Annie Mayfield Interview Excerpt | Start Small | John Giftah | Christian Podcast

0:01 Speaker 1: It's that act of humility, you know, like no one starts with a massive audience. Everyone starts from zero in some capacity, zero experience, zero knowledge about something, zero following zero audience, zero whatever, zero confidence. Everyone starts with zero. And I think, like the reason so many people don't don't start is because one, it's the order of operations is so off. They think that they have to gain their confidence from a thing, a from doing something for it. But first you gain it from just being in Christ and like going to him, He is your well that never runs dry, and once you have that fuel, you're able to go.

0:39 Speaker 1: I mean, I think about like I love the story of Ruth and Boas because because Ruth, like she didn't go to the field looking for Boas. She went to the field because she was trying to provide for someone she loved, which is her mother in law, right, Like, she didn't go with an agenda. And I think so many times like the things that we ultimately want, they're a byprice to burrow, obedience, to humbling ourselves and saying like I'm going to be obedient to the small thing, whether that's starting a podcast when no one's listening, starting on Instagram, when no one's listening, going to a corporate job, working the entire day, and then going home and writing a next chapter of my book when I don't even know if anyone's going to read it.

1:20 Speaker 1: It's being obedient to that small thing you think God could never use. And the byproduct is you see more of Him in that, Like what is the Kingdom of Heaven? Like it's like a mustard seed. It starts so small, but then it grows and it grows and it grows. And so I think it's like being obedient to the little and the byproduct of that is the things that ultimately we want that don't need, and God wants to give you what he knows you need, and he's the ultimate surgeon, so only he knows that.

1:47 Speaker 2: That's so true. I mean, you talk about how it's you know, when we start, it's it's always going to be small. Guys, don't never feel like, oh my gosh, Jean, you're here an easier. But the truth is there were moments where and nobody listened to my podcast, but eventually there were times, you know, it was ranking in number one, you know, in the whole country. My book. When I released the first book, I was on laws because the number of books that went for free was more than the books that were paid for.

2:16 Speaker 2: Or there were movements. I organized meetings and I would pay more than my month a month of one month of my salary into a meeting and literally nobody would show up. There were meetings where just me and my brother would just leave worship to empty chairs. But at the same time, I adm ministered to crowds of thousands of people. So everybody looks at the success, you know, like wow, thousands of people, or you know, like the number ones and all of these things. But behind that is the discouragement.

2:46 Speaker 2: Behind that is the place where you start, and nobody listened. People walking at you, and also sometimes people say, oh, I'm not that good at it. Yeah when I started, when I look back over their shoulders. I'm a big Scooby Dooo fan. Okay, So I'm nicknamed as the Scooby Doo pastor. You know, I use Scooby Doo. It is one of my tools. I even brought one of my Scooby Doo collections, so I used Scooby Doo. I started with just writing Scooby Doo stories with life lessons, like you know, how Scooby and the gang are trying to solve a mystery.

3:20 Speaker 2: They can't find the ghost, and then they pray, and then they Jesus helps them to catch the ghost and then they give glory to God. That's the model of the lesson pray to Jesus, you know, and stuff. But the storyline was terrible. The illustrations were horrible, and if you look at it, even I don't want to read it. You know, it's so bad. When I wrote them as a kid, or when you look at even my old podcast episodes I was repeating, I was like, oh, you know, like so boring, even I don't want to listen to it.

3:48 Speaker 2: But the fact that I worked on it is what got me to where I am today. You know, unless you work on your gifts and talents, you're never going to get better. It's only going to get better. So you know, it's like you're talking about agriculture, I talk about you know, when you're digging a borewell or a well for water, the first thing you get is the dirt and the mess and the noise, and you're gonna be like, oh, I don't want this, this is not what I signed up for. But only when you get through that, you get the water that's good.

4:17 Speaker 2: You hear what I'm saying. So you need to work on the mess. You need to be ready to say, you know what, this is not good, this is crazy, but I'm going to work on it. And that's how God is going to use it to bring some greatness out of the great mess.

4:30 Speaker 1: That is so good. It's being faithful to the one