254 Integrating faith and business: a new series

Hi there and welcome to the next episode of the Christian Women in Business podcast, so good to have you here. We are doing a mini series at the minute and it’s all about integrating our faith and our business together. So last week we spoke about how there’s no separation, so God is in every area of your life, he’s in every area of your business, and you can go to him.

For anything in any part of your life and business is included in that business is a heavy huge percentage of our lives normally, if we’re running a business and it’s okay to go to him with all things in your business. And we also touched on core beliefs. So what, Are they lies that we’re telling ourselves?

And how are they playing out in our business? And then how do we make them more of a biblical outlook and change those core beliefs to believe that we are okay and are worthy to have success. Like we’re okay to have success in our business. We’re okay to make money and shift in all of those core beliefs, which kind of goes back to identity and who are we from being part of the family of God and the inheritance that Jesus has brought us now that we are in his kingdom and how do we operate out of our businesses from a heavenly perspective.

So hopefully once we’ve gone through this series, you’re a little bit more clear on that or your confidence has gone away. Maybe you’ve learned something new, whatever. So today we’re going on. actually how do we align ourselves and our businesses with God? Are we in that alignment and how do we shift if we’re not feeling in that alignment?

So we’ve spoken a lot about how you might be operating from the grind instead of the grace and I want to talk more about that aspect of business and God and integrating the faith and business this week. So I’ve been pondering on this question. It’s a lot. It’s one of our core missions and what we’re all about is helping women align businesses Align their businesses with God And how do we actually do that?

How do we? Go through the process of alignment, making sure we’re on the right path. I know that it can be really confusing with all the different messages out there in the world about my purpose. Am I doing things right? Am I in alignment with God? And instead of focusing on the what I’d really love for you to focus on the what.

on the who, which is you. You are the who. And so I don’t necessarily see what our businesses do. so much as the purpose but who you are as a person when you’re running your business and how does Jesus play out with that. So I do think it’s important that you are aligned with what you are doing in your business absolutely but going one step further from back from that I want to focus on the personal.

So I know for me I’ve got a personal mission and no matter what kind of I’m doing in life, I always come back to, am I fulfilling this personal mission that I feel is part of my life? I feel it is aligned with the fruits of the spirit as well, bringing that into the conversation. And am I playing that in everything that I do in my life?

Sometimes. I’m like really good at it and sometimes not so much. Completely depends on the season, what we’re doing, all different kind of things. But this is the backbone of my why. Like why am I doing what I’m, why am I doing what I’m doing? And whether it’s increasing women in business or the automation girl or out there in the gym, like it all comes back to this why and the reason why I’m doing it for God.

So you’ve probably heard this story. A couple of times now, but back in 2013, 2014, I found a note it hadn’t been purposely given to me. I accidentally stumbled upon it and it said, SJ to encourage women. And I’m quite a literal person. And I thought, you know what that’s really cool. Who wouldn’t want to be like a main encourager of other and seeing them be amazing and in line with what God’s put on their hearts and who they are and how God’s made them.

Why would I not want to encourage women to embrace more of that? And so I took it literally and I’ve made it my life mission to make sure that I encourage and I encourage women. That doesn’t mean I turned into a huge feminist or anything like that. I think men are just as important, if not better.

really important, uniquely important in this world as women are. But it’s more in the how are you going in your journey? How do we get the best out of you? Not so you can be the best version of yourself or anything like that, but just to keep you going when you’re having a bad day, sitting with you in the pit and going, yep, that’s really hard.

Okay, how do we take the next step to move forwards? So for me beyond the mission with CWIB, with the Automation Girl, and everything else that’s going am I sticking to that why? And am I doing that why throughout everything that I’m doing? So my question to you is, do you have a personal mission and really deep down, what is your why?

And often you have to keep asking yourself why am I doing this, why am I doing this because of so why are you doing that, why am I doing it because of this, and you have to keep asking yourself why. So I encourage you, if you’re sat in the car today after this podcast or wherever you’re listening, really think what is my why and what is my personal mission.

in this life. For some it might be being an evangelist. It might be speaking God’s work out, word out to the world and helping people come to Christ. It might be all different kinds of things. None are wrong or right. It’s just what’s your personal mission that you really feel that God’s given you.

That you want to use that everything you do in your life, not just your business, but. Importantly, in your business. And then, talking of businesses, moving up to more of the business level. And that is, what, Have you set out as your vision, mission, and values in your business? And from when you started your business, are you still in line with where God originally asked you to go?

You might have been given a word, you might have been given an idea. And things do change, businesses do change, we have different seasons, we grow, the economy changes, all that kind of stuff. But these are just your core things in your business. Are they still in line? are what you, is what you’re doing still in line and how is that being portrayed throughout how you run your business, what products and services you offer and everything else.

So get them out if you have them. If you don’t have them, really important to work out your vision, mission and values in your business. If you’re not sure how to do that, One of our first Thrive sessions, we had the lovely Jess Lopez join us. She shared how to work out your vision, mission and values.

And we have that workshop sat in our academy. So if you want to get into that, you’re more than welcome to become a member. You’ll get access to the academy and you can take yourself through that workshop. Members, if you haven’t already done it, go and find it. The replays are there. And that’s just one of the workshops that we’ve got available in our academy when you become a member of Christian Women in Business.

There’s so much more on there, but just out of relevance, that’s the one that’s relevant to this podcast today. Going back and getting them out, are you sticking to your vision? Are you sticking to your mission? And are your values really coming out in what you’re doing in your business? Building culture, how you speak to your customers and all that kind of thing.

And then are they still in alignment with where you started out with? I know with Christian Women in Business, I’m constantly having to remind myself, am I in alignment with the What we originally set out to do or have I branched away from that and got distracted? And do I need to pull the movement back to these vision, mission, and values?

And That no matter what I’m doing, I am always coming back to that and they, this core, like your core beliefs, this is like your core beliefs for your business. When I need to make the big decisions or if someone asks me to collaborate or whatever, I’m always asking myself does this company and does this person align with our vision, mission and values?

And It’s really helpful with decision making as well. We’ve had to make some changes and implement more of online stuff for this season, which is our Thrive quarterly resets, and the next one is coming up on the 14th of November, by the way. And so are we still encouraging, strengthening and uniting women through what we’re doing online?

And am I making sure that we’re sticking to that as we’re working out the program, the different things that we’re offering? And I ask you, are you doing that in your services and your products? Are they still in line with what it is that you want to achieve and how you want to go about doing your business?

And this, I believe, keeps us aligned with God, like this keeps ourselves with our core belief, our core mission our personal mission, sorry. That is the beginning. of the alignment and then it’s okay, how’s my business sit in an alignment from the original vision, mission and values. Now I’m not saying that these can’t change over time, not at all, God might tell you to shift, you might feel it in your gut that there’s just something not right and we need to make a shift in a different direction, of course listen to But in that shift, are you then making decisions that are in alignment with it?

And how’s that playing out now? And what are things that maybe we need to change or maybe chop off? I’ve spoken a lot about this in the past, how we can easily get distracted by different things. So maybe some things have creeped into your business services, products, or whatever, they’re just not serving you.

And they’re not in line with what it is that you want to offer and what it is you want to do for your business. Are you making sure that Yep, this is 100 percent in alignment, and if not, I need to prune that away. So these are the different questions you can come to God with as well. What different branches do we need to be cutting off and trimming and pruning this season in my business to make sure that I’m in alignment with you?

God show me where I’m out of alignment in my business and make it known so that we can make changes to become in aligned with you. And when we do our quarterly Thrive quarterly business resets, these are the questions that we ask God. The purposeful, the intentional questions that we get the Thrive attendees to ask themselves when we go into the God sessions and into the goal setting sessions is this is an idea.

Is it aligned with God? Like these are all the different things that are going through my mind, because we’re women, we tend to have a lot of different things going through our minds and lots of different ideas. Are these in alignment? We get them all written down and then we go, okay, God, these are all the things that are going through my head right now.

Show me what it is I need to focus on now. Is there anything that I need to take away? And these are, yeah, these are, Being intentional with asking God these questions is so important to make sure you’re kept in alignment. And that’s why I feel like meeting quarterly really good amount of time between each session.

draw us back in where we’re not meeting too often, that it’s just too much, but that we’re not just meeting every year either. we’re checking in and going, okay, I, I made these goals three months ago. This is what I’ve achieved. This is the different ideas that I had. And then, okay, what do we need to focus on for the next?

quarter and being kept accountable to that for the next quarter and going, okay, how did that last quarter look? Are we still in alignment? What was it that we need to get rid of? What was it that we need to push forward within our businesses? And that’s why these quarterly resets are so important. And I also think that’s why we’re seeing success for our women is because they are aligning themselves.

They’re asking God the question and being intentional and listening. The listening part is probably the hardest but the most important and giving God time answer the questions at the right time through the right methods too because we want things now often and sometimes we just don’t get those answers straight away.

But what I would love to do today is really encourage you to not ignore the dream. Whatever it is that God’s given you, don’t give up on it. It might be a kind of a Joseph thing, where, it might not happen in this decade. It might take more than 10 years to come to life. It might take 15.

Hopefully it doesn’t take 40, but you get what I’m saying. Don’t lose hope in your dream. God has put it on your heart for a reason. Go back to your personal mission. What is it originally God asked you to do? If you’re feeling stressed, if you’re feeling like, ugh, inside, go back, am I, and ask yourself, am I in alignment?

Am I, Have I got distracted? Is this still the right direction? What am I doing too much of that I don’t need to be doing that’s wasting my time when it’s not going to bear fruit for anything? But don’t believe, don’t ignore, and don’t disbelieve, and don’t give up on the dream, whatever you do. God’s put it in there for a reason.

But realize there’s a right time for everything too. And it is going to come to pass if it’s meant to be in its own time, but trust the process. I’m a big believer that God is not focused on our success, is focused on who we are as a person. And that’s why I feel and think that the personal mission is often bigger than the business mission, because things happen in business.

Things might go astray. We might get an injury, but are we still stuck to our own personal mission of kindness, love, joy, encouragement, in my case, and are we doing that throughout everything that we do in our lives? Business is just a tool. It’s something that we’re doing on earth. It’s not the eternal.

The eternal is different, and that’s when it comes down to personal mission, not just your business mission. So I encourage you today to sit and listen. All these questions are going to be in podcast if you want to go back over them. And pause and stop if you want to re listen. Remember you can speed these bad boys up if you want to.

If you’re in, into the replay and yeah, if you’re needing help aligning, if you’re needing help bring yourself into that alignment with God. I really, this Thrive session, you’re going to learn some amazing things, but as we move into the one in the new year, this one’s going to be very reflective on the year that we’ve just had with our Thrivers have joined us for all of this year, and then next year we’ll start afresh again in February, and that will be.

Starting with all four Thrive sessions for that year. I encourage you if you need help getting to your alignment, this time of the year might not be right for you, then the February one might be right for you. And just to help you set your year. off right with God at the center and making sure that you’re in alignment with him.

So I hope this has encouraged you today. I look forward to sharing you with you next week and yeah, get asking those questions and enjoy the journey. I’m SJ, you’re listening to the Christian Women in Business Podcast.