I do believe that it also gave me an opportunity to have a sense of belonging in a world that felt so much bigger than me. I often wondered where I fit, and now there was this little human that I knew was counting on me. And it made me mature and it anchored me and allowed me to become, I believe, the woman that’s in front of you today, because I felt like I needed to show up for him. Yeah. Our is an important thing. But yet no matter what happens in your childhood and everyone who’s listening has something. Yeah. That when it comes up, it like it’s like a knife in their heart. It’s like, Ouch, there’s that old pain again. Whether it’s you felt you weren’t enough, you weren’t seen whatever your thing is, how do you overcome that? Because you stand before these congregations. They know everything about you and you are just you’re preaching so beautifully. I am so glad you asked this question because so often we get stuck in what we did. But we don’t look at the context of why we did it. When I looked back at my life for the longest, all I thought was, Oh my gosh, you got pregnant. How could you, How could you? How could you? But when I remember how isolated I felt, how angry, how resentful I have compassion instead of that cringe that I used to have. If we look at the context of why we did it, what we had to work with, what we didn’t have to work with, I believe that we can find a way to love the person who made the decision and then love that person into growing into someone who takes those lessons and throws them into the world with confidence and joy. Because I have overcome what almost tried to Take Me Out. Yeah, that’s it. I think right now, and probably forever, parents are so worried about letting their kids fail. We have, yeah, social media, technology. Things last forever. Don’t post it. It will last forever. But the truth is, if you can’t fall down, yeah. How do you know? Your own power for sure. Also, I think we have to be able to own our own truth. And part of our truth is I make mistakes. Yeah. And if we fall for this idea that I have to have this perfect image, it has to have this beautiful illusion. We will miss out on the opportunity to have this beautiful jacket edge masterpiece that is all of our lives. I think trying to find your voice for any woman goodness is very hard. Yeah. Whether you’ve been in a business or in your phone family, it’s like sometimes women feel invisible, not seen, not heard. How did they get that power back? You know what? I think even more than feeling invisible, people have put words in the mouths of women for so long. This is what you should say. And I think there has to come a point where we say, stop putting words in my mouth. Fear has put words in my mouth. Society has put words in my mouth. I want to figure out what my own voice is. And the beautiful thing about this is I’m shy like that. So I don’t always want to speak out, but I started practicing within myself. If you can tell your own stuff, I don’t really want to do that. Yeah, that doesn’t feel good to me, even if you still do it. To begin practicing hearing your own voice so that it doesn’t shock you when you’re like, you know what, I’m gonna say something this time. We don’t have to go from zero to 60 where we’re burning all the bridges. Yeah, we could get our matches out. We can start eyeing the bridge and start thinking to ourselves, What do I want to say next time that is more aligned with my truth? How do I advocate for me in the world that I’m creating for? And also just quickly, But to make a a leap or a change in your life, to leave the guy who you should have left a long time ago, it means that you’re jumping. But jumping scary. It’s like you don’t know what’s out there. Jumping is scary when you jump with your eyes closed. But I want you to have a vision for what you’re jumping to. Who is the woman on the other side of this relationship? What makes her feel safe? What makes they’re happy? What allows her to feel empowered? Start envisioning her so that when you’re jumping, you’re not jumping blindly. I’m jumping into a vision of who I want to be as a result of who I wasn’t in this. Brilliant. Brilliant. That’s so good. Jump with your eyes. Have something. You’re right. OK, Don’t get past it. Sarah, we’re taking a break. Please take care, because you’re going to share the three steps that could lead you to living your most powerful life. By the way, that’s so good because you’re right. People are scared because they can’t not imagine what’s there. But we are back with Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts. He’s written a new book. It is so awesome. Y’all it is called Power Move. OK, so one of the things that we were just talking about during commercial break is part of this whole conversation is redefining what powerful means. For sure. I love, I love the title of the book. I think most people are like, it’s going to show you how to make a power move, but power moves is going to show you how to flow with power. Power is fluid, and if we think that our power is only reserved for our 20s, it’s only reserved for a certain stage in our life, then we will miss out on the opportunity to see the fluidity of power and defining it for where we are now. What does power look like after the divorce? What does power look like in my 50s, Always asking ourselves that question. How about Vanessa Williams walking? Oh my God, what does power look like? It’s 61. What did you think of that? I absolutely loved her taking control of the narrative of her own life. She could have grieved and lamented who she once was, or she could have said, I still have air in my lungs. My knees are still out here dancing. Yeah. And she decided that power for me looks like freedom and power for her. She’s not waiting for the phone to. Yeah. Anyway, she’s creating her, creating her destiny. Well, people are wondering, like, what are some things that I can do myself to find my power? And you line out so many great things in your book, which people should get. But you say there are three steps, and the first one is marinade. Yes, the first step is marinade. I want you to begin marinating about what power looks like for you. Let’s take all of those wins and all of those losses and marinate on what do I want to do with this next stage of my life? Even if you don’t know what you want to do, practically, what do I want to feel? Who do I want to become one of my core values? Let’s start marinating on that. And then the second step is activating it. Let’s allow some of those things you’re marinating on to activate in your life. If it’s a whisper within yourself, I’ll take that. But if you can practice on a friend and relationships, that’s even better. Begin to activate who you are becoming. And then you got to pray. Let’s invite the power, the all powerful, all knowing God, into our choices. Because power is not about perfection. Power is about having humility while still trying. And when we invite the presence of God, we are empowered to keep going. Oh my gosh, don’t you love that? And I think the marinate part is so interesting because some of us, all of us, are moving so fast, taking care of kids, working, doing this, that we don’t allow ourselves to really like, stop, rest, think calm, to even know who we are and what we want. Oh, is that not? I mean, I’m constantly asking ourselves who am I outside of how I serve others? And unless we are in stillness and taking the time to say who do I want to be? And is this true? A lot of times we are running off of yesterday’s power where it locked into a definition of what was powerful for us 10 years ago, but defining what this power look like for me now and how does my life need to change? It’s it’s beautiful. Sometimes you’re in a a place in your life where you have a friend group or relationships or whatever they are and they all have already defined you. You know, Sarah, you’re this person. Well, now you want to step into your power, OK? And sometimes if they’re not great friends or friends who want to feel comfortable, they don’t like that. It takes a lot of courage sometimes to say, you know what? I’m going to do something for me. Not for you, not for you, not for you. But that takes a lot to come out and say that. It’s it takes a lot of courage if you say it like that because now people are like, whoa, wait a minute, where did this come from? But to say, you know what? I’ve been robbing you from the gift of who I really AM. And I’ve been sensing for the last few weeks that I want to show you who I am, who I’m becoming, and I want to know if you’ll be on this journey with me. I have found that people have a lot more elasticity than we give them credit for. But because we are so afraid that they won’t make space for us, we stay small. You said something. I love that. You said something I I want to dig more into, which is power is not perfection. Oh, yeah, That, You know, I think especially as moms, you know, we’re like, oh, gosh, you know, let’s get this, let’s do this, Let’s do that. But you say you don’t need to be perfect to be powerful. Let me tell you, I was thinking this. I was like, man, God, I want to be powerful. I want to feel powerful. And God was like, you know what? You want to feel arrogant. You want to feel invincible. You want to feel like you never make mistakes. But there is power in being confident in what I know and being humble about what I’m learning, about allowing myself to be on a journey and not feeling whether I am defined by either of those things because I’m a combination of them both. And so some of us don’t step into our power, ’cause we’re like, if I fail, if I mess it up, then I’m going to be embarrassed. And that’s OK You can say I messed it up, I failed, but I’m getting ready to try again. Power is giving yourself room to move. Some people don’t have their power, can’t step into it because they don’t really have their purpose. Sometimes you just feel like you’re spinning because you’re paying your bills. I need the insurance. This is all happening. But you don’t feel that power because you don’t. You’re not on the train that you’re not where you’re supposed to be. How do you think people can find that their purpose? You know, I am not one of those people who believe that you step into a specific lane, and that is your purpose. I think your life is purposeful. And I think the question we must ask ourselves is how can I bring purpose to the moment I’m standing in? How can I bring value to the people I’m in connection with? I don’t know that I’ll ever be a host on the Today Show, but I am here thinking to myself, how can I bring purpose for the five to seven minutes I’m going to be here? How can I make their lives, their world better? I asked myself that in Target, when I’m having an exchange, someone at the register, I am purpose. I’m not looking for it. Finding the purpose and the little moments of every life. Like, did you just say I am purpose? I’m not looking for. Yes. Oh, my God, there’s so no. But you’re right. Finding that purpose in the small. Yes. Yeah. And as a mom, when you wear as many heads as I do, you have to see everything is purposeful. And if you don’t, then maybe it’s not something you should engage in. If I cannot bring purpose to this, and it is not serving me and growing in some way, then maybe this isn’t for me because I want to add light wherever I go. OK. What you said is a tiny fraction of your book. Yeah, so we want people to get this book because you are amazing. I remember you come back once a bus. We need you. Power moves, we’ll bake, you bake you your favorites. Power moves. You can get that book. It’s at today.com/thankyou. Thank you, Sarah. We adore you and we will be back right after. So good. So good. I told you like.