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November 2014 to February 2015 was a very deep, dark, depressing time in my entrepreneurial career. From the outside looking in, you would have seen a broken man who needed to get a JOB already.  My accountants were worried just how long I’d be in business for.  Ex-employees were hoping for my downfall. But from the inside, God was making changes. When I decided I was going to totally change my identity as a business, it didn’t come easy.  And even though I was changing my identity due to a direct calling I felt the spirit leading me towards, it didn’t come with angels throwing a parade for me and all this money coming my way.  At least it didn’t feel that way. But we can think that sometimes.  We think that if we’re following God and praying and doing the right things, good things will come to us. And it’s easy to think that given Romans 8:28-29 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Yes, God promises the good, but the good requires a new identity, and a new identity comes with suffering. Think about it.  If you want to paint a car, you have to remove a layer before putting the new one. In the same way, giving your business and entrepreneurial identity up to God and becoming more Christ-like usually requires suffering and losses.  For me, I had to lose 90% of my revenue and employees I loved dearly. If you are discouraged because you or your business don’t seem to be experiencing the Christian life you hoped for, reevaluate your definition of “the good”. You may discover that the very circumstances causing you distress are tools of God to conform you into Christ’s image. And also let me encourage you to let you know my business is doing more now that it ever did in 10 years, and I’m excited that this is just the beginning. Godpreneur Rule #46:  Real blessings in business are those that conform our entrepreneurial hearts to the likeness of Christ. #BusinessBibleStudy #GainConfidence Overcoming Depression in Entrepreneurship Join us on a 5-Day Plan to shift your mindset to the MORE God has for you. 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

I’m a CrossFit athlete. I’ve been training and competing since 2010. I love everything about CrossFit: the training style, the community, and of course, the results. On average, I spend about 8 hours a week at CrossFit.  That’s more than 1 hour a day. If I could dedicate that much time and commitment to CrossFit, then why was I only spending 15 minutes with God each morning? In January of 2015 I changed all of that. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 4:8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” I didn’t eliminate CrossFit.  Instead, I used it as a tool to tell myself “Alex, you already know how to dedicate yourself to physical training, now do it for spiritual training.” Want to know something even cooler:  My spiritual training is also 75% of my BUSINESS training.  I get all of my blog post ideas from my time with God in the morning. The first 2 hours of my day are dedicated to the training of my self, my brain, my soul. Godpreneur Rule #5: Physical training is nice, but Godpreneurs wake up early for brain training every weekday morning. #DifferentiatingMyself #BecomeDisciplined

My company used to be heavily involved in nightlife marketing. Along with marketing nightclubs, we also helped some strip clubs with their flyer designs. It was easy and consistent money, and my designers were good at it! But as a growing Christian, I began to feel convicted about doing work for gentlemen’s clubs. So I began declining their work, even giving away that business to other companies. This really sparked some heated arguments in the company, so we kept doing the work. Over time, I couldn’t kick the conviction, so I made a solo decision to cut ties with the adult entertainment industry. My employees were furious. This was affecting their commissions!  But it was also affecting my conviction. As entrepreneurs, we’ll all face massive pressure from people close to you to do something in contradiction to what God is asking you to do. In the face of pressure, especially to pay bills, we may compromise our ethics and morals and stand in opposition to God’s desire for you. As a entrepreneurs, I’m sure you know about pressure. Our employees can be relentless in asking us to do things outside our value system, including clients they want to work with, marketing campaigns they want to execute on, and adding new people to the team. They can be every bit as demanding and intimidating as the 3 year old throwing a temper tantrum in the grocery store line for a piece of candy. When that happens, stand firm in your identity in Christ. Let your desire to be obedient to God give you strength, and lovingly explain why you’re not willing to compromise your beliefs. I explained my point of view to my team and they eventually understood my conviction for not wanting to do business with strip clubs. I had to let those employees go because we didn’t stand on the same moral grounds, among other things. Eventually God convicted me of the same when it came to doing business with nightclubs.  That was tough because it represented 90% of my business.  The letting go of employees on that one was one of the most difficult days of being an entrepreneur I had ever experienced. Godpreneur Rule #36: Godpreneurs seek to please one boss, one board of director member, the main investor:  God. #BusinessBibleStudy #WheretoStartFirst #HiringtheRightPeople The Business God Created You To Start Have you ever wondered why you received the talents and gifts you have been given? We, as entrepreneurs, were born to do. 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 company does branding and rebranding.  Our clients pay a big chunk of their marketing budget for us to bring their visions to life.  But they don’t pay it all at once.  There’s a deposit and then several payments for accomplishing milestones along the way. One time a client paid me in FULL, upfront for all the work we needed to do.  Something weird happened.  I wasn’t as motivated to finish the entire project faster.  In fact, it was the longest branding process ever. When it was all said and finally done, I realized something wrong about MY attitude:  I’m working for Money, not out of love.  You see, he has paid me all the money, so I didn’t feel I needed to work as hard. I think we all do this as entrepreneurs.  We’re all working for the reward.  So if the reward doesn’t come, or is cut short, or mismanaged, we’re up in arms, disgruntled, discontent, and upset. But this isn’t how God thinks or operates.  And if we’re made in the likeness of God, and if our entire existence is meant to make us more like God, then our attitude towards serving our clients needs to be like God. I’ve learned that clients don’t pay me, God does.  Through my clients, God blesses me. I’ve also taken on the attitude that my client is God’s child too, so I have to love unconditionally and want to give Him my loving services regardless of payment type, amount or structure. If my goal in life is to be rich monetarily, then my attitude towards my customers will be dependent on how much they pay. If my goal in life is to love my customers the way God does, then my attitude towards my customers will be dependent on how much I can learn and implement what God’s love really means. Godpreneur Rule #29:  Godpreneurs love their clients like God loves us. #EnhanceFocus

What does God have to do with a website and logo company? From my perspective, the people making a real difference in this world were doctors, teachers, preachers and anyone working in a charity. At some point I started to think to myself that I should let this business go and just start working at a church. My desire was to serve God, my heart was becoming more captivated by His cause. We entrepreneurs can sometimes second guess our businesses and our ideas. We can’t really find the connection between what we do and what God wants done in the world. We think that in order to be used by God we have to stop everything and start working for the church. Thinking like this, it’s going to be difficult to find our calling and pursue it. Why? Because we’re thinking about things from our limited perspective. We don’t see the big picture like God does. I believe one of the greatest reasons we don´t have more Godpreneurs in this world is because we think that God cant use us right where we are in our businesses. We feel it’s cool that God has called others, but it wasn’t in our cards to be used by God. We think that He’s forgotten us, or worst, that He’s disappointed in what we have become. Can I tell you something amazing?  God has already been using us, right where we are. The problem isn’t that God forgot about us, the problem is that we haven’t gotten to know God good enough to see His amazing, individual plans for us. The key is to tap into God’s GPS and try to zoom out to see the whole map with the course laid out before you.  That takes training and discipline over years. The Bible says “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.  No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father." Matthew 5:13‭-‬16 NLT It was hard for me to see what a branding guy could bring to the table of ‘difference makers’ until I started to see my profession from God’s perspective. What I learned about God by going to him daily was that he also cares about branding, logos and websites. I learned that God is big on us finding our identity, and that’s exactly what I do as a branding expert. I wouldn’t have been able to find this out had I not been coming to God in the mornings and really asking Him what my purpose was. By reading the Bible, all of the sudden I started to see everything from His perspective of identity, purpose and calling. All of these things I’ve now taken and applied to my business life and it has made it meaningful again!. The calling within your entrepreneurial venture is just as big as mine is, but you wont know it unless you come to God and ask him to reveal it to you.  You must go to your CEO daily and ask for your orders. While you’re there, you can talk about your bigger purpose and He’ll reveal it to you. You likely wont hear an audible voice.  Instead, others will tell you and things will happen throughout the day.  Your antenna needs to be up and waiting for the response because God does respond. He called us to entrepreneurship before we could spell it. He didn’t want us to start a church, he wanted us to be the church, right where we are. Imagine a world where all Godpreneurs went to God every morning to ask for his or her orders for the day! Godpreneur Rule #59: Godpreneurs seek God every morning for their daily bread…the calling of God that day. #WorkLifeBalance

I’ve taken a lot of risks in my entrepreneurial life. Risks with new ventures, new partnerships, marketing campaigns, and new service offerings. Some have been a hit, some have fallen flat. I’ve failed so many times in business. It’s probably because I take so many chances, risking it all at times. I’ve succeeded too. But there’s something special about the failures that I take for granted. Even though it sucks to fail, I always appreciate the lesson that comes with it. Whenever us entrepreneurs step out in faith, we take a risk. Whenever we dare to hope in the face of hopelessness or dream the impossible dream, whenever we are willing to try what the world might dismiss as foolish, we are not doing any of these things in absolute assurance that our attempts will succeed. We weren’t meant to succeed at everything. Part of the entrepreneur finding what he’s born to do means being willing to take a road even though it might be the wrong one. We take the risks because being idle is not an option. We take a risk because we know God is in control. It’s easy for me to say this, but it’s harder in practice. We’ve taken so many risks and failed in big and small ways that taking each new risk because more difficult, especially the more that´s at stake. I believe it’s this fear of failure that is the biggest contributor to what cripples us from taking the action needed to fully live within our calling. But if we’re not willing to take risks, and have faith in God and what His perfect plan is, then are we as faithful as we think we are? Playing it safe will land you nowhere…because you go nowhere.  You’ve parked at the fork in the road, set up your camper, and you’re not moving. Can I encourage you that God is asking you to trust him to take the risk!. The Bible has a great story about taking risks. It’s the story of the talents. The wealthy business owner leaves his employees with money and tells them to invest it and he’ll be back to collect on the profits. Each dude invests, but one guy parks his car at the fork in the road and does nothing, waiting for the master to return because he was afraid of losing it and the consequences that would come. As you know, the owner comes back and is furious with the non-risk taker, but to the other two “The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’ Matthew 25:23 NLT You might be like the first guys that take risks. WELL DONE! That’s what Jesus is thinking about you.  You dreamed, you took a chance, you brought a vision to life.  You took the stepped out to create something as it might be, not as things currently are. You stepped out in faith, even in the face of resistance.  You dared to take the next step, willing to lose it all. When we fail pursuing our calling, it’s not actually failure at all. God sees faith as a sweet melody. It means you’re trusting in his purpose for your life. He never guaranteed an easy life.  His only guarantee was, "draw near to me and I will draw near to you"(James 4:8). Godpreneur Rule #64: Godpreneurs see failure as faith, risk as obedience, and success as responding to the calling. #WorkLifeBalance #BecomeDisciplined #SharpenLeadership

My son’s room has one of those wooden gates at the door to keep him corralled. One day I turn around to see what he was up to and, sure enough, he was half way up climbing over the gate.  He didn’t quite make it, but I applauded his effort.  A few weeks later he’s in the room playing again and when I turn around to check up on him, he has managed to rip apart the contraption, breaking a piece off and making it useless. He overcame the obstacle. I’m always surprised at the tenacity my boy has.  He uses whatever limited resources to push through and get what he wants. He doesn’t stop until it’s achieved. There’s no challenge he won’t take on. I think its because he doesn’t see the mountain, he doesn’t know the mountain can hurt, he only sees past the mountain to the promised land of whatever he’s trying to accomplish. There’s a goal, and he keeps his eyes and mind on it. We entrepreneurs, on the other hand, know this mountain all too well. This mountain represents bad breaks, broken partnerships, lost clients, disappointing numbers, persecution by your spouse, and fear of the unknown. The mountains paralyze us. We start blaming ourselves. The problem in front of us makes us feel incompetent. What happens when the mountain shakes and the mudslide is heading towards you? What happens when the volcano erupts and you’re looking at doom. What do we do when you can’t even see the vision anymore because the clouds thick with smoke and ash. This is when we need to know that God is bigger than that mountain. This is when faith is truly tested. This is when the Godpreneur within must fight his biggest battle. Our business weaknesses are no obstacle to God’s power. How?  How can you have this kind of faith with so much uncertainty? I have 3 steps to help Godpreneurs overcome mountains in your business life. Step 1 – Rely First, you must rely on your spirit.  You can’t rely on your own strength.  You can’t rely on your own eyes.  You must have a raw dependency on God.  This is the cornerstone on which our great businesses will be built. Step 2 – Admit Second, you must admit your weakness.  It’s in our weakness that He is strong within us (2 Corinthians 12:10).  The recognition of our weakness is what declares our dependency on God…which is all He’s wanted since our birth. Step 3 – Speak Third, you must verbally speak to your mountains with opposite and more powerful declarations and truths from God. The Bible says "I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart." Mark 11:23 NLT http://bible.com/116/mrk.11.23.NLT I have a list of bible verses that I’ve written down.  When I have mountains, I turn to those verses and each one of them are promises that God has given me.  Reading them and repeating them (out loud) makes the mountains melt away. I didn’t say they go away, I said they melt away…because they will come back.  Its like a glob: it will find its pieces again and form again.  We will always be fighting mountains of resistance. Godpreneur Rule #26: Godpreneurs sing the promise of God to the mountains that happen in business. #ArticulatingMyIdeas #WorkLifeBalance

I’m addicted to working. I have other additions, but none has grappled me more than being addicted to going to work, being at the office, and wanting to do more in my business. I struggle with this because I know God wants us all to work, but I had to come to terms with the fact that it was killing my relationship with my wife and friends. We entrepreneurs all have addictions. Most of us are addicted to coffee or some kind of stimulant to keep us full throttle. We want to be on full throttle because we have a lot of things we feel we need to accomplish and not enough time in the day. My list of to do’s is so long I could lock myself in a North Carolina log cabin for one year with no phone calls and I still wouldn’t be done. We often joke about these things, but it can become very serious. It did for me. In my studies of work addiction, I’ve found that it affects our spirit, mind and body! Spiritual – An entrepreneur ultimately replaces God as the center of their life with something or someone else. Mind – Repeated patterns of choosing work over relationships makes the work addiction stronger and disrupts your thinking. Body — Consequences from our poor decisions cause stress and anxiety. SPECT and MRI scans show how this disrupts and rewires our brain circuitry. Think about a car. Our brain is like all the parts of the car…Tires, engine, etc. Our mind is like the car’s computer, and tells the car’s parts how to function so we move forward. Our spirit connects us to God in the same way the driver of the car chooses weather or not to drive the car correctly and according to the plan and design of that car. If we can’t operate the car correctly, we crash. Sometimes a fender bender, sometimes a total loss. How can we overcome the addiction? How can we operate our cars like a professional NASCAR drivers? The Bible says Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.” Mark 12:29‭-‬31 MSG God is like the designer and manufacturer of the super car. The car works best when the parts are working properly and our car’s computer system is updated. The same thing goes for your business. Can you imagine if you tried to have your accountant run your marketing? LOL! It wouldn’t work! Why? Because accountants operate a certain way. Our entrepreneurial life works best when the mind, body, and spirit are all working within God’s plan and design for our business. The Bible says May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he’ll do it! 1 Thessalonians 5:23‭-‬24 MSG Regularly choosing work over God is a defect in mind and body and is sin. It becomes an addiction when it becomes a regular pattern. Godpreneur Rule #62: Godpreneurs Work Smarter, Not Harder, By Putting God First. #WorkLifeBalance

I’m addicted to my cell phone. If I’m in the car, waiting for the doctor, in line at the grocery store, or during TV commercials, I’m checking my phone. I’ve created a whole bunch of ‘triggers’ in my life that are associated with me checking my cell phone. At this point I have no control over this habit. That’s scary!  Especially while I’m driving!  It’s terrible. Checking our cell phones is pretty harmless (unless we’re driving), but what if the thing we turned to was much more serious. The same way we turn to our phones when we hit a trigger, we turn to work when we hit other triggers. Have you ever found yourself in a situation in your business where you felt out of control so you turn to working more? We entrepreneurs have many things that trigger our sense to need to do more! We turn to many things to relieve that stress. But what are those triggers?  What are those things we turn towards? What brings us comfort? Do we even know and fully understand this?. The Bible says “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41 NIV I believe this bible verse had the two steps to help us identify and overcome the triggers of our work addiction.  I like the watch and pray parts.  Those are 2 actionable steps. First, watch. We must know and understand these triggers.  Watch out for them.  Avoid them. If debt is a trigger, then you need to focus on getting our of debt. If marital problems are the trigger, then focus on doing the little things in your marriage to make it right.  If clients send you into a stressful situation, then dump the bad clients. Let’s point out some potential triggers that send us back into work mode Bank account low Sales numbers down Launch went wrong Conflict with client, vendor, employee, or contractor Home issues Competition envy: seeing them win a contract or launch a new service Nothing better to do at home Thinking of your long to do list Our addiction to working has 4 major parts Trigger – the situation that triggers you to want to work Role – work promises to escape, relive or fix that stressful situation Object – the ‘gring mode’ that we turn to instead of God to meet our needs in the moment Goal – comfort, because we don’t like feeling the pressure or stresses that triggered us to work So now that we know and understand these triggers that send us into work mode, how do we break the cypher? Then, Pray. The second part of that bible verse, Jesus has us pray. What does it cost you to associate a stressful trigger to a quick little prayer? Maybe at first it will see disingenuous because you know that immediately following the prayer you’re still going to fall into the addiction. But over time, any small prayers in sincerity start to have an effect over the work addiction and you’ll catch yourself sooner or get yourself our of grind mode faster. You are addicted to working or you wouldn’t be reading this blog post. You’re addicted to comfort and you and I find things that will silence our pain and bring us peace. But the peace you’re searching for in work is a fake, a fraud, an imposter. The real peace is found by seeking Jesus more. In him you will find purpose and passion, which will then give you a Godly understanding of what your vocational identity really is, which then will put your work into its rightful place in your heart. We often don’t rank work addiction as “bad” because we see people overdose on heroin and thing “well, at least I’m not shooting up, instead I’m working more.” The only problem is that God sees all addictions the same: competition to Him and imposter solutions for something He can only truly provide. Godpreneur Rule #86: Godpreneurs find releif and comfort in God during stressful times in their businesses. #WheretoStartFirst #WorkLifeBalance #EnhanceFocus

One of my greatest mentors in faith and a close entrepreneurial friend gave me the best piece of spiritual advice I’ve ever heard. He said, “Alex, it’s not that we need to sin less.  It’s that we need to see our need for Christ MORE.” Up until that point, I was always trying so hard not to sin, trying to battle my addictions, trying to rid myself of all my baggage. We all seek freedom.  I don’t think anyone of us wants to be a slave to our businesses. Did we start businesses for “Financial Freedom” and to make our own decision and travel and do what we love? We need to successfully fight our addictions, but easier said than done. When my friend spoke those words that I shared, a FREEDOM settled over me.  It was like a great weight was lifted off my shoulder.  The epiphany for me was that I was fighting the wrong battle. I should be fighting to be more like Christ, and letting God fight the addiction for me. The Bible says “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life ?   “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:25‭-‬33 NIV Freedom is what we seek as Entrepreneurs after all, right? And Jesus ultimately paid the price for that freedom. Here are 4 practical steps you can take to receive freedom from addictions. 4 Steps to Freedom from Work Addiction Manage Stress at the Office One way I’ve been able to manage stress is by thinking to myself “what was God’s purpose for this problem?” Stress comes about when there’s a problem that needs solving.  Instead of letting the problem overtake me, I take the glass-half-full approach and say “God, you had a reason for this, and I’m going to trust in you and you’re going to reveal to me what it is I need to do.” Awareness of My Emotions I love emotions. I love the joy I feel when I close a big deal. It’s euphoric!  But I love it more because I’m physically able to see that my body is responding to some outside force that’s clashing with my internal spirit. On the other side of the coin, we can also feel emotions when something BAD has happened. A client sends you a bad email, the deal you wanted broke apart, your employee does something to embarrass you. We need to be “aware” of that exact 3 seconds of when it happens. That’s the only time we have to make a decision: either I’m going to let this lead to destructive behavior, or I’m going to find God in this exact circumstance. The Big Picture In Sight Addictions don’t just affect you at work, they affect everything and everyone that comes in contact with you until you’ve resolved the issue.  It takes over everything in you and around you.  It’s like putting on sunglasses at night.  When the stress comes, things will get dark around you. The addiction is putting on glasses on top of the fact that things already got dark. Taking off the glasses and shedding light around the fact that God has a plan and looking at all the positive things around you will help. I personally start to thank God for my office, the clients I have, the money in the bank account (even if there’s very little), and the clients, prospects, vendors and employees that He’s blessed me with. Confess Last, but not least, we need to always be confessing our work addiction. The Bible says "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9 NIV Confessing it keeps you in reality and prevents you from convincing yourself that it’s right.  It keeps you from continuing to justify the addiction. I’ve been dealing with work addiction for over 10 years.  It wasn’t until recently that I began confessing it.  Am I healed?  No.  Am I getting better. Yes! And I believe I’m getting better because I’m confessing it as often as I can. Godpreneur Rules Godpreneurs are masters at managing their stress levels at the office. Godpreneurs are aware of their emotions that destroy, and turn them into good. Godpreneurs keep the big picture in sight:  God has a great plan. Godpreneurs use the power of confession to move to new personal development heights. #GodpreneurAcademy #WorkLifeBalance #EnhanceFocus

Before getting married, I used to stay at the office burning the midnight oil, cranking away at building my business. Once I got married, I figured that she’d be cool with the same routine since, after all, I’m doing it so we could have a better future. I would say it was the sacrifice we had to pay now so we could live our dream lives later. Needless to say, the first years of my marriage were especially tough because I hadn’t yet figured out how to balance my entrepreneurial zeal with meeting the needs of my bride. The lie of sacrificing today for financial freedom tomorrow is just that: a lie. Although God has called us Godpreneurs to be marketplace ministers, that’s only one element of life. God calls us to belong to Christ in every area of our lives. Our businesses are not necessarily the most important aspect of our calling. First, we must remember that work is not limited to paid work. The work God leads us to may be unpaid work, such as being a husband, raising children or caring for a disabled family member or tutoring students after school. Even if you are leading a great organization, the most important work God calls you to may be outside your job. Your entrepreneurship may meet your need for money—which in itself fulfills part of God’s command to work —but it may not fulfill all the other purposes God has for your work life. For example, caring for children, aged or incapacitated people is a kind of work. On the other hand, a so-called hobby could be the most important work God is leading you to. You might work at writing, painting, music, acting, astronomy, leading a youth group, volunteering at a historical society, maintaining a nature reserve or a thousand other kinds of work. Any given activity could be work for one person, and leisure for another. Second, we must take care to not let business dominate the other elements of life. I let my business be #1 in my life, even above God at one point. I probably still have times where I put my new venture or even my clients above my family and God. This selfishness almost led me to divorce several times, especially because I was so convinced that she should respect the fact that I want to work hard for our future. All along, God was using her to get me in balance. The bible says "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." Ephesians 4:1 NIV Even if God leads you to a particular business, you will need to set limits to that work to make room for the other elements of God’s call or guidance in your life. In my business, I help people find their calling in life. I give people hope and purpose. That’s a major job! But God still doesn’t want that calling to take over the other things I was called to do. If God leads us to be married and to be a small business owner, for example, then we will have to balance the time and responsibilities of both callings. Work should not crowd out leisure, rest and relationships. There is no formula for balancing work and the other elements of life. But we Godpreneurs must take care not to let a sense of calling to a business blind us to God’s calling in the other areas of life. As a Godpreneur God has given me his eyes to see all of the ways in which I’m living out my calling. God shows me how to invest my time, energy and talent in each of the places he’s calling me to. God puts clients, vendors, employees, and even my wife around me to refocus, balance and correct me. #BusinessBibleStudy #WorkLifeBalance #MarriedEntrepreneurs

These are the ones that take up a lot more time, need more hand holding, are more stubborn in their ways, think their ideas are the best, and change directions multiple times during the branding process. This used to make me irritated. So much so that after a while, my attitude and heart changed towards that client, and what started out as a great relationship became toxic and confrontational. What I’m describing to you are the emotions I personally went through.  Maybe the client felt the same way, or maybe that’s just the way the client is and his or her expectations are that I need to handle those twists and turns because it’s my job. As I’ve grown closer to God and given more of my heart and passion to him, I’ve become a lot more graceful in my dealings with clients.  This has helped me, once again, appreciate the process of branding and show more love to my more challenging clients. Mastering my passion doesn’t mean mastering my craft. I get better at branding each job that I do, but my passion gets its exercise elsewhere. The bible says "Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech. Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil." Proverbs 4:23‭-‬27 NLT My emotions are a powerful force. I control them, not my clients. My passions can be the source of much of the evil way I would end up treating problem clients. Instead, I choose to accomplish great things by properly directing my heart’s focus. God has given me a set of perfect and reliable guidelines in His Word that will direct my business life when place my passions under their authority. But it requires a practiced decision I must make in theory, well ahead of the practical test.  This isn’t a switch I turn on and off.  This isn’t light that stays on all the time. Prayer plays an important role in helping me to predetermine my behavior as I face the challenges of entrepreneurship. You contain your emotions through your will and intellect if you are wise. This is accomplished by thinking through your values and priorities before the adrenaline starts to pump. Many a client relationships have turned south in seconds because behavior had not been considered before the tension rose. I have lost my reputation and moral authority in the snap of the finger. I can destroy something I have built up over a long time in a matter of seconds if I let my passions get the better of me. Godpreneur Rule: Godpreneurs Give our heart to God and channel our passions toward personal growth. #WorkLifeBalance #BecomeDisciplined

I have a list to review at least once a week of all the crazy things God has come through within my business. Not kidding, here is the screenshot to prove it. And this list continues….I have a separate list of BIG victories that happened. It’s for those moments where you’re like “Dude, only God could have orchestrated this!”. The bible says "Give praise to the Lord , proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done." (Psalms 105:1 NIV) It’s important that we do this for a few reasons It will let you realize God is always in control. Helps you to not build pride thinking that you’re the one doing these things. Puts you in the position to receive more from God because your mindset is in gratitude attitude. We Godpreneurs need to have the habit of always praising God for the big and little in our business, and writing it down will help us keep record so we can always be reminded that God shows up. This is especially helpful to look at when business seems bad. Try it out. Comment with any other strategies you have. #ShareYourTestimony #WorkLifeBalance

Take a look at my calendar and you’ll see a busy guy.  You might be impressed at how I’ve left not white space in my Google calendar.  Everything is in there – eating schedule, workout schedule, meditation time, reading time, private events and business meetings. But what’s it all for? To make money?  To be a better human?  To squeeze everything I can out of life before my time is up?  Maybe all of the above? Anyone can seem busy.  Anyone can give themselves something to do just to feel like they are working.  But if we’re honest with each other, the day ends and sometimes we still feel empty, unfulfilled, and think back and say ‘what the heck did I do today’?  We literally can’t tell our spouses anything because we have no clue. Psalms 39:6 says “Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be." If a business has no purpose, the organization will be like zombies walking around just trying to collect their next paycheck.  Money is really the only purpose. If we entrepreneurs fill our schedules up with the purpose of making money, then we’re the same. Being a busy entrepreneur isn’t wrong, but busyness requires intention and purpose. This is a big reason why I had to make God my CEO, hold my calendar accountable to his purpose for me and my business, and fill it up according to moving forward on the visions he has given me. #EnhanceFocus

When I first started my agency, my personal plans were along the lines of building a big agency and making a lot of money in the process. Not a terrible goal, but I had no real plan of accomplishing that goal. I was a young, materialistic entrepreneur caught up in Miami vanity who still thought in terms of doing what seemed fun at the time and did not think about where my dreams might take me. Well, I grew up, and it took a few hard lessons to do it. One day a friend of mine introduced me to a book called The One Thing by Gary Keller. In a nutshell, the book taught me that even the biggest tasks can be broken down into small pieces that are manageable. The goals I set for my business are now broken into bite-sized chunks that are not so difficult to achieve. First, I needed to decide what I wanted to accomplish and work back from there to where I am now. When I became a Godpreneur, my first goal in business was to serve God in some way through my business. This was a big task. When I finally got serious about putting God first in my business, I decided to read the Bible every morning and journal what I wrote that morning on a blog. So I did just that and one thing led to another, and here I am with www.dailygodpreneur.com. I’ve been writing 2-3 posts per week since November of 2014. Did you notice that I focused on “what” I wanted to do, not “how” I would do it? “How” is in God’s hands. The Bible says, "We can make our own plans, but the Lord gives the right answer." Proverbs 16:1 NLT What I wanted to accomplish was drawing closer to God in my business. And what I did to do that was read and write from the Bible. How God would transform me… Well, that’s actually still happening daily! I’m not really sure how it’s happening, and I’m not really concerned or worried about it. I’m more focused on WHAT needs to continue to be done. Godpreneur Rule: When you make your business plans, don’t leave God out of the formula. That is the only part that makes any sense. #EnhanceFocus #NewEntrepreneur #WorkLifeBalance