Ten Spiritual Lessons I’ve Learned from Running a Small Business | Dreaming Beneath the Spires
1) Everything starts with a good idea. And good ideas can be birthed in periods of intensive prayer.
2) There is no area of our lives which God cannot invade.
Interestingly, it was a bit of a cognitive shift for me to realize that God cares about the business I run–about something so mundane as money–and about how I run it because he cares about me.
3 Good ideas are not born in a vacuum. They rise out of the ashes of other things you have tried, and at which you might have failed.
It’s rare that people stumble upon the right thing immediately–the right genre to write in, the right business, even the perfect arrangement of plants in a garden. (Most good gardeners will move a plant 3 or 4 times until they find the right place for it, and most beautiful gardens are the third or fourth ones the owners have planted.)
And so my current business, publishing, was the second I started. The first, selling antiquarian books was interesting but very time-consuming and rather exhausting.
I started crying out to the Lord in my exhaustion (in the words of Psalm 107) to help me find a business which could let me put my kids through private school while still leaving time and energy to write. And in a flash of insight, using little pieces of information, knowledge and experience I had subconsciously stored, the idea and business plan for our current publishing business–which is not particularly time-consuming or exhausting–came to me.
4 Beware of Greed
If a business is more or less successful, then, you will make money–more or less.
All addictions are born and grow in the mind. And so you must try very hard not to get addicted to watching or obsessing over the trajectory of sales, spreadsheets and bank balances.
Because while money is an excellent servant (Somerset Maugham likens it to a sixth sense without which one cannot properly appreciate the other five!!) it is an insatiable master. As it says in Ecclesiastes, he who loves money will never have money enough.
5 The Pricking of Griefs
Working to keep oneself and one’s family afloat at a standard of living best suited for one’s calling and vocation is one thing.
A business will not be devoid of hassle, no more than any other vocation on earth. In the world you will have trouble, as Jesus forewarned his disciples in his last conversation with them.
However, with a certain detachment, one can conduct it in peace, because one lives in Christ–at a very good address indeed. Definitely, on the right side of the tracks!
There is a fine line between working at a steady, rhythmic measured pace to achieve an interesting, comfortable standard of living, and overworking for the greed of money.
Proverbs again has something to say about this, “Do not wear yourself out to become rich. Have the wisdom to show restraint.” (Proverbs 23:4)
When one overworks–works at the expense of rest, relationships, physical health– driven by greed, one opens oneself up to being pricked by many griefs, because greed is an irrational emotion, and those avaricious for money will never have enough.
So while hassles are an inevitable part of work and life, overworking leads to an accumulation of trouble and hassle, to a piercing with many griefs.
It is very important to set time limits for how much you will work to prevent the scourge and exhaustion of overwork.
6 It’s just money.
That’s a really useful mantra.
You, being human, will make errors, which will lead to financial loss, sometimes trivial, sometimes rather serious.
Few businesses can be conducted single-handedly. Most businesses are like a chain, a complex interlocking of many human units. We have had nine of our friends working with us at various times, and are reliant on printers, distributors, shippers. Lots of people.
People who, being human, might well, on occasion, make errors, mess up. Money has been and may well again be lost, through other people’s errors, as well as my own.
And then, there is no point stewing about it. No point fretting. It’s just money.
Do not fret; it only leads to evil. Psalm 37:8
If however, a work relationship causes consistent stewing, stress, and aggro, and things cannot be resolved, it’s perhaps time to sever the work relationship and move on.
7 Never let money steal your peace. It’s just money
Never get emotionally involved in a transaction to do with money, when, as is inevitable in business, you run up against other people’s greed or dishonesty or aggressiveness. In business as in life, you will run up against people who should really be emailing their therapist, not you.
It’s just money, an inert substance, which can be earned again, or can be given to you again by your heavenly Father.
One’s peace, and mental, emotional and physical health, and relationships and happiness–these on the other hand are precious–priceless!!-– and cannot be as easily recaptured if frivolously squandered by stewing about money.
Think rationally in business conflicts to do with money. What is the outcome you want to achieve? Work towards that, realizing that it may well not be achieved. Either way, be at peace.
I think the non-violence Jesus recommended in the Sermon on the Mount is a risky but sensible business practice. It is better to lose small amounts of money than waste time and peace contending with an aggressive person.
8 Optimism is a lucrative mental and business habit.
While there is some truth to that old statement in the Desiderata, “Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery,”–and one learns the truth of this the hard way–optimism is a great business principle.
Our family business is a publishing company. Though we now have a decent list, we, of course, started with 1 book, then 5, then a dozen… And we used to pack and ship these ourselves, until we grew big enough to use distribution networks, and third party sellers.
So one drops an expensive book into the post with no proof that you have done so, totally reliant on the honesty of people, knowing you will have to replace it if they claim they haven’t received it.
When we first started, it cost £0.75 to get proof of posting, and the time/petrol to the PO. We got proof of posting for a while, then stopped and decided to see if it was cheaper to trust God and people. It was. Just a handful of books each year “did not arrive,” and replacing these or refunding was cheaper than getting proof of posting for everything.
Book buyers, on the whole, are honest, and discovering this was pleasant.
Optimism and trust are good business strategies.
Fear and suspicion on the other hand, are costly emotions–costly in terms of time, peace and mental health–AND financially costly!!
9 Enough
It is vital to learn the meaning of this word.
New technologies, the internet, social media are turning the traditional assumptions of business upside down.
There is a lot of money to be made.
But I don’t need to make all of it. Certainly not now.
Enough.
“To the one who pleases him, God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner, He gives the task of gathering and heaping, only to give to the one to pleases the Lord.” Ecclesiastes 2:26
God save us from the task of gathering and heaping.
The one who has learnt the meaning of enough can work at a business at a measured pace, consistent with physical, emotional, spiritual and relational health.
10 The Lord is my Pacesetter.
I am naturally a A type personality, and it would come naturally to me to run ahead of the Lord and exhaust myself. To run a business on my own ideas and enthusiasms, and those of my co-workers.
The Lord is a gentle shepherd who goes before us, who walks with us. I remember a sermon which said that a hallmark of Satan is that he drives, that drivenness is used by the evil one to drive one over a Gadarene cliff.
It’s important for me to check-in with Christ, and to run through my ideas with him. What he invariably tells me is to slow down! (Why? Perhaps he has other good plans for me up his sleeve!)
And I do.
Because what I want more than anything is for his blessing to be on my business.
The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, and he adds no
trouble to it. Proverbs 10:22
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