00:00:00 Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 51, where I speak with Kim Avery about being a prayer field entrepreneur. I'm Kim Avery author of the prayer powered entrepreneur. And I challenge you to focus on your calling as a Christian entrepreneur. One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.
00:00:34 I actually have some friends and people who've read the book who have literally I've one friend. She sent me a picture. She pulled an empty chair up next to her desk and put a big sign there that says, ask me anything, love Jesus. And that reminder that this is it's a conversation. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:00:59 If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true column. In the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. And tonight, Saturday night special. I talk with Kim Avery.
00:01:32 We talk about the power of prayer for an entrepreneur. I ask him about doing prayer, right? When it comes to business, Kim and I talk about the framework that she uses for prayer and her business. And we talk about why God answering prayer doesn't mean you get it easy and lots more. Now one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity.
00:02:00 Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really, really tough. I've got a course called productivity for your passion. That's designed to help you do this, and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.
00:02:26 What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality. Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type. But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work,
00:02:49 but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over inspired stewardship.com/launch Tonight, Your night special, I'm talking with Kim Avery. Kim is a certified business coach and the Arthur of the prayer powered entrepreneur. Kim also works as the vice president for the professional Christian coaching Institute and she is a coach herself under Kim Avery coaching.
00:03:24 She, her mission is to help Christ centered entrepreneurs build successful businesses as they partner with God to change the world. Kim, welcome to the show. Thanks Scott. It's great to be here And I'll tell you, I, I I've loved the book. Um, I haven't actually on Kindle and a hard copy. Uh, you always know, I actually enjoy a book when I ended up with two copies of it.
00:03:48 So I really enjoyed the book. I were highly recommended to folks. And one of the things that kind of jumped out to me as I was reading and going through it and conversations I've had with other Christian business owners, you know, it's funny because we know the power of pair prayer. We talk about the power of prayer, especially outside of business,
00:04:08 but then when it comes back to our own businesses as entrepreneurs, we sometimes kind of find that challenging to pray for our own business and to pray for business. Can you talk a little bit, or would you share some of those challenges that come up for us as Christian business owners? For sure. And that's really easy to do because I represent that exact line that you just articulated so well.
00:04:31 And of course it was all unconscious. I never realized that I was kind of taking that into my business, but like you said, it's because I truly honored the importance and the power of prayer. And so there was this kind of desire to do it right. And as I unpacked that several years ago, well, I started kind of two major misconceptions that I didn't realize were going on the first is that,
00:04:55 well, if prayer is so important and it's a deeply spiritual activity, you know, my daily business life and work, it's kind of mundane. It's really ordinary. I'm writing emails, I'm returning phone calls, or sometimes, you know, really I'm praying for more money for profit. Is that really godly? And so there was that unspoken misconception number one,
00:05:18 and then number two was well, prayer being so powerful and important. It deserves the highest priority in my life. So if that's true, then in my mind, it needed to look like that of some of the prayer intercessors. I know who wake up at 3:00 AM and pray for hours on their knees or they fast and prayer. They do prayer walks around the city of Chicago or all of these super spiritual things.
00:05:42 And so, because I couldn't do it that way, I found out it wasn't really doing very much of it at all. Yeah. One of the, uh, so I work with a lot of, uh, lay servants in the state of Texas, which in the Methodist, you know, they're just laity who are set aside to do certain tasks.
00:06:01 And so for a lot of us, what we ended up doing a lot of times is we're the, we're the reader, we're the person that helps the pastor out at Sunday service, you know, and does all of that stuff. And one of the areas, we actually have a course on prayer, like how to lead public prayer, because quite frankly,
00:06:16 it's hard to pray, you know, because like you said, we put so much, we put all this baggage on it, that it has to be a certain way. And in reality, not necessarily, um, there there's more to it than that. So in, you know, when we think about that, one of the things that you outline,
00:06:40 and I really liked this outline of how you set up the book with kind of a week by week, uh, you know, I'm a very linear thinker. I like to have a schedule. I want to know what is coming next and that kind of thing. And you laid it out in this six week cycle of prayer. Why, why this kind of framework?
00:06:58 What, why did you organize it that way? Yeah, it's, it's interesting how God calls each of us, you know, to our inspired stewardship in different ways, using the gifts he's given us to right. Help him as he changes the world. And so I was wearing a couple of hats when I put together the book actually, when I was putting together the program just to help my own prayer life and my own business.
00:07:25 So one was, yes, I want to pray more and more than that, actually I wanted to pray more effectively. But secondly, I I'm a business coach. I know what it takes to help people succeed in business. I'm very aware of the kind of entrepreneurs that do well and those that, don't the kind that make good connections and influence people and the kind that accidentally turned people off,
00:07:49 et cetera. And so once I realized that I had this strange dichotomy between my business, prayer life and my real prayer life, and the Lord helped me build that together. I felt like an early disciple. I was like, Jesus teach, teach me to pray. And with that question at the forefront of my mind, I went through scripture, really STEM to stern and said for a business person,
00:08:13 for an entrepreneur, what does prayer look like? And so let me start with the meta view and then I'll break it down. But the men of you, I realized was the reason I felt like my prayer life was any effective. And thus discouraging was because I was praying results, only prayers, for example, suppose my children were still young. I'd be praying,
00:08:36 Lord, help them to marry a godly spouse, help them to go into a profession that suits them. Well, there's three years old at the end of the day, did he answer my prayer? Did he not? Did he move the needle forward on that? I have no idea, but so when I sat down and would pray for my business and my clients' businesses,
00:08:56 it was like help Scott succeed, help Nancy turn a profit this year help. So, and so get clients well at the end of the day, where's the win, where's the celebration. Oh yes. God really stepped in and did that. And so I thought, okay, I'm obviously going about this poorly. What if I prayed for my business?
00:09:18 That actually the way I pray for everything and more importantly, more in conjunction with the way God likes to work from the inside out. You're a coach, Scott, you know, God changes everything from the inside out that's lasting change. So what if I prayed and here was the concentric circles rippling out for the six weeks or the 31 days first change about,
00:09:39 Oh, who is it? He wants me to be as an entrepreneur. And I've thought about six primary prayer points. You know, one for each day that applied to that. Who does he want me to be in my relationship with others, my clients, my coworkers, who does he want me to be in relationship with him, my CEO, the head of my business.
00:09:57 Right. That's really important. And then what's this relationship he wants me to have with my business and just go to the book of Proverbs. There's so much wisdom there. And then finally, as I pray through all those things, not only do I see daily answers to prayer, um, I pray what's the impact. He really wants my business to have on the world.
00:10:18 And I start to see those answers unfolding. So it's in the sewing and reaping process. I'm all of a sudden able to pray and see God's hand in every step of the harvest and not just when the harvest comes in. Yeah, I think, um, so a couple of things jumped out at me in what you were saying first off, I want to acknowledge and kind of go back to the fact that you struggled with this yourself.
00:10:43 I mean, you said that now in both of these answers and the reason why I point that out is, you know, again, you're involved in the Christian coaching Institute, you know, Christian coaching Institute, um, kind of probably Christian might be something important in that, you know, you run it, you run a Facebook group for Christian entrepreneurs,
00:11:04 I'm in it. You know, you you're, you do all of these different things. So it's, it's, it's not that spirituality wasn't important with you. And yet you struggled with it. Can you talk a little, can you share a little bit more about, you know, why do you really think that was? Why would you personally, why did you use struggle with it so much?
00:11:20 Because I think my idea was that God wanted me to pray for my business versus he wanted, he wants me to pray while I do business. It's a partnership. And I think my favorite example of this, and it's totally hypothetical because anybody who knows me would never do this, but here's my example. Suppose that God called me to become an investor and you entrusted me with your money.
00:11:48 And here's the tip don't because I know nothing investing. I would be a little panicked, but what if God said, you know, I so believe in this calling for your life, I'm going to give you everything you need in the person of Warren buffet. And he's not just going to give you advice. He's just not available by email or phone Kim,
00:12:06 he's going to pull up a chair next year, chair at your desk all day long every day. If you need a resource, a connection, a piece of information, if you need anything, goodness gracious. He's right there. And I said, high five and every day came into my office, acknowledged Warren said, Warren, please help me in my business today.
00:12:26 And then what about personal investing? And never thought of him again until I checked out. Thanks Warren. Great day investing was that's the disconnect again, very unconsciously that I was bringing into my business building instead of, Oh, just quickly. And we'll talk about maybe my brief model of per minute or in this email. How do you want me to respond in this coaching session?
00:12:50 How do you want to show up in this podcast? Who do you want me to be? And then at the end of each of those things, okay. Whether it went good or bad, that's always working. I can see him work. And so it was that much more, not don't pray about your business, pray all the way through doing your business.
00:13:10 I love that. Uh, just cause I don't want to leave it there. The other thing that I was kind of laughing under my breath as you started talking through the six weeks, because I made the connection as I was reading the book, but it came to me again, as you were answering, one of the frameworks that I use in the podcast is this idea of invest first in yourself,
00:13:33 invest second in others, develop your influence and impact the world. That's kind of the arc of the journey that I, that I've used in the podcast. And you know, it's very similar to what you're talking about. The first idea is, you know, God, who do you want me to be? You know, now how do you help?
00:13:49 How do you want me to influence an impact and make know relationships with others? And out of that comes impact. It's not a, you know, the cause and effect. A lot of times I think we look for the impact first and that's kind of that result's prayer, you know, that make, make more money show up in my account. Well,
00:14:07 and the beautiful part about understanding that hidden framework that God uses is that when things go poorly and in business and with your podcast and in life, things will go poorly. Uh, you know, clients will reject that. I recorded this at 2020. Everyone knows that This will not pan out. The ink will sometimes be red and we don't have to say then,
00:14:30 Oh, God must not have called me to business. Or God must not have led me to make that decision. It's like, Oh, God's back to who does he want me to be? He's always working. So in this instance, he's not working on the bottom line, he's working on my faith, working on my trust. Yeah. So I can always see where he's working,
00:14:51 no matter what circumstances he brings, That's a good framework. I'm going to steal that. I like that. I'm going to steal that. And you mentioned the brief prayer and, uh, and again, that spoke to me a lot as I was reading. Could you talk a little bit in brief by the way folks is not only the word, it's an acronym,
00:15:11 uh, it's B R I E F and how this is different than kind of the other kinds of prayer that people use. Yeah. And thanks for asking it that way, because all kinds of prayer are wonderful and valid and to be embraced. And for me, even to be practiced at different points in times, but when I've got my business hat on,
00:15:30 this is the way I like to think about it. The be in brief prayer then stands for business related and that helps me, Kim Avery, with this default mindset I go into when things get tough, if it's going to be it's up to me. And so there was this hustle, grind dig in mentality instead of when things get tough praying business related person,
00:15:58 I'm not on my own. He has not abandoned me to do this business on my own. And so just a reminder to myself that he, everything sacred, not just my relationships, not just my church life, my bottom line and what I, how I earn it and the way I treat people and what I do with it, it's all sacred.
00:16:17 It's all important to him. So the B was business-related As you go through that, you know, what's the AR portion as well. Um, so similar. So it kind of just follow the trajectory it's relevant. I'm back to my example, my request used to be pretty global, bless this business Lord. And I've learned that there's just beauty in the granular Lord helped me to be humble and self forgetful in my podcast with Scott today.
00:16:49 And so I'm asking him to work in and through each little granular event. Again, it's a brief prayer. It's just a second, but I'm acknowledging that I am not God, that he is God and I want to have, and I know you do too. Scott supernatural results in my business because I'm partnering with a supernatural God. So if I want supernatural results,
00:17:13 I can't only use natural techniques. And so keeping it relevant and praying about everything, just invites him into every item of my day. And so the, you know, at this point we're thinking about our business and we're trying to make it relevant to that moment by moment thing that's going on. And yeah, I I've used what, uh, one of the spiritual disciplines that I've trained in is called breath.
00:17:38 Prayer, you know, where you literally pray as you breathe, right. You know, as you breathe in, you're praying as you breathe out, you're praying. Um, and by the way used one of your favorite God, one of your favorite, one of my favorite prayers is remember, you're not God, which sounds silly, hilarious to say that as a prayer,
00:17:54 but no, no, no. That's a really relevant prayer for me. You know, it helps, it helps spot my pride by pride bubble when something is going on, because I know pride can be a real barrier. I recognize that in myself, that's one of my major sins that I can fall into. And so I try to step away from that.
00:18:14 So as we go through it, now, we've got, we've covered the B, we covered the R what is the I in the brief prayer? And we've actually covered the I just a few minutes ago when he gets that inside out, we're praying in conjunction with the way God likes to work. He's he's not just trying to change the world. He is transforming us as his children in the world.
00:18:35 So when I pray in conjunction with the way he's working, for example, that I'll be humble, that I'll be teachable, that I'll be Christ saturated, that I'll be strategic in my business, whatever it is, as I'm praying in conjunction with that, all of a sudden, I see daily answers to prayer, and then I'm encouraged to pray more and that I see more answers to prayer.
00:18:55 And it's just this beautiful virtual. Yeah. So we've, we've covered the B the R the I, how about the E Hmm. One of my favorites. Okay. Expectant. We want to remember that God is always at work, as we said earlier, not just when things are going the way we wanted them to, but in every moment by moment movement,
00:19:20 I would say the two most common sins that I fell into and am tempted to go back into as a business owner are hurry and worry. And when I think about what is the hurry, because God's clearly given me enough time to do everything he wants me to do, that's not a problem. And the worry, well, goodness gracious. It's his business.
00:19:43 You know, why would I know better? What needs to happen then he does. And he's the one who's got to figure out the bottom line, not me. I just have to be obedient to what he tells me. Um, and so just being expected to every movement, every phone call, every interaction, it's like a treasure hunt, okay.
00:20:00 God is working in this day, in this conversation. Where are you? See, what'd you teaching me? How can I see this as an answer to prayer? So I just had a thought and it's totally up to you, Scott, and you can stop me, but can I share the hardest answer to prayer I've ever had an editor will have?
00:20:18 Absolutely. Okay. So I'm going to try not to cry, but it came to my mind. So I'm going to assume it's the prompting of the Holy spirit. This is 2020 in August, 2019. Um, our daughter. Hmm. And that morning when I opened my Bible prior to the day I just happened and I put that in air quotes to be in the passage of Jesus,
00:20:46 raising Lazarus from the dead and saying he is the resurrection and the life. Now my husband and I are on completely different Bible reading plans. Interestingly enough, it's his same passage that day. So I'm reading through my Bible reading and in the margin I literally wrote in ink and dated it. Lord, help me to trust you. Even when dark times come.
00:21:16 I did not know that morning that by nightfall, my daughter would be dead. Okay. And he's always working. He's not just answering my prayers, he's prompting my prayers. Do you see the beauty of his tender love for me so that when we get that phone call, we don't have to draw from a well that we filled up six months ago at a sermon.
00:21:42 We can say, no, just this morning separately, God reminded us that even if their darkest it's because of love, he tarried it's because of his glory, hard things come and that he would be with us and so such comfort in everything. So in good things and in hard things, I know, and I want to be expected back to the he that he's always Marquis,
00:22:10 you know, one of the things, um, that I've, I've reflected on over the years and, and, you know, I've had some, I have not lost a child. Thank goodness. So I, I, I won't even claim to know what that feels like, but I've lost a parent and, you know, I've lost others that are dear to me.
00:22:28 Um, and one of the things that I've always reflected on is it's, it, it's so easy to get angry with God when things get challenging, but, you know, to be able to remember that it's, it's, God's with you then too, you know, it's not, it's not, God makes bad things happen, you know, but it's also that when they do,
00:22:53 God's still, they're walking with you sometimes when those bad things are brought on by whatever. And sometimes when they're our own darn fault, which I've also done way too often. Um, and you know, God's still there going, come on, you know, let's pick up the pieces and let's go forward again. And it's, you know, that,
00:23:12 but that's really hard to remember in times like that. So that's, that's a powerful example of, of the, the scripture being able to speak to you in that moment, even when you didn't yet know that that moment was there. Um, thank you for sharing that They had me in the habit, you know, for two or three years of just connecting all the dots,
00:23:34 all the dots always connect to something. Even if it's broken, it will be beautiful. Right. He redeems all things. Um, and yeah, it was, that's been a gift to me on this journey. Well, and that's, You know, again, one of the frameworks that obviously I talk about stewardship, we'll talk more about that later,
00:23:51 but, um, one of the things I've tried, I've tried to explain to people is one of the reasons I've arrived at that as a framework for my life is because it makes things easier for me. Now, let me phrase that better. Let me explain that better by knowing that I'm not the owner by knowing I'm not in control, it's not,
00:24:12 Oh, I quit. I give up and I don't have to do anything, you know? Absolutely not yet. It has, it actually challenges me to do more in a way, you know, because it's like you said, it's being open to the fact that sometimes, you know, I used to pray, but I used to pray Scot sized prayers,
00:24:32 and now I've gotten better at praying God-sized prayers sometimes. And going for the one that it's like, I don't, I don't think I, I have no idea how that's going to work, but you're telling me I'm supposed to do it. Okay, I'll go for it. Um, and sure enough, usually those resources apply and things happen in a,
00:24:51 you know, again in a good way, not necessarily the way I thought was going to happen, Rarely the way we thought it was going to happen. You still rolling. It works out for a guy. So he walked through the, be the R the I, the, the app, what's the F in a brief, Uh, so the,
00:25:06 the F is frequent. And I go back to my example here of, you know, Warren buffet. I actually have some friends and people who've read the book who have literally I've one friend. She sent me a picture. She pulled an empty chair up next to her desk and put a big sign there that says, ask me anything, love Jesus.
00:25:24 And that reminder that this is it's a conversation. It's, it's almost seems too good to be true, right. That they all powerful, all knowing, all loving, all sovereign God, them, the universe wants to have a daily conversation about what I write my email, but it's a conversation that flows between us and him all day long. And so,
00:25:45 yeah, I gabbed him incessantly. Sometimes he probably thinks he's created a monster, but, uh, yeah, it's an ongoing conversation. So the Fs, One of the, uh, I'll share a story way back when I was in college, um, I got to go to kind of a, it was a dinner and they invited, you know,
00:26:06 different people had come in to speak. And since I was one of the organizing committee, I got to go to dinner with the speaker. And for whatever reason, actually, when I was in college, I was not a Christian, but the person who had had been invited was a very deep Christian who, you know, very powerful prayer warrior, kind of known as that.
00:26:23 And I'm sitting around the table at dinner and with, you know, I don't know, 20, 25 of us, there's a big group of people. And of course somebody said, would you like to pray to this person before the meal? And I'm thinking of great, you know, we're going to get this real formal stilted, you know, prayer again,
00:26:41 at that time I was very to this idea and he literally goes, Oh, I'd be happy to, Hey D Hey dad, how you doing is how he started the prayer? And I'm like, wait, what? It was, I was confused by it because to me at that point, especially I thought prayer was this very formal, structural, you know,
00:27:01 very decent, disciplined process. And he basically just started having a conversation with dad. Yeah, yeah. Picking up where he probably left off just moments before It was, you know, it blew my mind reflecting on it. Now, now that I've returned to Christ and gotten back into the discipline, I'm like, Oh yeah, I get it now.
00:27:20 But at the time, it just, it really blew my mind. It was a very strange experience. Uh, obviously I still remember it to this day and that was awhile back. So, so we we've, we've established, I mean, again, that God answers prayer. We talked about the fact that sometimes it's not exactly the way we thought it was going to be answered,
00:27:37 but still it, if there's an answer and it's still good. So why do you think that business building is so hard then for Christian business owners and on top of that, just in business in general, but for Christian business as well, there's a tremendous failure rate for businesses in the first few years, especially There is. And I ask God this question all the time,
00:28:02 and I'm not going to pretend I have the answer because there's a multitude of answers. But first let's just acknowledge that, um, startups have almost a 90% failure rate in the first five years, depending on what statistics you read, you and I, or at least somebody trained are more likely to summit Mount Everest than we are to make our businesses succeed.
00:28:24 Maybe not you, but I never see climber. I, I'm probably pretty not likely to say, yeah, I'm not going to happen. But the odds, if you look at odds is against us. And so we have to say though, but God's calling me to build this business. And if God is in it, it will surely succeed the same way.
00:28:45 Abraham. No doubt said that about the promised land. No doubt the way Moses and Joshua, when the spies said that about the land of payment, if God is in this, how could it go wrong? And it doesn't need to go wrong. But as we see in scripture and we see in our lives, our humanness, God chooses to work through humans and we're flawed,
00:29:04 you know, news alert. And so we get in the middle and I've, I've noticed three flawed strategies that I think we tend to default to versus truly partnering with God in what we agree is a difficult, long work. And the first one is the determination. They all start with D and that is through sheer brute strength. I'm going to break down every barrier.
00:29:26 If it's going to be it's up to me. And it works for a while, which is why we do it. We can hustle hard and make results happen. We really can Buffalo our way into certain rooms and certain conversations, certain relationships, but not only exhausts us, it wounds our spirit because it's all flesh doing that. And it, it doesn't have potential for longterm growth because the minute we take our hand off the right off the wheel of the squeaky grocery cart,
00:29:57 it just goes back to going the way it was going. And so the flawed strategy of I'm going to determine to do this because it's hard fail, succeed in the short run, but it fails us in the long run. So the second floor strategy is then just kind of this denial mindset. You mentioned it earlier. Well, if God called me to do it,
00:30:18 it's just gonna work out and clients will magically appear. And so we take that word, wait on the Lord, which is actually not a passive word in scripture. It's a very active word, but we wait and we wait and we wait. And then we go to the third one, despair. Well, I am sure God didn't intend it to be this hard and to take this long.
00:30:42 So he must not have intended me to build a business at all. So you think about this ever widening gap and we can cycle through this and I could cycle through all three of these in an hour, give them a certain circumstances and the date, right? Determination, no denial, no odd despair. I give up, it's all over, you know,
00:30:58 and yeah, One phone call and you can do all three of them. Right? Right. And the gap, the gap is always filled the same way. The gap is filled by God. Uh, one of my favorite verses is second Corinthians nine, eight. I don't have it in front of me, but, um, so would go from memories.
00:31:14 God is able to print aside all grace, do you so that having all sufficiency in all thing, you may have an abundance for every good deep. There's so many, some purlative in that sentence, it'll knock your socks off. But what we need to remember is that as we follow Jesus, he, he took the road up to Calvary, right?
00:31:35 He took the road to Jerusalem. When he knew he was going to be persecuted, he takes difficult roads, but as we follow him, he will bridge the gap. So we just keep following and obeying, following and obeying, following obeyed. We don't look at the length. There's a lot of the harvest. You reap what you sow. It will come,
00:31:54 but it takes time. So when we're weak, just remember he's strong and we're confused. He's wise, we're rejected. He accepts us when we're anxious. He's our peace. When we're scared, he's a rock. If I fill the gap with Jesus, I can leave the office every day. And this is a miracle for me, Scott, to be able to say this from maybe five years ago,
00:32:14 if we'd had this conversation, I can leave my home office every day. And it's, I'm weightless. Not worried. I'm not stressed. I'm not hurried. It's not the rat race in my brain at night. I have done all I know to do before the Lord. And he's go and work it out. It's got him on his bleep. Yup.
00:32:37 I'll check in, in the morning and see what he has planned. And when we bring that effortlessness, but in conjunction with obedience, we can stay in the race until it's one. Hmm. Yeah. And I will, I will admit to, you know, I'm not perfect at that. There, there, there are. And I bet you're not either.
00:32:56 I mean, if we're on that's right, there are probably days that you still walk out of the office and you take some work with you and you're a little worried, but, um, you know, again, one of the expressions that that listeners will have heard me say before is every, it's a process, not an event. Um, you know,
00:33:10 it's always a journey. It's not a destination. We never really arrive. Um, Charles Wesley I'm a Methodist says onto perfection. Amen. Key word there is onto, it's not, you know, you haven't arrived yet, you know? Um, but you know, I think too, sometimes, especially culturally and, and here, I mean, within the Christian culture,
00:33:31 um, we don't do ourselves any favor sometimes. Um, cause you know, some of the expressions that you will hear around us, Oh, well, God, won't give you more than you can handle. That's actually not in the Bible. You know? And many examples, God gives people way more than they can handle because God wants them to turn to God,
00:33:52 you know? Um, and remember that you're not there. And so as business owners, I think we do some of that sort of, sort of same thing where it's like, Oh, well God has called me to this. And now it's all up to me. It's like, wait, what? So let's connect those dots again because you're missing something.
00:34:12 How can business owners refocus on that? I mean, if, if business is so hard, we know that failure rate is high. And yet we also know that there are times that God has called us to business. What are some of the key things that people need to recognize before they, before they say yes to that and take that, take that step.
00:34:32 Yeah. Well one is that it's, it's anything worthwhile, right? It takes time. I take time. But for me, I think one of the key learnings, I try to bring into the business journey and certainly try to help my clients with is we're we're training. We're not trying scripture never tells us to try harder. And so this is not natural.
00:34:54 Living by the spirit does not come natural. We've lived how many decades of our life, right by the flesh. And so remembering to pray throughout the day I had that post it notes all over my computer, you know, on the mirror, in the bathroom. I mean, I had to put rubber bands around my wrist to remember all of the things that I want to do that God's who God's calling me to be required training.
00:35:22 So of course it's not going to go well the first time or the hundredth time. And there will be bad days. And again, the reason we get defeated is because we tell ourselves things like this is a sign, it's a sign that this is too hard, a sign that I didn't hear God, right. It's a sign that no, it's a sign that you're human and you need to dust off your crown and pick up your sword and train and do it again.
00:35:48 And so I think with that mentality, it just solves a lot of issues. So one of the phrases that I use, you know, as, as a business coach myself, and just again, I use it for myself too, is I like to think of it as I'm, I'm running an experiment, whatever I'm doing, I'm running an experiment.
00:36:10 I'm just counting data, you know, which takes the pressure off, you know, in a very real way, because this is like, well, okay. The data was that didn't work. Don't do that again. Okay. Got it. I understand. I got the message move on. Um, as opposed to sometimes I think we get so enamored with what we're doing,
00:36:31 that we forget to listen and reflect on what maybe is coming out of what we're doing. Yeah. John, can I share my favorite portrait of John Dewey? Which shocked me the first time I read the first phrase, he said, we don't learn from experience. I thought, Ooh, we don't learn from experience. And then the second phrase of the quote is we learn from reflecting on it.
00:36:56 Right? Yep. And that's exactly what you said. We just, we experiment and then we learn. And so there's no such thing as failure. There is only learning. Yeah. And it does, you know, cause I am, I'm very failure averse, but when I started learning to frame it that way, it's like, Oh, okay,
00:37:15 now I can go try it because it's not really failing. It's just getting data. You know, it's just getting information. I'm just learning what learning is fun to me. So, you know, now I'm now I'm having fun instead of, instead of failing, if that makes sense, you know, for sure. Um, the other, uh,
00:37:36 the, the, the other quote that came to mind that I like, uh, and I can't tell you who it's by. I think, you know, I'll claim it simply because I've said it at least 30 times. So I think it's mine now is, you know, knowledge, isn't power. Okay. Knowledge applied is power. You know,
00:37:54 it because if all you do is learn well, who cares? You know, it gets back to that idea of reflection. So as you've kind of put this book out into the world, um, which is, I've been told by other authors kind of like letting your child go into the world, you know, what's the impact that you hope it has on,
00:38:15 on people, on business owners, on the world at large. Here's the, here's the funny thing I'm never wanted to write a book. I didn't really want to write this book. I fought God tooth and nail aren't. I terrible example about writing this book. I was like getting with, if it's wet, if it's dry. Okay. If 10 people asked to write a book,
00:38:35 okay. So I, at some point I probably said, what, why do you think this is a good idea, Lord, before I commit myself again, terrible, please don't learn from my example. All right. Uh, why is this book a good idea? And he really planted this image in my mind, into my heart. I think I'll carry it always here in the County where I live in Florida,
00:38:56 80% of the people around me are unchurched on any given Sunday, back in the day when we could get in a car and actually go to church, only 20% of the population was going to church. And I think that the statistics are, you know, better and worse across the country. But I think it's reflective of the century. We're in, people are not looking for God.
00:39:19 And if they are, they're not thinking to look for God in church because they have preconceived notions about religion and what that Institute alright. So where are they going to encounter the image of the living God? And so in my mind, God gave me this image of a dandelion. And I don't know if you have dandelions where you live, but they're this yellow weed that,
00:39:43 that grows everywhere, at least in the Midwest where I grew up. But right before that, it's that you may have seen, it goes to seed. It's like those white, fluffy stems that children blow in the seed scatter everywhere, Which is why they'd go grow everywhere. Well, that gave me this picture, that those seeds represent entrepreneurs and his Holy spirit is blowing them to the wind and all over the globe in unlikely places in humble places.
00:40:14 But they're deep and tenacious, very hard to get rid of a dandelion, right? They're growing in, cracks in the sidewalks and people would never go into church, never even look for God, we're going to a dry cleaner, or do the tire store or hire a coach or read a book. And whether that person's overtly presenting Christ or just the beautiful representation re presenting Christ in their demeanor and their image and their faith in their hope,
00:40:42 the world can be reached as it is where it is right now to this growing movement, we call entrepreneurism. But for that to happen, we need to be prayer powered. We can't do this on our own. And to me, that's part of what I'd love this book to do is be part of the operating manual that equips us to be those prayer powered entrepreneurs that are rising up in this movement of entrepreneurism as God changes the world.
00:41:13 And, you know, as the last year has proven, um, you know, there's more and more people working in freelancers more and more people working from home. There's more and more people starting businesses. Um, you know, even now even with everything going on, there's still people starting businesses. Um, and it's interesting to me, cause I think you're right,
00:41:37 that a lot of times where people can see Christ is in the actions of other people, right? And where do we actually usually interact with other people oftentimes more than even with our own family at work and in businesses. Um, so if, if you could put Christ there while you're touching everyone in the world one way or another, this is a little mission.
00:42:08 Reach the world. Hey, he started with 12 and look how it's going. Exactly. It's got pretty good. So, uh, uh, no, that is, I, I think that's, uh, a awesome and audacious mission, which makes it probably something that God planted not you, because if you had chosen to do it, you probably would have had a much tinier goal.
00:42:34 So the last question that I want to ask you is I, I, you know, again, my brand is inspired stewardship, stewardship, as I mentioned earlier, as a, as a lens through which I see the world, I try to really frame, uh, just because it helps me. Um, and because it helps me, I've got to put it out into the world and it helps some other people too.
00:42:53 I hope yet what I've discovered is that word, you know, when I ask people, what does that word mean to you? I get dramatically different answers. It's kind of like the word leadership, um, where you can just get a million different answers to the same question. So I'd like to ask you, would you share what the word stewardship means to you and how it's impacted your life?
00:43:14 I know I can't improve on the definitions your guests have given because I've listened to many of them in terms of wholeheartedly using our time and our treasure and our talent, but, uh, being a very visual person, I almost see it as this flow that God's gifts came to me on their way to someone else. And I am not to be a reservoir.
00:43:36 I'm a conduit and that's stewardship letting that flow fully of whatever gifts he's given me, time, talent, treasure onto other people. And I have to tell you sometimes the sheer weight of that really, I mean, God would trust his mission to save the world to us. I, I would almost have to question his judgment there when he'd come up with his,
00:44:03 do you understand what I'm taking? It's extremely humbling and it's especially weighty. When I think about where we live right now, COVID-19 in 2020. I would love to live in happier times, less troubled times. I think we all would, none of us would choose these times, but God chose us. You, me, your listeners for this pivotal troubled moment in history.
00:44:37 And so I like everybody. I want to be faithful. The gifts that God is giving to me, I want every single one of them to flow and multiply out to whatever narrow piece of the pie that he wants my life to influence. I just want to be faithful with him. I love that, that definition and that image, um, of,
00:44:59 you know, we were called to be a river, not a reservoir, which I've heard is a quote before. Um, and you know, obviously one of the things that happens when we, when we store everything up, when a reservoir stores up water, it becomes stagnant, but a river is life-giving, you know, and that's that image is one I've,
00:45:19 I've used that before. Um, and it, it's a wonderful image of, of what stewardship truly should be. Thank you for sharing that. So, Kim, as we wrap up today, is there anything else you'd like to share with the Lister, Like to invite your listeners with your permission, Scott, to, um, to just take a moment to pretty quickly assess your business and maybe where,
00:45:46 uh, it might need and benefit from more prayer. So maybe there's, you're like me, there's parts you pray over more than others places you partner with God more fully than others. Um, and so I have something called a prayer quiz and it's at berquist.com not, not difficult. So if you go to prayer quiz.com, it'll just walk you through some brief questions almost as a,
00:46:07 okay Lord, this is, this is your business. This is your baby. How are we doing? Um, and you'll come back with some results and an invitation, of course, if you want to, it'll invite you to pick up the book to kind of use it as your strategic prep plan for your business. Awesome. Thank you so much for that.
00:46:25 Um, actually, no, that would be a, that's a powerful resource for folks. And again, like I said, I bought two copies of the book because, um, all the books I love, I always want them as a hard copy and then I want them Kindle because back when I could travel, I always took the books on again,
00:46:40 you know, it's a lot easier than hauling around books in a suitcase. I discovered. So, uh, you can obviously find out more about Kim over at our home, on the web she's lives@kikimaverycoaching.com and Avery is a V E R Y. You can find out more about the book@prayerpowered.com. And of course, the quiz that she just mentioned@prayerquiz.com, you can find Kim on Facebook and other social media is Kim Avery coaching.
00:47:10 Of course I'll have links all of that over in the show notes as well. Kim, thank you so much for being on the show today. Oh, it's a joy. Thank you for the work you do. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen,
00:47:40 but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, please, please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate. All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed until next time,
00:48:14 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.