Brock Shinen shares his wisdom on work ethic, success, building a business and being a Kingdom business leader. He is a thought leader, author, and consultant who serves on the Board of Directors for Jesus Culture and Moral Revolution. His business expertise has been recognized by FOX, CBS, NBC, and ABC network. He has also written three Amazon #1 bestselling books including The Christian Entrepreneur: Dream, Plan, Execute, Grow. 

Resources

The Christian Entrepreneur: Dream, Plan, Execute, Grow — Brock Shinen

Tale of Three Kings - Gene Edwards

Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

Expert Secrets - Russell Brunson

Calling: Awaken to the Purpose of Your Work – by Pierce Brantley

To read the first chapter free of Pierce's new book Calling and for more information about the Eternal Entrepreneur Podcast please visit eternalentrepreneur.co

Hey, this is Brock Shinen, author of the top selling book, the Christian Entrepreneur. And if you want to create an impactful kingdom business, you should be listening to the eternal entrepreneur podcast with my good friends, Joe Newton and Pierce Brantley.

The Eternal Entrepreneur gives you the stories and strategies to gain freedom. As a Christian business leader, you'll hear from real entrepreneurs who have learned how to partner with God. From making millions to filing bankruptcy. These are honest stories to help you hear God's voice and build a lasting legacy through business.

Hello and welcome back. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the eternal entrepreneur podcast. I'm Pierce Brantley along with my co-host Joe Newton, and we could not be more excited to share with you our conversation today. With Brock Shinen. Brock is a thought leader, author, consultant, and founder of law, office of Brock Shinen, which represents the largest and fastest growing churches in America.

He's also on the board of directors for Jesus Culture and Moral Revolution. His business expertise has been recognized by Fox, CBS, NBC, and ABC networks. Brock has also written three Amazon number #1 bestselling books, including the Christian Entrepreneur: Dream, Plan, Execute and Grow.

Before we jump into the interview today, when ask, if you'd help us out by leaving us a five star review and sharing the podcast with a friend, also, if you'd like to stay in touch and get a free copy of the first chapter of my book, Calling how to partner with God in any business with any boss, any place in life, then click on the link in the show notes to sign up for our weekly email or visit eternalentrepreneur.co. And now, onto the interview.

Hey Brock. It is an honor to have you with us today. Thank you so much for taking the time.

So happy to be here, guys. So happy to have this conversation. I know it's going to be a good one. So Brock I know you have one of the longest and most extensive bios that we've ever had to cut down and do a, a small, a minute clip.

So can you give us the 30,000 foot view of what your journey into entrepreneurship was? Yeah, that's embarrassing. Yeah. The journey I would say is recognizing from the time was a kid that I knew I was born to help people. And think, you know, you just get into as a child, it just fits into whatever box you're kind of told or whatever your environment looks like.

So my dad was a pastor. My mom was a worship leader. Family was involved in ministry. So that was the box that I thought I would go. And, but, you know, as you get older, you start to realize, okay, I can help people in many different ways. And I went to undergrad for psychology and graduate school for psychology, and then, you know, started with these different jobs and it all kind of evolved into.

It I'll go wherever you send me. But I know my purpose in life is to help people very deeply and very action oriented. So that's, that's where God put me. That was an excellent summary of, uh, of your, your, your, your bio there. And what I love about that one. Uh, I know one of the things for me that God told me when I got into business, he said, Joe, it's all about value.

It's all about bringing the most value for other people. And I, I feel like some of the most successful people who I see empower others, it's like that at the core, just like you is, is, is at their heart. I'm curious when you. Got your original degrees. Did you always know that you're going to go into the law profession to help people?

Or were you originally going to try and be like a therapist or something like that? Yeah. So I was actually on the road to be in a clinical psychologist, basically, probably some time around the first or second year of college. I don't remember exactly when, but I really thought, okay, that's my calling.

And so that's what my school is for. Went to graduate school for that had some things in my life. Um, during my second year of graduate school, where I felt like God said. Well, I went to God and I said, God, if I'm not where you want me repositioning, whatever that looks like, I'll go. So he, I felt like he told me, drop out of school, quit your job.

And I'll I'll order your next steps, which was very scary. Right. I had never thought about law at all. Never thought about being a lawyer going to law school or anything like that. But. I through through a series of steps that he took me through. I wanted, I wound up getting a job at a Christian music publishing company and became, I was put in charge of all the publishing and licensing.

And it was through that, that I kind of fell in love with contracts and intellectual property. And I felt like God was saying, okay, now you're going to educate yourself around this topic. And that was the first time I felt LA was even on the docket. Right. And then from there I went to law school and kind of the rest evolved, you know, And do I remember correctly that before you went to law school, though, you were already starting with business strategy.

Yeah. So it was, it was interesting because I already had people and businesses coming and asking for help. And I think some of that with, with the record label, I was working at it, put me in a place to offer sort of strategic advice to people that were navigating at that time, more around like ministry and music and music business.

So it was, it was pretty quick where I was already being asked for help in like these different areas and helping. Because like businesses and things like that, but that I would say it was kind of the first taste of entrepreneurial-ism that I was professionally involved in before I was even an attorney or any sort of like professional hat on, you know, so I'm curious, I feel like you starting off working with creatives, you kind of jumped into the deep end when it comes to a business strategy and helping with that.

What were some of the big lessons that you kind of learned as far as specifically working with that type of mindset? I think one of the big ones I learned out of the gate. So there was a guy who came in, he was a relatively well-known like artist and producer around the circles that I was in. And he came in and he said he was talking about recoupment.

And, you know, I, here I am a music publisher and I'm like a new music publisher anyways. And I'm like, I I'm thinking, I don't even know what that term means. And it was a big light bulb that went off for me, not just how important it was to know your business, but to actually really go deep in whatever you're going to do to really go deep in it.

And it kind of tied together with one of my life verses is in a cautions. And it's whatever you do, do it with your whole heart as if serving for God and not for man. And I looked at that moment. I saw God, whatever I do, I want to go deep in it. I want to understand it better than anyone out there. I want to spend more time.

And so even as a music publisher, I literally listened to every single song that the company ever published. And I tried to memorize all the copyright information for, I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds of songs. I try to memorize all the copyright information. All the writer splits, just, just as a matter of learning, I try, I try to read every book I could on music publishing in the music business.

I think that was actually one of the big starting points to kind of get to your question of, of what I realized in any business, not just music, but any business is you need to understand what you're, what you're dealing with and the deeper you go, the more knowledge you're going to be, the more able you are, the more you're able to kind of flex around the issues that, that surprise everyone else.

Right. Rock. I love that. And I think that's such a good principle for folks who are first kind of figuring out how they give a business to the Lord or how they kind of go on their entrepreneurial journey. And it comes down to kind of, you said it, this principle of stewardship. And I think oftentimes we think if, what kind of downloads a passion to us or something like that, In many ways, it's on him to kind of make the thing successful.

And we kind of forget the idea, the principle that we even see in scripture, which is steward these talents. Well, assuming you don't even have to have a lot to work with. Yeah. And just immerse yourself in it, go deep, like you said, and that is where you actually, it's almost a proving ground, so to speak of whether or not there's something else to graduate too.

Oftentimes I think we think, Oh man, entrepreneurs and businesses are really visionary, right? Like way out there. And they can see what their business looks at. You know, once it's a unit in court in a billion dollar valuation, and yet they don't have like 500,000 revenue yet. Right. And it's, you got to steward the first things in order to be able to grow.

And a lot of that is just going deep. Like you said, becoming an expert and genuinely caring about the details. I just think that's super valuable. Yeah. And it goes to a couple of verses that come to mind. Number one is we, we often look at the parable of the talents as, as kind of this thing, like we're actually supposed to work the ground, like we're supposed to work.

And also, you know, the idea that. When I think about it, my, my verse that's in replacement of the parable of talents is go to the best sluggard, consider its ways and be wise, you know, it stores up in the winter and it goes on and on, but the idea is more, it's less about like the, the talents or this investment that we want to see a return on.

But actually we can learn there's wisdom and storing up and preparing and working hard. So, so for me, any job that I've ever approached, any client that I ever worked with, part of my starting point is, is not just like, Hey, if you're faithful and little, you'll be safe on much. So develop really good habits when you have little and you'll have really great habits when you have much, that's an integral piece to this.

But I think there's another, a larger thing, which is it's great to have a good work ethic. And I find, you know, I've been a Christian my whole life, like literally ran into the alter at six years old. So I saved this with, with a very dear heart towards Christianity. But I think a lot of times, like you were saying, we just expect God to like, you know, just erect the sails and blow into them for us.

And sometimes God is saying, I actually want you to roll for awhile. I want you to get out there, you know, work the ground, you know, break a sweat, get some, some calluses on your hands, you know, and it's scary for us. Right. Can you go a little deeper with that? Because what you just said on the end there is that it's.

It's scary. I feel like there, there there's something in that cause maybe is that part of it? Do you think with people who are starting a new business? A lot of times, it's not just that they're afraid to put in the hard work, but that there's, there's some form of a bigger loss there. Yeah, I do. I think that the fear is it's probably multi-layer, but I think there's two distinct areas of fear.

One is that we get away from trusting God by working hard that we somehow get outside of his will. I mean, you, you hear it in Christian circles all the time. Like if you get too successful, it must not be God. Right. And I think there's just many, many circumstances in the Bible where we see that that's not true, that it's truly God's hand blessing, but what we're always, we're always kind of working against is that there's scriptures that, you know, it's, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than, you know, a rich man that like all those types of verses where we're like, wait, So it's bad to be wealthy.

It's bad to get, have success. But then on the other side of it, Proverbs in particular, but many places in the Bible, Proverbs in particular talks a lot about hard work and the work ethic and planning ahead all those sorts of topics. So I think we're a little bit afraid of getting outside of God's will by working hard.

And so we, we say, well, Hey, we're just trusting God to open doors, to blow in our sails. When many times we're just laying there and we're just, we're just waiting for something good to happen instead of working for it. But I think there's also another layer of fear. That's just generic human fear, which is what if I fail.

Right. And the thing is you listen to any business expert in any industry in probably any time in history. And they're pretty much going to tell you with resounding singular voice. If you're not prepared to fail and you're not failing on a regular basis, you're not really trying. Right. So, you know, it's like, whatever, whether it's Michael Jordan, like I missed, you know, I don't remember exactly, but you know, you, you miss all the shots you never take.

Right. So it doesn't matter if you don't take them, you gotta take thousands and thousands of shots. To be consistent on one. I've heard tennis coaches and basketball coaches. You have to hit thousands and thousands of balls to be consistent hitting one ball. So I think it's the same concept in business and we just get scared failing.

Right. That's so good. Recently I helped the company go get acquired and they were, they appeared in the PR side of things. Like they were an overnight success and CEOs and Christian Guy, and they immediately, what, what helped them get acquired with some new IP that they'd come. To gather to do along this really good marketing.

And from the outside, looking in, you look at this guy who loves the Lord and who has just sold his company at a great evaluation. And it looks like this guy just kind of has a magic touch. What no one knows or what most people fail to kind of recognize is that this guy has 11 years of backstory.

Basically digging ditches in his own company to make this thing be successful. And he's one of his biggest pet peeves is when people kind of just assume to kind of use your language, that there should be a blue low on the sales moment. You should be building your own sale, right? Yeah. You're the one who wanted to be a captain of a ship.

Go build a sail and go get it out there and, uh, be ready for a journey. You're gonna, if you're plan on crossing the Atlantic. So I love that, man. That's good. Brock, I'm curious. Do you see, cause I know you work with a lot of Christian and non Christian business owners, entrepreneurs, are there consistent patterns that you see to the ones that succeed and the ones that fail and are those different.

A lot of the time with the Christian entrepreneurs and the ones who aren't, that's a, that's a great question because it really hits to the heart of some realities that I think oftentimes we're afraid to face as Christians. So the first answer is, are there sort of patterns, similarities and people that are successful versus those that are not?

And I'd say absolutely. Yes. I'll talk about a couple of those. Do I see distinctions or differences or patterns in Christian versus non-Christian entrepreneurs and what that sort of leads to success or not? In some ways the answer is also a very strong. Yes. So when you think about patterns between success and not many times what you'll see, show up people that are successful.

Tend to be relentless. They tend to be ready to fail and have no problems failing. They tend to disregard people's perception of them and not in a, a jerk way. Not, not in a, you know, I don't care what your opinion is, but in a way that says I'm focused on my race, not your race, I'm focused on my game or my bill, not yours.

You tend to see people that are often more generous, which I know may seem almost ironic. Or, um, maybe counterintuitive, but a lot of times with very successful people, you'll see generosity. You'll see people that are willing to help consistently that they're showing up consistently, emotionally and mentally.

And I mean, I can go on and on non, but, but I think the stronger counterpoint is, well, what are the consistencies with people who don't succeed? It's not as easy as saying, well, it's the opposite. They don't, they don't have grit. They don't have a good work ethic, but. It is important to point out. Some of these, I think are critical factors in why most people don't succeed.

However, having this kind of conversation so frequently, I feel like I've, I've kind of honed in on maybe a couple of really heat areas where I see failure consistently. And one is, people are just not willing to follow through the difficult points. And I think like if you're a Seth Godin reader at all, you know, he talks about the dip.

There's different authors. There's different experts out there that talk about basically. Whether you think of this in sports or like working out muscles or whatever, you get to a point where there's just like breakdowns, right? And most of us give up mentally. And when you look at failure patterns in business, I would say 99% of the time, you're going to see somebody who just gave up.

And when you think about that, like, Oh my gosh, like such a simple, silly idea. And yet that's where 99% of failures are living is I just didn't keep pushing. Now in order to push pass, you have to have that, that basically that grit, that work ethic to keep going. But I think there's areas we can talk, you know, and go deeper that, but as far as the Christian, non-Christian kind of comparison.

I think the biggest thing for me that I see consistently with Christians is. I think it grows out of a tension of like I was talking about earlier. Like if we're working too hard, we're not trusting God. So I'm just not going to work as hard because then I'm not trusting God. And that becomes our logic of not working hard, which means now when, when I compare a Christian to a non-Christian in, in an entrepreneurial setting, I'm like, here's this non-Christian working his or her butt off.

And then here's a Christian saying, Lord Lord, open doors, open windows. And I like, but they're not getting their hands dirty. And that's frustrating because I'm like, if you just got your hands dirty and did some work, you'd actually be way ahead of all your counterparts. So I think those are, I know it's a kind of a long-winded answer, but those are the key points that come to mind when you ask those questions.

I'm curious, do you see with, because one of the things that, that I reminisce with with myself, I'm like, okay, we literally have the selling author of all time inside of us. Like the guy who breathed into dirt and a man jumped up, it seems like we should have some leverage in, in this. I guess the question I'm trying to ask is.

Are people sometimes in a place of that, that analysis paralysis, do you think when it comes to not only am I trying to figure out, should I do this? Should I not do that? But I'm also trying to figure out like, has the Lord said, this has the Lord not said that, does that come into play with it? Like sort of they have that additional, I don't know, block two to work through.

I think the answer is yes, but in all honesty, this is based on my own observations through decades of working with people and businesses is that I think that's more of a avail to what's behind, which is ultimately fear. I really do feel nine out of 10 times it's sphere, but on the surface, it looks like that that analysis paralysis like, God, are you in?

Are you not do this? Do not. And the interesting thing for me is that. So I grew up, my dad was very much like, Hey, you get in the boat and you pray. And if the boat's going anywhere, it's because God ballooned the sails. And if it doesn't, then it wasn't as well. I was literally trained that way from the time I was a kid.

That was, that was the way he raised me. So I had a very hard time. Like making the transition to understanding the idea of a work ethic. And it's not just about God blowing in sales, but even saying that to this day, at my age and my experience, I still wrestle with that. God, are you in this? Should I be, should I be working hard?

Should I just like sit here and wait? Like, what is what's what's the answer and what I really feel like God has said through the scriptures and to me directly in that. And I really just feel like it's the same answer for all of us. Is is kind of a couple of things. Number one is if God's speaking, do, when he's speaking, if the scriptures are clear doing what the scriptures say, when you're not clear my, my gut test, and I'm not saying this is theologically, correct.

I'm saying this is just me being honest and transparent. My test is this. I laid all before God. And this God says yes, then my answer is yes. If he says, no, my answer is no, he says pause and it's pause so on, so forth. But if I hear silence, I'm going to hesitate to move, but if it's silence too long, I'll say, God, I'm going to move forward.

Trusting that if this is not your will, you're going to stop me because I am submitting this to you. So just because I can't hear you right now, doesn't mean I'm not submitting or a rebellion or whatever. And I've, I've had times where I felt. Okay. I can get it going. And then God kind of steps in and stops me someway.

Somehow other times I feel like I was completely within it as well. He just, for whatever reason, maybe I just couldn't hear him. Maybe he was speaking, but I do feel very strongly that that what we need to do is always be making some sort of forward progression. And I feel that's how we're designed. I feel that's how we're made.

I think it's an easy out to say, well, God, I was scared. What if I'm wrong? So I buried my talents and there we are back to the verse of the towns. Your spear makes you bury the talents. But I'm not afraid of getting slapped down. Cause it got, also slapped me down. So be it, what I'm saying is I'm afraid of being outside of his will.

So if I don't hear him, I want to, I want to make progress forward and still submit it to him every step of the way I got to trust, he's going to shut me down if I need to be shut down Brock. I think that's fantastic, man. Well, I feel like I, I hear you articulating it's so good is that we have agency. As sons and daughters of God he's given us agency, you know, even you think in practical terms, like go into the whole world and preach the gospel.

Well, do I go to Austin? Do I go to Texas to go? Like I've given you agency, I'm your new agency. And then you actually look at it. A lot of these old Testament Kings, I think their stories are fascinating. Oftentimes God will say. Go do whatever is in your heart to do. And I'll, I'll bless it. We forget. I think oftentimes that part of being ambassadors means doing just that and whatever that looks like.

And I think the Lord oftentimes does give us a lot of agency. It's not that there aren't times where he says, Hey, stop here or go do that. But the way I look at it is someday I'm going to stand in front of my maker and he's not going to say Pierce. Out of these 176 times, I totally to go do something.

You got like 82 of them. Right. And now let's talk about these other 53. He's going to say, what did you do with the life I gave you? I gave you agency. And I want to know how you glorified me in that. And it's not even so much like the measuring of that, but it's, it's the relationship aspect of it. So, I mean, it's fantastic.

It's so good. Yeah, Pearson, honestly, like I'm still thinking about how you figured out that math on the 150 or whatever, there's a couple missing, but I think what you said right now is such a critical piece of how entrepreneurs, where they struggle is that they think, and I think maybe all Christians, to some extent, do this.

We tend to think that we have one purpose in life that God's given us one ability, almost like special power. And it's our job to like pin the tail on donkey. You're blindfolded. We spun you around you're dizzy, but you gotta figure it out. And I don't think that's got at all. I don't think that's godly and I don't think that's God's destiny for us.

I think what, what you said. About God giving us agency, I think God has place and the creative spirit in all of us, whether we're left or right brain. I think God has given us the ability to explore a hundred different careers and potentially be completely happy, completely successful in a hundred different careers.

He says, it's up to you. I truly believe that now. Can I cite a version of that? I'd probably not. Um, I'm not a theologian, so, but I think this idea of agency is where. Again, part of this goes back to my background in psychology. You know, I'm always looking at human psychology and how we think about problems.

Right. I say, if I want something, I have to go ask it. And I know there's always this tension. I repeat that almost as an preface because I know Christians really struggled with this and get angry about it. But I think, I think the idea of God's saying. Hey, Joe, Hey Pearson. He brought, how do you want to serve me?

If I say, God, I don't want to do the attorney consultant, author stuff anymore. I want to serve you on a fishing boat, which I've thought about then I think that God could bless that. And I think it would be all about me submitting it to him and saying, God, I would look to do this and asking him and processing with it.

But, but you see like fishing and versus what I do, it's very different things. And I know I'm trying to make a silly joke about it, but the idea of us having a say in our destiny it's because God has said, I want to be here for you. I want to support you. I want to give you tools to bring the gospel of the kingdom, bring the gospel to the world.

How are you going to do that? And we just gravitate towards what feels easy or where we feel skill, but we don't always stop the thing. You know what I need to grow, where there's help needed or where I needed to develop a skill in order to meet a need. And that's not something that I intuitively felt God calling me to.

Do you know what I mean? No, I, I do know what you mean. I read this stat once that said that 10 times over the course of our work lives 10 times, which is crazy. If you think about that from like, Year to year to year. And oftentimes I think as Christians, we think, well, you know, if I was really listening to the Lord, I would have one because I got some kind of download from the Lord, but now I know exactly what I'm supposed to do in business and in life.

And when you look at kind of just the way the Lord has ordered the world, that's not how it works. You've been called from the point that you have come into relationship with the Lord. After that it's. How do you want me to abide with me, maybe that is fishing. Maybe it is working in the music industry.

Maybe it is helping people in specific, you know, different areas of, you know, complex law, but it all kind of falls underneath the umbrella of pursuing the Lord and brewing good on the earth as we're called to do so. I love that. Yeah, I think just one quick out on that is that we forget sometimes that God is a builder and he's always building on what he's done in us in the past.

And I think about my whole life, I used to have almost stuck a regret. Maybe it may be an actual regret, but like why didn't I Spanish graduate school, get my PhD in critical psychology and then do things. But in my mind, what I've realized over the years is God has established and whatever he needed me to draw from the experience of being in psychology and those programs and gleaning what I needed to clean and learning what I needed to learn.

He's using today. And I use psychology in my daily life every day. So I feel like we forget God is always building. So even if you think you're on one track and then all of a sudden you're on a different track. Again, it doesn't mean you're outside of God's will. Sometimes God is just taking it a one place to equip you for the next place.

It's completely different. You know, we just forget that. Brock, I'm curious. What advice do you do you give to people that helps them to either prepare for these times where they hit these fears or just moving forward to make sure that they keep that momentum? Like how do you counsel people when they start to hit up against these types of roadblocks?

Oftentimes I revert back to advice and God is a cross country runner in high school and college where I had a coach. That that he saw me stop because I had a really bad, I don't remember if it was a society Gershon's point or whatever. I think it was my first year of college. And he said, brah don't ever stop when you're running.

Don't ever stop. Even if you have a squabble, don't lose full momentum because it becomes almost impossible to regain momentum and keep moving forward. So what he taught me in that first year of running with the college team was always keep momentum. No matter if you're, if you're just dying, you literally feel like you're about to Crow, then walk, don't stop.

Do whatever you do. Don't stop. So I think there's the phrase look where I just said don't stop, but I meant do not stop. But when I work with entrepreneurs, I see this so often is that there's, there's just a constant place of, I just got to stop or I hit a wall and I can't go any further. And part of my encouragement when, when you want to keep going, or what do you do when you want to keep going?

When you're going to hit these spots that are just, they feel impossible. You don't know how to get past them. There's a couple of strategies, just, I think really effective strategies. One is. You never start anything without believing. You're going to send a dish and it's you start something without believing you're going to finish.

You probably won't finish. That's just the hard statistical truth. If you think you're going to fail, you probably will fail. I can honestly say that every race I've ever ran, I believed I was going to win. And that's including against people that would run 10 times faster. I just convinced myself I'm going to win every, I used to be a swimmer.

Every race I swam, I believe the same thing. I'm going to win this. No matter how much the odds are stacked against me. I've tried to make it a life habits always believed that whatever I do, I'm going to get the result. I'm going to ask him. Of course I don't. But I think that's part of what gets me over the hump of while I'm not there, or whatever I failed is I just keep going.

But the other thing too, is writing out a roadmap. I think that we joke about looking at the mirror like that Saturday night live thing, and you know, I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. I think writing down. What you plan to accomplish and your goals so that you can finish them is instrumental. And I think there's plenty of research and statistics on that, that people that write their goals down.

Are much more likely to accomplish them. And part of the reason is because it's a guide, it's a guide book, right? It's a map when you're feeling like disillusion, when you're feeling overwhelmed, you just look at that and you remember it. Yes. I need to get this done. So writing it down is another, so I'm a believer, you know, mindset and believing that you can knowing that you're going to.

And then I think the final piece is, is just like, I make a lot of references to running and swimming because those were my, my sports growing up. I know a lot of people are, you know, basketball, baseball, whatever. For me, it's about knowing that a race is going to be tough and you're going to want to give up.

And, you know, I remember running the first time for 20 miles and I'm like, who does this? This is stupid. You, you get to a point where you say, well, I could and I, and I literally, I have those conversations with myself during races in the early years. Why, why am I doing this? I don't have to finish this.

There's nobody that's making me. There's nothing on the other than me feeling stupid for not finishing. I don't have to. And then I came to her. The more I realized like that mental perspective is what was actually keeping me from succeeding. So I think if we can have the mental perspective that it's worth it, That the process is worth it and know that you cannot get to the goal without the process, which I do think is also, there's, there's an aspect of that, that uniquely Christian, because we believe God said so I can bypass the process.

And what God says is I get you to the goal through the process. And I care more about the process than the goal, but we just want the outcome. We don't want all the difficulties that come through it. So I think if we change our perspective on process, We'll be much more effective in reaching our goals.

That's so good. Do you have an example of you personally and your business to where, you know, instead of how I built this, it was how I failed at this and kind of what that actually looked like for you. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's probably a ton. I'm trying to think one that would be meaningful. So a couple of years ago I had in my mind webinars were like that, that was it.

Like I had to do webinars and that was going to be the pivot that I made would change everything. And so, um, this was probably about six or seven years ago. So I started studying all these people that were like webinar experts and following them, learning everything I could from them. And then I started doing webinars and what I realized, none of them were working.

Nothing I was doing was working with webinars. And, you know, as time went on, I don't remember exactly when I sort of woke up to the reality. I realized number one, I wasn't being authentic. I was just simply copying a formula that all these web and our experts had said, this is how you do it. And, you know, even to the point of like, okay, when you start your webinar, you started a few minutes early and you like, you know, it's on your hands or your notes.

And you're like, okay, well, we're just letting people get on. I mean, there's a whole methodology to this, you know? Okay. Everybody hear me, you know, let's do a mic check. Like there's literally a list that every single webinar person does. That, when you think about it, it makes it longer. It makes it more boring.

It makes it like people don't want to sit through that and then, you know, hiding the time. So they can't fast forward. It's like it's designed to force people to either listen. So the buy or to get out, cause they're not, they're not hot leads. And all of this stuff is documented. It's all, you know, sort of smart in a way because it's, it's affecting sales and marketing tactics.

I just wanted to show the goods from moment number one. So I think for me trying to emulate these experts where I'm not, I'm not saying I'm not at all saying that there isn't wisdom. And those techniques, what I'm saying is they weren't right for me. And I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew what I should do and I didn't do it then.

And I failed miserably. I didn't make a single sale for many of these webinars. I probably had like two people show up on each of them. I felt like they were an absolute waste, but they taught me like just, just the, an uncountable measure in terms of what I've learned about myself and why I do what I do.

So that's, that's probably the quickest, easiest one. I thought. Do you have a way that you kind of keep score or check in with yourself after you either start a new business or kind of a new venture? Like the webinars probably on a practical level? Like did people show up, did people read it? Did they smile?

Did they die? You know, that's kinds of basic measures, but honestly, I don't know. I think, I think that in some ways I could probably violate a lot of the rules and standards that I try to help with, uh, you know, entrepreneurs, the reason why is because I guess in some ways, and this is, again, me just being transparent.

I don't still, like some of those rules apply to me. And the reason why is because I'm so ready to lose, if it means it's for God, if it means that what I'm laying on his feet, doesn't net me a one dime. I'm okay with that. So I don't take traditional measurements. Like I'm not looking at my conversion rates and you know, my cost per click and all that kind of stuff, which is all rational, logical, smart things that any entrepreneur should be doing.

Right. Well, what I do is I look about, I look at my and helping as many people as possible and trying to be as effective as that and pivoting as much as I can to reach as many people as I can, when it's as much constant as a campus. To me. If I picture myself and I know this, I don't, I don't mean this arrogantly at all.

I know what I'm saying this publicly. So again, just, I'm a transparent person, so being transparent, but if I'm a water fountain, I don't want to shut off. I don't want to be pouring out water. And if I realize there's not a line at my fountain, then I'm just going to start spraying water. So to me, I would much rather.

Just err, on the side of I'm helping as many people as possible in every way possible and just get a lot of it wrong than to have the most pristine machine for dialing in my data and my statistics and my numbers and my ROI and all that kind of stuff. That's my, my entrepreneurial journey, but I don't recommend that for most people.

And part of why I don't is because I do think I have. A deeper expertise, partly because of my law practice, partly because of the strategy consulting and my history in business. So I do think I have a natural better understanding than most that I can make that kind of poor choice. And also God's blessed me with a water spout that doesn't turn off.

So, so for me, I'm not at risk of running out, you know, I've had people like, dude, you, your articles over here and videos over here and block, you know, like I can't even keep up with your stuff. I'm like, gotcha. Flowing. And I'm just spraying as much as I can, because if I help one person I've done my job, you know, that's awesome.

Well, I want to make sure we honor your time Brock. So with our last five minutes, we usually do our final five questions. So these are five questions, random fire, and, uh, Yeah. Question number one. Oh, sorry. What was that? Sushi. Sushi. Yeah, that's good, man. You're good. So question number one, the, a typical podcast question.

What are your top three must read books, not including the Bible. These can be business, family, spiritual, or even cookbook. All right. Tale of three Kings. My favorite book of all time, which is actually more of a play than a book. And it's really about the, uh, the heart of, of each of us and God looking at the heart of each of us.

So tell the three Kings, uh, catcher in the rye. Happens to be in my top three and more than anything less to do with the message and more to do with the creativity of it. I just love the creative nature of the book and the writing style. And I just, I just feel like it's, uh, you know, I'm not, I'm not at all making a Christian argument for or against, as a creative.

I really enjoy that book. Um, read it many, many times the third book. That's a tough one. Cause I read a lot and um, I've I mean, hundreds and hundreds of books. Can I leave it at two? Am I forgot? I might remember a third one, but I can't right now. Sure. You can call us up at, uh, 2:00 AM tonight and uh, you know, let us know with that third one.

This is, uh, this one just strikes me and I wouldn't have said it's in my top three, but it's such a phenomenal book for entrepreneurs to understand. And that is, uh, is by Russell Brunson and it's called expert secrets. And he's the guy that invented like, uh, funnel hacking and like, um, he's got, he's got a whole program and all this kind of stuff, and I'm not an affiliate or anything like that.

I'm just, I'm just saying that book really helps you understand. What brings people into a funnel that ultimately leads to them doing business with you? It's a really well run. That's cool. I just put him on my list for something and I was like, I wonder if he's going to be a good writer or if he just says people selling his books, but he's cool to hear his book is phenomenal.

That's great. So wait, where to throw a three in there. Uh, we'll give you full credit today. Question number two, you can send a note card back to yourself when you're first starting off on your entrepreneurial journey. What are the three pieces of advice you're putting on that card? Ooh, that's a tough one.

I think advice, number one, take chances sooner and earlier than I would have. I think number two is believe that you can do what you set out to do, because I think that that's unfortunately stumping that most entrepreneurs figure out later in life. And so they spend a lot of first years floundering, so believes a lot sooner.

And I think the third thing is. This, and this is probably still something I struggle with is build teams that don't, don't build teams for the sake of building teams, but build teams that, that matter for the future sooner. I think that's probably the three pieces of advice I'd give to myself. That's great.

And actually want to plug your book for anyone. Who's building a team, the Christian entrepreneur. I was just relistening to it, uh, this morning. And your, your part about teams and why you select specific people as a, as a great resource out there. So anyone looking for teams, question number three. How do you define success for yourself?

For myself, I think primarily obedience to God. Second to that would be getting as much out of what's in my head and heart onto paper, video, audio, whatever. To me, the measure of success is that I'm actually living my passion, believing it. And then it's all submitted to God. That's awesome. Question number four.

When times have gotten tough, what's kept you from quitting. I don't think I'm a Nashville quitter. So I think part of it is just kind of just the innate disposition. But I do think that I really do depend on God, like moments, moment, breath to breath. And I don't say that like, as a, as a Christian Christianism or whatever, I mean, literally, like I can't survive without God.

And so for me, it's praying, constantly seeking his wisdom, constantly praying constantly. I pray throughout the day, all day, every day. And I think staying connected to God for me, is more important than anything I know, or I've learned or I've any work experience I have or clients I've ever worked with.

Like any of that stuff. I think it's the thing that keeps me going and makes me the Energizer bunny is Jesus. And that's it. Period. I love that thing that makes me the Energizer bunny is Jesus period, right?

Yeah. All right. Question number five. What questions should we have asked them? I would say from your audience, that probably is you. If you cold in us, you find out that there's some recurring themes that people are struggling with. That kind of went beyond what we talked about. And my guess is that a lot of people struggle with.

Not knowing how to do the mechanics. They understand concepts, they understand I've read books, I've taken the classes, have attended the webinars, but all of that just feels very heavy. It feels like big, big up know up in the air pie, in the sky kind of thing. I think that there are mechanics to success.

There are mechanics to building a strong business in any industry and those mechanics. I mean, that's part of why I wrote the Christian entrepreneur was to address those mechanics because I feel like those, those just get missed. They get overlooked because we all want to be inspired, but I think most of us can get from a, to B, much less Z with inspiration.

We need mechanical steps to get us there. So I think, you know, if anything, whether there's a round on Sue or just, you know, maybe it's a time with your audiences, that there's probably some mechanics that if you, if you asked it enough, you'd realize man, these people could really use, like, what are the mechanics of this thing?

Yeah, no, that's, that's so good. And I hope we can have you back again soon because that's definitely valuable that to, yeah. Not just have the cereal and the mental, but to have that where, where the pavement hits the road, mechanics, their cars. Yeah. As we kind of like to say a business it's, it's not sexy.

It's it's not rocket science. It's just business. Sometimes. You know what? Broccoli. Thank you so much for spending your time with us today and, uh, real quick, please let our audience know where's the best place that they can go to, to learn more about you and to, to find your water fountain, I guess, is the, the metaphor easiest sort of professionally would be Brock shine and.com.

I try to make that sort of just a, you know, all my resources kind of pooled up together. Um, not always done the greatest job there, but I feel like if you really want to find more about me and my resources, that's the easiest place to get in touch with all of them. And if you just want to get inside my head, I would say Instagram Brock shine.

And, you know, on Instagram is more of just my daily life thinking and, and all that kind of stuff. Awesome. Well, thank you again, Brock and everyone out there have an amazing week. Thanks you guys.

Thank you. You so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a five-star review. And share this with a friend, it would help us out tremendously. Also, if you'd like to stay in touch and get a free copy of the first chapter of Pierce's new book, calling how to partner with God and any business with any boss at any place in life.

Then click on the link in the show notes to sign up for our weekly email or visit Pierce brantley.co/podcast. Thanks again, and we'll see you next week. .