In Black America; The Full Tank Life, with Ben Tankard, Part I

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. And you're blessed with the success that I've had in different genres. Music, TV, ministry, sports, aviation, I'm a pilot. You know, you always get stopped. And you always get stopped. And the ask, you know, give me a tip. How can I be successful in this area? So I just started documenting my responses and got approached by a book publisher to put those responses into the form of something that would help people. You know, and we've all been driving, the reason I call it full tank life, you know, we've all been driving and the low fuel light came on. You know how that is? That ride changes when the low fuel light comes on. And I separated into three people.

The eight group are the people that speed up because they want to hurry and get where they go on before they run out of gas. And then the big group, they slow down because they figure they have to stretch the gas. I'm more part of the secret. The secret pulls over and gets the motifs. Ben Tankert, Pastor, Pilot, Motivational Speaker, Best Selling Gospel Jazz Musician, Reality TV Star, and Off the Rub. The full tank life, through your dreams and nature destiny, published by Faith Words. Tankert has a lot of experience with both success and failure. He has learned that our greatest opportunities often come from our greatest disappointments. Today, he is doing what he was born to do and he know it didn't happen by accident. He encouraged readers to examine seven key elements, dreams, environment, subconscious, time, inspiration, network, and you. Sharing his life-tastic secrets to help readers find their own destiny, including fresh insight on familiar Bible passages. Wisdom from his own setbacks and laugh-out loud stories, he showed readers that they too can have a full tank life.

I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, the full tank life with author Ben Tankert in Black America. People ask me all the time, I don't know what my purpose is, I don't know what my destiny is.

How can I find out? I can show you how to find your destiny in your purpose in ten seconds or less. First of all, you open your left hand and you look in your hand and you picture in your left hand. Everything that makes you tick those things you like to do. What do you lose time and lose track of doing when you're doing it? You know, I continued on to a keyboard and after ten hours, I'm like, man, I even feel like I was here. Music and motivation, talking to people, I can do interviews like this all day and lose track of time. You yourself, you know, you can interview, it's not work for you. It just comes, it's just inside of you. So when you look in your left hand, find out what makes you tick, what you love to do. And then if you look in your right hand, put in your right hand mentally those things that make you ticked. What makes you mad? What makes you angry? What takes you off? You know, if you're angered by clutter, you might be called to be the owner of a commercial custodial company.

If you're angered by abuse, you might be the one to have a shelter for women. Ben Tankert is one of the most influential musicians of our time. Few people can't be considered the creator or pioneer of a genre, but Tankert single-handedly introduced jazz flavored melodies to the gospel music arena in 1990, and the instrumental music world has never been the same. He is considered the godfather of gospel jazz. Born on January 10th, 1964 in Daytona Beach, Florida, Tankert is a form of a professional basketball player. Currently, he is a gospel jazz keyboardist, producer, songwriter, motivational speaker, reality TV starring author. In his new book entitled The Full Tank Life, this modern-day Renaissance man offer powerful motivation and practical tools to empower readers to find their destiny and create an action plan to unlock it. He says there are seven key elements to achieve your destiny, dreams, environment, subconscious, time, inspiration, network, and you.

Recently, in Black America, spoke with Ben Tankert. I wanted to at least make this note to my listeners that Ben is my second cousin, so we get kind of personal during this conversation. That is why. Don't throw me out of the bush with all this stuff. You can blackmail me. For me, it's been a while since we last spoke. We spoke when you were at, I think, megafests in Dallas a couple of years ago, for those who haven't listened or heard those interviews. Tell us a little background about yourself, where are you born and raised? Well, it's born in Daytona Beach, Florida, came up in poverty there, six foot six by the time I was in a sixth grade, so that led me to play basketball. But I also had a music gift to play tuba, and so when I got ready to leave high school, I had 30 scholarship offers for Ben and 30 for basketball. And my folks said, you know something? Well, we black, you tall, we're poor, so play ball. So I took the basketball scholarship just in an effort to chase the money, you know, to try to go pro and come back and get my family out the hood.

And I did make it to the NBA, but I got injured my first year, and that's when my story really starts under depression from getting cut. You really forced me to go to church, and I accepted God, I discovered this gift to play piano, and I've been doing it for 25 years, John 25 years of, you know, I call it gospel jazz. It's instrumental inspirational music, and it's played on gospel stations and jazz stations, and I'm done pretty good, man. Got several Grammy and stellar and double award nominations and awards, and several gold and platinum records. So I think that's why I was supposed to been doing the whole time, but I was chasing the basketball. Yeah, understand. How did you all get hooked up with NBC Bravo to do the reality program? Well, you know, I have a great family, blended family, wife, five kids, a couple of daughter-in-law, a couple grandkids, and we live in a big house in Tennessee. They don't all live here, but when they come over, I take my iPhone and record all the shenanigans.

So I started putting those shenanigans on YouTube, and my daughter, Brooklyn, put all those clips together and started sending it out. I know NBC is knocking on the doors, and you guys are the next cosplay type reality family we're looking for. We're looking for a family of color that's wealthy, but got some issues. I say, what else? Because we all got some issues, don't we, John? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Is it difficult to just go about your daily life with the canvas rolling, or is it in the back of your mind that there are cameras with us, so there's certain things we should do or not do or say or not say? Well, you know, it is difficult at first, but like anything, the more you do it, the more you get used to it. It's kind of like wearing glasses when you first put them on in the morning, you know they're there, but by the end of the day, you don't notice them. You know, if I were to bring some cameras to your house, you know, hang out with your family. The first half a day would be all acting because you know I'm there.

You know, hi, John, good morning. I love you so much, sweetheart. Everybody's perfect. But by that 16th hour, you like picture behind down somewhere, bring you some water. What's wrong with your feet? That's why they shoot so long because they want to get to the real you. They shoot 100 hours for a one hour show, man. Imagine they do. You write in the book, you're not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but you have some interesting information in tidbits. What led you to write this book, The Full Tank Life? Because you know, when you're blessed with the success that I've had in different genres, music, TV, ministry, sports, aviation, I'm a pilot, you know, you always get stopped. And you always get stopped. And the asked, you know, give me a tip. How can I be successful in this area? So I just started documenting my responses and got approached by a book publisher to put those responses into the form of something that would help people. You know, and we've all been drunk. The reason I call it Full Tank Life is, you know, we've all been driving and the low fuel light came on. We know how that is.

That ride changes when the low fuel light comes on now. And I separated into three people. The A group are the people that speed up because they want to hurry and get where they go before they run out the gas. And then the B group, they slow down because they figured out a stretch to gas. I'm all part of the C group. The C group pulls open, gets the more fuel. When you, when you sat down to put your thoughts on paper, obviously destiny is the name of your church. So I guess that was just one part of the process that you didn't have to deal with. Yeah, it was close to my heart because when I first started playing, that's what the minister said, you know, sit down to the piano. And I know you want to play basketball, but I think there's enough of destiny that God has for you. And so that when I started my church, I called it the destiny center. When I wrote the book, I look at destiny as an acronym, D-E-S-T-I-N-Y, which stands for dreams, your environment, subconscious time, inspiration, your network. And yours, you know, your dream, your life, you know. So each chapter deals with a separate letter of the word destiny.

Let's go through. We can't go through the whole book. What is interesting, we're going to go through some of the points that you bring out in your book. You say that when you were up against the wall after the NBA thing didn't work out. And then you ended up going to this revival. And then as you stated prior to a few minutes ago, that you ended up sitting down in the piano where you had never played the piano. When you say that we need to understand what our true destiny is, is not what we think our destiny is. But understanding that inner voice that God is trying to direct us somewhere and sometimes we're stubborn to the point where as you said, you was more about going to get the money other than having the joy of playing basketball. Exactly. Exactly. And people ask me all the time, I don't know what my purpose is. I don't know what my destiny is. How can I find out? I can show you how to find your destiny, your purpose, and 10 seconds or less. First of all, you open your left hand and you look in your hand and you picture in your left hand everything that makes you tick those things you like to do.

What do you lose time and lose track of doing when you're doing it? I can sit down to a keyboard and after 10 hours, I'm like, man, I even feel like I was here. That makes me music and motivation talking to people. I can do interviews like this all day and lose track of time. You yourself, you know, you can interview. It's not work for you. It just comes, it's just inside of you. So when you look in your left hand, find out what makes you tick, what you love to do. And then if you look in your right hand, put in your right hand mentally those things that make you ticked, what makes you mad? What makes you angry? What takes you off? You know, if you're angered by clutter, you might be called to be the owner of a commercial custodial company. If you angered by abuse, you might be the one to have a shelter for women. You know, I, because I came up in poverty, I cannot stand hunger. And so in my left hand, I'm motivated by music and motivation in my right hand. I can't stand poverty.

So if you slap your hands together right there in the middle of what makes you tick and what makes you ticked usually is what your purpose and destiny is. You also talk about actually riding down your dreams. A short pencil is far more powerful than a long memory. And I encourage people to put a pad by their bed and label it at the top. The bedside millionaire, because I think that's where the richest ideas come when your defenses are down early in the morning when you're just getting up. I think just when you hear more clearly and you get those great ideas when you're halfway between a slumber, you just have to have discipline to write these things down so you won't forget them. You always, we all had billion dollar ideas that we did not write down at that time, John. And then, you know, six weeks later or six months later, we said, I'm commercial on TV and say, man, that's my idea. Well, you didn't steal your idea. You released it back into the atmosphere and they snatched it because they did write it down. How did you come up with the bensporationals?

It's a play on my name, been inspired, been inspirations. One of the things I put in the book is, you know, that I believe that successful people do things that unsuccessful people won't do before eight or nine in the morning. This thing that I call self-aligned by 759. I said it's successful people and the things, even though they're in different genres, the things that they have in common that they accomplished more early and they grabbed their day. So here goes. First thing you're going to do is you're going to get up and you're going to pray and praise. Get up and just be thankful that you got up. Don't spend the first part of your day on the internet. Don't begin your day with social media. Do not wake up with your phone. Go on through Instagram, social media stuff. Don't start the day like that because if you do, you start your day at somebody else's tempo and it'll get away from you. Secondly, you want to exercise and eat. You want to feel your body. Your car won't go without gas. Your body won't go without food and fuel. That's exercise and nourishment. Then you want to sit in a corner. You want to read and reflect.

That's without social media. You're reading a book, something that's going to feed your mind. And then lastly, you dream and direct. That's what you actually write out your goals for the day, the week, the month, the year. I call it the high five of goal setting. If I was having lunch with you, John, I would ask you that in five minutes, you should be able to tell me what you believe is going to be happening in your life in the next five minutes. The next five hours, the next five days, weeks, months, and years. That's the high five of goal setting. If you don't know that who else is going to know you have to control your vision by writing it down. You do all this by seven, fifty nine, seven line by seven, fifty nine. I found an interesting in your futures listening and you say destiny is a personal journey, not a destination. Absolutely. It's more about enjoying the ride to grandma's house than just the pound cake once you get there.

Even though the pound cake is good. How did you and Joe come together? I was divorced. She was divorced. We were unhappy, but trying to pretend we were happy. And I was on the road doing a concert tour. And she was in Detroit coming to a Ben Taker concert just to kind of relax from a week of work. And her aunt talked her into going to a Ben Taker jazz concert. And my eyes met her eyes. She was on the second row. And I said, the Lord is my shepherd. And I went up to, you know, this story went up to her afterwards and said, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. I believe you're supposed to be my wife. And she said, Amen, brother. And nine months later, we were married. And if you're just joining us, I'm Johnny Johansson Jr. And you're listening to In Black America from KUT Radio. And I'm speaking with Ben Taker, pastor, motivational speaker, bestselling, gospel jazz musician, reality TV star and author of the full tank life, feel your dreams and night your destiny. Ben, you talk about the success that you have in the music industry. But before you got to that success, you took on a part-time job to keep eating.

Oh, yeah. And many people laugh when I say this, but before I was a musician, man, I was a dog catcher. Right. With a jail carol. In the late 80s, I also tried my hand at private, being a private detective, because I, the year I was in college, I was taking up law enforcement and investigation. Man, that didn't turn out well. You know, you can't, in Florida, you can't have a six foot six black man following, following a white woman, hoping to find her in an affair. That didn't go well. And so I had an opportunity to go into a music store where I was a dog catcher and start messing with the keyboards and stuff. And the guy hired me to be a keyboard demonstrator. So that was my first music job. Music Music

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