Profit to a business is like air to a lung - you cannot exist without it. In today's episode, we dive into the four phases of financial development that will ensure you make the impact God has destined for your business.
Enjoy.
If you haven't read our best-selling book EXPERT OWNERSHIP grab your copy HERE.
Profit to a business is like air to a lung - you cannot exist without it. In today's episode, we dive into the four phases of financial development that will ensure you make the impact God has destined for your business.
Enjoy.
If you haven't read our best-selling book EXPERT OWNERSHIP grab your copy HERE.
All right, we're back here at Jason's well gosh, the back of Jason's house, which is the studio which we love. It's a guest suite. It's a beautiful day in Charlotte, north Carolina. Today we're going to talk about the four phases of financial development. This is basically the wisdom of this comes from 20 years of our experience as entrepreneurs, but also, if it's combined, gosh, it would be 40 years. But also we've run into a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners.
Speaker 1:One of my earliest mentors back when I was with the Boston Red Sox this is David. Back when I was with the Boston Red Sox, I stayed above his garage with my wife. We had our first son, bailey, there in Fort Myers, florida, in the spring training facility of the Boston Red Sox, and just outside the facility was my good friend, lanny Moore Jr, who he and his wife, paula they were incredible mentors to us, and Lanny currently has a very large company in multiple states and I'm very proud to actually now be part of his executive leadership team, which is pretty awesome. But one of the things that he taught me early on is that there are phases of financial stewardship. There are phases of and I don't want to just isolate it to finances, but it deals primarily with it. Well, I mean, we're fateful entrepreneurs here. And what's the scorecard for every entrepreneur? The money that you make, yeah, and the impact, right, and the impact that you have. If you're not making money, you can't make the impact. Exactly, it's like a profit to a business is like air to a lung, that's right, you know. It's like try to run a marathon without breathing, it just doesn't happen. Only breathe out the whole day.
Speaker 1:I was talking to somebody the other day and they were saying they said you know, hey, it was a young college student. They're like you know, I talk with a lot of students and some students really want to make money and then other students just want to serve God, they don't care about money. And I stopped her in her tracks right there and I said you know, we all have to make money. God uses money as the carrot that gets us moving in the right direction, because even the people that want to serve God and aren't worried about money, they can't survive without money. So just because you're an entrepreneur or somebody who is actually interested in making money doesn't mean that you are like less than someone who just wants to serve God. Right, there is no such thing as a missionary who goes out on the mission field without being able to be funded by somebody. So somebody's got to be making some money. And the key is what is your motivation and what is your intention? What is your motivation for it and your intention on using it? That's right and that's where we want to launch into the four phases of financial development.
Speaker 1:And lots of this comes from Lanny Moore Jr, pouring into Jason and me. Lanny was so great because here we were young professional baseball players. Lanny was an entrepreneur, owned a lumber company and was talking with us about some of his goals and what he wanted to bring in on a monthly basis and I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't know people made that in a lifetime, you know like. But he wanted it for impact, yeah, and he was like guys, it's not just for me, it's like here's the things that I want to do with this money. And it wasn't just providing for his family, it was also promoting God's kingdom, and so it really put something in birth. It birthed it into me and David, along with another guy. If you ever read our book uh, bold and broken, and you read our book expert ownership. You'll know about David Dry and he was a guy who totally, you know, his whole goal was transfer the wealth of the wicked to righteous hands. He wanted that wealth and he wanted to help others to get that wealth and he wanted to do it so that, so that he could punch the devil right in the face.
Speaker 1:So give them the four phases, jason, all right. So here we go. Here's your four phases, and we're going to go back and we're going to look at each one Preparation phase one, production phase two, provision. Oui, all right. Promotion, preparation, production provision and, ultimately, promotion and promotion. What we mean is impact. Okay, so let's look at preparation. So what do you do during the preparation years? You know when it comes time to start thinking about your financial development and you know chances are good if your faith-filled entrepreneur you're listening to this you might already have been past the preparation phase and that's fine. But we're gonna go backwards real quick, because it's always good to make sure that we cover all our bases, especially if you have kids or grandkids. Yes, this is what you need to be teaching your kids in preparation phase, as it relates to preparation for financial development.
Speaker 1:This is where you learn principles and paradigms. Principles, principles are so incredibly important. You know, a value is a one word description of what's important. A principle is a sentence that ties values to action. So if faithfulness is one of your values, like I always wanna be faithful, david and I say, wrap it into a principle, be faithful in little. Right Now, that sentence, that principle there, ties my value to action. So, in all the little things that I think might not make much of a difference, I need faithfulness there. Why? Because we know that God looks at that. How did David prove himself faithful to be king of Israel? That's right On the shepherd fields. That's right, scooping the poop, bringing them beside the still water. He was faithful in the little, so God made him faithful in the big. So I'll give you another principle tied to a value.
Speaker 1:The value would be generosity, and the principle that we put in our first business was produce more in value than you take and pay. Yeah, okay. So generosity, it wasn't just about giving of money, but it's also giving of yourself, giving the best. So the value is generosity, which is straight out of scripture, and the principle that tied that value to action we produce more in value than we take and pay. And when you have that principle, actually embodying that value, you're actually operating by proper biblical paradigms. So a principle is the way you act, a paradigm is the way you think. Yes, that's why we always say mindset comes before methods. So, if you wanna make money, get the right mindset. So what are the paradigms? Well, there's a lot of different paradigms, but let David and I share with you a couple. Okay, here's the paradigm that is the best for you to teach your kids.
Speaker 1:You're a minister. Right where you are, you're on mission and your work is worship. You're a minister, you're on mission, your work is worship, and it doesn't matter if they're in school or if you're in school or you're in a first level job. You're working at Chick-fil-A and you know good and well, you're 17 years old. Right, you're a minister. If you know Christ and this is our audience faith-filled entrepreneurs, and not just entrepreneurs, but those believers that are in the workplace If you know Christ, you're a minister. You're on mission. Now, it doesn't matter where you are, you're on mission. We didn't say you're overseas, you're building a house in Honduras or you're sharing the faith in Africa. No, you're on mission right there, chick-fil-a. Yeah, right, where you are, you're on mission, as in the cubicle at B of A or wherever you're working, or you're on mission as the, or as Lanny would be. You know, he's running the lumberyard in Fort Myers, florida, and in Gulfport, mississippi, right, you're on mission and then your work is worship. That's Colossians 3 in Ephesians 6.
Speaker 1:Now, why is this important? You know, obviously, if you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you'll remember the feeling of growing up in church, especially Baptist church, and there was this phrase being called to the ministry, right, and that meant well, I'm not going to work in the for-profit space, I'm actually going to work for a church, or I'm going to go be a missionary, right, and I'm going to live off of someone else's dime. And so David and I discovered very quickly that hey, no, no, no. That paradigm is calling is getting people out of the workplace, the for-profit space, and putting them into the nonprofit space, and they shouldn't be there. They should stay right where they are and be full-time ministers right there in the real estate industry, right there in the banking industry, right there in the tech industry, unless they're specifically called by God to go do that, which is exactly. And then, in that case, we in the for-profit industry in the area are supposed to be provided for them. That's right. But what we are trying to get to is that just because you are in the workplace does not mean you are not a missionary. You are Now, you're a minister, you're on mission, your work is worship.
Speaker 1:This is all preparation phase. So four phases of financial development. Preparation, it's all about mindsets. Get the principles down, get the paradigms down. Okay, that is the first phase of financial development. Second phase production. This is where David and I found ourselves in 2003. We already had the mindsets and we did have to grow into those. Of course, you know you never stop growing in the preparation phase, but we did have the right mindset, by God's grace.
Speaker 1:And when it comes to production, you're focusing on two things talents and skills. Talent is God-given. Skill is man-given. Talent is something that God gives to you and you just exercise it. Skill is something that you can learn. Talent is something that's born on the inside. Skill is something you develop on the outside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in Ecclesiastes, chapter 10, it says if the axe is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed. But with skill comes success. In other words, it's better that you spend more time sharpening the axe, because you're going to use a lot less effort than it is to sit there and take a dull axe and just chop away with everything that you've got. And so, what that skill means, let me take you to Isaiah, chapter 48, verse 17.
Speaker 1:It says I am the Lord, your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. And if you've ever been to a live surge event, you've heard me speak this before. This is David, and I say the word the Hebrew word for teach in that particular passage of Scripture. It actually means to train up and develop skill sets. And the word profit doesn't mean money, it actually means to bring value. So the original Hebrew of Isaiah 48, 17 says I am the Lord, your God, who trains you to develop skills that bring value. And in a free market with a free economy, what follows value is profit. So that's the way of the cross, that's the way of God is you are to train yourself to develop skills.
Speaker 1:Now, god gives you talents and abilities. There are certain things and personality types that he's given to you. That's why I think it's important you take in the personality test. It's important to do all the working geniuses. These are awesome things, but that's God given. But then what you have to do is say, okay, now, what am I currently doing right now and how do I develop skills so that I can bring more value to the area of work that I'm doing currently, right now, or to my customer base right now?
Speaker 1:And the greatest skill that you can ever learn is emotional intelligence, in terms of being good at relationships in business. Now, some people are born with a talent. They're just people, people, right, they're just really good. But they still have to grow in emotional intelligence as well and learn a skill for it. But everybody can grow in their skill and one of these days we should do another podcast on emotional intelligence, talking about self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. If you get good at those four things, I'm telling you, it can help you a lot. And it starts with self-awareness.
Speaker 1:But the production phase is all about talents and skills. What are you good at and what can you get good at, and how can you wrap skills around that? Another thing in the production phase are the 3Ds of wealth creation. David and I always call this. This is inside of production. We call this discipline, diligence, determination the 3Ds of wealth creation. Discipline, doing what you don't want to do to accomplish what you want to accomplish. Diligence, the consistent application of discipline even when you can't see the results. Determination you got to have a want to. How bad do you want it? Okay, in the production phase, whenever it comes time for you to start producing and making money, how bad do you want it? That is so incredibly important. So, phase one preparation. Phase two production. Phase number three this is where it gets really fun.
Speaker 1:We call this provision. Actually, I say we call this, lanny calls this provision. What do we mean by provision? We're talking about not just providing for your family and future generations, we're talking about providing for others as well, and provision is very good. This is where we get into.
Speaker 1:Now. What do you do with your money? You have the right mindsets, which you've prepared yourself. Well, you've produced and now you've got money coming in. Now let's start thinking about provision. What does this start with? First, it starts with scaling your business through systems. So how am I gonna provide better tomorrow than I'm providing today? Well, you can't do it, apart from systems. You know, all good businesses are systems dependent, not people dependent. So start with systems, and when you scale through systems, you'll see that money will start to come in and your business itself becomes a source of passive income. That's where I lead to number two. Did you wanna say something about systems? I was just gonna say about passive income. Yeah, so that's.
Speaker 1:Number two in provision is active to passive. You have to consistently be thinking the active income that I make from the work that I do, I need to turn that into passive income from the investments that I make. If you think like that, then what you'll do is you won't live to the limit of your active income. So let's just say ballpark, you're making 20K a month. You're not living at 20K a month, you're living at 10K a month and you're taking that other 10K and you're socking it away for investment purposes so that one day you can make good investments and those investments can start making passive income for you. And that's obviously that's gross. That's not taking into consideration tax, inflation and everything.
Speaker 1:But one of the most important things in Proverbs, chapter 27, and this is in the active to passive, this is in the provision phase. It says in Proverbs 27, the last few verses of Proverbs 27, it says no, well, the condition of your flocks, pay attention to your herds. That's your active income, that's shepherding income For riches do not last forever and does a crown endure to all generations. In other words, the money you make from that active income isn't gonna last forever. It goes on and says when the grass is gathered in and the new growth appears, that's one full revenue cycle. Then it says the goats will provide with the price of a field In the excuse me, the lamb's wool will provide for your milk, for your maidens, and the goats with the price of a field. In other words, your active income needs to be split so that part of it provides for your household but the remaining part of it is to be aggressively invested to buy the field.
Speaker 1:So in the Bible times, active income was shepherd income, passive income was land ownership. So he's saying take a portion of your active income and make sure which would be the goats. Those are gonna provide you with the price of a field. Which one would you rather be? The shepherd's trading time for money all day or the landowner collecting lease payments from the shepherd for grazing rights?
Speaker 1:So that's where, whether you're an entrepreneur or a W2 worker or just an independent contractor, sole proprietor, whatever it is, do your dead level, best to live on a portion so that you can, during the provision years, you've already established that you can create. You're a producer, that's right. You're a producer. You're bringing value. You've developed. You not only have talent, but you've also developed some skills. Now you're making money and now you're not just making money enough to survive. You can actually thrive. During this year this is your provision years you need to get your active income to transition to passive income so that at some point, lord willing, your passive income meets or exceeds your active income. And that's what makes you a sea entrepreneur. You're a sea apreneur when your passive income exceeds your living expenses.
Speaker 1:Now what? David and I have always encouraged entrepreneurs and this is what we did ourselves don't buy your nice stuff out of active income, buy it out of passive income. So we both had goals of getting really nice lifted trucks. Well, we didn't get those trucks until we were I'm a 40, what? 40 something years old, because we had, we had some passive income goals. We're like we want to get to this level of passive income before we get ourselves the exact trucks that we want, at whatever price it was. It didn't matter at that point because our passive income would cover it. So let that be a goal for you buy your nice stuff out of your passive, not your active.
Speaker 1:Now you may say, well, what am I supposed to do with passive income? Okay, we're not going to get into that in this podcast, but if you ever have a chance to go, listen to us at Life Surge, at any of the Life Surge events there's going to be a 24 this year and this is 2024. So I'm dating this episode. But you're going to hear all about stocks and trading in real estate and you're going to learn from some different experts and they give you opportunities to go to classes and all that stuff. And this isn't pushing Life Surge, but what this is saying is that at Life Surge, we are part of a group of people that go out and do this type of training and it's really helping a lot of people across the country. So those were the two areas of passive investing, but you can do lots of different passive investing, but I just wanted to throw those out there, okay, so that's provision.
Speaker 1:So four phases of financial development phase one, preparation. Phase two, production. Phase three, provision. And phase four is promotion. And what we mean by promotion is impact. This is where you have an opportunity to give like you've never given before. You start a nonprofit. You're promoting God's kingdom agenda.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because that's what he ultimately wants to do. God wants to promote his kingdom through you. It's all about God's glory. That's why in the Bible, he promises the covenant promise to Abraham was I will bless you. And then he says and I will make you a blessing. See, that's the key. God doesn't just provide for you, but he also wants you to promote for him. Yeah, now, god doesn't need us to do any of that, but he's chosen to use us. The heavens declare the glory of God and sky shows the firmament, or sky shows the work of his hands. But he also uses humans to promote and build his kingdom. That's what he wants to do, yeah, so now we're talking.
Speaker 1:The promotion phase is the promotion of God's kingdom agenda on the earth. You're already providing for your family. You're providing for others. You've got a passive income coming in. Now, what is the impact or what is the promotion of God's kingdom agenda that God has specifically called you to do in your city? And what you need to know is the building of a business is promoting God's kingdom right? We're not saying that you have to go out and do something different because it might be you opening up another vertical in your business. But whatever it is, your mindset is always I want to promote God's kingdom agenda through whatever I do in business, through whatever I do in my work, because if promotion of God's kingdom agenda is not at the forefront, then you need to hear. This provision, which is phase three provision, can easily become an idol where you're just constantly thinking about making the next investment so that you can buy the boat or you can pass down something to your kids or whatever. That can become your idol, and you don't want that to be your idol. Well, how do you keep provision of your family and future generations from becoming your idol? What's promotion Promotion of God's kingdom agenda on the earth, and what does that mean for you? I'll tell you the best that I've seen this and David, I'm gonna let you take it from here.
Speaker 1:Eli and Dasha Asaev in Pennsylvania. They are doing something as kingdom-minded entrepreneurs I've never heard of before. I call them the ACE team because they're Russians Asaev would be a Russian name and this young couple four children in state college Pennsylvania. They own a company called Nexon Construction and they have chosen that, in beginning in Q2 of 2024, they are donating the entire rest of the year to an initiative called Serve 2024. They're keeping all of their employees in place and they're taking the profit of their company and they are going to serve in the city. They've partnered with multiple churches, multiple organizations, where their employees and their profit are going to be used to serve their cities. Now what are they going to do with their existing customer base and their clients? They have developed some amazing affiliated partnerships and arrangements to where, not only will these folks that they're currently doing business for going to be taken care of, but, even better, it's pretty amazing what these folks are doing, and I'm just so proud to even have mentored them for a year. I got a chance to mentor them for a year. They were kind of mentoring me, but you would think, see, what I love about Eli is that that vision has been in his heart for a while, and so he was always like this is the way that I want to do it. I want my people to serve without pay in so many different areas of the city and I'm going to pay the bill Right, like holy cow. He had promotion of God's kingdom, as they're on the forefront. As a part of his vision and because of that, god has given him abundant provision. So here we go, yeah, and I'm actually coaching Vitaly Glushok, who runs his business, and without Vitaly, eli would be nothing. So let me just tell you that. And without Maria, vitaly would be nothing. That's right, we go into that. They're amazing folks. The whole crew there in Pennsylvania is just so awesome.
Speaker 1:So the four phases of financial development preparation, production, provision, promotion Remember, in preparation, you're learning principles and paradigms. Mindsets always come before methods. In production, we're looking at talents and skills and we're making sure that you're serving people and being good at relationships. In the provision phase, you want to make sure that you're scaling your business through systems, you know, and then you're really focusing on active to passive. Take that active income, turn it into passive and then, when it comes to promotion, promoting God's kingdom agenda over your own. This is where you can serve and give abundantly. And these four phases of financial development are something that we pulled straight out of the scripture. Lanymore helped us understand it and it's just something fantastic that you can apply to your own life and business as well.
Speaker 1:All right, I love it, jason. Own it or loan it. Dark chocolate 60%. Well, I mean, I'd own it if you thrown it into like a Ranger cookie mix kind of thing, but you can't do that. It's too much sugar. This is the new year, you're not doing that. Yeah, let's get. I'm an 85% dark chocolate guy. 85? That's too much. How about 72? 72 is really good, it tastes good, but man, 85 is where it's at. 85 is too stupid. Dip a little bit of it into some sun butter.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're saying loan it. You're going to loan the 60% to your deli chocolate chips. You're going to loan those. You're not going to keep them. Well, I mean, yeah, it's just context. So you're an idiot. Yeah, all right. Well, hey, subscribe, rate and review. Hopefully this is a blessing to you. And if you ever want to hear from us, just reach out to us on social media, hit us on Instagram or Facebook or even Twitter. And, heck, you could even go to bennonbrotherscom and hit the info at bennonbrotherscom email and our fearless, wonderful leader, deb. She always pushes stuff over to us and we love hearing from you guys. And maybe, maybe there's something we need to cover in a podcast that we know nothing about and you know a lot, so at least email us so that we can learn it. All right, god bless you guys. Can't wait to talk to you next week, peace.