Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton

15 Daily Habits for the Faith-Driven Entrepreneur

• Matt Walton • Season 1 • Episode 16

Share episode

Disciplines transform both personal and business life for faith-based entrepreneurs when implemented consistently and intentionally. Matt shares 15 key practices that helped revolutionize his approach to kingdom entrepreneurship and led to significant business growth.

• Time blocking with specific periods allocated for all important activities
• Waking early and preparing the night before for the next day
• Tracking habits, KPIs and metrics to identify improvement opportunities
• Following disciplined eating patterns to build mental toughness
• Regular exercise as a way to push through mental barriers
• Morning and afternoon prayer times for spiritual alignment
• Getting alone with God beyond scheduled devotional times
• Monthly dates with spouse and children to strengthen relationships
• Pre-deciding and preparing to eliminate decision fatigue
• Learning to make decisions quickly to avoid anxiety
• Setting boundaries and saying no to misaligned opportunities
• Practicing sobriety to maintain mental clarity
• Regular reading for personal and professional growth
• Using downtime to strengthen business foundations
• Seeking God's guidance rather than forcing solutions

If you enjoyed this content, please download, like, subscribe and share. I'm so grateful for every single one of you tuning in.


Speaker 0:

What's up, guys? This is Matt with the Vota Talk or the Real Matt Walton. This is your hub for all things Kingdom, business, businesses, ministry, business strategy. My goal is to provide as much value, minute by minute, each podcast that you listen to. So let's get to it. What's up, guys? This is Matt with the Vota Talk or at the Real Matt Walton, depending on how you found me, and thank you so much for joining us today. Today I want to talk about 10 things that are disciplines that every entrepreneur but specifically we're talking about kingdom entrepreneurs should do, if we're not currently doing. But first I want to share. The goal here is to provide as much value as I possibly can, minute by minute, and if y'all have anything that you would like to inquire about, questions, please let me know, write a comment, and I would ask that, if you enjoy this content, please download, like, subscribe and share, and I am so grateful for every single one of you for tuning in.

Speaker 0:

Man. Life has just been beautiful lately. I'm in the middle of a growth season, and that's personally, and I don't think I ever have gotten off that journey, especially since giving my life to the Lord, but then also in business. Last week, I did a podcast on marketing and media and in the meantime God had given me some clarity on certain things. That was in that wheelhouse and we've seen a significant uptick in sales and it's just been incredible to watch. God has just honored what it is that we're doing here and he's provided all the visions, the ideas, the desires, the motivation to get these things done. And so one of the things that I pray, that I encourage everybody to pray, is, like God, you know how to do this. Whatever it is that you're trying to do, how do we do that? So, like as an example. It's like God, you know what that perfect formula is to increase sales and sustain sales. It's like so what is it that you want me to do? What is that process? And when you're pursuing God, god is good to give you that every single time. Sometimes it takes a while to get that. It's taken weeks and months to get certain responses. It's sometimes years to get certain responses. Let me not say years, like a year to get certain responses from the Lord in my personal life. So just some encouragement there If you're in the middle of a season to where you're going through some growth but you haven't quite figured out the exact algorithm in order to get to that growth. Ask the Lord, because he knows, and he'll tell you in the perfect timing.

Speaker 0:

Today, again, I want to talk about 10 disciplines that every single kingdom entrepreneur should do.

Speaker 0:

But first I want to root everything in scripture. At least root this episode in scripture. This is one of my favorite verses in 1 Corinthians 9. It says Do you not know that those who run in a race, all run, but only one receives the prize? In 1 Corinthians 9. It says I run in such a way as not without aim, I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

Speaker 0:

That's a huge one to me for a number of reasons, and that's one of those offending verses to a lot of us Christians. It demands excellence, and I believe that when we are within the kingdom no-transcript exact same thing on, and that is a kind of a gross analogy, but it has been very true in my personal life and so I understand what it's like. How you do one thing is how you do everything. So as a result of that, it's taken ownership, and expert ownership, over every area of your life, and not just over every area of your life, but also thinking of others and putting others before ourselves in the process of doing this. So it's not like this prideful, egotistical, arrogant way of working on yourself. It's like, no, I want to be my best so that I am the best version of myself for my family, for all of my employees, for everybody that I meet out on the streets and we're evangelizing wherever it is, so that I can represent Christ in the best way possible.

Speaker 0:

Let's get into it no-transcript to do my exercise, workouts, time with the Lord, excuse me getting ready time, time driving to the office, and then what I do whenever I get to the office. So I've allotted certain times to doing all the things. Some things I do on a day-to-day basis, sometimes, some things I do once a month, once a week, but all those things are blocked in. And then I also have blocked in at the end of the days or in my afternoons, time to spend with my family. That way I know when I'm going to book things or schedule things, that I'm not overlapping it and scheduling things that overlap or get in interfere time with my family and especially. It doesn't mean that I don't go in just like every single day. I'm not scheduling things past a certain time, because there's certain days where I have to do that, but as a majority of the time I am following my blocked off time to a team because it allows for me to be highly functional and to get a lot done Like I write down. Let me not say that. I'll say this here in a minute, no-transcript.

Speaker 0:

The next thing is waking up early. That's a huge one. So these two are different lines, but they go hand in hand. So go to bed early, wake up early, set an alarm to go to bed For me. I go to bed, I get in my bed at 9. And so what I do before then, like at 915, I have an alarm that goes off. It's part of my calendar that tells me that I need to start preparing for the next day. So I put out my shoes, belt, underwear, clothes, coffee, eyeball in my prayer room, speak every single thing that I am going to use the next morning. I put it out so that I don't have to think of those things, so that I can wake up and do what I do. But go to bed early. That is super, super critical.

Speaker 0:

A lot of times when you feel in a tizzy throughout the day, it's because you went to bed late and or you overslept in the morning time and so you didn't wake up early and get after it. So, like, my encouragement there is is wake up early in the morning time and get after it, whatever that means for you, like for me. Spending time with the Lord exercising, spend a little bit of time with my family getting ready, those kinds of things, those are things that I do in the morning time and right now I'm really dialing in like doing those hard things in the morning time. So I will. I'm doing it twice a day now, but, like yesterday, I ran three miles and so, like I split that up. I ran close to two miles in the morning time and then ran another little bit over a mile in the afternoon time and then walked a bunch of miles after that. But that is like just what works for you. You know, for me I can't exercise late in the evening time because it makes my heart rate go up and I can't sleep. So go to bed early, wake up early.

Speaker 0:

Next thing is track every single thing that you do so for me. I track my day, my like personal life. So I have all the things wake up at this time, go to bed at this time, drink this much water, spend time with the Lord, spend time with my family. No obsessing is on there like over bad things. I literally track everything and then every single morning, I do an account of the previous day what time did I wake up, what time did I go to sleep? Did I overeat that day? Did I do this, did I not do this? And I have there's about 12, 13 things right now that I am tracking. That will help me get to the next level.

Speaker 0:

So when you're thinking about who the man or woman that you want to be, maybe you want to be somebody that really takes ownership over their health, and so then you work in those things like whatever that is for you. I want to eat during these times, I don't want to eat past these times. Here's what I'm trying to stay within, within my diet. And then we check those things off. That way, when you wake up in the morning time and let's just say you didn't do one of those things, but you did like the other five of them, then it's not just like for me. It allowed for me not to just solely obsess over the things that I did not do or the thing that I did not do. But I'm like man, I did some of these things really well. I didn't do this well. So here's my game plan of how I'm going to correct that today and let's rock and roll. So I found myself just obsessing over those things that I didn't do well, and tracking things helped me and you plus you can't improve things that you're not tracking.

Speaker 0:

This goes to business like KPIs. All of that Like it helps you strategize over the next level. So track everything. Eating is a big one for me. So getting getting on top of your eating Like I do, animal based I've been doing that for seven months or so now. I dropped a ton of weight and now I'm just, I'm working on my exercise and all of that to continue to drop weight but build muscle as well. So eating is huge. That helps you build up disciplines that, like, I never even thought that I needed. But it also you deny yourself your desires, which could be McDonald's or whatever that is for you. You deny yourself those desires and you will build mental toughness like you couldn't even believe. So deny desires so you can build mental toughness. That goes with eating, waking up late, going to bed late, like that, whatever that is.

Speaker 0:

Next thing is exercising. This is a new one, a new discipline for me. I don't know, within the last few months I have to go back and look at my tracker, but like I just recently within the last couple of weeks, maybe three weeks now started running and getting about two miles, 1.7, 1.8 to two miles in the morning time, and then I'll make up that difference in the afternoon with a goal to get to five miles now per day, and then I'm just going to keep going. But then I also have other other goals within, like exercise. I'm trying to work off my lower belly and so I'm doing certain things for that, plus things that are outside of outside of that. But that has been a huge discipline for me, like now I actually I never have liked to run, but I actually kind of enjoy it. It's tough. I do a lot of hill training, so I run uphills, downhills, and that's how I start my runs. I live in a neighborhood that has a lot of steep hills, and so doing a lot of hill work has really, really helped me push past the mental barriers that come whenever you get really exhausted and you push past those feelings.

Speaker 0:

The next thing is spending a lot of time with the Lord. So for me, I have on my tracker to spend time with the Lord in the morning and also in the afternoon. That is huge. So spend time with the Lord, spend time in prayer, spend time outside of those things. So for me it's going somewhere quiet, like in the mountains. But in just spending time with the Lord and hearing from the Lord, asking the Lord questions that you have and allowing the Lord to speak into your life. That way you don't fall into the trap like I have fallen into, to where you're like, hey God, what do you think about this? But instead it's God going before you and you being obedient to what it is that God's called you to do. And the next thing is these two things went hand in hand but Jesus time and getting alone with God. So like we can spend time, you know, quiet time in the morning time, which is great, great. I do that, I'm a huge fan of that. But then making that time to go spend with him in the mountains or just getting away outside of that allotted morning time.

Speaker 0:

I try to do something like that on a day-to-day basis. As an example, yesterday when I got home I sat at the foot of my bed, listened to some worship and my daughter was just waking up. So I was holding her and just spent time in God's word. I read a few chapter or a few verses, excuse me, and just prayed and worshiped the Lord, and so did that for maybe 15, 20 minutes. Next thing is monthly dates with wife and daddy, daughter dates. So for me, I have a daughter, so just go on monthly like we're working and get that actually down to a couple of times a month.

Speaker 0:

But that has really helped with my wife and I's relationship, cause I promise you men out there, I don't care if your wife is involved in the business or not involved with the business, listen to her. She's got a lot of good insight. My wife has stopped things from happening at times because she asked a question that I know is directly from the Lord and I listen. It's taken me a while. There's still certain times whenever my pride will flare up and I won't listen at first, and then God can convicts me almost immediately, and then I you know, it's up to you. You got to be quick to make that right or you can sit in that for a while, but I have a desire to make those things right immediately. If I if that's something that I fell into I'm going to get past 10. So I'm going to go 11, 12, 13, 14.

Speaker 0:

So the next thing is pre-ready and slash decided. So I talked about this earlier getting ready in the evening time for your next day. So, whatever that looks like, if you know you have to make lunch, breakfast, whatever it is, do as much as you can Lay out the bowls, lay out the plates, lay out everything that you possibly can, so that it removes you from having to make those decisions in the morning time. And then also the faster. This is the next one. This is number 12, decide quickly.

Speaker 0:

So many times we held onto things for way, way, way too long and we don't decide quickly on things. And because we don't decide quickly, things pass us by and we stay in this angst or anguish period, or maybe we have anxiety. Anxiety is always like hand in hand with not making a decision on something in my life. The next thing is and I actually don't have this on here this will be number 13, is learn to say no. So ask yourself is learn to say no. So ask yourself like is this who in alignment with who I, with what God's called me to do, where I'm going, who I want to be? Will I be excited about doing this thing when it comes time to do this thing, or will I like be like man this is? I wish I wouldn't have committed to doing this.

Speaker 0:

So, like yesterday, there was a guy that reached out to me that wanted to come visit my shop and I told him he was like hey, I'll be in town. You know, these days, are you going to be available? I told him no, I won't be, and then was able to. He had some other questions outside of that Cause. He really wanted to come in, but just basically, literally told him no because is sobriety. So that is a huge, huge thing, and I would encourage every single person out there to again look at denying yourself desires so that you can build up that mental toughness and conquer all the things that are limiting you and limiting your personality, limiting your thoughts, your creativity, whatever that could be. Just sobriety for me is huge. So that's number 14.

Speaker 0:

And then number 15 is reading. Reading is huge, so I block off as part of my tracker, but I read at least 10 pages. I try to read at least a chapter a day and I've got goals of reading X amount of books, so on and so forth. But I'll read them and also listen to them. Whenever I listen, I try to have the book right there as well, because I don't like, like a lot of times when I'm reading a book, I want to retain all that information and so, like when I go do an audio book, I buy audio books that I can kind of nonchalantly listen to. Like Think and Grow Rich was a book that I recently listened to on audio, because there was some of the. I knew that I could turn my mind off for five minutes and then come back to it and really not miss much, which I after going through that book. I agree with that. There's a lot of good stuff, but there's a lot of stuff that I don't agree with. So that's it.

Speaker 0:

So that's 15, about 15 disciplines that have transformed my life. There's a bunch more that I could share, but if you aren't doing some of those and maybe you wanna start not feeling a certain way throughout the day, or maybe you just wanna start this journey. Some of the best advice that I could give on that is start with how you go to sleep and how you wake up, and when you start doing those things, allow those things to start compounding into other things and next thing you know you'll find yourself doing whatever it is that you have decided to do. So what are some disciplines that you have that you have transformed your life? I would love to hear them. Please comment below.

Speaker 0:

Last thing is I want to just encourage everybody on how to handle downtime. So I'm coming off of a season of some downtime and I would tell all of my people that like, hey, we are preparing for more downtime, but we're also preparing for like a ton of growth. That is just inevitable and don't know when it's happening, but but it's coming. So how do you handle your downtime? So, if you handle your downtime and you get to a position where you're taking things into your own hands, press into the Lord on those things, because that's how I started to find myself was taking things into my own hands and trying to do a thousand different things and wondering why. I was basically running in place and things weren't happening, and then God got a hold of me and my heart and my mind and put a few things on my mind that I needed to work on, and one of those things was spending more time in prayer and more time with the Lord. That looks so different than the way that my body and mind is wired, and so I used that downtime after God spoke to me for that and to continue to develop the foundation for my business, continue to grow leaders within my business, figure out areas that we could serve, and then now I'm looking at being busier than I've been in a long time and I'm on track. I'm like one shy of of where I was at last year, all year, already this year. So that's all. Glory to God. God brings in the sales, the relationships, the ideas, everything whenever you allow for him to do just that. So thank you so much, guys, for tuning in.

Speaker 0:

I want to pray this one out.

Speaker 0:

We do this whenever I do interviews with people, but I want to pray it out.

Speaker 0:

So, dear Heavenly Father, god, I am so grateful for everybody that is watching this.

Speaker 0:

Lord, I want to just encourage all of us to pray with scripture, because your word says that if we are experiencing timidity or being timid, that that is not from you, lord, with you is power, love and self-control. So I plead that and pray that over everybody's life, god, lord. Your word says, lord, that when we pursue you, you draw near to us. When we resist the devil, the devil flees, and we're so grateful for that. We're grateful for the example that you set, god, we're grateful for your grace and your mercy and I'm grateful for the sanctification process, lord, that you take us all through. Lord, I want to pray just for a blessing over everybody's business and life that is listening to this podcast and, lord, I want to pray, most importantly, that we would start to see more kingdom businesses pop up and kingdom minded entrepreneurs pop up, lord, that have a desire of obedience to you and to operate a kingdom business that looks dramatically different than the way that the world does business. God and God, I pray this through your son, jesus Amen. Thank you guys.