Hey, what’s going on everyone? Alex here on this today’s podcast, I’m going to talk about how I basically integrate God in my business, and what it looks like for me to live out the Christian lifestyle as a business owner, what that looks like on the outside and how that affects my day to day operations. Let’s dive in.
All right, so one of the things that I talk about on my personal profile pretty openly is my Christian faith. I want to dive into that today on the podcast. I’ve had a lot of conversations lately with other business owners who are also men and women of faith, and they struggle with how do I integrate God into my business, how do I talk about God without turning people away, and what does it look like to have a business where God is in control of my day to day operations, but I’m also still responsible for what happens?
So, I’m going to do the best that I can to share what I believe. For those of you listening, I encourage the dialogue on this. I may say some things that you don’t agree with, that’s all good. That’s why we’re all working together to kind of figure this out. For those of you that are listening and like, “Man, I really like what he has to say,” I’m going to recommend some books to read, some resources at the end of this episode, and some friends that I’ve met that I would encourage you to also connect with online.
So, let’s talk about integrating God into business and what that looks like. So, there’s a couple of different areas where I work to put God first in my day to day life and inside of my business. First thing is how I start my day. I really believe it’s important to start my day with devotion time. It’s one on one time, me and the Bible, me and my prayer time. It helps me kind of get centered to really focus on what I’m going to do during the day. I try to follow a Bible reading plan, and so I was just reading the Bible through the year. So, I didn’t do as well as I as I want to all the time, but that’s my goal, and then I have some prayer time. My prayer time, sometimes it’s long, sometimes it’s short, and it’s important to me to start everyday that way.
So, that’s how I start it. Then, as far as how do I integrate God into the regular day to day stuff, one of the things that I learned from a close friend of mine, Andy Mason, who I’m definitely blessed to be in his life, he runs Heaven in Business out here, one of the things that he said, that I learned actually at a Heaven in Business meeting, because that’s the name of the events that they have out here, is asking God what he would do in certain situations.
So, we all have different areas that pop up that are a little tough. I just had one recently, actually, where I had to let an employee go and that’s never fun. So, I knew based on my business education, and just some of the things that were coming up, that I was not able to keep this employee, and so it just wasn’t going to work out. So, what I did after I made that decision, after I felt that, “Okay, this is the direction I’m going to go,” is I just stopped and I prayed. I didn’t make any rush decisions. I just asked, “God, what would you do in this situation? How should I handle this?” Then I just listened. I didn’t take any action right away. I sought counsel from people that I trusted and I knew that they were looking at not only for my best interest, but also for the best interests of the individual. I really felt like God was leading me towards still continuing to let this individual go, but also with the words and actions that would not wound our friendship, or cause there to be any division between us.
So, the conversation went really well, by the way, so him and I are still friends. We shook hands on it. We know that we’re doing the right thing, not only for each other, but also for the business, and it was good. He was disappointed, but he understood. So, that’s a real life application of how I integrate God into my business.
Let’s talk about the day to day stuff. I’m going to share, for me, it’s hard to figure out how to integrate God in the day to day stuff with business, especially when it comes to some of the more of my new show. So, what I do, my mindset is I don’t stop and ask for every little thing. I don’t pray about some of the repetitive tasks that happen on a day to day basis. But, for me, some of the ways that I acknowledge God during the day in my business is when I make a sale. I consciously thank him. When I have something coming up that’s a struggle, or things that I don’t know what to do, I ask God what he would do in this situation. I ask for wisdom. When I see big decisions coming down the road, whether it’s hiring somebody, whether it’s having to let somebody go, I really make it a point to just stop and pray, and see what I feel like God is leading me to do next. So, that’s the day to day.
How do you carry this out? This is a marketing podcast and we’re talking about Christian faith, but I really think it’s important, and I’ve had a lot of good conversations lately. So, what does it look like for you? Well, I don’t want you to interpret my kind of to do list as me trying to tell you how to have your own relationship with God. So, let me just start off with that.
I’m going to give you some ideas. So, hope that’s fair. So, the first thing is I highly recommend starting each day with some one on one time with God. That could be Bible reading That could be prayer time. I know some people, every single day, they fast their morning meal. They’ve gotten into a habit of fasting a meal a day, and instead of eating, they spend that breakfast time just with their one on one time with God. So, I thought that was pretty cool. The other thing that I recommend doing is asking God questions, the more specific, the better. When I was letting this individual go, I was like, “What can I say to him that would make him know that I really appreciate and admire him as a human being, but it’s just not gonna work out right now? How can I make this not hurt as bad as it could?” So, I was very specific in my question. I believe God gave me a really specific answer. I really believe God talks to us. So, that was really cool.
The other thing that I do is, I’m very conscious of how I talk to my prospects and clients, especially in the marketing world. There’s so much hype and stuff around marketing that I want to make sure that I’m always integrous, that I don’t use my faith as a selling point. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I don’t want it to feel like it’s one of the benefits of working with me. I don’t know. I struggle with when and where to bring up my faith, but I do try to operate as if God was in the room listening to my conversation. It’s hard for you to see the office right now, but if he was sitting right across from me at the empty chair that’s in my office, and I was talking to a prospect about the possible project that they could hire us for, would he listen in on that conversation, and kind of nod and give me a thumbs up like, “All right, I like that.” Or would he look at me and be like, “Hmm, we should probably talk after this phone call is done.” So, that’s how I try to integrate God.
I want to introduce some resources for you. Some of the people that I’m about to share, many of them have written books. I recommend going on Amazon, and buying some that you like, and for the ones that you don’t, if you’re like, “You know what, that that doesn’t appeal to me. That’s not a fit,” then it’s all good.
So, the first one that I recommend that I really enjoy, that really blessed me, was written by a guy named Kris Vallotton. He spells his name with a K, K-R-I-S, and it’s called Poverty, Riches and Wealth, really good book about looking at money. So, I recommend grabbing that one. I thought that was really good. Then also, I mentioned before, Andy Mason, he heads up Heaven and Business, and he also wrote a book. So, the name of his book, there’s a couple with them, but the latest one is God With You at Work, really good. Recommend that one. He wrote another one that I have not read yet, but he has referenced it a lot in his talks, and it’s really blessed me. It’s called Dream Culture, how to dream with God. So, that’s really good. Andy Mason,, A-N-D-Y, Last name, Mason, M-A-S-O-N. So, he’s got a couple that I recommend, and then my man, Chris Vallotton talks about poverty, riches, and wealth.
If you have any other resources that you think I should add to my podcast page on this episode, please let me know. I’m happy to add other resources to the page, and be introduced to other books that I could read. So, I hope this conversation was edifying and encouraging to you. I’d love your feedback. Go ahead and reach out to me over Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or email, and let’s continue the conversation. Have a great day.
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Resources Mentioned in the Episode
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