Are you using AI in your business — or is AI using you? In a world flooded with generated content and polished personas, your real voice might be your greatest competitive advantage.

The question isn't whether to use AI. It's whether you're still showing up as you.

Ken Freire is a business coach, podcast growth strategist, and author of Own the Show. He started in ministry leadership nearly 20 years ago, discovered a gift for scaling organizations without burning people out.

He eventually launched a coaching and marketing agency helping expert-led business owners — coaches, consultants, and service providers — grow with authenticity and integrity.

Join us as Ken unpacks what "authentic authority" really means, why transparency in sales actually closes more deals, and how Christians should be running toward AI — not away from it.

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business? Ken reminds us of Colossians 3:23 — whatever you do, do it with all your heart. People don't just want your expertise; they want to trust a real human being.

• Build your "human edge": wisdom, discernment, personality, and values — the four things AI simply cannot replicate
• Audit your sales process for manipulation: false scarcity, hidden pricing, and emotional pressure tactics have no place in a business that honors God
• Use AI as a tool to speed you up, not replace who you are

One challenge from today: This week, post something personal — a story, a moment with your family, a lesson you're still learning. Let people see the real you, not the polished version.

More About Ken Freire

Website: https://micclub.co/

Book: Own The Show: Become an Authentic Authority in the Age of AI https://ownthe.show/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenfreire/

More About David Schmidt

Free Resource: What God Says About Business: 5 Uncommon Truths for the Modern Business

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Newsletter also comes with Bible verses for business success for you to read, apply, and be inspired by.

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What God Says About Business

I find it interesting today that ⁓ we live in, let me start over.

We live in a world of AI and technology and everything else. And I think some people would say, if Jesus were walking on earth today, would he use AI? And personally, I think that's the wrong question. You asked the wrong question, you're gonna get the wrong answer. My thoughts go back to Joshua 5, when Joshua standing before Jericho and he sees a man and says, are you for our enemies or are you for us? And he said, neither, I'm here to lead the armies of the Lord.

And I think that's a lot of what we need to look at AI. It's just not either or, but what does God want us to do? How does God want us to follow him? And how does AI ⁓ fit into that? And so today I brought on Ken Fry to talk about essentially how do you build authentic authority in the world of AI? Because, yeah, with AI you can do lots of different things that is it from you or not from you? So Ken, thank you for coming on board today.

and to start off, tell me, what is one way that you have found to honor God in your business that others may not know about?

Yeah, absolutely, David. Well, thank you for having me on the show. I think the biggest way to honor God is that in everything you do, you're trying to one glorify his name. And like it says in Colossians three, 23, right? Whatever you do, do it with all your heart. So that's what I'm trying to do. And with AI, the last couple of years, it's taken over everything. Right. And that's kind of like the new hot topic of the day. And a lot of people are using it. And at the same time, there are people who are very skeptical of it. And

I live in a world where I work primarily with expert led business owners, so coaches, consultants, online service providers, and they're trying to figure out how do we use AI where our true personality can come out, we can glorify God, and at the same time not all of a sudden just sound like a robot.

Sure, yeah. That's the point, because AI is just a computer. It's program. ⁓ So, Ken, give me a little background and how God has led you to where you are today and what you do today for business.

Yeah, great question. So for me, I started in ministry 15 years ago, almost 20 years ago now, where I started in leadership development. I found myself in positions where they had problems in any business unit. And they were just like, we need it to grow and we need it to be profitable. And whether nonprofit or for profit and little by little, I just kept getting these roles and I didn't know it, but I was actually really good at scaling stuff.

I would have never used that terminology. Even now I kind of find it squeamish to be like, I love scaling stuff. But like I've come to that realization that I'm, I enjoy it. And one of the things I enjoy doing is how do you scale stuff without burning out? Because God has not called us to burn out. God has called us to, to a high impact, to love him and love others. But we got to do that in such a way that it's beneficial. So about four years ago now, God, just felt like put it in my heart to go start a business. started coaching business.

It started with more ⁓ life coaching, then productivity, then business. And that's where I've been now is primarily business coaching. ⁓ but in the, in that I started by accident, a marketing agency, and I started helping people grow their podcasts and started helping them like get their own voice. And with AI, it became one of those things that as AI group, people were asking the question, how do we use AI appropriately? And I, from a podcast standpoint,

realized man, AI can help you speed up the process. So just to give you context, before AI, for a podcast agency to start and complete a whole podcast, it might take two weeks with a team of four people, right? Now I'm able to do it by myself. Now before AI, it took me 10 hours to pre-production and post-production. Now by myself, about an hour and a half. So I've consolidated the time tremendously and I was like,

How do I teach people this? How do I teach people how to podcast effectively and get their voice out there and do it while they are both authentic, they are authoritative and not let AI be the dominant thing, but just a tool.

Very good. I don't take that long to get episode ready, but I don't buff it up and polish it up either. So you just get what you get right now. But we talked about authentic authority. What is authentic authority and how do people know what it is? How do you know that you're authentic?

Yeah. So let me do a compare and contrast between authentic authority and AI. AI knows a lot of things. It knows almost everything. It doesn't know how to nuance things very well, but it knows a lot of things. But it doesn't know how to apply those things specifically to you. And when we talk about authentic authority, it's expertise with wisdom. When we look at scripture, there's a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is like you know stuff, but wisdom, it's applied knowledge.

Okay.

is being able to apply that expertise to a certain specific circumstance. So that's one of the things that when we talk about authentic authority, it's that you have wisdom, the ability to apply it. The other thing that when you look at AI is that it's just like, doesn't have discernment. It just has knowledge. It doesn't know how to be able to discern things. So that's one of the things that authentic authority has is discernment. ⁓ The other one is that,

Interesting.

AI just has a bunch of information. It doesn't have personality. So when we talk about authentic authority, it has personality. And then the last one is that AI is amoral, meaning it doesn't have any values. It doesn't have any morality. It doesn't have any code of ethics. When we talk about authentic authority, it does. We have certain core beliefs, certain values that we follow through. So when you look at authentic authority in that lens of wisdom, discernment, personality, and core values,

That's what makes us different than AI. And if we leverage our human, what we call the human edge, that's how people can start growing their authentic authority.

Okay, no, that makes sense because the knowledge and then the wisdom, the personality, the morality, that all makes sense. ⁓ So how, when you say you grow your authority, what does that mean? Just get your name out there then? I mean, or what?

Yeah.

So I, you know, in today's economy, and if you're in business, one of the biggest things that you can do is grab the attention of people. That is the number one economy today is attention. So when we talk about growing your authority, it's growing the attention of those who you believe God has called you to influence. And you know, you have authority when people are following you, when people are engaging with you and they're asking the question, what would

David say about this question? What would Ken say about this question? Or I wanna go ask them what they mean by this. So when we look at authentic authority, we're saying, hey, growing your influence in such a way where people are going to engage you. But the way you grow it is through all four of those things that I just mentioned, right? Like your wisdom, your discernment, your personality, bringing that to the table, not just your expertise. Expertise is part of it. And I think that's where people screw up a lot of times. They just think, let me just share my expertise.

Okay, so you're talking like when you make a post or something that you are bringing personality to it. And that's probably why people who say, yeah, I did this with my kid, my little kid said this, here's my cat or all these things. People probably react to that more because you're showing your human side of it then.

Yeah, absolutely. Like I'll give you an example. I am predominantly on LinkedIn quite a bit, right? So whenever I post my how to use podcasting and how to network with podcasting, I do a lot of that or talk about authority. I get a little bit of engagement, but when I post a picture, like at the time of this recording, my son, my fifth son, he's seven weeks old, right? When I said, Hey, I'm not going to be on social media for the next four weeks. Cause I have a fifth child, the newborn. I mean that blew up, right?

People wanna know about that. I published my first book called Own the Show, which came out in January, right? Which is about growing and becoming an authentic authority in the world of AI, right? It blew up, why? Because all of a sudden I'm showing the humanist. I was just like really excited. I was like, I'm a first time author. I can't believe it, I'm still like in shock. I don't know if I'm supposed to be feeling something else, right? People knew that this is me. Like this is just how I live my life.

Sure.

Ha ha ha ha.

Being able to post not just your expertise, but who you are, that's what people wanna see and that's what people trust and follow.

Interesting. I think being authentic also resonates with this is who I really am versus this is who I'm painting myself to be. Because you can pretend to be somebody, then, yeah, it doesn't always turn out in the end because if you get the wrong client and then have to pretend to be that person all the time, it doesn't turn out well. So, yeah.

Yeah, it's exhausting.

So when you're talking about operating a business, whether you're doing a lot of social media or you're brick and mortar and all that stuff, why is it critical to be authentic if you want to operate a business that honors God? It should be obvious, but I'm asking anyway.

No, it's a great question

though, but because it should be obvious, but sometimes we get inundated with culture and our culture tells us to hustle and to manipulate all the time. So there's like hard pressure sales that are out there and especially the high ticket coaching space that I'm a part of. And there's so many people who are like, my gosh, just make the sale, close it and figure it out later. And it's like, well, no, is that are you full of integrity?

Mm.

God calls us to be people of integrity. Let your yes be yes and let your no be no. He doesn't say, hey, be shady, be manipulative, like lie. And what I have found is people would justify certain things to make it sound like they're being authentic or being full of integrity when they're not. I'll give you a good example, because this happens in sales a lot. In sales,

Right. They might say something like, hey, this is this is just a discovery call. We're just really trying to get to know you. But like at the end, you're trying to pitch something hard. Like, so don't call it a discovery call. Stop trying to say you're pitching it. Just let them know. Like, hey, we're going to talk about our offerings. And if you're interested in that, great. If not, no worries. Right. But don't pressure people into it. It's little things like that that I have found many times we use because that's common vernacular in marketing and sales. But we've never stopped to question.

would Jesus actually say that? Is my integrity on the line when I do certain things? So I'm always calling those things out that people try to do that. I'm like, that's manipulative. ⁓ Or another one that's probably more famous is false scarcity in marketing, where they're like, we only have 10 spots left. Listen, I don't know anyone who would ever say that they would not take another person. Yeah, most of time they're like, okay, we'll squeeze one more in.

Right? So it's little things like that, that I'm like, if you're a believer, you should not do those things. And that's the stuff that I always call out. Like you're not walking in full integrity.

Yeah, no, I get it. And it's interesting because as I read books and as I was originally trained, we did a lot of that stuff. It's like there's a scarcity and this and that. And especially the make the sale, figure it out later. I'm just like, what? How can I do that? Because I want to know that I can deliver before I offer. So I've had to change that. And I appreciate, I think it was Kevin Weiss who said, you know, Matthew 712, treat others the way you want to be treated.

And especially like with sales, treat others how you want to be treated. How would you like to be sold to? Sell them the same way. And so, yeah, it's all very good trying to bring what God says into the whole sales thing. Like what Jesus said, he invited slash told people, you follow me, you follow me. That's way it was.

Well, like, and I, when it comes to sales, cause I've been in sales for like 15 years, I have a very unpopular opinion that most people don't like that I share this, but this is my unpopular opinion. if you are in a high price sales item, you typically don't share the price. You wait for them to get on a call. Then you share all the features, benefits, the value, and then you, you know, you tell them the price at the end. And I'm like, why, why not just share the transparency and just let them know? Cause guess what?

benefits.

I've been in sales for 15 years and as soon as I know you don't share the price, I'm like, okay, this is a high ticket item. Now you're gonna have to try to sell me. Just give me the price. I could tell you if it's within budget or not. I don't need the quote unquote vision casting in the hard pitch sale. ⁓ So it's little things like that that I'm like, if you go to our website, like myclub.co, where we talk about our offerings, it's transparent. Like here it is. If you wanna work with us, great. If you don't, no problem. If you wanna know more of why we priced it that way,

go right ahead and reach out to us. If you think we're smoking crack, then tell us we're smoking crack. You know, I'm just like, be transparent. Those are the things that I think people will value and that's what authentic authority is all about.

If people step back about that and say, I really don't want to my price upfront, why do you think they wouldn't want to share the price upfront? I I think a lot of times they don't think it through. It's just part of the sales sequence, share the price later. But why do you think they might refrain from selling, telling the price upfront?

And most of the time it's because they know people are going to be afraid of the price and just be like, I'm going to walk away from it and not be able to close the deal. And they're going to find someone else. genuinely people believe that they can truly bring change and transformation to someone's life. So they're like, let me persuade them ⁓ to know that this is the right product.

and then we'll talk about numbers and then we'll figure it out. But what I have found in my years, like I've seen over 500 coaches trying to sell things. I've seen hundreds of people being pitched and sold. Like I've trained leaders and sales leaders on this stuff. I've seen the clients when I've hear calls and do call reviews where they pause and they hesitate and they feel that pressure of like, I don't have that money. And now sales reps are trying to convince them

of why they need to do this. You know what I have found? The same people that you have to convince and pressure them to join a program are the same people who end up asking for a refund later or don't finish because now they have the pressure of this financial debt that they have to consume. So, and here's a famous thing that people in sales do all the time. They're like, hey, don't sell with logic, sell with emotion, right? Get them in the emotional state that they

Hmm.

feel like they need this, aggregate the pain, and then sell them on the solution, the felt need. And I'm like, yeah, I get that. But logically, they buy something, now they have another felt need later if they buy something they can't afford. And that's the pain, and they don't finish the thing. So that's why I always tell people like, hey, finances, let's just get it out the way. Let's talk about it. Let's engage them on sales conversations.

And after finances, if they still want to talk about the product, let's talk about it. Let's engage it. ⁓ And there are ways that I still pitch to motivate people and encourage people. It's not like I'm not saying don't do any of those things. And I'm not saying don't talk about emotions. It's all necessary, but don't hide it in certain manipulative sales tactics.

Sure. How have you found people respond if when you say talk about price first, how have people responded to you when you do that?

Yeah, when people like save clients for me, when they hear the price, they're like, I didn't. Yeah, I don't know if that might be too expensive for me. I'm like, OK, cool. Tell me what kind of pricing are you looking for? And they're like, I'm looking for this. I'm like, cool. Why is that the price? And I just start asking questions. more inquisitive if they're shocked by it. And then I'm able to compare and contrast. And I'm saying, hey,

You you thought this was going to be $2,000, but it's really $6,000. Here's what the $6,000 gives you that the $2,000 won't give you. And then like, Oh, I didn't know that. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, but you don't have to go with us. You could go with someone else. Like that's okay. Right. Or what we've done, we've just started a lower tier, right? Where it's like, Hey, yeah, this is our core tier, but if you want, here's a lower tier. So people, we down sell them right away and they're like, Oh, I could do that easier. So that's the stuff that we do for.

for again, just being authentic when it comes to sales.

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. And it's completely different than the world. You're right, that's cool. ⁓ So when we talk about, I guess, being authentic, is there some traps that we get caught in? Basically, what do we do wrong when people start to not be authentic in their communication with people?

Yeah, I think a few things happened. Number one is the pride of perfectionism, where you feel like everything has to be perfect. Everything you post is perfect. And it slows things down. ⁓ The second one that I have found is on the flip side, you're a hot mess on social media. And you're just sharing way too much and don't know how to be ⁓ vulnerable. You're almost sharing.

Everything and it's like okay. There's a time and place and who you share with ⁓ the last thing that I have found that people don't feel like they're out when you don't come across as authentic is It comes down to your your closing like if you're trying to sell something it's like People don't want to buy from you. They don't trust you They don't want to engage with you if people are not engaging with your content not engaging with your stuff It's probably because you sound like a template that you were given and you're just copying and pasting it and just changing a couple things around

I'll give you a great example. I had a guest on my podcast where she was a fitness trainer and she's amazing and all the people around her were like, we see you posting, but that doesn't sound like you in real life. You sound like a totally different person. And I find that time and time again on social media that like you sound way too professional on social media or way too robotic. And then in real life, you're like,

this gregarious, this fun loving, relaxed person or dry witty humor, like none of that shows up. And that's the stuff that we wanna make sure comes out when you're talking to people.

Hmm.

Okay. So what are some simple steps we can do to take? Like I have a VA that helps post my, like do my newsletter and post announcements on LinkedIn and stuff. And then occasionally I post stuff and I think it probably does sound that contrast. They know when I post something from my vacation or something and when she posts something, is that wrong or is that, do I need to help her? Because it sounds very professional. I like what she has to say.

It's not a computer, I it's not AI, she writes it all herself, but she's writing it, not me. So.

Yeah.

So yeah, let me ask, let me answer the first question about using a VA. I totally think using a VA is okay. I think like you're saving time. I do think from a brand perspective, I would have the VA try to write in my voice as best as possible. ⁓ So like I said, I didn't say this earlier, but I should say this. I use AI a lot. Okay. I use AI in a lot of things, but I use it to help me move faster.

and build systems better, not to replace me completely. So like, it doesn't write for me, it writes with me, for example. So I've trained AI to write within my voice. I've asked it. So if you guys ever wonder, how do I do this? Like, well, ask AI, give you a step-by-step questions of how it could figure out your voice and the type of way you like to communicate. And just literally take the voice to text option on ChatGPT.

Mm-hmm.

Use that and just start talking to it. So it could pick up on how you process things, how you engage it. It does a fantastic job, right? Make sure to ask about a funny story that you could share or silly things like about your life so that it could see your humor, all those things. And then ask it to summarize you just like, hey, what type of voice, what type of style do I like to communicate with? And I take that and if I'm using a VA, I'm like, this is the style I want to. ⁓

right with and if they're like, that's not my style. I'm like, good use AI. Like I don't care, right? Like use whatever it can. So it comes across more of you versus like almost too professional. ⁓ I think LinkedIn is a great example. LinkedIn is really one of those platforms that everybody comes across so professional that I'm like, dude, really? Like you don't even sound like that in real life or in a business meeting or in an email, like tone it down, bring a little bit of your personality to it and you're going to be okay.

Yeah, but I like it looking nice. I like it professional, so I don't know. ⁓ Yeah, that's funny. ⁓ Talking about being somebody or not, because that's kind of what AI is a challenge to do, because they may think that you are somebody or not. Looking at the Bible, is there any Bible character? I know they didn't have AI back then. Is there any Bible character that tried to be somebody they weren't? Can you think of anybody?

Top of mind, let me think of someone who they weren't. mean, the first person that, yeah, the first person that I think about is Judas. ⁓ Well, and the reason I think about Judas is because he's acting like he was a lover and follower of Jesus, but at the end of the day, he loved other things. I think of Ananias and Sapphira, right? Where they're like, hey, they're pretending that they love God, but they're like, they love something else and it shows it.

or pretended to be somebody, yeah. Pretended to be somebody that weren't, yeah.

Okay.

⁓ I think who was it? The magician who was like I'm a dissimian right who's like I'm a disciple of Christ and he's trying to cast out demons They're like we know Paul. We know Peter. We don't know you Right and he it's that similar thing you try to act like you're someone and it comes that that's where your expertise shines Right where again the wisdom aspect of it your applied knowledge When you get in front of a stage or get in front of people and you start talking about a topic

Simian, yeah, yeah.

Do you actually make sense? Can you communicate it simply? Can you actually help them? Or were you just used to a chat GPT prompt and writing that kind of way and you're like, this guy really doesn't know what he's talking.

Yeah, and that's one of the things I don't challenge people much on, but I see as a problem with the AI is if you go to depend upon it, and so you yourself don't develop those skills of critical thinking, of writing, and things like that, you're always dependent upon that. Yeah, it's like calculators are great, but we get dependent upon them. To me, you gotta use it as a tool. Sometimes it's useful, sometimes it's not.

Oh, for sure. I mean, right now my kids are learning math. My oldest is eight, about to turn nine, and I have a seven year old, and they're learning basic math, Addition, multiplication, division, fractions. And they're like, why do we need to know this stuff? I'm like, well, this is the actual stuff that I use on a daily basis. And they're like, really? I'm like, yeah, because I'm always doing conversion rates and sales and just breaking down percentages. And they're like, you do? And I would do it off the top of my head. And they're like, whoa, how'd you do that? I'm like, what's because I've been practicing. It's a tool.

Yep,

But sometimes

you use it.

the numbers are so big that I'm like, I need a calculator. Right? Like I can't do that one in my head or it's too complicated. And they're like, oh, that makes sense. So there are ways to move faster. And AI is a great tool for that. If you use it to glorify God and saying, I want to speed up things versus replacing who you are.

Yeah, no, and that's what you said right there. Using it to speed you up versus replacing who you are. Very good, very good. We are running out of time, but do you have any final thoughts to challenge my audience today, Tien?

Yeah, the biggest challenge I have, let me speak to AI first.

People are going to be skittish about using AI. And I think you said it very succinctly earlier. People are gonna use it for either good or for evil. And I think many times Christians are more timid to use it, but I'll tell you right now, the enemy's having a heyday with it and is trying to use it for evil, for sexual exploitation, for demeaning others, destroying the sanctity of life. And I think in bringing a lot of misinformation and bad information,

This is where Christians need to step up and don't run away from AI, embrace it, use it, show people how AI can be used for good in the hands of godly people. And at the same time, don't run away from your God given authority. Each Christian here has been given an authority. God has called us to steward the things around us, to cultivate and to bring order to it. And many of us want to shy away.

And I think that some of you are called to step up in the social media sphere and to squelch these horrible, horrible people who are speaking lies about God's truth, about dishonoring God, and about business. And if you guys would step up and just say, hey, you know what? I know I'm imperfect. I know I'm not good on camera. I know I'm not great at this. But you start to share your voice. There are gonna be people that God is going to bring to you.

and you are going to help influence because that's what God's called you to do. So I'm just going encourage you use AI, grow your authority because at the end of the day, that's what's going to glorify God is you not shying away from it, but embracing it.

All right, very good. Ken, thank you so much for your time and encouragement today around the whole AI thing and helping us to understand it just a little bit better and how we can use it for God's glory. And friends, if you want to go deeper and learn more about what Ken is doing and his work, check out the show notes for some links and sites to get resources to get a hold of him more. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review. I love that. And subscribe to the show and subscribe to my newsletter. You get not only a newsletter, but you also get a verse of the week to challenge you as well. And remember.

Your business represents the God you serve, so build a business worthy of God's name in a way that honors Him. Bye for now.