Expert Ownership Podcast
Expert Ownership Podcast
Defining True Profit
Are you truly wealthy if your bank balance is full but your heart is empty? Join us as we dive into the teachings of the Bible on money, riches, and wealth—where true profit isn't found in financial abundance but in the richness of life and peace bestowed by God.
In this episode, we dissect the essence of value creation, marketing, sales, and value delivery within the context of a life and business which brings true profit!
Enjoy!
Hey, welcome back to the expert ownership podcast. This is Jason. Today we're talking about a really fun topic. We're talking about true profit and defining true profit. David and I are on a speaking tour with a group called Life Surge, and we talk about profit. David and I, our job is to lay down a biblical foundation for wealth, and then what we always say is we like to tell people that your need for income positions you for impact. Like God hardwired all of us with a need and a desire, a need to work in, a desire for reward, and that's called cultivation. Working for a reward, it's cultivation and uh, and it's good. Your desire for reward is actually a good thing, but it can totally spin out of control, right? So that's why I wanted to dive into Isaiah 48. And we're going to specifically be in verse 17 and 18. You don't have to go there yet, because I'll get there in just a second, but I want to talk about what true profit is.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, before we talk about true profit, did you know there are more verses on money, riches and wealth than any other specific topic topic in the Bible? Isn't that crazy? Yeah, there are more verses on money, riches and wealth. Why is that? I mean, think about it. Why would there be so many Bible verse? There's like over 2,500 verses that talk money, riches or wealth. Because it represents your security. Yeah, it represents the thing that can sustain you. Yeah, it's exactly right, it represents your security. That's why it's called financial security. But are we supposed to find our security and money? No, no. Who are we supposed to find our security? In the Lord? Yeah, the Lord. So God talks a lot about the thing that can take away what's rightfully his security. That's his and his alone. We shouldn't give it to our money. We shouldn't give it to wealth. We shouldn't give it to riches. Okay, so the Bible talks a lot about that and what we see in the Bible, when you learn about money, riches and wealth, we learn what true profit is.
Speaker 1:True profit is not the surplus of money that you have in your bank, your bank account, at the end of the month Okay, it's not just now. There's a component of it that is that. Yeah, that matters. Yeah, true profit is anything that leads to life. Where do we get that? Mark 8.36 tells us what does it profit a man to gain the whole world. So that's being financially profitable, but forfeit his soul. So he was financially profitable, but he wasn't truly profitable. So it's not truly profitable.
Speaker 1:Truly profitable, true profit is peace. What would it matter if you made let's just say that you made a million dollars a year. You know, in your high position and whatever organization you're in and you're in the C-suite and you're making a million dollars a year, but your marriage stinks, your daughter won't talk to you. Yeah, it's like, dude, you'd give all that up, you hadn't made one of your. Yeah, you hadn't made one of your kids' games in two years because you're so busy. You know like that's not true profit is peace. It's like what we really want is not the money in our hand or the money in our bank account. What we really want is the sense of fulfillment and peace that comes along with a life well-lived that's true profit and having a relationship with God Almighty. So when we come to the end of our life, our possessions aren't given over to the wicked, they're not given over to other people. We recognize our greatest possession is eternal life, that we get to spend forever in eternity. That's true profit. That's what Mark 836 tells us. But now there is a financial side to profit that God wants us to have.
Speaker 1:Like I said earlier, god created us to cultivate, which means that we work for reward. He hardwired us so that we know that we need to work, whether we're in the for-profit space or the nonprofit space, and we know that when we work we want reward. I mean, do you think when God put Adam in the garden and told him to cultivate, do you think that Adam dug in the ground? Cultivate means to acquire and develop, so there's resources in the ground that Adam was supposed to dig and get and develop them for his use. Do you think that Adam would have been jazzed up if he just dug and dug and dug but nothing came up? There was no reward for his work. No, that was the curse of Cain that Cain would dig and dig and dig but nothing would come up for him. That was the curse for Cain killing his brother. Now, the curse for Adam, the curse of work, was that work would become really tough. It'd become difficult, but we were always created to work. We were always created to cultivate, to work for reward.
Speaker 1:But the desire for reward is actually a very good thing. Why? Because God wants us to provide for our families. That's right, our job is he just doesn't want you to fall in love with the result of your work. That's exactly right. The desire for reward is good, it's actually inbuilt. But he doesn't want you to fall in love with the reward and he certainly doesn't want you to see the reward or the money as the source of your security. Yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1:But we do have a twofold purpose here on the earth to provide and promote. We provide for our families and future generations. We provide for ourself because we don't wanna be dependent on anybody. First, thessalonians four tells us we don't wanna be dependent on anybody. We need to be able to work with our hands. It is a spiritual mandate that we are to work that we're in and it says if we don't work, we don't eat. Okay, so we have to provide for our families and future generations. But we're also supposed to promote God's kingdom agenda on the earth. And we do that through the work that we do. When we make our work, worship, when we do that, guess what's going to follow? We're going to be profitable. We'll not just make the money, but we'll also have the peace that goes along with it. So true, prophet is peace. God wants us. But there is a financial aspect to prophet. He just wants us to focus on eternal rewards or the monetary reward. So everybody got that. Now that's where we find ourselves in Isaiah, chapter 48.
Speaker 1:The backstory is that Israel was truly blessed by God. They were a nation that stood apart, they were the crown jewel of the Middle East, and God did that because he wanted people to look at the nation of Israel and go, hey, who's their God? They worship the guy they call Yahweh and he's the God that supposedly created everything. Well, maybe, if they're that blessed, we should want to be blessed too. So let's make their God our God. You see, god did that on purpose, so that the world may know that I am God. Like that is the whole reason why God chose Israel. I'm going to use them as an example so the world will want to serve me. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Now Israel was the crown jewel and things were going great. Doing things God's way always pays off. Again, it doesn't always pay off in this life, but a lot of times it does. But we know that it will pay off in the next life.
Speaker 1:But now Israel was blessed. They were blessed monetarily. They were blessed in their land. They were blessed in their commerce. They were blessed in every way because God was blessing them, because they were serving the Lord. But then Israel started to think that their own strength got them where they were. And now God knew that he was going to have to take them down. He just knew it. Remember God's either going to be your partner or your opponent. It's your choice. It's either he's going to partner with you because of your humility or he's going to be your opponent because of your pride. It's your choice. So let's stay humble. Now God was going to become the opponent to Israel, and so God rebuked them through the Prophet Isaiah. In the middle of that rebuke, in Isaiah 48, in the middle of this hey, you guys have forgotten me. I'm the one that taught you to be profitable, and you've forgotten me now and I'm going to have to punish you. And we know that this was leading up to their ultimate captivity in Babylon.
Speaker 1:We see verse 17, which is one of the key Pinnacle verses of all when it comes to money, riches and wealth. In the Bible. It says this thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel I am the Lord, your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. That verse right there, just hold on to that. I am the Lord, your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. You see, the word teach there in that verse means to train, specifically to train to develop skill sets. The word profit, it doesn't just mean money, it means to become valuable. So if we were to say that verse again, it's I am the Lord who trains you to develop skill sets that make you valuable and what follows value, prophet, prophet. But God is saying here in this verse don't focus on profit, focus on value, and when you do that, you will never fall in love with your prophet.
Speaker 1:See, god has called us remember I said earlier to provide and promote, to provide for our families and future generations and to promote God's Kingdom Agenda on the earth. What that looks like is income and impact. God wants us all to have impact in our lives, but we have to make an income. I mean, I'm talking like even the person who feels called to the mission field and goes overseas to, you know, minister, to people. The first thing that they have to do, the very first thing that they have to do is to figure out how I'm going to provide for myself and my family. So, yeah, it's through a non-profit model, but they still have to figure out the money situation, because God has called you to provide Period, but he's also called you to promote His Kingdom Agenda on the earth. It looks like income to impact. We want to have impact. If impact isn't on our radar, we can easily fall in love with income and we don't want to do that. That's why we focus on impact, to keep us from falling in love with income. But focusing on impact is making sure that our eyes are on the eternal reward more than the monetary reward. However, we've got this great verse that shows us I'm the Lord, I want you to make money, I'm going to train you to become valuable and and you are going to take that value and you're going to make money with it. So in our expert ownership program, we teach four steps. Obviously, we have a 12 step program in expert ownership, but in the middle of those 12 steps are four very key steps.
Speaker 1:Okay, value creation, marketing, sales, value delivery. When you start a business, you want to do anything, even if you're a person that doesn't own a business, and you want to go to work? Okay, value creation, what solutions can I bring to what problems that exist? What's the problem you're having and what solution can I bring? Even if you're not a business owner and you're going in as an employee, that business owner has a problem that he needs to hire an employee to solve for him. Okay, it could be as something as simple as the phone is ringing and I need someone to answer the phone and you can do that, okay. So it always starts with value creation.
Speaker 1:We think about problems, we don't think about profit. That's the way that you become a value creator. And how do we say it in our program day? We look for profit pools, yeah, yeah, you look for problem pools, not profit pools. Yeah, so we look for problem pools, not profit. So I'm not out there like, okay, how can I make the most money? No, no, no. Look and say what problems can I solve?
Speaker 1:And as business owners especially those who have us, who are kingdom entrepreneurs we look for how can we solve specific problems. So when you're looking for problems, then you can bring the value that you have as solutions to that problem. That, right there, keeps you in a great headspace. You're not just okay, where can I make money? Ooh, I can make a ton more money over there, so I'm going to go do it. Okay, there, it is true that money is a carrot, that God uses money as a carrot to get you moving in a certain direction. Okay, I'm doing my business and I'm working really hard. But then I realized, you know what, if we took this facet of the business and I made a few tweaks, I can make a lot more money over here. That's not wrong. The key is is that my overall mindset is I want to be a value provider to people Excuse me and I want to bring value to people. That mindset is an eternal mindset, okay, so when that happens and you lead with value, then profit comes and chases you down.
Speaker 1:So our four steps that I was talking about it starts with value creation, then it goes into marketing, then sales, then value delivery. Value creation create that value You're creating solutions to people's problems. Then marketing, which is turning people into prospects. Then sales, which is turning prospects into purchasers. Then value delivery that's turning purchasers into promoters. Value delivery is what makes us a kingdom business. That's right.
Speaker 1:And the old saying is favor gets you in the door, but excellence keeps you there. So the excellence with which, the way you work, how you interact, your customer service, your over-delivery, under-promise, over-perform, that's your value delivery and that's what keeps you there. That's what keeps the favor of God shining on your business. Now, remember, a value is a one-word descriptor of what you find important. So you value honesty, you value integrity, you value hard work. You know it's two words, but still it's a value. That's what a value is.
Speaker 1:A principle is a short sentence that ties value to action, a principle that we have. So a value that we have is faithfulness, and a principle that we have in our companies is be faithful in little. So we trained all of our employees and franchisees and everybody. There is nothing too small. Always do the little things with all your heart, making your work, worship, because God, who is your true boss? He's your father, he's your business partner, he's all of it, he's watching you and if you're faithful in little, he will pave the way and open doors and give you an opportunity to be faithful and big. So that's principle. So if we want to be good at value delivery, being valuable to people, then we have to operate by principles. That's why we had be faithful in little.
Speaker 1:Be a fountain and not a drain. You want to be a fountainous person which is constantly nourishing. If you push the button of a water fountain, you get nourishment out. When you find yourself at work, when you find yourself in a business context, your buttons are getting pushed all the time, but what's coming out of you? It needs to be that which nourishes people. So be a fountain and not a drain. Give more in value than you take in pay. Always over deliver in a gray area where you don't know what to do, always do the harder thing. In a gray area where you don't know what to do, lean to the benefit of the other person. These are all principles, those principles. What they do is they help you become the value delivery person that you were created to be, and it's all about value. Let me give you those four steps again, just because I just I jazzed out about them.
Speaker 1:David and I were really excited when we were writing expert ownership and I'm like, oh, this is the system right here, this little four part system when it comes to to building a business that will actually scale. We had 12 parts, but the four in the middle value delivery, where you're constantly creating solutions for people's problems. Marketing, where you're turning people into prospects. What good marketers do? Sales turns prospects into purchasers Okay, and value delivery turns purchasers into promoters, and we can see that that's exactly what's going on on Amazon. When you go to buy something, what's one of the ways that that they sell stuff more than anything else? It's all those reviews turning purchasers into promoters. That's the key.
Speaker 1:And when we are valuable, because of Isaiah 48, 17, I am the Lord who teaches you to Prophet, who trains you in the way you should go. I am the Lord, your God, who trains you to develop skills to become valuable, and when you are like that, god will Prophet will chase you down. Okay, prophet will chase you down. Now the problem is is that the Israelites started going after the money? They focused on Prophet more than value, and therefore God said this in verse 18, the very next verse.
Speaker 1:Look what he says. If you had only paid attention to my commandments, then your well-being would have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Which one's more valuable? We said earlier Prophet or Peace, peace, peace, right, and when you have peace and you're also providing for yourself, then what you will become is a river. A river brings life wherever it goes. Okay, we will experience peace like a river. He said right there your well-being would have been like a river. Yeah, you know how many people that we know and it could easily happen to us is. You make all this money or you do all this great work but your well-being is not thriving and not functioning well. Your marriage isn't great, your health is bad, you don't have peace, you're bitter, you're tied up with unforgiveness or whatever it's like man, you want your well-being. You want to thrive in every area of life, not just focused on the money and be greedy.
Speaker 1:And look at verse 22. He follows up and basically says here's a summary of it there is no peace for the wicked. Don't run after profit the financial aspect of profit. You run after people, you run after being valuable to people, and then you know what's going to follow that the financial aspect of profit and when that happens you'll have peace that goes along with it. You will experience riches, as the Proverbs talks about, but you won't have any guilt to go along with it. You'll have enjoyment to go along with it. You'll have fulfillment to go along with those finances that you've got, all because you allowed God to train you to develop skill sets that made you valuable and that value led to profit. That's a beautiful verse right there, and you will not leave behind you a trail of broken relationships and a trail of hurt people. God wants us to elevate people over profit. You do not try to achieve your goals at the expense of others. You cannot do that. It's vital that we like when we get done.
Speaker 1:It's funny because a very good friend of mine used to be an assistant to a high level Christian leader and this high level Christian leader travels the country still to this day, speaks globally, but when he flies he gets very short and rude with the gate attendance and he always wants the upgrade to the first class because he's got so many miles. And the assistant told me he goes one day we were flying to Dubai to speak or it was India to speak, and he said that you know, this leader goes up and demands first class because of his miles and anyway he couldn't get it. So then my buddy goes up and it starts talking and all of this other stuff and comes back and he has two seats in first class for him and for the leader, and the leader was like yeah, I could have got that. I normally always get it. And he said the difference between you and me is I get what I want to, only the people like me. Still, when I'm done, people still like me.
Speaker 1:That's kingdom. It's not that everybody is not everybody going to like you, but I'm saying that you should never give a reason to be breaking relationship with people like they're a speed bump because you're on your way to your goal or your mission or your vision. You don't do that. That is not God's way. That's not well. So that's a good word. That's a good word for all of us as kingdom entrepreneurs, those of us who are find ourselves in the workplace. To make sure that we're always focusing in on Isaiah 48 is something be valuable. Let profit chase that down, chase you down. That's the financial side. But then to make sure that we always know that true profit is not the surplus of money you have in the bank, it's anything that leads to life That'll give you peace. That's good. That's good, jason. So there we go. Jason, can I give you an own it or loan it real quick? Own it or loan it? Oh, that's what we do. Yeah, lmnt. Lmnt For those that are not watching this, I've got this on the on the camera here LMNT.
Speaker 1:It's an electrolyte drink, it's like a salt drink and I've been taking them before I work out and it's it's like a little kick. I like it, it's, it's good for me. Yeah, own it. Okay, so I own it too. I own it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, by the way, guys, we have three podcasts and I know that most of you know we we actually take the living among the lines that we do this on this live stream. We turn it into a podcast so you can get it on all your podcast platforms. So we're living among lines. We've got expert ownership, launching faith, field entrepreneurs, integrated freedom of success. David and I typically go about weekly, sometimes every two weeks, where we'll talk about business and from the Bible, and then beauty and battle, winning a marriage by waging a war. It's a marriage podcast. I don't do that with David, I do that with my wife.
Speaker 1:So, just FYI on that. You're wanting to just go to our website, better brothers, and you can see all three podcasts, but follow us, share it out, and I think in time probably we'll get kicked off of YouTube, we'll get kicked off of Facebook and all these things, but who the heck cares? We'll just keep going. We don't care. Yeah, that's right. All right, let's pray. Lord, we love you, thank you for who you are. I pray that we would be doers of your word, not just hearers only. We worship you in Jesus' name, amen. Fun Hang guys, fun Hang.