How Business Ownership Converts Your Flaws into Virtues

Kelli Ann - Holy Spirit

Kelli Ann - Holy Spirit

From being a faith-based marriage and family therapist for 22 years, I’m also a Christian women entrepreneur coach. But are the roles that different?

Not really. It’s all about change.

My entrepreneurship journey has at times felt like a psychological and emotional enema: simultaneously painful and cleansing. In being self-employed, like with relationships, your personal issues surface and affect situation outcomes if not handled well.

Business ownership can be the vehicle for your growth in holiness. Consider how jumping into the frying pan to create a profitable enterprise transform these six vices into virtues:

From Independence to Interdependence

I savored the freedom to work from home from the comfort of my upstairs home office, accessible to my kids whenever they needed me. Later, I grew up to understand the activities necessary for a profitable business. I had to lift my caboose off my computer chair for face-to-face contact as I reach out to prospects, clients, and colleagues for win-win opportunities. Bottom line: I learned I can’t do this alone.

From Control to Being Teachable

Like many women entrepreneurs the lure of the flexible schedule was appealing, only for me it was honestly a desire to control my schedule and my life. The money trail in my business lets me listen to others about shifts I need to make and where I needed to pry back my fingernails and release the grip that was keeping me stuck.

From Perfectionism to Being Good Enough

Devoting endless hours to polish a presentation may work if you aren’t trying to generate leads and clients at the same time. Pride and insecurities help rationalize being overly detailed, until it’s time to make the bank deposit and you fall short. Knowing how much to spend on each project and when it’s time to move on keeps the cash moving in your business.

From Shame to Vulnerability

In the comfort of my therapy office, I experienced my clients’ broken sides. But as an entrepreneur thrown on the stage, I didn’t like the spotlight revealing my warts and scars. The understanding that people want to collaborate with real people helped me see and communicate how my wounds were actually lights illuminating God’s special mission for me.

From Comfort to Fearlessness

Up-leveling comes with a price, but so does not evolving. In my business, creating and having my Holy Spirit-inspired vision has moved me out of my comfort zone and into situations that at first felt like near panic-attacks. Prompted by an intense desire not to fail, I walked through my fears to a confidence I had not known previously.

From Self-Management to Trust

As a marriage and family therapist I had reached a competence level where I could almost do my job unconsciously, even in Spanish! The transition forced me into the unknown with higher stakes because of my personal investment. Trust and doing the next thing was my only alternative to quitting when times were tough.

If God is calling you to start or grow a business or ministry, it’s likely that he’s also calling you into a deeper pruning process, so that he can use you more effectively in building his kingdom.

Christian Women Entrepreneurs Biz and Life Tip: Seeing your business develop from a spiritual vantage point can help you surrender quicker to God’s shaping of your soul; have quicker, better business results; and have a lot of fun doing it.

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3 thoughts on “How Business Ownership Converts Your Flaws into Virtues”

  1. I don’t know if you chose the title, but it stinks. It comes too close to a widespread error: “That which Capitalism hath cleansed, do not thou call common.” It’s usually paired with another: “For the love of money is the root of all good.” Basically, the problem with the title is that it is not clear whether the flaws are being corrected or merely judged to be good as long as the person in question has wealth or power.

    What you mean, of course, is that the demands of business are not tolerant of flaws and forces you to correct them, as you explain in the subsequent article. That can be true, in some circumstances and with some flaws. Business is not very tolerant of sloth, for example. On the other hand, it warmly embraces avarice. Business is completely indifferent to a number of other vices, which often allows business leaders to freely endorse vices that are accepted by the public or growing in acceptance. Remember, for a time in the 1920’s the KKK had control the government of Indiana, and it took a long time after that for it to be seen as impossible to be both a member of the Klan and a member in good standing of the local chamber of commerce.

  2. Pingback: THURSDAY MORNING EDITION - BigPulpit.com

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