Are you feeling discouraged that business isn’t going the way you wanted? Has your business turned into BUSYness, and you’re overwhelmed? You’ve assembled your team, you have a plan, but the enemy keeps attacking from different angles. He’s got your team discouraged, and the once excitement in Restarting the business has now turned to them being afraid. If this continues like this, the business will likely fail and everyone is looking for a new job. But that’s not the plan God has for you. God has plans for you to prosper and grow! In the Bible, the book of Nehemiah gives us entrepreneurs an amazing example of how to lead through a rebuilding project. At the beginning of the project, there is encouragement, excitement, team building, and overall great spirits for what God was doing. However, in Nehemiah 4, we see discouragement settle into what was once an exciting revitalization of the rebuilding of the wall. Nehemiah 4:10-11 says "Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, “The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.”  Also our enemies said, “Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work.” Nehemiah's project is being threatened by exhaustion, discouragement, and an overwhelming feeling that this is "project impossible." And to make matters worst, fear has crept into their minds. Sound familiar? You’re not alone in your struggle. This is every entrepreneur's rollercoaster ride when rebuilding, and relaunching a business.  You’re always in one of 3 places: in the middle of a trial, coming out of one, or going into one. Right now you’re in the thick of it. Successfully Restarting a business - God's Way - means you'll be honoring God more in the marketplace, and that’s not something the enemy will allow easily. We need to hold on to God's promises. We need to not give in and not give up. We need to pray up and press on! Victory is ours because God said so! All my best, Alex Miranda Get to know me at www.alexmiranda22.com P.S. I did a Business bible study called 40 Days to Restarting Your Business, God's Way. Check it out: 40 DAYS TO RESTARTING YOUR BUSINESS, GOD'S WAY A business Bible study to help you rethink, reinvent, and restart your business, but this time, God's Way! We parallel Nehemiah's rebuilding of the wall to your journey in rebuilding your business. Also, coaches and Christian business leaders, you can use, edit, and repurpose the teachings for your own tribe! Check it out.

There’s a song I dedicated to my wife before we were married.  It’s a beautiful song that captured my emotions at the time I dedicated it. Later on, I took her to the concert and the band played "our song."  That song eventually became our wedding song. I also played our song on the car ride home from the hospital with our new baby boy.  It brought us both to tears. What's the song? It's called "Two is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls. I love the song because it's a reminder of my commitment to her. Sometimes I’ll play it when I’m mad at her because I know it brings my heart back in alignment. Dedicating that song to her was powerful and has helped me in good times and bad. I think we all know the power of dedication because we’ve experienced this in the past. Whether it was a dedication to your wife or a song dedicated to someone that hurt you, hearing the song brings up strong emotions for us. We have the ability to have similar emotions in our businesses by dedicating our businesses to God.  We dedicate things so that we create a bond between the two subjects. How amazing would it be to dedicate your business to God so that there is an eternal bond and a higher sense of purpose and passion as you continue building? The Bible shows us what that looks like as we read the final chapters of Nehemiah. Nehemiah 12:27-30 reads "At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites were sought out from where they lived and were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres. The musicians also were brought together from the region around Jerusalem—from the villages of the Netophathites, from Beth Gilgal, and from the area of Geba and Azmaveth, for the musicians had built villages for themselves around Jerusalem. When the priests and Levites had purified themselves ceremonially, they purified the people, the gates and the wall." What´s going to happen now when people walk past the wall of Jerusalem? They will think of the time they dedicated it to God and the songs of praise and thanksgiving.  It will be a good memory impressed in their minds. Dedicating your business to God will add protection and align your heart with God’s.  It will give you a crutch to lean on during bad times. Similarly, it will give you a podium to speak from during the good times. When we dedicate something to God, we give it all to him. We hold nothing back. It is given in full and joyful surrender. It is all for God’s pleasure, all for his use, all for his glory. God’s desire is for us Godpreneurs to be like him…holy! (1 Peter 1.14-16). If we want to restore our businesses, we must first ask God to help us walk in holiness. Then, we will become “living stones being used to build a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2.5). How would you plan a dedication of your business to God? What elements would be included? What would such a celebration look like? A PRAYER OF BUSINESS DEDICATION God, we want to uplift your name among the people. Help us to dedicate ourselves and our businesses for your glory. Give us the encouragement we need, and remind us that you are always with us. I'm praying for you, too! All my best, Alex Miranda Get to know me at www.alexmiranda22.com Want to learn the book of Nehemiah from an Entrepreneur's point of view? In this business Bible study, we parallel Nehemiah's rebuilding of the wall to your journey in rebuilding your business. Check it out here: 40 DAYS TO RESTARTING YOUR BUSINESS, GOD'S WAY A business Bible study to help you rethink, reinvent, and restart your business, but this time, God's Way! Also, coaches and Christian business leaders, you can use, edit, and repurpose the teachings for your own tribe! Check it out. #EnhanceFocus #IncreaseEnergy

We follow brands for many different reasons. We share their values, we like their products, we find their content helpful, etc. One huge reason is that we resonate with the story behind the brand. As part of your Christian personal branding, you need to craft and tell your testimony. If you look at the companies you love, you’ll discover that each one has a powerful story behind it that resonates with you and your values. Why Storytelling Works Testimonies are powerful because: They put a human face on your business People naturally love and are engaged by stories A good story offers one more way to communicate your values Stories engender trust because they explain “why” People relate to stories, especially when they see themselves in them Your Founding Story An essential story that you absolutely must tell is how your brand came to be. Most of these stories have a similar plot arc: You suffered from some seemingly insurmountable problem (which is the same problem or one problem that your audience faces) You went through all sorts of frustrations, just as your audience is now You came upon a simple idea and decided to give it a try The idea worked and got results, and now you’re here to teach others how to do it Of course, this isn’t the only good founding story. But the above story is powerful because it says: “I overcame your problem and I can help you overcome it too.” Other Ideas for Personal Branding Stories At the very least, you should develop a story that tells about the founding of your brand, but there are many other ways you can use storytelling as well: When you talk about your life and especially your business, what do people find most interesting about your journey? This is a story that needs to be told. Explain how you came up with an idea for a certain product. Pick your best product or the one you most want to see increase in sales. Think of specific challenges you faced along the way or major milestones you met and turn each into a piece of content you can share. Tell the story of a customer or client that you helped. Even better, have them tell the story. You can use this as a piece of social proof. There are stories everywhere waiting to be told. It’s just a matter of finding them. Where to Share Your Stories You can use storytelling in blog posts, YouTube videos, the “About” page of your website, social media, and anywhere else you publish content. You don’t have to be a master storyteller. Just get out there and explain to people why you do what you do, and it’ll have the desired effect. If you want to know about more ways to develop a powerful God-first personal brand, then head over to my program, Build Your Unique Christian Personal Brand. In this course, you’ll learn how to create a compelling identity that attracts a value-aligned audience and increases your influence and sales. Check it out here - Build Your Christian Personal Brand | Godpreneur Academy #ShareYourTestimony #PersonalBranding

People have problems that need to be solved. And God uses people like me and you to help solve those problems. Personal branding is the outward expression of your calling to help others so that they can find you, learn about your solution, and be transformed by it. What if you haven't honed in the calling that will be the foundation of your God-first personal brand? That's what I want to help you with today. I Struggled to Find My Calling Why me? What qualifies me to help you? Because that's what my own God-first personal brand is...I help people discover their calling and bring it to life! But I didn't always know this. In 2014, I started my journey of discovering my God-first personal brand through a Bible study I took in my church. We analyzed our gifts, talents, values, past experiences, and aspirations to uncover God’s vision for our lives for eight weeks. For others in the group, it was difficult to self-reflect. I often found myself helping others find their vision and not focusing on my discovery process. I felt frustrated because everyone else was making progress, but my ideas were all over the place. Ironically, on the closing day of the 8th week, it became clear that my calling was to continue to help others discover their calling. All of my personal qualities, along with how the group was viewing me and the ease at which I was able to help them reveal God's vision for my business life. This transformed me; personally, it transformed my branding agency, and it set the course for my God-inspired teachings on Daily Godpreneur. I decided that I wanted to be known for helping people discover what they were born to do and bring it to life through a purposed-focused brand. If that's what God called me to do, then come one and come all! We All Are Responsible to Steward Our Calling Like no other time in history, today's digital age gives someone in Kenya and Florida access to learning about what God has called us to do. God has handed us all the ability to go on missions around the world. Therefore we must understand our God-first personal brand to be the face of that message out there. The problem is that the enemy also knows that we have a calling and will confuse us, causing us to delay and possibly never discover our personal brand calling. But God has a solution. The Bible says: Beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1-3) When 1 John was written, there were so many people claiming to be something they weren't. I believe some of these false prophets didn't do this out of bad intentions; they just didn't have a full picture of the gospel or themselves. They became personally branded as "false" because of a lack of correct knowledge. John's solution was to test their spirits. Testing the spirit is at the heart of my Born to Do Method, a methodology I use to help my clients discover if the business they want me to brand is the business they should be in or if it's a misdirection from the enemy. In the end, I help them discern this and lead them towards what they are born to do. If you want to know what message you were born to share with the world through your personal brand, it's going to start with God, go through Jesus Christ, filter through your holy spirit, flow through you to others, and bounce right back at you in the form of your calling. Let's break this down for you in a practical exercise I share in my methodology, the Born to Do Method. It's also part of my book and course, How to Build a Christian Personal Brand. Step 1. What you want to be known for is really what God wants to be known for. In his book, The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren explains that we must first understand God's purposes for us to find our purpose. Our purpose will derive from one of God's purposes for humanity. The flow starts by first understanding that we are conduits of God's purposes. So first, pick which of these do you feel called to help with: Purpose #1: You Were Planned for God's Pleasure (entertain others) Purpose #2: You Were Formed for God's Family (build communities) Purpose #3: You Were Created to Become Like Christ (coaching, mentoring, personal development) Purpose #4: You Were Shaped for Serving God (through products and services) Purpose #5: You Were Made for a Mission (inventors, creators, method-makers) Your first homework is to read Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life so you can soak in the order of things above. Your God-First personal brand quest (which is a quest for personal fulfillment, satisfaction, and meaning) can only be found in understanding and doing what God placed you on Earth to do. Step 2. Jesus already traveled the mission you want to go on Jesus Guys, this journey God-first personal brand doesn't have to be so complicated! We have an example with can copy. Jesus studied God's Word, was part of a God-first community, went to get baptized, heard from God, set out on a mission, and transformed people's lives. The Bible goes into a lot more detail, and you have to study his life so you can become more like him. By becoming more like him, your spirit then tunes in better on your calling from God. It's not that we need to stop procrastinating and delay discovering our calling; it’s that we need more Jesus. When we do this, the heavens open up, and your calling can flow through to your spirit. Step 3: Ask the holy spirit to move you As you get to know Jesus and God's Word better, you begin to develop the habit of improving yourself, and God gives you the desire to learn even more about yourself so that the spirit can speak to you. For example, remember how I discovered my calling by being part of a Bible study. The act of gaining knowledge will move your spirit. Some ideas: take courses, read books, get deeper into your craft, listen to podcasts. It's by seeking knowledge that the spirit guides you towards things you like (and away from something you dislike). Trust your spirit's guidance; this is the heart of discovering what you were born to do. Step 4: Ask others to describe you in a few words. So we started with God, went through Jesus, landed on the holy spirit, and now the Spirit wants to use you to impact others. So going to other people's opinions and views of you is the next step in our journey of discovering our God-first personal brand. Have ten people write down how they would describe your most helpful quality to them, and try to keep it anonymous. You want truthful answers from those you ask. You're asking people, “If you were to describe a time where I helped you the most because someone else needed that help too, how would you describe me to that other person?” This step will often reveal your superpower, bringing you very close to uncovering your God-First personal brand calling. Step 5: Take a sober assessment of yourself, too I'm not going to ask you to fast and pray for 40 days and 40 nights, although that works for many people when they want to hear from God. Maybe consider a 1-day fast while also having a conversation with your own spirit and asking it to reveal how you help people most. What was the one time you helped someone with something where you felt the most joy and meaning? It could have been a paid or free job. It could have happened at the dinner table or while doing an activity. There's something in business that you help others with, giving you joy and meaning beyond making money. This is closely tied with what you want to be known for. Write all these things down. Step 5. Collect and Categorize Gather your answers as well as the answers from the others. Group similar traits and qualities together. Some groupings have similar traits that you and others identified. These are traits congruent with your personal brand. For example, somebody says that you are good at making them feel confident, and you have identified that you want to help more women become more confident in themselves. You could gather those two notes and put them next to each other. Repeat this process until you see the common pattern. Step 6. Conclude on Your Calling You should have some clusters of categories that you are now looking at. These are clusters for which God wants you to be known because they match what others already think about you! God will use others, along with your holy spirit, to help you conclude on your calling. These overall traits or qualities will be the foundation for your God-First personal brand. You have now found the intersection between what other people think about you and how you see yourself. Imagine if we all went through this activity to discover the message we're called to deliver on behalf of God through our personal brand. How much better would, then, our products and services be? How can we go wrong if God is first in our personal brand and business? With the help of others and the holy spirit, it’s possible to discover our calling and bring to life the business God created us to start. Next steps For some, building a God-First personal brand will help them share their message as a speaker to audiences locally or even globally. For a God-first real estate agent, building their personal brand helps God bring them, new clients, through organic searches from people trying to buy homes in their area. For a young startup trying to work towards their first round of funding, focusing on elevating the founders’ God-first profiles may attract investors by adding credibility in their meetings before even meeting with investors. And a God-First personal brand will benefit someone who wants to launch a faith-based podcast to help them build awareness around their show’s topic. God won't build your personal brand overnight. He wouldn't give you that burden. You have to grow into it as your spiritual walk grows. Imagine becoming a person of influence without the ability to influence correctly. That's why your influence grows as you grow with God. That's by design to protect you and others. I hope that the Born to Do Method makes sense to you and that you find it useful in building your personal brand. If you have any questions about the steps, feel free to Tweet me @DailyGodpreneur. If you found this article helpful, I encourage you to share it with your faith-based network. The more we help each other learn how to start building our God-first personal brands, the more effective products and services will be in the marketplace for us to enjoy and be transformed by! And if you have any God-First tips about starting a brand or processes that helped you, please share as a comment! P.S. I did a Business bible study called 7 Steps to Launching Your Christian Personal Brand. Check it out: 7 Steps to Launching Your Christian Personal Brand This business Bible study will help you launch a God-first personal brand that will help you strategically, financially, and personally. Developing your personal brand starts with launching something new and completely different from what you already have. Also, coaches and Christian business leaders, you can use, edit, and repurpose the teachings for your own tribe! Check it out. #FindingMyBrand #FindingMyCalling

I like my leadership skills. I´m happy with who God made me be in business.”

When I’m interviewing a client looking to start a business or rebrand their company, one of the first questions I ask is, “what do you see wrong in your industry that you feel you have the solution to?” The reason I ask this question is that what hurts or pains my client reveals something unique about themselves that helps me to guide them towards the product and solution offering that they should bring to the marketplace. For example, two of my biggest pains in branding are My friends and family launching businesses that they have no business being in because it’s nowhere near their calling in life My friends and family taking FOREVER to launch their business idea – either from procrastinating or because they are working with someone that’s taking too long on their branding Because I hurt and pain for these things, I came up with a solution – Launch in 2 Days. It’s a weekend event where I help people discover what they were born to do in business, and I help bring it to life. This isn’t self-promotion. I’m illustrating that out of my pain, my hurt, and my mourning for friends and family investing their hard-earned money into a business idea, and seeing them do it all wrong; I was inspired to create something awesome. If we think about it, entrepreneurship is the art of seeing that somethings not right in the marketplace, and we have the solution for it. There wasn’t a breakfast spot close by to enjoy (which is tragic), so someone built one. There wasn’t a tool for making sure the frames on the wall are hung straight (which is painful to look at), so someone invested one. A client took an entire year of revision to finalize their logo, then blames it on the agency and asks for a refund (which is both frustrating and sorrowful), so someone came up with a way to get it all done in two days. When we face evil, sadness, pain, or tragedy in our businesses or our personal lives, God sees our sorrow, comforts us, and puts our brains to work to come up with policies, products, services, and solutions to resolve that life doesn’t have to be this way. Jesus says: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4 NIV) What Jesus is telling entrepreneurs is that business is tough, but there’s a silver lining for those with the mindset of processing the pain correctly. Jesus’ second step to achieving greatness in business is that without pain, there can’t be a gain. The world around you is broken, nothing is perfect. Bodies aren’t perfect, so doctors and scientists work tirelessly to fix it. The weather isn’t perfect, so meteorologists and inventors fix it. The economy isn’t perfect, so Wall Street, the government, and financial institutions fix it. Relationships are tough, so a world of coaches and counselors aid it. When you are blessed with the ability to mourn about something in your industry or marketplace, you can receive the ideas you need from the Holy Spirit (your calling in business) to come up with the products and services to fix it. It’s a blessing to go through pain in business because the million-dollar idea can be birthed through the tragedy. Sometimes the pain you experience in business was caused by your own mistakes. If you know you took forever in completing a client’s project, and you see all of the areas where you went wrong in the process, that anger and pain you feel when the client fires you should be used not to retaliate or insult the client, but to feel the need to change your systems and processes, so it doesn’t happen again. That little tweak in your operations can make a million-dollar difference and can change the trajectory of business moving forward. You might even come up with a service called Launch in 2 Days because of this. It’s ok that we mourn in business. It’s essential to the health of our business that we go through tragic times. If we Godpreneurs never grieve over anything, it means one of three things: We’re out of touch with the marketplace, we’re out of touch with our own emotions, or we don’t love. Because when we love, and we see or experience sad things in the world, then that can make us grieve and come up with a solution. Loss in business is the tool that God gives us to get through the transitions towards achieving the untapped potential that’s always waiting within us. Imagine if we all went back in time and addressed painful experiences hurt us, and we dealt with it and genuinely mourned over it. What kind of changes would that bring about in our daily operations or the products and services we are currently offering? Today, go back and grieve. Is there any evil or pain in the world that you want to bring before God in prayer today so He can reveal your breakthrough? Let me pray for you. Dear heavenly Father, you created us to pain for the things you pain for. Help us to acknowledge that sorrow and be comforted by you so we can receive the divine inspiration we need to give us the courage to find solutions and take action to fix it through the businesses you’ve entrusted us with. In Jesus name, amen! #BusinessBibleStudy #SharpenLeadership Jesus’s 8 Steps For Achieving Greatness in Business Achieving greatness starts when we learn about humble dependence on God and trust that He will always bring new resources into our business. 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

We fight to protect ourselves from pain of loss in profits, reputation, trust, and leadership.

I'm encouraging you today to step out and be bold enough to follow the leadership of God in your business However, we´re cowardly when we let fear control us rather than continuing to follow the leadership of You have to keep your heart safe and free, and if you’re not following the leadership of God for you,

We all have a “dream client” that we wish every client was like. It’s not that this client paid you the most, it’s that they were impacted and changed the most by the product or service we created. How can we bring more of these good-feeling situations into our businesses? We must decide on a niche. The best branding projects I’ve been involved in were the ones where I helped an entrepreneur discover what they were born to do, bring it to life, and help them tell the world about it. I’ve guided thousands of entrepreneurs on the journey of launching a business, but the best ones are when the entrepreneur feels a “calling” to create the product or service they envisioned. So how do I attract more and more “dream clients” to allow me into their business plans? All of us entrepreneurs are built by the same creator of the universe. And by design, God created us to come back and connect with Him regularly. This action of coming to God often is integral to the development of our entrepreneurial journey. I personally believe this “daily huddle” with God is where we business owners uncover and discover our niche. The desire for quality time with God, our CEO, is how we were built so we could receive His loving care and divine direction for our entrepreneurial calling. God built us GODPRENEURS to be restored by Him so He could reveal His ideas more to us. The bible says “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Getaway with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28‭-‬30 MSG) Rest is what prepares the mind for the revelation. You’ll be able to decide on a niche more clearly when you are living freely and lightly. When you discover how to connect with God regularly, you live in a condition of abundance. You’ll be getting filled up, so you can turn around and fill others up. You’ll see that the people that start buying your products and services will all contribute to confirming your joy and happiness in a very specific niche. And when you’re feeling more of your joy, more often throughout the day, you’re able to have a better quality of life at the office, at home, and in your community. You’re able to give because you first received it. You’re able to love and serve on those who you were meant to do business with. You’re able to do what you were born to do. I have my personal brand, Daily Godpreneur, and I constantly come back to God and allow Him to guide my writings and teachings. In turn, I believe He brings me the people I’m supposed to do business with! He also inspires my marketing and advertising so I can attract even more followers. If we neglect the daily task of coming to our CEO (God) for our discovery prayer time, we’re missing out on His revelation. If we fail to learn how to meet with God in prayer and meditation, we operate in a condition of depletion and start to depend on our own energy source. And as a form of survival, we’ll try to take from everyone, rather than overflow onto a specific group of people – the ones God called us to serve. What’s Next? Make a list of everything you LOVE doing and are UNIQUELY gifted at doing. Avoid things you’re good at or obligations just because you wear that hat in the business. Keep it to your UNIQUE ABILITIES. List things that you would do even if you weren’t paid to do it. What moves your heart, calms your heart, or makes it beat faster because you’re excited to do that service or provide that product? What services do you provide that restores you, excites you, or connects you to God? What do you do at work that, after finishing, you think you yourself “Wow, that was a spiritual experience!” Once you have your list, narrow it down to the ONE PROBLEM you would do for the rest of your life. That’s your niche. #BuildMyPersonalBrand 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

There's the way the world does business, and there's God's way. How do you grow a successful, profitable, meaningful God-first business? You have to learn what the Bible says about your entrepreneurial journey and apply it to every business situation. This devotional guides high-achieving Christian entrepreneurs who want an efficient formula for drawing closer to God, improving their Bible reading habits, AND grow their businesses God's way. Plan Devotional Here TAKE PLAN HERE #BusinessBibleStudy