I’m going to list the things that stress me out the most in business. When I’m fighting with someone (a client, a partner, even my wife!) When my clients don’t pick a specific niche group of people to target with their brand (they’re not helping who they are supposed to help) When I’m not doing tasks surrounding my calling (not doing what God created me to do in my business) In each of the cases above, there’s a common thread, this is a relationship that is being disrupted, either between people or between people and God. Business is about relationships. Without relationships, nobody would buy anything from us or work with us. Without a relationship with God, how could we know what our calling is, our purpose in business, our reason for doing all of this? Why Right the Wrongs If our relationships aren’t right, it seems like nothing is right….right? And guess what? That’s by design! God made it this way on purpose. Why? Because being in the right relations with Him and with others is the entire point of the Gospel and our existence in the first place. If our goal is to get by in business, then we don’t have to worry too much about relationships with others. But if our goal is to achieve the greatness that God set out for us, then that can only happen through the right relationships. The bible confirms this need for right relations. In the most famous preaching ever given on the planet, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount lays out the eight beatitudes, which are qualities of the people that enjoy special favor from God. The fourth beatitude is Jesus’ case for righting our wrongs. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Matthew 5:6 NIV) In ancient times, the word righteousness meant “to vindicate, acquit, restore to the right relationship.” So someone who would thirst for righteous was conscious of maintaining the right relationships – with God and with the people around them. The “RIGHT” Mindset One of the mindset shifts you have to make to achieve greatness in business is to genuinely hunger for right relationships for the sake of blessing others, and not to meet your own needs. You can only form proper relationships with others when you stop making all your business moves revolve around yourself – something that goes against the natural tendencies of an entrepreneur. And remember, it’s not just about having the right relations with other people, but also with God. If you’re not in your calling, the business God created you correctly to start, then something’s going to be off because you’re not honoring the relationship between the potter and the clay. If God is saying go right, and you’re going left, the relationship is broken, and something isn’t right. 3 Keys to Developing Righteousness So how can you develop a thirst for righteousness as a Godpreneur? For starters, you can’t do it with your strength. Jesus’ beatitudes are laid out in order because one must be absorbed before the other. You must recognize your need for help (Matthew 5:3), hurt for your unrighteousness (Matthew 5:4) and become more gentle-hearted (Matthew 5:5) Once you can make any bit of progress in the three beatitudes above, you will be able to hunger and thirst for righteousness in your business relationships and level up on one of the greatest qualities in highly successful entrepreneurs: the art of making right out of wrong situations. As Godpreneurs, we always need to guard our relationships with people and our relationships with God. Relationships are so important that even before we can make things right with God, we have to go and make things right with any people we’re fighting with (Matthew 5:23-24). When we make it one of our top priorities to serve God and serve others by taking a stance against injustices that disrupt relationships, we can take part in changing the landscape of the entire planet in so many areas where this is needed. In your business, are there any wrongs in your marketplace that you hunger to see, right? My prayer is for God to reveal to you how to be an instrument of righteousness in places where you have influence. #BusinessPartnerships #SharpenLeadership

There’s a lot of areas in my agency where my team can make costly mistakes. A project manager can miss a due task date and delay a project. A graphic designer can lose a major change and mess up a client’s marketing campaign. A developer can forget a major update, and an entire site can go down on a client for a few days. When these mistakes can cost me a contract with a client, it makes my blood boil. My immidiate instinct is to raise my voice, blame, point fingers, and make the person feel the same pain I feel. I feel like FIRING THEM on the spot! Yes, my mind goes to these places sometimes. An error by someone on my team has cost me money and reputation points in the past. The scars of these past experiences have caused me to lash out at anyone that threatens my business and livelihood. Showing Mercy in Business As entrepreneurs will always be surrounded by people in some way, shape, or form. And these people will undoubtedly anger us at one point or another. People make mistakes. People don’t always follow instructions. People aren’t perfect, and when that imperfection affects a critical part of our business, we can’t help but put our defense mechanisms up. We have many people that could do us wrong in business. Vendors can not follow through with what they promised. Contractors can delay projects by weeks if they make a mistake. Employees can have a lapse in judgment and do something hurtful. Partners can selfishly betray us. Clients can say hurtful things. The great battle for us Godpreneurs isn’t avoiding sin, but instead, avoiding our sin in response to someone else’s sin. Our greatest struggle for holiness as Christian entrepreneurs is being able to be Christ-like, even when we’re wronged against in our business. How do we become the type of Godpreneurs that can handle the wrongs against us in a way that builds our businesses and breaks us free from the anger that could be holding us back from more in our businesses? God’s POV on Mercy In the most famous preaching ever given on the planet, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount lays out the eight beatitudes, which are qualities of the people that enjoy special favor from God. I believe these qualities are the keys to unlocking the next levels of achievements in our businesses. In the fifth beatitude, Jesus reminds of why mercy is so important for entrepreneurs to practice. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. (Matthew 5:7 NIV) Mercy for business owners means treating the people we do business with better than they deserve. A type of mercy is forgiveness, and so is helping someone we’re not obligated to help. The reason Jesus says the merciful are blessed is that mercy is the entire reason for Christ’s incarnation, death, and Resurrection. It’s through Jesus that a business owner’s sins in business are forgiven, and he receives help by the gift of God’s spirit. 7 Practical Ways to Show Mercy Today Mercy can be very practical to you, especially as the leader of people. You’re supposed to help others attain their outcomes, regardless of how you feel about them. When you help a client, who you may not even like and who wronged you in the past, you are showing mercy and being the light of Christ in that person’s life. When you do this, you will be shown mercy. Although mercy sometimes feels like you’re losing or giving up a favorable position, you could have rightly taken, showing it benefits the outcome as a whole as well as the other person. Mercy is Being patient with a partner’s differences Helping employees around us that are hurting Giving a vendor a second chance Doing good to those clients who hurt us. Being kind to competitors who offend us Building bridges of love to prospects who can’t afford us Valuing relationships of strategic alliances over the rules of the marketplace When we Godpreneurs can create an environment of forgiveness, organizational performance improves. Why? Because people won’t feel like they walk on eggshells. When people are allowed to make mistakes, they take risks necessary to break through to innovations in business that will set the business apart. So, who do you need to show mercy to this week? A Prayer for More Mercy in Business Father, thank you for Jesus and the mercy You demonstrated for us on the cross by giving us your one and only Son so that we could have a life with You. Draw Godpreneurs worldwide into a deeper understanding of Your mercy. #StrengthenIntegrity

I have to admit one of the areas I struggle most in business is with my integrity. I’m often late to meetings. I sometimes cancel appointments or don’t even show up. I set weekly meetings in place for my team members, all with good intentions, but then I can’t keep up with the weekly commitment, and I drop off. Yet in other areas of my business, my integrity is on the spot. I finish my projects with excellence, all the way to the end. I pay my bills on time. I try not to use credit. I don’t lie, cheat, or steal from people. But the thing with integrity is that I can’t have integrity in one area of my business and not have it in another. The definition of integrity won’t allow for this division. The Definition of Integrity in Business Integrity in business has a single devotion to clean hands and a pure heart. Integrity is like a pure glass of water. If you throw just a single drop of food coloring, the glass is no longer pure. For us, business owners, having integrity goes well beyond avoiding cheating, lying, and overall bad behavior. Integrity is one whole glass of water, meaning our actions aren’t something we can mix into the water and take out easily. We all have moments where we damage our integrity, areas of our business where we can get away with skillful deception, and people we gossip about. All of these things can keep us from the MORE that God has set aside for us – from the blessed business life. Those of us seeking to achieve greatness in business must learn to build, defend, and clean our integrity. How do we become the type of Godpreneurs that keeps their integrity in all areas of our business (and personal) life? What do we do if we’ve done so much to our integrity that we feel it’s been lost forever? How can we begin and stick to a plan of purity of heart? In the most famous preaching ever given on the planet, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount lays out the eight beatitudes, which are qualities of the people that enjoy special favor from God. I believe these qualities are the keys to unlocking the next levels of achievements in our businesses. The sixth beatitude gives practical advice; we need to keep our word more often in business. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (Matthew 5:8 NIV) Why is Your Integrity Important? Why is being in integrity and having a pure heart so important? Because then God reveals Himself to us, and when we see business the way the Creator of commerce sees it, we enter a new level of understanding of our industry, marketplace, and people we do business with. When you have a pure heart, you get a “sixth sense” of God’s reality in business. Yet without integrity, our deceptions can stay so long that we don’t even see that our glass of water is dirty because your eyes get used to seeing through the tainted water. Impure entrepreneurs have no desire to see God, but you are a Godpreneur who is part of Christ’s kingdom and are blessed because you see reality as it truly is, including the reality of God. What We Need to Do to Keep Our Integrity So what does it take to purify our hearts and keep our integrity in business? First off, integrity doesn’t come from us trying to clean it, buy it, or work it out, but from the reception of God’s grace. Integrity is a tough subject because we’ve got all these pockets of our business where, if we were honest, we lack integrity. We’ve fallen short, our glass of water is murky, and all these moral failures arise that make us think, “man, I’m a mess, and I got a lot of cleaning up to do!” Listen, we could all make a similar list of failures. And that’s where the integrity begins – with a confession. Confessing our bad works in business is the beginning of God doing good works through our business. Notice, I said, “God doing good works.” The transformation for gaining and defending your purity of heart will come from God. We need to keep it real and confess our areas of weakness and ask God to reveal more areas so He can immediately clean them. We need to admit that we don’t always keep our promises, we often gossip, we sometimes slack off, and we pretend to be someone we’re not. And we can’t compartmentalize our life and clean up our business integrity and not the integrity in our personal lives. Remember, integrity is one whole glass of water, and eventually, one compromised area can spread to the entire cup. This means that it will affect the business, too, because while sin may be personal, it’s never private. There’s No Such Thing as Perfect Integrity Look, none of us, Godpreneurs, is perfect, but God doesn’t expect us to run perfect businesses! He does, however, expect us to have integrity, and we start by owning up to our sins — no matter how long our list is. God is more interested in our hearts than our sins. We’re never going to be perfect. We’re never going to be sinless in business, but we can sin less. Imagine if we all chose integrity? How much better of a marketplace would it be to transact in? How much more could God do through us? How much better would our products and services be if they were all produced from pure hearts? Let’s all choose to have pure hearts moving forward. #StrengthenIntegrity

I’ve had every kind of conflict you can have in business. business partners that didn’t like when I started putting God first in my business industry colleagues replying to my emails with angry comments because I mention God in my marketing employees mad because I didn’t want to do business in the nightlife anymore clients screaming at me over a delayed project prospects yell at me to stop calling and emailing them competitors write insults because of my style of business family lash out at me because of my convictions and beliefs in business And how did I handle the conflict? Well, before knowing God, I was fighting right back – tooth for tooth, eye for an eye. If you yelled at me, I yelled again louder. If you wrote me a nasty email, I was writing one back nastier and longer. If you insulted me, I’m going to double down and ridicule you even more. That was easy. It felt natural. It felt good. It felt right to get my vengeance. It felt justified to right my wrongs. But I’ll be the first to admit that my conflicts with people never got resolved. Things would get worst. The relationships would keep deteriorating. And although things would eventually calm down, when the conflict surfaced again, it was World War 2…3….4…and 5. I never stopped. The Irony of Conflict See, we all going to have conflict in entrepreneurship. Those of us starting businesses have a lot on the line. Our entire identity, self-worth, and the source of our income are on the line. We want to defend that at all costs. We’re also extra passionate about our products and services because we feel they are the best thing since sliced bread. That passion can cause us to be extra emotional, which could lead us to more conflict. But this isn’t a lesson on removing conflict. Contrary to what we might think, conflict is the essence of entrepreneurship. Conflict is also the essence of our Christian walk. In the most famous preaching ever given on the planet, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount lays out the eight beatitudes, which are qualities of the people that enjoy special favor from God. I believe these qualities are the keys to unlocking the next levels of achievements in our businesses. The seventh beatitude is why we live in a more peaceful world today than ever before. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." (Matthew 5:9 NIV) If Jesus is saying that blessed are the peacemakers, and if he needed to mention it as one of the 8 keys to the holy life, then it’s clear to see that conflict is a part of life, and making peace is a necessary step in our Christian walk and thus a key to achieving greatness in business. Your Calling to Peacemaking You’re being called into the task of conflict resolution, not conflict escalation (like what I used to do). You, too, are going to have differences in opinions. People are going to harm you. And your instinct will be to fight fire with fire, but in God’s business book, it is a blessing to bring people together who conflict. Of course, easier said than done. Jesus’ 8 beatitudes all build on each other, therefore making the last ones dependent on the first ones. This means you have to make strides in those areas before this one. To restore right relationships (conflict resolution), you have to bring in all of the beatitudes: mourning and repentance for sin, mercy and forgiveness, meekness, dedication to the truth, and hunger for righteousness. It is through God’s grace that you have access to these characteristics so you can become a conflict resolution professional! When we can become conflict resolvers, and oppose our instinct to fight, the result is peace, and peacemakers will do the highest level of ministry in the marketplace – we will be “Children of God” in our industries. As a peacemaker, you reflect the divine character of God through your actions, through your products and services, and your leadership influence. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like the culmination of greatness and success in business! We need to seek to make peace in the office, online, in meetings, and the whole of our business interactions. Becoming a Conflict-Resolving Entrepreneur A major mindset shift is that we need to be willing to listen carefully to opinions different from ours and respond out of love instead of anger or defensiveness. When someone is arguing or fighting with us, it’s because they have an emotional difference than we do. Responding in love to someone’s emotions may include extending for or asking for forgiveness, changing our behavior, repairing a wrong, or even making efforts to change a toxic situation in the office. Look, there’s no easy way around this. It’s arguably the hardest of the beatitudes to conquer, which makes it the most difficult step to achieving greatness in business. One of the most important business skills that we have to learn is conflict resolution. If we don’t, we’re going to spend a lot of our business life miserable, because we’re imperfect people doing business in an imperfect marketplace with other imperfect people. We have conflict almost every day of our business life. If we want to resolve conflict in business, we’re going to have to be bigger Christians and make the first move. This means we’re going to need God’s help, because it’s going to take every ounce of energy for us to do the opposite of what our flesh wants to do, and approach a partner, client, or employee we’re are in conflict with and tell that person we want to sit down and work it out. Imagine if we all asked God if there were opportunities for us to play a role in establishing the peace of God’s kingdom here on earth through our businesses. A Prayer for Becoming a Conflict Resolver Father, help us to see where there is conflict or hurt in our businesses, and show us how we can be an instrument of Your peace so we can lead blessed businesses that achieve greatness in Your name, for Your glory! Amen. #SharpenLeadership

As a branding agency, my job is to launch people’s business ideas. Being in this position gives me a lot of influence in the entrepreneur’s life because what I say and do has a direct impact on the success (or failure) of the business. Understanding this power I have is really what’s led me for most of my walk as a Christian entrepreneur. Knowing that I could point someone in the direction of their calling – regardless of their faith – has driven me to study anything and everything the bible has to say on the matter of discovering people’s calling and launching THAT business for them. My insatiable desire to launch the “right” business for someone is what led me to create Launch in 2 Days, a groundbreaking way of bringing a brand to life in 48 hours or less. This is a true market-disrupter. The branding world doesn’t like me right now. Other people that do logos and websites aren’t really happy with me. Customers love it, but my colleagues are hating. Why? They mainly say that there’s no possible way to come up with a great brand for someone in such a short time. They say that you need time to massage a brand’s message and that creativity can’t be rushed. And while I can see the value in taking time for many things, and that rushing in some situations is terrible, the act of bringing someone’s calling to life is something that needs to be done fast because the devil doesn’t want that product or service to existing. See, I’ve made my Launch in 2 Days service a product that stands against Satan and his lies that keep entrepreneurs from doing what they were born to do. And because I’ve made the brand of my business something that opposes the forces of darkness in this world, therefore, I will be persecuted by anything and everyone around me that isn’t on my side. Haters Come with the Entrepreneurship Game We, Godpreneurs, will all be persecuted for standing up for what we believe in our businesses. The policies we implement, our plans, our prices, our products – it will all be used against us because we’re purposing to do God’s will in the marketplace. But how do we suffer well? How can we keep going when even the ones we love the most are against us? How can we keep fighting for what we believe is right, also when we’re alone in our battle? Welcome to every Godpreneur’s dilemma! And who knew this was going to happen even before we would suffer? Jesus did. In the most famous preaching ever given on the planet, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount lays out the eight beatitudes, which are qualities of the people that enjoy special favor from God. I believe these qualities are the keys to unlocking the next levels of achievements in our businesses. But the eighth and final beatitude is different than the rest. The first seven beatitudes focused on humility, meekness, right relationships, mercy, purity of heart, and peacemaking. These were all positive qualities. But Jesus foreshadows the possibility of “persecution for righteousness’ sake.” The bible says, Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10‭-‬12 NIV) Jesus knew that if you follow the first seven beatitudes, you’ll see your life change and achieve more. But because you’ll see more success, you’ll also see persecution. Haters will hate because the forces that oppose God’s ways in the business world still hold great power in the marketplace. It sounds contrarian, but Jesus is talking about the blessing of being persecuted for doing right in business! Why There’s Persecution in Business But why would you be persecuted for righteousness? The reality is many will reject us Godpreneurs because we’re in a fallen world! Jesus points out that any entrepreneur who announces God’s kingdom through their brand will be persecuted (Matt. 5:11-12). As Godpreneurs, we may be subjected to active, even severe persecution if we stand up against injustices in the marketplace. For me, I feel it’s an injustice for a branding agency to launch an entrepreneur’s business just because they pay me, and not take into account if this business is even the business they should be going into. Others in my industry disagree, and that’s when I get persecuted. The good news is that my clients don’t mind it at all. Once I explain my logic to them, they agree with me! And because my clients agree with me, they bless me with their business, and I keep on doing more launches! Bring On The Haters Our blessing is that active persecution for the right reasons is an indication that the powers of darkness believe we are succeeding in furthering God’s kingdom! In other words, more suffering and persecution means we’re on the right track! Hallelujah 🙌 Imagine if we all had the courage to look our haters straight in the eye and love them even more because they are helping us live out all of the qualities described in the beatitudes in our marketplaces. Jesus, I pray for the courage to run my business in humility, meekness, right relationships, mercy, and purity of heart. Please give me the strength to be a peacemaking Godpreneur who hungers for righteousness and answers the call to reflect your kingdom’s values in my marketplace. If I am persecuted for these things by my partners, employees, clients, or anyone I do business with, may You be my comfort. #SharpenLeadership

Owning an agency can be stressful sometimes because clients bring me “rush” projects that I have to deliver on in a shorter than expected time frame… Or else! When a project is set to “rush,” everyone’s temper is shorter. The project manager is less patient, the designers are more stressed, and the clients are less forgiving. The entire project experience is under incredible pressure. I’m the first to say that there is a good type of pressure when a project has a deadline to meet. But that’s different than a project that gets thrown at me last minute because of the effects of a society that is always in a rush. I’ve lost clients, damaged relationships, and hurt my reputation because of rushing marketing campaigns or one of my services. When my agency is rushing, there’s no room for love. Instead, all that love and comradery gets set aside, and emotions start running high. The chances for a nuclear explosion in the relationship increase tenfold. Rush = No Love We all have situations in our business were being in a rush or hurrying through a process completely shuts off the friendliness and love we have for each other. Instead, we become short with staff, curt in our conversations, and touchy about tasks. When we’re rushing, we’re mostly doing the opposite of loving. Love requires time, and the rush is the absence of time. Rushing our people, products, or services is the antithesis, the arch-enemy, and the destroyer of loving relationships, lovely projects, and love-filled initiatives. Rush and love are like oil and water – they can’t co-exist in a healthy relationship in our businesses. So how do we stop the rush-crazed pace we’re demanded to operate under, especially in environments where it seems everything is a rush job? If we’ve been used to years of hurrying through everything, how can we change to slow down and love more? And what entrepreneur wants to “slow down?” It’s a time-consuming initiative that flys against reaching our goals as fast as possible. It takes a great deal of time to love well, and there are no shortcuts around it. The bible says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.” (John 13:34‭-‬35 NIV) God put love in the highest place of commandments. Love God and love your neighbors. God didn’t design business to be a rushed and hurried experience. Rush is where the enemy creeps into the entrepreneurial journey to remove love from the equation, therefore removing God even if it’s just temporarily. No love = Bad for Business All of your worst moments as an entrepreneur will come because something was rushed. A sale that feels rushed will cause buyers remorse, and they’ll ask for their money back. A service that’s rushed will make clients feel robbed, and they won’t come back. A cooked meal that’s rushed won’t taste as good, and you’ll have to redo the order (the other day the ham in my breakfast sandwich was still cold, and I sent it back). When you’re behind on appointments, rushing through an endless to-do list, and trying to do too much in a short time, that’s when the love goes out the door and in comes the anger, loss of patience, and tension that sucks up love and replaces it with a half-hearted effort. Still, need more proof? Rushing to open a store that still needed some cleaning or fixing may damage the brand’s image in the marketplace. And could you imagine your heart surgeon rushing through your surgery because he has to make it to the 6 pm CrossFit class!? God First Business = love We have to make a conscious effort to personally change our mindset in the fast-paced world we live in if we want the culture of our companies to change. How we relate to people is a test of our character, integrity, and love. Do we love our customers and employees if we’re always in a rush and demanding that they be on our same level or hurry too? Are we going to fall into the enemy’s traps of snapping at someone or completing a project out of anger and frustration? Love is patient; it’s not rushed. God could have made fruit grow overnight, but instead, it’s a slow process to create the best quality. We Godpreneurs need to operate our businesses at a new speed – a spiritual speed that lets us be present and aware of our state of emotions. Then, we can be the salt and light God needs us to be in the marketplace. We have to represent God well – and God is love, and love is a different speed than the rate at which the world operates. We run with the enemy, or we can walk with God. Godpreneurs choose the former. Today, when the interruption comes (because you will be tested today), instead of feeling rushed and trying to hurry to meet someone’s needs, look for ways to slow the process down and be fully present in love. Imagine if we all increased our capacity to show love in the marketplace by not being affected by the rush and hurry all around us. How much better would our products and services be?. #FindMyCalling #ArticulatingMyIdeas

I have a google document where I keep track of all the victories I’m experiencing and things I’m grateful for. I have it broken down month-by-month. But for two months, I didn’t write in it. For two whole months, I skipped the habit I had been doing for years at least a couple of times per week. And those two months were the two worst months of the year for me. For two months, I was down and depressed. Things were going on personally and entrepreneurially that had me in a real funk. I felt like the joy of life had been punched out of me. I was gasping for air and desperate for anything that resembled a sign of hope that I would recover. Then…I remembered that I had a routine of practicing gratitude in the mornings – and that I was no longer following the routine. With the weight of priorities, launches, and events I was in charge of for that month, I got off my slow-paced morning routine. I traded it in to rush and to get everything I needed to do done. I found myself not spending time with my son as much and speeding through my daily devotionals to hurry on to my day. I was being robbed of everything that brought me real joy in the mornings, and I was paying the price the rest of the day… for two months straight. Entrepreneurship Can Kill Our Joy Entrepreneurship is a helter-skelter roller-coaster ride of emotions. We have problems we experience on the home front. We have people and business priorities pulling us in a million directions. This is a recipe for killing joy in our lives. We’re all going to experience the ups and downs of business ownership, the question is whether we’re going to ride the roller-coaster with our hands in the air full of excitement and joy, or we’re going to close our eyes, cower down, cover our heads, and pray that the ride end already so we can jump the heck off. How can we experience more joy on our entrepreneurial journey? What do we do to recover the joy we once felt? Where can we find the daily fill of joy we need to make it through the day instead of sputtering out. The bible says "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.  (Philippians 4:4‭-‬9 NIV)" What Paul the apostle is teaching the Christian church at Phillipi is that if there’s a secret to joy and happiness, it’s simply staying present to the moment. The more presence in the NOW, the more gratitude fills in, and the more joy comes pouring out. You Must Rejoice to Experience Joy Rejoice has the word “joy” in it. And it’s impossible to rejoice and at the same time be in a rush or hurry mode because the mind can’t experience both emotions at the same time. Rush and joy are incompatible. When you rush through life, you’re saying to yourself that you’re willing to trade what you have right now for joy in the future and that you’ll rejoice later on with God once this current thing is all over. But here’s the problem: it’s easy to give God your future because you don’t have it yet. The real sacrifice is in giving God our NOW, and sacrifice is where you experience the true metamorphosis into Christ-likeness. Love and joy aren’t just emotions; they are fundamental states of being that God wants us to live in all the time and not subject to what’s going on around us. The more we rejoice with God in our lives, through the thick and the thin, the more we get to keep our happiness and joy in business. Back to Mornings of Gratitude So I got back into my morning routine of writing down my victories and things I was grateful for. Slowly but surely, the joy began to fill my heart again, and I climbed my way back out of depression and into hope. I couldn’t believe when I opened up my Google doc that I had literally skipped showing gratitude to God for two months of my entire life. Those two months didn’t have to be as difficult as they were. Joy isn’t a passing emotion, it’s someone God wants us to become in entrepreneurship through our becoming like Christ. And joy, like love, isn’t compatible with the rushing and hurrying we Godpreneurs find ourselves in sometimes. All we have is the right here and right now. This present moment that I’m sitting here writing to you with my son on my lap – this is a joy every lasting that I’m grateful for RIGHT NOW. This moment we’re in, this pain we’re feeling in our business, this joy right now, this gratitude we experience, this surrender of our life – this is where God wants us. God will take care of the past and the future of our business so we can experience more moments where we gratefully and slowly turn everything over to God. This is how we experience His joy everlasting. Today, open up a Google doc and write down all the things you’re grateful for and all the victories God has brought you through. Take a moment to smell the amazing aroma of the coffee, the birds chirping, your child talking. Be present, experience His joy again. #BecomeDisciplined #EnhanceFocus #StrengthenIntegrity

When I first started my business in 2005, it was to make money and be free to call my own shots. I didn’t do it to help people, I did it to help myself. But when I started to go back to church in 2008, my view of business began to change. Since I was learning all about love and compassion, the people around me came more into focus. I began to see all of the real hurt around me and all the work that needed to be done to get everyone to experience what I was now realizing as truth. And the same compassion started spreading into my business. I began to see my business as an opportunity to HELP others, not just as a means of them help me financially. Once my heart began to change in business, I started to see that my company wasn’t in the business of doing logos and websites. No. It was much bigger than that. God was showing me that a branding agency helps entrepreneurs find their identity here on Earth, and that I could be used by God to help others find their calling. This turning point in my mindset is when my business stopped being about the here and now, and started existing for eternity. When we Godpreneurs get to heaven, our opportunity to serve God through our businesses will be over. Once we’re in eternity, we don’t come back to the office to draw up proposals. Godpreneurs, this is it. This is our time. This is our season. What we do with our businesses TODAY – matters, not just TODAY but FOREVER. The problem is most entrepreneurs don’t realize that. Most business owners don’t use an eternal mindset when uncovering and bringing to life our business dreams. But unless we pursue the business God Himself created us to start, we won’t be able to tap into the abundance of power, wisdom, strength, and resources He also has for us in order to carry out our business dream(s). So what do we do if our “business dream” has nothing to do with bringing God glory and other people good and we feel it’s not the business God created us to start. One clue God uses to show us our purpose in business is that His vision for our business life will always involve eternity. The Bible says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV) God set eternity in the heart of humans to link what is done here on Earth to what will come later. Eternity is what God uses to link what is done now to what will come forever. This is the reason why you can tap into the power of eternal thought to your business purpose today.   You can link your entrepreneurial calling and business dreams with your rewards later to uncover a major clue about the products and services God created you to provide. Eternity is one critical way of distinguishing between God’s vision for your business and where your selfish ambitions or worldly desires want to take you. What our business does today will matter forever! In light of this, we can now pray and ask God to reveal Who does God want us to serve (target market)? Who does he NOT want us to do business with? Why? (prospects to avoid, they might be for someone else’s eternal calling) What will our reward be in heaven? When we have eternity in our hearts, we stop focusing on money being a means to an end but instead the money is God rewarding us. This completely changes our motivation for going out and getting clients and helping them. Remember, our business dreams will always intersect with things that will bring about good or blessing for eternity to our employees, vendors, contractors, business partners, prospects, clients, and even competitors! It’s not necessary to work in full-time ministry or for a church in order to initiate good works for God. Our Father will use our businesses to do the same work! Let’s pray for our calling, and the products and services God created us to start. Dear Lord, we want our business to do something for you today. We want to do something for You every day! Please nudge us when You want us to do something through our products and services that will bring You glory and others good. In Jesus’s name, amen. #FindingMyPurpose #BecomeDisciplined #EnhanceFocus

When I first started my branding agency in 2005, our clientele was primarily nightclubs, bars, and strip clubs. Our services would help them attract more patrons to their establishments. But when I became a Godpreneur, I let those clients go because I was contributing to the bad fruit that those businesses produce on a nightly basis. So then I switched to helping any entrepreneurs launch their businesses. As long as the business wasn’t in direct competition with God’s plans, I took on the work. But as I became more “purpose-focused” with my company, I didn’t settle with just launching someone’s idea. I wanted more. I wanted to make sure the entrepreneur was starting the business that God created them to start. What was happening to me as I drew closer to God in my business? I was beginning to care more about the fruit that my business and the business of those I launched was born into the world. That’s when I knew I was 100% in my calling. This is when I felt my business had found its purpose. When we start our businesses, we aren’t immediately operating in our calling. But if we stay in the Word and keep drawing closer to God, the business will shift into its purpose – God’s purpose! On this journey of leading a God-first business, we Christian entrepreneurs are all in this process of growing, discovering, and learning. But every day our businesses aren’t doing something for the Kingdom is a day we’ve wasted in the marketplace. The Bible says: “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you."(John 15:16 MSG) The fruit produced from seeds of dreams that God inspires will always bring Him glory and others in your business good. As you think about your calling in business and why it matters to you, look for ways your purpose-focused business will impact and improve the lives of your employees, vendors, contractors, prospects, clients, and might I challenge you by saying, competitors. So how can we identify the products and services that will increase our impact in the marketplace and carry out the dreams God put on our hearts? The first step is to analyze what motivates us. What motivates, God, duplicates! God wants to double, triple, even 10x our ability to bear a fruit because that’s what our businesses are here to do!. Is what you spend the bulk of your talents, time, and treasures on in your business worthy of being worked on in the image of God? No? Drop it. YES? Double down on it in 2020. The second step is to analyze if your products and services are going to be rewarded when we get to heaven or will we be embarrassed? When we analyze what we’re doing from an eternal perspective, it has us thinking twice about our calling. Now that we’ve done some critical thinking about our purpose in business in light of God’s purpose, now the third step is to make a list of things we need to change so we can leverage our products, people, and profits for the glory of God and the benefit of our designated marketplace. Uncovering our calling in business is all about merging (or intersecting) our desires and dreams with God’s purpose for the world. Imagine a world where all of us Christian entrepreneurs are living out a calling in business that bears fruit as John 15:16 says! We can often look at the products, people, and profits of a business to identify where God is working and how He has created that entrepreneur to live out the dream He has placed within him. Look no further than @ChickfilA if you want to see a real-life success story of a Godpreneur bearing much fruit, even after he’s gone from the business. #BusinessBibleStudy #FindingMyPurpose Entrepreneurship on Purpose A 3-Day business Bible study to help you uncover your calling to bear fruit that your business can have an eternal impact and glorify God. 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

As an entrepreneur, I’ve never had just “one” business. Instead, I’ve always owned several businesses either on my own or with partners. It’s fun to own multiple businesses because I could have money coming from different places, not be bored just doing one thing, exercise my creative juices in different areas, and whenever possible feed leads or opportunities from one complementing business to another. But there’s also a darker side to owning multiple businesses that I’ve avoided talking about for many years, but it’s finally time I confess – a lot of times I feel out-of-alignment, pulled in different directions, and divided in my decision-making. As a result, I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve caused damage to my reputation in business because of the domino effect that happened both professionally and personally when I didn’t pay attention to what this division in my life was doing to me. It’s not that owning multiple businesses is wrong. Many people are successfully managing 2 or more businesses. What I discovered was wrong with me didn’t really have anything at all to do with the business itself, but with a much deeper root in my own personal life – my integrity. We Christian entrepreneurs know that integrity is important. We’ve heard about it, and we may have an idea of what it is, but integrity has so many levels in all seasons of our life that it essentially becomes a life-long muscle that has to be strengthened and exercised. The Definition of Integrity One definition that the dictionary gives for integrity is “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.” As Christian entrepreneurs, I think we would all say that we pass this test or that we’re working on this in our lives and we feel justified by this definition. But there’s a second definition of integrity – “the state of being whole and undivided.” The difference is that this definition is not about honesty or character or goodness.  Instead, this version describes integrity as wholeness or oneness. In other words, an entrepreneur with integrity has perfect alignment between their words, actions, beliefs, and I would argue, even their businesses. A business owner of integrity is not divided, we don’t say one thing and do another, and we are consistent with our core. It’s the second definition that left me thinking that a have a lot of room to grow in this area of integrity. I’ve met and done business with people of high integrity and its always a breath of fresh air because they are always on time, they are focused, and they do what they say they’re going to do. A Warning about Integrity We would all agree that integrity is both a rare and extremely important quality in entrepreneurship, especially for us Godpreneurs. It is a virtue that God would want us to improve and intentionally cultivate. In fact, integrity is so important to God that its mentioned 6 times in the book of Proverbs alone, 16 times in the rest of the bible, and referenced in over 80 other bible verses! The one we see most often in Proverbs is something like this: "Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out". (Proverbs 10:9) In each of the proverbs that mention integrity, God contrasts good integrity with the consequences of not having integrity. Why? Not to scare us, but for us to see that there’s a domino effect that can happen when a business life is out of alignment. When integrity in business is lacking, it sets off a chain reaction that if not fixed, can lead to so many problems. When one thing falls it knocks down another, which knocks down another, and soon enough, things have gotten out of control. Here are some problems you may also be experiencing in your business life that point to your need to also work on your Integrity. 6 Signs that Point to a Problem With Your Integrity You’re Losing Your Attention to Detail – When your actions and words are out of sync it causes you to make mistakes in internal projects, production, or the services you’re providing. Because you said one thing but did another thing, your brain can’t process things perfectly because God didn’t design your brain to do two opposing things at the same time. Your Self Discipline Takes a Nosedive – Entrepreneurship requires 100% excellence in self-discipline because you’re the boss, so you are the only one holding yourself accountable to your goals. Self-discipline even as a non-business owner is not easy, and it is next to impossible for entrepreneurs when your personal integrity is out of whack.  When you see yourself marking every task or project launch as “urgent”, then you’re blinded to the truly important tasks God needs you to focus on, therefore what God wants you to accomplish that day slips through the cracks. Your Reputation Begins to Suffer – Proverbs 22:1 says “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.” You think you’re in business to make money, but God placed reputation ABOVE money because poor integrity will be a bad witness to the world and good people (people of high integrity) will not want to work with you. Instead, you’ll attract other people of bad integrity.  You can fool some clients or employees when they first meet you, but sooner or later your being out of alignment will make your reputation suffer. You Experience Problems at Home – I don’t know about you, but when there’s an issue with a client’s account and have to get home late because I’m fixing the problem so I don’t damage my reputation, my wife isn’t happy. She understands to a certain extent, but it’s not ideal. The stresses of not being in integrity will bleed into your personal life. Your spouse and kids won’t get the 100% you. You Can’t Sleeping Well Because Your Mind Won’t Stop – When I’m stressed, I lay up at night staring at the ceiling thinking about work. Forget about a sleep pattern, I get thrown off and wake up tired. Getting home late will make you sleep late, then you’ll want to get up early to keep fixing things and you get little sleep. The bible says, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” (Psalm 127:2) 6. Now Your Health is at Risk – When you’re stressed, don’t sleep well, and have problems with your spouse and kids, it’s a recipe for health problems. God didn’t design our bodies to go through this kind of turmoil. Your body is an outward expression of what’s going on inside. Gaining weight? Back hurt? Eyes twitching? This is your body outwardly showing the integrity issues. The chain reaction above is a small illustration of the problems when our integrity is compromised. To drive the point home, if a bridge has a huge crack, we probably wouldn’t cross it. It’s obvious that the structural integrity of the bridge means it needs fixing. But what if the bridge had a bunch of small cracks? We’d probably still cross it. But if they don’t fix the small cracks, they will become bigger. In the same way, our personal integrity can develop small cracks over time that turn into big cracks. And sometimes people can’t see the small cracks, but eventually, the cracks will become public and our business and personal lives come crumbling down. We Godpreneurs need to make sure we’re always working at keeping our integrity. But how? In the next few posts, we’ll explore integrity and reveal God’s plan for keeping our hearts pure. #StrengthenIntegrity #BecomeDisciplined

Want to hear something funny?  I was born to help people find out what they were born to do. Cracks me up to say it…but it’s true. And until I embraced this calling over my life, owning a branding agency didn’t really make any sense.  It was just another company.  I didn’t feel like I had a purpose. We were all created with God’s purpose in mind.  And until we discover His purpose for our entrepreneurial life (and actually bring it to life) there will always be an empty part of our business that feels unfulfilled. The Bible says: "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do". Ephesians 2:10 NIV We are God’s workmanship, He created us Godpreneurs for a huge reason, and it’s our duty to find it and live it. God had a vision for us, and by the constant chipping away of our selfish selves, whats being exposed is our true identity and calling in life. But being called is not enough.  You must actually do something with that vision. It must come to life.  Version 1 is better than version NONE!  We Godpreneurs play a crucial role in the big vision.  Our particular businesses are important and are different than what He has in mind for all other entrepreneurs. I can’t get over the fact that there are hundreds of millions of entrepreneurs, and all of us are supposed to do something different and unique.  But from what I know about niches, there are infinite possibilities, and God has prepared one specific to us. You have a duty, an obligation, and a responsibility to find the vision and live it out. If your boss has a checklist of things to accomplish before you leave at 5 pm, you’d clearly be on top of it.  It’s the same for the vision. Tragedy is not bringing a vision to life. God’s vision for us entrepreneurs is what should drive the decision of what business we should be in.  Embracing that vision is a small part of much bigger plans for humanity that has been playing since before we were a thought in our parent’s minds.  The vision for our lives is from the past, but it has an eternal impact on the future. Imagine a world where all entrepreneurs discovered, uncovered, and/or recovered the vision that God has for their businesses, and actually brought it to life. So, comment below and share the purpose God has built you for. #BusinessBibleStudy #StrengthenIntegrity #FindingMyPurpose #FindMyCalling

When I graduated from Cornell University in 2003, I came back to Miami and had the ultimate job waiting for me – a nightclub promoter. Think about it. I’m 21 years old living in the city that 99% of people my age would give anything to call home or at least an extended vacation. Then in 2005, I saw the nightclubs needed help with their branding and marketing, so I and my boys started the agency I have today, Creative Complex. We had an office on south beach and all the major nightclubs as our clients. We were some 23-year-olds living on top of the world. But in 2007, a friend invited me to church and my life took a 180-degree turn. By 2009 I was baptized and a full-blown born again Christian. The problem is that my business was still in the nightclub industry, and we had even moved into doing work for the strip club world. My life was cut into two halves – my nightlife side and my church / spiritual growth side. I was living a double-life. At night I was Mr. Party Guy, but at church and at small groups, I was Mr. New Christian Guy. Neither side of my friends knew who I was really, because I was pulling off being two different people. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when my pastor referred me over to another church that needed a website. It was a pretty big project because it involved doing the website of an association of about 100 churches. But as they were reviewing my proposal, someone on the board of directors went to my agency website and saw all the nightclub clients we work with. I was caught. My double life was exposed. Now I had to choose. Was I going to try to keep the charades going and weasel my way into convincing the church to still do business with me, or was I going to finally decide to hang up my hat and retire from the nightlife once and for all? We all have things in our business life going on that go against our morals and principles, or at the very least push the boundary and put us on the edge of right and wrong. The problem for us Godpreneurs is that if we’re sitting here interested in money, security, image, and reputation, the world will pull us in one direction while God’s word will take us in a different direction. Thi tug-of-war is was causes us to compromise our integrity, compartmentalize our business lives from God, become inauthentic in our walk, and mix up our motivations. We might be able to pull it off for a while, but at some point, the domino’s fall and we get exposed. But God has a plan. His plan is to purify our hearts so that over time, He would release blessings on us as we begin to bring our lives into alignment with our calling and all the amazing plans He has for our businesses. The bible says, “The LORD detests people with crooked hearts, but he delights in those with integrity” (Proverbs 11:20). God is clearly interested in integrity and character. Why? Because His will can’t be done through people with crooked hearts. God wants to do great works through people working on their integrity. If you struggle with some kind of tug-of-war that forces you to live a double-life, or feel inauthentic in any kind of way, then the check engine light is on in heart and you have to check it out to see what that means. You’re interested in your image, but God is interested in your integrity. You’re interested in your reputation, but God is interested in your character. When you finally decide to take up integrity as a main facet of personal improvement in your business life, it’s important to understand three major characteristics God wants from us that define integrity. 3 Steps to Aligning Your Business With God’s Plan 1) Entrepreneurial Integrity is Being Whole. I used to compartmentalize my life between my business life and my church life, never mixing the two. I had my friends from church and my friends from the nightclubs. I had my achievements for all to see, and tucked away I had my compulsions, addictions, and the things nobody else knows about. If we segment our lives like this, we lack integrity, because our lives are not a whole. Integrity as an entrepreneur means you’re the same person at church and in the office, in your speech, actions, and motives, no matter which compartment of your life you’re dealing with. 2) Entrepreneurial Integrity is Being Authentic. I remember going to the annual nightclub and bar convention in Las Vegas and promoting myself and my agency as the kings of nightlife marketing, but then a few weeks later speaking to a room full of pastors about how to make their websites more effective in order to attract more people to their churches.  That’s like playing for both teams! When we wear masks so that we appear one way in front of some people and another way for others, it shows a lack of authenticity. It’s called hypocrisy, and it’s a major blow to the testimony of the church people think Christians are hypocrites for this very reason! God wants you to be exactly who he called you to be in business, no matter who is watching or who you’re presenting to. 3) Entrepreneurial Integrity is Having Unmixed Motivation. At one point I justified helping nightclubs with their marketing AND helping churches market too. But I knew that both the church and the nightclub were trying to get the same exact person into their doors. My motives were now being mixed.  Ethically and morally, I couldn’t work for competitors anymore and I had to choose. When we have unmixed motivations in business, it means we do the right things, and we do them for the right reasons. We Godpreneurs have unmixed motivations and pure motives. We work to be sincere and straightforward in every area of our business lives and with all people, we come into contact with – clients, prospects, vendors, employees, contracts, and the marketplace as a whole. Our reputation is what everybody thinks we are. Our Integrity is what we really are. Our reputation is what we are in public. Our integrity is who we are when we’re all alone with God. The good news is that we can turn to God at any moment and desire to have integrity and begin our walk to perfecting that big part of our life. God blesses those entrepreneurs who have integrity. Their businesses get to do God’s will here on earth through the products and services rendered in the marketplace. #BecomeDisciplined #StrengthenIntegrity

It’s been hard for me to come face to face with my lack of integrity. A business friend of mine first pointed it out back in 2014 and I became defensive and started justifying all my actions. Then again in 2018 another close business acquaintance brought it up, and again, I became defensive. But then my business partner pointed it out, and I couldn’t keep running from it – I was living and running my businesses with areas where I lacked integrity. And now I’m learning everything the bible has to say about it, it’s problems, and how to fix it, and it’s been the most difficult series to write. I’ve been replaying in my mind all the times I’ve fallen short, all the opportunities I had to show integrity in my business dealings and didn’t, and all the moral failures in my personal life. I hope you’re not surprised…but my list is long.  I’m ashamed to admit it, but if I don’t confess this, I know I’ll never change. Renowned theologian Saint Augustine said that the confession of bad works is the beginning of good works. We entrepreneurs all have a hard time facing integrity. It could be a self-defense mechanism, pride, or simple ignorance of the subject. We all segment our personal and business lives and figure that this little sin we’re harboring over here won’t affect that other area over there. But this is a myth we’ve made up in our minds! When it comes to our whole life, a hole in any area can eventually sink everything. The little “situation” we thought we had under control in our business will eventually take us down. A lack of integrity in any one area of our business or personal life will affect the people around us because the enemy WANTS our sin to be public so we could tarnish our God-First business testimony. Additionally, if we don’t come clean with the issue of integrity, little issues become bigger issues in time, and God could be holding back bigger opportunities that we’re simply not ready to face yet because He knows we can’t handle it yet. But God has had a redemptive plan since before we were born. He knew sin was in us, and he created a way out of it! The Bible in 1 John 1:9 says: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9 KJV) If you are serious about becoming a businessman or woman of integrity in your marketplace, the first step is to admit that you haven’t had integrity. You don’t always keep your promises, even to yourself You gossip about terrible clients, bad employees, or annoying competitors (and you like it) You slack off sometimes when the business needs you most You pretend to be someone you’re not Should I continue? But here’s the good news! Just admit it all to God! None of us Christian entrepreneurs are perfect, but God didn’t expect us to be perfect! God does, however, expect us to have a pure heart, and the starting point of purifying our hearts is to own up to our sins — no matter how long our lists are. God is more interested in our hearts the marketplace than the sins in our business. We’re never going to be perfect entrepreneurs. We’re never going to be sinless, but we can sin less. That’s how choosing to have integrity looks like. #StrengthenIntegrity #EnhanceFocus

Sometimes in entrepreneurship, there are times of loss, confusion, stress, anxiety, and overall sadness. It could be something totally out of our control or something we caused. These feelings leave us in a state of depression. We just want to crawl into a hole and hope that it all goes away on its own. However, there is a way for us to, almost immediately, turn the negative feelings of depression into positive feelings of hope and opportunity! Let me illustrate an example. When I’m feeling down and depressed, if I grab my son and hold him in my arms, the feeling of sadness is immediately gone and I’m overtaken with joy and love. How come one moment I was depressed, and the next moment I was full of joy? Because of the presence of my son. In the same way, we entrepreneurs need to have a way for us to bring in a new opportunity into our lives in order to forget about the depression and flood our mind and body with feelings of faith, hope, and opportunity. How do we overcome the sleepless nights when we don’t know where the next check will come from? How do we stop being overwhelmed by the negative and hateful anger that bombards our hearts during these troubling times? These feelings can leave us stuck in this pattern or hurt for a long time if it’s not dealt with. All of us Christian entrepreneurs have been in the place of asking ourselves, “Is this the right business for me, why does this keep happening to me, am I ever going to get out of debt, will I never find an investor, am I never going to be happy in a business, I hate business, I just want to give up, entrepreneurship is hopeless.” And, of course, the #1 question Christian entrepreneurs ask: “God, why are you doing this to me?!” Ironically, that’s the BEST question to ask!! This means you’ve instinctually done exactly what God wants you to do: come to Him. The Bible says, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away 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) God has the way out. Prayer and yearning for Him is the first step out of tiresome and worrisome depression. You might be suffering in your business right now. God wants to lead you out into His opportunities for you. When you ask God, and continually reach out for Him, you draw closer to the only true solution to your business problems. What if depression was an invitation from God, reminding you that you’re not stuck in this hopeless situation alone and that He wants to be let into the solution. What if God was inviting you on an amazing NEW journey of discovery and opportunity for your entrepreneurial career? The psalmist says “You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalms 16:11 NIV). This means that coming to God and asking him “WHY” is the beginning of the solution: surrounding yourself with the presence of God in order to uncover the business that He really wants you to be in. Asking the ‘WHY ME’ question, to God is the beginning of prayer. And since we’re in prayer mode, we might as well have a strategy for prayer. PRESENCE: The presence of God in our business will always be greater than our greatest ideas, clients, services, and any other entrepreneurial accomplishment that comes to mind. Our joy – starts and ends in God’s presence. REST: Tired? Full of anxiety? Praying gives us a moment of rest. ATTENTION: Praying puts us in a position to pay attention to God and listen for the solution. Stop giving the depression our attention, and let’s give God our full, undivided attention. YEARN: The prayer of an entrepreneur is a sign of our love and need for God in our business. Praying is speaking to God, and speaking to Him is showing Him, love. This is the business relationship He’s been desiring all along with us. The antidote to depression in entrepreneurship is found in the presence of God. That’s where we’ll experience joy because He’ll give us purpose, meaning, and a calling in business! He’s not going to immediately make the debt go away. He’s likely not going to make you an overnight millionaire. He probably won’t fix all your business problems from one day to the next. He’s not going to just magically drop an unexpected check in your mailbox. However, He can fill us all with immediate joy and hope that His presence is all we need, and we just need to start walking in the path that He uniquely created us to follow in entrepreneurship. Imagine if all of us depressed entrepreneurs around the world (everyone has been here at one point or another) would seek out the indescribable and incomparable presence of God in order to begin our journey to new opportunities? #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

When you’re experiencing depression because of challenges in your business, you have to replace your thoughts with new, more positive thoughts. For me, when I think about the calling God has over my life, I get a jolt of excitement. When I have a great idea, joy floods my body. When I get an epiphany, and God clearly speaks a vision into my life, I start thinking about the opportunities! I’ll prove this to you. Have you ever imagined winning the lottery? The mind starts going into this fantasy world of what we would do with all that money! And then 5 minutes later, you snap out of it and wonder what the heck happened? For those 5 minutes, you had no problems. Life was amazing in fantasy land, right? In the same way, we can THINK our way out of depression by shifting our perspective and changing the way we think. Of course, we have to think positive thoughts about our potential in business, and avoid negative thoughts! If we keep thinking about the money people owe us, the clients that canceled, the employees that we had to let go, and the rent we can’t pay, then we keep digging ourselves into a hole. But God wants to give us a different perspective. God wants us to focus on the business He created us to start! The Bible says: "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:8 NIV) God’s perspective for business is the key to unlocking His calling, His direction, and His plan for the business. Focusing on uncovering God’s perspective will produce the mindset needed to discover the businesses God needs in the world. Ask yourself what God’s calling is for your life. You need to replace your current troubling perspective (that is making you depressed) with His eternal perspective of what’s missing in business for you to do (your calling in entrepreneurship!). You have to realign your focus on Jesus so you can see every part of your business through God’s flawless lens. It’s not that we need more ideas, it’s that we need more Jesus. The ideas will flow from that relationship. For me, when I took on God’s perspective about websites and logos, everything changed! God revealed that websites and logos are all about IDENTITY. I get to help people discover their calling (their identity), and bring it to life! This gave me the joy to get out of the depression I was in. I was energized to go out and help more people find their calling! You can do the same thing in your business! You have to think of how God thinks about your industry, marketplace, products, and services. Once you think like God, you begin the process or replacing depression with opportunity. Why? Because God doesn’t think depressing thoughts, He thinks VIRTUOUS thoughts! What are God’s thoughts? Love Power Ever presence All-knowing Holy Merciful Faithful Just Absolute truth Unchanging For me, I latched onto the ‘all-knowing’ thoughts of God for my business. Why? Because I have to explain to my clients Jeremiah 29:11 – for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. When I tell my clients that there’s a business that God created them to start, that springs up an entirely new perspective. It gives the business purpose and calling. Someone who understands and pursues their purpose and calling will have a much easier time getting out of depressing thoughts than someone who doesn’t know what God fashioned them from the womb to do. God’s perspective is totally free and unlimited. You don’t need to pay anyone to feel the spirit moving inside of us directing us to our calling. Sure, there are guys like me you can hire to help guide, but I’m simply guiding what’s already inside…what you were all born to do! Today, flood your mind with God’s thoughts. Allow yourself to reflect on His truths. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things (Colossians 3:2 NIV). You have to mirror His character into whatever business idea you have cooking in your mind. Only by God’s amazing Grace will you be able to defeat the enemy’s vicious and depressing thoughts, and fill it with thoughts of the virtuous business He created you to start! God’s thoughts will arm you for the battle of stepping into what you were born to do! HOMEWORK A New Perspective. Don’t go into the past and start thinking of all your regrets and mistakes. The enemy lives in those dry places. Stay away! Instead, think of your future and how God will be using you for His purpose in the marketplace! This will bring gladness to your heart and a smile to your face. Interact with God’s mindset, it’s a wonderful place to be! Read God’s Word Daily I’m in God’s word every morning? Not because it’s a business for me. IT’S BECAUSE I WAS ONCE VERY DEPRESSED! Writing these daily devotionals for you took me OUT of the depression and gave me purpose! Although I’m not as depressed anymore (happens less other), I’ve already developed the habit so I’m not planning on stopping! Take Inventory I have a free Passion Checklist in my Godpreneur Academy that will help you take inventory of your heart for business. Examine the way your spirit jumps for certain ideas, things hidden that you never knew about. You Have a Purpose Depression has a way of departing you from your purpose in business. Stay useful for God, He needs willing and ABLE BODIED workers to accomplish things here on earth. Keep your hands raised high, he’s calling on you! #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