When I first started going back to church in 2008, it was with one foot in and one foot out. It felt good to go on Sundays and check church off my checklist of great ways to start my week. As I began to grow in my faith, I learned that in order to include God more in my business and find out what the CEO has in store for me, I needed to get to know Him more. I began reading the Bible in the mornings periodically. It started out with small devotionals, daily emails, and blogs like the one you’re reading. Eventually, that turned into wanting to read through the entire Bible. Then something incredible began to happen. I started to see the Bible as one big business book! It was like I was at Cornell all over again. Now, I read the Bible daily and God has an incredible message for me and my business every time. When we want to know things more, we spend more time with them. More time at the gym will lead to better bodies and health. The more we learn about diets and exercise, the more we begin to see our habits change and, over time, we become healthier as long as we stick to it. Some of us don’t have the habit of reading the Bible daily. I get it, I was there. Others have realized it and do it once in a while. Still, others haven’t connected their businesses and their relationship with God. Here is what I’ve learned: God wants to permeate our businesses and become the catalyst for our success as we look to grow and conquer. He wants us to prosper. He wants to lead the charge into growing your business beyond your imagination. He wants to fill your heart with visions that will take the rest of your life to accomplish. That’s the amazing business partner that we have waiting for us every morning. But this doesn’t happen by chance or luck. God has told us how this is going to happen. And today I’m going to share the formula you have to follow from this point forward if you’re serious about having your business succeed and prosper. I’m writing a parallel through the book of Joshua as it relates to us stepping into our entrepreneurial promised land. Joshua has been commanded by God to conquer the land promised to his ancestors. Joshua 1:5-9 says: “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” First off we are given assurance that God will be with us and ride with us during the roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship. He knows that the journey won’t be void of battles and hardships, but He promises to stand with us. But then the word “only” comes into the picture. Here He wants to throw an asterisk and say that He wants to be by your side and give you victory, but you have to keep to the law He has set and meditate on it day and night. This may seem challenging at first, but it becomes easier over time when you purpose to develop the habit of daily reading. And then God says we will have success if we can keep to His laws. “For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” You can try to run your business on your own. Many, including myself, have gone out to fight the battle of growing the business on our own. You may have had success, but you’re likely burnt out and overworked. What would it look like if all Godpreneurs took God with them into every new business venture, every new negotiation, every new idea? What if we all took the time every morning to draw closer to God? If we can know that God wants to go with us and meditate on His word daily, we are setting ourselves up for prosperous and successful businesses. #WorkLifeBalance #FindMyCalling

caused distrust in the accounting, no single vision for the future, no way of venting and no clear leadership

I’m always battling this conflict in my mind of wanting to help others but needing to make money for myself.  There’s also a battle of wanting to be this big celebrity authority, but still wanting to stay humble. We Godpreneurs that have a big message to share with the world can sometimes feel this conflict and it may hold us back from pushing forward with our cause. Many of you know, I read the Bible almost every morning to hear from God on what he wants me to do today and what message he wants for the Godpreneurs. Today I got a peak into, what I believe to be, the formula for achieving authority and potentially celebrity status in your niche, while doing exactly what we’ve been commanded to do. Ready?  I’m excited! But wait, to set this up, I have to share something amazing that led to this. My wife and I attend a marriage growth group (Bible study) where we’re reading Andy Stanley’s book “Staying in Love”.  Each week there are devotionals we are to do together at home to prepare for the following week. The morning of writing this blog, before opening the devotional, I prayed “God, speak to me today on what you want me to do and share.”  That’s my routine every morning:  coming to my CEO and asking what’s the plan for today. The devotional had me read Philippians 2:1-11, and that’s where and how I got the revelation I’m sharing with you today. I’m going to do something different.  I’m going to break this down in sections and explain each section from the point of guide to Becoming an authority. 1-4 "If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand." If you pause there and give me your attention, there’s some amazing nuggets here. First, we can’t miss the fact that first, we must be following Christ.  He’s the ultimate example how how to rise to authority.  I can write a whole new book just on how, first, we must follow Christ in order to receive the true calling from God on what we should be becoming an authority in. Second, don’t be obsessed with making it to the top.  Instead, be obsessed with spreading your message and putting your tribe first.  Getting to the top will follow, as we’ll see in the next verses. 5-8 "Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion." There’s a powerful message here that I don’t want you to miss.  It’s easy to skip over this part. For some of us, coming to the realization that we have a message to spread to the world can be jolting because it requires us to remove ourselves from the day-to-day business, put others in charge, and set on a new course of learning and growing to becoming the best messenger we can be. Your identity is going to change, and this process won’t be as easy as you’d think. It was easy for Jesus because he knew he was God and he knew his role and he knew his purpose.  Most of us are timidly stepping into our roles as Godpreneurs, sometimes one foot in and one foot out. 9-11 "Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father." Here’s the last key, the promise from God that you want to hear:  “God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything.”  I believe that we’re all created in God’s image and asked to follow Christ because God wants to lift us high!  That authority you want, that celebrity status you seek…that’s God’s plan. But we can’t see celebrity as the Keeping Up with the Kardashians.  Celebrity comes as a result of following the order above.  Authority celebrity is your reward for a job well done, your service to God and humanity, your duty of accomplishing what you were born to do. #SharpenLeadership #BusinessBibleStudy Deciding On A Niche In 4 Steps to Deciding on a Niche for your Business, join Alex Miranda as he guides you to launch a brand with intention and purpose and decide on a niche already. Heard of the Godpreneur Academy? Grow Your Business, God’s Way! Bible-Based Video Courses for Entrepreneurs Putting God First In their Businesses Click here to create a Free Account

My partner and I would frequently get in email battles and heated arguments in front of employees. The biggest problems my partners and I had was not knowing how to communicate properly. Notice I didn’t say ‘a lack of communication’. I communicated a lot…I worked in the same small office. We all get into arguments with our partners. But what’s it all for? Can we even remember WHY the last argument started? The way to a restored and happy business partnership is through good communication, but we don’t know how to speak what matters, let alone to listen well and respond. The Bible says in Ephesians 4:29 "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." God wants us to be great communicators by listening and really knowing your partners needs. I believe God wants us to 1) Think about this greater purpose next time you’re talking with your partners. 2)While most daily talk is simply to share information or discuss less-than vital decisions, try to be fully present with your business partners even when discussing the most mundane of details. 3) Make it a practice to share with each other when you’re stressed or excited about. 4) Make the goal of communication with your partners developing greater compassion for one another. What I learned over the years is that communication isn’t just the act of speaking.  Communication is also listening and empathizing its really a self-less act. We all start out born knowing how to communicate one way….cry to get fed. But if we want real change in our partnerships, we have to learn the other side of communication: listening. #BusinessPartnerships #ShareYourTestimony #EnhanceFocus

In 2005 I formed a 3-way partnership with two of my really good friends.  One was a graphic designer, one was a website developer, and I was the Cornell University business graduate that was supposed to know what he was doing when it came to running a business. So naïve yet full of energy and excitement, the three of us desired to leave the corporate life and take control of our lives. We had visions of growing an agency full of the best creatives and doing amazing work for our clients.  The name of the company spoke our hearts desire: The Creative Complex. We sought to build, literally, a fun place to work with ping pong tables and games and a relaxed working atmosphere. We really did want it to work out….but…. You can probably fill in the story from here based on your experience in partnerships. We all desire one thing when we start, but things change. People change. Visions change.  Plans change.  Circumstances change.  We change.  And when you start making money, hearts change. So what happens when partnerships go bad? What can we do to bring them back to life?  How can we….just go back to when we first started? What I’ve discovered over repeated failed and successful partnerships is a key to cracking the partnership code. This key, when applied, can help unlock restoration and a renewed sense of hope in the business. Revelation 2:4 in the bible says "But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!  Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand and from its place among the churches." The key I’ve found is that we have to go back to the basics, back to why we started this, back to our first days of excitement. In your marriage, you reminisce on the dating, wedding and honeymoon and all of the sudden the fighting stops and there’s peace (for a little). It’s the similar concept in business. So here are some practical steps to going back. Re-reading the business plan together: Where you start in business largely determines where you’ll end up. You can make significant progress and possibly avoid conflict if you spend some time thinking about what you hoped for most at the start.  (And if you don’t have a business plan, well now you know why the partnership is failing.  How can we expect the business to fulfill our dreams and expectations if they aren’t articulated or well defined? Create a business plan together.) Dream brainstorm: after the meeting above, then dream together of the future.  See yourselves succeeding.  The Bible says God has plans for you to prosper.  This is true for your partnerships too! The process of investigating and sharing our deepest desires for business is on-going.  We need to make it a habit to do a periodic mental exploration together to think about the dream you had of what business would be like when you were starting. Add a RECURRING event in your calendar to at least have a yearly looking back meeting followed up by a looking forward meeting.  And if you can do it 2-4 times a year, EVEN BETTER!  The more we get to know each other and communicate, the better chance we have at restoring and strengthening our business partnerships. #DifferentiatingMyself #FindMyCalling

When I got into my first business partnership we didn’t exchange vows or perform any ritualistic ceremony. We signed some papers at Bank of America and had lunch afterwards. That was it. There aren’t any “till death do us part” type of transactions between business partners.  But maybe there should be!  I know there are legal documents partners sign, but none go deep into what’s necessary to keep and grow a partnership. I propose there are 5 essential promises we should make as business partners. we’ll pursue each other: remember the convincing it took to even make them your partner?  Remember the wining and dining, the drinks at the bar, the things you did to sell the vision? We got to keep doing those things. we’ll keep one partnership: I don’t know what it’s like to be in two partnerships at the same time. If ONE was more work than I could handle, I came imagine two. You can ‘invest’ in other businesses, do joint ventures, dabble in real estate and trade stocks all at the same time…but its going to be challenging to have multiple proper business partnerships and a private life.  Something is going to fail. we’ll believe the best of each other: we’re all a piece of artwork being sculpted until the day we die. It means we’re going to be better tomorrow than today. Just because I didn’t like some of my partners traits today doesn’t mean I shouldn’t believe the best for him today. With this attitude, then I will treat him great today. If not, I’ll have anger and resentment towards him. we will be the definition of partners: first off, we signed a partnership agreement. That needs to always be honored. Second, we share equally in the work, success and failure. the partnership is my 2nd or 3rd priority:  after your relationship with God, the partnership with your spouse is next. If there’s no spouse, then you’re married to the business partners you’re with. And just like we give God priority in our lives, your partners get your priority. You pick up their calls always, ask how they are doing, care about them more than the business itself, and want to serve them wholeheartedly. Consider each of these promises as you work through the issues of your partnership. If you have problems today its likely because one or all of the promises above have not been addressed and/or kept. Imagine a world where we actually incorporate tangible ways to live out these promises.  Each represent areas of potential growth in the business partnership if you can master them. We might be strong in one or two, but there’s always improvements than can be made. Remember, we’re all sculptures being fashioned daily. #SharpenLeadership #BusinessPartnerships

The first year or two of owning a business with my friends was so exciting!  We were kicking butt, hiring people, got a cool office on South Beach and doing work with some high profile clients.  We were 25 and 26 year old entrepreneurs starting an agency in Miami…doesn’t it sound like a movie?!?! Well, it was everything you can imagine plus more! One day something happened that started a heated argument between myself and one of my partners.  We exchanged abusive emails for 1/2 a day, even copying our 3rd partner in who had nothing to do with it. The emails got longer and longer, more bitter after each send. In the early days when I first started the business, I thought I would have a perfect partnership automatically. Oh boy was in for a ride for the next years. I knew at this point the honeymoon period was over. Remember MTV’s The Real World? I love how the opening statement goes:  ‘When people stop being fake and start becoming real’. That’s what happens in a partnership. We all enter in with high hopes and expectations from our partners, and almost certainly go through seasons of disappointed, let downs, back stabbing, gossiping, side-taking, finger pointing, verbal and even physical abuse. Experience tells us business partnerships are harder than we think. As we grow in clients and revenue, eventually, we realize our initial ideas about business and management aren’t realistic and something needs to change or someone needs to leave this partnership. The truth is that this disconnect in expectations is NOT A SURPRISE TO GOD.  You think he would make everyone different and not have lessons for us to break free from these great expectations? The bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:11 "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." In essence, Paul (the writer of Corinthians) is telling us that when our businesses were in their infancy, we thought one way. But now that the enterprise is growing, its time to put those thought behind because God has so much more in store for us. Our initial expectations must be replaced with biblical truth. Your business partner’s ideas about communication, conflict resolution, management of people, spirituality, job roles, time off, pay structure, accounting, and myriad other business things were determined long before you came on the scene. But most partners never deeply explore these concepts intentionally. I’m not an emotional intelligence expert and I don’t resolve conflict for partners for a living. I can only share my experiences both in marriage and in business partnerships (which are identical by the way). What I know is that there has to be a pow wow to let this concept of expectations be known and to explore ideas about how you connect with your partners. What areas of disagreement or difference do you have in connecting, communicating, and the list of other ideas I mention 2 paragraphs before? We can allow God to shape our great expectations for business in partnership so we can experience co-working in which God intended for us to interact and prosper. #TimeManagement #GainConfidence

I used to think I had to do everything myself.  After all, I started the company!  I’m in charge of finances, sales, marketing and operations.  And within each, I have hats within hats to wear.  It’s all my responsibility and I need to make sure I can do it all in the 18 hours I’m awake in the day. But 18 hours isn’t enough, so I put things off for the next day….and the next…and the next.  When I come to realize it, my email box is full of 3,000 unread emails and my to-do list has stretched to page 3 on a legal pad. Sometimes I dream of taking a trip to a cabin in North Carolina for 1 month, locking myself in a room, and doing everything I can to catch up. 24 hours just isn’t enough in a day to do it all.  Yup, that’s the truth. So how do we accomplish everything we need to do to run a successful business?!  How will we bring our dreams of growth and expansion to life if all we have is 24 hours in a day? One thing I’ve learned in growing in my relationship with God is that He will accomplish through you what he needs to accomplish in the time available.  Imagine checking in with your CEO (God) in the morning and asking for the critical tasks of the day.  He would know exactly what you need to do, after all, he came up with the 24-hour day! In the book of Job, God challenges Job’s frustrations and says something that I always remember when I’m frustrated at God’s design of the world. Job 38:4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand." And in Job 38:12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place," Whenever you catch yourself complaining that there aren’t enough hours in the day, remember the power of the two verses above.  It should give you the right perspective on how to see the day of work laid out before you:  God’s perspective. If we were very honest with ourselves, the reality is that God’s 24-hour design is perfect, but we are the ones that get distracted, do unnecessary work, and are inefficient. As Godpreneurs, God’s our CEO and he knows what he’s doing. We can wish for more time, but we’re not going to get it. We can’t make our days longer. What you can do is see your work from God’s perspective and leave the rest in His hands. If everything in our businesses depended on us, no amount of hours would ever, ever be enough. #SharpenLeadership #TimeManagement

I was very selfish in the first 5 years of my partnership. It was truly all about me and how I could benefit from the company. I used my Ivy League status, my interpersonal skills, and my sales ability to bully my way through decisions in the company. I cared about my partners, but to the extent in which it helped me. I loved my bros, but I loved myself more. I remember one of my partners reminding me constantly of my selfishness, but I didn’t see it. I thought I was the nicest guy ever…that’s what my mom told me! Although our partnership is over now, I wonder if things would be different had I known the things I know today. You see, what I’ve learned is that we are naturally selfish. We’re born selfish. It’s our instinct of survival to think of ourselves first. We all enter partnerships with a ‘what’s in it for me’ mentality. If we’re honest with each other, we all suffer from this selfish condition (if you don’t anymore, kudos!).  So how do we identify and remove this selfishness? What I’ve learned now that I wish I knew before is that there are 8 keys to removing selfishness and we can find them in the bible in Philippians 2:1-8. "If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care — then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human !  Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion." The keys are this: Agree with each other Love each other Be deep-spirited friends Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. This isn’t a call for you to lay down your visions, not lead, let yourself be abused, or not defend what you feel strongly about. The irony is that if you can follow the steps above, you’ll actually become even more powerful and influential in your partnership. You’ll be able to win your partners over to your vision much easier.  They will know your heart and trust you more. If all of us can be Christ in our partnerships, we’re truly living out the gospel in our businesses. #BusinessPartnerships #SharpenLeadership #GainConfidence

In 2008, just 3 years after starting my partnership, I began my spiritual revolution.  I grew up Catholic, and after confirmation I really didn’t have much interest in church. Like most boys growing up in Miami, the girls and nightclubs are more tantalizing to our souls. But in 2008 a friend of mine invited me to a Christian non-denominational church and I was hooked! I started growing in my relationship with God. My heart was changing, my thoughts were changing, and the way I viewed people and my business were changing. I’d like to tell you that my partners were happy for me and everything was peaches and cream, but nothing could be further from the truth. Because I was walking in one direction and the other was walking opposite, making business decisions became challenging. I was serving a new CEO above me that wanted things to be different. To please my partners, I sacrificed my new thoughts in hopes of keeping the peace and moving forward. I convinced myself that when its business, God is out, but for my personal life, I was going to grow with God. Essentially, I was living a double life. Sometimes in partnerships we’re put into situations where one person is a believer and the other isn’t.  Or maybe it’s two Christians, but one isn’t walking as close to God as the other. We begin to experience moral and ethical problems.  Business is like a marriage, and being married to someone that’s reading a different book can be challenging! So where do we go from here? Certainly we don’t just bow out and give up the business, right? We can’t just sacrifice all we’ve done to create the business, correct? God’s ways are different, contrariant in nature. The opposite is true. In fact, God wants you to get deeper into the business partnership, but He wants it done out of sacrifice to Him. Romans 12:2 says "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." This verse is TOP 5 verses of the Bible that I hold on to and live by every day.  Wherever we are at in our lives, God wants us to think like him and sacrifice the old ways in which we thought. The relational problems that arise from my business partnerships used to deeply trouble me until I wrapped my head around the concept of sacrificing everything I used to think in order to think like Jesus would. This helped me to see my partners not as ‘opposite’ of me, but as brothers that I love. You can choose to focus on your partners and the problems, or you can choose to focus on sacrificing your thoughts and replacing them with God’s thoughts. Let love shine through from God to your business, your partnership, your clients, your services, and your employees. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, genuine love is all about giving of oneself. However, the pattern of capitalism in the business world is selfish. If we’re conformed to it, we might try “sacrificing” to gain something, be it happiness, acclaim, self-worth, or in my case keeping peace with my partners. But true sacrifice involves giving up selfish desire for selfless love. Sacrifice in business requires balancing our hopes of success and wealth with the understanding that those hopes are not the focus. True sacrifice involves a greater goal than we gain personally or relationally. As Jesus’ life demonstrates, sacrificing must be about living to serve God, even as we seek to serve our business partners and others for him. #WorkLifeBalance #SharpenLeadership #BusinessPartnership