Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton
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Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton
Business Bible: Where Sweat Equity Meets Divine Strategy
Matt Walton shares nine crucial principles he's learned over three years as a kingdom business owner, offering practical strategies for entrepreneurs who want to build businesses that honor God while achieving excellence.
• Building structure and strategy as the foundation of business success
• Marketing and branding should focus on solving customer problems
• Plan for 10 years of sweat equity before expecting significant returns
• Master delegation to transform from owning a job to owning a business
• Personal growth directly impacts your business's potential
• View your business as ministry with God as the true CEO
• Track metrics in every department to guide strategic decisions
• Implement effective time management through blocking and prioritization
• Keep your identity in Christ, not in business success or failure
If you enjoyed this episode, please download, like, share, subscribe and leave a comment. I'd love to hear which principles resonated most with you!
What's up, guys? This is Matt with Avoda Talk or the Real Matt Walton. This is your hub for all things. Kingdom business business as 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 Avoda Talk, or at the Real Matt Walton, depending on how you found me, and I am grateful that you guys found me.
Speaker 1:The whole purpose of this channel is to provide as much value as I possibly can. A lot of people right now are working to build their personal brands, and that is not the idea of this channel. Yes, that can be a part of the idea of this channel, but the whole idea is to move out of obedience to Christ to give y'all as much value as you can, to help people understand that their businesses are their ministry, that every business, no matter who you are, if you are a servant of Christ, can be a kingdom business, and so I aim to give y'all strategy so you can take expert ownership over your business and apply excellence across every department, including yourself within your business. So, again, the whole idea of this is to give you all value, but to pour Christ into you and, when you get to the end of this video, to feel just full of Christ love and to have a game plan of how you and your business can get better. Lately, life has been incredible game plan of how you and your business can get better. Lately, life has been incredible. I've got just an increase in sales within the pool division of my business I've sold. Now we're two pools Right now it's June over where we were at all of last year, so I credit that that it's all glory to God. It's so incredible to sit back and watch how the last six months of hyper-focusing on my marketing department and getting downloads from God on what to do, what not to do, who to partner with, who not to partner with, and to watch that come to fruition, and so it is so incredible. It's incredibly humbling. I was driving into my shop this morning and just thinking about thinking through that, and now the name of the game for me is like sustaining that. So it's like, okay, how in the world can I sustain this? And so that's where I'm hyper-focused on is sustaining the growth and continuing that, the growth trajectory that we're on right now. So praise the Lord for that Incredibly grateful.
Speaker 1:Personal life is going really, really well. I was actually sick on Tuesday, monday night Tuesday but Wednesday was able to wake up and still do my exercises and still work on my discipline. So a lot of people we struggle with getting back motivated whenever we've coming off of something that we had no control over. So maybe you were really sick, maybe you had to go out of town or something like that and you weren't able to stick with your normal routine. Well, how I have found in my past the best way to get back on that is to stay disciplined. So as soon as I wake up, even if it doesn't look like you're doing everything you normally would commit to do, just get back at it. Get back at it and start doing the things that you would do so that you can continue on those disciplines. So as soon as you feel good enough to get out there, it's ignoring those feelings. Number one, because if you're like me, I can always twist my mind whenever I'm coming off of being sick that I don't quite feel good enough to go out there. But it's ignoring that, pushing that to the side and going out there and running, and then, for me, I felt a whole lot better whenever I got out there and ran post-run. So try that, if you're struggling to get back motivated, just start with action. It's kind of like waking up. In the morning time you may not feel like waking up, but as soon as you get up, your feet hit the ground, you start moving a little bit. Then you feel motivated to go do what you need to do throughout the day.
Speaker 1:Today I want to talk about I'm excited about today, because this is several things. I titled this like nine things, but there's about 900 things under the nine things that are all principles of things that I've learned over the last three years. So again, three years ago I bought a business. I was in Houston, texas, bought a business out here in Las Vegas, nevada. I have since moved out here, my whole entire family moved out here as well, and now we run and operate a business. It's a manufacturing or a factory business and we're growing rapidly. So it is absolutely incredible, and over the last three years I have learned a ton, and so I want to share a few of the things. This is not everything, but a few of the things that I've learned.
Speaker 1:Before we get into it, we always start with Scripture, because that is where all the power and authority comes from is in God's Word. This is literally God speaking. So many of us ask, like man, I just haven't heard from God. And have you opened the Bible? Have you read God's word lately? Because he wants to speak to you through his word. And what Psalm 127 says is and this is so telling because there are so many times throughout your business life and business ventures that you will allow for God to go ahead of you, and he is the one that is building the house and then you'll find yourself going ahead of God, and that scripture is always very convicting to me and it causes me to do a deep dive just on my life. And have I been allowing God to build the house? So it's a question to ask and that's something that I wouldn't plan on saying, but that's something that I've learned over the last three years.
Speaker 1:So, first things first. When I think about I'm going to run through, there's nine things and again there's principles underneath those nine things, but the first thing is structure and strategy. So those two things kind of go hand in hand, but they're a little bit separate, but I wanted to do that as number one. So, structure and strategy. So first, it's a legal side of things. I know this is so obvious.
Speaker 1:This is something that most business owners or most people before they get into business. Solopreneurs want to go put the cart in front of the horse and so they want to go set up their LLC, get all the legal paperwork done before they've actually done any work, and so they end up and spend that money to get an LLC and it ends up and sits there for a couple of months before they actually open their doors and start doing any work. So please don't fall into that trap. Go out and put in some work, start to work on some things you may wanna find out is your name available? May go claim your domain, different things like that but don't fall into the trap of focusing on all the legal things. Focus on your business first. Understand that's something that absolutely has to happen. It's one of your first steps that need to be done, but it is not the most important thing. And if you do that, what a lot of people do because I have done this is you end up waiting two or three months to actually get going on the work, and so you could have saved that money and that time that you spent getting everything legal.
Speaker 1:The next thing is, once you get everything, once you've decided what you were going to do, then you start strategizing over everything. So for me it looked like a VTO vision tracker organizer. I got that from the book Traction. I have since moved on from that and done something called the annual strategic business plan, which if you hit the link in my social media profile, you will still be able to download that. But that will go through everything every department, the goals, the mission, everything within your business. And so you may start with a single page strategy of what you are doing and where you're going and the vision and the mission of the business, and that is okay. Even if it's a half a page, that is okay, and over time you're going to develop it even further. It'll eventually be a multi-page document that'll have all of your data on it that you will apply to all of your quarterly strategy meetings and your whole entire team. You will go over it with them at the beginning of the year and every single quarter to see how you are measuring up against the strategy that you have implemented at the beginning of the year, based off of the previous year or based off of your vision and desire for the business. So here you're going to develop all your budgets. You're going to look at, you know, develop your KPIs, that you're going to track, you're going to develop the strategy and you're going to break down that strategy into departments.
Speaker 1:Regardless, I don't care if it is just you and you alone. Look at your business and as a as as a full ecosystem that has different departments already. If you need to market, you already have a marketing department. If you're networking, you already have a marketing department. If you're tracking your finances, if you're making money through your business and you're maybe using QuickBooks as an example to track all of that, you have a finance department. So start looking at each department within your business as just that, and that will help you hyper-focus on those things and start to study those things and how you can improve each department.
Speaker 1:Next thing is you have to develop a mindset that says zero compromise. So when you start to develop your mindset, one of the big things for me was zero compromise. And what does that mean? What am I not compromising on? And one of the things is my family. I just won't compromise on family time so that I can grow the business and, fortunately for me, I have my wife and my daughter up here with me every day, all day. My wife is an integral part to my business and my daughter is a joy to have around. We have a nanny up here that takes care of her, and so we are very blessed on that front, and so I actually moved to have my family incorporated in everything that we're doing, and I have found that that has worked really really well. My wife and I work really well together and we love it.
Speaker 1:So the next thing is your mindset. You have to have your mindset right. So before you get going, whenever you're strategizing, whenever you're developing your mission, vision, values, your principles, your business plan all of that you need to make sure your mindset is right and you have the right expectations. Expect to fail. Expect to fail in a great degree. Expect to spend a lot of money before you make money. Expect a lot of not necessarily good things to happen. But if your mindset is right, those are all good things, because it's all stepping stones to where you know you need to go and are going, and for me, I planned for 10 years of not making hardly any money, every dime going back into the business and that 10 years I am locked in and I let everybody know that, I let my whole team know that, let my family know that. So everybody is locked in with the same mindset and the same expectations. So plan for about 10 years before you have exponential growth, what a lot of people do, and it may happen before then. I pray that it does. I pray it happens within the first year, but historically it's not going to happen. You're going to put in a lot of sweat equity before you actually start to see that growth.
Speaker 1:Most businesses today I'll get into this on number three I think it is, but most businesses today are so underfunded it's like mine. When I first bought my business, all the funds went towards keeping the doors open. I bought a failing business and, by the grace of God, we are seeing it thrive right now, and so that is all glory to God. But all of the funds the extra funds that was left over was all went towards keeping the doors open and putting out fires across the board, and so I didn't have the ability to go invest into the business up until recently, and so now I'm ability to go invest into the business up until recently and so now I'm able to go invest into the business and I am very, very grateful for that. But just plan for those those 10 years. Most businesses again today are underfunded and, as a result, people need to have a mindset of I need to put in. Probably got to put in about 10 years before I see the life that I got into business to have, which may mean freedom from finances impact.
Speaker 1:There's a number of things and reasons why we get into business and for me it's a calling. I really believe and I know without a doubt that God has called me into business and I know for a lot of you listening, it's the same thing. Next thing this could really go with number one, but I wanted to break this down as number two. So marketing, branding and sales just develop your game plan here, because this is super, super critical to all businesses. If you commit to having a kingdom business, god may call you to rely on him to sell your product. God may call you to do everything that is available at your fingertips for free, rather than go on expensing dollars on marketing. Listen to God. He is the best partner to have. God called me to do that for a period of time and man. It's an incredible story what God has done starting then through now.
Speaker 1:But whenever you're doing your marketing department, just develop your game plan, your avatar, who it is that you're pursuing, what channels you're going to pursue. First, you need to start with your strategy here, then you can kind of develop your messaging here and then you can develop the channels or decide on the channels that you want to pursue. I have done that backwards at times and then I've done that in that exact order at times, and so for me in my history it's better to do that with strategy, messaging and then channels, rather than the opposite direction, but understand your brands and your messaging and again utilize those free channels. So for me it could be like Yelp or it could be Facebook groups just as a couple ideas for some free channels. But marketing is super, super critical, because if you need leads that are coming in, you need to create an organic lead flow, traffic and so start thinking in that direction. How can I create a marketing department that is generating leads that are all coming in organically, and what are ways that I can do that? And maybe, just maybe, doing paid ads is a part of that strategy for a time being, that will help you generate that organic traffic. Or maybe it's having a second website so that way you can grow both and if people see this one over here, maybe it'll point them to your website over here, increasing both ranking on Google Analytics.
Speaker 1:There's so many different things when it comes to marketing, but marketing is so vital and, again, the most important thing is listen to God, and for you right now and for me, it's like utilize all the free channels that you have and then just pay attention to God. Focus on your brand, how you want people to perceive you. Focus on the people and how you can solve their problems, how you can remove any friction throughout the sales process and how whatever however that looks how you're going to serve them and meet their needs and how you're going to number one, not just get the lead, but then nurture them throughout the sale process and then pass the sales process if you have a warranty process. So those are all super, super important and those all go with your brand and I promise you, if you take care of each one of those things the way that you should, that will help you decrease or, excuse me, increase your conversion rates. Decrease the amount you're spending on ads or your ad spend and increase your ROAS. It just it increases everything and decreases things where it needs to be decreased.
Speaker 1:So next thing and I'm not going to any particular order here, but the next thing is sweat equity. So what a lot of people think that they can do when they get into business. I've been guilty of this. This was my first business. I was guilty of this. But is you're going to get in business? This is going to be this cashflow. You're going to start making a bunch of money and you're going to be free within a year to live and do the way that you would please. And fortunately, god has completely flipped that upside down and has converted my thinking appropriately, and I'm very grateful for that. So I will say what I said earlier plan for 10 years, be strapped in for 10 years before you start to see some significant growth. Maybe your people, maybe your team, maybe your business obviously is going to be making more money than you. Maybe you only have the ability to take exactly what you need to pay some bills. You have to have it in your mind. Okay, we're not going on any elaborate vacations. We're saving money in these different areas and just make sure that your wife and everybody or your husband, everybody involved is on board with that Sweat.
Speaker 1:Equity is important because most businesses are going to fail within three to five years and if you do not plan for those three to five years to be locked in, whatever that means for you. It may mean networking, it may mean doing different things on marketing, it may mean making a bunch of phone calls there's a number of things that it may mean. But plan for that and plan to work really hard over the next three to five years so that you can develop the systems in the business that can thrive well beyond your days of operating it. Within this time, you're going to study and learn the market. You also want to do the hard thing. So most people start with a great idea in business that I want to be in business to make an impact. I want to help people. I want to lead appropriately. I want to teach people how to lead. I want to use my business as my ministry. Okay, these are all great thoughts to have, but if you do not create the programs and the systems to support it, they will control you. I promise you that.
Speaker 1:I'll give you an example, if you decide, like I did, to hire guys off the streets or in prison, then they can very easily run your and ruin your day to day, because maybe they have fallen off the rails, maybe they've done anything that landed them in the position to get into prison to begin with or to be on the streets to begin with, and so my mind is like I don't want that to be a deterrent from hiring these guys, because I was that guy. I would love for somebody, and I actually had somebody that invested into me in some of my darkest times. And so, as a result of that, I want to invest in people in their darkest times, but I also want to ensure that the business doesn't miss a beat when they miss a beat. And so how can we do that? And so I've developed curriculums like my training and onboarding program. That is something that has been developed my discipleship program. That helps me kind of stay on track with the guys and if they fall off a little bit, it gives me some parameters to disciple them through their mistakes.
Speaker 1:I do a reward deduction incentive program. This is something that I am working on. I have not implemented this yet, but that is my next level of things that I am working on. One thing that I do have is a dream chaser accountability program as well to support that. So whenever somebody comes on, they run through the training. If they meet the guidelines in place during the training program, then I will invest in them, they will be a part of my team and then, if they fall off track during any of that, they will be on the discipleship program that ultimately, if they don't meet the requirements that were set before them, then they will be let go. But the whole idea is to counsel them, to give that grace and mercy that God is so good and faithful to give to us and to extend that to all of our people while it's helping us as a business, not miss a beat. And then, if they've gotten to a certain point within their personal growth and development through these programs and outside of these programs, whenever they leave my shop they'll be invited to DCAP Dream Chaser Accountability Program. That will continue to walk alongside them and help them accomplish their goals over the course of a year. So I'll sum that up with saying do the hard things and if you have a heart to help people, just know this you're going to have to develop a program around them, not being able to control you in your day to day. And so do the work to do that. Bring them on, disciple them, love on them, put them through the program and make sure that those guidelines and those measuring sticks of how you are measuring their performance is very, very clear. So if they fall off from that, there's no questions as to why.
Speaker 1:The next thing is systems. This is super important before we get into delegation. But this is number four. So systems this can be supplemented through and with flow charts, no-transcript that you do so that when we get to step five, which is delegation, you can have the necessary tools to delegate appropriately and you don't fall into advocation but you delegate appropriately. So that gets us to number five.
Speaker 1:Delegation is huge when you get to that point to be able to delegate it out. So most people want to tell you hey, go and hire. You need to hire this or you need to hire that. You need to hire somebody to manage your sales department or somebody to manage operations and I'm giving a 50,000 foot overview but I would hire to buy back some of your time. So it's like for me when I was looking at bringing on one of my first top down hire I ended up in and was thinking through the things that would help me buy back the most of my time. What position would I need to hire for that? That way I can focus next level and really get the next level things rocking and rolling. And that's what led me to hiring somebody to manage my operations in the back that reports directly to me and then they help develop SOPs and checklists and implement all the things, do leadership meetings and a number of things, so that I can focus next level and keep this business sustained and just keep doing things that will move the needle within the business. So delegation is huge.
Speaker 1:Most people don't own a business, most own jobs, and so one of the best ways to actually own a business is to understand the art of delegation. This comes from Exodus 18 with Moses and Jethro. So if you have not read that, please go read that, because that is where I first learned the art and the principle of delegation. I did it wrong at first and the second time I did it. I took what I learned and it's been working very, very well. Your measuring stick for that is if you stepped away and it doesn't get better. You advocated and you did not delegate. But if you stepped away and it got better, then that's your sign right there that you delegated. It doesn't mean that your work is done because you need to continue to be looking to go to the next level.
Speaker 1:So some of the things so delegation, it looks like hiring at first. Right, you may have to hire bottom up, so you may have to hire workers to complete the task, and that is exactly what I had to do. I had to hire bottom up and I hate that word bottom up because it alludes to something that I don't like, because I could not do this without my guys that are back there in the shop doing the work. But, for a sake of explaining this, hiring bottom up is okay, and I had an avatar, just like within marketing, who am I pursuing? I had the same thing within hiring. I knew who I was pursuing and it was those that were down and out, that were broken and beaten, that needed right leadership, that needed somebody that could represent Christ to the best of their ability, that could love on them while giving them a job and helping them become the men and eventually, women that God had created them to be, and so that's who I look for. I look for those that need that help. I don't necessarily. I will no longer and never will hire again for skill only Now. If they have the skill and meet the other parameters, then awesome. But I am hiring for how we align on a number of things.
Speaker 1:So one of the things during this is, as you're looking to hire, start thinking in the mindset of I don't want to do $20 an hour task anymore, so who can I hire to do my $20 an hour task? You know that may be an assistant, you know that can look like a number of different ways, but who can you hire? What are those $20 an hour tasks that if you had somebody doing those, it would free up a lot of your time and that may be your next hire, I don't know. So next thing is I'll hear this concept a lot, but you want to get to the point as quickly as you can and as best as you can of working on your business, not in your business. And this goes to the point that I said earlier. Most own jobs and don't own businesses, and if you move in this direction and apply a lot of these things, this will help you actually own a business to where you can work on your business instead of in your business, and when you work on your business, it's one of the most incredible things in the world.
Speaker 1:During this time, you want to bring on niche experts, so I used to believe I need to bring everybody in house. Now I'm like let me go find the best individual at the task or the job description that I need and let me go bring them on board. So you move from hiring to recruiting top level down positions, and that's where you, as the owner, founder, ceo, need to have the mindset of I am recruiting, I am always recruiting, and that's literally my mindset. Who can I bring on board that will help push this vision forward and will be a great asset to the team and will be an A player. But you can't demand A players if you're not an A player, so you need to be an A player first.
Speaker 1:Next thing is personal growth. So this is number six. So personal growth is huge, because if you're not growing personally, then I promise you your business will be capped off at the level of success that it can have Now. Maybe you found a pot of gold and maybe your business is not so dependent upon you being that A player. I promise you that's going to catch up to you and you're going to lose your business if you do not take this part very serious of taking ownership over your life.
Speaker 1:And how can you be the best version that God created you to be? And I think one of the first steps is to ask God, god, who did you create me to be? And God, who are you and who is your son, jesus? And who do you say that I am? And start going down that and studying that and then really working on your personal growth and just taking your thoughts captive, making your body your slave, working on your eating, working on all of your habits. Getting around the right people is huge. Getting around people that are a whole lot smarter than you, that is huge. The quickest that you can do that is too late. I mean, do that ASAP and commit to being the best version of yourself possible.
Speaker 1:And just a little note on here if you are seeking work life and home life balance, that is a thought and a principle for the mediocre and like never even entertained. And I see that on social media and I'm like that is the most ridiculous thing in the world Like that implies that there's a separation between work and home life, and for me it's all the same. So it's like my relationship with the Lord Like it's it's I advanced the kingdom. In everything that I do, I, I preach the gospel, no matter what channel or what platform God has entrusted me with. So there's no like well, I only talk and live for God on Sundays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays when I'm at church, but no, it's every day. Everything is set up and revolves around being obedient to Christ. So just know that my thing is let me incorporate my family in to my life and let me then work on being the best and most present father and husband to my family. Let me block out time that I have for work and block out time that I have for work and block out time that I have for my family and again, look for areas to incorporate my wife, incorporate my daughter. Or give you an example Like, if I am preparing for something, then I will back up, or I will back it up with something to celebrate with. So if it's like, hey, I'm locking in for the next two weeks on this, but after those two weeks we're going to do this. So it helps us all throughout those times because maybe for those two weeks I'm waking up earlier, I'm locking myself in the office, I'm doing things to where I'm not as present as I would like to be, but we back that up with something to celebrate on the backside of that and that's worked really, really well. So it's really cool how my family is just is so supportive of everything we have going on and is a big part of it.
Speaker 1:Next thing is is this is huge. That's why I said nothing goes is going on order. That's number seven. But your business is your ministry. So, like from day one, when you're strategizing, if this video reaches you before you actually create everything. Make God the CEO. I actually have God as a CEO in my paperwork, my excuse me my bylaws with the state and, um, uh, like partner with him. He is constantly looking to collaborate with you and to partner with you and to go ahead of you and to lead you in the direction that you need to go. And God is so good. He will literally give you the blueprints, everything that you need going forward. So with your marketing, I don't care what it is, he'll give you the blueprint for everything. And be thinking people over profits, kingdom impact over income and your business is your ministry. So how does that look? If your business is your ministry? What does that look like? Your literature should reflect that. Your email signature should reflect that. What does that look like for you specifically? And decide that, strategize over that and implement that. And if you want to have crisis king on every post that you make on social media, do that. God had called me to do that from day one after buying this business, and it's cool the feedback that I've gotten from people. I had somebody at my shop last Friday talking about how they literally will go on to our social media just see where we put that crisis king at, and that's something they always look at for every video, and so that's huge.
Speaker 1:Number eight is track every single thing. Personally, I would track everything. So I track everything in my personal life. I have these notepads that literally I write down the 15, 20 things that I'm trying to track. Wake up at this time, go to sleep at this time, read this many pages none of this, none of this, you know whatever that could look like for you and do that and track that and be disciplined with that every single day and do the same thing within your business and track departments. So again, look at your business as departments and track it all individually, tie some KPIs to each department and just start analyzing it and tracking those things, and analyze it on a month to month or a quarterly basis so that you can know the health and where your business is going, so that that way you can adjust your strategy appropriately. But tracking every single thing is huge and don't start with tracking 15 things like just track a couple of things and then you'll grow over time to track and maybe five, 10, 15 things per department. But like to be honest with you. You as the owner, ceo, one that sits at the very top of your business, you can know the health of your business in each department by looking at three to five pieces of KPI data.
Speaker 1:Next thing this is number nine Then I'll have two more freebies and I'll be very quick with those two freebies, but it's time is your time management. So understand that time management is huge. I time block, so I do a lot of like like in my mornings I have certain blocks of time. Throughout my day I have certain blocks of time, and then evening time, I have certain blocks of time. So study time blocking and implement that to the best that you can Schedule dates with your wife or with your spouse, schedule vacations, schedule dates with your kids.
Speaker 1:If you have meetings, start on time every time. For me, I do that. Well, I would say I do that nine, eight out of 10 times right now, and that is something that I am actively working to improve, as I look to improve all of my meetings as well, so I can give as much value, so we can condense the meetings down and pack as much value as we can and condense the time down when needed, but start on time every time. I have applied that principle and just this week, though, I did like eight out of my 10 meetings and I was looking at I'm like, ok, this is unacceptable. So I need to change these two things so that I can start these meetings on time and you just analyze those things, get going and if it was you that caused that meeting to be late, to be late, recognize it, this is big for time management. We have to learn when to say no, like I heard I don't know who says this, but like you will only go as far as you learn to say no. So if you learn to say no so for me, like right now I'll give you an example I'm working on.
Speaker 1:There's a certain amount of people that will always get a yes from me. There's a certain amount of people that will always get a yes from me. There's a certain group of people that will always get a no from me, and there's a certain group of people that will get a response from me. I just did this last Saturday of hey, I'm going to play pickleball at 8 am. Come join me at this park. So that's usually first people developing relationships with people.
Speaker 1:I always invite them to something I'm already doing, because I cannot stand and this is actually new for me, but I cannot stand lunch meetings or coffee meetings. They're such a colossal waste of time for me. So how can I still get around people and still network and do the things without having to take an hour, hour and a half out of a day to go have coffee with somebody? It's the most ridiculous thing to me. So I started inviting people to things that I am already doing. So on Monday I invited somebody to my prayer and then, on the backside of prayer, I chatted with them for a few minutes and then the meeting was over. So start to think of ways that you can buy back your time, and that may look like no more lunch meetings, no more coffee meetings, but instead inviting people in and even if you're going and doing things like going and riding your bike and you do that every single day invite people to do that and then that way you can start meeting new people and you don't have to take away from what you're already doing and those that you ride bikes with or run with the very people that you'll eventually end up doing business with.
Speaker 1:Last thing that I just started doing that's been huge for me is plan for your next day today. So tonight, whenever I get home after my daughter goes to sleep at like 730, I will sit down with my wife for a few minutes. It doesn't take a long time and we will go over tomorrow, so I will go over my next day. In that time I am blocking out my day and exactly how it will look, and so that way, when I wake up, I know exactly what I am doing. Most people have their to-do list, will arrive to work that morning and then they'll just start working and they will have no clear direction or game plan and they find themselves jumping from task to task.
Speaker 1:When you start to plan for your day before the day begins and I'm talking the day before that allows for you to wake up the next day, not have to immediately plan for your day, because to me that's a that's again. That's such a waste of time. If you're waking up in the morning time and then strategizing for your day, you're already behind. So that plan for your day the night before, get it to your assistant. If you need to change some things, if you need to add something, let the people know. But I promise you when I started doing that that has made my evenings go better. It removes those thoughts from my mind of what I have to do tomorrow, because I already have a game plan and then when I wake up in the morning time, I am focused on the things that I have decided to be focused on, and that's myself, my relationship with God. Then I hop right into creative tasks and then start to understand how do you perform better in the morning times and what tasks you perform better at in the morning times. I have better energy in the afternoon, so I would much rather do these tasks in the afternoon and do these tasks in the morning. Because of that, pay attention to your levels and how you react to things at different parts of the day. Whenever you notice a consistency, adjust your day accordingly.
Speaker 1:Two more things. These are freebies, these are kind of like 10 and 11, but it's identity and understand this that your identity can be wrapped up in your success or failures within your business. Over the last three years, I have gone on a rollercoaster ride with this and sometimes my identity. And it's interesting because, like my identity, whenever things aren't going the way that I would like, I can wear that and I can wear every ounce of that. And God uses those moments to let me know that, hey, his yoke is easy and his burden is light, and to surrender all that over to Christ. And then, whenever things go really well, you can find yourself with your identity.
Speaker 1:And it's tempting to think, man, if it wasn't for me doing this and me doing that and me doing these things, then we wouldn't be where we're at today. And those are thoughts that come from the enemy, because I really believe that those thoughts that you got came from God, those ideas came from God, those relationships came from God, so we, as human beings and as servants of Christ, always have to keep that in mind, that God is the only one in which those blessings come from. Actually, blessings can also come from the enemy as well, and so this is the reason why it's so, so vital to stay connected to your Lord and Savior and your creator, jesus Christ, and stay connected to that so that you understand what you need to understand in the moment and where your identity is maybe misplaced in the moments, and so you can allow yourself to be convicted by God and to make the adjustments that you need to make to get your identity back in Christ and who he is in the finished work of the cross, not in success or not in failures within your business or not, because you didn't do this or you did that and man, it's so freeing whenever you get back to that, to, like man, my identity is wrapped up in Christ and at least maybe it's not fully, maybe I'm moving in that direction, but it's such an incredible, incredible thing. Last thing is focus on others. I've mentioned this up above a little bit, but you have to stay focused on others and when you're thinking clients, stay focused on our marketing. Stay focused on your clients and how you can help them solve their problems and how you can develop relationships with them and how you can come alongside them and collaborate with them. And whenever you're negotiating with vendors or talking to vendors or clients, how can you help them accomplish their dreams? And just stay others focused? And I believe that that is the heartbeat of Christ and that goes with kingdom business as well as being focused on others and do the hard things, never do the easy things. If you're faced with two decisions, one of them is the easier one, one of them is the harder one Always do the harder thing.
Speaker 1:I want just last encouragement is I know I talk about this all throughout, but again, this channel is geared towards kingdom business, and so it's like what does that even mean? When we talk about kingdom business? And I think it means the same thing for every single person that is out there. I think that it can look a little bit differently for everybody that is out there, but I think kingdom business is one thing it is moving out of. A is letting God go first, letting God sit at the throne of your business and letting him be the CEO and coming alongside and behind him, collaborating with him and moving out of obedience to the things he's called you to be obedient to.
Speaker 1:And that looks different from time to time. It doesn't look like the way the world does business. Sometimes it looks a little bit more scary, but the results are so, so incredible. Because, at the end of the day, if the results are solely tied to finances, you may consistently be let down, but if the results are tied to focusing on others and kingdom impact over income and people over profits, then that's where, no matter the circumstance within your business or the lack of finances or whatever, you will still have purpose and drive because you're focused on somebody else and making a kingdom impact over worrying about the income that's coming in. And, knowing Matthew 6, 33, if I pursue the righteousness of God, all these other things will be added to me, and so that's my main focus is pursuing Christ and Christ alone and collaborating with him. So I really hope that this added a lot of value to you. If y'all like this, please download, like, share, subscribe and leave a comment. But thank you, guys, so much for tuning in.