Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton
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Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton
Structuring Your Business for Kingdom Impact and Sustainable Growth
Matt Walton shares a comprehensive strategy for structuring C-suite leadership in business, focusing on scorecards as a tool for transformational leadership and accountability.
• Overcoming mental barriers through consistent daily disciplines like exercise and scripture
• Hiring top-down by putting leaders in place first rather than building from the bottom
• Creating an annual strategic business plan to guide quarterly goals and strategy
• Implementing effective meeting structures with weekly, monthly, and quarterly rhythms
• Developing department scorecards with clear metrics, targets, and accountability
• Making scorecards manual rather than automated to create ownership
• Understanding that breakthrough happens through pain and struggle, not comfort
• Viewing business as ministry and a vehicle for Kingdom impact
• Bringing in experts rather than trying to master everything yourself
Your business is your ministry - are you using it to honor God by doing everything with excellence? Stop pursuing certainty and comfort, which only exists for the mediocre, and instead build something special that advances God's kingdom in the marketplace.
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 Walton with the Vota Talk, or at the Real Matt Walton, depending on how you found me, and thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1:I'm excited about today for a number of reasons, but I'm gonna be going over some strategy. I haven't gone over some strategy like this in a few episodes and before I get into that man, life has been just looking incredible lately. I've got a trip coming up on Sunday to go out to Boise, idaho, to go meet with somebody about possibly adding them to my team. They are an expert in their field and so I'm extremely excited about that. We're doing. We call it one day and go on and just spending the day with them and learning more about their process. Then I'm going to take a bunch of data with me as well so we can review all of my data and processes and then start to strategize over some branding and marketing and different things in that family there. So super, super excited about that. Then another trip coming up after that, going down to California or going over to California to go meet with a guy about doing some financial work, like some CFO or controller work. Things are really, really progressing within my business. So it's awesome, man. It's just all glory to God. I'm extremely grateful and just humbled to be on this journey.
Speaker 1:But what's even cooler than that, if you ask me, is overcoming a lot of the nonsense, like the mental nonsense in my mind, by exercising, eating right, denying desires and building mental strength. And I'm doing that through like running every single morning, exercising every single morning. I got three miles in of of just straight runtime yesterday and played several games of pickleball yesterday evening. I'm a part of a networking group here in Vegas where we go out to a mansion in an area called Lone Mountain and we play pickleball and just network with a bunch of um, bunch of entrepreneurs, and so it's really cool. It's a unique group of people and man it's just God is doing some incredible things.
Speaker 1:And overcoming the mental nonsense, because we tell ourselves so many lies and I am no different. Overcoming all of that through scripture, repeating scripture, through taking thoughts captive through doing hard things, through adding things to my schedule that I don't like to do, like running, repeating scripture, through taking thoughts. Captive through doing hard things, through adding things to my schedule that I don't like to do. Like running I don't like to run, but I have started to desire to run. It was like yesterday I got home before playing pickleball and I'd already run two miles, but then I went out and ran another mile. Just because it's a part of I can feel different and I notice some different things that I'm working on within my body changing, and so it just continues to motivate me. But what do you do in those months or month or weeks when you're not seeing the results? And that's like, literally, where you overcome the mental nonsense Whenever you're not pursuing any type of specific goal, like you're not going and saying, hey, I'm going to run a 5K or I'm doing this, I'm preparing for this.
Speaker 1:It's you against you, you against yourself. It's the nonsense you tell yourself. It's you when you're laying in bed and you're like man, I don't feel like waking up, I'm comfortable. Whatever that nonsense and those lies are telling you you, you overcome that, you get up and you do the thing that you committed to, and when you do that, then you're not again not pursuing a goal such as, like man, I'm gonna go, I'm doing this so that I can go run in a marathon. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but you're just doing it to get better.
Speaker 1:You're doing it so that every single day you're doing something to get better, to progress towards the individual that you know that you can be, and to me, it's in alignment with scripture. I mean, first Corinthians talks about this taking our thoughts captive, making our bodies our slaves. There's a number of scriptures that we can tie to that, but it's all part of operating out of excellence and I think there's this plague of mediocrity and fitting in. That just plagues the church and obviously it spreads outside of the church as well. But like for me, like I rebuke that and I am coming against that and doing things within my life to ensure that when I look up a year from now, two years from now, I am nowhere near mediocre, and that's a part of that.
Speaker 1:Is is uh, is exercising, running, eating right, and I'm waking up early, going to bed early, reading. There's a number of things that I'm doing. That's really, really awesome. I can just tell how God's honoring all that. So enough of that. Hopefully that encourages you guys, because if y'all aren't on that journey yet, when you get on that journey and you start to do things that are hard, things that you don't want to do, and instead you tell yourself, no, you're doing these things, that's when you start to, like, um, achieve this mental toughness. That can only be gained by pushing past that and it can only be gained in the struggle, it can only be gained in pain. It can only be gained in that. That mentality right there, um, let's get into it. I want to talk about um scorecards specifically today. That's like the overarching topic that we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1:I titled this. It was the structure for C-suite leadership in business. So C-suite leadership is like all the C's, like CFO, ceo, coo that's C-suite leadership. And I recently, well, about a year ago, hired my first C-suite level individual and he didn't start out as that, but he's worked his way into that and it's pretty awesome. Now it's during this process what I've done.
Speaker 1:So let me say this it doesn't start with creating scorecards. Sure, you can start with that, but for me that was backwards. It started with hiring the right person, so hiring top down. So many people hire bottom up, which there's different seasons and you may have to do that. You may be in the period of your business where you have to do that, and for me, I go through seasons where I have to do that, but right now I'm pursuing this level of growth to where I can start hiring top down, and which I've done over the last year. So one of the first things that you do is you get your leaders in place, and if that's you, that's okay. But you get your leaders in place and if you have the ability to hire somebody that can come in and you can delegate to, that can fulfill that COO role or whatever it is that you need, do it, because when you have your leaders in place, that allows for you to step back and work on high level activities.
Speaker 1:And so one of the things that I did different than the years before was I created this annual strategic business plan. I had done like this VTO, that if you read the book Traction, that's a part of it. I'm not the kind of guy that goes and uses an existing system. I want to create my own, and not that there's anything wrong with that, but I see more value in creating my own. That way, I can offer that to people down the road and really build something to sell it and not just build something off of what somebody else has already built. I just that's just, I guess, everything that I'm about. So one of the things that I did this year was create my own annual strategic business plan and what that does.
Speaker 1:If you haven't seen that video, please go back and check it out. But what that does is that will. Please go back and check it out. But what that does is that will. It goes over all your goals. You analyze all of your business. You create strategy and that that goes to the different departments within your business that you can implement. And then you meet quarterly to ensure that you're tracking and also develop strategy for the next quarter to meet those year end goals. There's a whole lot more to it. So please go watch that video. But that's number two. You get leaders in place. You get your annual strategic business plan, which that business plan is done at like the beginning of the year. You can start it at the end of the year, but you do that at the beginning of the year because one of the most important things to have in place is reconciled books. You have to have your books complete, finished, closed out for the previous year and a lot of times that takes some time for maybe your CPA or whoever is doing that for you to get that done For me.
Speaker 1:I rolled this out I believe it was the first week of February of 2025. And then one of the things that I did last year was create meetings. I've always done meetings, but I really try not to waste a whole lot of time in meetings, and what I've realized as I've tried to implement these meetings excuse me, these meeting structures is is like there's this whole process of getting it dialed in and figuring out what works for you. So for me I'm it was I'm going to meet with my department leads once a week and that's every single Monday. So my Monday is booked with meetings. And then I do monthly leadership team meetings. I do quarterly strategy meetings, which this second quarter, I'm bringing in everybody. I did a version of that last year at the end of the year, but now I'm bringing in every single person that is, a department lead to these strategy meetings. That'll be done quarterly, and then I do quarterly team meetings as well, whole team meetings where I bring in all the guys that make all of this possible, like the guys that are back in my factory welding and actually building the projects, because I could not do it without them. So we bring them in for a whole team quarterly meeting, outside of the leadership team strategy meeting, to celebrate with them, update them, serve them. That's one of the biggest things is update them, serve them. That's one of the biggest things is coming alongside and serving them. And then, once you get all that in place, for me it was now let's get a scorecard, because I started to recognize these meetings.
Speaker 1:The purpose of these meetings was getting a little skewed and instead of going into these meetings with something that we can actually look at and say, okay, this was done, this wasn't done, it was like, hey, did you come? We were looking at a to-do list and hey, here's the to-do list for this week. Did you do it for last week? And that may have been valuable for a time, but now it's like, okay, there's a much more efficient way to do this and because when you have department leads like they can create their own to-do list, they understand what they need to do. So, really, your purpose at, like my purpose at a certain point, is to come alongside, develop this scorecard, whatever that means for the department, so that way when we meet weekly, I can have a something to look at and say, okay, you met this goal, didn't meet this goal, and then see the strategy if they didn't meet the goal, and so it helps those meetings go quicker, and this, for me, is a work in progress. So I've started working on this about a month ago and I'm super excited about it. So those are the first things that you have to have done.
Speaker 1:Again, the meeting structure or the meetings how I was describing. That's how I do it now, with weekly, monthly, quarterly, and then obviously there's yearly celebrations as well in there for really for my whole team, when we have like holidays come up, such as Christmas and like Thanksgiving, and then the meeting structure is you. I always start them with some good news, and this is for the majority of my meetings. There's meetings that I don't do this, but for the most part, especially for like operations and for some of my leaders, we start with good news. I go over the vision and mission refresher and these are more for my monthly meetings, but I go for a vision and mission refresher, and these are more for my monthly meetings. But I go for a vision and mission refresher. Then I get into my reporting mode. So this is where this will come into play.
Speaker 1:This has been missing this last few months, but this will come into play is a scorecard. This is where we review, like what clients are saying, and we review our, our quarterly goals, our 90 day goals. Then we go over to-do items and then from there we go over any problems and then at the end of the meeting we conclude, we rate the meeting, we recap, we ensure that everybody is in alignment with their goals and what they need to do that month or that week. The meeting documents that you have to have. So when you're in any meeting you should have a main meeting document. That's just an ongoing thing. So for me in the past it's looked like, you know, we go over the to-do items and we kind of check those things off or add new to-do items and then we but now how it's going to look is, yeah, we'll have some of that mixed in there, but we're going to go over the scorecard and that's going to take the place of these, because these meetings to review the scorecard are really for your weekly sync meetings, which are my Monday meetings, where I get in alignment with the department leads, and again then we go over the main document that has all of the details for their department of whatever's being worked on, just goes into more detail. So those are super important and that main meeting document is what your team should be updating throughout the day. So, like for my operations guy, he goes through and he updates all of his items on there of what he needs to do and what he has done, and so that has been the bulk of the meeting.
Speaker 1:But when this has been implemented, or when this will be implemented, this will kind of take the place of all of that, because I will get an accurate view of where each department is just by looking at a scorecard that was already done, seeing the notes of how they're going to overcome maybe a challenge, and that'll cut the meeting times down and it'll help us be more efficient and it'll help the individual take charge over what it is that they're working on. So those things are really really important. Again, you have your leadership team in place, you have your meetings, you have your documents and then you start to work in these scorecards. So let's get into the scorecard. This is super important because it allows for the leader of your team to go in and take expert ownership over their department and what it is that they're doing. One of the rules for this is this has to stay manual. You cannot automate this at all because, if you notice, let me not get ahead, let me stay on track, and I'll come back to that here in a second. But the most important things with this is it drives home the point of transformational leadership, and so what that means is it helps you be outcome focused. You measure everything using the scorecard. It allows for you to get into some coaching, if that is needed, which, if issues come up, you know, that's why you have your issue section in your meeting structure, so that way you can develop those and hold accountable. And all of that and that's the next thing is that accountability piece. So it's outcome focus, measure everything, hold accountable. And then it opens the door for you to be able to coach, and coach in a way that really elevates the individual and doesn't undermine the individual.
Speaker 1:And so, who is this for? There's multiple scorecards. Right now, I is this for there's multiple scorecards. So right now I'm in the process of developing multiple scorecards. So there's one for me which is the top level CEO scorecard you have to have, like this will look different than the department scorecards. So for the department scorecards, as an example, media, so like media marketing, all of that branding that department, right there, they may have 10 KPIs or metrics that they're tracking and me I don't need to look at all of those on a consistent basis. I only need to look at three to five of them to know where that department is at and the health of that department and my business. So I should be looking at, most of the time, the CEO scorecard. That again is three to five items per department. That gives me an insight into each department and I know exactly the health of the business. And then the actual lead of the department is probably tracking well over three to five of those, maybe eight, nine, 10, sometimes even more than that, as they're analyzing data to ensure that they are tracking where vision of the business is headed. So again, there's two scorecards a high level CEO scorecard and then a department lead scorecard.
Speaker 1:And then, once you start to develop these scorecards, you need to make sure that you're following the set of rules. So I wrote out 10 things that are super important for you to pay attention to, and one it's measure and monitor everything. You need to define the metrics, and so what that means is like financials, marketing, sales, operations, like that's the title of it. So if you notice right here, that's the title, this is financial, and then these are all the metrics underneath financial that I'm tracking. This is not actually metrics that I'm tracking. I'm tracking a few of these Cash in, cash out is cashflow.
Speaker 1:Cash flow is one of the most important things whenever I'm looking at financials, because I can hide things or my bookkeeper, cpa, can hide things on a balance statement and a P&L statement, but you cannot hide cashflow, and so cashflow is one of the most honest looks at how your business is when it comes to the health of the financials. So that's huge for me, and I need to know what's going in, what's going out, what are the payments that need to go out, and so that way I can get a feel for every single month. This is what I have to pay every single job. I average this cost, I mean it helps me get a feel for every single month, this is what I have to pay every single job. I average this cost. I mean it helps me get a grip on my gross and net profit.
Speaker 1:Next thing is you choose your metrics. So again, we go through, we measure and monitor everything, we define the metric, we define the metric categories, and then we go in and we choose the metrics that we're tracking, so the KPIs that we're tracking. So if you hear me say metrics, I mean KPIs the same thing in my world. And then every line has someone that's responsible for it. So it's a direct report right over here.
Speaker 1:I have the owner of this. I should never input any of this data. If I have to input this data, the department lead failed at what they were supposed to do and that's not the idea of this. So you need to tie an owner to this. So that way, when you're doing your monthly meetings and you're going through the high level overview of your scorecard, you're going through and you're saying, hey Donovan, hey Leslie, hey Nicole, hey Shirley, what was up with this one or what happened with this one? And so it gives them a level of ownership over it and it's also what they are like, in charge of, what they're responsible for. And so, again, you are like y'all are partners, y'all are teammates, and so you should be running at the same pace or running in the same direction as your department leads, and then every goal has a color. So didn't have a color, but green, greater than 100% or 100%. So it gives you a status update. So I'll explain that more here in a second, but it helps you know. If they're under maybe 100%, maybe they're 80 to 99%, that gives them like a yellow color, like a yellow color, and then they should use.
Speaker 1:There's a note section on this as well that I couldn't show. I ran out of space that. Let's just say that we were, you know, tracking maybe $250,000 a month and maybe this month we hit a hundred thousand dollars. Well, why is that what? Over here in the note section, you should be able to look at this If you are on vacation or didn't go into the shop that day, whatever it is, and look and see we didn't hit it. But cool, leslie has a game plan on how this is going to happen. So I don't even need to worry about it or bother with it, because I trust her and I know she's going to make it happen. So that's the whole idea of those colors there is, it gives you a glimpse into that. Or maybe you use red for under 80% and you're not on target at all. You are far off target and so at that point you may need to step in even if there is a game plan and kind of figure some things out.
Speaker 1:Next is you have to set a monthly targets. So your target, right here again 250 K a month. And then what is your actual? And then you go through every single week. You're going through and you're saying, well, we got 50 grand this week, 50 grand this week, 50 grand, 50 grand. Oh, we hit 200 this month. Our target was 250. You can make this right here a percentage. So you can do a formula within Google Sheets to make this pop up as a percentage. So, hey, we were 90% close. So instead of going in and doing of you writing well, or the owner writing, we were 85% close. The percentage is coming from your actuals in comparison to your target.
Speaker 1:Again, keep this simple. This should be super, super, super, super simple. That's huge Should not be a hundred items on here. Excuse me, I would say honestly, if you've got like 10 plus items on here, it gets really polluted at that point. And, yeah, your department leads may be tracking 10 things, especially for different variations of business, but you don't need to so make it manual, never automate this. The owner of each one of these metrics should be getting in on Monday morning. It should be a part of what they are to do. They should block off some time to get this done and add their data in there. That way, monday morning meetings come, then you're able to look at it and analyze it, track and report weekly Again. That team comes in on Monday, they update it and then you have meetings and this is a huge chunk of what you're discussing in your weekly meetings.
Speaker 1:And the next one of the things that I don't have and I haven't done this yet, but the next level goal of this is to have like another chart over here. That's a graph chart to where I can track the progress. So, like what that means is that well, hey, maybe our quarterly goal is to get to three quarters of a million in revenue. Our quarterly goal is to get to three quarters of a million in revenue. And so how are we tracking on a graph over here in comparison to our quarterly goals, so that way you can see well, we hit this. Maybe our goal for the year was 2 million and our goals for the quarter are A, b, c and D, and then our goals for the month are A, b, c and D and that repeats all the way down to weekly goals. So that way you can see, kind of, how you're tracking. Well, this month we were going up, this month we went down a little bit, this month we went back up, and so it gives you a graph visual to look at to see where you're at. When I get that in place, I will show you guys and I will also share this document with you and so that way y'all can implement this into your businesses as well. So this is the.
Speaker 1:This is a poor drawing of a scorecard, but this gives you the rough overview of it. So again, revenue we should be tracking weekly on this. You should be looking at actual. So right, you know your target right here 250,. We hit 50, 50, 50, 50. We're actual 50 grand short. That should pull up a percentage right here and then automatically populate a color. Your owner should do this.
Speaker 1:What is the source? Where are you tracking this from? Maybe it's tracked from, like your CRM, or maybe your accounting software, or maybe you have an operation software to where you're tracking progress of jobs that are going out. Whatever that source is added in there and then have a note section as well. So that way you you know the game plan for why that target hasn't been met and it gives you an understanding that like, yeah, you have the right person in place or maybe you have the wrong person in place. Whoever is leading that those are this right here is I don't know.
Speaker 1:This really excites me, because when you talk about being very efficient with your meetings and getting your business dialed in so much to where you can have a manufacturing business that is in one location, you can be across the world and know exactly the health of your business and know where your business stands and know what you need to do just by looking at a document. You don't even have to be there. You wouldn't have had to been there for six months if that's what you chose to do. But you must get this stuff dialed in. If you don't get this stuff dialed in, then how in the world are you going to know the strategy in order to get to that point? I was talking to a CFO yesterday and he was telling me, like the majority. He was asking do you have a strategy? And I'm like, oh, you better believe I do. I've got that. I didn't show him but I have like a eight forget what it was like eight or nine page annual strategic business plan that I did at the beginning of the year and that gives us the strategy going out throughout the year. And obviously, as you get things dialed in with each department and start to have a grasp over what you're tracking and what you're not tracking, how each department is doing, then those things are huge. Like this is if you're trying to grow something special, like I am, like God's called me to, you must do these things.
Speaker 1:But again, most people aren't in business for those reasons. Most people are in business for reasons that is a means to an end. We want to go in, we want to get into business because we don't want to work for anybody else and we just want to make X amount of dollars and so that way we can have some financial freedom. Good luck, good luck. That's not really the way that business works. It is a difficult just understand this whenever you get into it if you don't have that right mentality, when you don't get that success that you want.
Speaker 1:I have lived through this. So when you don't get that success that you want, you have to be able to sustain that motivation, desire, drive and discipline throughout those dry seasons. And the only way that you can do that is by number one. For me, it's knowing that I am partnered up and work alongside and I come behind the King and uh, and he is the owner, he is the manager, he is the true CEO of my business and he's the one that's guiding everything. And he has given me an incredible vision and an incredible why. That is all tied around advancing his kingdom and making an impact and changing this world. So your why and why you do this cannot be tied to a means, to an end. And we're just trying to become financially free, everybody's trying to become financially free. So what is that thing that's going to sustain you whenever you fall flat down on your face and you don't hit the goals that you're trying to hit? And for me, that is what sustained me and I am so grateful that Jesus Christ is like the supplier of everything.
Speaker 1:And if you are pursuing business to be comfortable in your life, you are in the wrong area. Go work for somebody else and collect a paycheck, because you will be a statistic, just like everybody else, of 90% of businesses that fail within three to five years. And you must understand that you're going to set goals and not reach them and fall down and fail, and you're going to spend a lot more money than you make for a little fail, and you're going to spend a lot more money than you make for a little while and you're going to do all these different things and it's going to wear you down mentally if you let it. And you have the ability not to let that and you have the ability to push through that and to again understand your why. And this is why it's so important to root everything in scripture and understand that you have beautiful opportunity to advance God's kingdom in the marketplace. So if that discourages you, good. And if that makes you want to not be in business, good, you probably shouldn't be anyways. But if that makes you, if that does something inside of you where you're like, yeah, that's not me, or yeah, I'm going to make sure that we overcome that, then awesome man, do your thing.
Speaker 1:I am probably one of your biggest fans, even though I don't know you, because I love watching people push through that and I love it whenever people get into business and they fall down. They make mistakes, but they get right back up and they stay consistent and they do it for a long time. Most people are going to quit within a year. Most people are going to quit within six months, and the ones that don't really stand apart. So why do you do what you do? Who is the one that is leading the way within your business? Is it you or is it God? And maybe you have a kingdom business and maybe you have taken the place of God.
Speaker 1:In this season I've been there as well and I promise you, one of the most incredible things is whenever God makes me aware of that and I then turn my focus back to God, repent for that, and then I'm just overflowing with the love of Christ and I just have this peace about me and so, um, it's just part of that sanctification process. But comfortability knock that off of your list. If you're pursuing that in any stretch or any form like, you're setting yourself up for failure, because breakthrough, miraculous things happen in pain and in suffering. So prepare to suffer within your business and prepare to go through a lot of painful seasons, but also know that it doesn't have to be in your mind I'm just suffering, I'm just, I'm just in so much pain. It doesn't have to be in your mind, I'm just suffering, I'm just, I'm just in so much pain. It doesn't have to be this boohoo mentality, because you serve the King and you have Jesus Christ living inside of you and you can choose to wallow in your pain and suffering or you can choose to live out the power, love and self-control that is only through living in the Holy Spirit and allowing the Holy Spirit to live through you. So business is like one of the most for me. It's where God's called me and so it's one of like the most incredible thing in the world to me.
Speaker 1:When I talk about heading towards 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, a billion dollar business and having a billion dollar evaluation, I don't say that because it's like, well, I'm going to go buy private jets and get helicopters and go buy all this land and do all this stuff Again not that there's anything wrong with that, but I say that because I know what that, I know what I, what I to the extent that I can know what that entails in the leadership team that has to be in place, the systems that have to be in place, the processes, the how, your meeting structure, all the metrics and data that you're tracking, your marketing, your branding, all the things that come into play. If, if, if and when I get to that point that's the thing that excites me the most is like building out all of those elements and or bringing in the expert to build those out. I used to have a mentality that, man, I'm going to bring everything in house, I'm going to do everything in house. No, no more. I'm going to do every single thing. Everything that I do is going to be to bring in the expert and so that way, the expert can then take things to another level. So it's not. I no longer have the mentality that I have to be the expert. I have to be the main guy. I have to be the one that knows and does everything within my business. You will suffer and you will not get to the goals where you're trying to get to if that's your mentality. Now, the mentality that we should have is man, I'm actually like, I love numbers, but I'm going to bring on the expert on this that can teach me and that can be the one that can take that portion of the business to the next level. Or I love marketing and branding, but I'm going to bring on an expert. I brought it to this point and in my team brought it to this point, but we're going to bring on an expert that can take it to a whole nother level. And so that's just a different mentality. You have to set your pride and your ego aside with that and you have to move into a mentality of I'm going to grow something really special and formulate a powerful and incredible team. So, last thing is um, it's two, two more things that I want to share.
Speaker 1:If y'all have not read the Zacchaeus story in Luke, luke 19. I want to encourage you to do that and to study that right there, because the Zacchaeus story if you've heard the jingles Zacchaeus was a wee little man. A wee little man. Was he so far from the truth, so far from the actual story in the Bible? It's fascinating.
Speaker 1:Zacchaeus was not a short man. Zacchaeus didn't have to get up in a tree because he was a short man and he couldn't stay over the crowd. Zacchaeus was the chief of the publicans. Zacchaeus was the one that was the chief tax collector that more than likely had tax collectors underneath him, that was going and stealing from the people and doing a lot of shady things to accumulate his wealth.
Speaker 1:And when you read in Luke, it talks about Zacchaeus was a wealthy man and was a chief of priests and then he just wanted to see Jesus. And when you look at those and then the crowds were so great that he had to jump up into a tree, and that's not saying that he couldn't see over the crowds, but he was nervous about those crowds because of what they may do to him because of his stature in the world. And that's what it says. It says because he was little of stature he got up into a tree. And so we read that at a surface level and say, well, he must have been a short man and so he had to climb up there. Whenever that is not the truth at all. And when it says little of stature, it's talking about his status within the community because of his job and what he chose to do and how he chose to treat people and how he chose to accumulate his wealth. And so he was more than likely fearful for his life that if he went in with the crowd that they were going to do something to him, and so he got up into a tree in order to see Jesus. What did Jesus do? Jesus saw him, called him by his name.
Speaker 1:You, pure and innocent one, because that's what Zacchaeus means. It means pure and innocent. And you, pure and innocent one, I'm coming to your house to eat today, and so that should be our mentality. Guys, put that on my wife and I's heart this year is to have non-believers over for dinner. I spent a lot of time over the last few years having believers over for dinner, and nothing wrong with that, but now it's. Let's start to have non-believers. Let's have people that don't believe in anything that we believe, and start to represent Christ in ways that we see in scripture at dinner at our house, and how we can serve these people.
Speaker 1:And then another thing is and this is the last thing I'll say is your business is your ministry? You can look at it that way or you can look at it like my business is just that. That's all that it is. I'm using this to make some money. That way, I don't have to work for somebody and I can have my own schedule. This podcast is not for you, if that's the way that you look at business. Business is your ministry. Business is something that is the most fun and rewarding thing in my life outside of my family and my daughter. That that's that's like number one. But my business is just so awesome to watch the impact that is being made Guys giving their life over to the Lord, guys getting out of prison and doing some really cool things post-release that, in a nutshell, is what it is all about.
Speaker 1:So use your business to honor God, and one of the ways that you can honor God is by doing everything with excellence, and one of the ways that you can do everything with excellence is by doing stuff like this right here, and so hopefully this encourages you guys and quit pursuing certainty. It exists, but it exists for the mediocre in life and for the poor people. And when I say poor people, like well, yeah, we're talking about finances, but the thing that I am referring to when I say that is like the mentality that comes with that mentality of pursuing certainty. I'm not talking about how much money do you have in your wallet, I'm talking about what is your mental mentality? Is it a broke mentality, that poor mentality? Is it a scarcity mentality? What is your that mentality? Because I don't see any of those in scripture. I mean, I see some of those in scripture but I don't see the example, the one that we're following, living that any of that out.
Speaker 1:So your business is your ministry. How can you make an impact? And if you, if God's called you, just like he's called every believer to advance his kingdom, what does that look like for you? So ask yourself that, like God, what does that look like for me tomorrow? What does that man or woman do that uses their business as their ministry? That is growing. Something special, and something special for you may not be a billion dollar evaluation or a billion dollar business. It may be hey, we're growing, we want to get to this dollar amount because that means that we'll be able to do A, b and C and there's nothing wrong with that at all and, if you ask me, as long as you're doing a lot of these things that we're talking about here. So God bless you.