This article is also published on ChangeTheCompany.com
Have you ever heard the term “faith-driven entrepreneur?” Chances are it’s come across your table a few times, but what exactly does it mean? The business and entrepreneurship industry is often fast-paced, confusing, and merciless, but the concept of faith actually fits in seamlessly. Read on to discover what lies at the intersection of faith and entrepreneurship, how faith fuels entrepreneurship and helps entrepreneurs succeed, and different ways you can interweave faith and entrepreneurship.
What Does It Mean?
What does being “faith-driven” mean in entrepreneurship? The short answer is that it means different things to different people. However, the phrase “faith-driven entrepreneur” most often calls to mind the concept of a religious entrepreneur—specifically, an entrepreneur who looks to God or another higher power, to follow in their footsteps and carry out a divine will. Many faith-driven entrepreneurs believe that God is the “original entrepreneur” because they believe that God created our world as we know it, and that God calls on humankind to create and fulfill a higher purpose. That’s where these faith-driven entrepreneurs draw most or all of their inspiration and drive.
The Faith-Driven Look on Partnership & Collaboration
As an entrepreneur, you spend almost all of your time working with other people. When you’re oftentimes needing to make high-stakes decisions and negotiate challenging situations, it’s critical to stay patient and understanding of others. Faith-driven entrepreneurs view the battle of business as not only a partnership between themselves and their colleagues, but a partnership with their God as well. One of the core sentiments derived from the tenets of Christianity and other monotheistic religions is that everything God intends to happen to you, happens to you—what’s yours is yours, and God has a reason for everything. So, when faith-driven entrepreneurs are met with a particularly daunting obstacle or major setback, they remind themselves that this difficulty has the potential to enlighten and strengthen relationships, and that they can emerge from it with a fresh sense of unity and purpose.
Maintaining Faith in the Face of Work & Will
Believers in God are encouraged to remain in constant dialogue with Him through prayer and other spiritual practices, to keep Him in their hearts, and are discouraged from idolizing anything or anyone else. This spiritual awareness and lifestyle can help entrepreneurs stay invested in their work without worshipping their work and becoming workaholics. This is particularly important, because becoming deeply entrenched in work is an especially easy slip for entrepreneurs, and is often what ends up interfering with their personal lives and relationships. Allowing faith to enter your entrepreneurial scene prevents you from being tempted to drop everything for work all the time, and reminds you that you’re carrying out a God-given purpose to create, so you should always remember to return to Him.
The Nonreligious Stance
At this point, you may be thinking: what if I’m not religious? Worry not! Not being religious doesn’t mean you can’t also be a faith-driven entrepreneur—or that you aren’t one already. Ultimately, having “faith” can mean different things. It can mean being religious, it can mean having hope and trust in yourself, and it can mean embarking on your projects with a general sense of purpose. We all have distinct values that shape our everyday decisions and goals. For religious entrepreneurs and individuals in general, faith and the spiritual lifestyle make up some of their core values. Nonreligious entrepreneurs can find purpose with which to drive their work forward through other values, such as personal life experiences and relationships, and channel those values in the same way to inform their business goals and make a unique impact. For example, if you’re an artist of color, your experiences with discrimination and marginalization might make you passionate about raising a platform for fellow artists of color.
Regardless of whether you’re religious or not, combining faith with entrepreneurship is an exciting and healing journey that you may be interested in further exploring. FaithDrivenEntrepreneur.org is a great resource for learning more about introducing the presence of God into the entrepreneurial space. Subscribe to receive access to daily blogs, weekly podcasts, and a variety of reading materials, events, and other helpful collections. Even if you aren’t religious, I highly encourage joining the community of faith-driven entrepreneurs to learn more about the world of entrepreneurship, and to connect with like-minded individuals!
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash