Ready to redefine your entrepreneurial goals through a spiritual perspective? In this episode, we're going to talk about how building your business in alignment with biblical principles, as exemplified by the Prophet Nehemiah, can bring about unprecedented success and impact. As Kingdom Entrepreneurs, we are called to pray and plan, pursue and produce - but more than that, we need to be intercessors, bridging the gap for others to connect with God. We delve into the strategic and tactical aspects of running a business that serves not just commercial but spiritual purposes too.
So, tune in, and embrace your identity as a Kingdom Entrepreneur.
Ready to redefine your entrepreneurial goals through a spiritual perspective? In this episode, we're going to talk about how building your business in alignment with biblical principles, as exemplified by the Prophet Nehemiah, can bring about unprecedented success and impact. As Kingdom Entrepreneurs, we are called to pray and plan, pursue and produce - but more than that, we need to be intercessors, bridging the gap for others to connect with God. We delve into the strategic and tactical aspects of running a business that serves not just commercial but spiritual purposes too.
So, tune in, and embrace your identity as a Kingdom Entrepreneur.
Welcome back to the Expert Ownership Podcast. This is David. I've got Jason here with me in the studio here in Charlotte, north Carolina. Today we're going to talk about biblical entrepreneurship and we're going to talk about the pattern that Nehemiah straight up one of the prophets of Scripture used in what he did when God called him to this vision to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. So, man, there's a business here.
Speaker 1:If you have never read the book of Nehemiah, it's tiny, it's a short little book. This dude was one heck of an entrepreneur and we know Nehemiah as believers, as the guy who built the wall around Jerusalem. Right, but he was an entrepreneur. He was not a vocational minister, he was not a Levite guy. He wasn't. He was a business leader, and his life shows us what a kingdom-minded entrepreneur is all about. So when you read the book of Nehemiah, you'll see he was burdened by a specific niche of people, okay, which was the Israelites. He saw a problem that they had and he did something about it. That's what an entrepreneur does, right you target a niche, find their problem and solve it, do something about it.
Speaker 1:But you know the word entrepreneur actually has an interesting story. The phrase entre is Latin for to go between, and the phrase prende comes from a French word that means to undertake. So an entrepreneur is someone who goes between a person and their problem to bring a solution. And you know what that sounds like. It sounds like something we hear about in Ezekiel 2230 when it says behold, I look for a man who would stand in the gap. An entrepreneur is an intercessor. They're an intercessor, someone who stands in the gap on behalf of others to connect them with God. Because ultimately, that's our goal as faith-filled entrepreneurs. We want to connect our customers, our clients, our employees, our contractors, our vendors. We want to connect them with the God that we serve. That's our goal Now. We're doing it in a tangible way, and when you meet the need that the customer or the client is paying you for, it'll open a door to one day meet the need that they're not paying you for, and that need is their relational need to connect with the creator of the universe. That's why we have to do awesome work. That's why we have to look at examples like Nehemiah and model our businesses exactly the way that he modeled his. Okay. He was more than just an entrepreneur. He was an entrepreneurial intercessor who went in between people and their problem with a solution. He bridged the gap for his specific niche of people, which were the Israelites in Jerusalem Not the Israelites in Babylon, but the Israelites in Jerusalem. So he niched it down right. The riches are always in the niches. He bridged the gap for this niche of people and connected them to God in a powerful way.
Speaker 1:So here's what I want to do. I want to list four identity traits of Nehemiah, but specifically we're targeting Kingdom Entrepreneur. So four identity traits of a Kingdom entrepreneur, followed by three initiatives that a Kingdom entrepreneur will undertake, got me. So we're going to look at four identity traits of a Kingdom entrepreneur, followed by the three initiatives that Kingdom entrepreneur should undertake. All right, so let's look at the four identity traits.
Speaker 1:First, number one and this is about Nehemiah and this is about you, who you need to be. Number one a prayer. You need to be a prayer. A Kingdom entrepreneur is a prayer. They first intercede through prayer. Do you pray for your customers? Pray for your clients? You pray for your employees, because that's the secret sauce of your business.
Speaker 1:Well, we definitely pray for profit, of course, but we got to add all these other things in as well, and the essence is Isaiah 4817 of Scripture and you know, I would imagine Nehemiah had the scroll of Isaiah, yeah, but it's Isaiah. 4817 says I am the Lord, your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. The word teach means to train up, to develop skills, and the word profit doesn't mean money, it means to bring value. So the original of what Nehemiah was probably reading I am the Lord, your God, who trains you to develop skills that bring value, yeah. Now what follows value is profit, and so we don't sit there and pray for profit, although, yes, we do need profit. Profit to a business is like air to a lung we have to have it or else we can't live or survive. But but we have to focus on the, the, the, the sequence of profit, which is training, skill development, value bringing, yeah. And then profit comes. And if you pray for the people, god may sometimes take you in the opposite direction.
Speaker 1:David and I, before we went into a, a very large conference where we had a bunch of of Potential clients that we really wanted to land. This is right at the beginning of our business. If you read our book expert ownership, then you'll hear this story. But the Lord told us specifically don't go in there to make money, you go in there to represent me, you know? Basically, seek first my kingdom and go in there and be ministers and and don't don't focus on the money. So that's what we did. And we sat next to a table with a couple older ladies and we we witnessed to them, told them our little testimony and at the end of it they told us hey, by the way, what do you guys do? Or they asked us what do you guys do? We said we're in real estate. They said oh, that's interesting. We work for this bank and we sell, uh, foreclosed real estate properties in North Carolina. And these two ladies ended up working in our same area and David and I, over the next decade, made probably half a million dollars of profit off of off of that company. So God told us to go after the heart and that he would take care of the money. And he did it. So that's why prayer is so incredibly important.
Speaker 1:So a kingdom entrepreneur is a prayer. Second, they're a planner. They make plans by thinking through strategies and tactics. That's what neomia did. Neomia prayed about his people, but he also planned. So when the king said hey, you know, I'll let you go to Jerusalem and rebuild that wall. Neomia jumped into action. He had a plan immediately. They make plans by thinking through strategies and tactics. Strategies are what by when. Tactics are how by who. Let me say that again. Okay, strategies are what by when? What are we going to do and when are we going to accomplish it? Those are your strategies. Tactics are how by who. How are we going to do this and who's going to be responsible? So you got to get your strategies and your tactics together. So A kingdom entrepreneur isn't just a prayer, he's also a planner, and he waits for god to approve the plan and then he runs forward with the go-ahead. That's where number three is. So he's a prayer, he's a planner, but he's also number three, a pursuer. Once god gives the green light, they pursue the opportunity like a bat out of Hades. Although they are not a bat out of Hades, they don't need anyone else to push them. They jump and they run fast. Right, they're producers, they're not consumers. And and you, you become obsessed with it when god gives you the green light on something that he wants you to do in your business.
Speaker 1:Let's say that you own a restaurant and David and I have some buddies that we met. We were in what was it part of Montana where we in when we ate at the barrel the barrel restaurant there in Montana? It was Great Falls Montana, big Falls Montana, no, great Falls Great, was it Great Falls Montana? And one of the owners there brought us in and man, they have this breakfast and they have this thing called the trash can omelet. And they brought us in and they've got this basement thing and he brought us these trash can omelets. I'm telling you it was the best omelet I've ever put in my mouth. And I just think that the Lord gave this guide the call to start a restaurant and he got radical about pursuing the best omelets there were and I saw omelets on a menu I had never seen before and what I put in my mouth, it was incredible.
Speaker 1:So when God gives you a vision and he gives you like, hey, the go ahead, go down, start that restaurant and you're gonna start a pizza place or whatever, well, you have the best pizza. Like, pursue it, pursue it hard, right. So there are prayers. A kingdom entrepreneur is a prayer. A planner, a pursuer, pursuer, yes. And finally, a producer. They make things happen for those they serve. They help people by giving them true value and in return they receive monetary values, value that allows them to continue to bring and produce value. So they're always thinking producing, not consuming. They're not in business to make money. They're in business to bless people and they know that they will make money right. So, obviously, money is the carrot that gets you moving in the direction that God wants you to go. Once you're moving in that direction, don't think money again until you either made a lot of it or you didn't make enough, and then you can use money as a measuring stick. Should I keep doing this? Should I not? Well, the money will guide you, but you're always thinking about producing for the people, and when you do that, profit will chase you down. Okay, so those are the four things, that's the four identity traits of a kingdom entrepreneur. They're a prayer, a planner, a pursuer and a producer. On that foundation, there are three initiatives of a kingdom entrepreneur. Here are the three things that every kingdom entrepreneur should do that we get from the EMI. That we get right out of the EMI. That's what I was about to say.
Speaker 1:Number one invade Wherever God has burdened your heart and given you a nudge. Run to it. Dive in feet first. You don't put your feet in the water and see what the temperature is like. You do exactly what we're supposed to do. When God called the children of Israel to take over the promised land, he wanted them to invade it. That mindset of invasion is one that burns the boats after it lands on the shore. Right, we don't act like the spies. When God told the children of Israel to go into the promised land and they sent the spies, should we? What's it going to be like? Oh my God, we're afraid. If you do that, then you're going to refuse to take the land In Hebrews 10, the last few verses of Hebrews 10 says that we are not of those who shrink back in fear and I'm paraphrasing here but we're those who search forward by faith. The whole idea of a surge is just like just invade. It is.
Speaker 1:And this is where David and I were when we first started our business in 2003. We were real estate brokers and we got into the niche where that a bunch of other real estate brokers wanted to get into and they were already in it of selling foreclosed properties on behalf of banks because they had all these distressed assets they needed help with. When David and I got there to the very first conference we ever went to, there's probably 5,000 people and 4,000 of them were probably real estate brokers that were already in it and we didn't know anybody. We didn't know anything, we hadn't made any money, nothing. But there was this mindset inside of us like we are going to take over. And you know what? Within 10 years we were the biggest foreclosure brokers in the country, basically around the world, by God's grace.
Speaker 1:But it was this mindset of invasion, like we're not coming to this space to just participate, we're coming to take over, right? So that's the first thing that a kingdom entrepreneur will do. It's invasion. That's the initiative Number two exert. So you invade. Number one exert Number two. What do we exert? We exert godly influence in the place we've invaded. Okay, we now act as thermostats, not thermometers. A thermostat what's the difference between a thermostat and a thermometer? A thermometer simply reflects the atmosphere, it reflects what's in the environment around it, but a thermostat controls it, it regulates it, it regulates it. That's what we want to be like and that's where David and I found ourselves.
Speaker 1:Not only were we the biggest players in the space within a 10-year period, but we found that several of these asset managers and even other real estate brokers, when they would see us at these conferences, they'd come up and say, hey, can you pray for my family, can you pray for my kid? Because, by God's grace, we exerted godly influence in that space where we were, and we would talk to people and ask them about their families and how's your kid? You know all that kind of stuff and we'd pray for people and it gave us a reputation. We're here in NASCAR country, in Concord, so it's the home of all the NASCAR drivers and the race teams and all of these other things, and it's just north of Charlotte. Well, it's not a coincidence that NASCAR has not been overrun by the radical LGBTQ militia and the reason why and I won't give any names, but I know a lot of the presidents and a lot of the leaders of these race teams they exert their Christian influence and they say, no, we will not push that agenda, it's an anti-family agenda. And they even have sponsors that pull out. They have sponsors that say we want you to do a rainbow flag, or we want you to do this, or we want you to do that, or we want you to paint the car all black for BLM, and I was talking with presidents and they said we will not do that, even if you pull your sponsorship, we won't do it. And, of course, those people backed off because they exerted their influence. That's what we have to do as Christians and we have not been doing that, unfortunately. And so therefore, now the Starbucks of the world and the targets of the world and others will push ungodly influence. Yeah, so it's that mindset of invasion. It's that mindset. Then I'm going to exert kingdom influence in this place where I now am.
Speaker 1:And number three this is very important initiative of a kingdom entrepreneur is duplicate you invade, you exert, you duplicate, you duplicate more invaders and exerters. Okay, who then will duplicate more invaders and exerters? This is what we do in response to God's command, christ command to make disciples of all nations. This is what we do. We need to duplicate ourselves. It's not enough for you to just run a successful business. You need to be raising up other younger entrepreneurs who can also run successful businesses, and when you do that, you become the same type of person that Nehemiah was. It wasn't enough for Nehemiah To just go and rebuild the wall. Nehemiah then trained other leaders and he put other people in place so that he could go back and do his business. Okay, so that's what we want. You want to invade, you want to exert and you want to duplicate. That's very important. So let me give these to you again real quick.
Speaker 1:Okay, the four identity traits of a kingdom entrepreneur, taking out of the book of Nehemiah number one he's a prayer. Number two a planner. Number three a pursuer. Number four a producer. When you're a prayer planner, pursuer and producer on that foundation, you then go and here are your initiatives you want to invade that space, you invade that niche in your business. You want to exert Godly influence and then you want to duplicate yourself so that there are other invaders and Excerters who can come in and see God's kingdom take place in your business.
Speaker 1:Okay, jason, that's it. Own it or loan it. Ready, you ready for this one? Christmas music before Thanksgiving? Oh, own it every why I'm already listening to it. But you can't, you don't want to bypass Thanksgiving. You, sinful the anti-american. You tell me one person that exists who doesn't listen to Christmas music and think of, you know, thankful thoughts toward the savior of the world? Well, rocking around the Christmas tree? Well, no, whatever. Okay, I like Christmas music before Thanksgiving as well. But you got to. You got to be intentional about pouring into your kids and your family and your sphere of influence about Thanksgiving because it's so important. But the music does play a nice little ambiance in the back.
Speaker 1:Okay, subscribe rate. Review guys, hope you enjoy this. Reach out to us, let us know if there are things you want to hear about. Been brothers calm. You can go to any of our socials, but if you want to reach out to us, just hit been brothers calm, hit that contact button and Our fearless leader, deb, will get all those comments over to us. Okay, god bless you guys. See you next week, peace.