Keion Henderson - Staying Stable

I’m going to talk to you about staying stable; that’s what I want to discuss. So, as I start this message, I want to bring this up for conversation. I don’t know what you learned about in school; I know who we learned about. I took some business classes, and the story of John D. Rockefeller is a legendary tale. We all know him for his wealth, and I believe I read somewhere that if you take the money John Rockefeller had in his day and measure it against today’s economy using two percent inflation, he would be worth 400 billion dollars. No internet marketing, no social media, very limited globalization-no internet. He was a trailblazer. The country was relatively young at this time, and yet he amassed a fortune of 400 billion dollars. I say it’s legendary because I’m sure you know about his wealth, but I’m also equally sure you don’t know about his misery. We all know that John D. Rockefeller was worth this enormous amount of money, but what if I told you that his father left, his mother was a criminal, and he was abandoned in Cleveland, Ohio? In his first job, he only made 50 cents a day. Talk about a tough life! I mean, you think your life’s tough, but you don’t make 50 cents a day. John Rockefeller, this rich guy, this legend that we know so much about, grew up doing business during one of the greatest depressions the country had ever seen, which was actually initiated in Cleveland, Ohio, the city where he lived. He made 50 cents a day as a bookkeeper. Before he hired bookkeepers, he made so much money he couldn’t even count it. He started out as a man who counted others. I thought about how sometimes God makes you a counter before you count, how sometimes God will put you over an affair to see if you can manage those types of affairs. Here it is in scripture: to see if you will be faithful over a few things before God will make you ruler over much. It was in 1857, and you can look this up-during one of the greatest market crashes in the history of the world — that John Rockefeller began to see opportunity where everybody else saw obstacles. It was in 1857, when factories were closing down, and people were ill, and medicine was not readily available, and jobs were moving to other parts of the country, that John D. Rockefeller said, «This is my moment; this is my time.» By the end of his journey, this man who made 50 cents a day was in charge of 90% of the United States oil market. I don’t know where you work or what you do for a living, but let me ask you this question: How wealthy would you be if you owned 90% of the industry you’re in right now? If you are a singer, imagine that 90% of the songs on the radio are yours. Maybe you sell t-shirts for a living; imagine that 90% of the people in the world are wearing your t-shirt. Perhaps you wash cars; imagine if you washed 90% of the cars in the world. I’m trying to give you perspective, scale, and size. You hear about 90% of the oil market, but I want you to understand if you are selling ice cream that 90% of the people in the world are eating your ice cream. If you’re a beautician, you’re doing 90% of the hair and nails. This man owned it all-he had a 90% share. Warren Buffett said it this way: in this market, when everyone was afraid, running, terrified, and stressed, Warren Buffett, who is one of the richest people to ever live, said, «Successful people are fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful .» Now, you may be asking, «What are you talking about? The Bible doesn’t want me to be greedy.» I’m not telling you to be greedy; what I am saying is that he’s illustrating how the world operates. Industry responds to those who have the right perspective. It 's not about being greedy or fearful; it’s about knowing what time to be which one. It’s not about being happy or sad or angry or jovial because even the Bible says, «Be angry and sin not.» It doesn’t say you can’t be angry; it just says you need to know when to be angry and when not to be. It’s all about perspective. My mama used to tell me that you need to know when to talk and when to be silent. So, you must have the right perspective. Now, when I give you this definition, I hope to blow your mind because when we think about perspective, we usually discuss how we see things, how we look at things, or how we conceptualize things. I looked up the word " perspective,» but not just the denotation or the definition; I researched the etymology. This takes us back to its Latin roots, and here it is: the actual etymology of the word «perspective» is the science of optics.