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Editor’s Note Welcome to 2017! With a New Year comes new hopes, new dreams and the possibilities for new experiences. This edition of Faith Over Fear magazine is designed to give you the push to experience all 2017 has to offer in the area of Faith, Finances Fitness and Fashion. I encourage you to pursue your dreams wholeheartedly this year and continue to be faithful, fearless and ferocious!
CONTRIBUTORS F A S H I O N
F A I T H
Pastor Cleopatra Williams
Teja Jospeh
F I T n E S S
Dekell Nesbitt
F I N A N C E S Keshelle Davis
17 Financial Prin C
an you imagine going from being a young,
successful and highly paid career girl to having your car repossessed not once but three times in the same year? Well that’s exactly what happened to me not that long ago! Chalk it up to the learning curve for an inexperienced entrepreneur and the cost of getting a good business education. However, to demonstrate how anyone can jump right back up, no matter how many times they’ve been knocked down, my experience shows how we can learn from our mistakes—if we’re determined to never, ever, let circumstances get us down! Here’s how my story goes: It seems like ever since I started working, I have always managed to have great jobs and I really loved each one of them! Every new position I landed seemed to build on the previous one and each one came quite naturally with increasing levels of responsibility, challenge and, of course, salary. I should point out that I started working full-time at the age of 16 after graduating from high school. I worked at a leather goods store in the local mall. From there, I went into the banking industry where I quickly progressed up the employment ranks and eventually up the corporate ladder. By the age of 21, I felt very privileged to secure a job that paid me more than my mother was earning. At 23, competent and confident, I had progressed in leaps and bounds beyond my mother’s salary and was closing in fast on my father’s annual wages. Two years later at 25, my salary reached a figure that surprised many who were almost twice my age. At that time, full of ambition, I made the plunge into the uncertain waters of full-time entrepreneurship. However, due to my lack of financial knowledge, unnecessary spending and money management mistakes, I soon found myself barely making ends meet.
“From early childhood, I knew that one of my main goals in life was to be financially independent, but it still took a whole sequence of painful experiences for me to finally realize that I didn’t have a clue when it came to figuring out how to achieve this.”
Keshelle Davis
Although the feeling was, and still is rewarding, things quite naturally took a rapid turn for the worse. With a track record of poor financial choices and the prospects pointing to the lack of a steady income, the bank began calling in its loan and had soon seized whatever assets I had!
Where did I go wrong? I asked myself. From early childhood, I knew that one of my main goals in life was to be financially independent, but it still took a whole sequence of painful experiences for me to finally realize that I didn’t have a clue when it came to figuring out how to achieve this. Regardless of how much I earned, I kept going headlong down the wrong financial path, deeper and deeper into debt until the inevitable happened. But despite all of the above, this experience had a profound impact on my life and I was deeply motivated to begin reversing the many money blunders that I had made and paid for in the past. I decided, finally, to eliminate once and for all from my life the negative financial habits that had held me captive all these years. I began to do what was necessary to learn about money and grow my wealth. That was eight years ago.
nciples for 2017 Today, I share 17 for 2017 below: 1. Financial Freedom is your choice. Choose Freedom. 2. It is better to tell your money where to go than to ask where it went. Have a spending plan. 3. Assets feed you, Liabilities eat you. Invest in Assets. 4. Don’t put all your financial eggs in one basket. Diversify your money. 5. Save early Save often. 6. It’s not how much money you make that’s important, it’s how much money you keep. 7. Your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes determine your wealth potential. 8. Being broke is a temporary financial position, being poor is a state of mind. Today, I enjoy an entrepreneurial life full of doing exactly what I love and getting paid to well to do it. My tenacity and persistence to change has paid off and while things will never be perfect, I enjoy a financial peace that only came from the lessons that I learned about money and business throughout my life’s journey. What changed? I took strong personal action with my finances and constantly, consistently and heavily invested into studying and learning from some of the best financial minds in the world. What really fueled this drive was the desire to teach other people, especially women and youth how to avoid these unnecessary self-afflicted financial difficulties, humiliations and hardships! My mission to financially empower people has grown stronger over the years and I am happy to be sharing some of my favorite principles in this article. In my seminars and programs, I cover 23 financial principles call the “Rules to The Money Game”.
9. To be financially successful, learn the language of money. 10. Pay yourself first. 11. Make money grow by putting it to work for you. 12. Money buys you stuff not happiness. 13. If you can’t afford it in cash, you can’t afford it at all. 14. Only borrow money when it’s going to make you money. 15. Interest is only interesting when you’re receiving it. 16. You are the CEO of your own life; financial freedom is your responsibility 17. Creating Financial Freedom is simply a matter of developing the right habits. Each principle covers an entire teaching and learning around it. If you like this article, you’d love attending one of my upcoming 2017 Money & Meaning Workshops. Email me at keshelle@keshelledavis.com to learn more.
With much anticipation, I longed for 2017 from June of 2016. I know, I know…a tad bit anxious, but if your 2016 was much like many of the persons I know…..IT COULDN’T COME FAST ENOUGH. With the testing and ‘surprises’ that 2016 brought with it, we came out saying….’but for His Grace!’ I thought and meditated; prayed and sat quietly to ‘hear’ what this 2017 had in its luggage. I imagined some awesome revelation of thunderous rescue; some dramatic entrance with Daniel-like descriptions; at least something with sound effects and theatrical prose; IT DIDN’T HAPPEN! What I did get was one word. A word that embodied so much for my personal expectations and prophetic insight for the Body of Christ. He said to me, that this 2017 will be a year of DISTINCTION. To the Google, I went and found distinction to be the difference or contrast between similar things. Variation, contrast, divergence also. So I understood the times as a day of wheat and tares. I understood the times as a separation of Sheep and Goat. God will make a distinction between those that are His and those that are not. This is true that 2017 will be a year of God defending, fighting for, blessing, and taking care of those that are of His Fold. That is good news to me. That is shouting material to me.
made. 2 Timothy 2: 20 -22 talks about the 2017 kind of classification. (read in NIV). It doesn’t matter that we may be of the same house...DISTINCTION! It doesn’t matter that we may be from the same community ... DISTINCTION!! It does not matter that we may be of the same parentage, of the same sex, experiences, financial background this will be the year that there is a STANDING OUT… DISTINCTION! Not only heaven ready but earthly valuable. Influential in our varied spheres of experience; where whatever we are exposed to we are excellent in. The year of mastery, excellence and again DISTINCTION. The text shows us that to be ones considered for this classification you must ‘…flee youthful desires’…. Grow up…..be MATURE. The distinction is not for those who are infantile in their approach, argument or admiration.
2017 - The Year of DIstInctIon
That is GREAT NEWS. As wonderful and true that this news was it was not exhaustive. Distinction also means significance, excellence, quality and Glory. Which is another level of separation. There are distinctions made between saved and unsaved and then there are distinctions that are made among the saved. This is the year when even in the household of faith, families, organizations, corporations, there will be classifications
There are THREE AREAS I have been personally challenged in and want to share with you as demarcations for this distinction we speak about:DISCIPLINES of your FAITH Discipline is to train; govern in conduct or pattern of behavior, a system of rules Mouth Discipline…. This year what you say can and will be used against you We must guard what we allow to escape our lips. No more casual releases that can become casualties. As we know, death and life are in the power of the tongue but what we don’t know is that this year ACCELERATION WILL HIT OUR UTTERANCES. So when it took 10 years to eat the fruit of our words……we now have harvest in 10 days.
ABOUT WHAT COMES OUT……
DISCERNMENT of your
Make sure its PRAYER …. Make sure its PURE …. Make sure its PRAISE ….. Make sure its PRINCIPLE (The Word)
FELLOWSHIP
In 2017, God requires mind renewal. You know the scriptures referencing the importance of the mind in serving Christ whole-heartedly.
strong fellowships will reward!
All in my heart from October of 2016 was how important our connections will be to this year being a dynamic one. We need ABOUT WHAT GOES IN ….. to, early in 2017, discern and Usually we emphasize what comes establish by way of the Spirit of out of our mouths…the words we God those persons, organizause; but an important aspect will tions and influences that will also be what we put in. In 2017, make up our fellowship. All of FASTING is going to be important. the ‘ships’ are under scrutiny This is the weapon that gives us to ensure you get to your destispiritual strength…..When we DENY ny in 2017. Consider Mary and putting in…we DISCIPLINE what we Elizabeth….strong fellowships push out! will resurrect! MIND DISCIPLINE Consider Peter in Luke 5 ….. Consider Ruth and Naomi ….. strong fellowships will restore!! DECISIONS for your FUTURE
Pastor K. Cleopatra Williams wisely and maturely.
These areas are only some of the directives that will mature What we do in 2017 will be a SOW, SOW, SOW, SOW reference point for the remain- us to the place of distinction. We desire to be vessels of honor der of our lives here on earth. GIVE, GIVE, GIVE, GIVE in a great house, and maturity From associations to career TITHE, TITHE, TITHE, TITHE… is what will get us there. I enchanges to relocation to other Yes…..New Year will be unlocked courage you as I do myself, to countries; 2017 and its deciwith Old Testament principles…. We sions that you make will create endeavor to make 2017 GREAT can either give him some or He will the framework and foundations for you by being GREAT FOR take all! HIM!!! for the rest of your life. Decide MONEY DISCIPLINE
Jonathan
Farrington
Before . During . After—The Shot
Jonathan Farrington’s
passion for mu-
sic and pursuit for greatness landed him “THE SHOT” of a lifetime. Johnny put The Bahamas on the map by placing first runner up on the Canadian singing show “The Shot”. Faith Over Fear (F.O.F) mag caught up with the ferocious singer and dug deep into his inspiring story. F.O.F mag: How did you get started? Jonathan: My singing career really started off as a genuine love for music and performing. I have always loved music as a kid and loved singing. So if you asked me that typical question you would normally ask a child, "what do want to be when you grow up?" a singer was always my answer. Though coined as a Contemporary Gospel Artist, I've had the opportunity to work with so many other amazing performers and persons in the industry in several different genres. I consider it to be unique and a little bit unorthodox. One day I can be serenading couples on their wedding day, encouraging someone on their birthday with a Sing-A-Gram on the next, singing classical or jazz music for a specialized music project with another artist, while having to lead worship at my church on Sunday Morning. So you see its a bit colorful. F.O.F mag: How did you hear about The Shot? Jonathan: One day I was at home thinking about how every-time I would sing somewhere where there were
tourists they would always come up to me after my performance and say "You should totally try out for The Voice or American Idol." I would always laugh it off and say yea that would be cool but i'm not an American citizen so it would never work. So I randomly searched online for a singing competition in Canada not knowing that "The Shot" would actually come up. To my surprise it was legit, open to all nationalities and about to start its 4th season. F.O.F mag: What drove you to enter this competition? Jonathan: Initially I didn't plan to audition or even be apart especially since I was already doing music here locally. But the thought of entering just wouldn't leave me alone. I prayed about it for a while until one day my friend and I were talking about it on a lunch break and she was so convinced that this was something I had to do, so she went into her purse and gave me $20 and said i'll even give you the money to register for the competition, which was only $10.86 in Canadian. She said that's how much I believe in you. God used her to confirm that I should do it and that really made me smile and inspired me to do it. So I registered and said to myself if i'm suppose to do this everything will go well and I would have advanced to the finals and here I am.
F.O.F mag: I know a myriad of emotions were probably rushing through your body. What did it feel like to have such an opportunity? Jonathan: It was so awesome to rep the 242 on the shot stage. I've actually made history for the show because I'm the very first international contestant. I get to rep my country and showcase what we have to offer in terms of music and artistry and it feels phenomenal. Bahamians have been sharing videos from the competition's Facebook page, tagging me in encouraging posts and sending me inspirational messages. To know the level of support I have from my own people is a bit overwhelming at times but honestly amazing. F.O.F mag: What was going through your head on competition night?
I told myself "don't screw it up because the world will be watching".
Jonathan: All sorts of stuff went through my mind especially when I auditioned. I told myself "don't screw it up because the world will be watching". lol I also thought about presenting myself in way whereas the judges can see an authentic person standing before them. Transparency is my goal and captivating them from the moment I open my mouth to sing or speak. Once they love you then you are well on your way. I'm also very prayerful in those moments. I thought „if I win the competition that would be awesome!â€&#x; I mean who wouldn't want a distribution deal with eOne Music, a single recorded by one of the best studios in Canada, music video and all the other prizes worth $25,000+. But even if I don't win this entire experience which lasted a month has been one of the best in my entire life.
F.O.F mag: What lessons have you taken away from the competition? Jonathan: I have made some of the best friendships with persons in the competition, I've seen strength in myself that I didn't even know was in me. I've had the opportunity to sing before the High Commissioner of the Bahamas in Canada and other delegates, who are all supporting me. Iv'e witnessed persons back at home support me because they truly believe in me. You canâ€&#x;t pay for stuff like that. I'm grateful and humbled. I am using this as a platform to encourage and inspire any other person to fulfil whatever dream or destiny they feel that have been called to. I want to push myself to be an even greater musician who now has experience, international influence and intentional impact.
After the shot… F.O.F mag: What is next for you?
F.O.F mag: Just for fun, we have some „Five Fav‟ questions for you.
Jonathan:
Favourite toy as a child?
-Excited to be releasing my full length praise and worship project "Grace To the Nations" with my team grace generation. I also have a few other projects I'm working on independently that will speak to topics that I'm very passionate about such as community, politics, and love (lol stay tuned). I have also worked on covering a few songs that speak to these topics one of the being "Glory" originally performed by John Legend and Common. Watch Here.
Jonathan:
F.O.F mag: Will you be doing any more competitions? Jonathan: Not sure if I'm going to do another competition, but who knows, with me there is no telling what could happen in 2017
- I didn't really have a favorite toy as a child. I loved crayons and coloring books though. that was the creative in me F.O.F mag: Favourite band or artist of the 90‟s? Jonathan: - in the 90's I really liked cartoons, rugrats, hey Arnold, anything nickelodeon (don't forget I am a 90's baby), but as I got older my mom had cd's of a few artists that I would listen to like Yolanda Adams, Donnie McClurklin, the Clarke sisters, Boyz 2 Men, Gerald levert and few others. F.O.F mag: Favourite Junkanoo group?
I do plan to tour this year. Ready to share my music and message with the world in a greater way.
Jonathan:
F.O.F mag: How would you encourage others (particularly creatives) to stand out in 2017?
F.O.F mag: Favourite food?
Jonathan: I would encourage creatives to stay true to yourself, We want the authentic you. Be open to change. Sometimes we have to adjust our mode of operation to get better results. The caterpillar has to become a butterfly at some point. Finally believe in yourself even when no one else does. Your drive, passion and faith are going to carry you further than you think.
- I am a saxons boy.. but this genesis group I been hearing about.. lol.. hummmmm
Jonathan: - man thats so hard to answer... pray for me lol F.O.F mag: Favourite Bahamian word? Jonathan: - muddoes
Dekel “Bowflex Barbie” Nesbitt
BOWFLEX BARBIE FITNESS 4 Steps To Turn Your New Years Resolution Into Long Term Results As a fitness professional, year after year, I’m swamped around this time with people seemingly eager and ready to start their fitness journey- again. Whether it’s to lose weight or tighten and tone, fitness and health are usually near the top of most people’s new year’s resolution lists. Unfortunately, I’ve also witnessed so many people start and not follow through, they slip off track sooner than later, and before you know it another twelve months have gone by and they’ve made no progress towards their fitness goals. I’m going to share with you four steps on how not to fall into those unfavorable statistics and instead turn your resolution into results.
#1. Have A Clearly Defined Goal Knowing you want to lose weight, or tighten up isn’t enough. Have an exact and specific goal, and write it down - and keep a fitness journal . Whether you plan to tackle your
goals on your own or with the help of a qualified professional, keeping a fitness journal helps you not only track your progress but creates a level of accountability as well. Your journal should include weekly assessments that can include but not limited to ; photos, meal logs, measurements, weight and your exercise personal bests. There are tons of free templates online and hardcopy fitness journals available to help you stay on track. In this journal you can set your weekly, monthly and year end goals and remember to be specific and precise.
#2. Learn To Love Discomfort This process will make you uncomfortable, as it should. Changing your diet and exercising regularly sound pretty easy until it’s time to do it, and you’re tired and craving all the bad foods. Prepare to be uncomfortable, and come to grips with the fact that this lifestyle change won’t be a walk in the park so when it gets rough, like it always
does, you’ll know to keep pushing forward and that it’s all a part of the process. Remember, if it doesn’t challenge you it won't change you
last year or setting new personal record on squats, embrace the small and big changes you see and feel in your body and use them as fuel to continue to work hard. #4.Feed Positivity Into Your Life
#3. Celebrate Each Milestone And Small Success It may sound kind of simple but it’s one of the most important steps. We often tend to focus on how far we have to go, rather than how far we have come, and it can mentally make us feel as though we are not doing enough and not making progress. Instead, along your fitness journey, celebrate all the small success. Whether it’s fitting into jeans you couldn’t get into
This step refers to not only having a clean diet, with whole foods, but it also speaks to ensuring the energy that surrounds you and people you chose to share your journey with are positive and mean you well. During your lifestyle change it’s important to have people in your corner who will encourage and support you not envy and discourage or distract you. I’ve heard so many stories about how people begin their healthy lifestyle journey and allow friends and family and social life to pressure them to revert back to their old habits. If they are truly your friends they will support and help you achieve your goals not hinder you, so be sure to keep the right ones around.
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