Author and Speaker Benton Thompson III

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by on pay Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Benton Thompson, the third with Benton Thompson the third. Welcome.

Benton Thompson III: [00:00:35] Welcome. Thank you so much, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:37] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about your practice. How are you serving folks?

Benton Thompson III: [00:00:42] Well, what I’m doing is I provide ministry services, counseling services. I do a lot of outreach work. I travel around, I speak. I’m an author and motivational speaker.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:53] So what’s your back story? How did you get into this line of work?

Benton Thompson III: [00:00:56] Well, I have been I’m an ordained minister since 1996. And so I saw a lot of needs in our communities. I run homeless shelters, just trying to help people in any facet that I can. I just see so many suffering and hurting people. And I thought any gifts or talents that I have, let me use those to be able to help other members of society.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:16] Well, is there anything actionable you can share to listeners right now to choose to be of service rather than to choose maybe to make as much money as possible or to accumulate as many things as possible? How do you convince people to choose a path of service?

Benton Thompson III: [00:01:34] Very good. I choose I direct people to like for example, right now I have a new app out on the U-verse Bible app and it’s called Jesus Carried Our Sorrows to Victory. So I think that it starts with education, being able to show people how to do something, to give them practicality and understanding. And so I show some of the things that ways that we can participate, ways that we can care for one another, especially now, given there’s a lot of grief and sorrow and it’s just about being compassionate. Sometimes it’s just as simply as speaking a kind word. And that starts the process and and talking to one another. How can I help? What can I do? And actually put a hands to something as opposed to just mere words.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:17] Now, you mentioned that your background was in the ministry and and you’ve probably been reaching people in a variety of ways. Can you talk a little bit about how you decided to go the app route and what were some of the learnings you had building an app that was trying to communicate what you were trying to communicate because that seems like an adventure by itself.

Benton Thompson III: [00:02:40] Well, and it really does. And so with that, the the clarity is I didn’t actually build the app. So you version has a Bible app and it’s all around the world and they have 500 million unique devices that they’re on now. And it’s it’s throughout all the world, as I say. So I wrote a devotional, a five day devotional about Jesus and how we carried our sorrows into victory. And so through doing that on that platform, that allowed me to reach so many people around the world, because although we’re all uniquely different, all 8 billion and counting, each of us have their own dental imprints and finger imprints. There are still certain unique commonalities that we have, suffering being one of them, joy being another. So I use that their platform, they allow me to use that to place my devotional study to share with people a way of understanding, compassion, in a way to understand the commonalities that we all have as human beings.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:36] So that’s important for the listeners to understand that sometimes you don’t have to create the wheel. You can partner with people who already have a platform and try to insert yourself within that existing platform in order to reach the folks that are already using that.

Benton Thompson III: [00:03:53] That’s exactly right, because of the fact that there’s there’s nothing new under the sun, as it were. So someone likely has the same heart, the same incentives, the same desires that you have, and so seek to partner with others in community. And then even by doing that part, we are still connecting to one another. And so that’s it’s relational. It’s not it’s not that we’re doing this in a in a vacuum. We have to relate to one another, share ideas, share our perspectives, our goals, our visions, share our pains, share our joy, share our trials like what we’re doing here today.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:26] So you also mentioned you’re an author. Can you talk about the the writing process that you use? A lot of folks dream of one day being an author, but very few people take the time to put words to paper.

Benton Thompson III: [00:04:39] Well, in that, yes. So to date, I’ve written ten books. And so my first book I wrote a number of years ago, and my books come out of my learnings. And so going back to the the precedent again that yes, we’re all uniquely different, each one of us is made as a one of a kind. But again, there’s commonalities. And so my first book I wrote a number of years ago, I was traveling for work at the time. I’m a professional. He trained as an engineer and I was traveling for work and there were some trials and tribulations I was going through. And so my first book was entitled Why Men Hunt, and it was really expressly about Mankind. I thought, well, we all go through the same things, men and women alike. We’re hunting, we’re searching, we’re seeking. And so every book that I’ve written since it has been a practical guide to complex matters, because I believe that especially matters of spirituality, faith, belief, they’ve been complicated and they’ve been purposely made that in fact. And so I think it has to be simple applicable so we can turn around and do it. And so I would advise people that are desire to write, just keep your message simple and plain and people can relate to it and connect with it. And then you’re off to the races.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:47] Well, can you talk and get a little more granular when it comes to the writing process? Did you have a system since you mentioned you’re an engineer, that engineer brain? Can you talk about maybe some of the systems or your routines that you had in order to execute the book to get it out of your head and into print?

Benton Thompson III: [00:06:04] And that’s very key. So what I did, you know, actually, I did not have a system in place. I was staying at a Jamison Inn Hotel at the time, and so they had the little pad beside there. So the thing is key, as you point out, to get it out of your head. And on paper, even if it’s cryptic, even if it’s bullet points, you have to get it outside of you and then you can flesh out accordingly. And so once I had done that and then I began to didn’t know any publishers, so I began to search, you know, who are publishers? Something with my theme, the understanding that I was self-taught and trying to find empowerment. And so you’re kind of that is a process. I don’t think that there’s a one and done. So I found the publisher sent my manuscript. They picked it up, we had a conversation and you just take it off. And so every time it is that repetitive process. But I would say then to those who would be writing right with your heart, not with your head, because again, it’s about connecting with people. So it’s great that we have this high IQ, but right now we’re seeing that in IQ. That emotional connection is far more important than our IQ.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:08] Now, was it a difficult transition to go from the engineering world to the world of faith? I would imagine faith has always been involved in your life, but to bring it to the forefront like this, it might be a risk for some folks.

Benton Thompson III: [00:07:21] And it could be. But I looked at it like they were just like just both existed in me, as it were. You know, we have certain kind of it’s like a creative sense. And then also there’s this physical sense. I have to do these things responsibly, but this is my creative side. And so that foundation of spirituality has always been there, you’re correct in that. And so I seek for ways to be able to share that again with humanity. So I take my engineering and I service humanity through my engineering. That’s great. And I can also service humanity through my gifts and talents and abilities. So even though they’re on different planes, they still serve the same purpose.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:59] So it sounds like you kind of taking a practical approach to your spirituality.

Benton Thompson III: [00:08:05] Yes, sir, that’s exactly correct, because same thing with engineering. You build it a piece at a time, a part of the time, and that is a great benefit with my spirituality. So I go in there and I look at something and say, Hey, how do you take it apart as an engineer? How do I reassemble this? So I look at God’s word, I look at the Bible, look at these things and go, Man, these are so convoluted. How can I demystify this? How can I complicate this? How can I break it down to the parts and pieces so people can understand it and apply it to the life? And that’s why I’ve had a lot of success being able to take, you know, matters of salvation or baptism and say, let’s break it down to its least common denominator. We can all understand it applied and begin getting the benefits from it.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:50] But what about the kind of difference in the sense that when you’re an engineer or you’re building something that hopefully is real, that will hold up and not fall over and not break down. But in faith, there are some leap leaps of faith that you have to take on, faith that that the answer is there and that someone will catch you when you fall. How do you kind of marry those to kind of some somewhat disparate lines of thought?

Benton Thompson III: [00:09:21] And that’s a great point. And I talk about that when I’ve written a a how to series. It’s a very basic series and it’s a How to God. So I’ll talk about how to hear God, how to pray to God, how to follow God, how to obey God. And so, again, the basic foundations. And so with faith using that same approach, for example, as it were, we don’t we have to see that. We don’t have to understand it. And so I use my background again, Lee And I said, You know what? I don’t understand how electricity gets into my house, into the outlet, but I can still utilize it. So that allows us to say I don’t have to understand and be able to fully comprehend how faith works, but I can still apply and get the benefits out of my life and I share things using that same mindset. For example, the positive and the negative. We think sometimes matters of faith are all positive, but the negative is just as valuable. And I tell people every time you get in your vehicle, you need a positive and a negative thing to happen. The positive and the negative on your battery is what starts your vehicle. So it’s a matter of a paradigm shift. And getting us to understand that all negative isn’t bad and all positive is not necessarily good. It’s the mixture, the blending of it, as it were.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:34] So what do you need more of? How can we help?

Benton Thompson III: [00:10:37] Well, I need more exposure, more awareness to let people know that it’s. There’s somebody that has solutions right now, and I don’t know everything. I just know a way that we can get them together. I think as we pull together our talents, our thoughts, and you hear a lot today about having conversations, and so we talk about those and that’s great. But it’s also we need to have spiritual conversations because that is a part of our basic compositions. We really do have a spiritual being part of us, as well as a natural part. And so a lot we focus on our natural part, but I’d love to have conversations about the spiritual part. How do we deal with our emotional things? Because, again, with the shootings and everything that’s happened now, people are suffering, they’re hurting emotionally. And so I can’t intellectually relate to that. Even with issues of race, I can’t intellectually relate to that, but I can relate to that spiritually. We can’t have those conversations. So I’d like more opportunities to be able to share and bring people together and let’s begin to have these spiritual discussions.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:39] Well, if somebody wants to learn more about your books, your app, or to have a conversation with you, what’s the website?

Benton Thompson III: [00:11:45] What my website is is as my name is it’s Benton Thompson dot com simple enough or you can just google me Benton Thompson the third you’ll see all my information on the internet. I can be reached anyway. Through that I’d love to have conversations. Come and speak, share work if I need to. Hey, let’s feed. I’ve fed the homeless, the hungry. I’m willing to work and ready to work side by side. And so reach out to me at any any factor you like to.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:13] Well, Benton, thank you so much for sharing your story today.

Benton Thompson III: [00:12:17] Thank you, Lee. I certainly do appreciate the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:19] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see our next time on the Atlanta Business Radio.