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And welcome back George Nori here our birthday bast program. James Paris up next. Author of more than thirty books and the editor in chief of Christianmoney dot com. He regularly appears as a financial commentator on hundreds of radio and television shows nationwide. By the age of thirty, was a multimillionaire. By forty, he went bankrupt after becoming the victim of an amvestment scheme perpetrated by his accountant. Then still is his brother. Hey James, welcome back my friend.
Hey George, happy birthday pal. Great to be back with you.
Thank you have you been.
I'm great. I'm still playing with the big band, the eighteen piece big band, which I know you love that music. Oh yes, I'm playing with a small jazz combo. I am back into the real estate business now for about a year and still you know, writing and doing a lot of writing for medium dot com. And I'm working on another book right now.
Also super And you've rebounded from the tragedy that occurred to some time ago for you.
Yeah, yeah, everything has turned around. And you know the last time I was on I talked about the death of my brother, Yeah, and how I forgave him, and not just forgave him, but we reconnected because he only had a few months to live, and you know, he
did pass away last year. But I feel so good that we reconnected, and I feel that it was really the right thing to do, not just you know, because of my spiritual beliefs, but I also feel that it was the right thing to do in terms of not having any regrets, you know, because you can't go back when someone has already passed on. You can't go back and do that again. You don't have that chance again. So I feel great that we reconnected and we're able
to let that all be. You know, Water under the Bridge Was.
It an emotional reunion for you.
James, Oh, it was. We were both my brother and I were both crying. It was. It was a really unusual moment. I mean, it didn't take away what he did to me and my family, but there was a
healing there that's hard to explain. And forgiveness is very tough, but you know, I've heard stories of people that are forgiven the murderers of family members, I mean things like that, and they talk about the freedom and the release that it gives you spiritually, and that absolutely happened with me with my brother.
What was the big moment where you realized what the heck.
He did.
Right? So what happened was every year my companies, I had a broker dealer and also an investment advisor. We were licensed across the country. We had multiple offices. So George, one morning I get this very odd phone call from my outside accounting firm. So every year we had to have a very detailed, very expensive audit done that we had give to all of the states that licensed us.
By the Big eight firms.
At the time, it wasn't a Big eight firm, but it was something large like that. You know this, They couldn't be anybody auditing me. It had to be someone with the special licensing to audit a financial firm. So I got this phone call and the accountant said to me, the outside accountant, he said, look, there's one hundred and thirty one thousand dollars missing from the you know bank from last year, you know, trying to reconcile the accounts. And I said to him, what do you mean missing?
Like it's a mistake, there's you know, maybe some accounting that's behind internally that's not showing.
That I didn't make as much as I thought, or something like.
That, right right, you know, with tax deductions and this and that, you never know, you know, if it's funny money or real money. And he said to me that, no, no, it is absolutely missing. And I said, well, the only two people that have acted to the money are my brother and I. And he said to me something like, we'll think about what you just said. And he was clearly implying that it was my brother, but I wasn't
really getting that, so I asked him again. I said, I'm not sure what you're saying, and he said, just think about what you just said. Well, that began an unraveling of an embezzlement scheme, and we stopped counting money when it hit two million.
Wow.
Because back then, in order to get your accounting records, you had to go and pay for them at the bank if you had lost them, and in this case, my brother, as part of his scheme, had destroyed all of our bank records once he was uncovered, so I had to go and spend thousands of dollars at banks here in Florida. And also in Texas where we had banking to like basically do a forensic accounting to reconstruct
all of our banking records. And so my lawyer said, once we got a two million, he said, no point in going any further. It's, you know, you're wiped out. We we lost the companies because basically we were required to have a certain amount of money in our business to stay in business, you know, if you're in that kind of you know, security industry. That's I lost the business and I lost all my money and lost everything.
And when I tell people I lost everything, they think, oh, yeah, but you still had the you know, million dollars in a retirement account. No. No, I literally lost everything. My cars were repossessed, my house was foreclosed. We were scraping for money for groceries as a family. It was it was the worst scenario you could imagine, and it happened
so fast. It was literally one day I'm being picked up in limousines at airports to be on TV shows, and then a few weeks later I'm out trying to get money to get groceries for my for my family. It was it was just surreal.
Horrible, horrible, horrible horrible, and is it safe to assume that with all that money that was taken that your brother did not live high on the hard so you couldn't see it.
Well, he did have a cover story, so anytime there was a major expenditure, like he had purchased you know what was clearly a very luxurious house, and I started wondering, like, how's he affording this? But he always had a story. So he had claimed to have had an inheritance from his wife's side of the family that paid for that.
He had similar stories of land that he owned that got purchased by a utility company for twenty times what he paid for it, you know, stories to cover these extravagant expenses.
And they were believable stories.
Right, they were. Yeah, absolutely, And he was Honestly, he was a very good liar. And maybe part of it was because he was my brother. I just gave him the benefit of the doubt. Or maybe he was just a really good layer. I don't know, George, if you know any really good layers, but I've run across a few in my life that could convince me of just
about anything, because they're just those kind of people. And he kept this going We think for at least a five year period he was embezzling, and we don't know exactly how much, but it was into the millions that he was taking.
You were on with me in September of last year, and when you're on, I got to believe you get a lot of emails and things from our listeners.
Don't you.
I do. It's like nothing I've ever seen. I mean, I literally the next week I spend answering those emails and I'm still not caught up, you know, after a week because so many come in. Yeah, it's incredible.
What do they want from you? What did they ask?
You know?
It's it's interesting because there's a lot of different situations that people are in. They'll ask for prayer. But you know, one of the common themes that really breaks my heart is people who have lost hope. You know, as long as you have hope and faith, if you think that, hey, tomorrow is going to be better than today, the situation I'm in is going to pass and I'm going to you know, get into a better situation in the future. As long as you have that hope, you can get
out of bed, you can move forward. But the people that contact me through the website with the emails. These are mostly people that have lost hope and it's heartbreaking and I feel so humbled that they're reaching out to me for that hope. And that's when I turn them to prayer. And what I learned in my book, which is that I'm not the guy that has the answers.
It's God that has the answers. And I just have this belief that I developed through what I experienced that if people would simply take the time to pray and listen, that God will give them a plan that will give them hope. And with hope you can move forward. Without hope, you can't get out of bed in the morning. And I would say that is the main theme of these
emails that come in. Everybody's got different stories and circumstances, but when you've lost hope for the future, that is the darkest point to be in in life.
Tell me your thoughts about prayer, James, What do you think it is and why do you think it works?
Right? So I learned a very valuable lesson. I grew up as a spiritual person. We used to pray before we ate, you know, traditional things like that, and you know we learned in church, you know, about praying and asking God to help us, those kinds of things. But I always thought of it like I'm broadcasting something out to God. I'm you know, saying words, I'm asking for something. But I really learned when I went through all of this, when I got to the point that I planned out
my own suicide on three occasions. I got to that low of a point that I started. I would go out to parks and sit on a park bench. I would go to the beach and sit and I would not I started listening, and I started bringing a yellowpad with me, and I was filling up pages and pages of this yellow pad with information that I knew was coming from somewhere else, because these were ideas that I did not have myself, that were coming from somewhere. And this is where my journey of listening to God began.
And one of those times, I was sitting on a park bench. And I ride by that bench every day on my bicycle when I ride eighteen miles every morning. That's the bench I was sitting on. I always see it. That's the bench where I was sitting. And God said, write a letter to George Norri about your book on prayer, and I didn't know you, and I'm sure you get lots of letters and books and things like that. And I wrote the letter and it was just a matter of days that I heard from Tommy and I was
on my first appearance. I don't know how many years ago that was. But you know, I never would have thought to do that because I just you know, I was a listener, but I just didn't know if this topic would really fit in the show. And that was
just something that God put on my heart. And I could tell you dozens and dozens of stories like that where in those times of sitting sometimes for an hour, sometimes for two hours, that God would communicate this information to me and it was absolutely life changing.
And now you're celebrating my birthday with us.
I am absolutely fantastic.
When we talk about prayer, some people want to question, so you're praying for money, what are you praying for? How do you answer that?
Right? So in my book, I talk about this idea of the bag of money prayer, which is probably the most common way if someone's having a financial problem, they'll pray for the money. So my rent is do Friday, I need one thousand dollars, or my utility bill is due in a week, I need three hundred dollars, so they're looking for that money. And there's nothing wrong with
that prayer. But I also think a better prayer is to ask God for wisdom and for his plan to put you in a situation where you're able to be self sufficient and make those bills, you know, going forward, without being in those crisis situations. And so what it really comes down to in my own case was I had this plan that I was praying for God for God to give me everything back that I lost. But God had a better plan for me, and I went
into different kinds of businesses. I became more of a solopreneur, smaller operation that I could keep greater control over. I had more peace in my life, spending more time writing, doing speaking engagements, and not in that financial world in that way. And so one of the mistakes is we don't pray for wisdom, because wisdom is something that if God gives you wisdom, it's something for the future too. It's not just a solution on Friday for the money
you need, and also praying for his plan. And I can't tell you how many times I have thought that I was so glad certain prayers were not answered because what we want is not always what's best for us. And I believe if we pray in a way where we say, God, this is what I think I want, but I'm open to your better plan, if you have something better in mind for me, as we call it God's will for us. And being willing to accept that
alternative plan is part of prayer. Being open to something different might mean changing jobs, might mean moving you know these are there are opportunities out there, maybe to go back to school and get retrained in a different field. You've got to be open to what God might lead you to do and not be just limiting him to your plan. And that's what I did for years. I got stuck in this idea of I want the financial business back, but God gave me something better.
In your book How to Pray for a Financial Miracle, you discuss the power of group prayer. Tell me your thoughts on that.
Right. So in the Bible, in the Book of Matthew, it talks about the idea of where two are three are gathered together. I am in their midst and I believe that God is calling us to gather together to pray, and this is something that is sort of a mystery. I've asked a lot of spiritual leaders about this idea of group prayer, and they all conceide that in every case, group prayer seems much more effective than individual prayer. Someday that's something I want to ask God, you know why
that is. It doesn't mean we shouldn't pray individually, but I think there's something powerful that happens when groups of people get together and pray. And it's something I think maybe sometimes you don't want to give the details to a friend to pray for you. Maybe it's something personal. You could just say it's private and it's personal, but I need your prayer right now. I just believe, just like what you do on the show, when groups of people get together and pray, it seems to be more
effective than an individual prayer. And I don't really know why, but it absolutely seems to be the case.
Interesting take on that, then the one is worth more than the many, or the many is worth more than the one.
Yeah, it's an interesting concept to think about. But I think part of it too is I think when you're asking others for prayer, they might also be the answer to your prayer, which is kind of interesting because sometimes if you're telling someone, hey, i'm praying for groceries for my family, maybe that person is going to go buy the groceries and bring them to you. So I think part of it is sharing with others your needs and not being prideful and keeping that private. That's something I
struggle with as well. Understanding that there's a blessing to people that give, and I call it the givers glow. And you'll see it happen. You'll be walking down the street and you'll see someone that bought a meal for a homeless person and they'll give that to the homeless person, and you'll see that gratefulness of the homeless person. But then as that person walks away, you can see that blessing in that person that they received by helping that person.
I call it the giver's glow, and it's a blessing. I think that's greater to the person that's giving the charity than even the person and receiving it.
You're absolutely right, and I've got to tell you, James, I cannot walk past a homeless person without helping them. It doesn't have to be a lot, but I just can't walk past them. Many times I've said, let me do my shopping and i'll get you when I come out, and they're still there waiting and I deliver. You know, I'm not lying to them, and they're very happy and grateful. But I got to tell you, it's weird, and I
don't do it for karma purposes. What goes around comes around, which we're going to be talking about this week on the show. But for some reason, the more I help people, the more something wonderful happens to me. It's hard to explain, but it's magical. I mean, there was one silly time I gave a homeless guy twenty dollars, okay, twenty dollars. I went to my post office box I had a unexpected check from my insurance company for one thousand dollars. How does that happen?
Yeah, it's it's amazing, and I have to tell you it happens to me as well. And some people would say karma. Some people would say it's the universe. I think there's a blessing. I think God blesses people that are givers that are helping other people. I just think it is kind of one of the rules of how we're wired up in this existence that we're living in. That you know that we give to others and we
also are blessed. And even if the blessing was George, that you didn't get that thousand dollars check.
Just I didn't expect that. I didn't give the twenty with the understanding that something wonderful is going to happen to it. But it just happens.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's absolutely incredible.
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