Have you ever felt like an imposter in your own business?

I refinanced my house and bought into a coaching franchise in 2021, convinced the systems would carry me to success. Within a month, I knew I'd made a mistake.

I wasn't the expert in business they thought I was. I had an inferiority mindset. And I was trying to operate the franchise's version of who I was supposed to be instead of being authentic to how God made me.

For six months, I watched myself crash. As an analytical engineer, I knew I was failing but didn't know how to stop it. The depression was crushing—until June 30th, 2022. That's the day I quit, and it became the best day of my life.

God's grace kept me going with clients I didn't deserve while I worked a W-2 job. He gave me a coach whose personality actually complemented mine. And He convicted me with a question I'd been asking my own kids: Your success is directly correlated with your relationship with God—so why doesn't your coaching content reflect that?

That question changed everything. I stopped trying to help businesses chase bigger profits and started focusing on what I'm passionate about—helping Christian business owners operate God's way through Leadership GPS: God first, Purpose, then Service.

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business?

1. Be authentic to who God created you to be. When you try to operate someone else's version of your business, you'll crash. There's room for you exactly as you are.
2. Get the right coach—one who aligns with your beliefs and complements your personality. In coaching, personality matters.

One challenge from today:

1. Ask yourself: Am I doing business God's way, or am I conforming to the world's philosophy? We've been stained by the world's patterns for so long we think they're normal. What needs to change?

More About David Schmidt

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What God Says About Business

When I interview people to be guests on my show, I usually give them a five minute overview of my story, where I've been, where I'm doing today and why I have a podcast called Redeeming Business Today. And as I was giving this story one time, the guest who basically told me, thank you for your story. That's very interesting. And I think other people need to hear about that. I guess I never thought that my story was that interesting.

But that's what we're gonna do today. I'm gonna talk to you about my story, my entrepreneurial story, and a little bit more expansion of what I tell guests before they come on. And I hope this will be an encouragement to you. I know personally, I am always encouraged for when I listen to other people's stories and I'm always like, I wish I could be like that. I'm not like that. ⁓ I guess I have a story as well. So looking back in my life, I have now been in the manufacturing,

reading lots of books. I started reading, listening to podcasts, and I started really getting my attitude and mindset all around learning, growing, and being an entrepreneur business mindset. Listen to all kinds of podcasts. And I also purchased and went to a few webinars and classes on real estate, mobile home parks, trying to think those may be a good way to

invest in my future. I think the book that spurred my, really got me over the hurdle is the book, Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki about how you look at money. And once I started doing that, I'm like, ooh, I could either invest all my money or I could have a business or own a business and be an investor. So that's probably the turning point. My life is reading that particular book.

more money. That's the whole idea of being an investor is you take your money, make your money work for you. And so take a deep breath. I refinanced my house. I did not know what I was going to be using this money for, but I knew I was going to do something with it. And then through the various podcasts, I ran across a franchise broker who basically said, franchises are great. And it's like they put you on third base and you just have to run to home in order to win. You don't have to start off by hitting because they have

That was the, and that was not good for me. It is help. They had systems and structures and everything, but I found out very quickly that that was not for me. Within a month after buying into this franchise and getting into it and getting a little bit deeper into it, I'm like, ooh, this was a mistake. This is not for me. It's not necessarily my personality. I don't know business as well as I.

as an analytical engineer, I knew I was crashing. I knew I wasn't making it, but I didn't know how to change. I didn't know what to do to stop and get my plane going again. And so I was crashing. The best day of my life was June 30th, because that's the day I quit. And I talked to my wife and she's just like, this isn't working out for me. I'm out of money. She's just like, well, go get a job. It was the best day of my life.

The darkness went away. I was no longer depressed because I had direction. I had confidence. And so that's what I did. So I spent the next month or two ⁓ getting a job, a W-2 job. And it's interesting, after I got my job, and I have a job as an engineer, a quality engineer. And so what was interesting is that after I got that job, I looked back and I'm like, you know what?

I know how to get a job. I know how to write a resume. I know I can put it out on a career builder or LinkedIn or Monster or all these different places and get my name known, ⁓ find out where all these businesses are looking for engineers. I know how to do that. And then you go to, you call and you go to an interview and the first interview may not go well and you may not get the job for the first interview, but that's okay because you just keep going. You send out more resumes.

You get more interviews and eventually you land a job just by, it's not random, but eventually you find that job that really needs you and you enjoy working for them. And I realized that I've had a W-2 job my whole life and I know how to get a job there and that business success as entrepreneur is the same thing. It's just in a different realm.

Whereas a W-2 job, I'm trying to get a job to work for somebody else. As an entrepreneur, I'm trying to get clients working, my product. And so that was my first aha moment that I can do this. I can continue being a entrepreneur, even though the first time I did it wasn't a smashing success, that was a learning curve. And so for me,

the confidence of association of success. I was able to be successful there. I think I can be a success here as well. One other aspect of what made me fail, and I'm not blaming this, but this is just a learning point, is that ⁓ personality matters. In a coach helping you with a coach helping you, personality matters. As because I was in a coaching franchise,

One of my benefits of being in the franchise is I got my own personal coach. And I was told that I was going to get a coach that aligned with my personality, my motivation skills, and all these things. ⁓ But I didn't. I ended up just getting my area representative, which was a great guy, but he was not able to help me in business because we had

two very distinct personalities. I'm a detail guy, he's not a detail guy. And so me not able to get the details, I didn't get the confidence. What worked for him, he was wanting me to do the same thing. That wasn't gonna work for me. And so that was part of, it didn't work. So that first year, it was hard, it was difficult. I was rudderless in what I was doing. But God is good. God's grace and kindness is good.

to me and he's going to be good to you. He gave me clients, even though I didn't deserve them. He gave me clients to get me going, to keep me going and to pay my royalty fees and ongoing expenses because I had signed a seven year agreement. I signed this big long agreement and I couldn't just get out of it. And so I was on the hook, you might say, to continue going. And so after a while, God gave me another client to continue to encourage me and to keep me going.

a time I just crashed and I was trying to figure out what in the world I'm gonna do with this business that I didn't really want. And I remember telling my coach, I'm more passionate about dads in the Bible than about business. I wanna help dads be great dads and teach them about the Bible and how to be a good dad and lead their children to Jesus Christ than I am about helping a business go from millions of dollars to multi-millions of dollars, more more and more.

they didn't have time to go to home and include their children, help raise their children. And so I wanted to help those busy business dads be more productive, use time management to be able to get more done in less time.

So I wrote a blog for a year. After about nine months or so, I started looking back, it was the new year and I was looking back and I'm like, I don't feel like I get much traction. And I'm wondering who is reading my blog? And if my ideal client, my ideal person I'm looking for is a busy business dad, is he just sitting around reading blogs all day?

Probably not. And so I was thinking, it's like, you know what? Somebody, one of my guests said that your ideal client many times, 90 % of the time is a past version of you. Let me repeat that. Your ideal client, 90 % of the time is a past version of you. And so if you look at yourself in the past, what you needed, what you wanted, what you wish you had,

That's something, and you figured it out, that's something that you can give to other people and there's probably your ideal client out there is wanting that. When I thought about that, I realized for me, I wasn't out there reading blogs. I read books, but the other major thing that I did was I listened to podcasts. I listened to many, many podcasts. And so the thought came to me, it's like, why don't you start a podcast? Podcast.

Why? I think that's a great idea, I thought to myself, but I don't know 50 people. I don't even know 50 people that would be, I would want to have on this podcast. And if you're supposed to interview all these people, where am I supposed to get 50 people or more people to, as guests for this podcast? And so for a little bit, I kicked around the idea that sounds great, but I can't do it. But then I finally made the jump and in conversation, I finally told somebody I went from

And I wanted to help people buy back their time, buy back their time and use it for God's glory because the days are evil. You don't know all what's happening. But as it relates to your business, redeem your business, not just your time and help use your time better, but it came to be also the thought of redeeming your business and buying it back from the world, buying back your business from the world's way of doing things.

And today means I want you to do it today. Redeem your business today. Don't wait for tomorrow. Do it today. As business owners, as Christian business owners, there's two aspects of your success. There is the aspect of you need to have good business systems. You have to have a good product, marketing, sales, delivery, customer service. You need all those things. But it's also you have to have

that you're honoring Him, that you're obeying Him, that you're following Him. And God said, you know, you're saying this to your children all the time. What about your coaching content?

what would he tell you? And so from that, I was able to, I started doing that. I came up with a foundations course, which I ran a 12 week course as a dry run to see what it looked like. And I also came up with something called Leadership GPS. Leadership GPS is essentially a direction for leaders. As a Christian, your direction for leader is God first.

then your purpose and then service. Leadership GPS means God is God and you need to, because God exists, he affects everything about your life and about your business. And we can talk all hours and hours about that. But that is the first aspect. Purpose is what is your purpose individually? What is God's purpose for you? What is your purpose for your business? You need to know that, you need to understand it, you need to passionately pursue that.

and then service. Jesus said, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who's in heaven. Who so wants to be greatest among you must be servant of all. As a company, as a business, if you want to be great, you need to have great service. You need to serve your customers. And when you look around you at all the great businesses around you,

a blog and now with the podcast and now with ⁓ having a coaching curriculum that is based upon the Bible, a few things stand out to me is I want to provide simple, practical, biblical ways to help you grow your business in a way that's honoring God. Simple, because you need to have things simple versus complex. When things get complex, they don't get done.

and they get confusing. And so I want these things that I give to you and this is who I am is trying to simplify things so that they're understandable. I want them to be practical because there's a lot of theory out there. Do this and this will happen, do this and this will happen. And that's what they are, they're theory. They're not tested out. There's no value in a lot of things people tell you to do. But the things I'm telling you to do, they're to be simple.

and they're to be practical, meaning they are worthwhile, they're value, they're not just, I'm not gonna have you do things, I'm not gonna encourage you to do things that are just activity, activity for activity's sake. And finally, biblical. We are to do things God's way, not the world's way. And so redeeming business today gives you simple, practical, biblical steps to operate your business in a way that honors God, glorifies God.

One of things that I've experienced, understood, didn't do back when, my first six months as a coach is see what passion is inside of me. I wasn't real. I was trying to live somebody else's version of who I am. I was trying to operate a coaching business, how the franchise ⁓ said I'm supposed to act. That wasn't me and I crashed and I failed. My passion has always been

and is today summarized in the verse Ezra 7-10, which says, Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach it in Israel. That's what his passion was. That's what his purpose was. And that's how I've, looking back, that's what's been the one underlying course in my life is to know God's word, to do it and to teach it.

And now what's really cool is I'm doing this, trying to do this, attempting to do this for business owners and business people is to know God's word, live it myself and teach it to you. You see Romans 12.2 says, Paul said, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We're not to be conformed to this world, we're to be transformed and do things God's way. But the problem is,

And James says this in James 1.27, he says, this is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God and Father, to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. He says, James says, the pure and undefiled religion is keep yourself unstained by the world. But the problem is, friends, is we as business people, we as people in the church,

have been stained by the world. We've been stained by the world's philosophies, their thoughts, their actions, their way of doing things. We've grown up with garments that look stained and we think they're patterns. We think they're normal. We don't know any better. And so our job is to rethink business and rethink what we do and rethink how God wants us to do and look at our garments and look at the way we do things and ask yourself, is this truly of God or not of God?

God doesn't specifically say, hey, in your social media posts, this is what to post. He doesn't say, internet services is what you use and use a security system and all this stuff. He doesn't say things on that level, but he does give us laws and principles and examples of how to live. And my friends, if God speaks to something and speaks directly to something and you're doing something different.

You need to change. are under adjudant obligation as a servant of God to change the way you do things. And so we need to rethink our business so that we're not conformed to this world. We don't do things the world's way and we do things God's way. And so we need to create a biblical mindset for business and how we operate business, how we grow and operate, that we may grow and operate in a way that honors God.

So I've said a lot of things. I want to summarize four lessons for you that I would love for you to get through, through your head and don't forget, I hope you've enjoyed the story. But number one, not all coaches are for all people. And in coaching, personality matters. And so if you get a coach, and I suggest you do, get a business coach, get a coach that aligns with your beliefs and that complements your personality. Because if he doesn't believe what you believe and you want to go down,

a biblical way and he's taking you down a worldly philosophy, you're gonna eventually, that's not alignment, you're gonna eventually leave because that alignment is not gonna be there. And get a coach that matches your personality. It doesn't have to be your same personality, but needs to at least compliment because sometimes you need the opposite personality to help you, but you need one that compliments your personality. Number two, be real. Be transparent, I guess be authentic.

Be the person God has created you to be. There is room for you. There's room for you in this world. Even though a hundred other people are doing the same thing, if you are real and understand and authentic who you are, God's made you to be that person. Do it. You're gonna do what God wants you to do. Number three, inferiority. ⁓ Don't have inferiority mindset. I know I didn't talk a lot about this.

I did a whole episode on this ⁓ last year. I think it's episode 52, if you want to go check it out, how I overcame the inferiority mindset. But essentially don't measure yourself by others. Don't measure yourself by, I want to do something, but all these people are doing something greater than I. ⁓ You are God's masterpiece. It doesn't matter if a hundred other people are doing the same thing you're doing, if they're podcasting or running a business or whatever. You...

are doing what God wants you to do, that's okay. If other people are doing the same thing and they're better than you, you're gonna grow, you're gonna get better, and that's fine. Don't have inferiority mindset. Again, go back and listen to, I think it's episode 52, and you get a overview of that whole thing. And finally, number four, friends, seek God's kingdom first. Seek God's kingdom first. Live life.

do business and seek out God's way of operation in His word. We are to do, our good works is the light that shines before men. By our good works is how we glorify God. But if we don't do things God's way, and in a biblical mindset, you're not going to glorify Him. It's not gonna happen. And so finally, if any of this resonates with you, and you have desire to go deeper in God, in His

ways in business, I encourage you to reach out to me, not as a sales call, just as a conversation. ⁓ You can DM me on LinkedIn, I'm active on there, or you can message me on Facebook, I'm not active there, but I do get messages on Messenger, and so those are two ways. If you're ⁓ hooked up and ⁓ get my weekly email newsletter, you can email me back and just have a conversation about what it means to go deeper.

in finding and doing things God's way in business. I say this not to be boasting, but I've been reading the Bible and memorizing God's word for over 40 years. I've been meditating and studying God's word for over 30 years. I know the Bible. I teach people and I say, know, I probably, I know the Bible better than I know business. And I come to it, I come to business with a Bible background so that when I can start seeing business.

from a biblical perspective, rather than just saying, I know business really well, I'm gonna throw Bible verses in. So if you really wanted to go deeper into the Bible and what it says about business, let's talk, let's talk. And finally, I have a free gift for you, a free gift that I wanna leave with you. It's called What God Says About Business. It's Five Uncommon Truths for the Modern Business, because I hope that you really want to understand.

and really want to know what God says and what God thinks about business. there's lots of things he says, but here in this free gift, you get five. You get five uncommon truths from modern business that a lot of people don't talk about. And finally, my friends, I want to remind you, your business is a reflection of the great God you serve. So build a business that's worthy of God's great name and in a way that honors him. Bye for now.