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CTP (S3ESepSpecial8) Holy Profit: Where Scripture Meets Success

• Joseph M. Lenard | Christian Activist & Author in Politics

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CTP (S3ESepSpecial8) Holy Profit: Where Scripture Meets Success
Fran Tabor shares insights from her book "Live Abundantly: 50 Business Lessons from the Bible," revealing how biblical wisdom offers practical guidance for business success beyond traditional advice. She explores how strong moral foundations correlate with long-term financial stability and business resilience.
• People with firm values tend to achieve better financial outcomes over their lifetime
• The Bible contains practical business wisdom drawn from 6,000 years of human interactions
• Faith builds the mental resilience needed to overcome business challenges and setbacks
• The story of Joseph demonstrates how perceived misfortunes can lead to greater opportunities
• Small businesses create stronger communities by keeping money circulating locally
• Business relationships in small communities are personal, creating natural accountability
• Money is like a shovel – a tool that creates abundance when used wisely
• Finding daily reasons for gratitude and laughter builds emotional resilience for business challenges
• Purpose-driven businesses that improve community life create more fulfillment for owners
Find Fran Tabor's book "Live Abundantly: 50 Business Lessons from the Bible" anywhere books are sold. Look up Fran Tabor plus Draft to Digital to find all her publications.


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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Constitutional Politics Podcast, aka C T P. I am your host, Joseph M. Wyard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D. C T P is your no musk, no fuss, just me, you, and occasional guest, type podcast. Really appreciate you tuning in. Graham Norton will say, let's get on with the show. So Fran Tabor is here to talk about a book, Live Abundantly, 50 Business Lessons from the Bible. Being a Christian show, talking about the Bible in full context, I am absolutely loving this idea of what indeed does the Bible tell us about business. But before we get to that, let's do the usual, you know, cue the who. Who are you? Who? Right? I like to joke with my audience and my guests. Where were you born? Where were you raised? How much time did you spend in prison for murder and all that kind of stuff? Shh, secret. Uh-oh, I let the cat out of the bag, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I was born in Bones Ferry, Idaho, and not that far west of here. And that lake in the background is Flathead Lake, a place I have fished, swam, boated often, and absolutely love. That tall tree is a Ponderosa pine, native to this part of the country.

SPEAKER_00:

I like that flathead, not uh not not knucklehead lake, right? My audience knows I can never pass on the idiotic, stupid humor.

SPEAKER_01:

But uh I grew up a little bit of everywhere. My parents started uh quite a few different small businesses. At one point, my father worked for a Warehouser company as a wholesaler, and they transferred him all kinds of different places. Each of my siblings was born in a different state. By the time I was 15, I had attended 13 schools in seven different states.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. That I that must have been an adventure.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought it was. I thought it was fun.

SPEAKER_00:

But think back all the friends you have now from all those places, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And it also gave me opportunity to meet people from a much wider, different variety of backgrounds than I ever would have if my parents had just stayed in Bonis Ferry, Idaho.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, whereas my dumb butt has been in Michigan pretty much my whole life. I through work and whatnot, I've been through half, I think, of all the 50 United States. And I've been to the Caribbean and South America, and obviously into Canada, just being across the river. And as I said, I used to vacation all the time, Sparrow Lake near Aurelia, Ontario, Canada, all the time. So I but I've never been to Europe or anything. Have you been to Europe or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01:

My brothers and my sister have.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there you go. It's on your bucket list, huh?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you? I don't even have a passport though, because you know, being across, we can use our enhanced driver's license. And everywhere I've gone in South America or Mexico has been via a cruise, and you could just have your driver's license, special tourist, you know, visits. So I never, ever, ever really in my life got a passport. Do you at least have a passport so you're ready to go if you can go? I do have a passport. You're you're in better shape than I, then. And all right. I I know the audience is probably enough of this foolish.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's kind of interesting and relevant why I have a passport. That uh in 1978, my former husband and I started a small business in Caluspo, Montana, which is a small town. Well, small town by your most people's standards, is about 20,000 people by Montana standards. We're a city.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I I'm in a Detroit southern suburb. We all there's like 10,000 houses, yeah, maybe 25,000, 30,000 people total. So I understand.

SPEAKER_01:

But anyway, we're started out doing vacuum repair and gradually did other repair and slowly added new vacuums and became a representative of the Jacone Company, which did the simplicity of car vacuums.

SPEAKER_00:

So who to what company?

SPEAKER_01:

They are in Missouri and they make American-made vacuums and have for a good many years.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know that I've ever heard of that one. That's a new one.

SPEAKER_01:

We need to do something with their publicity.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But anyway, my little shop outsold the places in like Seattle, the Twin Cities, and I won a trip to Mexico. All expense paid, the airline, the motel stayed, cash allotments were a good time, but I had to have a passport to take advantage of it. So I got a passport.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But I did it because my little shop in Little Calspell, Montana was one of their 20 most successful dealers in the nation. And they did not adjust for population or anything, they were just looking at total production, total sales, total customer happiness, things of that type. Yeah. So, in other words, my book is based on real life experiences and results.

SPEAKER_00:

That's cool. Yeah, I I'm not in the market for a vacuum, and I don't know if anyone in my audience is. So let's move on.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I no longer own that company. I successfully sold it to two of my employees last year. I am now a full-time writer.

SPEAKER_00:

Ah, good, cool. Good to hear that. Good to hear that. So what was the motivation for live abundantly? 50 business lessons from the Bible? My share wanting to share your experiences, I take it.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that would be the noble answer. The truth is not the truth, is not that my kind to me. The truth is, is that I noticed that contrary to the image that movies have, people who have a firm set of values tend to, in the long term, by the time they're dead, or not dead, but you know their elderly years, are financially better off than people with the same abilities, same resources that do not have a strong core sense of values. In other words, while observing others, it was pretty obvious to me that being religious are that's had gotten in bad connotations, but it shouldn't have.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, amen. You aren't gonna get an argument from me. It's one of the reasons why I started this show. Yeah, a whole lot of Matthew 23 fake vipers, snakes, false guide type Christians out there. I I I hear you. And indeed, it's I I talk psychology, and in fact, the sixth book I've got going on now, I can't give out the title yet. Well, by the time this airs, it should be out. The book of Kennedy, kind of like the book of Job in a way, but it's not, but it's about life and living, and indeed, human nature and psychology. And indeed, if you've got a positive sense of values and morals, that you understand life isn't just about you, even your own business, then going into business, you understand it's not only about you and only your accumulation of wealth and fame and fortune and notoriety, right? Your positive morals lend more to understanding. There's more than just today, also. Like I like to joke, we're going back to the 60s, it seems like, right? If it feels good, do it. I want it and I don't want it tomorrow. I don't even want it today. You should have understood what I wanted and given it to me yesterday, kind of entitled attitude. And that's all about the live for today, today, today, today, today. They never worry about setting aside or planning for the future. Kind of what you found.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, and well, the way you're saying that is even in the 60s in Willie Wonka and the Chaco Factory, the girl says, I want it, and I want it now. The whole audience knew that she was an idiot that did not endure her to anybody, right? Knowing how dumb that was.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But I started reading the Bible looking for business advice.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. And the good thing, the good thing about the 60s, though, before we get back to the business, is the 60s flower children eventually woke up from their stupor and realized there is more to life than just the here and now, there is the hereafter, and that birthed the Jesus revolution. So I'm hopeful and prayerful we'll have a Jesus revolution resurgence again now with all this selfish behavior. But yeah, you're here to talk about the 50 business lessons from the Bible.

SPEAKER_01:

One of the first things that really surprised me is that contrary to the impression I had from Sunday school lessons, there are very few miracles in the Bible. Most of it is everyday common sense, 6,000 years of history of what happens when people interact with each other.

SPEAKER_00:

Human nature, yes, psychology, and yeah, uh, our our need to have a parent. Because no matter how much we've advanced as a society, we're still but children in the wilderness.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, yes, and business is simply people fulfilling the needs of other people, and that has been true from time memorial.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the the people who usually become wealthy in the you find a niche, a niche, find a need, find a hole in the market, and and or invent a better mouse trap, indeed, fulfill others' needs rather than the selfish pursuit of wealth, although that can come with it. And and since it's a biblical show, it is not money, is the root of all evil, it doesn't say that. Money is but a useful tool, and I'd like to have a heck of a lot more of it than what I got.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, the important thing to remember is like it says, it rains alike on the godly and the ungodly, both rich and poor are going to be good and bad, and a person's current financial situations tells you nothing about the person.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Martin Luther King Jr. Content of Character. In fact, in my the Book of Kennedy book, I go into the three biblical passages that Martin Luther King Jr. drew upon to get his content of character statement. And indeed. Yeah, I I can agree with that. People it's again, it's kind of part of the human nature. Again, we want the flash, we want the pomp, we want the circumstance. The Matthew 23 Christians, again, I call them the kumbaya around the campfire, Jesus Christians. They don't want that tough love part that's every bit, if not more important, than the kumbaya singing parts. Yes, right.

SPEAKER_01:

But discipline the one thing that we should be getting from going to church is faith. And a person needs faith to survive in business, a person needs faith to accomplish anything that is worthwhile. Like when you wrote your books, I learned in that interview that one of your books took 15 years to write, it took faith to finish writing it, and everything in our everyday lives is anti-faith. You're not supposed to have any confidence in anything. And if you get together regularly with other believers, you're practicing faith.

SPEAKER_00:

What you could tell I don't do.

SPEAKER_01:

Those looking on radio can say because you have exercised in the gym and practiced those muscles. If something happens where you're there to help pull somebody out of the pit, you have the muscles to do it. Because you have practiced the mental muscle of faith with other believers in your church or your synagogue or wherever you meet on a regular religious basis, you are going to have the faith it takes to get through what seems like it's going to be an absolute disaster. And if you have a business that fails, you have the faith to say, this failed. What have I learned? And see it as a learning experience, not as a permanent mark of God. It takes faith to pick up the pieces and start again and again and again and again.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we're all human, flawed, frail, imperfect. We can make mistakes. But yes, have we are we learning from it? The Bible does not say God helps those who help themselves, but it does imply it in that you shall be known by your fruits. You must sow to reap, so you must do things. Is there uh I doubt there is, but is there one key thing, top business lesson from the Bible that you can share? I don't want you to give away the 50, obviously. We want them to buy your book, but is there like a a key there?

SPEAKER_01:

I think everybody that goes into business should read the story of Joseph and the book of Job. The story of Joseph, because he is first so sh he is almost murdered by his own brothers, but instead he is sold into slavery, a fate worse than death almost always. Then he gets luxe out and he gets bought by a good man who soon recognizes his talent and makes him a head honcho for all of his uh workings. And then he is unfairly accused of going after his master's wife. He ends up in jail, which is sort of lucky because in those days he could have just been killed. So evidently the master probably suspected the truth, but he didn't dare confront the truth. Something that still happens today. Yeah, and he helps people get out. Yes, bad luck, but it took all of that bad luck to become second in command of Egypt, which it'd be like becoming president of the United States today, and saving his family. We do not know what bad luck or good luck is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, well, like you were saying, the unfortunateness of false ac bearing false witness, false accusation is why it upsets me so much. We seem to have removed all the important books and replaced them with what I call the new core Rs: radicalism, ranch, and racism in school rather than reading, writing, arithmetic, and history like to kill a mockingbird. That's out, but this soft core porn crap is in when to kill a mockingbird has such important, and that's one of the reasons why they wanted it out. Biblical lessons about bearing false witness in it. It has nothing necessarily to do with race, although that is involved in there, also, but it's about false witness, and indeed, not wanting to confront the reality and the truth, and oh, let that guy take the fall for it, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Unfortunately, that's something we sometimes learn in kindergarten that we are more afraid of being punished than afraid of telling the truth. And if somebody else gets the blame for something that went wrong, it's getting punished.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, like in my the book of Kennedy, the one of the psychological things I go into with in about false witness and dealing with reality is right, the old saying, when you point the finger, right? How many are pointing right back at yourself? Right? Look in the mirror, confront your own, remove the log from thine own eye first, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And it starts not just with actually accusing someone, but any type of rumor mongering. That I was genuinely appalled when I discovered that in the New Testament, people who spread rumors are put in the same category as murderers.

SPEAKER_00:

And and you know what? An admission, again, we're recording on Monday, July the 14th. I was on Rick Walker's Maverick News Show last night, and we were talking about the new Superman movie. I hadn't seen it yet. Well, now I did see it today. And I myself stupidly, foolishly, and have to beg forgiveness for spreading rumor and innuendo and accusations towards the director of that movie that I myself don't know are or are not true, but yet indeed I spread them, and so I'm as guilty of it again. Frail, imperfect, flawed human I am. I do stupid stuff sometimes, and I did it last night on Rick Walker's Maveric News Airwaves, uh spreading rumor and innuendo and accusation that I have no idea is based in reality or not, but it's something I kind of wanted to believe a little, so therefore my lips got loose and it leaked from my mouth when it should not have.

SPEAKER_01:

It's something we're all guilty of. And if we were not all guilty of it, tabloids would never have sold well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And they do. Yeah. Now the Star magazine is every bit as legitimate as the New York Times these days. All these supposed traditional news magazines have become the rags, and the national inquiry oftentimes has more truth in it than the New York Times does. But then again, almost I'm kind of spreading rumor again in innuendo, and but people should learn and research for themselves to know you've got to know who you could trust, though, at the same time, right? When a publication continually repeats false information as fact and truth, well, you gotta know they're the real rag versus the inquiry, which a lot of times is just tongue-in-cheek fun idiocy, anyway, right? Meant to get a chuckle and be extra conspiratorial nonsense for to get clickbait in modern vernacular, right? Yeah, right. And some of the people who believe all that stuff are just whoa, rather than see it as entertainment. But at any rate, as you could tell, I'm still all wound up from my computer acting up.

SPEAKER_01:

Remind me of one of my very favorite scenes of the movie Man in Black, where the guy goes to the newspaper stand and gets all the cheap tabloids and says, This is where we get the only true information about the aliens, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love that. I love that movie. That's great. I thought for a minute you were gonna say network, right? The I'll open the window. I'm bad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore. Because I'm also known as Raging Joe on Savage Done Filter, where I I that's my usual persona there is he's screaming out the window, get off my lawn.

SPEAKER_01:

To be honest, I'm probably one of the few people that didn't really like Nick Work. I found it a very pretentious movie, and I found Men in Black way more honest. It knew exactly what it was, and it delivered exactly what it promised to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Mary Hart does good mic medicine.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

One of the other things I have learned is that it is essential to business to find a reason to be thankful every single day so you have that habit because you're gonna have some really bad days, and to find a reason to smile broadly and hopefully laugh every single day. Movies like Man Slaughter do a favor because they let us just sit back, relax, laugh, enjoy life, wait. We are supposed to treasure this awesome gift.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, oh, as I said, I'm Rage and Joe, unsavaged, unfiltered. I have a lot more loud and angry person. I'm normally a lot more, I'm energetic. I'm on disability. So, like after this interview, I'm gonna need a nap. I don't have this kind of energy normally, and when I do expend it, I'm spent. So I'll need a nap after this. But uh, as Raging Joe on Savage Unfiltered, my friend Savage, Michael, is Michael Savage, yeah. Michael Savage, yeah. Yeah, I forgot what I was gonna say. Oh, oh, the Happy Gilmore 2 movie is coming out soon. By the time this airs, it might be out then. But we we do some movie reviews there, so I always enjoy talking movies too, and that's another one, like the men in black, right? It's it's got some important life lesson material in it, but it's meant to be fun and tongue-in-cheek, and we need to keep a sense of humor. Some Christians are too uptight all the time, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that brings me back to my book, uh Live Abundantly, 50 Business Lessons from the Bible. Uh, first of all, I found the emotional business lessons. I didn't, there's a whole bunch of very serious business lessons about you know, know how much money you have. I left those out because you can get that from any accounting book. I had 50 emotional lessons, but the book is written with a sense of humor. There are some very serious sections, uh, one section in particular serious, but most of it is fun. That's why the first section is elephants of tithing and starts out with how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That's lesson number one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. One of the other things is too the the old saying, if you love what you do, you won't work a day in your life. So from what I'm hearing from you, that's part of it. You you to learn to enjoy what you're doing so it isn't so you're not begrudgingly doing it every day, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

That is an important part, but part of making something enjoyable is knowing that whatever it is you're doing has importance. That people make a big ado about the purpose-driven life. For me, it started with a purpose-driven business. That I knew for a fact that my business made life better for the other people in my community, and not just better on a personal level, but actually increased the financial success of my community as a whole. Pretty humble. But money spent in a small-town business stays in that community almost. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, my friend Ron Edwards that does the Edwards Notebook is carried nationally, the Edwards Notebook, including locally here on Wham Radio out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. He had one of his uh Edwards Notebook minutes on that indeed about money spent in the community, how it circulates usually 50 times in the community before it actually leaves the community. Whereas if I'm plopping my money down on Amazon all the time, it's mainly going to California and China, yeah, and China. Oh, my I my sister, I call her the Timu queen. She's always buying the cheap crap from China through Timu. I'm trying to break her of that habit, and I'm trying to reduce my Amazon spending and indeed do more mom and pop shop type purchases of what I can indeed. And you get a personal relationship that way. You know the clerks, you can get to know the owners. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, not only that, but the owner knows that you might be in a meeting him at the grocery store. You might be next to each other in line. And if you have just made him unhappy, and if his kids are with him, it can be embarrassing for him. So he is motivated to do the very best he can. That guy that you send money to on Amazon or even the manager of your local Walmart, he's not going to. Be at the stores you're shopping at. He's not going to be in the grocery line with you. You get mad at him, big deal. It's nothing personal to him. Small business, it is personal. It's absolutely personal.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and we should want to make it personal and personable.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, very much so.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, well, wow. The time has flown by. So let's start to wrap things up. Are there any other key last things you want to get in? Since I I spent a whole first 15 minutes, I think, on stupid stuff we shouldn't have been. So, in all seriousness, do you've got some more serious advice to throw in here at the end to get us back on track?

SPEAKER_01:

Just remember, whatever financial resources you have, that, like I say in my book, money is like a shovel. Used wisely, you can make a garden that has great abundance. Don't use it, leave it up in the attic. It is absolutely worthless to you, your neighbors, and everybody. Squander it is like that shovel left in a mud puddle to rot, rust away, and be worthless.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And let the and let the weeds all grow, right? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It goes back to yourself, lend the money to a neighbor who will he'll make the garden. But money is just a tool to accomplish great things. Think of it that way. Treat it like you would any other tool in the tool shed.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it goes back to you must reap good to sow good, or we are all complicit in the rotten fruit and we're all trying to choke down. We allowed someone else to sow instead.

SPEAKER_01:

Very much so. And Joseph, I thank you for having this program and helping spread the word that financial control in a sense of self-control and investment is a very Christian, loving thing to do for your family and your neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's all it's all connected and related. Our physical health, our mental health, our financial health has a lot to do with how good our physical and mental health can be. And as you said, it as a tool. Do you have a website that people can go to?

SPEAKER_01:

I did have a website for my other business. Just look up Fran Tabor, you'll find find there's also an actress named Fran Tabor, not me. Although I think I'd make a great actress. Just look up Fran Tabor and you'll find my books. If you look up Brad Tabor plus Draft to Digital, you'll find all of them too. Uh Draft to Digital is where I do my self-publishing, and I've been very happy with them, so I don't mind giving them a free plug. I think we can help each other.

SPEAKER_00:

Draft to Digital bought up SmashWords. I used to use SmashWords till they bought them up. Yeah, SmashWords used to have all kinds of free services. Now they've made it all pay-to-play services, unfortunately. Not to say the services aren't good, it's just nice when you can get some free services here and there because everything is so expensive these days. And it's understandable why they got to charge for it, too. You can't keep giving stuff away for free forever. Nothing is free. It's got the money's got to come from someplace.

SPEAKER_01:

And I just want everybody to remember find a reason to smile every day and to say thank you for something, anything every day.

SPEAKER_00:

Sounds good. Thank you again, Fran Tabor, for coming on. And the book is Live Abundantly 50 Business Lessons from the Bible. They could find it. You could you could see it. Yeah, I know. I I understand green screens act up. I know. Especially with yellow, blue, or green books. Thank you, Fred Tabor. Take care. God bless.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you very much again.

SPEAKER_00:

Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and Care Episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned in for Christitutionalist Politics Show. If you haven't already, please check out my primary internationally available book, Terror Strike, coming soon to a city near you. Available anywhere book for sold. If you have locally run bookstores still near you, they can order it for you. And let me remind, over time, the fancy high production items will come. But for now, a starter, it's just you, as a very appreciated person by me. All subject, no flaw. Just straight to key discussion point, a show that looks at a variety of topics, mostly politics, through a Christian US Constitution plan. So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Take care. God bless.

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Joseph M Lenard

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