Join us as we talk with our personal business coach, Eric Beck, about how to end the year strong and prepare for an even stronger new year. In this episode, Eric will share the best mindset for growth and how to honor God in your business while building it to scale at the same time.
At the end, we'll give you a chance to take his cutting-edge Flagship Business Assessment for free! Click HERE to check it out. Use code SPARK to get it free.
And if you haven't downloaded our Benham Brothers app, click HERE. This app will give you access to years of Bible studies we've done that have helped us build our business and keep our families in tact at the same time!
Enjoy
Join us as we talk with our personal business coach, Eric Beck, about how to end the year strong and prepare for an even stronger new year. In this episode, Eric will share the best mindset for growth and how to honor God in your business while building it to scale at the same time.
At the end, we'll give you a chance to take his cutting-edge Flagship Business Assessment for free! Click HERE to check it out. Use code SPARK to get it free.
And if you haven't downloaded our Benham Brothers app, click HERE. This app will give you access to years of Bible studies we've done that have helped us build our business and keep our families in tact at the same time!
Enjoy
Welcome back to Expert Ownership. Okay, we are rounding out 2023. I know I'm dating this episode, but this is really good because, as we round out the year, we want to talk about goals, how to achieve, how to set goals, how to achieve goals and how to thrive in the midst of going after our goals and not sit there and drown and feel like, oh my gosh, I can't, I'm not achieving or whatever. All these things. Now Jason and I recorded in 2022, december, the 6th episode. You can go back and listen to that. We're not going to go back into the smart goals, which is how do you set goals? You want to set goals that are simple, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based. Actually, you said simple. It's specific, well, but it's also simple. But we did say simple in December 6th, but it is specific and simple, like it's not overly complex. Yeah, that's right, but we're not going to talk about the smart goals today. You can go back to that December 6th episode. You can listen to that. It's awesome. But today, jason and I said you know what we want?
Speaker 1:Our coach, eric Beck, on this podcast with us, because of all the people that Jason and I could have brought on board, could have hired, could have had coaching us. We chose Eric Beck and one of the reasons why he's he's almost like a Yoda. He doesn't look like Yoda because he's a beast. He does Spartan races in the 50 mile Spartan race through the mountains and the cold plunges and all that other nonsense which makes me slightly jealous. But he's really challenged Jason and I in multiple ways, multiple areas, just giving us what he calls anchor activities. These anchor activities have helped us accomplish our goals. I'm 48, we're 48 years old now. I've never had like a specific anchor activities in terms of the way that we built out our lives, based on Eric's training of David and Jason Benham, and so we were like Eric, come on board. We literally have not prepared. We have no show notes. You're sitting there in your Spartan shirt with your Viori hat in freezing cold Colorado.
Speaker 1:Eric, I want you just to go after it.
Speaker 1:How do you accomplish your goals? How do you break them down? How can these expert owners, these faith filled entrepreneurs, launch into greater freedom and success for 2024 as they set their goals here in the next few weeks? And then let me follow up with just I want to make sure that this podcast and if we're going to do a part two to this, or however we're going to do it that you make sure that people understand and that know about Founders Fire and the coaching program that David and I are part of and how they can get involved.
Speaker 2:So anyway, that's your intro. Oh, my man. Well, it's great. It's great to be back with you guys. Of course, you know the podcast is so important and it reaches so many people and what an amazing job you guys have done to plow the fields and really to stand up for faith filled entrepreneurs and the whole idea of work as worship, work as ministry man. We need it, we need it, we need it. It's just absolutely the most important thing. So, just honored to be here with you guys.
Speaker 2:And you know, really we want to start off with that. We want to start off with we have to build the way God builds. So if we're looking at the wisdom that's inherent in what God does and we model off of that, that is a great starting place for all of us. Sometimes we may think well, you know, I don't really know how to combine my faith with business and some people would say it's not even possible. Those are opposite things and it just shows you that we've left that realm for so long untended that people look at that field and say it's nothing but a bunch of weeds, there's nothing in there, and it's like, oh, there is, there is so much there. And thinking about structure, thinking about the new year, thinking about how we approach things. I know some people are like, oh man, a new year and goals. And you know they say all the gym memberships fall off by February 1, you know, and all that stuff. But I just want to speak faith over everybody hearing this right now. The new year is important.
Speaker 2:It says in Scripture that God is a God of seasons. In fact, in Genesis I was just reading Genesis one, one over. I don't know how many hundreds of times I've read it, but you know, sometimes the Lord just puts on your heart. Just read it again and I'm like, okay, genesis one one, here we go. And you know it was interesting to see that he says that he put the stars in the sky, he put the sun and the moon in there for signs and for times. And I was like, have I never read this before? You know it says later on, it says that summer and winter and spring and fall, these will never pass away.
Speaker 2:It matters that we follow cycles. You know now women know this intuitively, just because of their bodies, right. But for men we tend to kind of just blast through everything and get going into a modern culture. There's light, artificial light. You know, we could be up 24, seven. We can do things without reference to the season, but we shouldn't in a way, in a way.
Speaker 2:So what I mean by that is it's not a false starting place to say January one, and I wanna just kind of cut down that illusion that oh well, it's New Year's resolutions and blah, blah, blah. You know what it's important? It's important because I really feel like a key part of our faith is to be able to begin again. You know, jesus caught the woman, or was encountering the woman who was caught in adultery, and he basically was like begin again. Stop it, turn around, don't do that, begin again. You know the prodigal son story. He's eating at the pig trough, right, and it says and he came to his senses. To me, that's such a picture of what the God's spirit brings to us is the opportunity to start again, and in doing so we can drop all that perfectionism, we can drop all the pressure and all the other stuff and say, hey, let me get back to alignment with who God made me to be.
Speaker 2:I'm betting there's plenty of us that would say 2023 was tough. Yes, and I'm not gonna say that 2024 is gonna be easy, but I do think we are coming up on a lot of breakthroughs and a lot of change. You know, we came out of COVID, we've been going through all the culture, wars and all this sort of stuff and what we're seeing really is a complete breakdown of structure. First, to me, it was the breakdown of the family, maybe starting at least in America. Sometime in the 50s and 60s there started to be a fissure in the construct and the nature of family and you can see from there it goes into this area and this area sexuality, and then identity, genders, toxic masculinity and if you really zoom out, if you zoom out from all that, I think what you see is structure.
Speaker 2:The enemy is trying to get everybody to build on sand and when the sand doesn't hold up on the storm, we have collapse. And that's just what I feel like we're seeing is collapse here and collapse there, and some of us can think, oh no, that's terrible. But if you have this spiritualized to see it, I just wanna encourage everybody. You can't bend the iron when it's cold. It has to get heated up and it's getting heated up. It's legit getting heated up, and so we've got to see 2024 as an incredible opportunity and we'll talk about some of the ways to do that.
Speaker 2:But I just wanted to start off with a message of encouragement If we build God's way, if we stay faithful and we build on the rock, then the things that are really supposed to come true. And through us as you guys are such a great example of that of so clearly articulating this message it does happen and we all have a different role to play. But getting to that point where we're fully deployed in our area of operation, to kind of go military for a second, fully deployed there, all the equipment, all the ammo, all the resources, all the team and fully being able to transform that area, that patch of land that is a lot of weeds in the business world, but transforming that into something that is a magnificent, well-tended garden, is not only possible, it is the Great Commission.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'll be just starting with that. Let me give a quick scripture real quick, just thinking about okay, we're alive for such a time as this, right now, we're alive in 2023, rounding it out, headed into 2024. There should be no despair, hopelessness, fear inside of us, because we if you're listening to this podcast you were born for this moment. God could have put you at any point in history, at any country in history, yet he put you here in America for such a time as this. Psalm 128, verse one blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands, you shall be blessed and it will be well with you.
Speaker 1:Look, sometimes our idea of blessing and being well with us is different than God's idea of blessing and being well with us. But no matter what the circumstance, when you do it God's way just like Eric said, when we do things God's way Even in the midst like whether you were a person of God in Israelite in the midst of Babylonian captivity, or a person of God in Israelite underneath the Davidic kingdom, at the height of Israel's power you do things God's way. And he says in Psalm 128, 1 and 2, it'll be well with you. So we can just smile and just say, God, I'm going to do it your way in 2024. Now, eric, let's roll into how do we accomplish doing things God's ways in 2024 in terms of our goals and just achieving what we need to achieve that God has put in us.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I would say that the most important thing is to start getting our mind around relating to God as though he's a builder and just thinking how does he build? We know him as a savior, we know him as the king. You know, there's all those different personalities that he's revealed to us. But I just want to say, if you really want to see progress, think of God as a builder. How does he build? And it's interesting in Genesis 1, you know, it says that he formed Adam's body from the dust of the ground and then he breathed life into him. And I feel like it's so important to see that structure always precedes growth.
Speaker 2:So, if you feel stuck, or you felt stuck in 2023, a lot of business owners that come to us. We're taking them through the Founders Fire program. We all start in the same place. The same place is what is the vision God's put inside your heart for you personally? Why are you on the planet? And then second question is does your business align with those purposes? And anywhere it doesn't, we need to bring it into alignment. A lot of it probably does, but some of it may not.
Speaker 2:What I've found often is that when you bring that level of clarity. It's just like a master builder who says, hey, wait a minute, let's get out the blueprints and the plum line and like, let's make sure everything is true, let's make sure everything is level. And that process is so freeing because a lot of us feel like I certainly have felt like you know, I'm running really hard but I've got ankle weights on or I'm running in the snow or I'm running on the beach and it's like, whoa, it's so much more difficult. And when it says that his burden is easy and his yoke is light, we just go, yeah, for you, for Jesus maybe, but I'm laying down here, sweating and going, you know, working so hard. And the reality is that's a promise for us. Every promise that is spoken about or made that pertains to Jesus is for us, because we're the body of Christ, Christ in us, the hope of glory. And so when I think about that, I go practically what do we want to do? We want to get that alignment. Then we want to start to look at building from that, just like a master builder would build on that foundation. Right, we know those scriptures, right. It's like okay, how do I start to do that? You mentioned anchor activities earlier and I want to just key in on that because, as a concept, it's really about following orders.
Speaker 2:If you think about the times in your life where you're the most at peace, it could be great circumstances, and it likely is, but I want you to think about this. It could also be very hard circumstances and the reason is because when there's peace, there is a degree of simplicity. It could be forced on you in a crisis where you cannot choose what to do and you have to just do the next thing. Okay, you might think about this as like wartime. I've even heard stories of the population in London during the bombings in World War II. People came out of that for a period of six to 12 months and there was almost no psychiatric issues. Can you believe that? Talk about a traumatizing time, but actually what it is is. People felt necessary. You know, carrying the water down the tube to Mrs Jones had to happen, or she might not make it. Everybody's behavior now is necessary and while it was very traumatic in terms of the circumstance, in terms of the moment, there was peace. And I'm not saying the whole time was fun, Don't get me wrong, right, but there are times where we can feel that deep peace, and I'll tell you, it comes from not the good circumstances or the bad circumstances. It comes from necessary. Am I necessary? And that's what we're trying to do is we're trying to say what is necessary on a day to day, hour to hour basis for me to be in alignment with God's calling in my life, my role, in this case, in business, but it sure applies to my role in family, okay, or community, right, it's the same idea. What is necessary and this word has been bouncing around in my mind for a couple of weeks now Distraction, what's the opposite of being able to know what's necessary or be anchored, it's being distracted, and I don't know that this is the real definition, but I thought about that.
Speaker 2:I was like this traction. I don't have any traction, and a lot of us feel as though we are losing traction, and that's really the goal of the enemy. The enemy cannot take away our destiny, but if the enemy can get us distracted, Martha, Martha, you're worried about many things, but Mary has chosen the one thing and it will not be taken from her. I feel like a lot of us feel like we know what's right, we know what's good, but there's a loss of traction. And so the opposite would be the daily discipline of saying I'm going to start to block out time that I'm going to commit to once a week that's a half hour or it's a this, maybe it's twice a week.
Speaker 2:What you're starting to do is to say time is not free. I don't have free time. In fact, my time is not my own, because my life is my time and my life was bought with a price Jesus blood paid for my life. So I can't just spend it how I think it up to. It needs to be authorized. So I've got to take that approach right and build my time, build my life the way God does. And we know in John five, Jesus said I only do what I see the Father doing and he's always about his work and he shows the Son his work, all that, that awesome thing Right, and it's like okay, practical, practical take it and start to design it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, eric. I just sorry I'm interrupting real quick because what you're saying there was so important for Jason and me when we first brought you in and talking about like okay, look at you, who did God create you to be? The purposes of God in the human heart are like deep waters, but a man of understanding draws it out. Here's what's interesting Most business owners, most entrepreneurs, most high achievers, or even if you're a salary employee working for somebody, but you're a high achiever, you're working hard, you're a faith filled, you know believer trying to thrive in the marketplace. We are always thinking goals, moving forward, moving forward, moving forward.
Speaker 1:But you have to move backward in order to move forward. We're baseball players. If I'm going to throw a ball to home plate, I don't just thrust my my hand forward. No, I draw, I put the ball in my hand, I drop my arm, I pull it backward in order to launch it forward. Same thing when I'm swinging a bat, same thing when I'm jumping. Whatever it does, you have to move backward in order to move forward with force.
Speaker 1:So what you're saying, eric, is putting the discipline of that 30 minutes a day. Yeah, it may feel like a backward step, but it's actually not. It's necessary. You have to have that, and that's one of the things that you really trained us in was really taking that time analyzing it. So walk us through that, like hey.
Speaker 1:Before we do that, though, let me just say what's on the line if we allow ourselves to continue to be distracted, because Satan has a three-step plan of attack he distracts, he deceives and he divides. That's what he did with Eve, so he distracted her with the fruit right, then he deceived her into believing a lie, and then he divided her from her husband and he divided her from God. If we allow ourselves to be distracted okay, and we don't sit down and prioritize and we make sure that we get our goals in line and if we allow ourselves to be distracted, that leads to deception, which ultimately leads to division. It's division in your family, it's division from you and God. So that's what's on the line if we don't do something about this distraction.
Speaker 2:So, that being said, now, eric, you could go in back and continue to do this, yeah no, what you're saying is right, and the enemy is now doing it with AI and a bunch of neuroscientists and psychologists all employed to do it even more and even better. What if you could give a person everything they ever wanted, 24-7, in little snippets, and in that experience, all the content was amazing, but we lost our traction. See, that's the thing. What if that car has the fuel it's got the best fuel ever, but we never get the tires on, we don't get the traction. And that's what we're facing, right. So it's not just like, well, I'm not, you know, using social media for bad things in my family and it's this thing, and it's this thing, it's this good thing. Okay, great. The question isn't that. The question is Hebrews 5, are you training daily to discern good from evil? Are you putting into practice on a daily basis the concept of authorized work? Is, right now, what that's what I'm authorized to do. Is that what I'm authorized to do? And so?
Speaker 2:I think that question right, it changes the thing, because Jesus apparently could have done a really good thing in the pool of Bethesda and John 5. He could have healed everybody there, but apparently he just healed the one dude and that probably made some people truly upset. It maybe made him upset. He may have walked off we don't know and said Father, what about all those other people? I could have healed them too. And he was like I understand that, but this is where I'm working and that's what he says to the Centurion. I too am a man. Or the Centurion says to him I too am a man, under authority. And I say to this one, go when he goes, and this one stay. And he stays. And Jesus said that's faith.
Speaker 2:Understanding authority is a key to faith, and that's what we've got to do. We can't just lose traction and do a bunch of unauthorized good work. What we've got to do is to make a plan. We've got to make that plan and the best we can, an alignment with the purposes God put in our heart. You were talking about David, proverbs 20, verse 5, and bringing that alignment is where we get the power right. It says the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk. Oh man, it's not talk, it's power. Power comes from alignment. And again, I'm not a structural engineer or a mechanic, but you know what happens. When that transmission and that engine, the axle and wheels and everything is in alignment, you got something awesome going on right. But when there's misalignment or there is distraction, then you can have all the right parts but you don't yet have that integration.
Speaker 2:I used to use this example with clients about if you have an airplane sitting on the runway and right beside it the same exact airplane, but you took it apart, you took every single piece apart and it was a pile of parts. How many airplanes do you have? And of course, the answer is one. Because the other airplane isn't an airplane. It's disintegrated, right, it is not put together, it's not got alignment and because it doesn't have alignment, it doesn't have function. And because it doesn't have function, it doesn't do what it's destined to do, what it's purpose to do.
Speaker 2:And we can look at that and say, okay, that can't be me. I can't have a 2024 where I've got all the right pieces but I don't know how to put them together. So the practical outworking of it is following orders and those orders as a small step, and it's not an easy one, but it is a small step is saying God, here's this vision I know you've given me. Here are my goals and my KPIs that help me close the gap between where my business is and where I know full potential is. And so, as I'm working those out and I'm breaking those down into roles, I'm breaking those roles down into anchor activities Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, this day, that day, two or three hour blocks with essentials inside each of those.
Speaker 2:So then I know at that one moment I'm doing what Mary did, I'm choosing the one thing, because if I don't have it nailed down like that, what often happens is the enemy comes in and we get distracted, and it's like I'm not really fully present right now in this thing that I'm doing. And because I'm not, what happens to Martha? Well, the implication is it will be taken from her. Mary's chosen the one thing and it won't be taken.
Speaker 2:What is it saying, Corinthians? It says every man's work will be tested by fire, but if it remains, there's something about the staying power, like the sand and the rock. Well, the sand is not gonna remain, it's gonna get scattered everywhere, but the rock remains If you want your work to remain, and I know all of us do. But if we feel like, oh, I don't know what's happening, I guarantee you it's this. If we start talking to God, relating to God, listening to God, looking at God's law and his word and his created order as a builder, alignment boop comes right up Alignment, alignment, alignment, those anchor activities hey, I'm following orders and while that may sound to some of you overly structured, the result is not that it's freedom. Discipline brings freedom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. And two, what you just said was look at God as a builder also leads very well into the thing that I know that you did when you're building your business and your coaching program and what David and I did as we built all of our businesses. Every single day we spent time in God's word. Every single day we spent time praying and it was like our morning routine, and I would just encourage every entrepreneur who's listening to this you have to get on a Bible reading plan in 2024 to either get you through the whole Bible or to get you through the New Testament or whatever, but to make sure that you're spending daily time in the word and then looking at it through the eyes of what Eric just said, looking at it through the eyes of God as a builder, and watch what happens. Things are gonna pop out in scripture. That will truly help you build your business.
Speaker 1:So there are two very specific things I want you to click as you're listening to this. You can go into the show notes. You can click two links. Number one you can click the Bentham Brothers app. You can get on our Bible reading plan. We have thousands of people that are on this Bible reading plan with us. You can go on the Bible app and they have phenomenal plans if you want to get through Proverbs or just the New Testament or whatever. But you know, if you want to be on ours, go ahead and just click that super simple, super easy. And we record tons of. We have Thousands of podcasts on every book of the Bible. That's actually in there and you can listen to it. But we take it from an entrepreneur angle or a workplace angle.
Speaker 1:But the second link I want and I, eric, I want you to talk about this is what you did with Jason and me right out of the gate, you gave us the flagship assessment. So this is like up, this is like if you're saying to myself, okay, well, how do I just stop and take a step back and like, how do I get alignment? Well, eric built what he calls the flagship assessment and and this is the ability for you to take a look at, where are you at With your vision and your mission? Where are you at with the purposes of God for your business? Where are you at in your business, specifically with some of the KPIs, which are your key performance indicators that come up, or where you at in the marketplace in terms of like what? What is it that you are doing and is that aligned in?
Speaker 1:This flagship assessment is really amazing and, eric, I love it. Yeah, I mean, you put it on your website. You make it for free, of course. The Benton Brothers app is free. Walk us through what people get if they click on that flagship assessment. Why is it important? Why should they?
Speaker 1:do I'm surprised you're giving it away for free now, eric. I mean, that's like a $1500 deal. I just like what are you?
Speaker 2:doing. Well, that authorized work, you know. You know it's like when it, when you get the word, you got to do it and yeah, that's what we really have wanted. Just bless as many people as we can. I feel like for a lot of us in business it's easy to get lost and have a sense of I'm not quite sure where I am. And if you're the captain of a ship, it could be two employees, just yourself, it could be 20. It could be 500.
Speaker 2:I think a question that we always have to ask as captains is what's our navigation? What's happening right now? Where exactly is the ship? Where's the wind and the current and the whole? You know, analogy goes on from there. But if we leave that captain's chair and we're no longer navigating against the compass, which is our vision, and that rudder and those sails, if we, if we leave that and we go down in the boat, as my mentor Early on Michael Gerber would say, if we're working in the business and not on the business, then who's guiding that ship? And it is not enough to put our head down and just work. It's not because as leaders, we've got to be in that position of leadership, casting that vision, as David and Jason have written in their book so masterfully. We have to inspect what we expect we got to be building right. And so the flagship is a way to say okay, let's just stop for a second. Probably takes you 20 or 30 minutes to take it.
Speaker 2:Yes, no questions, not very hard, you don't need to look anything up and just actually look at. Well, there is your business and and figuring out four different measure points Is it systemized? Because if it's not systemized, it's not hand-offable, it's not scalable, it's not growable. I'm trapped inside it, right? So we've got to start with that. Is it? Is there real clarity?
Speaker 2:The second piece is is it scalable? If the volume doubled, what would happen to that area of the business? Obviously the third area is it performing? Is it doing? Do we want to replicate it, even if it's just you making it be successful? Do we want to replicate it? And then the final one is can it really align in the way that we are talking about? Is it strategic?
Speaker 2:So if you look at your sales through those four questions, if you look at your marketing, your leadership, your management, your market position, etc, etc, right, this gives you a one-year roadmap of not, and again, it's not like, hey, well, go to this other thing. No, it is the roadmap. It is 12 months of business development to understand, from a spiritual standpoint, how to bring my business and my leadership Because we work on the Ferrari and, but we also work on the race car driver, we work on the boat, we also work on the captain but how to bring those into alignment. If you want to do this, we would love for you to get it.
Speaker 2:If you go to Founders flagship comm, that's the place to find it, founders flagship comm and use the code spark s par k, so that you can get that clarity, because I feel like, again, the enemy is trying to distract us and to, as Jason was just saying, take that same approach with us and we can stand against that bully and we can throw some elbows and we can gain some ground. And I say that with humility because I know the scriptures about and don't get too crazy on that. In the Lord we want to do battle, not on our own strength, but also he put in us the heart of a warrior and we can bring freedom to the slaves. We can bring freedom to our team and to our market and to everybody that we touch.
Speaker 1:So that's so good. That's awesome, eric. Okay, so everybody, we're putting the link with the code in the show notes. You can just click. It'll be super simple for you. So today, very simply, I said, if you want to get just the breakdown of goals and the smart goals, go to our December 6th episode, hit it, listen to it, come back, listen to this one, listen to this one first, go back, hit that one, listen to this one again. And then, eric, I want to ask you, I really think we need a second part. I want you to come back. Let's, let's do this next week. We're doing this on the fly, like you're gonna.
Speaker 2:I don't know your schedule looks like. Well, it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1:I want to get you but here's what I want you to do. I want to get Jason and me out of the picture. I want you just to get after 45 minutes to an hour. Coach us, give us some of your coaching so that we can launch this new year With as much momentum as we can possibly get you got it.
Speaker 2:We'll do this guys. We'll do this right here. We'll do systemize to get to automation, so your work is easier. Grow and scale so you get to full potential, so your work is better, so that you can exit or sell to hit maximum m-tech. So you got a easier, better future. Let's do that.
Speaker 1:We're gonna show you that okay, if you want an easier, better future, then you're gonna listen to next week's podcast as well. Okay, we don't have time for owning it alone. We're gonna move on. But hey, merry Christmas. Yeah, that's my so thankful for the birth of Christ. Yeah, and just never forget. He announced his birth To the lowest end worker on the third shift. That's right keeping watch of their flock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like so be faithful.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter where your business is, doesn't matter what you do for a living. You be faithful because God loves that and that's where he will meet you, right there, in that faithfulness. So we will see you next week. God bless you, guys. You.