Why DeVon Franklin Refuses to Be a “Performative” Faith Leader

DeVon Franklin is an award-winning Film & TV producer, best-selling author, in-demand preacher and spiritual success coach.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are part of a group of people I think
about who are like celebrity faith leaders and not do
something that they're You know, you're not the celebrity because
of the faith or faithful because of your celebrity, but
like you, you are both things and we are coming.
We're in a day where that's it's increasing. I'm seeing

(00:21):
an increasing amount of celebrity faith leaders. How do you
manage that? And how have you seen others manage that?
You know, responsibility?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well? Also sure, yeah, yeah, you know, I I think
I'd manage it just by being myself. You know, I don't.
I don't try to think of like myself as a
leader like because then I think sometimes what happens is
instead of living authentically, you know, you live by how

(00:52):
you anticipate others are going to perceive you or how
others are going to expect you to live. And I
think that kind of can put us on a very
inauthentic path versus like, Hey, this is who I am
since who God called me to be. And as I
take those steps, I am aware of the impact and
the influence that God has allowed me to have. And

(01:14):
and my job as a leader is to first lead
myself and to do the things that I think God
is calling me to do. And and then I certainly share, Okay, hey,
here's how I'm doing or here's how I've done it.
And if people find, you know, something powerful or instructive
about that, great, But I think it's it's yeah, I

(01:35):
don't really I don't really live life thinking like when
I'm when I go out like oh, I'm this leader
and I need to do X, Y or Z, Like
I think my lifestyle and my level of success and
just who I am as an individual is probably leadership
in and of itself, you know. And I feel like
when when you take on like the idea like well,

(01:56):
I'm this leader, Well okay, then what what do you
feel like you have to live up to or down
to or what level of you know, Well, then I
can't be my true self because people really expect me
to do this, but I'm really that, so I'm going
to present an image to do this and and I
don't know for me, I just I just don't. I
don't do that, you know. It's like what you see
in the public for the most part is really you

(02:19):
know who I am? Uh, And I really try to
if I were to, you know, have a leadership thought.
It's just by example, you know, like I am about
what I say I'm about, and you know, try to
always do you know, good business, try to always be
mindful of you know, my my Christianity and and and

(02:40):
just live authentically, be live truthfully. I mean that's really
you know how it is. You know what I mean
and how I like to do it. So I really
but I don't try to like say, oh, I'm this
leader and this is how I'm gonna do this. You know.
It's like wait a minute, you know, like hold on
a second, Like it's cool that people look to me
and I will and I don't mind that, Like that
doesn't bother me at all. Oh, I do have advice.

(03:02):
I do have a lot of success. I do have
a lot of insight, and I think that what I
could say to somebody will be helpful to them. And
I do it from a place of well that's authentic
for me, not because I feel like I gotta do
it because this is what's expected, if that makes sense.