Encounter 000 — The Beginning

There are some things that can't be rushed.

In-Count-Her was created to make room for them.

Below is the opening movement of this week's Encounter. When you're ready, continue listening to the full experience.

Before we begin...

Who is Shaun J. Morris?

First of all, I want to thank WDRB, and I want to thank the listeners for sharing your time with me today.

I am a Charlotte-based entrepreneur, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.
I'm currently in the process of becoming Maxwell Leadership Certified as a coach.
I am a speaker, I'm a mentor, and I build businesses.
I'm an active practitioner.

In 2023, I hit a turning point in life, and I think most of us hit that turning point,
where something doesn't quite work out the way we expect it.

I had just gotten out of a breakup.
I got evicted.
I had a repo that I was trying to recover from.
I had job loss after job loss, and I just couldn't figure out how to replace that income.

I never saw that as myself, but that was my reality, and I ended up in a job that I didn't like, didn't want, but I couldn't justify leaving because it was such a great opportunity.

During that time in my life, I started to spend more and more time getting honest with God.

It wasn't my own initiation, if you will.

It wasn't my own choice, but I would get waken up at 3.54 in the morning many times, and I had a chance to reflect, ask questions, and drill deep into why things were the way they were in my life, who I really was as a person, and over time, I realized I was changing and growing.

That job that I didn't like happened to be a sales job where I was selling people Internet. They already had Internet, and I wasn't the cheapest, but I figured out how to let them do business with me and keep it that way.

But I figured out how to be someone that they wanted to do business with,
and that was gold. I didn't realize what that was at the time, but that really helped me out. But I got so good at that role that I became a sales mentor.

Along the way, I outgrew the position, and I started asking different questions.
I started to wonder, what is my life really about?
What should I really be doing with my time?
What is it that really drives me?

I felt like I had a lot more in me, but that job wasn't enough.
The business opportunities I was in at the time, they weren't enough.
And so I entertained becoming a coach with John Maxwell.
I loved the idea, but I didn't know what a coach was.

Well, I jumped on board, and the first thing they told me to do was to figure out who my ideal audience was.

It scared me.

I worked in a call center.
I didn't have an ideal audience, but I prayed about it.
Thanksgiving morning, 2024, I felt an impression in my heart that was so clear that I couldn't ignore it.

As I was getting out of bed, I heard 100,000 women of color need to find their voice.

I knew it was good, and I knew women like that.
I had dated them.
I grew up with them.
I went to work with them.
But I didn't think that I was the one that should follow that calling.

When I thought of an ideal audience, I thought of men or young men that I could speak to about my own experiences.

So I said, "God, you know, that's good. That's real good. And I agree with you, but I'll wait for the next thing."

Well, the next thing never came.

Because of my journey of being honest and reflective with God, I knew that I needed to do the last thing that he told me to do.

So I started telling people that I was going to help women of color find their voice.

I didn't even know what that meant.
Didn't even know what that took, what the process was.
I had not connected it to my own story of finding my own voice just yet.
But I just knew I had to tell people that already knew me that I was doing this new thing that they didn't know of me.

And it was scary.

A month later, December 28th, 2024, I quit my job.

I went two feet in, ten toes down into this calling of helping 100,000 women of color find their voice. I instantly realized that being a coach was not the proper fit for this demographic. It wouldn't have served them as well as it could have for maybe another space.

So as time went on, I realized that I needed to build something that could operate without my personality.

Along the way, 2025 was interesting.
It was a lot of learning, a lot of writing.
I practiced this exercise of taking ideas out of my head and out of my heart and putting them onto the computer screen.
I took copious notes of everything that I felt like God was sharing with me.
I listened carefully.
And I became extraordinarily excellent at this process.
So much so that I created tons of content.

Something that I realized was also true were breakthroughs are real.

And through that process, I learned that our greatest breakthroughs, they don't always, I guess, begin with revelation or this new realization or these great answers. They actually begin by asking better questions and being open to them.

As time went on, one question fascinated me.

What happens when people recognize what they've been avoiding before it costs them something?

...What helps people recognize what they've been avoiding before it costs them something?

That question and many others guided my work.

Over the next few weeks, what I'll be doing is introducing you to some of the ventures that I've built, some of the organizations that I've spearheaded.

And the work that I'm building and the people that it's meant to serve.
I hope you're blessed by it.

Continue the Encounter

If this opening has already begun to stir something in you...

don't stop at the doorway.

The Encounter was designed as a complete journey.

Continue listening, reflect with the companion question, and return at your own pace.

Continue the Encounter