TD Jakes: “Don’t Drop the Mic” and Living in the Season

T.D. Jakes was Interviewed for Risen Magazine for his Book: “Don’t Drop the Mic”

Risen Magazine: I also love the duality of words and just like your book, Don’t Drop the Mic. Talk to me about, depending on how you look at it, what “Drop the Mic” means?

TD Jakes: Yeah, That’s so important.. to a rapper, it means the show is over. I did my killer song, I’m out. “Don’t Drop the Mic” in another tense can mean, “Don’t miss the opportunity to use your mic effectively.” And so it depends on what inference you use it. If you go to the music arena and you say you want to cut a CD, it means one thing. If you walk into the bank and say, I need a CD, it means a certificate of deposit. And one of the great things about the English language, is that it can have several different meanings. My wife and I talk about going on a vacation. And she’s excited because a vacation to her is, no makeup, and I don’t have to fix my hair, and I can lay in the bed and watch TV. And I’m sitting over there angry. Because we use the same word, but we didn’t expect the same thing at all. I think we could have done this at home. I wanted to go do so-and-so and so-and-so. And so communication is difficult, because all we have to convey it is words. And words mean different things to different people. And the thing is, just have the two people ask, what do you have in mind for the vacation? To dig deeper, what do you mean by that? When I said that, what did you hear? We have to work at communication. Because you will walk away thinking that I understood what you meant, when all I did was hear what you said.

RM: The importance of living your life in its season. I think that this is so relevant at any time, but especially now, it’s okay to want to dream and want to move on to the next step, or it’s okay to have had something really fun happen, but speak to the importance of living in the season.

TDJ: Yeah. But being present now, is something I am yet working on. I didn’t know that I wasn’t. I think the pandemic made me realize that I’m always either going or coming, but never there. And forcing myself to just be there without worrying about what’s next, or worrying about what happened yesterday, or just to be present in this conversation to really be talking to you, not just [chatting] and onto the next interview, but to be present makes a lot of difference in communication. And so I’m working on being more present and I’m trying with other people, especially with the people you love the most, because you can starve them to death, for the lack of something that you had to offer, but weren’t really present to give.

T.D. Jakes book Don’t Drop the Mic:The Power of Your Words Can Change the World is available now