Tyler Perry will shout “preach” when he read this knowing firsthand what it is to persist in spite of adversity. The actor, screenwriter, director, playwright, film producer, and television producer overcame abuse, poverty, homelessness, sexual molestation, and two suicide attempts to build a billion dollar entertainment empire.

With determination, persistence, faith in God, forgiveness, and a feisty grandmother that brought audiences to tears with laughter he conquered all odds.

“I Know I’ve Been Changed”

He was born Emmitt R. Perry Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana. His childhood was marked by poverty and physical abuse. In the Perry home Monday through Thursday were uneventful, but on Friday his carpenter and construction-worker father went out, got drunk, and per Perry “all hell would break loose.”

Perry Jr. often watched helplessly as Perry Sr., in a drunken rage, would beat his mother. After the beatings Perry Jr. would try and comfort his mother, and the two would often fall asleep crying.

The beatings continued until one day his mother began fighting back (kicking, scratching, and punching)—the verbal abuse continued but Perry Sr. never again raised his hand against her. Perry himself was also a victim of his father’s drunken rage.

In addition to the beatings, he was dealing with the effects of molestation. He was molested by a man and woman in his neighborhood between the ages of five and twelve.

At age sixteen Perry Jr. changed his name to Tyler:

“I just started telling people my name is Tyler. I didn’t want to carry my father’s name. I didn’t want to be anything like him. I didn’t want to be his Jr. I have no idea where I got the name from.”

Few knew the extent of the physical and mental abuse he suffered:

“I remember when I was 17, I did something that ticked him off—something minor. My father grabbed me, threw me to the floor, and stomped me.”

He then went on to say,

“Those were really sad times. There were times when I felt I wasn’t going to make it. It was nothing but the grace of God that helped me make it through.”

Two things happened that changed his life:

1)An Oprah episode

and

2) A trip to Atlanta.

On that show Oprah told her viewers it was cathartic to write things down, so he began to journal the abuse he was suffering. He used different character names to maintain his anonymity. Out of that journal came his first play [I Know I’ve Been Changed]—it was about a character, who confronts an abuser, forgives him, and moves on.

On his first road trip to Atlanta Perry was astounded by what he saw. To him it was Canaan:

“I thought I’d gotten to the Promised Land,” he says. “I’d never seen black people doing so well. I’d always thought—because I tried to speak well and represent myself well, and that didn’t go over too well with the fellas in the ‘hood—that I was crazy. But when I got here and saw other people doing the same thing, I said, ‘I’m home!’”

He was ambitious and wanted more than the poverty he grew up in. He left New Orleans for Atlanta with the dreams of becoming a successful playwright.

With $12,000 in savings he rented a theater and produced his play—hoping to pocket $20,000. Only thirty people showed up the entire weekend. By the end of it he was broke, discouraged, and very angry. The Guide would not be avoided.

Faith, Forgiveness, and Success

For the next six years Perry worked with different investors to finance his play (each production failed every time).  He networked with various ministries, produced the play through church appearances, he wrote, and rewrote. At times he was homeless, penniless, and jobless—he would often sleep in his Geo metro or small run down hotels. Friends and family members, fearful for his safety, would beg him to give up the theater and find a steady 9-to-5; but he persevered.

Even though his play talked about forgiving one’s abuser Perry had yet to apply its message. He still had resentment against the man who was his abuser—his father. In 1998, Perry decided to have one more run of the play. He scheduled to present it at the House of Blues. Before the show he called his father and during their conversation

Perry finally forgave his father. After that the show sold out!

“Maybe I visited the right churches. Maybe I finally got the word out,” he says. “But until I die, I’ll believe that when I finally forgave my father, the Lord blessed the play.”

Since then Perry has gone on from plays, to a syndicated TV show (House of Payne), and movies. In October 2008 he purchased a 200,000-square foot, 30-acre studio that was once the headquarters of Delta Airlines in Georgia. And in 2009 Forbes ranked him as the sixth highest paid man in Hollywood.

The Guide tested him and he passed the test. From then on the same Hand that held him back was the one that pressed him forward. And now the world cries, “Bravo! We knew you could do it!”

Perry has since worked out his relationship with his father and the two have become good friends:

“How can I be angry with this man when everything he did formed the man I am and I love the man I am today.”

There’s an interesting article on Huffington Post about the similarities of Napoloen Bonaparte and Google. This is the summary:

Napoleon rose to great power because he was a strategic genius. He created a new organizational model that totally revolutionized warfare at the time:  he broke up his army up into smaller groups and gave the leaders complete autonomy; he gave room for soldiers who showed initiative to rise to the top. And they were motivated by one purpose: to spread the French revolution throughout Europe. This highly mobile, highly motivated completely overwhelmed army after army.

Like Napoleon Google built a very lean and innovative business model: They sold advertising through automation curtailing the need of a large sales staff; they hired a small group of the best engineers; they didn’t spend months in perfecting a product–they released it in beta version and let the customer help improve it; and as a result, they would need fewer managers to keep the company running.

That ability to remain fluid and adapt is partly what pushes new leaders into the forefront.

The main reason why new orders emerge is because the old, through pride or indifference, fail to recognize the change on the horizon.

Great lessons for ministry.

I guess what I’m trying to say is bureaucracy is one of the main reasons for death in a church.

I know from firsthand experience of what it’s like to be in a bureaucratic church…but I want to hear from you…what are the signs of a bureaucratic church?

Your thoughts?

Right before Apple was set to release the iPhone in 2007 ( the riskiest project to date), Jobs came in one Monday morning and told his team:

“I just don’t love this. I can’t convince myself to fall in love with this. And this is the most important product we’ve ever done.”

Think about that for a second: millions of dollars have been allocated, dozens of hours have been logged, sacrifices have been made, and the CEO comes in and says: “I think we can do it better…let’s start over.”

And yet this isn’t new.

When Pixar (his former company–now owned by Disney) was making Toy Story there was a point when they realized the story wasn’t that good. So they shut down production for five months, while they perfected the story. They could’ve just left it at “good”, but Jobs knows, that “good” is never good enough.

He views products in one of two ways: “Insanely great” of “s#!t” He is a stickler for details. He understands that form is just as important as function.

And yet most successes are the same way.

Gordon Ramses (the chef on TV who’s always screaming at people) expressed his philosophy of detail:

“It doesn’t matter how amazing the steak is, if it’s served on a cold plate it’s crap. If it’s served with a dull knife it’s crap. If the gravy isn’t piping hot, it’s crap. If you’re eating it on an uncomfortable chair, it’s crap. If it’s served by an ugly waiter who just came in from a smoke break, it’s crap. Because I care about the steak, I have to care about everything around it.”

When Moses told God to build the Tabernacle He gave him detailed instructions. He said things like:

• “Make an Ark of acacia wood — a sacred chest 3 3/4 feet long, 2 1/4 feet wide, and 2 1/4 feet high.” (Exodus 25:10 New Living Translation)
• “Then make the Ark’s cover — the place of atonement — out of pure gold. It must be 3 3/4 feet long and 2 1/4 feet wide.” (Exodus 25:17 New Living Translation)
• “Make an Altar of acacia wood. Make it 7 1/2 feet square and 4 1/2  feet high.” (Exodus 27:1 The Message)
• “The Courtyard is to be 150 feet long and 75 feet wide. The hangings of fine twisted linen set on their bronze bases are to be 7 1/2 feet high.” (Exodus 27: 18 The Message)

God left nothing to chance.

In fact, attention to detail is one of the best ways to glorify God. In prayer Jesus said:

“I glorified You on earth By completing down to the last detail what You assigned Me to do….I spelled out your character in detail to the men and women You gave Me.” (John 17: 4,6 The Message)

“Good” is never good enough!

Whatever you’re building be as concerned (if not more) about the little things as much as the big things. Because the majority of people aren’t. That “attention to detail” mindset will push you light years ahead of those “other people.”

Think like Steve Jobs: “It’s ‘insanely great’ or its ’s#1t!’”

What do you think?

P.S.: By the way we’re still in the middle of the #30daygiveaway. If you’re new I’m giving away a FREE Download of my audiobook “I Shall Raise Thee Up” till May 15th. You can still get your copy here:

Come on…you didn’t believe me did you?? #shameonyou

But… you  can still download the audiobook here! #30daygiveaway #donttakeittoheart

Be blessed!

Well it is now Day 5 of my book giveaway. Since that first day I’ve been peppered with questions of “How’s it going?” And suggestions of “what to do next.” And I must admit I am hesitant when writing this post…but…because this is the age of transparency AND I’ve become somewhat of a guinea pig to many.

Also…I’ll say this: it is TOO early to determine anything! It’s only day 5 of a scheduled 30 days. When Rick Warren allowed 400,000 people to buy Purpose Driven Life at $7 cost ( from $20 retail) he saw sales grow to $2 million AFTER two months! (Faith Based Marketing, pgs 85-86)

But I think my experiment with this timeless strategy will be very instrumental.

What has happened so far?

There have been downloads…I’m happy to say. In fact David Tonen, who designed my site and has gone above and beyond in service, increased the bandwidth (or rate of data transfer) of my site. On average my site usage is 650-700 MB– currently it’s at 6GB.

How has it Affected Sales?

To be honest, it hasn’t. I could lie to you and tell you it has…but I all you would have to do is Google “I Shall Raise Thee Up”, then go to Amazon and see it for yourself. Besides my own personal sales it hasn’t really moved on the Net:

• The Amazon Sales Rank of the book: 1,065,619
• The Amazon Sales Rank of the audiobook: 242,146
• Barnes and Nobles Sales Rank of the book: 512,872

But we will see.

What Social Networking Site Have You Gotten the Most Traction With?

I’ll list them in numerically:

1. LinkedIn
2. Twitter
3. Facebook

I have always gotten greater responses on my blog posts with LinkedIn. Namely because most of my posts deal with business and the Bible. So where else would you find businesspeople? Hmmm….you got it: LinkedIn! This is not to say this will be the same for you…but I can only tell what has worked for me.

What are You Going to Do Next?

I’m going to do what I’ve always done Pinky: try to take over the world…in Jesus Name of course!

Like I said: it’s only DAY 5. We’ve got 25 more days to go. But AFTER  the campaign I’ll let you know exactly how it’s gone. If it’s successful you’ll be able to reread this post years later and say, “Wow! I knew him when…”

But if you haven’t don’t forget to pick up your free download!

What are your thoughts?