Join Angie Austin and special guest Jim Stovall as they delve into the principles of success and perseverance in this inspiring episode. With wisdom from Jim’s ‘Winner’s Wisdom’ column, listeners will learn the art of going back to basics to achieve lasting success. Discover the stories of those who stayed the course, like Willie Nelson, and learn about the power of owning your true goals and passions.
Welcome to the good news with Angie Austin. Now with the good news, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey there friend, Angie Austin and Jim Stovall with the good news. And today we are talking about his winner’s wisdom column titled basic geometry. And Jim, when I saw it, I thought it was a note from my daughter’s geometry teacher and that’s never a good thing. So I got like, like my heart like sunk for a minute and then I realized it was your column.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, good. Well, just relax. Don’t worry, mom. And basic geometry is about, I heard a guy saying if you feel like you’re going around and around in circles, it’s probably because you’re cutting some corners. If you’re not getting anywhere, you know, you’re cutting corners and you need to get back to the basics. And, you know, I think that in our complicated world today, I think we’re all looking for the magic bullet, the computer program, the secret ingredient, or something that’s going to make all the difference. And in reality, if you’re not getting where you need to go, you know, you probably need to go back to basics and see what you can do. My mentor, Lee Braxton, used to tell me when I was a student, he would say, when things aren’t working, go back to the last thing you did that worked and start from there. And, you know, there’s just a lot to be said for that because too many people, like I said, They’re looking for the shortcut, the magic bullet or something. And for the most part, those things don’t exist. We’ve got to get back to just basic things. And, you know, if you want to lose weight, you’ve got to take in fewer calories than you burn. If you want to save money, you’ve got to spend less than you make. And these are just basic equations. But people always want to think, hey, the rules don’t apply to me. And I heard a wise man once say, maturity is when we finally figure out the rules do apply to us.
SPEAKER 06 :
The rules do apply to us. That’s funny. What else do you think that we should learn from your column this week?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think you need to look for people who have been successful, and you need to kind of follow the leader. And the stories of successful people are quite often rather boring. You’re looking for this amazing thing, and And it’s not. I remember I had a show at a resort in Branson, Missouri, for years. It was based on one of my books that was turned into a movie, and we did a stage play of it. Well, down the street, Willie Nelson was playing. So I got to know Willie Nelson quite a bit, and I was sitting there waiting to talk to him. He was doing an interview with some lady from a magazine, and she said, well, you know, you kind of became an overnight sensation in the 70s. He said, yeah, I came at Overnight Sensation. It took me 17 years to get to that night, but once that night got there, yeah, I became at Overnight Sensation. But for 17 years, I was just out on the road playing anywhere that someone would hold still long enough for me to do a song. And he said, there’s just nothing. I kept writing and playing and writing and playing, and I don’t know that my career would be here. I didn’t do anything special. I just didn’t quit. And so many people just quit.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
And, you know, amazing things happen when you just hang in there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Boy, he sure hung in there, hasn’t he?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, he still is.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I know. My dad loved him. All right. So let’s talk about, you know, you talk about first confirming that you have a clearly defined worthwhile goal that represents your passion is important. I think a lot of people don’t even know how to figure that out.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and they have a goal, if you ask them, and they don’t really own it, Angie. It’s not theirs. Their spouse told them they needed to do something different, or their neighbor, or somebody at work, or whatever. And, you know, you can take those things into account, but a goal needs to be a burning desire, something that Napoleon Hill called it single-mindedness, where you can just get totally focused on that and be tenacious about it. And that is your goal. I remember one of my first interviews I did with celebrities was with Katherine Hepburn in the early 90s. And I said, what do you think you’d have done had you not been an actress? And she said, I would have had to have found some other way to support my habit, because I do this out of an innate need to do this. There was not a chance, there was no circumstance that would not… involved me being an actor. So whether I made a living or not, whether anybody liked it or not, I didn’t care. She said, this is what I was born to do. And thankfully, she said, I was able to make a living at it. Otherwise, I’d have had to have two jobs because this is what I need to do. Well, we all need to find that thing for ourselves, whatever that may be. And a lot of times people say, I don’t know what it is. I’m trying to decide, is it A or B or C? It’s probably none of those. It’s probably R or S or Q, and you’ve never even examined them. You know, it’s amazing to read and get out and meet people and find out what people do. And, you know, then it’s really amazing when you consider, you know, there’s all kinds of things out there. You know, it’s like what do you want for dinner? You want a hamburger? You want a hot dog? You want pizza? What do you want for dinner? Well, there’s all these cuisines that we’ve never even tried yet. And there’s all kinds of things out there. And until you try them, you don’t know. But sooner or later, you will find your passion. I remember talking to the great blues artist, B.B. King, and we had his song in one of our movies. And, you know, he said, I was six years old and went to the county fair in Mississippi and heard a man up there playing a guitar. And the minute I saw that, I knew what I was going to do the rest of my life. There was just there was no doubt. I mean, this is why I was born. This is what I’ve been waiting on right here. And, you know, I think we all have something like that. And maybe it’s a nonprofit. Maybe it’s some kind of cause that grabs you in a certain way and makes you want to do that. But I think we all have that if we’ll allow it. But if you’re going to have a goal, it’s got to be yours. It can’t be somebody else’s or what they think you ought to do.
SPEAKER 06 :
Now, all these people that you know me, I know you’ve interviewed a lot of them. You were just talking about Willie Nelson and B.B. King, and we were talking recently about many different stars that you’ve met over the years and some you’ve become good friends with. So Stevie Wonder, you were talking about Stevie Wonder the other day. You sent me a picture of the two of you together. How do you meet them? Is it some of your speaking events? Is it through the work you do?
SPEAKER 04 :
Most of the movie stars I met… When I first started narrative television in 1990, we had soundtracks to regular movies in between the dialogue so that the 13 million blind and visually impaired Americans can follow along with these movies. Well, in the beginning, what I could get was a lot of classic movies. So I needed to fill out two hours exactly of satellite time, and the movies only averaged an hour and a half in length, so I needed to kill a half hour on national television for the cable operators. So I got a book that I promise you is called Addresses of the Stars from the library and wrote these people a letter, snail mail letter, told them what a great career opportunity I’m going to give them for no money to come on my non-existent talk show on my mythical network. And can you kind of hurry up and let us know because we’re on the air in about six weeks. And, you know, there was a little more finesse to it than that. But basically, out of that, the first one I got was Katharine Hepburn. And then I was able to leverage her because everybody knew that she had just won her fourth Academy Award for On Golden Pond. Nobody had ever done that before. And she had turned down Letterman and Leno at the time. And she came on and did this little thing with me. So I was able then to give Frank Sinatra. I said, we had Miss Hepburn for our first week, and we would love to have you the next week. And then and then Jimmy Stewart and Michael Douglas, and it just built out from there. Did you have to go to them? Yeah, in a lot of cases, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, so you’d set up and you’d bring a camera crew and everything to wherever they were?
SPEAKER 04 :
Some of them we did that. I did that with Miss Hepburn, but like Frank Sinatra was doing a thing in Dallas with the symphony, so we were able to get our affiliate down there to have a crew. and Michael Douglas, our affiliate in L.A., and I would go out to L.A. and get eight or ten at a time over a brief period. And a lot of people say, well, how do you get celebrities? Well, one thing I did was when we got far enough out in advance, I made it easy on them, and I made it hard for them to turn me down. I just said, we need 20 minutes of your time anywhere in the next 90 days. I mean, if you’re going to be at the North Pole… and can give me 20 minutes, I’ll show up with a crew and we’ll do it. I love it. And, you know, because a lot of people, well, we’re going to be there on the 13th at 3.30. Can you do it? No, no, no. I mean, you’re asking them to do you a favor, and I need 20 minutes of your time anywhere on the planet in the next 90 days. And they were great. They were wonderful.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and then John Wooden, how did that happen?
SPEAKER 04 :
John Wooden, my staff knew I was a big fan of his here in my office where I’m speaking to you from. I have some of his pictures and things on the wall. And so they all have heard me quote John Wooden. And then one day, young lady at the front desk was an intern. She comes running into my office. She said, you’re not going to believe this. John Wooden’s on the phone. And I said, oh, come on. There must be 5,000 guys in America named John Wooden. She said, there probably aren’t 5,000 that want you to sign a book for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 04 :
Probably not. No. And so I picked up the phone and we talked. And that was the beginning of a weekly conversation for the next four years till he died, just short of his 100th birthday.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow. You got to talk to him once a week. That’s like I get to talk to you once a week. That’s quite a commitment. How did you finagle that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I mean, I just said, can we… can we talk again? He said, yes, call me next week. So I did. And you know, I mean, this is a 96 year old man. So, I mean, I didn’t want to, I said, could I follow up with it? And then at the end of one of our calls, he said, now you’ll call me next, next Tuesday. Right. I said, yes, sir. I will. And then, and then it just, it just kind of happened, you know, then you get to meet him in person. Yes. Yes. Once out in California. And, uh, and that was great. And, uh, yeah, he lived in an apartment out there in Westwood and, uh, Just an amazing guy. Right by where he coached.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. He just stayed there. That’s where he liked it there.
SPEAKER 04 :
His wife was buried there. He went to see her once a week and took her flowers every week for 20 something years until he passed. I thought that is a
SPEAKER 06 :
cool thing you know two of my uh my girlfriend’s kids are going to ucla to play basketball one’s there right now lauren bett she just said she’s going to forego the the draft and play her senior year because she’ll get to play now with her sister sienna is going to play there too so that’ll be fun look at the both play for the same uh you know team i think their brother’s a freshman he’s seven foot two uh freshman in sorry high school not not college he’s not going to college yet But that’ll be fun to watch them play at UCLA where Coach Wooden used to coach men’s, obviously, basketball then. Well, you know, one thing I think that a lot of us, well, I have about a minute left, but a lot of us with this goal you’re talking about to find our passion, I think we all think it has to be like real sparkly and starstruck and this amazing goal to be Oprah or John Wooden or whatever. But it could be working with pets. It could be really having a big influence on kids with Down syndrome. It could be working with Special Olympics. It doesn’t have to be something that gets tons of attention and makes you famous. It can be a goal that really adds to the day-to-day life of people around you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. The young lady who you spoke to when you called me just now for this interview, Beth, she, in addition to work for me, her passion is She gets dogs that were at the pound, and these are dogs that were going to be destroyed. And she takes them, she rehabilitates them, she boards them, she trains them, and she gets them adopted out with great families. And she’s done this over 100 times, over 100 of these dogs. That’s her deal. And, wow, it doesn’t get a lot better than that. And, I mean, I had one of her dogs in a movie with me, and he was great. And, yeah. In fact, we had the Academy Award winner, Lewis Gossett Jr., was in one of my films. And the first day, I was a little nervous with the crew and everything. And I don’t know how he’s going to feel about our little production here. And I said, Mr. Gossett, how’s it going? He said, well, I’m not sure about the crew yet. We’re still working it out. But he said, this dog you got is good. And he said, I like working with this dog. And I said, well. We trained that dog personally, so that’s her passion. For different people, it’s different things.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I love that. I knew that about Beth. I know you’re writing a book together. JimStoval.com. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Arc Thrift has all your winter needs. You will find a variety of gently used and new items ranging from personalized Christmas gifts to ski clothes and exercise equipment, including tons of winter clothing to bundle up in. There’s no need to spend hundreds of dollars on clothes or household furnishings when you can go to Arc Thrift. They have sales every weekend, and you can find almost everything you need at any of their stores. You might discover that hidden gem or snazzy one-of-a-kind jacket you can’t find anywhere else. They also have a new store in Littleton at 7951 South Broadway. It is their new hidden treasure with quality items everywhere throughout the store. Buying from ARK gives back to your community. And ARK always needs new donations, so find one of their donation centers or stores and make sure to shop the store once you donate. To find the nearest ARK Thrift near you, go to ARKthrift.com.
SPEAKER 01 :
Deer Trail is listening to KLTT, the mighty 670.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello there, friend. Angie Austin here with the good news. You know, I have a cup of steaming homemade chicken noodle soup right in front of my microphone. I just realized that’s probably not a good spot for it, but it’ll have to stay now. I don’t want to clunk it around too much, you know. So we have with us today Grace Fox, and we’re talking about her book, Fresh Hope for Today, Devotions for Joy on the Journey. And we’re going to talk about how hardships happen, hardships happen, and how to, you know, to deal with that. But I wanted to ask you first, Grace, welcome, about All your travels and what you’re doing right now is so cool.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. So my husband and I just got in at 2 o’clock this morning from our last trip, and that was to Manitoba. Actually, the capital of Manitoba in Canada is Winnipeg. Okay. And people jokingly call it Winterpeg because it is so cold there. I bet it is. So we bundled up, and we were so thankful for a rental car that had heated seats and a heated steering wheel. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, that’s so funny you say that, because that’s the best thing about my new car. It’s not new anymore. You’re old. But it is that you can preheat it, the seats and the steering wheel, and have the heat on. So it’s like a tropical island by the time I get in it. So you had that, and it was obviously really cold while you were up there.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, my goodness, yes. But we were there for a missions conference. It happens every year. It’s called Mission Fest Manitoba. So there were 135 exhibitors there, and it’s so refreshing to… to walk the aisles and see the banners and talk to the representatives because you can just get a little taste of what God is doing around the world with so many different types of ministries. And it was incredible. And then we were there to recruit people, too, because we’re looking for people to go on short-term ministry trips in the summertime.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, where are you sending people on short-term ministry trips in the summertime?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so we’ve got people going to Poland and Slovakia, and we have a lot of opportunities actually in Egypt this summer. And those are for, yeah, I know it’s so exciting to see how God is really working there. Evangelistic English learning camp. So people go over, English speakers will go over, and others from those countries will come over to spend a week with them at a venue somewhere. It would probably be a hotel. And they do fun activities to build relationships, so crafts and hikes and all that stuff. But they also have one hour in the morning of conversational English practice. And then they have one hour of English reading time where we use the Bible as a textbook and read parables of Jesus and then discuss them. And that’s how people hear the gospel. And they live in community with believers for an entire week. Then when the team comes home, our staff on the ground over there who have been there, who have planned the whole event, they can follow up with those people. And people are coming to faith and being discipled and going into ministry in their own countries as a result of these.
SPEAKER 06 :
So you said Egypt, Poland, where was the other location?
SPEAKER 05 :
Slovakia. And we’ll have opportunities in Hungary as well.
SPEAKER 06 :
Now, how do people get in touch with you if they’re interested in, you know, looking into these missions trips?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so Americans, we have an American office in Iowa, and so they would just go to the website, and it’s im-usa.org. im-usa.org.
SPEAKER 06 :
And for Canadians, it’s im-usa.org.
SPEAKER 05 :
Canada.org. Oh, .ca. Okay. I am dash Canada.ca.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. I’ve got it. Global Sending and Partnering International Messengers. Cool. I’m going to check that out. Thank you so much for giving us it. Will it explain like what you need to do financially and everything to go on the mission?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it will. And then there’s phone numbers for the office. So if anybody has any questions, just call.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, that’s so neat. All right. I’m on the website right now. I want to look into that, see what you do. It’s very interesting. All right. So I just think it’s neat for people to hear, too. Like, I know you just did videos, teaching videos to go with your newest book so that people can do it as a Bible study and then see you and your teaching on video. I mean, for people listening, like, you know. Grace was a mom raising kids who’s now a grandmother who sold Tupperware and did all kinds of different side jobs and, you know, decided, you know, to write a book. And now you’re how many books in?
SPEAKER 05 :
I just wrote my 15th book. So number 15 will be released on July 8th. And that one’s called Names of God Knowing Peace. So it’s a small group Bible study. Get together with your friends and study about the names of God and how to know him by name. So Names of God Knowing Peace. And the first, this is a three book series. The first one’s already out available wherever Christian books are sold. It’s Names of God Living Unafraid. So seven books or seven names are studied in each book. And each book contains a QR code for every chapter. And you just shoot your camera at it. Up will come a 10 minute teaching video. to go deeper. So the hard work’s been done for small groups. I love that. And you just need to get together and discuss it and follow the questions at the end of each chapter and discover more about who God is. So you can, one, live unafraid. And a new one, you can know peace. You really can. The deeper your knowledge of God goes and you apply that knowledge, the more peace you have.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I think it’s also just inspirational because a lot of people think about doing these things that you’ve done. And, you know, you… I still remember you saying before, like you were sent to a city, I think it was Chicago, before we had navigation. And you’re like, oh, well, someone will be driving me around to all these locations. And they’re like, no, you just are going to get a rental car and you’re going to have to figure out with maps and this, that, and the other how to get to all these different places for these interviews, for the book, this, that, and the other. And I just think about it. That’s nothing compared to all your trips to Poland and overseas and not knowing the language and being taken off trains and interrogated about your documentation and the things that you’ve done. And you’re a regular, cool grandma. You’re not like… lady that did all this training in your whole career you were a writer and you were traveling though I mean you like were a regular lady like the rest of us who decided to do this and you’re 15 books into your career and you still have lots of time with your family but you travel the whole world with your your husband’s work in ministry and your work with your Christian books
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s so funny because I see myself, too, as just a regular person, you know, simple lifestyle, living on a boat with not very much stuff around me, all of that. But I am a grandma of 14, and I just say, I’m a household name in my house. That’s okay. But it’s all about just being in tune with the Lord. And if he says, Grace, I want you to do something, like he said to Moses, Moses, I’ve got a job for you. And Moses was scared, but he did it anyway. And that’s kind of my mantra would be, you know, when God gives us assignments, they are always bigger than us, Angie. And how we respond reveals what we believe to be true about him. That’s not an original quote with me. It’s from Henry Blackaby’s book, Experiencing God. That book changed my life 25 years ago.
SPEAKER 06 :
I have the chills. I’m holding it in my hand. It was right next to me. I just referred a friend, another very successful author and businessman. I said, I have this book. And it’s all the way back from like 2006 I was writing into it in the early 2000s, so like 25 years ago. And I said this book was life-changing for me. And I popped it. It was in my office of all places right in front of me. And so I had pulled it out. And now it was sitting by my left hand when you said – the name and it’s got all of my journaling in it from my life changing experiences with that book.
SPEAKER 05 :
Angie, that’s phenomenal. Truly a God moment. That is really true. It’s like. When God says go, if we say no, all we’re doing is showing that in our head we might be saying, oh, God could do anything. He’s the God of the impossible, right? We can say that in Sunday school and church. But when we’re away from Sunday school and church and walking down the sidewalk and we hear God say something about this. And we say, me? Are you kidding me? I could never do that. That shows us that we haven’t got that into our heart yet. And we don’t really believe what we say we believe. So it’s like putting Sunday school theology into practice. If we say, yes, God, I haven’t got a clue how you’re going to do this or how you’re going to provide. I don’t know. But I’m going to say yes because I’m stepping out in faith and I trust you. That shows That we believe what we say is true about him. We don’t have to have all those answers before we say yes. have to trust that he is who he says he is. Okay. That’s why it’s so important to know God by name.
SPEAKER 06 :
I have two potential books for you for your next books. Okay. And I just got it from what you said. And when God says go and we say no, go anyway. So the title could be, you know, when God says no and go and we say no. I love that. And then I like just the simple title, do it anyway.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Yeah. I often say to people, and I have trained young nationals in the Middle East to do missions over there, and one of the things that I’ve said is do it afraid. Just do it afraid. You don’t have to wait until your knees aren’t knocking anymore to start walking. When God is holding our hand, it says in Scripture, He steadies our feet. And so we might be scared and, you know, stepping like a little baby, just learning how to walk and toddle along, but He’s holding our hand, and we can trust Him because He’s He’s our father. He doesn’t mess with us. He stretches our faith, but he’s not going to muck around with our emotions.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, I love that. I love that. Oh, well, he sure covered a lot before we even got to hardships happen. So let’s get into that. We only have a couple of minutes. So hardships happen. That is fresh hope for today. What’s this about?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, that was so fun. I wrote this one with an experience in Nepal in mind because my husband and I were doing ministry there a long time ago, every time we took a bus ride on public transportation, there was a young man who’d be sitting on sort of like the engine wheel up front, right beside the driver. And we thought, are there not enough seats in the bus? Sometimes there were, sometimes there weren’t, but why does, you know, there’s always a young guy sitting there by the driver. And then we realized it’s because they know the bus is going to break down. We did enough bus rides to discover that. So This was a mechanic. This guy, whoever, you know, every bus had his own mechanic, basically. And he always rode the bus right there beside the driver because they expected it to break down. And it did. So I’m thinking in life, we might try to go through life thinking, oh, it’s going to be well. And Rosie, you know what? Life being what it is, hardships happen. And we shouldn’t be surprised at them, but we can be prepared for them by knowing that the Holy Spirit is with us and staying in the word and knowing God’s promises.
SPEAKER 06 :
I love that. I love that. I just get such a kick out of you and you’re so faithful. I mean, you really go out of your way to join me on the good news. And, you know, sometimes I send you the podcast. You can share it if you want, but you really just do it out of the goodness of your heart to share, you know, the love of God with other people, because sometimes it’s not convenient at all for you to do this. You might be traveling or you might be with your grandkids and you’ll have to run to another room during their nap or have your, you know, whatever. have one of the older kids keep the grandkids quiet or you might be in another country or you know traveling and you always you know try to fit us in and i think that’s so nice of you how come you go that extra effort because it’s been a while i went back and i think we’ve been doing this for a couple of years now yeah well angie i’m just so grateful for the opportunity spread message of hope far and wide and your show is is one way to do that because it reaches a large audience and i know there are people out there listening who need hope today
SPEAKER 05 :
And if we can just give them one little nugget of hope to cheer them and to point them to Jesus, then mission accomplished.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, I was watching just this morning, and I’ll see if I can get the name, but it was Ella Blumenthal. And I don’t know that she’s still alive. I’ll have to look it up, but it’s making its rounds of all places on Instagram where the young people are on the gram. And it’s about I Survived Auschwitz. She was 103 when she recorded it, and she said… hope she just wants people to hang on to hope that she never lost hope and she’d lost her entire family and she said her niece wanted to throw themselves on the electric fence and she said every day please just let’s go one more day let’s go one more day let’s go one more day because she didn’t want to lose hope and she didn’t want her niece to lose hope and they made it so gracebox.com we’re out of time but i just sure appreciate you friend You too. We’ll talk to you again.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
