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

Back in 2007, I got into some huge tax problems. I had hired a bunch of employees, but I wasn’t sending their personal taxes to the IRS like I should have been. It turns out I needed $14,000 to repay the IRS or I could face more penalties or even jail. I had no idea I was breaking a law at the time. It wasn’t until my accountant pointed it out that I realized what I was doing was not only wrong, it was illegal. I was basically stealing from my employees and the government. I was in big trouble and I needed $14,000 quickly or the trouble was going to get worst. Embarrassed and ashamed, I told my parents about the issues I was facing. Without hesitation, they agreed to pay the debt off for me. I was now free from that weight on my shoulders! The price of my mistake was paid by my loving parents. Of course, I promised I had learned my lesson and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. We all have areas in our business life where we break the law, bend the rules, or even unknowingly do something wrong that eventually catches up to us. And if those sins we commit aren’t exposed and brought to justice, we will continue to do them for the rest of our business careers. Some of us are stuck in a pattern of sin in our businesses that we don’t have the power to break free from. We have a client that’s paying us illegally, but it works out because we’re saving money. We have business coming in from places that don’t honor God, and still willingly do it, even though we know it’s wrong. This is called sin. And until sin is put to death, we are dead businessmen transacting in a corrupt world. But… The bible says "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life". (John 3:16 NIV) The death of Jesus stands at the center of the solution to the very sin that traps you. On the cross, a sinless man pays the price of your sins in business so that you can be alive and free from all the sins that hold you down. Jesus’ death on the cross is both the most tragic evil done, but the greatest good of all time. All the sins you commit in your business have a penalty. And for every crime caught, there is a penalty. Like when I got caught not paying taxes when the penalty was paid, you say that justice has been served, and that’s a good thing. Whether you’ve been caught or not, our sins are a rebellion against God. Those sins still trap you in a world that God didn’t have planned for you to operate your business in. This sin that you have carries a penalty by God – death. It’s not just physical death, but a spiritual one too. When we’re spiritually dead, we’re separated from God, and we continue our sinful existence until our physical death. But like my parents paid my $14,000 IRS debt, Jesus paid the penalty for your sins in business when he died for us. This doesn’t mean you stop sinning, it means that the penalty of the sin was incurred for you, payment was made by Jesus himself, and you are now free to draw closer to God so that you can be freed from the grip of sin. Now you can begin the journey of letting go of the sins you’ve carried for years in your business because the price was paid. I remember when I found out about my IRS problems I was afraid, scared, and I didn’t even want to go into work. But when my parents paid the debt, I was free from those thoughts and able to take my business to new levels that God wanted to show me. Jesus’ death is one of the most important concepts a business owner must understand. I didn’t fully understand its significance, this is why I’m trying to illustrate it in different ways. See, I had committed a crime in my business and the penalty for that crime was $14,000 that I could not pay for. However, my parents could pay the penalty on my behalf. The penalty was paid. The IRS was restored. The cost was real. Yet because of the generosity and sacrifice of my parents, I’m not bound to pay the penalty. So, Jesus died for our business sins and paid the penalty for them out of His love and generosity, allowing us to avoid paying the penalty ourselves if we accept that. I believe the message of the gospel for entrepreneurs will be the hardest to do or understand because we’re the authority in our businesses. The bible says “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich [a successful businessman] to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25 NIV). As entrepreneurs, we tend to act on our own authority to choose between good and evil in our businesses instead of submitting to the ultimate authority of God. This rebellion is what curses us, causes us to sin, and we fall short of what God has planned for us. But we love our sin, we trapped, we’re separated from God, and we deserve to get caught and pay a price. But God, rich in mercy and love, pursued and saved us by substituting his Son in our place. For me, this means that now I’m free to do what I was Born to Do. And although I still sin, I’m not trapped because I’m forgiven and I can get up and continue to pursue my calling. So to us Godpreneurs, Jesus’ death is the best news in the world for our businesses. It’s the gospel—the good news that though we substituted ourselves in the place of God, God substituted his Son in our place that we might draw near to him in righteousness and continue to uncover and pursue our purpose and calling here on earth. If all of us business owners repent and believe in this, we can receive new life in Jesus, be reconciled to God, our business dealings cleansed from shame, our brands restored to honor, and given an eternal inheritance in the family of God! #BusinessBibleStudy #NewEntrepreneurs #GodpreneurAcademy

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

I can’t even begin to count the number of failed ventures, partnerships, marketing campaigns, and product launches I’ve had in my entrepreneurial career. Since 2005, I’ve been collecting the failures, analyzing each one, and building something better the next time. But there are times I want to hang up the hat, call it quits, and head back over to a comfy 9-5 where, at this point in my career, I could be making well over $500K with bonuses and stock options. Any entrepreneur who has failed in a venture will immediately agree that business ownership can hurt. But after the wound has healed a little, they will also be the first to try to do it again and again because of the joy it brings. I remember my first business, Creative Complex. It was immature, painful, wonderful, and hopeless all at the same time. When it failed, I could have just given up on business or learned from it and looked harder for a better, more satisfying business next time. I chose the latter and I’m so glad I did. Several years later I found my purpose and passion in business and now I’m married to my calling – my ‘born to do’ identity. It has not always been easy. In fact, there have been moments when my wife has wondered how she could have married someone with such financial instability. But those thoughts were only momentary and the shared joys of her being able to stay home with our child and not work have been immense and overflowing. I’m not the best business person in the world, but the marketplace seems to love me through thick and thin. Its honest advice may hurt sometimes, but I can always depend on it. Wisdom has given me everything it has to give, and together we move forward to bring visions to life. The Bible says: "Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding. For wisdom is more profitable than silver, and her wages are better than gold. Wisdom is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. She offers you long life in her right hand, and riches and honor in her left. She will guide you down delightful paths; all her ways are satisfying. Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her; happy are those who hold her tightly". Proverbs 3:13‭-‬18 NLT Entrepreneurship hurts—but it is well worth the pain and sacrifice. Next to my family, nothing has given me more reasons to live for than the passion of pursuing my calling. And since I’ve put God first in my business, He’s the one closest to me, and no matter what happens, I can trust in the spirit with my life. Look for your calling in business, live for what you were born to do, and you will find it. But in order to keep the business, you must give it away. Give it to God. We Godpreneurs give ourselves to their entrepreneurial calling; trust in God to be faithful and accept his holy spirit wisdom into our ventures. #SharpenLeadership

I have to admit that I let my business be guided by market trends, what my competitors are doing and, sadly, chasing after profits. I let outside factors determine the direction of my company sometimes. Other times, I’m guided by an internal compass and a desire to please God. It’s a constant battle. Whenever we entrepreneurs talk about our business plans and activities, we use terms like “my aims, my ambitions, my goals, my desires.” Some of us do things purely for ourselves, but most of us, unconsciously, perform with an eye of approval of some audience or other; Our parents, our staff, our competitors, our clients. The question is not whether or not we have an audience, but which audience we have. Only one audience matters:  God. An entrepreneurial career lived listening to the decisive call of God is a life lived before one audience that trumps all others – the Audience of One. Imagine running your business to only please one person.  Imagine doing everything with such perfection because you work for God, for His purpose and calling in your life. Imagine a world where every entrepreneur lived to please God.  I’m not saying everyone drops what they are doing to become a pastor.  No.  Right where you are, in your current industry, what if you worked to only please God. That’s my mission in life… showing entrepreneurs what it’s like to run a business for an Audience of One. I’m trying daily. #SharpenLeadership

I don’t like conflict. I avoid it. I do everything in my power to block it from my mind. Sometimes I’ll stay in a hurtful business relationship simply because I don’t want to have the conversation.  It happens with partners, employees, contractors, vendors and clients. I guess I just want the problem to disappear on its own. I want the relationship to fizzle out and make itself disappear. The problem with this strategy is that it takes time and leaves too many lose ends untied. Worst case is that the relationship doesn’t fizzle and next thing I know it’s 1 year later and I’m still involved. I believe relationships are a temporary assignment by God to help two people achieve a purpose in a season of both people’s lives.  How temporary?  It could be seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, even decades.  It’s not up to us.  We just need to recognize that it’s temporary. (PS I’m not talking about your marriage, that’s something God brought together and you need to work through it until death do you part.  Some of you readers were getting really excited where I was going with this, I could tell.) We want relationships to work, and I think we all have a tendency to avoid conflict and stay together because it’s our instinct (survival by numbers) and it’s God’s intention for us to be in community and communication with others so we can grow. In Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas got into a dispute about where to go next with the gospel, their mission in growing the church.  There’s no detail on how the dispute went down, but in the end, they went separate ways to accomplish whatever their spirit was insisting they do. "They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches." Acts 15:39‭-‬41 NIV God had them both together for a season. They needed each other. But now God was ready for them to go their separate ways…to accomplish more separately than they could together. Maybe you’re in a relationship that it’s time to recognize that the season was great together, but now it’s time to go and accomplish your hearts missions on your own. This is an easy conversation to have when you speak from a perspective of “what does God want us to do?” It’s a matter of two people reflecting on their goals, visions, and missions that God has for them and recognizing that the two might not align anymore and it’s time to move on. Imagine the strife we could all avoid if everyone was focused on the mission God has set out for each of us individually. We would recognize seasons endings much faster so we could all accomplish God’s purposes sooner. Godpreneur Rule #84: Godpreneurs recognize that relationships are seasonal and gracefully communicate that when wanting to part ways. #EnhanceFocus #BusinessPartnerships

When I first started my company I told people I did logos and websites. But that’s not how God would describe what I do. When I take into consideration His point of view and commit my work to Him, He reveals to me what I should really be doing. I help businesses and entrepreneurs find their God-given marketplace identity. Proverbs 16:3 says: "Put GOD in charge of your work, then what you’ve planned will take place." My challenge to all of my clients is to ask them WHY they are in business. Not all of them are Christian. I can’t have that conversation with everyone. But I can bring God in through the work I do and establish seeds that could potentially grow. Since I’ve committed my work to God, He continues to bless me with clients paying me more than I would have ever dreamed of charging. He’s also moving my business in directions I could have never taken on my own. Commit your business plans to God’s purpose for your entrepreneurial career. #FindingMyPurpose

These include farming, craftsmanship, teaching, leadership, giving, wisdom, miracles, etc.

I confess that I’ve had unhealthy ambitions to create a name for myself, and this temptation still plagues me at times. Deep down, I want to build a big brand with my ventures so I can be recognized as a thought leader, innovative entrepreneur, and build wealth so I can be rich. I’ve created out of a desire to make a name for myself, or, to put it in more worldly terms, to accumulate fame and fortune. If I’m honest with myself, I’m essentially trying to save myself. Let me explain. When I came up with my companies, I wasn’t content simply putting my innovations to work to help others. I wanted to leverage my creations to make a name for myself. Why? What is it about the human condition that causes me to use my work as a tool for proving something to the world? Deep down, I know there’s something wrong with me. I know I’m flawed. I know I’m not “right.” Deep down, we know that I “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Each entrepreneurial venture is me trying to cover up these flaws with my accomplishments. I think that if I write a bestselling book, or sell a business for millions of dollars, or have hundreds of employees, or get 100,000 Instagram followers, or build the world’s largest agency, then I’ll be able to mask my sinful human condition. Essentially, I use entrepreneurship as a means of saving myself. I know better! And every day I’m choosing to transform and renew my mind. I know it’s not that I need a bigger company, it’s that I need Christ to be bigger in me. The bible says I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 NIV) As a Christian, I know that the work of salvation is complete! Because Jesus said, “It is finished,” I no longer have to use my companies as a means of saving myself. What incredible freedom I experience when I let that truth really sink into my heart! Because of the gospel, I am free to work and create not as a means of making a name for myself, but as an act of worship to the One who made me, saved me, and called me to Godpreneurship. This truth replaces my improper ambition with proper ambition that flows out of a love for Christ and a desire to make His name famous throughout this earth and the next. Father, help me to remember this every second of the day as I lead my businesses. (PS – I write self-deprecating blog posts for 3 reasons. First, to confess to others. This helps call out the sin. Second, to process my own thoughts and declare new ones to myself. Third, that it might help you too.) #StrengthenIntegrity #EnhanceFocus

In my post-college proclivity, I desired nothing more than to start a great idea, grow it, and cash out so I could retire in my twenties. My first, second, or third ventures didn’t work out and I was now into my thirties…and still no fortune and fame. Around 2008 is when I started going back to church and gaining a new perspective on everything in life. One mindset shift I began to feel was that my ambition began to shift from selfish desires (fame and fortune) to wanting to help others and feel significance in my work. My struggle was that I still wanted fame and fortune, but I also wanted to serve others and be in God’s will for my business life. As Christians, is it possible to be ambitious in our entrepreneurial ventures and still have our self-worth and identity firmly rooted in Jesus Christ? Tons of self-help books and motivational coaches tell us that ambition is essential to accumulating wealth, fame, and glory for ourselves. The general consensus of entrepreneurship today is that it is the primary means by which we make a name for ourselves in this life and prove to the world that we are important, valuable, and worthy. Of course, this is nothing new for entrepreneurs. After Adam and Eve, human beings have been using work to make a name for themselves, rather than to glorify God and serve others. Take the Babylonians as an example. In Genesis 11 we read the account of these ancient entrepreneurs discovering the incredible technical innovation of brick-making. With the invention of the brick-making process, the Babylonians could build better homes, roads, and cities—all wonderful things; but driven by pride, the Babylonians’ ambition wasn’t to glorify God through their work. Genesis 11 reads Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:1‭-‬4 NIV Their ambition was to make a name for themselves. They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). And if there was ever a question as to whether or not our motives matter to the Lord, the rest of the passage provides the answer. “The Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city”. Genesis 11:8. Creating a new business is not inherently bad. Our entrepreneurial ventures can and do reveal God’s character and love to serve others. But when we create a business out of a motivation to make a name for ourselves, we are attempting to rob God’s glory that is rightfully His. In Proverbs we read: All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord . Proverbs 16:2 NIV While Scripture makes clear that creating to make a name for yourself constitutes improper ambition, the Bible makes equally clear that ambition can indeed be God-honoring, so long as it flows out of a response to the work Christ did on your behalf on the cross. As Godpreneurs, this mindset could be the very thought that will turn everything around for us if we truly believe it. My prayer for Godpreneurs today is that you would re-align your ambitions to be healthy and in the direction of your born-to-do identity – your calling to do God’s will in the marketplace. #EnhanceFocus #StrengthenIntegrity

I started my Instagram account @dailygodpreneur as a way to remember all of the little things that God teaches me about entrepreneurship. There are tons of nuggets of wisdom and I have a strange funny feeling I’ll never be done penning all the knowledge for as long as I keep seeking it. I need all of this wisdom because, quite frankly, entrepreneurship is TOUGH WORK!  If you’ve owned a business for 1 day, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The way I see it, by seeking out wisdom and adapting the principles I learn from the bible, I’m putting on a bullet proof vest.  Each month, that vest is able to get stronger and resist bigger bullets. Godpreneurs will succeed by attending to the many seemingly small principles for life’s success offered by God. The bible says "My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord , and you will gain knowledge of God". Proverbs 2:1‭-‬5 NLT These principles will be like the bulletproof vest making it impervious to being overpowered by outside forces. A foolish person relies on individual gifts and personal strength; however, this is the epitome of weakness, because there is no unity of purpose supporting his efforts. Therefore, he stands alone. Godpreneurs find their strength by reinforcing their bulletproof vests. Godpreneur Rule: Don’t look merely to your natural gifts, but focus your energy on marshaling all available resources. #SharpenLeadership #ShareYourTestimony

At one point in my branding agency, I was building my business around trying to impress potential clients with bigger jobs so I charge a whole lot more. I wanted to be dealing with rich, wealthy people that had big budgets. I wanted to be rich like them. After a year, I ended up discovering that the I didn’t like working with these clients. They are a ROYAL PAIN! The richer they got, the more they demanded and the smaller I felt. It was like working with a ‘know it all’ that had no clue at all. The bible says "Don’t eat with people who are stingy; don’t desire their delicacies. They are always thinking about how much it costs. “Eat and drink,” they say, but they don’t mean it. You will throw up what little you’ve eaten, and your compliments will be wasted". Proverbs 23:6‭-‬8 NLT I decided I wasn’t going to build my business around trying to impress those who have power and riches or hoping to become one of the elites of our society. Underneath the surface, we are all equal entrepreneurs before God. So I stopped trying to gauge the success of my branding agency by how big of a fish I could catch, but instead on how deep of an impact I could make. This kept me humble and always in the mindset of trying to figure out how I could help more people, faster, and more profoundly. See, trying to go after the big money accounts was not only more work for me, but it was also misleading from my calling. Instead, I had to brand the REAL ME. I must constantly be bringing to light the identity I was born to be. The One whose appearances are real has chosen to be humble and meek—His name is Jesus. Yes, every knee will bow and every tongue confesses that He is Lord. But He called us friends and laid aside the prerogatives of royalty when He tore down the curtain of separation in the Temple and gave us direct access to His Father by faith through His death and resurrection. Weak entrepreneurs may insist on status, formality, and appearances, but God sees us for what we are. Wise Godpreneurs follow the example of Christ’s humility. You are aware that under the surface you are just like everyone else—no better and no worse. We Godpreneurs look beneath the surface—people and circumstances are not always what they appear to be. #DifferentiatingMyself #SharpenLeadership

I put a lot of pressure on my co-laborers. If you’re working with me, I ask for solutions, not problems. I demand excellence and specialization. And I go fast, so keep up! If I’m going to have these high levels of quality individuals working with me, I need to train and discipline them into this. Trust me, they don’t come born this way. It is in this correcting process where I continue to learn how to be a great leader. The value in owning a business isn’t producing great workers, but that the workers are producing a great leader in me. Leading others isn’t meant to make me happy, it’s meant to make me holy. For me, this was especially true in the area of disciplining and training those that work with me. I was terrible at it. I would ignore issue, sweep them under the rug, make excuses for them, and let anything slide. I probably did these things to save time. I didn’t want to stop and discipline and re-train. The bible says "A servant pampered from childhood will become a rebel". Proverbs 29:21 NLT Sometimes there are tricks of the trade that others are willing to pass on to save a little time and energy along the way. But when it comes to leading others, there aren’t any shortcuts. Great training coupled with immidiate corrective disciplining will make your employees, vendors, contractors and even clients into the best partners you want them to be. It is not easy to say “no” to those under my authority, especially if I care about them. But their short-term gratification is not worth the long-term disappointment of a ruined business relationship and a hardened heart. Only God can help you do what is right and pass on a blessing to those you co-labor with in business that will last a lifetime. Trying to take any shortcuts in this process of training will only prove to be frustrating. Dead ends often look like shortcuts, but you can’t get where you want to be by taking them. An effective Godpreneur leader knows how to manage those under his authority and has the will to do what is right for them. #BecomeDisciplined #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

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