Meet Gary Black

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gary Black. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Gary, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
For many years now I have been studying what initiation for young men looks like, and how to help people step into the second half of life. In the first half of life, until we get to the age of around 30, we are mostly driven by our ego and our fear of man. The first half of life is necessary, but if we stay stuck there, we turn into bitter, confused, and unhappy adults. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Dead at 40, buried at 70.”

When you learn to live from your heart, and you learn to hold good news and bad news the same, you start to see the world with different eyes.

If I get really good news, I hold it, I am thankful for it, and keep focused. When I receive bad news, I hold it, I am thankful for it, and I keep focused on the now. “Nothing is ever as good as it seems, and nothing is ever as bad as it seems.” When you learn that everything belongs in life, and it’s there to teach us, we learn from it, and we keep moving.

I lost my first marriage to mental illness and adultery, and I lost my son when he was nineteen years old. I have lost businesses, friendships, my reputation, my mother, my brother and sister, and so much over my last fifty-seven years.

I have also been married to an amazing woman for twenty-four years, I have started children’s villages in Africa that are now feeding and educating thousands of orphans, I served over two hundred orphanages in Russia, I started a couple of small movements for young people, and have lived in Africa, and Spain and I have traveled the world.

I now, once again, am starting over. And, I know there are hundreds of seasons in life, so I have learned to overcome, be resilient, and embrace living in the now. I don’t live for tomorrow, I have forgiven and allowed the past pain to be my greatest teacher, and I have learned to live for the person who is right in front of me.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am currently working on a number of projects; I am a nonprofit guy at heart and have spent most of my adult life building programs that challenge the next generation. In the 1990s I had a nonprofit called Rock The Nations that empowered thousands of young people to walk a life of radical faith, and risk. We filled stadiums with young people who were hungry for something more out of life.

In 2004 I helped start a nonprofit that sent thousands of young people around the world called The World Race. They would travel to eleven countries over eleven months serving our projects in each country they visited. Anti-sex trafficking, poverty, orphan care, etc.

In 2006 I moved my family of eight to Swaziland, Africa, (now called Eswatini), to train our World Racers, and care for the largest orphan population in the world at the time.

In 2015 I moved my wife and twelve-year-old son to Mijas, Spain to help revive our leadership school there, G42 Leadership Academy. Because of COVID-19 and how the world responded to it, we lost our nonprofits and millions of dollars. And, we started over like so many.

My wife released her first published book this past year, “All The Sacred Things” a memoir, I launched a discipleship app called JourneyMen, and we do life coaching for marriages, individuals, and businesses. We have also launched a crypto-currency IndxCoin, and our own exchange, Kingdom Wealth Exchange, and we are currently working with our international partners on a “Green Energy” company, Green Energy Horizons, that I am CEO and Co-Founder of with my father.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I tell every young entrepreneur starting out that you must go and serve another person’s vision before you start your own. Find a mentor who will help you activate your heart to your purpose in life. Once you find your purpose, and why you are on the planet right now, go and serve an organization that is doing something similar. Become an intern, take that GAP year, and make sure to find your soul purpose before spending thousands of dollars on a wasted education.

1. Find a solid mentor
2. Serve another’s vision as you learn yours
3. Don’t just work a job, build an inheritance, both Spiritual and financial, for the next generation

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
The majority of us have been taught to live from our heads, not our hearts. Our educational system, our Churches, and our culture have all taught us to not live fully alive, to never take risks, and to stay trapped in our heads.

If you want true freedom from anxiousness, depression, suicidal thoughts, etc. you have to take the longest journey of your life and move from being stuck in your thoughts, to living through your heart.

Religious people will tell you that your heart is evil, and educators will give you knowledge, but not true life lessons. The truth is God cleansed your heart and made it pure according to Hebrews 10 a book and chapter in the bible. And, when you learn to trust the story of your life, and you learn to trust that God is a good Father and wants only good gifts for you, you will begin to live differently.

When I am overwhelmed by a lack of finances, a fight with my spouse or parent, that contract that didn’t happen, or whatever is really hard in my life, I have learned to get out of my head and into my heart. I stop all the negative language I say to myself, and I take a deep breath and say a little prayer. Science has proven that if you spend at least four days a week reading your bible for just a few minutes a day, and you learn to talk with God, not just give Him your lists, it improves your mental state by over 87%. Anxiety goes away, the desire for pornography, depression, and other negative thoughts go away.

I challenge you to prove me wrong; they say it takes 66 days to learn a habit – and the only way to keep your heart open is to take risks. Make that call to the person you need to forgive, go on the trip you keep putting off, go get that degree you’ve been wanting, start that company – the idea is to stop living a boring life and go take some radical risks, you will start living fully alive, I promise.

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